Do Medieval and Renaissance Androids Presage the Posthuman?

In his article Do Medieval and Renaissance Androids Presage the Posthuman? Kevin LaGrandeur analyzes the relationships between literary images of artificial humans associated with medieval alchemists and alchemy, their modified reemergence in the Renaissance, and how such androids may forecast the idea of a posthuman subjectivity that is connected with their present-day descendents. For example, the talking brass heads in Robert Greene\u27s two Renaissance plays, The Honorable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay and Alphonsus, Prince of Aragon have their roots in Arabic sources, and the former derives specifically from legends concerning the thirteenth-century alchemist and philosopher Roger Bacon. These early instances of the artificial anthropoid also anticipate, in a broad sense, the kinds of philosophical issues regarding subjectivity that cyborgs bring up for our posthuman society. The literature of the earlier era also represents a fear that humans will be diminished-all of the creators in the fictional literature examined are in danger of losing control of their creations, and thus of having their agency called into dispute

Perchance to Read: Developing an Augmented Reality Game to Increase Student Engagement with Hamlet

Hamlet (and similar texts) can be difficult for students to follow initially. Often when students read, they may gloss over the text, missing key contexts. These problems lead to a lack of engagement in the literature classroom. The use of videos can help, but this often deters reading. This dilemma prompted the development of an Augmented Reality (AR) application to enhance Hamlet. By ‘zooming in’ on specific elements of Hamlet—Act I Scenes IV and V (the ghost scenes)— students explore and gain valuable information on the context behind these scenes. Students discover their perspective on a key question in the play; is the ghost real, or is it coinage from Hamlet’s brain? Students can arrive at a more concrete understanding of their own thoughts and take away a better grasp of both the context of the scene and the character of Hamlet through their active participation in the application.   Primarily, this article will highlight the dramatic effect student experience, both real and perceived, had on the development and execution of the application. The goal is to convey the pedagogical questions addressed when conceptualizing the application: the desired learning outcomes, the perceived student audience, and the need to connect game actions to the text of the play. It is one thing to speculate what students may want/need in such an environment from an instructor’s perspective. It’s another to analyze student and instructor feedback to help highlight critical areas more effectively. Students not only learn through their actions in the app; they help create the design of the application through their feedback. The article will detail the development of the application through this user input and the impact of praxis on its iteration

L'Histoire du Canada de F.-X. Garneau et sa traduction anglaise : analyse comparative de deux livres

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal

Runaround coils as a way to improve the efficiency of heat pumps for the dehumidification of nordic greenhouses

Abstract: Greenhouses generate greenhouse gas from the combustion of fossil fuel for heating and dehumidification. Heat pumps can use electricity generated from renewable to do both, but the heat pump performance might be improved by optimizing the cycle for the specific requirements of a greenhouse. In this work, runaround coils are added to a single-speed R-134a heat pump. A Dymola heat pump example model is used with the addition of an air cycle and additional water coils. Results demonstrated that runaround coils are an efficient way to increase simultaneously and significantly the heating Coefficient of Performance, the condensate flowrate and the exergy efficiency of the system, by 8.5%, 16.3% and 13.1%, respectively, for interior conditions typical of Nordic greenhouses.Communication présentée lors du congrès international tenu conjointement par Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering (CSME) et Computational Fluid Dynamics Society of Canada (CFD Canada), à l’Université de Sherbrooke (Québec), du 28 au 31 mai 2023

Developing Accounting Student Resources: How to improve student engagement in campus recruiting and offer the resources they need to be successful

For this project a new Canvas instructional page was created. The intention of this page is to create an informational database that students can use to find out any information that they might need for career or academic services. With this Canvas page the current information gap that students are experiencing will be decreased. Decreasing this information gap helps create a more equal playing field for students that are applying for jobs in the accounting field. Additionally, with easier access to needed recruiting information then students will feel more equipped to apply for jobs and get involved in opportunities outside of the classroom

Autre en soi

Résumé du roman À la fin de la session universitaire, Bastien conduit son amoureuse à l'aéroport où elle s'envole vers le pays de ses ancêtres. Vent s'en va visiter sa tante paternelle qui réside au coeur de la Chine. Elle part sans son copain, car leur couple bat de l'aile. Elle souhaite ainsi faire le point sur leur relation. Deux semaines plus tard, soit le 12 mai 2008 à 14 h 28 (heure locale), la terre tremble au Sichuan et une partie de la ville où se trouve la jeune femme s'effondre. Bastien et son beau-père, monsieur Shuo, ont beau essayé d'appeler Vent sur son cellulaire, pas de réponse. Le jeune homme décide de prendre d'urgence un vol pour Shanghai et de dénicher sur place un moyen de se rendre au centre de l'Empire du Milieu. Il rencontra là-bas madame Wangsu (la tante de son amoureuse) qui le supportera dans ses recherches. Résumé de l'essai Chaque être humain doit endosser à un moment ou à un autre de sa vie un statut d'altérité. En littérature, il en va de même avec les personnages d'oeuvres romanesques. Successivement, Bastien, Vent et monsieur Shuo deviennent des Autres. Dans un premier temps, j'aborde dans cet essai les thèmes de l'immigration et du métissage. Dans un second temps, je me questionne sur l'étrangeté des Québécois, autant ceux qui vivent au Canada que ceux qui voyagent à l'extérieur du pays (la plus grande altérité se rencontre lorsque nous devenons étrangers à nous-mêmes). Dans un troisième temps, je m'interroge sur le décalage qui se fait quand nous nous regardons à travers les yeux des Autres. Je termine cette réflexion en rappelant l'importance du « terrain » pour les romanciers qui tentent de mettre en scène des gens issus d'une culture différente de la leur

Exergetic Optimisation of Vortex Tubes using a Thermodynamic Model

This article identifies sources of exergy losses in a vortex tube working with air by using a recently developed thermodynamic model and a reference experiment from the literature. Exergetic efficiency considering transiting exergy is used as the efficiency metrics in this work. When both the cold and hot outlets are useful, the exergetic efficiency reaches its maximum value for a cold mass fraction equal to 0.7. Interestingly, up to 45% of the inlet exergy is lost downstream of the vortex tube under this condition because of pressure losses in the cold tube and through measuring instruments. These losses do not contribute to the energy separation mechanism. Inside the vortex tube, the exergy irreversibly is mainly caused by the dissipation of kinetic exergy. The thermodynamic model is also used to identify the working conditions, which maximize the vortex tube efficiency. The efficiency is always at its maximum value when the inlet Mach number is equal to one. The optimum value of the cold outlet diameter, the mass fraction and the cold outlet axial Mach number changes depending on whether thermal exergy from both outlets can be used or not. Increasing the cold outlet pressure increases the exergetic efficiency as well as changing the optimal condition for all variables except the inlet Mach number. At the end, the optimal vortex tube is twice as efficient as the reference vortex tube. Finally, the model is employed to identify the best vortex tubes’ arrangement to maximize the exergetic efficiency for an open cycle with a fixed inlet pressure of six bar. This analysis demonstrates that the best arrangement is a cascade of vortex tubes, where a vortex tube unit with the maximum efficiency is placed first. Two other vortex tubes are two other vortex tubes are placed to recover waste pressure on the cold and hot streams from the first unit

Imprégnation du bois assistée par des ondes de pression

Cette recherche visait à développer un procédé d'imprégnation utilisant des ondes de choc pour teindre du bois franc. D'importants progrès ont été réalisés à cet égard dans le projet. Tout d'abord, un modèle théorique a montré que les ondes de choc augmentent la pénétration dans un milieu poreux de perméabilité constante, mais seulement si le liquide utilisé est rhéofluidifiant. De plus, les ondes de choc semblent atténuer les variations de perméabilité, ce qui permettrait de teindre des espèces moins perméables et de donner au bois un fini plus uniforme. En second lieu, les essais expérimentaux réalisés sur des échantillons de merisier dans un tube à choc ont confirmé que les ondes de choc imprègnent efficacement le bois. Effectivement, il a été démontré qu'une augmentation du nombre de tirs et de l'amplitude des chocs améliore l'imprégnation sous certaines conditions. De plus, les ondes de choc peuvent être combinées avec un prétraitement du bois aux micro-ondes pour une meilleure imprégnation. Cependant, la grande variabilité des résultats entre chaque série de mesure ne permet pas de prédire la pénétration en fonction des conditions du choc, possiblement parce que l'efficacité du procédé dépend du taux d'humidité du bois. Finalement, deux mécanismes sont proposés pour expliquer l'effet bénéfique des ondes de choc sur l'imprégnation. Premièrement, l'augmentation importante de la pression causée par l'onde de choc pourrait endommager la microstructure du bois, en augmentant sa perméabilité. Cependant, cette hypothèse n'a pu être validée. Ensuite, comme la teinture a un comportement rhéofluidifiant, les chocs réduisent possiblement sa viscosité. Cette hypothèse rejoint les conclusions obtenues grâce au modèle théorique et elle explique plusieurs résultats des essais expérimentaux