Impacts des changements climatiques sur la disponibilité de l'eau dans le sud du Québec

Certaines répercussions des changements climatiques peuvent déjà être observées dans plusieurs régions du globe et un consensus de la part de la communauté scientifique permet d’affirmer que ces changements iront en s’amplifiant au cours des prochaines décennies. L’ampleur des impacts du réchauffement climatique sur les diverses ressources naturelles de même que sur les écosystèmes soulèvent désormais l’inquiétude d’une proportion grandissante de la population mondiale. Le Québec ne fait bien sûr pas exception à la règle et certains spécialistes ont déjà mis en œuvre plusieurs études afin de déterminer les modifications probables qui caractériseront les ressources naturelles à l’échelle de la Province. Dans ce contexte, il devient pertinent de s’interroger sur les impacts qui affecteront la disponibilité de l’eau dans les réservoirs naturels du sud du Québec. Le présent document avait donc pour but la caractérisation de cette problématique d’importance croissante. Tout d’abord, un portrait des effets probables des changements climatiques sur la disponibilité de l’eau dans les réservoirs naturels au Québec a été réalisé. Les modifications des régimes de précipitations, les changements des systèmes d’eau de surface et souterraine ainsi que les changements affectant le cycle d’évapotranspiration en lien avec les changements climatiques ont été décrits. Il a notamment été question de la modification des quantités de précipitations et de la forme sous laquelle ces dernières se présentent, de l’ampleur et la fréquence des évènements météorologiques extrêmes, de la diminution de l’accumulation d’eau sous forme de glace et de neige, de la diminution de l’infiltration d’eau dans les sols, du changement du phénomène de ruissellement et de l’accroissement des quantités d’eau retournées à l’atmosphère sous forme d’évapotranspiration. Ensuite, la caractérisation des principaux problèmes engendrés par ces modifications a été entreprise. L’augmentation des activités de dragage, la modification des prises d’eau municipales, le changement du niveau des différents ii barrages de la région et la réduction des milieux humides ont été décrits. Les mesures d’adaptations pouvant pallier à ces problématiques ont également été définies et leurs avantages, inconvénients et applicabilité respectifs ont été établis. Finalement, une série de recommandations touchant l’implantation de mesures d’application au Québec a été émise

Effect of reducing dietary anions (phosphate and chloride) on production characteristics of layers

The purpose of this experiment was to determine the response of a single strain of high producing Single Comb White Leghorn-type hens to diets containing phosphorus at levels of 0.4 and 0.8 percent each with sodium being fed at a level of 0.25 percent in all the diets but with chlorine at levels of 0.36 or 0.16 percent. The higher level of chlorine was attained through additions of salt (NaCl) to the basal diet. Furthermore, two low chloride sodium sources were added to the basal diet to reduce the dietary chlorides to the 0.16 percent level. Sodium bicarbonate served as one of these low chloride sources with a mixture of various sodium compounds serving as the second. This latter source was provided by Syntex Agribusiness, Inc. and was composed of a mixture of sodium bicarbonate, sodium sulfate, sodium propionate and 1.00 percent inert ingredients to contain 27.0 percent sodium. Two trials were conducted, the first of 16 weeks duration and the second of 14 weeks duration. Results were subjected to analysis of variance. There appeared to be differences in response to dietary treatments as measured by shell quality, egg weight and body weight gain, but, these differences proved to be statistically nonsignificant. Neither were significant differences found between dietary phosphorus or low chloride sodium sources for egg production, feed consumption, percent mortality, or initial body weight. Consistent trends were found between shell quality and dietary levels of both phosphorus and low chloride sodium sources. Feeding 0.4 percent phosphorus as compared to 0.8 percent resulted consistently in shells with higher specific gravity scores. Feeding the sodium source mixture to hens resulted in higher quality shells than were obtained by feeding either salt or sodium bicarbonate. Also, the hens fed the sodium source mixture in combination with 0.4 percent phosphorus produced eggs with specific gravity scores higher than those produced with any of the other diets

"Image of a queen: Melisande and her heirs in the illustrated chronicles of the kingdom of Jerusalem" (Forthcoming)

An analysis of images of Queen Melisende of Jerusalem in the 13th century copies of the Estoire d'Eracles produced in Europe, looking at issues of iconography and iconology, copying and influence to examine contemporary views of queenship

Immersive video conferencing architecture using game engine technology

This paper introduces the use of gaming technology for the creation of immersive video conferencing systems. The system integrates virtual meeting rooms with avatars and life video feeds, shared across different clients. Video analysis is used to create a sense of immersiveness by introducing aspects of the real world in the virtual environment. This architecture will ease and stimulate the development of immersive and intelligent telepresence systems

Embedding MOOCs in academic programs as a part of curriculum transformation: a pilot case study

The University of Wollongong’s first locally developed and hosted Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) “The Reluctant Mathematician” was a highly scaffolded MOOC designed to support stressed and low-efficacy maths learners. It was developed to lift maths skills at our university and also in the community – where maths skills continue to be a challenge and in some cases a source of stress. Internally the MOOC provided an alternative online way to support students who struggle with mathematics at university level, and as a complement to the existing face to face services. This paper describes a successful approach to using MOOCs not only for addressing skills shortage among university students, but also to engage staff in the hybrid learning aspects of curriculum transformation. Based on a small-scale pilot, the paper describes the narrative of engagement of academics, and highlights the main elements which were conducive to their engagement in selecting and using the MOOC as a support for an assignment in their curriculum. A framework is proposed educators who are interested in using MOOCs for a similar purpose

Fish out of water: Investigating the ‘readiness’ and proficiency of beginning drama teachers in Western Australian secondary schools

The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (AITSL, 2011) stipulate that graduating teachers need to be classroom-ready and able to perform at a ‘graduate standard’. However, recent research indicates that nearly 50% of beginning teachers lack readiness, are overwhelmed with stress, and will leave the profession within five years. This paper seeks to elucidate this disconcerting reality by providing a nuanced focus on the experiences of beginning drama teachers. Findings indicate that while participants in this study began feeling confident and ready for teaching drama; they were largely unprepared for the unwritten requirements of the profession – namely, coping with systems, policies and bureaucracy - and extensive extracurricular responsibilities. This article posits several strategies for enabling beginning drama teachers to successfully ‘manage’ their induction into the profession, and ultimately achieve teacher identity salience

A systematic review of strategies to increase access to health services among children in low and middle income countries.

BACKGROUND: Universal Health Coverage is widely endorsed as the pivotal goal in global health, however substantial barriers to accessing health services for children in low and middle-income countries (LMIC) exist. Failure to access healthcare is an important contributor to child mortality in these settings. Barriers to access have been widely studied, however effective interventions to overcome barriers and increase access to services for children are less well documented. METHODS: We conducted a systematic review of effectiveness of interventions aimed at increasing access to health services for children aged 5 years and below in LMIC. Four databases (EMBASE, Global Health, MEDLINE, and PSYCINFO) were searched in January 2016. Studies were included if they evaluated interventions that aimed to increase: health care utilisation; immunisation uptake; and compliance with medication or referral. Randomised controlled trials and non-randomised controlled study designs were included in the review. A narrative approach was used to synthesise results. RESULTS: Fifty seven studies were included in the review. Approximately half of studies (49%) were conducted in sub-Saharan Africa. Most studies were randomised controlled trials (n = 44; 77%) with the remaining studies employing non-randomised designs. Very few studies were judged as high quality. Studies evaluated a diverse range of interventions and various outcomes. Supply side interventions included: delivery of services at or closer to home and service level improvements (eg. integration of services). Demand side interventions included: educational programmes, text messages, and financial or other incentives. Interventions that delivered services at or closer to home and text messages were in general associated with a significant improvement in relevant outcomes. A consistent pattern was not noted for the remaining studies. CONCLUSIONS: This review fills a gap in the literature by providing evidence of the range and effectiveness of interventions that can be used to increase access for children aged ≤5 years in LMIC. It highlights some intervention areas that seem to show encouraging trends including text message reminders and delivery of services at or close to home. However, given the methodological limitations found in existing studies, the results of this review must be interpreted with caution. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: PROSPERO CRD420160334200

The Siyavula Case: Digital, Collaborative Text-Book Authoring to Address Educational Disadvantage and Resource Shortage in South African Schools

Siyavula is known as a pioneer developer of high-quality free digital maths and science textbooks to address resource gaps and disadvantage in South African schools. This case study identifies the success factors which could be replicated in other contexts. Siyavula has developed ex-pertise in digital developing, editing and improving maths and science workbooks and teachers’ guides and distributing them in multiple digital and mobile formats for free. In 2013 the government took the free texts and sponsored the printing and distribution of c500K copies of Grade 4-6 titles, saving the government approximately USD$83.5 Million for each of the 12 books (student workbook and teacher guide in both Eng-lish and Afrikaans). The collaborative authoring system is identified as instrumental to the success of the project to address under-resourced schools, through a combination of personal (attitudinal), technical (online systems) and social resources (volunteers and stakeholders). Siyavula leaves a legacy of multi-stakeholder volunteer text-books sprints where an intense face-to-face experience provides the ground-work for con-structive online authoring inclusive of diverse stakeholder input across different roles and ranks. Collaborative authoring advances curriculum and pedagogy sharing, expertise and capacity building. Collaborative authoring systems are found to have potential in many under-resourced school contexts not only for school texts, but also for early reading, multi-lingual and culturally appropriate book adaptations

Constructing Lagrangians from triple grid diagrams

Links in $S^3$ can be encoded by grid diagrams; a grid diagram is a collection of points on a toroidal grid such that each row and column of the grid contains exactly two points. Grid diagrams can be reinterpreted as front projections of Legendrian links in the standard contact 3-sphere. In this paper, we define and investigate triple grid diagrams, a generalization to toroidal diagrams consisting of horizontal, vertical, and diagonal grid lines. In certain cases, a triple grid diagram determines a closed Lagrangian surface in $\mathbb{CP}^2$. Specifically, each triple grid diagram determines three grid diagrams (row-column, column-diagonal and diagonal-row) and thus three Legendrian links, which we think of collectively as a Legendrian link in a disjoint union of three standard contact 3-spheres. We show that a triple grid diagram naturally determines a Lagrangian cap in the complement of three Darboux balls in $\mathbb{CP}^2$, whose negative boundary is precisely this Legendrian link. When these Legendrians are maximal Legendrian unlinks, the Lagrangian cap can be filled by Lagrangian slice disks to obtain a closed Lagrangian surface in $\mathbb{CP}^2$. We construct families of examples of triple grid diagrams and discuss potential applications to obstructing Lagrangian fillings.Comment: 25 pages, 22 figures, comments very welcome