No description available.

Irrigation is a well established procedure on many farms in western Canada and is practiced on various levels around the world. It allows diversification of crops, while increasing crop yields. However, typical irrigation systems consume a great amount of conventional energy through the use of electric motors and generators powered by fuel. / The overall objective of this research was to determine the feasibility of using photovoltaic (PV) modules to power a water pump for a small-scale drip irrigation system in Montreal (Quebec, Canada). The study involved field observations, as well as computer simulations of global solar radiation and PV electrical output. / Field observations involved a summer and winter installation of two amorphous silicon 42 W PV modules, directly connected to a 12 V surface water pump. The parameters monitored were voltage, current, back-of-panel temperature, pressure, and flow. These observed parameters were used to determine PV electrical output and volume of water pumped. Site latitude, elevation, and panel tilt were applied to the solar radiation and PV electrical output models, along with the following meteorological data: daily average, maximum, and minimum temperatures, and global solar radiation. / Daily solar radiation prediction showed a linear correlation of 0.69 with the observed daily values, over the years 2000 to 2005. The correlation coefficient was improved to 0.91, when 7 day moving averages of both the observed and predicted solar radiation data were used. PV electrical output and volume of water pumped were monitored between August 2005 and May 2006. Both the power and water output observations were less than expected. However, the predicted daily PV electrical output ranged from 1.0 MJ d-1 in the summer to approximately 0.6 MJ d-1 in the winter. As expected, an increase in power caused an increase in the volume of water pumped.

Filipino youth in Montreal have one of the highest rates of not being in school. Reports of behavioural problems, difficulties integrating, school failure and parent-child relationship difficulties have been reported among Filipino Youth who came to Canada after their mothers came to work in Canada under the Live-In Caregiver Program and its predecessor, the Foreign Domestic Movement. Using a sociocultural framework, I interviewed seven Filipino youth to examine the factors that interact to influence their educational outcomes. I discovered that several of their problems were related to long periods of family separation. The inability to develop a close relationship with their mother, along with economic struggles was a source of difficulty and directly affected educational outcomes. The focus of learning French in order to do well in the Quebec High School system is another factor affecting the ability of Filipino youth to succeed in school.

Juvenile prostitution is a social issue of major concern and controversy in our society. Research documenting high rates of violence, substance abuse, HIV risk-behaviour, and other such risks and problems have reinforced arguments to protect and prohibit youth from prostitution activity. However, presenting youths' experiences in prostitution as unidimensionally negative and deficiency-based potentially creates other important problems for youth, perhaps explaining criticisms of social services for being generally ineffective and, at times, aggravating youths' situations. Left out in these debates are often the voices of those who matter most, the youth. The present study has sought to hear and articulate youths' voices, suggesting that prostitution is a diverse and complex reality and that effective intervention begins with hearing voices and respecting choices. In-depth and semi-structured interviews were conducted for this study with ten street youth with experiences in prostitution as a minor and three key informants in youth protection.

No description available.

No description available.

The Montreal of 1928 presents a striking contrast to the Ville Marie as founded by Maisonneuve. From its particular geographic location it was destined to occupy a position of dominance in the growth of Canada. The peculiar physiographic features of the St. Lawrence River on the South and Mount Royal on the North have given the direction fo the city growth its own particular form. The phenomenon of th4e two nationalities, diverse in language, traditions, religion and culture, living side by side and paying allegiance to a common sovereign has marked the city with an atmosphere that adds to its own natural charms. With the majority French speaking people carrying on their own particular life and the English residents developing their own culture the city has been justly termed the Paris of America. [...]

Montreal serves as an illustration of how loft landscapes outside of Manhattan draw from the landscape discourse of SoHo, but are inscribed with local economic, political and cultural attributes. Two aspects of the reconstruction of loft landscapes are highlighted: the imagery of the loft in the mass media and the role of local residents in interpreting and reconstructing the loft concept in the Montreal rental market. A description of the local impact of economic restructuring on the built environment of the inner city sets the stage for an examination of two groups of residents. The industrial built environment in Montreal suffers from disinvestment and lack of regulation making the rental sector loft a readily available housing choice in the inner city. Undefined and outside of municipal regulations, lofts are domestic spaces in which tenants can construct identities. Artists, who use industrial spaces to combine home and work (Loft Artists) and non-artists, who use appropriate industrial spaces as rental housing (Loft Dwellers) are the two primary groups to occupy these spaces. A comparison between these two groups, their use of space and their identification with the loft concept, makes up the empirical component of the research. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

This anthropological study focuses on people's subjective experiences of mental health problems in Quebec, and highlights the different processes involved in the narrativization and enunciation of the experience of psychiatric disorder. It was completed in Montreal in 2001, and included participant observation in three resources of the Regroupment des resouces alternatives en sante mentale du Quebec (RRASMQ). Nine people of Quebecois origin, users of these mental health services, were interviewed. After a brief survey of the literature concerned with the narrative transformation of experience and its expression in the social realm, this report identifies some of the narrative structures of the illness accounts that were collected for this project. I look, on the one hand, at the various languages used in the articulation of "mental illness", and on the other hand, at the power relations that are activated through the use of those languages. This study tries to determine to what extent it is possible for a sufferer of "mental illness" to empower him/herself through the narrativization and expression of one's experience of mental health problems.

No description available.