Waterloo Library Journal Publishing Service (University of Waterloo, Canada)
Not a member yet
2023 research outputs found
Sort by
8. Pharmakon, My Becoming-Toxic
No full textContinuous living potentiates becoming-toxic. Evidenced as the silicone particles flake off the textured surfaces of the implants in my chest and enter my lymph; each life-affirming treatment for transsexuals is a pharmakon. What does it mean to hope when you have no progeny beside your forced sterility, when your liver is being slowly poisoned by the psychiatric cocktail that makes life somehow barely bearable, when even your tits are toxic, when you are labeled toxic? Transsexual life is toxic. Toxicity is transsexual life. Toxicity is maligned. Transsexuality is maligned. Toxic sex is a poisonous cure. Toxic to a dying empire
Chariot à cartes
No full textThis manual addresses the challenges associated with the physical handling of flat sheet maps, advocating for the use of concave supports during their transportation. It provides an alternative to commercially procured map carts by offering step-by-step instructions and illustrations for constructing a map cart in-house
On the Role of Luck for the Concentration of Capital and Piketty\u27s \u27Fundamental Force of Divergence\u27
No full textWe consider an overlapping generations version of a model suggested by Fargione, Lehmann and Polasky that allows us to show, by means of simulations, that randomness of the rate of return on capital, combined with inheritance of capital and consumption being a concave function of wealth may lead to an increasing concentration of capital. We can also show that the average rate of return being higher than the growth rate of aggregate income, r>g, does not necessarily lead to increasing concentration and that there are cases where concentration of capital does increase while the opposite inequality, g>r, holds
Disparity, Instability, and Power in the Crowdmapping Ecosystem
No full textCrowdmapping is part of an evolution in participatory mapping, which shifted to the Participatory Geographic Information Systems of stand-alone offline software packages, and now embraces numerous online technologies. In community informatics, we focus on the need to sustain these systems, which supposedly has been dramatically eased with the introduction of online mapping tools and has democratized the technology. The literature is largely absent of the ways in which crowdmapping exists in an ecosystem of private sector and nonprofit actors, operating in an arena of non-human artifacts, such as hardware, software, and data.
We reflect on five community-based crowdmapping applications (apps). All apps were in Canada (Montreal and Vancouver) with goals of fighting densification, highlighting lack of affordable housing and family-oriented greenspaces, promoting community assets, increasing findability of healthy food sources, and collecting perceptions of university spaces. We utilized a design ethnography to identify components of our ecosystem and actor-network theory to map the ecosystem. Our findings reveal the crowdmapping ecosystem (1) faced several interoperability challenges for technical implementation, which brought into sharp relief the disparate skill levels and resource capacities of developer and communities as well as the ability to respond to almost daily modifications in hardware, software, and data; (2) relied on an ever-shifting network of individuals and organizations in large part because of unsustainable business models serving a top-down governance; and (3) exposed power differentials among a mix of funders, tech-for-good nonprofits, private sector hardware and software providers, and the underlying non-human actors. Lessons learned from this ecosystem inform crowdmapping as it evolves and engages newer actors and technologies, which further inform community-based organizations as well as researchers and philanthropic funders who may promote overly complex solutions to suit particular agendas
The Women’s March and the Borders of Belonging: Rethinking Collective Space Through Transnational Feminism
No full textOn January 21, 2017, the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., produced a striking protest image: two women standing shoulder to shoulder, fists raised, holding signs that called for solidarity across race, ability, gender identity, and class. Echoing a 1971 portrait of Dorothy Pitman Hughes and Gloria Steinem, the image gained significant traction online—celebrated, critiqued, and debated across social media platforms. This paper introduces the concept of a “collective space” to describe the emotionally charged digital arenas, such as comment sections, where feminist discourse unfolds in real time. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s theory of emotional stickiness and the frameworks of transnational feminism, I analyze 168 social media comments responding to this image, coding them for emotional tone and thematic patterns. The analysis reveals solidarity, critique, and identity negotiation occurring simultaneously, as users wrestle with feminism’s historical exclusions and its evolving intersectional commitments. By tracing these interactions, I show how collective spaces both foster belonging and reproduce exclusion, mirroring the tensions embedded in the broader feminist movement. These digital arenas are not incidental noise but vital sites of feminist praxis—spaces where emotions, histories, and politics collide, shaping the possibilities and limits of solidarity in the twenty-first century.
 
Design and evaluation of surface conformance in additively manufactured spinal reconstruction implants
No full textSpinal implant surface conformance with the underlying bone is often critical to the long-term success of spinal surgeries; however, most spinal implants have a limited ability to match the organic surface profile of the vertebral endplate. To address this challenge, this study aimed to evaluate the surface conformance of additively manufactured lumbar intervertebral cages based on bone contact area and pressure distribution. Two lateral lumbar interbody fusion (LLIF) devices with either a solid or latticed core were designed for additive manufacturing (AM). The two implants were manufactured using SLA in resin with mechanical properties similar to polyether-ether-ketone (PEEK) and in a titanium alloy (Ti64) using laser powder bed fusion. Mechanical testing occurred on three sets of polyurethane Sawbones® machined to simulate a non-uniform vertebral endplate bone. Contact area and pressure distribution were measured using the Tekscan thin film sensor under lumbar compressive waveforms applied via an AMTI VIVO system. Conventional solid implants had an average surface coverage of 19% and 16%, 1 mm of displacement motion each, and peak pressure of 4.1 to 4.8 MPa, for resin and titanium respectively. The gyroid latticed implant had 13% and 11% surface coverage, 1.46 mm and 1 mm displacement motion, and lower of peak pressure for resin and titanium respectively. These results are consistent with previous studies which found that matching the implant to the vertebral endplate stiffness reduces risks of implant subsidence. In conclusion, this study provides preliminary support for the use of AM in tailoring implant design to conform to the endplate geometry. Future work should look to evaluate surface conformance in other designs as well as consideration for testing under fatigue loading conditions
Estimating the Lagged Response of Profitability on Labour Ratio
No full textThis paper investigates recent trends of production factor – including both capital and labour – ratios in the EU-27 based on national accounts data. These output elasticities are typically expected to be constant, however, both theoretically and empirically, these assumptions are frequently violated for a variety of reasons.
In this paper a lagged response is introduced and investigated: changes of profitability can affect labour force adjustments with a delay. Granger causality tests confirm lagged behaviour. Structural VAR estimations show the strongest impact over the span of two to five quarters and the effect is moderate
Generalized Disappointment Aversion, Rare Disasters, and the Term Structure of Real Interest Rates
No full textThis study models a representative agent with generalized disappointment aversion preferences in an endowment economy. This model addresses the average upward slope in U.S. real bond yields, equity premium puzzle, and equity volatility puzzle. We integrate a two-state Markov switching process for economic cycles coupled with an independent rare disaster risk. During economic expansions, disaster risk increases the probability of disappointment, thereby reinforcing precautionary saving and reducing the risk-free rate. During recessions, diminished concern about disappointment encourages borrowing and increases the risk-free rate. This pattern engenders countercyclical fluctuations in risk-free rates and accounts for the upward-sloping average yield curve
Does International Trade Affect Structural Change?
No full textWe analyze the effects of international trade on structural change. We show a positive correlation between openness and the share of the agricultural sector for developing economies and present a model to rationalize this stylized fact. We built a two-sector model to compare the autarky and open economy equilibrium. The results indicate that, for developing economies, international trade may delay structural change. If the comparative advantage is in agricultural goods, trade leads to greater specialization in this kind of goods and lower participation of other goods
Disentangling Moral from Morale: Attempted Suicides in the Canadian Army, 1943–1944
No full textThe following is the story of two men. Two men stationed at the same military training camp in Petawawa, Ontario. Two men who both held one of the lowest ranks in the Canadian Army as gunners during the Second World War. Two men who were both charged with attempted suicide. Two men who had similar cases but vastly different outcomes. The story of these two men, while small and perhaps seemingly inconsequential, illuminates the military structures that were guided by the efforts of the Army to maintain morale through strict discipline that reinforced the moral code that soldiers were expected to follow. Their stories teach us about masculinity, military life, military justice, family, and lastly, suicide and the way it has been defined and understood as a threat to the military establishment which identified suicide as a social contagion early in the development of military law. Those considered carriers of this social contagion, as we will see in the cases of John Lauzon and Albert Mulligan, were secluded, manipulated, silenced, punished, or stripped of legitimacy altogether