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Some Magnetic Force: Lionel LeMoine FitzGerald Writings
Get PDFThe first collection of the writings of artist Lionel Lemoine FitzGerald
Artist and educator Lionel LeMoine FitzGerald (1890–1956) was the only member of the Group of Seven, the iconic collective of Canadian landscape painters, who was based in Western Canada. Some Magnetic Force is the first collection to gather the surviving writings by the Winnipeg artist. Spanning from 1930 to 1954, the texts gathered here begin during the mature period of his artistic development at age forty and conclude with personal reflections late in life on the nature of art and his career.
Michael Parke-Taylor has uncovered and chronologically organized FitzGerald’s letters, diary, lectures, and reports to show how FitzGerald understood the development of his practice, communicated the philosophy of art to his art students, confronted challenges in his career, and presented his spiritual aspirations, views about the natural world, and private desires. These writings also elucidate the material and reputational realities of artistic production in places beyond the period’s dominant Canadian art centers of Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa.
Including illustrations of his work and an introduction and notes that contextualize FitzGerald’s biography and social circles, Some Magnetic Force provides remarkable insights into the influences, interests, and innovations of the Group of Seven’s prairie artist
The Login Log: Makerspaces and Messy Methods
Get PDFThe Login Log is a collaborative speculation design project that operates on two levels. Firstly, and drawing on concepts from actor-network theory, ludic design, and idiotic objects, it is an exploration of how a “nonsense object” can help to build connections between makerspaces and other creative communities. To this end, a research-creation plan was devised to introduce a “joke object” to a series of makerspaces for the successive addition of new useless features. Secondly, it is an exploration of “mess”; how research-creation may proceed when initial expectations are disappointed, and how we can use this mess to create new opportunities for inventive problem-making
Classification of Anomalies in Telecommunication Network KPI Time Series
Get PDFThe increasing complexity and scale of telecommunication networks have led to a growing interest in automated anomaly detection systems. However, the classification of anomalies detected on network Key Performance Indicators (KPI) has received less attention, resulting in a lack of information about anomaly characteristics and classification processes. To address this gap, this thesis proposes a modular anomaly classification framework. The framework assumes separate entities for the anomaly classifier and the detector, allowing for a distinct treatment of anomaly detection and classification tasks on time series. The objectives of this study are (1) to develop a time series simulator that generates synthetic time series resembling real-world network KPI behavior, (2) to build a detection model to identify anomalies in the time series, (3) to build classification models that accurately categorize detected anomalies into predefined classes (4) to evaluate the classification framework performance on simulated and real-world network KPI time series. This study has demonstrated the good performance of the anomaly classification models trained on simulated anomalies when applied to real-world network time series data
Removing Carbon Black Pigment from ABS Material
Get PDFAs we continue using plastics, the quantity of plastic waste also continues to pollute our land and oceans. To mitigate the plastic waste crisis, various firms are trying to recycle polymers. However, plastics often contain many additives and colorants, that pose additional challenges to recycling. Removing these contaminants is necessary to increase the polymer’s recyclability and ensure that the recovered polymer still has economic value by restoring thermal and mechanical properties. Solvent extraction has shown promising results by removing some insoluble contaminants without altering the material’s chemical and mechanical properties. This study will investigate the recyclability of ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) polymer and its contaminants' removal, especially Carbon Black (CB) pigments. A three step method has been developed and optimized using solvent, collector solvent, and anti-solvent. Ethyl acetate was chosen to solubilize ABS (step 1) and methanol and hexane to precipitate ABS (step 3). Deionized water was selected to successfully attract CB (step 2) thanks to hydrogen bonding. The results of the recovered ABS (46-75%), showed that both mechanical and chemical properties were similar to the initial ABS, through TGA, DSC, FTIR, and GPC analysis. Remarkably, color measurements assessed the removal of CB pigment with L values up to 62.7 (compared with 28.5 for the initial ABS). The separation process used in this work helped purify the recycled polymer by eliminating CB pigment. As a result, the recycled material is suitable for a wider range of applications
Building Reliable Frameworks for 3D Object Classification Based on Bayesian and Deep Learning Approaches
Get PDFIn the past decade, 3D objects have gained remarkable importance in everyday applications, and the ability to recognize them has therefore became a vital task in numerous fields. Ever since the emergence of 3D object recognition, there have been certain drawbacks that each newly invented model is striving to overcome. Among those shortcomings are; the ability to capture all critical features of the object, lack of spatial attributes consideration, insufficient visual relationships between semantic features, the necessity for expensive resources, and slow manipulation consequently. Computer Vision researchers have accomplished an excellent performance with multiple models, however, there is still an area for improvement. In this thesis, we are proposing two different novel 3D multi-view object classification methodologies inspired by Natural Language Processing (NLP) well-known approaches. The reason for this motivation is due to the NLP models’ impressive capability in capturing the underlying characteristics in texts and the semantic feature relationships from sequential data types. The first model is a statistical approach, named F-GDA, which deploys Generalized Dirichlet (GD) distribution in all its priors to compose a fully flexible framework and the later one, named VAeViT, incorporates the reputed deep learning architectures; Variational Autoencoder (VAE) and Vision Transformer (ViT) to form a comprehensive structure. Each model has been innovatively invented to resolve some major limitations confronted by the model’s methodology. Both models were evaluated on benchmark datasets and have proven reliably effective in classifying 3D multi-view objects and outperformed the state-of-the-art methodologies in the field
Supplier Risk Assessment and Selection under Disruption based on DMAIC and AHP Approaches.
Get PDFSupplier Risk Assessment and Selection under Disruption based on DMAIC and AHP Approaches.
Ali Khabbazian, Ph.D.
Concordia University, 2024
In today’s competitive business environment, different organizations are advancing their supply chain network to improving the quality of products and to reduce lead-time and total costs. Supplier risk is defined as “the possibility that a supplier will fail to supply their commitments to buyer company.” Business processes and projects that build trust only on suppliers may face higher risks/ failure/ loss. In some circumstances, businesses decide to mitigate these risks by diversifying their suppliers.
With the complication and globalization of outsourcing in today’s supply chains and from the other side with consideration of optimization techniques such as lean and just-in-time manufacturing for improving efficiency, they all together increased supply chain sensitivity and disruptions to even minor supply disruptions. Although these models facilitated companies to moderate overall costs and grow rapidly into new markets, they also exposed these companies to be at risk of supplier disruption, closing operations, or being acquired for companies. Considering several types of supply disruptions, the most intensive disruptions have a fairly low probability of occurrence with very high severity of impact when they occur, like COVID. While such risks cannot be eliminated, however, its intensity can be reduced.
It’s almost unmanageable to eliminate risk from the supply chain totally. However, businesses can minimize the risk and even eliminate the impact of certain risk events with cautious planning, tools, and processes to expect and manage risk more effectively.
There was many discussions and case studies about the affect of agility, lean manufacturing, and innovation of the enterprise and how it can help the companies to be more comparative in business environment. However most business they are neglectful about disruptions failures and necessary actions to face it.
Keywords: Supplier Selection, Supply Chain, Supply chain disruptions, Order allocation, Metaheuristics, DMAIC, Project Charter, Cost of Delay, Voice of the customer (VOC), Critical to Quality (CTQ), AHP, SIPOC, Pareto chart, Cause and Effect Diagram, Process Map Analysis, Regression Analysis, Supplier Developmen
Numerical study on the behaviour of jointed rock under train loads
Get PDFRailway lines through mountainous terrain are frequently laid on jointed rock. Loads are transferred to the jointed rock component during the operation of high-axle heavy-haul freight trains, reducing the strength of the intact rock block and improving mobility. When a railway embankment is adjacent to a rock slope, failures in jointed rock mass can be triggered when the train load exceeds a specific level. Therefore, it is essential to investigate the impact of train speed on slope stability as well as the combination of pertinent factors that may cause embankment failure on jointed rock slopes. This research is conducted using the finite element shear strength reduction approach in two-dimensional models to analyze the slope stability of jointed rock and railway embankments under drainage conditions. A practical site is selected and related geomechanical parameters are retrieved from the literature. Various parameters are investigated for the relevant variables, including rock properties and joint characteristics. The crucial value for the factor of safety arising from the maximum safe train speed is set at 1.3 for all cases modeled. The maximum train speed is determined for cases with different joint orientations and joint spatial distributions. Cases for embankments sitting adjacent to slopes with different slope angles are also simulated and the corresponding maximum train speeds are established. Furthermore, this study also provides information on the slow speeds that can be adopted for different conditions to ensure the train safety
Vibrations of Uniform-Thickness Longitudinally-Tapered Laminated Composite Pipes Conveying Fluid
No full textLongitudinally-tapered laminated composite pipes conveying fluid are capable of stiffness- and mass-tailoring design such that they have many industrial applications, including in mining industries and buildings. In this thesis, the free and forced lateral vibration response of symmetric uniform-thickness longitudinally-tapered laminated pipes are investigated with various taper angles, laminate configurations, axial tensile forces, fluid velocities, and boundary conditions. Since the determination of the exact solution for the governing equation of motion of the pipe, obtained using Newton’s second law, in space and time coordinates is difficult to obtain, the Galerkin method is used in the present work to obtain the solution. The flexural rigidity of the composite pipe is determined using two different approaches. The first approach is based on the formulation previously developed for a composite tube. The second approach is based on the modification of the formulation previously developed for a thick composite pipe. In addition, the obtained results are validated and compared to those obtained by the forward finite difference method. The natural frequencies and transverse deflections are computed. Then, the forced vibration response to harmonic loadings of the pipe is obtained through the use of the assumed modes method, along with modal analysis results determined by the free vibration analysis. A harmonic load is applied in the undamped and damped forced vibration analysis of the pipe. Then, the solution accuracy is examined by comparing the obtained results from free and forced lateral vibration analysis with those available in the literature. Moreover, free and forced undamped axial vibrations of uniform laminated composite pipes using classical lamination theory are examined for the influences of fluid velocity and laminate configuration on the axial displacement
The Lowering of the Federal Voting Age to 16 in Canada: Normative, Political, and Constitutional Considerations
Get PDFI argue that Canada's federal statutory voting age should be reduced from 18 to 16. The argument is developed through three concurrent fields of research: normative political theory, comparative politics, and constitutional theory. The proposed institutional change would be consistent with the evolutionary nature of the federal franchise since late teenagers, through the concurrent processes of mobilizations–concessions, and constitutional litigation, could extend it as other social groups did. A federal voting age of 16 in Canada would not lead to habitual non-voting, as was demonstrated by the outcome of the lowering of the minimum voting age to 16 in Scotland in 2015. The reduction of the minimum voting age to 16 would also resolve the unjustifiable inconsistency between the federal disenfranchisement of 16- and 17-year-olds and their democratic and equality rights, as protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (through section 3 and subsection 15[1]). The analysis of the constitutionality of section 3 of the Canada Elections Act is further substantiated by references to New Zealand`s judicial treatment of the disenfranchisement of 16- and 17-year olds and the transnational discourse concerning the disenfranchisement of persons with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities, who are excluded from suffrage based on political immaturity in the same manner as late teenagers
A Comprehensive Study of Sustainability, Fashion and Consumption: Understanding Consumer Behaviour and Clothing Evaluation from a Cross-national Perspective
Get PDFThe overarching objectives of this research are twofold: (1) gaining an in-depth understanding of the current trends and developments in “fashion and sustainability” research between 2010 and 2021, identifying research gaps and influential works; and (2) examining the influence of sustainable and non-sustainable product attributes on apparel consumer choices from a cross-national perspective, specifically focusing on Indian and Canadian consumers. Although previous research has explored fashion and sustainability, to the best of my knowledge, no study has undertaken a comprehensive examination of the aforementioned objectives. Prior to this study, no research has been conducted on the significance of (non-)sustainable evaluative cues from the perspectives of both Indian and Canadian apparel consumers.
This thesis comprises six chapters that unfold as follows: Chapter 1 establishes the contextual background and research rationale for the topic. Chapter 2 conducts a systematic literature review to provide a comprehensive overview of the research conducted and disseminated on “fashion and sustainability” since 2010. To facilitate data analysis and gain a deeper understanding of the research evolution, various free open-access software tools such as RAKE, VOSviewer and CitNetExplorer were employed. Boolean queries were utilised to search and retrieve 860 articles related to “fashion and sustainability” from the Web of Science. Based on these publications, the research’s geographic distribution, types and approaches (e.g., qualitative, quantitative, case study and systematic literature review), author’s affiliations by country, publication trends, number of cross-national/cultural studies, and major sustainable and non-sustainable attributes were identified and examined. Chapter 3 delves into an extensive literature review of evaluative attributes in apparel, encompassing both sustainable and non-sustainable cues. This review provides insights into consumer buying behaviour across various dimensions, such as sustainable cues versus non-sustainable cues, differences between male and female consumers, and variations between developed and developing nations. Importantly, this information informs the formulation of relevant hypotheses for empirical testing in the subsequent chapter. The chapter also presents and discusses the typology of apparel cues, including intrinsic and extrinsic cues, psychic/aesthetic and physical/functional cues, sustainable and non-sustainable cues and “product-related cues and production-related cues. Chapter 4 outlines the research methodology employed for empirical testing and analysis. Data collection was conducted through self-administered online survey, with various measurement instruments developed based on prior literature. The collected data were analysed using SPSS, employing techniques such as descriptive analysis, t-test and correlation test. Chapter 5 presents the analytical results and discusses the salient impact of various apparel product cues. Additionally, it reports on the differences observed between Canadian and Indian consumers, as well as gender disparities in clothing choice. The final chapter summarised the findings, highlighted the contributions, implications and limitation of the current research, and provides recommendations for future research areas that warrant further investigation