McGill University Thèses et mémoires publiés en 1997

The screening, biomass production of lipase-producing microorganisms from several sources, as well as the purification, characterization and utilization of the enzymatic extracts for the interesterification of butter fat were investigated. Pseudomonas fragi CRDA 323 and Aspergillus niger CBS 131.52 were considered to be good lipase producers, whereas, those from Pseudomonas putida ATCC 795 and Rhizopus oryzae ATCC 34612 as weak ones; all four microorganisms produced maximal amount of extracellular lipases by batch fermentation after three-four days of incubation in a continuously stirred tank reactor. The lipases were partially purified by ammonium sulfate precipitation and characterized with respect to pH, kinetic …  Read more

Potato requires high levels of nitrogen fertilizer. Up to now in Quebec, no nitrogen fertilizer recommendation has been based on nitrogen availability in the soil, even those soil nitrogen testing is available. The objectives of this study were: (1) to determine the relation between soil nitrate-N content, nitrogen fertilization and potato yield; and (2) to determine the time and the sampling depth of soil most appropriate to predict potato yields and response to nitrogen fertilizer under Quebec conditions. Soil samples were taken at two depths at planting and at hilling time in 28 sites fertilized at four levels of nitrogen. …  Read more

Previously, J. Lambek et al. have used Production Grammars to study the kinship terminology of English, Hindi, Sanskrit and Malagasy. This technique is applied here to the kinship terminology of Burmese and four closely related Indonesian languages: Indonesian, Javanese, Madurese and Sundanese. The production grammars are then compared, noting differences between Burmese and the others, and differences within the group of Indonesian languages. Particular attention is paid to the reduction rules, as they are indicative of the structure of the grammar. It was found that although differing in the structure of its kinship descriptions, Burmese is quite similar to the …  Read more

During the last several years, there has been a dramatic growth of digital services, such as digital wireless and wireline communications, satellite communications and digital voice storage systems. Such services require the use of high-quality low bit-rate coders to efficiently code the speech signal before transmission or storage. The majority of such coders employ algorithms that are based on Code-Excited Linear Prediction (CELP). The goal of this thesis is to improve the quality of CELP coded speech, while keeping the basic coding format intact. The quality improvement is focused on voiced speech segments. A Pitch Pulse Averaging (PPA) algorithm has …  Read more

In a world where nationalist movements are on the rise with the potential to contest state legitimacy, the study of nationalism both as a political phenomenon and as an academic topic becomes more salient. This study attempts to explain the causes of nationalism, as well as the conditions that contribute to its militarization. It advances working definitions of the concepts of ethnic groups, nations and nationalism, and identifies the differences between ethnic and national politics. The emergence of nationalism is analyzed through a model. which aims to present a causal relationship between nation, nationalism and militarized crisis. The derived propositions …  Read more

The main purpose of the present investigation was to compare the personality traits of cegep students enrolled in arts, sciences, and social sciences. In addition, the influence of gender on personality was examined, as well as its interaction with academic specialization. Finally, exploratory research was conducted to study the influence of selected socio-demographic variables on personality configuration. Participants were asked to complete a socio-demographic questionnaire as well as the French research translation of the NEO-Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI), which measures the five basic dimensions of personality. Thus, another purpose of this study was to provide validational information for the latter …  Read more

Many factors have been hypothesized to account for the fact that certain disputes become legal claims while others fail to escalate. This thesis argues that psychological factors play a major role in disputants' decisions to resort to the court system, and that a person's propensity to do so is a function of his/her attitudes toward State institutions and his/her personal disputing style. This thesis is based on an empirical study exploring the existence of such disputing styles in the context of landlord-tenant relationships. Accounts of reallife disputes were gathered through interviews with tenants having recently faced problems with their landlords; …  Read more

The research for this dissertation is focused on the following two issues: (1) Can bilingual child language development be considered as 'two monolinguals in one', and (2) Can bilingual child language contribute uniquely to our understanding of the acquisition process in all children? Three studies examining functional categories in the grammatical development of bilingual and second language children were conducted in order to address these questions. Study 1 investigates potential interference between the developing grammars of three French-English bilingual children. Naturalistic production data were collected from the children at six month intervals between approximately 2;0 and 3;0 years of age. …  Read more

Although there exists a plethora of studies in the field of addictions treatment examining the factors that predict successful treatment outcome, the profile of persons who benefit the most from treatment has not yet emerged. The present investigation was conducted to evaluate treatment outcomes of various groups of individuals with different substance related disorders, to determine the prevalence of psychiatric comorbidity among these groups and to examine predictors of treatment outcome. Two hundred and thirty-nine substance abusing males and females were extensively assessed at admission with regards to demographic characteristics, substance use variables, psychiatric comorbidity and cognitive functioning. Six-month in-treatment …  Read more

Composting trials were undertaken to study the feasibility of using crucifer or carrot residues with straw or sawdust for composting. Compost temperature and moisture were monitored regularly, and compost samples were analyzed for physico-chemical characteristics at the beginning in the fall, before turning in spring, and at the end of each composting cycle. A geotextile cover was tested. Compost leachate volumes were measured throughout the two composting cycles. In addition, the leachate was submitted to phytotoxicity tests and physico-chemical analyses. Selected phytopathogens were introduced in the compost in order to assess their potential for survival during the composting process. Three …  Read more

Zinc-based electrogalvanized coatings have attracted increasing interest from the automobile industry and steelmakers because of their excellent corrosion resistance and good mechanical properties. The coating properties are closely related to the microstructure of deposit. Among them, texture is a key factor which influences the coating properties. This study demonstrates the microstructure and corrosion behaviors of the electrodeposited zinc, zinc-iron, and zinc-nickel coatings on steel sheet deposited at different current density, pH and coating thicknesses. The evolution of the coating microstructure--texture, surface morphology, interplanar spacings, microstress, alloy content, and phase composition--is investigated in various deposition conditions. This work also demonstrates the …  Read more

Near-net-shape casting technology is an important research area in the iron and steel industry today. Various processes for near-net-shape casting of steel are currently being developed around the world. of these processes, twin-roll casting represents a major area of concentration. The main issues concerning design and operation of twin-roll casters are the metal-mould heat transfer, the metal delivery system and their possible effects in the homogeneity of solid shell formation and characteristics of the strips. In the present work, interfacial heat fluxes between the roll and the solidifying metal have been evaluated in a pilot twin-roll caster used in the …  Read more

L’irrigation souterraine avec de 1 ‘eau saumâtre n’est pas une pratique courante dans les régions arides à cause des problèmes de saturation en sel des sols. L’utilisation de l’irrigation souterraine avec de l’eau saumâtre dans des conditions arides simulées, a été étudiée pour la production de deux importantes cultures maraîchères, des pommes de terre (Solanum tuberosum L.) et des poivrons verts (Capsicum annuum Grossurn). Ces cultures, en comparaison avec d’autres cultures, sont sensibles à la salinité du sol. [...] En conclusion, il a été démontré que 1’ irrigation souterraine avec de l’eau saumâtre dans des conditions arides est possible pour …  Read more

The function of the Escherichia coli Ner like protein (Nlp) was investigated by identifying genes which Nlp may regulate. To identify these genes, lac Z gene fusions were generated in a strain of E. coli whose own nlp gene had been interrupted by a luxAB tet insertion. Each clone within this gene fusion collection had the lac Z gene integrated into a random location on the E. coli chromosome. Clones in which the lac Z gene had inserted within a gene regulated by Nlp were predicted to have a different lac Z phenotype on X-gal plates depending on the presence …  Read more

The System of National Accounts inadequately reflects levels of, or changes in, the natural resource base. Natural Resource Accounts are designed to redress this shortcoming. A wealth account for Quebec agricultural land was constructed, taking an inventory of land with capability for agriculture and monetizing the stocks. The changes to the wealth account over a 15 year period represented a loss to the resource base of $260 million and an average annual charge against net farm income of $17.3 million. Prices for the valuation exercise were determined with the use of a Hedonic Pricing Model. The estimated implicit prices for …  Read more

Elizabeth Jane Gardner (1837-1922) was an American artist who lived in Paris from 1864-1922. She was the most frequently represented woman artist of any nationality at the Paris Salon in the late nineteenth century, and the only American woman to have ever won a medal (1887). In 1896, she married William Bouguereau, the major academic painter of the time. Yet in spite of these distinctions, Elizabeth Gardner has received surprisingly little scholarly attention. This thesis is a biographical and analytical study of the expatriate artist, based on her unpublished letters in the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. …  Read more

A review of the literature on speech prosody suggests that the right hemisphere may be crucial in expressing and perceiving prosodic information, although hypotheses concerning the underlying nature of this specialization remain disparate (e.g., Behrens, 1988; Ross, 1981; Van Lancker & Sidtis, 1992). To illuminate the right hemisphere's role in prosodic processing, and to explore the interaction between linguistic and emotional suprasegmental cues in speech production and perception, two experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, utterances conveying three prosodic distinctions (emphatic stress, sentence modality, emotional tone) were elicited from normal (NC) and right-hemisphere-damaged (RHD) adults and then subjected to acoustic …  Read more

The nature of origins of DNA replication in mammalians has yet to be elucidated. The localization of the initiation sites and the identification of the corresponding sequences and/or structures is important to understand the process of initiation at the molecular level. The objective of the research in this thesis is to localize the initiation site of DNA synthesis at a specific locus on the chromosomes of mammalian cells, and to characterize the minimal sequence requirements for the function of this origin of DNA replication in vivo. A genomic clone was isolated using ors12, a mammalian autonomously replicating sequence (812 bp) …  Read more

Intercountry adoption (ICA) is growing in controversy as it grows in popularity. While heart-warming stories of families with babies from abroad dominate the media coverage on this subject, this represents only a small segment of the entire situation. Using Korea and China as case examples, this thesis extensively reviews and analyzes policy and the cultural, social, economic and political layers of the ICA mechanism from a political-economy perspective and argues that children are treated as commodities in both supplying and receiving countries. ICA is used by governments to solve internal social problems while promoting international relations. The thesis concludes that …  Read more

Cotler, Irwin (Advisor)  Read more

A research study was undertaken to determine the predictive capability of the AGNPS model with respect to surface runoff, peak flow, and sediment yield produced by rainfall-runoff events on a 26 km$ sp2$ watershed in Quebec. Precipitation, stream discharge, surface runoff, and suspended sediment concentrations were monitored for rainfall-runoff events occurring from 1994-96, inclusive. Data describing stream patterns, topography, soil type, and land use were collected and input to the model. Seven rainfall-runoff events were used for model calibration. Five storms were used to validate the model. Calibration curves were developed to correlate the antecedent precipitation index (API) to the …  Read more

Towards the end of the fifteenth century in Italy an upwardly mobile, morally questionable, and highly erudite woman appeared on the social and literary circuit: the courtesan. Technically a prostitute, she rose above her often dubious beginnings to bask in the prestige accorded to society's elite. Although revered by some, her blatant transgression of traditional gender roles and class hierarchies offended many others. The writings of her detractors attempted to lower the courtesan's status to that of a common prostitute, by ridiculing her intellectual achievements and by depicting her as unclean and diseased. This thesis, which focuses on sixteenth-century Venice, …  Read more

Current interest in small satellites lies in the feasibility of achieving specific but limited objectives. By necessity, small spacecraft technology requires simple control schemes, where small attitude errors can be tolerated inside specified deadbands. The attitude control of a small satellite using fuzzy logic is examined in this thesis. A realistic satellite is modelled as a central rigid body with a set of flexible appendages. The continuous flexible structures are discretized using the assumed modes method. Equations governing the attitude motion and the bending vibrations of the appendages are obtained from the Lagrangian formulation, while the orbital motion is assumed …  Read more

The importance of emotionality during the psychotherapeutic hour has been extensively documented in the psychotherapy theory and research literature. Prominent theorists and researchers have advocated that the degree of client's emotionality is an important therapeutic variable that facilitates therapeutic and personality change. The purpose of this study was to (a) examine the relationship between client level and type of emotionality as measured by the Experiencing, Strength of Feeling-Revised, and Vocal Quality Scales and the occurrence of in-session therapeutic phenomena as measured by the Category System of Client Good Moments scale, and (b) what levels and types of emotionality occur with …  Read more

Galiana, H. L. (Advisor)  Read more

The objective of this study was to develop an in vitro model in lamprey, a lower vertebrate, for investigating the neural circuitry controlling feeding behavior. Microstimulation of the trigeminal afferents and some of the rhombencephalic regions that project to the trigeminal motor nucleus were shown to elicit excitatory synaptic responses in trigeminal motoneurons involving both AMPA/Kainate and NMDA receptors. Disynaptic glycinergic inhibition was also present in some cases. Interestingly, rhythmical membrane potential oscillations were elicited in trigeminal motoneurons upon stimulation of trigeminal afferents or the principal sensory nucleus. Low and high frequency oscillations were obtained which seem to represent fast …  Read more

All methods of multi-processing need some form of processor to processor communication. In shared memory architectures this communication takes place through the shared global address space. A set of rules must be provided to control when and how updates to the shared memory made by one processor will be seen by another processor. These rules make up the memory model of the shared memory architecture. Since the memory model controls inter-processor communication and access to the shared memory, choosing these rules will be very important for efficiency in terms of memory access stalls. The first memory models were designed from …  Read more

Book of Mercy (1984) occupies a central place in the career of Leonard Cohen, as comparison to a wide variety of Cohen "texts," from poetry, the novel and song to the personal interview and music video, reveals. Interviews and book reviews contemporary with Book of Mercy indicate that the latter contains a sincere message of faith and prophetic warning that Cohen publicly defends. Cohen's eclectic but reverent incorporation of language and ideas from Judaeo-Christian traditions of prayer and mysticism shows his regard for the sacred expression of his predecessors. As a result, Book of Mercy stands slightly apart from the …  Read more

Hamel, Chantal (Supervisor)  Read more

The products of Hox genes are homeodomain-containing transcriptional regulators that function during development to specify positional identity along embryonic axes. Differences in the ability of HOX proteins to regulate the transcription of target genes are critical for patterning. The ability of the Hoxd4 gene product to autoregulate expression, which is dependent on TAAT-containing sites in the Hoxd4 promoter, is specific in at HOXA1 fails to recognize these sites. By chimaeric analysis, this specificity was shown to be due to sequence differences in the N-terminal arm. Substitution of the lysine and arginine residues found at positions two and three in HOXD4 …  Read more

The structural design of power transmission lines requires knowledge from a variety of widely-dispersed expert sources. This thesis demonstrates how an expert system can be efficiently used to assemble and organize this knowledge in order to design a wide range of transmission line models and realistically estimate their costs. This thesis presents LIDE ("Line Intelligent Development Environment"), a concrete example of an expert system for the preliminary structural design of power transmission lines and it explains how rules and objects can be used to integrate the design criteria that come from various knowledge domains. Results obtained with the expert system …  Read more

Teaching and learning foreign languages has always been a source of debate. This research begins by tracing the evolution of teaching methods and approaches. It proceeds to describe how the teaching and learning of Standard Italian at the post-secondary level and in adult education in Montreal is affected by the multicultural nature of the community. The analysis of individual textbooks used in post-secondary and adult instruction in Montreal and the surrounding area follows. This study should provide an impetus for further investigation regarding the relationship between foreign language acquisition and the choice of textbooks for classroom use and it could …  Read more

Physiological and compositional changes in Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ATCC 9027) were monitored during, growth on various petroleum compounds in a chemically-defined medium. Growth of P. aeruginosa was observed when furnace oil, kerosene, aviation fuel, light crude oil and hexadecane were used as carbon and energy sources. A variable and extended lag period before active growth was achieved was characteristic of petroleum-grown cells as compared to glucose-grown cells. Growth on the petroleum hydrocarbons, compared with that on glucose, resulted in changes in cell lipid composition, outer membrane proteins, cell-surface hydrophobicity, surface-tension, and pH changes in the growth medium during transition from early …  Read more

Labour relations in Montreal during the years 1830 to 1845 were characterized by flux. The encroachment of expanding industrialization brought with it new social phenomena and pressures, new technology, and a fundamental restructuring of employment relationships. Master-servant relations still contained elements of the deeply stratified and paternalistic labour relationships ingrained in the cultural and social fabric of earlier eras, but increasingly began to exhibit the rudiments of purely contractual relationships which would come to define the modern industrial era. Courts came to play an increasingly important role in resolving labour disputes between parties. While historically the law favored the strict …  Read more

The methylation of DNA at the 5 position of the cytosine moiety within CpG dinucleotides sequences forms a complex pattern which delimits non expressed genes. For many years, especially through studies of the correlation between methylation and gene silencing, researchers have tried to decipher this genomic subtext. Probably, a better way to achieve an understanding of DNA methylation is by first elucidating what regulates the apparatus responsible for its establishment. The DNA MeTase is the enzyme responsible for the catalysis of the DNA methylation reaction. It was therefore the objective of this thesis to define some of the factors that …  Read more

This thesis examines the legislative framework governing foreign investment in Vietnam. More specifically, it focuses on the regulatory control exerted over foreign entities in the country. At the fulcrum of Vietnam's transition from a centrally-planned to a market-oriented economy, its foreign investment legislation is designed to attract the outside capital necessary to rebuild its infrastructure. Simultaneously, it must also allow the authorities to effectively screen the entry of foreign investment and supervise the operations of foreign enterprises. The various control mechanisms in the Vietnamese legislative framework are far too extensive and, as such, not only create an impediment to a …  Read more

This dissertation examines the representations of the body in the completed dramatic works of Heinrich von Kleist (1777--1811). While taking into account the psychoanalytical and philosophical approaches to Kleist, this project has Heiner Miller's words as its point of departure: that the theater represents the collision of ideas with the body. The forces of power, gender and authority leave their traces of this collision on the bodies of his characters, whose metaphorical and literal falls, wounds and recoveries speak their own gestural language. This study is organized on the principle of Kleist's use of genre designation, the approximate chronological order …  Read more

The nature of the rehearsal mechanism that supports short-term memory span (STM), and the role of lexical and semantic knowledge in list recall was evaluated. Forty university students (aged 17-29 years) recalled lists of words varied in syllable-length (SL), articulatory duration (AD), phonological similarity (PS), semantic relatedness (SR) and frequency of occurrence (FO). Auditory and visual presentation, vocal and picture-pointing recall, and concurrent articulation conditions were included. Nonword recall was evaluated using stimuli varied in SL and PS was also evaluated using a repetition task. Word length effects were found for word stimuli varied in SL but were absent or …  Read more

The aim of this study was to maximize good quality grass silage utilization either by supplying a source of rumen undegradable protein or by a reduction of the concentrate in the diet. A randomized incomplete block design was used to evaluate feed intake, milk production and health incidence occurring in fifty-nine Holstein dairy cow (11 primiparous) distributed randomly to receive three different diets between wk 4 and 24 of lactation. The diets were composed of grass silage (predominance of timothy) offered ad libitum supplemented either with a mixture of cereal grains (wheat:barley 50:50) at 100% of recommendations plus soybean meal …  Read more

Aircraft leasing is a method of fleet acquisition. It was known to none at the outset of the air traffic era; as a result, international air law treaties were not formulated upon the concept that realized the practices as such. The moment international aircraft leasing materialized, many regimes of international air law became unsuited to the situation. On the one hand, public international air law treaties have faced the problems ranging from safety oversight responsibilities and aircraft accident investigation to airport charges and criminal jurisdiction. On the other hand, private international air law treaties have faced the problems ranging from …  Read more

This thesis examines the role nineteenth-century women's literary journals, specifically Ladies' Journal (1823--1833), played in the development of Russian literature. The longest-lived and most-circulated of the pre-Soviet women's literary journals, Ladies' Journal was well-positioned to have contributed to the on-going formation of a national literature through its influence on the Russian woman writer and reader. Ladies' Journal served as a forum for new Russian women writers and translators. It also promoted the discussion of women's issues. However, Ladies' Journal had a contradictory editorial policy concerning women and literature. While advocating women stake their own ground as writers, Ladies' Journal modeled …  Read more

Deregulation, liberalization, competition and globalization are concepts that are closely linked to today's international air transport. With the aim of adapting to this new competitive environment, carriers have in the past years joined forces and developed international carriers alliances. As a result, antitrust immunity to carrier alliances was granted by the United States in order for carriers to "merge" their activities without an actual merger, prohibited under the present regime, or without risking violation of antitrust laws. This thesis will discuss the basis of antitrust immunity in the United States, as well as the different carrier alliances that have received …  Read more

We have cloned the PERF15 gene which encodes the most abundant protein of the perinuclear theca of rat spermatozoa. PERF15 is related to the super family of lipophilic transport proteins. It has a molecular mass of 15 kDa and is present exclusively in the subacrosomal region of the sperm head. PERF15 mRNA is expressed at high levels in early spermatids while its expression is not detectable in any other organ or tissue examined. The PERF15 gene contains four exons and three introns. Exon 1 codes for amino acids 1--24, exon 2 for amino acids 25--82, exon 3 for amino acids …  Read more

The present study is designed to outline the approaches towards moral development and moral education over the past four decades, and to show how the findings of second-generation cognitive science compel a re-thinking of the role of narrative and narrative thinking in moral education. Examined also, are the psychological and philosophical assumptions that underpin and lend substantiation to these findings. Narrative, as an essential instrument for moral education, is now on the way to being rehabilitated, by virtue of the emerging trend to apply the narrative method of autobiographical mythology, or personal narrative to moral education. Through the increased implementation …  Read more

Leonard, Peter (Supervisor)  Read more

The purpose of this research was to gain an understanding of how music education students come to think of themselves as music educators. Guided by the thematic framework, "learning from experience", which draws upon research relating to constructivist theory and biographical inquiry, as well as literature pertaining to construction of images of self, this study explored four music education students' perceptions of themselves as musicians and as educators. Believing that self-perceptions are rooted in personal biographies, autobiographical and journal writings were investigated to establish links between participants' perceptions and biographies. Issues encountered by participants as they began to think of …  Read more

A significant goal in studies on learning and memory is to relate cellular plasticity to the modification of behaviour. The phenomenon of dual-process learning affords an ideal opportunity to explore the complexities inherent in establishing this relationship. Dual-process learning occurs when depression (habituation) and facilitation (sensitization) are expressed simultaneously within a neural network and compete to determine the behavioural outcome. A large body of literature is reviewed to define characteristics which are common across the neural networks that exhibit dual-process learning: depression occurs at loci early in the reflex pathway, upstream of the modulatory system necessary for the induction of …  Read more

In this thesis, I argue that early child second language (L2) grammars allow truncation, on a par with proposals by Rizzi (1993/1994) and Haegeman (1995) for first language (L1) acquisition. This account (the Truncation Hypothesis) holds that Rizzi's (1994) Root Principle, according to which root declaratives are CPs, is initially underspecified in L2 systems (for processing reasons). This means that the root of main declaratives will not systematically be CP. Instead, different types of roots should be projected, such as CP, IP or VP, with VP underlying root infinitives. If one further assumes that functional categories are present in early …  Read more

Roff, Derek (Supervisor)  Read more

The purpose of the present study was to explore qualitative differences in student learning outcomes in distance education courses. The following relationships were examined within the context of three McGill Distance Education Program courses that vary widely in content and instructional goals: (1) the relationship between learning context, student approach to learning and student learning outcomes; (2) the relationship between student and instructor perspectives of the learning context; and (3) the relationship between type of course, course learning expectations, course structure and design, and the selected method(s) of assessment. The design of this study employed a mixture of both qualitative …  Read more