McGill University Thèses et mémoires publiés en 1998

The role of the mechanical energy budget is analyzed in relation to the small viscosity behaviour of an idealized model of the wind-driven circulation. This is addressed theoretically and numerically in part one. In part two the connection to the real ocean is made through an analysis of the energy source with real data. The theoretical arguments based on the QG energy equation show that, with the assumption that the maximum velocities occur at inertial length scales or smaller, a Sverdrup interior is consistent with the small Rossby number assumption only when the frictional parameters exceed critical values. For frictional …  Read more

Human carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) is a glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)-Iinked cell surface glycoprotein which is overexpressed in several human cancers. CEA, and the CEA family members, non-specific crossreacting antigen (NCA) and biliary glycoprotein (BGP) are members of the immunoglobulin superfamily and all mediate homotypic adhesion. Ectopic expression of CEA in rat L6 and mouse C2 myoblasts can completely block myogenic differentiation. It is demonstrated here that CEA alone and in cooperation with avian v-Myc and human Bcl-2, can result in malignant cellular transformation, effects which are dependent on CEA's differentiation-blocking activity. Ectopic expression of v-Myc and c-Myc proteins in L6 transfectant cells …  Read more

Previous work on feral pigeons (Columba livia) and zenaida doves (Zenaida aurita) suggests that both individual and social learning varies with type of competition: rapid non-aggressive feeding is associated with rapid individual learning as well as rapid social learning from the tutor types a bird usually feeds with in the field. Comparative learning tests, however, may be influenced by intervening variables like neophobia and tameness: tests are always run on captive animals by human experimenters using novel stimuli. This thesis compares pigeons to territorial and group-feeding zenaida doves on their response to novel stimuli in the field and in captivity, …  Read more

The present master's thesis includes an essay and a fiction based on the theme of the ennemy. The essay relies on Antoine de Saint-Exupery's works: it shows the main three steps leading the warrior to a fall understanding of the meaning of his combat. First, the warrior must recognize and confront the outer ennemy, in order to attain certain virtues which will lead him to a first degree of personal growth. But the warrior who wishes to go beyond that limit must then point towards himself the faults attributed to the outer ennemy: he will thereby discover his own inner …  Read more

With the progress of globalization, it is becoming increasingly evident that there lies within it a Westernizing thrust that forms a part of the European colonial legacy. Postcolonial theorists, exemplified by Homi K. Bhabha, Edward W. Said, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, have, over the last twenty years, produced some of the most influential discourse-analysis of colonialism, and critiques of neocolonialism. Their works, committed to various streams of poststructuralism, nonetheless exhibit some debilitating epistemological problems this thesis demonstrates by recourse to Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard. In conclusion it offers an alternative approach to globalization derived from Kierkegaard's dilemma of first principles in …  Read more

This study explored the development of students' written story structure over a three-year period. Twenty longitudinal writing files, each containing three science fiction stories written at the end of students' grade 3, 4, and 5 years, were studied. The idea development of these sixty stories (20 written at each grade-level) was examined through the use of two methodologies, a genre-independent Idea Analysis, and a genre-specific Narrative Analysis. These analyses were used to explore three aspects of idea structure: (a) idea production, (b) idea elaboration, and (c) narrative structure {i.e., setting, character, and plot development}. In the area of idea production, …  Read more

Allergic asthma is associated with the presence of increased numbers of activated inflammatory cells, including mast cells, eosinophils and T-cells within the lung. The recently documented cytokine, stem cell factor (SCF) is critical for mast cell growth, and for chemoattraction of progenitor cells and eosinophils. We hypothesized that allergic asthma is associated with the increased expression of SCF and its receptor, c-kit. The expression of SCF and c-kit was studied within the airways of atopic asthmatics and non-asthmatic controls using in situ hybridization and immunocytochemistry. The results demonstrated significantly increased expression of SCF and c-kit in bronchial biopsies and BAL …  Read more

In recent years, very detailed images of the brain, produced by modern sensor technologies, have given the neuroscientist the opportunity to study the functional activation of the brain under different conditions. The main statistical problem is to locate the isolated regions of the brain where activation has occurred (the signal), and separate them from the rest of the brain where no activation can be detected (the noise). To do this the images are often spatially smoothed before analysis by convolution with a filter f (t) to enhance the signal to noise ratio, where t is a location vector in N …  Read more

The ESOPE-VR virtual reality power substation operator training system incorporates advanced features such as a 3D video display, audio interpretation and feedback, sophisticated navigation and object manipulation interfaces, and an expert system to validate operations. When these human-computer interaction techniques are brought together, they offer the opportunity to learn interactively with the training environment, rather than providing a passive classroom-like visual or audio training experience. Features such as the automatic creation of a 3D model substation derived from single-line diagrams, and the use of a distributed network methodology have been developed to enhance the flexibility of ESOPE-VR. Alternate manipulation devices …  Read more

The analysis of cost and profit efficiencies of a sample of 588 Quebec dairy farms shows significant potential to reduce costs and increase profits. In general, the small farms were more cost efficient while large farms were more profit efficient. Increased use of farm grown feed was associated with higher efficiency while increased use of concentrates was associated with lower efficiency. The productivity of individual dairy farms were estimated using data envelopment analysis. The average annual growth rate of productivity was 0.70% with a standard deviation of 2.44% for the 1987--93 period. The Spearman's rank correlation coefficient did not show …  Read more

The ability of cells to undergo cell death is inherent. As such, some cells tend to exist for a shorter period of time than others. This cognate response of cells to master their own demise is known as programmed cell death or apoptosis. Changes in the rate of apoptosis within a cellular system can give rise to hyperproliferation like in cancer or to degeneration like in Alzheimer's disease. The G-protein coupled receptor agpnist somatostatin (SST) and its analogs inhibit tumor cell growth by exerting direct antiproliferative effects through five SST receptor (SSTRs) subtypes. Its actions have been reported to result …  Read more

Target-dependent cell death is an important embryogenic mechanism for regulating and sculpting the developing motor system. Efficient characterization of apoptosis has been more difficult in the nervous system than in other systems due to the use of several different primary culture systems as well as with heterogeneity of neuronal cell populations. We have developed a simple in vitro model of apoptosis with the motor neuron hybrid NSC34, a cell line which expresses much of the motor neuron phenotype (Cashman et al. 1992). Serum-deprived NSC 34 cells in bulk culture undergo cell death, likely from the withdrawal of the growth factors …  Read more

An improved hot water generator that combines direct water heating in a packed column and indirect water heating in a submerged combustion chamber is the subject of this investigation. Advantages of the heater over the conventional hot water generators include higher efficiency, lower cost of equipment, lower pressure drop, and a simpler control system. The experimental work has been conducted on a prototype dual water heater located at the Natural Gas Technology Center at Boucherville, Quebec. The heater consists of an immersed firetube and two packed columns. It provides hot water at two temperatures. The effects of the controlling parameters, …  Read more

This study seeks to show that in the work of Oscar Wilde, form and content, though manifestly separate, are latently connected. In Wilde's aesthetics, form and content are more than mere critical generalities---they are also metaphors for, respectively, art and nature, order and chaos, two conflicting but interdependent principles. Form in Wilde's work is a metaphor for the artist's defense against the largeness and ambiguity of nature and life. Therefore, to create, Wilde needs to insist on form over content, art over nature. Form in Wilde's work manifests itself in a deliberately artificial style, a style revealed by, for example, …  Read more

Zawadzki, Isztar (Advisor)  Read more

This thesis relates to the study of rapid ionic currents in single cells using a single electrode voltage clamp amplifier (SEVC). The practical limitations inherent with the SEW, primarily the effects of series resistance (R s) which dominate when attempting to record rapid ionic currents, are outlined. The various methods in use to compensate for Rs are explored. A novel method of Rs compensation is described which overcomes the stability limitations of conventional designs. To illustrate the advantages of this new Rs compensation, a voltage clamp amplifier implementing this Rs compensation is used to record rapid Na+ current in rat …  Read more

External loads, such as those due to the orientation of body segments relative to gravity, affect the extent to which control signals result in the achievement of desired goals. The degree to which subjects adjust control signals to compensate for loads provides a measure of what the nervous system knows about forces affecting motion and gives an indication of the complexity of control signals needed for voluntary movement. In the present study, we have explored the hypothesis that subjects take no account of the orientation of the head relative to gravity when making jaw movements during speech. We used a …  Read more

Misra, A. K. (Advisor)  Read more

The objective of this study was to determine the impacts of irrigation tailwater and sewage lagoon discharge on the water quality of Crowfoot Creek, Alberta, Canada. The monitored irrigation tailwater accounted for more than 55% of the water flow in the basin. With the exception of the early part of the 1997 irrigation season the irrigation tailwater only impacted the phosphate and total phosphorus levels in the creek. High values for all parameters were recorded in the early part of the 1997 irrigation season, due to irrigation source water quality or deposition of contaminants into the irrigation canals during the …  Read more

This thesis presents some novel organosilane reactions catalyzed by titanocenes. Heterodehydrocoupling between silanes and phosphines has been accomplished with titanocenes, as catalysts. The reaction has the characteristics of high yield and high selectivity and can be carried out under mild conditions. Monophosphinosilanes and diphosphinosilanes can be selectively obtained from the reactions of secondary phosphines andsilanes. Primary phosphines react with primary silanes to produce 1,3,5-triphospha-2,4,6-trisilacyclohexanes. A two-catalytic-cycled mechanism is proposed with titanocene hydride as the key catalytic species. Hydrosilation/hydrogenation of some aromatic N-heterocycles (namely pyridine, 3-picoline, 4-picoline, 3,5-lutidine, and quinoline) has been achieved with titanocene derivatives as catalysts. A variety of …  Read more

In this research, entropy is proposed as a measure of flexibility. First, entropy is presented by tracing its origins in thermodynamics to its role in information theory. Properties of entropy that make it a suitable measure of flexibility are outlined. After that, the strategic importance of flexibility is established. Then, previous research on definitions of flexibility and different measures of flexibility are discussed, as well as entropic measures developed by other researchers. This leads to proposing a entropy as general measure of process flexibility that can be used on a dynamic basis, i.e., along a time continuum. A mathematical model …  Read more

In this work we investigate the order of vanishing of L( s, chi) and L(s, f) (resp. rchi and rf) at the centre of the critical strip, where chi is a Dirichlet character and f is a newform of weight 2 and level N (f ∫ ∈ S2(N)^new). We show that on average rf or r chi are not large. Precisely: (1) We generalise Murty's results on the analytic rank of J0(N) to arbitrary levels N: under the RH for all L(s, f) then lim sup N→∞ f∫S2(N)new rf dim S2(N) ≤ 3/2. (2) We prove that the triangle function …  Read more

The purpose of this research is to document data on the implementation and integration of computer networking capabilities and activities in regular classrooms, looking specifically at the expectations and concerns of those involved (school administrators and teachers), and at the issue of integrating the networking capabilities with the regular curriculum. The outcomes of the research will be recommendations on practices that produce successful or unsuccessful implementation of network-based classroom activities. Particular attention is given to Internet-based K--12 classroom activities and to the creation of electronic communities of learners.  Read more

We present an approach to vision-based mobile robot localisation. That is, the task of obtaining a precise position estimate for a robot in a previously explored environment, even without an a priori estimate. Our approach combines the strengths of statistical and feature-based methods. This is accomplished by learning a set of visual features called landmarks, each of which is detected as a local extremum of a measure of uniqueness and represented by an appearance-based encoding. Localisation is performed using a method that matches observed landmarks to learned prototypes and generates independent position estimates for each match. The independent estimates are …  Read more

A comparison of the soil fertility and relationships between soil fertility and early regenerating vegetation were examined following clearcut harvesting and wildfire in the black spruce-feathermoss zone of west-central Quebec. During the summer of 1997, sampling was conducted in wildfires burnt 2, 14, and 21 years ago, stands clearcut within +/-3 years of each fire, and undisturbed control stands. At each site an estimation of vegetative cover of each species present and a volumetric sample of the forest floor (FH), and mineral soil (0--10 cm) were collected from at least 8 fire and cut sites and at least 4 control …  Read more

This thesis describes a method for mapping unknown large scale static environments using a hybrid of topological and metric representations. A global map is formed from a set of local maps for sub-regions of the environments. Each local map contains quantitative environment information used to define a local reference frame. These maps are referred to as islands of reliability because they are associated with the sub-regions whose local structure is best matched to the sensors we are using. The connectivity of these islands is represented topologically. The key mapping problem we consider is where to place the islands of reliability …  Read more

A study of the Taiwanese leather tanning industry is the basis of a critical reflection on the anthropological literature surrounding Chinese enterprises and a familistic "Chinese entrepreneurial ethic" which supposedly constrains their growth. Data gathered through historical research and in-depth interviews show that the growth of firms in the industry has not been inhibited by a familistic "entrepreneurial ethic." The structure of the industry has been far more influenced by Taiwan's history of incorporation into the world economy and the policies of modernizing governments, both under Japanese (1895--1945) and GMD rule (1945--present). The establishment of a market-friendly institutional context on …  Read more

This is an attempt at construing descriptions of cognitive activities found in the Neiye, an early Chinese text (fourth century BCE) preserved in the Guanzi compilation. Through the notions of metaphor and cognitive model, and by means of hermeneutic principles developed by George Lakoff and other theorists, I scrutinize the text, trying to unravel the peculiar understanding of the cognitive functioning of the body upon which it is predicated. I focus on four words: xin (heart), shen (spirit), qi (breath), and qing (emotions). As a result of this enquiry, the physicality of cognitive activities in the Neiye stands out clearly. …  Read more

Free space optical interconnects are a viable candidate to meet the intensive bandwidth requirements for interconnecting the future high performance digital computing systems and switching fabrics. Transceivers for the optoelectronic VLSI are key components of such systems. The design constraints of such transceivers (especially receivers) are quite different from the transceivers used for telecommunication links. Besides the requirement for availability in large arrays (and associated constraints such as small area, low complexity and low power dissipation), it is desirable that the transceivers contribute to making the optical design easy for the system. With the above objectives in mind, the various …  Read more

The morphology of the internal male genitalia of selected genera of Melanoplinae (Orthoptera: Acrididae) was studied. A detailed comparison of these structures was carried out, in an attempt to identify new characters that may be useful in analyzing relationships between the members of the subfamily. Twenty-two genera were examined, mostly of North American distribution, using one exemplar species for each of them. Standard dissection and drawing techniques were followed. The epiphallus and the apical parts of the aedeagus were found to be the most important taxonomic characters. The genera Aptenopedes and Buckellacris were highly divergent from the rest of the …  Read more

Damping of steel beams with constrained viscoelastic layers is studied in both the frequency and time domains. Cantilevered steel beam specimens with various configurations of constrained viscoelastic layers are experimentally and analytical subjected to random frequency vibrations, spike inputs, and large finite rotations A frequency dependent shear modulus is used to express the viscoelastic material behavior in the frequency domain, and a Prony series representation of the shear relaxation modulus is used for time domain simulations. The simulated response converges using approximately five Prony terms in the series. Increase in damping from one to two layers of constrained viscoelastic treatment …  Read more

Airport access has become a scarce resource in civil aviation. In part 1, this thesis uses the example of Frankfurt Airport to introduce to the phenomenon of airport congestion and argues that states are under a legal obligation to prevent a situation in which airports can no longer keep pace with the rapid growth of civil air transport. In part 2, possible remedies to airport congestion at FRA are identified and discussed in depth. Part 3 concludes with the argument that the expansion of the runway system at Frankfurt Airport will prove inevitable. However, since the expansion capabilities of airports …  Read more

Critics have long neglected Shakespearean comedy's examination of the household's role in the formulation of community values by reading its references to domestic life allegorically as commentary on the ostensibly more important public realms of marketplace and state. This dissertation argues that representations of the household in the comedies are best understood as theatrical explorations of ethical inquiry as it pertains to everyday lived experience. Using contemporary sermons, political tracts, and conduct books to situate Shakespeare's plays within a larger cultural movement that was coming to understand the household as a foundation of the moral economy of early modern England, …  Read more

Early American Pentecostalism had an ambiguous social witness, which contained both radical and conservative elements. The millennarian-restorationist core of the Pentecostal belief system was prophetic and counter-cultural in that it inspired adherents to denounce the injustices of the status quo and announce the justice of the soon-coming Kingdom of God. Consequently, in the earliest years of the American movement, many Pentecostals, professed and practiced (1) racial equality, (2) gender equality, (3) pacifism, and (4) anti-capitalism. However, this prophetic social witness co-existed, from the very beginning, with a strong conservative ethos, which defended the norms, beliefs, and values of nineteenth-century 'Evangelical …  Read more

Research in several domains has revealed that when individuals are asked to estimate the probability that their judgments are correct, they reveal an overconfidence effect. Judgments produced in decision environments such as psychodiagnosis, which are by their nature ambiguous and complex, appear to be most vulnerable to overconfidence. By implication, this phenomenon threatens the validity of clinical judgment and subjects clients to risks of flawed diagnoses and unsuitable treatments. In an effort to identify variables implicated in judgment confidence and overconfidence, this study examined the relationship between four different inferential biases (dispositionalism, confirmationism, truncated data search, and narrow problem formulation) …  Read more

Williams-Jones, A. E. (Advisor)  Read more

Wainer, I. W. (Advisor)  Read more

Let V be a set of distinct points in some metric space. We draw the following proximity graph on V: For each point x∈V , let sx be the open ball centered at x with radius from x to its nearest neighbour. Then (a, b) is an edge if and only if sa and sb intersect. This graph is known as the sphere of influence graph of the point set V. In this thesis, we demonstrate that in the d-dimensional infinite-order Minkowski metric, no sphere of influence graph of n vertices contains ( 22d-1-2d-1 )n edges or more. We also …  Read more

The first part of this M.A. thesis is composed of four stories whose common thread is memory. Childhood, first love, the betrayals of adult life, the approach of death. Four stages in a life narrated in the first and third person singular, four stories that could belong to the same female narrator. The second part is an essay on the role of memory in literary creation. Various aspects of this issue are addressed, drawing mainly on the conceptions of Milan Kundera: "memory is a form of forgetting"; Paul Auster: memory is the buried source from which writing is born; and …  Read more

One of the fundamental problems in signal processing is to enhance a signal which has been corrupted by an additive noise. In this thesis, the problem of alleviating the effects of camera noise corrupting the dialog of a film soundtrack is examined. Two methods of noise reduction are investigated: adaptive noise cancellation with a synthesized reference signal, and spectral subtraction. It is found that, due to the relatively low correlation between successive camera noise pulses, the adaptive noise cancellation approach is not effective at reducing camera noise. The spectral subtraction method is shown to reduce camera noise, but the process …  Read more

The corpus of literature on the Lady and The Unicorn tapestries has most often focussed on technical/stylistic aspects or attempted to explain the iconography of this work with little definitive consensus in either domain. An informative element in the history of this problematic work is the patron, who played a primordial role in the artistic process of the late Middle Ages. Although the patron of our subject has been identified as Jean LeViste and his personal and family history is relatively well-documented, few attempts have been made to place this work in the context of his reality. An investigation of …  Read more

The investigations contained within this thesis were performed to gain a more comprehensive understanding of pursed-lips breathing (PLB). The first study compared the load compensatory responses of expiratory resistive loading (ERL) and volitional pursed-lips breathing (PLB) in healthy individuals. Although ERL and PLB promoted similar respiratory muscle recruitment responses, ERL did not fully simulate the breathing pattern and end-expiratory lung volume (EELV) changes induced by PLB. PLB promoted a slower and deeper breathing pattern during both rest and exercise. It had no effect on resting inspiratory muscle recruitment patterns, but modestly increased the contribution of the rib cage/accessory muscles and …  Read more

The conclusion of the Cold War has had contradictory effects on on-going conflicts in the former superpower client states of Ethiopia, Somalia and Angola. The argument proposed in this dissertation seeks to explain these variations in conflict. Two conditions, distribution of power and governing agreement, are considered to be fundamental to this explanation. In many cases, disputants have had access to arms in the past and their ability to pursue violent means to their objectives in the future is contingent on their continued access to weapons or other resources. These patterns are reflected in the distribution of power. The second …  Read more

Recently, NF-kappaB activation has been shown to be directly influenced by the cytoskeletal environment. In an attempt to better understand and characterize cytoskeletal regulation of NF-kappaB a series of experiments were designed to determine whether the microtubule (MT) stabilizing agent taxol could affect NF-kappaB activation in the presence of different NF-kappaB inducers. Pretreatment of murine NIH 3T3 and human 293 cells with 5 muM taxol resulted in complete abolition of phorbol, 12 myristate, 13-acetate (PMA) mediated NF-kappaB activation including loss of DNA binding potential and reduced CAT reporter activity. Phosphorylation and turnover of IkappaBalpha was effectively abrogated in taxol pretreated …  Read more

This thesis is a critical examination of postmodernist pedagogy currently used in the education of visual artists. It is particularly concerned with the teaching of the traditional disciplines of painting and drawing within a postmodern context. My hypothesis is that the teaching of visual arts within a postmodern orientation more or less relies on an anti-aesthetic stance that is content-centered, with an insistence on critically and politically aware art. The overall objective of this thesis is twofold: First, to generate some questions and ideas that could be of assistance to post-secondary art instructors. Second, to establish a framework for an …  Read more

Microwave power is seen as a promising alternative to conventional methods for drying freshly harvested grains to safe storage moisture levels. In an attempt to elaborate a continuous flow microwave dryer, the optimum operating characteristics of a prototype microwave antenna were investigated during a low power microwave drying simulation with corn at three different moisture content levels (15%, 23% and 30% w.b.). The antenna consisted of a slotted waveguide with the orientation and width of the slots being the main points of investigation. The optimum angle of the slots with respect to the direction of propagation of the travelling wave …  Read more

The following thesis is an exploration of some of the limits of subcultural theory. Beginning with an overview of British subcultural theory, it uses two examples of contemporary musical practice to provide alternative readings of cultural activity in a global cultural economy. Examining music scenes in Montreal as well as New Zealand music fans in North America, the following is a consideration of the construction of cultural communities across the globe it offers an analysis of the depth and scope of their interactions and how a range of cultural values and meanings are produced, distributed and consumed within those communities. …  Read more

Martin, J. G. (Advisor)  Read more

The rising popularity of country music in the United States since WWII is a cultural phenomenon intimately related to the ascendance of conservative values, leaders, and movements over the same period. By routinely celebrating themes like heterosexual love, the patriarchal nuclear family, hard work, individualism, freedom, patriotism, religion, and small-town life, country music provided the soundtrack for the insurgent conservatism of politicians like George Wallace, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan. In the sixties and seventies, while other forms of popular music (rock, folk, soul) articulated the values of liberals, socialists, hippies, war protestors, feminists, and civil rights activists, country music …  Read more