McGill University Thèses et mémoires publiés en 2007

This thesis studies the discursive behaviour of Canadian federal political parties with regards to immigration and integration issues. It seeks to test the empirical acuity offered by brokerage and issue ownership theories to explain the parties' electoral strategies in these domains. It examines the evolution of partisan discourse in relation to these themes over time, with special attention paid to the merger of right parties. It also studies the impact of certain real-world events, such as the referendum on Quebec secession in 1995 and the terrorist attacks of September 2001, on party positions. It thus proposes a quantitative and qualitative …  Read more

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk can be lowered by introduction of plant sterols (PS) in the diet, since PS have been shown to reduce low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C). Given that the efficacy of PS as cholesterol-lowering agents depends on their appropriate solubilization, the cholesterol-lowering efficacy of PS in non-traditional matrices needs to be determined. The primary aim of this thesis was to examine the consumption of PS (a) in an oil rich in medium chain triglycerides (MCT) or (b) low-fat yogurt with or without a meal, on changes in lipid parameters. Additional objectives were: (1) to assess the effects of MCT …  Read more

The generation of synthetic oligonucleotides is dependent on an efficient solid-phase synthesis methodology. This thesis evaluates the 2'-O -levulinyl (Lv) and 2'-O-monomethoxytrityl (MMT) ribonucleosides, as possible synthons for RNA and branched RNA synthesis. A key feature of this RNA and bRNA synthesis procedure is their removal while still attached to the solid support and under conditions that prevent isomerization or cleavage of the nascent strands. For the first time, the stability of 3'-5'-internucleotide phosphate triesters (and diesters) adjacent to a ribose 2'-hydroxyl group was determined on a solid support. These studies are not only relevant to the proper assembly of …  Read more

This thesis describes a framework for bandwidth allocation and scheduling in the Agile All-Photonic Network (AAPN). This framework is also applicable to any single-hop communication network with significant signalling delay (such as satellite-TDMA systems). Slot-by-slot scheduling approaches do not provide adequate performance for wide-area networks, so we focus on frame-based scheduling. We propose three novel fixed-length frame scheduling algorithms (Minimum Cost Search, Fair Matching and Minimum Rejection) and a feedback control system for stabilization. MCS is a greedy algorithm, which allocates time-slots sequentially using a cost function. This function is defined such that the time-slots with higher blocking probability are …  Read more

The motivation behind this study is the lack of specialized analysis regarding internal failure caused by the adiabatic shear hand (ASB) phenomenon in the cold-headed products. Its aim was to present an integrated workability study to improve and assist cold-heading (CH) multistage design procedures to replace the current design rules of thumb, as they are neither effective nor adequate in fulfilling the needs of the new developments in the rapidly expanding CH industry. To achieve these goals, a comprehensive testing methodology and FE modeling, implemented within ABAQUS/Explicit, were established. This methodology includes an instrumented Drop Weight Compression Test (DWCT) tower …  Read more

Recent discoveries have demonstrated that actions of the adipocyte-derived hormone leptin are not limited to its role as a regulator of energy balance and that it affects other biological systems including the immune system. This was based on observations showing that several inflammatory stimuli, such as the bacterial product lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a potent activator of the immune mediators cytokines, also triggers leptin release in the periphery. Importantly, some of the newly discovered actions of leptin such as its interaction with cytokines and its pyrogenic property suggested that this hormone could be acting as a neuroimmune signal of systemic infection and …  Read more

Vincent, Charles (Supervisor2)  Read more

Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is the most common autosomal recessive disease affecting the Caucasian population. This devastating disease is caused by any one of 1500 mutations identified in the Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane Regulator Conductance (cftr) gene. Chronic inflammation is a hallmark of CF and it affects all systems including respiratory, gastrointestinal, reproductive and skeletal. Although the exact molecular link between the CFTR dysfunction and various phenotypes remains to be delineated, many phenotypes seem to be linked to inadequate nutritional absorption of essential fatty acids and vitamins, which leads to an imbalance between the essential fatty acids docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and arachidonic …  Read more

The general objectives of this thesis project were to describe and to understand the dynamics creating occurrence patterns of saproxylic wood-feeding Coleoptera in snags (i.e., standing dead trees) of black spruce and aspen along the decay gradient. The first part of this thesis focuses on pre-landing host-selection behaviours in coniferophagous species, i.e. the use of host-produced volatiles to locate potential hosts. Results presented suggest that most saproxylic wood-feeding beetles studied herein use volatiles to orient towards potential habitat patches but that olfactive information does not allow the identification of suitable hosts at close range prior to landing. The second part …  Read more

Metal-Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) complexes are found in a variety of industrial process. The stability of the formed complexes makes these compounds often inert to conventional wastewater treatment systems. In this work, the photocatalytic oxidation of NiEDTA was investigated as a means of breaking up the chelated nickel. The studied variables included the light intensity rate, the catalyst (TiO2), oxygen and NiEDTA concentrations. Photocatalytic experiments showed that increasing the catalyst concentration (0.5-3.0 g/L) decreases the light penetration inside the reactor resulting in a decrease in the reaction rate. The effect of oxygen and NiEDTA concentration was shown to exhibit Langmuir-Hinshelwood type …  Read more

Background and rationale. Cerebral palsy (CP) is one of the most common disabling disorders of childhood and constitutes a substantial portion of pediatric rehabilitation. This condition demands comprehensive rehabilitation using age-appropriate tasks and activities and encompassing aspects of body function and structure, activity and participation, and personal and environmental factors. Yet little is known regarding actual occupational therapy (OT) and physical therapy (PT) practices. Objective. The primary objective of this doctoral thesis was to describe OT and PT practices for young children with CP in the Province of Quebec, Canada. Methods. This was a cross-sectional, multi-centered survey. All eligible and …  Read more

There are significant indications that a transformation has occurred in the organization of research and post-graduate training in the biomedical sciences in Canada over the last few decades. A typical academic lab in the 1960s was small: a professor, maybe a technician, and perhaps a graduate student or two. However, many labs now have twenty or more members, most of which are graduate students and post-doctoral researchers. Changes in social organization of academic labs during this period and the reasons they occurred have not been systematically studied. Nor has the relationship between the social organization of research and research funding, …  Read more

The recently reformed Quebec Education Program has been implemented since the fall of 2000 and has drawn our attention to many questions regarding the philosophical and practical elements of education in Quebec. This thesis critically examines the implementation of this reform. It investigates the philosophical underpinnings of this new program, its approaches and implementation objectives. It provides an overview of the design of this new program and outlines some of the dominant themes emerging from its approach. It critiques the implementation of this reform by presenting some of the factors that make it difficult to effectively sustain change in school. …  Read more

Broca's Area (ie, Brodmann Areas (BA) 44 and 45) has been associated with syntactic comprehension since the 1970s. In particular, aphasia and neuroimaging studies have shown that Broca's area distinguishes between sentences with subject extraction (ie, The horse that ▪ is kicking the bear is brown) compared to object extraction (ie, The horse that the bear is kicking ▪ is brown). The extracted argument is referred to as a filler and the position from which it is extracted is referred to as a gap and the relationship between them as a filler-gap dependency. Based on these results, functional accounts of …  Read more

Increasing consumer demand for fresh fishery products with minimized loss of their nutritional properties is forcing food industry to look for alternative technologies to maintain the fresh attributes, stability and safety of foods. Demand for fresh tuna fish is no exception, being a valuable source of nutrients with immense health benefits. However, this product is highly perishable and has been commonly implicated in scombroid (histamine) poisoning caused by microbial decarboxylation of histidine contained in high levels in the tissues of scombroid fishes. Current techniques are inadequate for the prevention of histamine formation in fresh fishery products and high pressure processing …  Read more

Although many of the genes and pathways involved in Drosophila embryogenesis have been thoroughly investigated, a complete understanding of the mechanisms behind these processes is still lacking. In order to gain a better perspective, the main objective of current research is to identify additional components of the signaling pathways that are crucial for normal Drosophila development. One such developmental process is germ band retraction, which occurs in mid-embryogenesis and consists of the movement of the tail end of the germ band, or embryo proper, to its final posterior position. One of our primary objectives is to identify the signaling pathways …  Read more

The Muslim-American community faced a crucial moment after the events of September 11th to define themselves both at home in the United States and abroad. The years which followed brought about an increasingly mobilized, better organized group of Muslim-Americans who made a decision to become more active members of American society through participating in the political system, something very difficult if not impossible in their native countries. Those who answered the call did so in different ways. One way as shown in this study was through taking a bold step and running for the United States Congress and for the …  Read more

Patients with acquired iron overload require chelation therapy using either Desferal or Exjade. Iron in excess may promote free radical formation in the Fenton reaction resulting in severe injuries of heart, liver and endocrine organs. Che1ators that bind ferric iron (Fe+3) in a 1:1 complex (Desferal) sequester it more efficiently than those che1ators that form 2:1 (Exjade) complexes. We initiated synthesis of new chelators derived from the tridentate chelator pyridoxal isonicotinoyl hydrazone (PIH) and its analogs. The aim of the synthesis was to generate chelators that bind iron in a 1:1 complex, which was confirmed for 8LK02, 10LK02, 11LK02 and …  Read more

This study reported outcomes for students with reading disabilities (RDs) in early total French immersion (n = 17) relative to students with RDs in the regular English program (n = 17) on measures of academic achievement, English reading, behaviour, and perceived social acceptance. French immersion is a widespread, alternative education program where majority language speakers are taught the regular curriculum through a second language. Early program evaluations revealed that students suffered no cognitive, linguistic, or academic delay as a result of learning through French. However, these findings were largely limited to normally-achieving, non-disabled students. The few studies of at-risk students …  Read more

Several recent studies have investigated advanced preparation of oculomotor programs after training to make saccades to a specific location in space. However, in natural visual scenes, we seldom know the precise stimulus location, rather, we often know the general area where target of interest may appear. Here, we investigated how human saccadic reaction time (SRT) and saccade final landing position may be affected by training to attend to an area where a target will appear. Additionally, we looked at how training to an area of one size may influence eye movements to targets presented in a larger area. Subjects were …  Read more

Interactive Hashing has featured as an essential ingredient in protocols realizing a large variety of cryptographic tasks. We present a study of this important cryptographic tool in the information theoretic context. We start by presenting a security definition which is independent of any particular setting or application. We then show that a standard implementation of Interactive Hashing satisfies all the conditions of our definition. Our proof of security improves upon previous ones in several ways. Despite its generality, it is considerably simpler. Moreover, it establishes a tighter upper bound on the cheating probability of a dishonest sender. Specifically, we prove …  Read more

Cette étude examinera les risques d'être auto-blessant en comparant un groupe d'étudiant universitaire qui exerce cette pratique contre un groupe contrôle sous les paramètres de l'attachement, du contrôle de ses émotions et le traumatisme d'enfance. L'échantillon fut composé de 1400 étudiants universitaires (364 mâles, 1036 femelles; M = 19.76), qui ont rempli un questionnaire préliminaire dans le cadre d'un projet plus général qui vise les stratégies d'ajustement. Ceux qui furent identifiés en tant qu'auto-blessant et qui étaient intéressés à poursuivre cette étude (N = 55; 6 mâles, 49 femelles) ont reçu un suivi, avec un groupe contrôle, examinant les facteurs …  Read more

The study examined the benefits of implementing multicultural music education into an elementary school's music curriculum. Conducted in a region with a culturally diverse student population, the study surveyed in-service music teachers and elementary students' parents on their perceptions of multicultural music education. Meanwhile, a set of experimental classes focused on Chinese music was taught to a diverse class of Grade 5 students to study their reactions and learning outcomes when studying non-Western music. Results indicate that (a) multicultural music needs to be better implemented in Ontario's music curriculum, (b) students receive non-Western music with enthusiasm, and (c) if taught …  Read more

Self-esteem is defined as: i Previous research has linked self-esteem to many factors (life-satisfaction, health, stress); however its origins, manifestations, and thus neural correlates are largely unexplored. This thesis includes two independent neuroimaging studies investigating central nervous system variables possibly linked to self-esteem. The first study investigated hippocampal volume variations in relation to parental bonding and self-esteem. A trend was observed between the left hippocampus and retrospective mother care (smaller volumes = lesser care). The second study used fMRI to explore the differential neural correlates of high/low self-esteem when performing a social acceptance or rejection task. Here, differences in neural …  Read more

This thesis presents an account of water policies in Alberta's South Saskatchewan River Basin in reference to the historical factors influencing past decisions, the claims supporting present reforms and implications for future policy directions. I begin by investigating the historical factors surrounding early water policies and consider their influence on water development in the 20th century. Next I critically examine the policy reforms from 1996-2006 and consider both how early policy decisions influence contemporary plans and the claims offered in support of current management decisions. I then look to the future of water policy in southern Alberta and the planned …  Read more

A current initiative to eliminate lymphatic filariasis (LF), headed by the World Health Organization, aims to interrupt transmission of the disease through yearly community-wide treatment with the broad spectrum anthelmintic albendazole (ABZ), in combination with ivermectin (IVM) or diethylcarbamazine (DEC). Over the years, the use of both ABZ and IVM in the treatment of veterinary parasites has led to widespread anthelmintic resistance against these drugs. In this study, we genotyped microfilaria of Wuchereria bancrofti, a causative agent of LF, in order to detect the presence of mutations which confer ABZ resistance in other parasites, and we identified such mutations in …  Read more

Although the concepts of chromatic dispersion and chirp are far from new in the world of wireless microwave communication, their application has always been constrained by the limited bandwidths, insertion losses and integration issues of dispersive devices. Often, a microwave designer seeking to incorporate chirping would fall back on surface-acoustic-wave structures, which are very lossy and do not easily penetrate into the GHz frequency-band, or else photonics-based solutions (e.g. chirped fiber Bragg gratings), which provide high bandwidths but incur integration and cost issues. This is in part due to the perceived lack of a convenient dispersive structure in electronics that …  Read more

The Cdc25 phosphatases are highly conserved from yeast through humans and play pivotal roles in regulating the activities of cyclin-dependent kinases (Cdks). Cdc25A is one of three human Cdc25 family members, and has previously been shown to be overexpressed in numerous cancers and to transform rodent fibroblasts. Cdc25A therefore represents a rational target for chemotherapeutic development. Further, a thorough understanding of its biology and regulation in normal and transformed cells may facilitate the development of strategies to specifically interfere with the proliferation of cancerous cells. In this work I describe experiments which demonstrate that bisperoxoVanadium compounds, and specifically bpV(Me2Phen), inhibit …  Read more

The assessment of silicon nitride microcantilevers as solution phase sensors and the understanding of the forces at play within these are the principal focus of this thesis. Microcantilevers with different self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on their top and bottom surfaces were prepared using metal sputtering and thermal evaporation. These dual-coated microcantilevers were shown to be more stable to thermal fluctuations than single-sided microcantilevers. Control of the bottom-side surface chemistry of the microcantilevers is shown to be possible with alkylthiolate SAMs. A microcantilever-based liquid cell and a new microcantilever structure were designed, implemented, and characterized. This microcantilever system was assessed as a …  Read more

Nanopowders and bulk nanostructred materials have gained large interest in recent years. Bulk nanostructured materials exhibit properties that are far superior in comparison to conventional micron grained alloys. The fabrication of large scale nano-grained materials has been achieved in a two step process: (1) the production of nanostructured aluminium alloy powders and (2) the consolidation of the powder using a electromagnetic shockwave process. The first part consists of cryo-milling; the milling of powder in an attritor filled with liquid nitrogen. This causes successive welding and fracturing events as the powder is milled, thereby creating the nano-structure. The low temperature prevents …  Read more

The thesis consists of three essays. In the first essay, the role of party politics in provision of public goods within a federal economy is analyzed. The public goods, which have inter-jurisdictional spillover effect, are locally produced with federal transfers and local revenues. The federal government can not commit to the level of transfers. The direction and magnitude of federal fund flows are influenced by local revenues as well as the re-election probability of the parties in power at the federal and provincial levels. Under such a scenario, politically motivated grants alter the incentive for raising local revenues. If votes …  Read more

Turecki, Gustavo  Read more

The role of a best friend for students with and without a disability in inclusive physical education has been conspicuously neglected in sport psychology and adapted physical activity research. Although the last decade has seen an increase in empirical research pertaining to the perceived experiences of students with a physical disability in inclusive physical education (Blinde & McCallister, 1998; Goodwin & Watkinson, 2000; Hutzler, Fliess, Chacham, & Van den Auweele, 2002), the effect of a best friend for both students with and without a disability has generally been overlooked. Thus the current study compared friendship in inclusive physical education from …  Read more

In the last decade Support Vector Machines (SVMs) have emerged as an important learning technique for solving classification and regression problems in various fields, most notably in computational biology, finance and text categorization. This is due in part to built-in mechanisms to ensure good generalization which leads to accurate prediction, the use of kernel functions to model non-linear distributions, the ability to train relatively quickly on large data sets using novel mathematical optimization techniques and most significantly the possibility of theoretical analysis using computational learning theory. In this thesis, we discuss the theoretical basis and computational approaches to Support Vector …  Read more

Niyaz Fateḥpuri (1884-1966 A.D./1302-1384 A.H.) was an accomplished literary critic, poet and religious scholar. He published a very successful magazine Nigar, primarily a literary journal, which soon became a platform for debating many of the most controversial religious, ideological, political and sociological issues of the time. It began publication in 1922 and continues to this day. This thesis, the first detailed study in English, aims to put forward and analyze Fateḥpuri's religious and social views in the context of the socio-political situation of the time. Through Nigar, Fateḥpuri campaigned against the traditionalists, who he felt were responsible for the lack …  Read more

Research in the field of dual diagnosis (the coexistence of symptoms indicative of a substance abuse problem and a mental health problem) has expanded immensely over the past 15 years. Unfortunately, much of the existing literature available on this topic is limited to adult populations. The researcher explored the rate of dual diagnosis in the adolescent population by conducting a secondary data analysis of the Canadian Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (CIS-2003; Trocme et al., 2005). The rate of having one or more substance abuse problems in the CIS-2003 was 8.8% and the rate of having one or …  Read more

Apoptosis is executed by caspase-mediated cleavage of various proteins. Elucidating the consequence of substrate cleavage provides us with insight into cell death and other biological processes. In this study, we applied the diagonal gel approach, a proteomic strategy, to identify substrates of the inflammatory caspase, caspase-1 and the cell death executioner caspase, caspase-3. Our results showed significant overlap between the substrates cleaved by both caspase-1 and -3. Such substrates are implicated in common cellular functions, including maintenance of the cytoskeleton, folding of proteins, translation, glycolysis, bioenergetics, signaling and trafficking. An important finding is that many glycolysis enzymes were targeted specifically …  Read more

The release of vasopressin (VP) from magnocellular neurosecretory cells (MNCs) of the supraoptic (SON) and paraventricular (PVN) nuclei is essential to hydromineral homeostasis. This release is controlled by several physiological stimuli, including changes in the osmotic pressure of the extracellular fluid, and in core body temperature. The osmotic control of VP release is mediated by specific and highly sensitive 'osmoreceptors'. Indeed, VP-releasing neurons in the SON are directly osmosensitive, and this osmosensitivity is mediated by stretch-inhibited cation channels. The molecular identity of these channels, however, remains unknown. The thermal control of VP release, on the other hand, is largely unexplained. …  Read more

Optical multiaccess networks, and more specifically passive optical networks (PONS) are considered to be one of the most promising technologies for deploying fiber-to-the-building/home/curb (FTTx). PONs are expected to solve the problem of limited bandwidth, the so called "first and last mile problem", that remains the bottleneck between the backbone network and high-speed local area networks (LANs). PONs provide a low-cost solution and a guaranteed quality of service (QoS) to enable new multimedia services. In a PON, multiple users share the fiber infrastructure in a point-to-multipoint (P2MP) network topology. This is in contrast to current access technologies, including DSL, VDSL, and …  Read more

With English becoming a world language, an increasing number of non-native-English-speaking (NNES) students are pursuing studies in English-medium universities. Of these NNES students, Chinese students constitute a large proportion. Most of these Chinese students are NNES and need English language support to help them meet academic demands in English-speaking settings. However, there are a very limited number of studies conducted on linguistic needs and deficiencies among Chinese students at English-speaking universities in Canada. The main objective of this thesis is to discover Chinese students' perceptions of academic English listening competence and to investigate their academic listening needs for academic success …  Read more

Hydrogen is considered to be the fuel of the future as it is clean and abundant. Together with the rapidly developing fuel cell technology, it can sustain an environmentally sound and efficient energy supply system. Developing the technologies of palladium-based membrane for hydrogen separation and palladium nanostructured materials for hydrogen sensing and hydrogenation catalysts makes the "hydrogen economy" possible. This is because these technologies will allow for commercially viable production of comparatively cheap and high-quality hydrogen, and safety of its application. Based on the market requirements and interest in the development of a hydrogen economy, the purposes of this thesis …  Read more

Heterojunctions of n-ZnO/p-Si solar cells were fabricated by RF sputtering ZnO:Al onto boron-doped (100) silicon (Si) substrates. Zinc Oxide (ZnO) films were also deposited onto soda lime glass for electrical measurements. Sheet resistance measurements were performed with a four-point-probe on the glass samples. Values for samples evacuated for 14 hours prior to deposition increased from 7.9 to 10.17 and 11.5 O/□ for 40 W, 120 and 160 W in RF power respectively. In contrast, those evacuated for 2 hours started with a higher value of 22.5 O/□, and decreased down to 7.6 and 5.8 O/□. Vacuum annealing was performed for …  Read more

When subjects are recruited through a cross-sectional survey they have already experienced the initiation of the event of interest, say the onset of a disease. This method of recruitment results in the fact that subjects with longer duration of the disease have a higher chance of being selected. It follows that censoring in such a case is not non-informative. The application of standard techniques for right-censored data thus introduces a bias to the analysis; this is referred to as length-bias. This paper examines the case where the subjects are assumed to enter the study at a uniform rate, allowing for …  Read more

Platelets have been shown to be a main contributor to thrombus formation in stenotic arteries leading to acute coronary syndromes. It is thought that increased activation and adhesion of platelets under variable shear and complex flow conditions contribute to thrombosis. The objective of this work was to evaluate the relationship between asymmetric stenosis hemodynamics and platelet adhesion using in-vitro models developed to properly simulate physiological conditions. In this study, platelet rich plasma was circulated through stenotic and straight coronary artery models. Adhesion results were obtained by post-perfusion fluorescent labelling and imaging of adhered platelets. Analysis of platelet area coverage has …  Read more

The interface of Cosmology and High Energy physics is a forefront area of research which is constantly undergoing development. This thesis makes various contributions to this endeavor. String-inspired cosmology is the subject of the first part of the thesis, where we propose both a new inflationary and a new alternative cosmological model. The second part of the thesis concentrates on the problems of integrating cosmology with particle physics beyond the Standard Model. Inspired by new opportunities due to stringy degrees of freedom, we propose a non-inflationary resolution of the entropy and horizon problems. In this string-inspired scenario, 'our' dimensions expand …  Read more

Qualitative and quantitative research methods were employed to evaluate the acceptability and feasibility of HIV-1 infected, urban South African mothers being able to feed their infants heat-treated expressed breast milk (HTEBM). Nutritional status assessment of HIV-infected breastfeeding mothers (n=84) indicated that maternal status was not compromised; mean body mass index 26.8 (4.0) kg/m2, triceps skinfold 14.8 (5.50) mm and hemoglobin 11.6 (1.49) g/dL. However, severely immunocompromised mothers (CD4 + < 200 cells/mm3) were more likely to be anemic. Breastmilk viral loads were also higher in mothers with lower CD4+ cell counts. Community based inquiry on the acceptability of HTEBM was …  Read more

The purpose of this study was to determine whether certain non-musical components of a performance affect evaluator's performance quality ratings. Specifically, if there is an age at which point the presence of a music stand (i.e. an implied use of the score), the performers attractiveness, attire, stage behaviour and perceived level of accomplishment impacts performance ratings. Fourteen cellists were videotaped performing by memory, and then a second time with their music on a music stand, synchronizing their motions with the audio feedback from their first performance. The cellists and their performances were evaluated by 1024 individuals with no formal training …  Read more

We show that the long-standing assumption of "no-communication" between the provers of the two-prover model is not sufficiently precise to guarantee the security of a bit commitment scheme against malicious adversaries. Indeed, we show how a simple correlated random variable, which does not allow to communicate, can be used to cheat a simplified version (sBGKW) of the bit commitment scheme of Ben-Or, Goldwasser, Kilian, and Wigderson [BGKW88]. Instead we propose a stronger notion of separation between the two provers which takes into account correlated computations. To emphasize the risk that entanglement still represents for the security of a commitment scheme …  Read more

L'identification des facteurs predictifs de la reunification familiale des adolescents places represente un prealable a une pratique plus efficace. Cette etude exploratoire consiste en une analyse des dossiers de 102 adolescents places dans une ressource de readaptation du CJM-IU. L'echantillon est compose de deux groupes: un groupe d'adolescents reunifies (n=51) et un groupe d'adolescents non reunifies (n=51). Elle poursuit trois objectifs: definir le portrait des adolescents; explorer et identifier les facteurs associes a la reunification familiale; elaborer un modele de facteurs qui predit la reunification familiale d'un adolescent. En concordance avec la litterature et le cadre ecosystemique de l'etude, cinq …  Read more

There is currently a shortage of science teachers in North America and continually decreasing rates of enrollment in science programs. Science continues to be the academic domain that sees the highest attrition rates, particularly for women. The purpose of the present study was to examine male and female students' experiences in mathematics and science courses during a crucial time in their academic development in an attempt to explain the high attrition rates in science between the last year of high school and the first year of CEGEP (junior college). In line with self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985), as well …  Read more