McGill University Theses and dissertations published in 2014

Naveen Eluru (Internal/Cosupervisor2)  Read more

Zhiming Qi (Internal/Cosupervisor2)  Read more

This study examines the lived reality of women caregivers of older adults. Using a microethnographic approach and videographic data collection in the homes of five caregiver - care receiver dyads, the research provides a new account of family caregiving. Grounded in a conceptual framework of embodiment, as articulated by social theorists Pierre Bourdieu and Erving Goffman, the data illustrates that seemingly banal gestures and expressions expose the intimate, often hidden, reality of caregiving. The findings reveal a gendered caregiver habitus characterized by emotional labour, performance, body management, health divestment, and vacillating boundaries between the caregiver and care receiver. The project …  Read more

Bilingualism is a recurring feature in Franco-Ontarian writer Patrice Desbiens' work. However, Desbiens' critics generally consider his bilingualism from an angle that is more social than formal. In this thesis, we study the literary forms of Desbiens' bilingual writing. We situate this bilingualism in the broader context of Bakhtinian heteroglossia, and reflect on the relationship between bilingualism and the plurality of voices (heterophony) and of points of view (heterology) within the literary text. In the first chapter, we distinguish four forms of bilingualism, three of which are employed by Desbiens. The next three chapters are thus devoted to the study …  Read more

In [Buell(1977)] and [Soleng(1994)], Buell and Soleng found explicit homomorphismsbetween the Mordell-Weil group of elliptic curves and the ideals class group of quadraticelds, which turn out to be essentially equivalent. After recalling the basic conceptsin the theories of quadratic forms, quadratic elds and elliptic curves, we prove thatSoleng's homomorphism can be obtained via a height pairing introduced by Mazur andTate [Mazur and Tate(1983)], under certain conditions. Then the technique developed inthe proof of this result is used to nd new homomorphisms. Examples of explicit computationsof the Mazur-Tate pairing are also given.  Read more

Matthews, Damon (Supervisor2)  Read more

Bergeron, John J. M. (Internal/Supervisor)  Read more

This dissertation examines Carolee Schneemann's kinetic theatre performances (1963-1970) within the specific context of the art of the 1960s and the counterculture. In 1962, Schneemann coined the term “kinetic theatre” to describe her particular form of happenings and performance art. Although this definition was recognized in the initial art criticism of the 1960s, this is a genre of art that has been lost within current forms of feminist art history, performance studies and postwar art. Indeed, there has been no critical study of kinetic theatre within art history. My research examines the emergence of Schneemann's kinetic theatre, establishes its relationship …  Read more

This dissertation presents arguments in favour of an explicit Logical Form representation of components responsible for direct referentiality and domain restriction in definites, with a focus on Austro-Bavarian German, Standard Swedish, and Standard Canadian English.It provides a semantico-pragmatic analysis of the ban on wh-subextraction out of DPs with the "strong" articles in Austro-Bavarian and demonstratives in English which assumes their direct referentiality. The ungrammaticality of question formation is proposed to result from the pathological uninformativeness of its possible answers. The ban on wh-subextraction thus emerges as a new testing tool for direct referentiality.I further propose an analysis of the cases …  Read more

Melgar-Quiñonez, Hugo (Internal/Supervisor)  Read more

Pruessner, Jens (Supervisor1)  Read more

Étant donné leur valeur nutritive et leurs multiples propriétés fonctionnelles, les protéines du lactosérum jouent un rôle crucial dans la fabrication de denrées alimentaires. L'α-lactalbumine (α-LA) est la plus abondante protéine parmi celles du lactosérum bovin et la seconde plus abondante protéine parmi celles du lactosérum humain. L'α-LA , une protéine acide (pI 4-5) à faible poids moléculaire (14.2 kDa) produite dans les glandes mammaires, joue un rôle important dans la biosynthèse du lactose. Composés des complexes d' α-LA et d'acide oléique, le BAMLET/HAMLET (bovine/human alpha-lactalbumin made lethal to tumor cells) a démontré des effets cytotoxiques sur les cellules tumorales, …  Read more

Food and its constituents are subjected to various processing techniques including, thermal, mechanical, chemical, extraction, extrusion, high pressure, high electric field and irradiation. These processing methods can be categorized as thermal or non-thermal. The thermal techniques (roasting, frying, drying, etc.) process food by subjecting them to high temperature. Non-thermal methods (high-pressure, electric field treatment, irradiation etc.) have been developed to combat these disadvantages of thermal processes. Proteins, which are one of the most important macromolecular constituent of food are very sensitive to external stresses, arising from the aforementioned processing methods. Studies have shown that under the influence of external stress …  Read more

Entrainment is a non–selective form of flotation recovery which degrades the selectivity of the flotation process. Previous studies have found that a balanced recovery profile (i.e., each cell in a bank having equal recovery) yields the highest separation efficiency between two floatable minerals. Analysis of the empirical JKMRC water overflow rate model suggests that a balanced mass pull profile (i.e., equal mass distribution to each cell in bank) would minimise entrainment over a bank of flotation cells, whenever the value of b is greater than one. Simulations conducted in JKSimFloat comparing varying recovery and mass pull profiles support a balanced …  Read more

Core-selecting auction mechanisms are auctions that select player utilities which satisfy certain stability properties. They are currently of theoretical and practical interest in mechanism design, having already been used to conduct multi-billion dollar auctions. We generalize the concept of a Core-selecting auction mechanism to a large class of complete information games and demonstrate that several well-known games can be described by these Core-selecting mechanisms. Our main result is a bound on the Price of Anarchy of Core-selecting mechanisms. Provided some simple conditions are met, there are Core-selecting mechanisms with Price of Anarchy at most 1 + 1/D^2, where D in …  Read more

La détection des fosses clandestines (tombes) est un domain d'étude récent (un nouvel outil) dans la télédétection hyperspectrale. Bien que des études antérieures ont démontrés qu'il est possible d'utiliser des techniques de télédétection hyperspectrale pour la localisation des fosses communes, il y a un manque d'études démontrant la faisabilité d'utiliser cette même technologie pour la détection des tombes individuelles. Cette thèse se porte sur la première année d'une étude a long terme, elle constate que des changements sont détectables au niveau de la réponse spectrale de la végétation et de du sol. Ces changements sont causés par les produits chimiques …  Read more

McKee, Marc D. (Internal/Supervisor)  Read more

Preterm birth is one of the most important causes of neonatal mortality and morbidity. Recent evidence suggests that proinflammatory cytokines play a role in a variety of reproductive processes including preterm birth as well as normal parturition. Using immortalized human myometrial cells, we showed that interleukin-1 beta (IL-1 beta) rapidly induces avian muscoloaponeurotic fibrosarcoma homologue F (MAFF) transcription factor expression in a concentration and time dependent manner. We performed MAFF siRNA mediated knockdown using RNA interference in the presence and absence of IL-1 beta. Using RNA sequencing (RNAseq) analysis, we identified a series of genes, whose expression is controlled by …  Read more

La présente étude examine les effets de Twitter sur la dynamique d’apprentissage dans une classe de premier cycle universitaire. Les données ont été recueillies par l’entremise d’entrevues avec des participants, des observations sur le terrain, l’analyse de gazouillis ainsi qu’un sondage final auprès d’étudiants. L’étude a été guidée par une question de recherche principale ainsi que des sous-questions. La question de recherche principale se lisait comme suit : «comment Twitter influence-t-il la dynamique d’apprentissage dans un cours de premier cycle? »À l’aide de la théorie des médias de McLuhan (1964) et de la théorie des codes de Bernstein (1996) en …  Read more

La cascade RAS/Mitogen Activated Protein Kinase (MAPK) est une voie de signalisation conservée et hautement importante durant le développement de C. elegans, où elle y joue plusieurs fonctions, tel que durant le développement de la lignée germinale, incluant la croissance des ovocytes. L’ubiquitination est une modification post-traductionnelle qui est primordiale au contrôle de divers événements signalitiques intracellulaires, où elle est responsable de la dégradation des protéines, ainsi que de la modification de la localisation ou de la fonction de ces dernières. Des analyses par criblage utilisant les technique d’interférence à l’ARN (RNAi), ainsi que de mutagenèse ont pu démontrer que …  Read more

Chromik, Richard (Supervisor2)  Read more

Notre compréhension de la relation intime entre la progression cancéreuse et l'inflammation connait une croissance importante. Un aspect de cette relation est la piètre survie des patients atteints du cancer qui subissent une complication infectieuse suite a une chirurgie visant l'élimination du cancer en question. Bien que peu soit connu sur le role des neutrophiles dans la cascade métastasique, ces cellules sont les princpaux effecteurs de la réponse inflammatoire aiguë. Notre hypothèse sous-jacente était que la combinaison entre un recrutement important de neutrophiles aux sinusoides hépatiques en la présence de cellules tumorales circulantes offre un sol fertile à l'implantation de …  Read more

La pluie verglaçante (PV) est une forme de précipitation qui pose un danger non seulement pour le secteur publique mais également pour le secteur aérien. Ce phénomène est particulièrement connu dans la vallée du fleuve St. Laurent (VFSL). L'orientation de la vallée ainsi que l'orographie explique ce nombre accru d'évènement. Le but vise est donc de fournir aux météorologues les outils nécessaires pour améliorer les prévisions de durée et de location de PV pour les villes de Montréal (CYUL), Québec (CYQB), et Massena (KMSS). Afin d'y parvenir, deux étapes sont requises : la première, introduire un nouveau modèle statistique de …  Read more

De par leur rôle dans le repliement des protéines, les protéines chaperonnes (HSPs) représentent des cibles thérapeutiques intéressantes pour le traitement des maladies neurodégéneratives, comme la sclérose latérale amyotrophique (ALS), caractérisés par la formation des agrégats protéiques. Les molécules inhibitrices de HSP90 sont des inducteurs de l'expression des gènes codant pour les HSPs notamment dans les neurones moteurs affectés dans l'ALS. Nous avons déterminé l'efficacité in vitro d'un nouvel inhibiteur de HSP90, le NXD30001, sur l'induction de l'expression de HSP40 et de HSP70 et son effet sur des mesures phénotypiques (agrégation protéique, fragmentation mitochondrial et mort neuronale) du à l'expression …  Read more

The formation of a blood supply is a critical requirement for successful tissue engineering applications. Copper ions have demonstrated pro-angiogenic potential and represent a promising alternative to organic growth factors due to their sustained activity and low cost. However, copper cytotoxicity at elevated doses underlines the need of a controlled and sustained release mechanism. Phosphate- and silicate-based glasses (PGs and SGs, respectively) can be doped with copper and offer a broad range of adjustable dissolution properties. This doctoral dissertation examined the relationships (i) between glass composition and dissolution properties as well as (ii) between ion release and the resulting effects …  Read more

Severe sepsis is a systemic inflammatory response to an infection that often leads to respiratory failure which requires patients to be mechanically ventilated. Mechanical ventilation (MV) also leads to atrophy and weakness what is termed ventilatory induced diaphragm dysfunction (VIDD). Both these conditions are associated with upregulation of proteolytic pathways such as the ubiquitin proteasome pathway and the autophagy-lysosomal pathway. However, the influence of combining MV on sepsis-induced diaphragm dysfunction remains unknown. In this study, we evaluate the influence of prolonged MV on sepsis-induced diaphragm dysfunction. We studied four groups of rats. Group 1 animals were spontaneously breathing and served …  Read more

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a debilitating disease affecting nearly 5 million of Canadians, with aneconomic impact of over $30 billion each year in direct and indirect costs. Pain is the prominent symptom of OA, yet its underlying mechanisms are not completely understood, leading to a lack of effective pain therapies. OA pain is manifested by a hypersensitivity to mechanical stimuli such as joint movement or palpation. Although the mechanical sensitization of pain-sensing nerve fibers, known as nociceptors, innervating the joint has been documented, the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying this sensitization are currently unknown. The peripheral terminals of nociceptors express mechanosensitive …  Read more

La présente thèse expose les résultats d' une étude expérimentale des limites de détonation dans des tubes rugueux. La célérité de détonation est mesurée par des photodiodes et des sondes d'ionisation espacées à des intervalles de 10 cm le long du tube. De courts segments de feuilles de suie insérés dans le noyau du tube rugueux sont utilisés pour visualiser la structure de l'onde de détonation. Les résultats indiquent que dans des tubes rugueux , la célérité de détonation est généralement beaucoup moins élevée que les célérités correspondantes pour tubes lisses. La célérité diminue lentement au début, puis plus rapidement …  Read more

L'analyse de la construction de la catégorie de l'hétérosexisme sera le sujet primordial de cette thèse. Il ne fait pas grand doute que la construction du problème de l'hétérosexisme est le produit de diverses théories éthiques, sociales et religieuses, y compris, diverses formes de la théorie féministe et homosexuelle. L'objectif commun de ces approches est la déconstruction de paradigmes conceptuels qui essaient de définir la nature essentielle de l'identité sexuelle. Au cours de cette thèse nous examinerons des exemples de critiques, en constante évolution, de la partialité hétérosexiste dans la théorie contemporaine et l'application de ces critiques à la tradition …  Read more

The ability to filter irrelevant stimuli in order to attend to meaningful sources of information is crucial to all aspects of adaptive functioning, as real-life environments involve innumerable and consistently moving and changing stimuli. This study was designed to examine the ability of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and their typically developing peers (TD) to visually filter potentially distracting task-irrelevant stimuli in order to better process and respond to task-relevant information. A modified version of the flanker paradigm (Eriksen & Eriksen, 1974) was used, in which participants responded to a 'target' stimulus presented at the centre of a computer …  Read more

Le glycosome est une structure subcellulaire unique qui se trouve dans le parasite Leishmania donovani. Cette organelle compartimente la machinerie enzymatique requise pour de multiples voies métaboliques, y compris la glycolyse. Le bon ciblage des enzymes du glycosome est essentiel pour la viabilité du parasite. Les protéines ciblées pour le glycosome ont une séquence signal topogénique, un PTS1 C-terminale ou un PTS2 N-terminale, qui est reconnue par les récepteurs cytosoliques, le LdPEX5 ou le LPEX7, respectivement. Ces complexes de récepteurs chargés s'interagissent avec la protéine LdPEX14, située du côté cytosolique de la membrane glycosomale, un événement requis pour le transport …  Read more

Mucci, Alfonso (Internal/Supervisor)  Read more

During a forensic interview, high-stakes deception is very prevalent notwithstanding the heavy consequences that may result. Studies have shown that most untrained people cannot perform well in discerning liars and truth-tellers. Thus it has become common to adopt various technical aids to compensate for this poor judgment. Examples are polygraphs, functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and linguistic analysis. However, the deception indicators used in these cases are not reliable. In the popular TV program Lie to Me, micro-expressions have been used for detecting deceit during the investigation of some criminal cases. A micro-expression is considered to be a rapid and …  Read more

Les progrès de la chimie et de la biotechnologie ont contribué à stimuler l'agriculture moderne et la productivité accrue de nourriture. La conséquence en est l'impact sur l'environnement rendant les terres arables plus sujettes à la salinité et à la sécheresse. La sécurité alimentaire mondiale dépend fortement de l'amélioration des cultures et du développement de stratégies visant à accroître la tolérance aux stress abiotiques. L'utilisation de rhizobactéries et de leurs composés excrétés est dans ce contexte une option sécuritaire et viable.Le lipo-chito-oligosaccharide (LCO) du Bradyrhizobium japonicum 532C et le Thuricin 17 (Th17) du Bacillus thuringiensis NEB17 sont des composés de …  Read more

The purpose of this research was to understand parental involvement in children’s one-on-one instrumental music learning and to examine how parents’ personal backgrounds influence their involvement. Parents with a child between 6 and 11 years old who takes classical one-on-one music lessons on a regular basis were recruited throughout Canada, and a sample of 71 participants completed an online questionnaire. The research sought to answer the following primary questions:a. How are parents involved in their children’s instrumental learning in terms of (a) attending lessons, (b) supporting their child’s home practice, (c) communicating with the teacher, (d) doing musical activities that …  Read more

Radecka, Katarzyna (Supervisor2)  Read more

Sounds consist of pressure variations in the air; as such, they are only present in the moment and disappear immediately after they are produced, leaving only a trace in the nervous system. Thus, the processing of any auditory information requires the integration of events over time. This thesis consists of three neuroimaging studies that together converge on a broader understanding of the diverse auditory cortical networks that support the processing of temporal features of auditory stimuli. The three studies in this thesis were chosen to tap into three distinct types of auditory processes. Study 1 used a longitudinal design to …  Read more

University students in STEM disciplines are expected to successfully deal with academic stress while maintaining the well-being and motivation required to achieve superior performance. These students are at risk of overconfidence which can lead to disengagement when students are inevitably faced with disappointment. The present study evaluated the effects of a longitudinal motivational intervention encouraging downgrading expectations (Heckhausen, Wrosch, & Schulz, 2010) for pre-medicine university students (N = 52) on self-reported expectancies (academic expectations and optimism), academic emotions (enjoyment and anxiety), psychological well-being (illness symptoms and depression), and academic achievement (sessional GPA). Contrary to study hypotheses, results showed students in …  Read more

Tropical forests are a globally important carbon store threatened by rapid rates of deforestation and forest degradation. When estimating these vital carbon stocks, the high spatio-temporal variability of aboveground biomass (AGB) in tropical forests is a large source of uncertainty. Pre-felling inventories (i.e. forest management data) may help to reduce this uncertainty due to their spatial distribution and sampling intensity. Throughout the past decade, over 1000 Costa Rican natural forest management plans, spanning 30 years in age and covering the country's Atlantic coast, northern lowlands, and southern Pacific coast, have been collected and digitized. In this study, I first aim …  Read more

This thesis employed an autoethnographic methodology to examine the pedagogy and administration of an improvisation-based music workshop. The program, a collaborative partnership between three organizations, was held in a Montréal community centre that caters to marginalized adolescents. The author examined data gathered over her two years facilitating the program and commented on pedagogical and sociological themes that emerged through the analysis. These themes focus on the development of an improvisation-based curriculum in a non-formal teaching environment, sociological factors that influenced the workshop and its participants, and evidence of the benefits of music improvisation for adolescents. The data also served to …  Read more

Low, Nancy (Internal/Cosupervisor2)  Read more

This thesis addresses calculation of Nash equilibria in a bimatrix game as well as convergence in algorithmic learning for two categories of discrete and discontinuous games, namely bimatrix games and double auction markets.First, a method which does not use estimation is proposed for calculating a Nash equilibrium of the bimatrix game when the fictitious play converges to a Shapley polygon. By using a lexicographical order, the existence of a Nash equilibrium for every Shapley polygon in a bimatrix game is proven. The calculation of the Nash equilibrium follows from a simple matrix reduction technique which imposes no assumption about the …  Read more

Alvarez-Cuadrado, Francisco (Supervisor2)  Read more

Lu, Steven (Supervisor1)  Read more

Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer diagnosed in Canadian women, with metastatic spread contributing to the majority of cancer-related deaths. The liver is the third most frequent site of breast cancer metastasis, but not much is known about the hepatic microenvironment's role in regulating the growth and survival of metastatic cells in the liver. In order to elucidate these interactions, we used laser capture microdissection and microarray analysis to compare gene expression patterns of liver metastases and primary tumors. We employed liver-aggressive 4T1 breast cancer cells derived from an in vivo selection process to generate mammary tumors …  Read more

Le rôle du récepteur orphelin relié aux estrogènes (ERRα) dans le cancer du sein a été étudié avec un intérêt grandissant au cours des dernières années. Cependant, les études de génomique fonctionnelles appliquées à ERRα ont jusqu’à maintenant été restreintes aux lignées cellulaires, alors que de nombreuses évidences ont démontré que certains récepteurs nucléaires jouent des rôles distincts dans les tumeurs comparativement aux lignées cellulaires. L’objectif de cette étude était donc de déterminer les voies de signalisation transcriptionnelles régulées par ERRα dans les tumeurs du sein. À cette fin, nous avons utilisé la technique de la précipitation de chromatine suivie …  Read more

Données fonctionnelles sont des mesures qui sont censées être généré à partir d'une fonction lisse sous-jacent varie sur un continuum tels que le temps ou l'espace. Modèles linéaires fonctionnels ( FLM ) et fonctionnelle prolongée analyse de redondance (FERA ) sont des méthodes d'analyse de régression qui étudient les relations entre prédicteur fonctionnelle et variables dépendantes. En réalité, les données fonctionnelles pourraient provenir de population hétérogène et en ignorant cette hétérogénéité au niveau de la grappe se traduirait par des inférences statistiques biaisées. Pour capturer l'hétérogénéité de niveau des grappes dans les données fonctionnelles, diverses approches de clustering ont été …  Read more

Frothers are commonly used in mineral flotation processes to reduce bubble size, slow bubble rise, and stabilize froth. Frother chemistry (structure) plays an important role in determining these functions. In this thesis, over 50 surfactants (mainly from two frother families, alcohols and polyglycols) were investigated to determine the structure effect on bubble rise velocity. The structural variables were: alkyl chain length in alcohols and polyglycols, the number of propylene oxide (PO) and ethylene oxide (EO) groups in polyglycols and location of methyl branch and hydroxyl group in alcohols. The bubble rise velocity profile was determined over 350 cm in a …  Read more

Fellows, Lesley K (Supervisor2)  Read more

La transmission coopérative agit comme étant une solution diffusée, permettant de fournir une communication sans fil très robuste. Elle regroupe les ressources disponibles, comme la puissance et la bande passante, à travers le réseau. Le réseau à relais est le modèle théorique le plus simple pour un réseau sans fil coopératif et la compréhension des limites de communication à travers de ce réseau permet potentiellement de saisir la conception d'un réseau sans fil plus efficace. Par contre, la capacité du réseau à relais est encore inconnue. Dans cette thèse, nous adressons la conception du schéma du decode-forward partiel dans un …  Read more