McGill University Thèses et mémoires par auteur commençant par A

This thesis examines the custom of child marriage in Islamic law and its practice in Muslim society. It also gives an overview of the history of child marriage from ancient to modern times. The focus of this research is the status of child marriage in the modern Muslim world as a continuation of ancient tradition and the role historical interpretations of Islamic law play in its perpetuation. Child marriage was once a globally accepted and practiced phenomenon. Over the centuries its practice has diminished considerably. Today, although child marriage is viewed as an offensive act and discouraged by the majority …  Read more

The aim of this study is to revise existing theories of the Imamite turn towards rationalism. In the first chapter I discuss trends in Imamite thought during the period of the presence of the Imams; explore the impact of the Occultation on the Imamite community; and assess the character of the Imamite traditionism in the century after the Occultation. The bulk of the second chapter comprises a comparison of two texts: I`tiqadat al-imamiyya by Ibn Babuya, which represents Imamite traditionism during the first century of the Occultation, and Tas&dotbelow;h&dotbelow;ih&dotbelow; i`tiqadat al-imamiyya, which is a correction to Ibn Babuya's creed by …  Read more

Cette thèse est une étude de bio-bibliographique du chiisme duodécimain dans le due de l'Irak dans les sixième et septième/douzième et treizième siècles, une période qui a été appelé « l'école de Ḥillah ». Ce fut une étape extraordinaire dans l'évolution du chiisme duodécimain, car il produit des œuvres remarquables et séminales dans presque tous les domaines de l'érudition islamique, et a accueilli plusieurs tendances intellectuelles disparates dans une seule ville. Je utiliser des bases de données électroniques de l'état de l'art pour étudier la transmission des connaissances et des réseaux de parenté, l'apprentissage et le patronage de Ḥillah. Basé …  Read more

Digital media has become the preferred approach for producing, selling, and consuming information goods such as books, software, movies, and songs. Information objects produced in digital form can be easily modified, copied, and can be effortlessly distributed using the Internet. Today, online social networking systems have become one of the most popular ways for sharing and distributing content. Despite their growing popularity, many unsolved problems exist with regard to digital object distribution in online social networks. A key problem related to sharing of information goods is usage control of the shared good. Another problem related to usage control is digital …  Read more

A technique is presented for designing high-order continuous-time (CT) delta-sigma modulators with noise-transfer-function (NTF) enhancement. This enhancement is achieved by injecting the quantization noise into the forward path of the CT delta-sigma modulator, through a passive CT filter. This passive filter introduces a real pole-zero pair into the NTF. Thus, the order of the NTF is increased, without affecting the signal transfer function (STF). The proposed NTF-enhancement technique is applied to a CT delta-sigma modulator with a capacitive-feedforward architecture, where all feedforward paths are summed within the last integrator of the delta-sigma loop filter. This eliminates the need for an …  Read more

The Stuart Restoration (1660) came in the wake of decades of political turmoil that saw events such as the English Civil War (1642–1651), the execution of Charles I, and the rise of the Cromwellian Protectorate (1653–1659). Soon after the Restoration, a series of crises put into question the legitimacy of the restored Stuart regime. This thesis examines the interactions between history and poetic form in Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665–1667) historical poetry. It proposes that three genres of historical poetry, panegyric, satire, and elegy, each offer unique narratives of history that can be positioned with one another in an extensive poetic …  Read more

Our objective was to investigate the mode of interaction between selected food proteins and phenolic compounds. Bovine serum albumin (BSA), bovine beta-lactoglobulin, and soybean glycinin were used with the following phenolic compounds; 3,4,5-trihydroxybenzoic acid (gallic acid), 3,4-dihydroxy cinnamic acid (caffeic acid), p -hydroxycinnamic acid (courmaric acid), and 5,7-dihydroxy 4-methoxy isoflavone (biochanin A). The interaction was investigated using incubation temperatures of 35°, 45° and 55°C at pH 5, 7 and 9. Native and SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy were used to identify protein-phenol interactions. Certain phenolic compounds combined with BSA and prevented …  Read more

Le bassin versant Fayoum en Egypte est un bassin fermé n'ayant aucun drainage naturel. Des eaux de drainage salées sont evacuees et entreposées dans le lac Qaroun, où elles deviennent sujet a la concentration par evaporation. Suite a ces contraintes physiques et environnementales, la gestion d'eau et de sel y est généralement difficile. L'accumulation de sels dans le lac peut atteindre des niveaux dangeureux. Afin d'évaluer différentes alternatives de gestion eau / sel, des modèles mathématiques portant sur l'évaporation lacustre, l'acheminement des eaux, et l'équilibre en eau du bassin versant, furent développés et mis a l'épreuve. Les résultats des modèles …  Read more

The Fayoum basin of Egypt is a closed basin with a lack of natural drainage outlets. The saline drainage water disposed of and impounded into Lake Qaroun is subject to evapoconcentration. As a result of these physical and environmental constraints, water and salt management are generally hampered, and salt accumulation in the lake can reach hazardous levels. In order to assess alternative water and salt managment scenarios, mathematical models of lake evaporation, as well as lake routing and basin water balance were developed and tested.[...]  Read more

There is a need to enhance our understanding of the corrosion mechanisms and their effect on the level and loss of prestressing forces. This research program consisted of accelerated corrosion tests on eight prestressed concrete prisms, measuring 127 x 127 x 2,060 mm, with three different levels of prestress (0, 30, and 60% of the ultimate strength of prestressing strand). The aim of the investigation was to simulate and monitor the corrosion of prestressing strands in prestressed systems. The specimens were submerged in a saline solution and subjected to an impressed constant voltage, aimed at accelerating the corrosion of the …  Read more

Kienzle, Jorg Andreas (Supervisor2)  Read more

An important number of Canadian dairy farms manage their manure as solids and in doing so, must handle large volumes of manure seepages and milk house wastewater (dairy farm effluent-DFE). The present project adapted surface irrigation as a more economical and sustainable method of disposing of this large volume of DFE on cropped land near their storage facility. The experimental surface irrigation system consisted of a gated pipe installed perpendicular to the slope of the field allowing the discharged DFE to run down the slope. The adaptation of the system and the measurement of its environmental impact were conducted on …  Read more

Nicotinamide-adénine-dinucléotide NAD(H) est une coenzyme qui participe à un grand nombre de processus biochimiques dans lesquels elle agit comme une transporteuse d'électrons et d'atomes d'hydrogène. En dépit de sa forte utilisation potentielle dans l'industrie, son utilisation actuelle est très limitée à cause de son coût très élevé (en particulier celui du 1,4-NADH) et la nécessité d'être ajouté en quantités stœchiométriques dans les réacteurs biochimiques. Par conséquent, il est nécessaire de développer des méthodes de régénération in-situ du 1,4-NADH. Les méthodes électrochimiques sont d'un intérêt particulier en raison de leur coût potentiellement faible et l'isolement facile du produit. Cependant, le problème …  Read more

Boltzmann's equation for binary chemical reactions has been solved by the modified moment method using the equivalent of the 13-moment approximations. It was found that the transport coefficients are nonlinear in the thermodynamic forces. This nonlinearity is at least quadratic. The rate coefficient also appears to be at least quadratic in fluxes. The stability of the solutions of two coupled equations of change for the current under the influence of an electric field is examined. These equations are deduced from the structure of dissipative terms calculated in the modified moment method. Two steady state branches in current are found to …  Read more

Tandem coding and decoding has been demonstrated to yield arbitrarily low error rates provided a sufficiently large block length is used. When applied to practical systems that are inherently limited to a finite complexity and therefore to finite block lengths, such a strategy may be largely suboptimal. Indeed, a tandem decoding strategy ignores two types of information: the source memory and the residual redundancy of the source coder. Moreover, conventional source decoders, within a tandem decoding strategy, are designed to perform the inverse operation of the source coder and may severely decrease performance if errors are still present at their …  Read more

Mirza, M. Saeed (Supervisor1)  Read more

Qur'an [= collected revelations in written form], the sacred book of the Muslims, containing the collected revelations of the Prophet Muhammad, is the “core and inspiration” of Muslim religious life. It has been the “sole source of wisdom” to Muslim scholars and has given rise to “a great variety of studies” in Islamic literature. A critical study of the book, therefore, is of paramount importance and basic to Islamic studies, because, as remarked by Goldziher- an undisputed authority on the Qur'an.  Read more

Drilling and cutting operations are required in many industrial applications. For example an advanced flexible manufacturing system using robotics technologies may be required to perform such operations. Variation in the mechanical properties of a material to be processed, and compliance add complexity to the already nonlinear robotic system. Thus, these tasks are difficult to perform. For cutting and drilling processes, it is often desirable to maintain a constant cutting force to maintain productivity and also to maintain the quality of the finished workpiece. To counter the effect of the material variations while maintaining a constant cutting force, a controller mechanism …  Read more

Different factors have been associated with changes in the regulation of the two major stress response systems of the human body, the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal(HPA) axis. These changes have been associated with various (psycho)pathologies across adulthood, and are thus frequently assessed within the context of allostatic load. Early Life Adversity (ELA) has been identified as one such factor. Individuals with histories of ELA show evidence of elevated basal and reactive salivary alpha amylase (sAA) levels (a marker of SNS activity), blunted cortisol levels (a marker of HPA axis activity), and an asymmetrical relationship between the two …  Read more

Baldwin, Mark W (Supervisor1)  Read more

Chlorination of kraft black spruce pulp was studied in a fixed bed reactor. Breakthrough curves of the reactant chlorine and the products TOC, chloride and methanol were measured. The flow residence time distribution was determined by performing a stimulus response tracer experiment preceding chlorination of each pulp pad. The chlorine and methanol break-through curves were well described by a parallel plug flow model and instantaneous chlorine-lignin and first order chlorine-carbohydrates reactions. The representation of the residence time distribution by plug flow through segregated channels rather than by axial dispersed plug flow was confirmed by the effect of operating variables on …  Read more

In the Islamic tradition, as in other religious traditions, female saints are relatively few and not much scholarly attention has been given to them. Fatimah, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, is one such example. It is, however, a point of interest in her case is that in the twentieth century she has captured the attention of writers of Muslim religious literature to such an extent that there now exist at least eleven fairly recent biographies of her in Urdu, English, Arabic and Persian. This is remarkable, given that the earliest sources of Islamic history contain only a minimal amount …  Read more

The use of ordinary perturbation theory is ubiquitous in modern physics. However, it violates probability conservation, one of the fundamental laws of physics. In this thesis a unitarized perturbation theory is briefly described and its predictions for the behaviour of a number of simple systems are compared with those of ordinary perturbation theory. It is found that the new technique performs just as well as the usual perturbative approach in the regime where the latter is valid and provides improved results where perturbation theory fails. In particular, in the cases studied, the new method is found to reproduce the exact …  Read more

Scholars, reporters, consumers, and the general public increasingly appreciate the importance of brain science, perhaps to the point of generating neuroenchantment, which overestimates the present state of neuroscientific knowledge and inflates the capabilities of neuroimaging technology. The current climate surrounding neuroscience provided the ideal framework in which to construct a paradigm (Study 1) that examines the psychological processes of conscious will, authorship processing, and sense of control (Study 2). Philosophical research has extensively explored the underpinnings of these three categories of behavior, but little conclusive evidence reveals their interdependent nature. The first study examines the validity of the paradigm, whereby …  Read more

Horticultural producers are in need of efficient and timely techniques for determining crop water requirements. The question of when and how much to irrigate, termed irrigation scheduling, is particularly important for high-value crops such as strawberries (Fragaria ananassa). During the growing season, irrigation scheduling decisions are influenced by climatic variables such as rainfall, temperature and humidity, which directly impact soil moisture levels. A field study was therefore conducted to evaluate two soil moisture sensors for irrigation scheduling of commercial strawberries on a farm in Simcoe, Southern Ontario. Strawberries were grown on raised beds with plastic mulch under two management practices …  Read more

Two species of desert truffles, Tirmania and Terfezia were collected from the Northern desert region in Saudi Arabia for antimicrobial and antioxidant activity testing. Both species were extracted with four types of extraction solutions, methanol, ethanol, ethyl acetate and water to test for antimicrobial activity and with three extraction solutions, methanol, ethanol and water for antioxidant activity. Using disc diffusion method, the extracts were subjected to twenty three different microorganisms to observe the antimicrobial activity by measuring clear zones. Methanol extract from Tirmania was the most effective, followed by those extracted with ethanol, water and ethyl acetate respectively. In Terfezia, …  Read more

Prolactin (PRL) is a polypeptide hormone synthesized by the anterior pituitary as well as by a number of extrapituitary tissues. The hormone is an essential regulator of important biological processes. The best characterized role for PRL is its participation in the development of the lobuloalveolar system in the mammary gland. The biological actions of PRL are mediated in the cell by the membrane-bound prolactin receptor (PRLR), which is a member of the cytokine family of receptors. Binding of PRL to the PRLR induces receptor dimerization and activation of the constitutively associated Jak2 kinase, which leads to the tyrosine phosphorylation of …  Read more

The present work represents an attempt to study the inhibition of corrosion of mild steel in acid media by seventeen furan derivatives, at 17 to 30 different inhibitor concentrations, from 0 up to 20 mMole per liter. One of the techniques used to correlate the inhibitive action of organic compounds is based on the Linear Free Energy Relationship (LFER). The relationship is used to elucidate the mechanism of inhibition, by studying the effects of physico-chemical characteristics of the inhibitor molecules, such as functional group, polar function electron density, steric effects, and (pi)-orbital character of the donating electrons on the corrosion …  Read more

Le système de base de données est souvent un point critique en terme de performance dans les architectures multi-tiers. Ceci est particulièrement vrai dans le cas d'un groupe de serveurs d'application alors qu'il y a seulement une seule base de données. Une approche commune pour améliorer la performance de base de données est la mise en cache de résultat de requêtes. L'idée est de mettre en cache les résultats d'une requête soumise à la base de données. Si cette requête est demandée à nouveau, le résultat peut être récupéré à partir du cache au lieu de soumettre la requête à …  Read more

Purpose. To explore the experiences of healthcare managers at a reformed CSSS (Centres de sante et de services sociaux) in Montreal, Quebec and to document the provincial reforms. The objective is to understand the managers' experiences during a period of transition. Method. This study consists of two methods: a document review of relevant policies and reforms of Quebec's health and social services. Secondly, qualitative interview methods were used to explore the experiences of seven managers within a CSSS and their attitudes towards the reform. Results. Managers described the following: a new window of opportunity, importance of leadership in the reform …  Read more

In 2003 an American-led international coalition of armies invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime, ending nearly four decades of Baathist autocracy in the country. The United States justified the invasion with a promise of bringing democracy and meaningful, representative elections to beleaguered Iraq. However, a mere four years after the fall of Baghdad to the Americans, and after multiple, freely contested elections, a brutal civil war between the country’s two main sectarian groups, Shi’i and Sunni Arabs, was in full swing, claiming hundreds of lives per month. It seemed that the promise of democracy ended in a nightmare of …  Read more

The response of target cells to the polypeptide hormone, prolactin, is initiated by the inaction of the hormone with a cell surface receptor that belongs to the class of receptors with a single membrane-spanning domain, designated as the cytokine/GH/PRL receptor family. The mechanism of signal transduction for this family of receptors is not yet determined. Cloning and functional analysis of different forms of the prolactin receptor (PRL-R) were carried out to elucidate the mechanism of signal transduction. The protein sequence deduced from cDNAs isolated from a rat ovarian cDNA library revealed the existence of a long form of the PRL-R …  Read more

Lowther, David Alister (Supervisor2)  Read more

A 5kb fragment of the pufferfish Fugu rubripes NR1 promoter spanning nucleotides -2729 to + 2343 was shown to be sufficient to drive expression of the NR1 gene in zebrafish. I performed a cross-species sequence comparison of the 5kb Fugu NR1 promoter with homologous pufferfish (Tetraodon nigroviridis), zebrafish (Danio rerio) and stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) genomes and identified five non-coding evolutionary conserved regions (ECRs) containing cis-elements that serve as putative binding sites for eleven different trans-acting factors. I performed 5' serial deletions of the 5kb NR1 fragment based on the location of the ECRs and subsequently injected the truncated promoter constructs …  Read more

Les technologies CMOS progressant vers les procédés 22 nm et au delà, la abrication des circuits analogiques dans ces technologies se heurte a de nombreuses limitations. Entre autres limitations on peut citer la réduction d'amplitude des signaux, la sensibilité aux effets du bruit thermique et la perte de fonctions précises de commutation. Le traitement de signal en mode temps (TMSP pour Time-Mode Signal Processing) est une technique que l'on croit être bien adapté pour résoudre un grand nombre de problèmes relatifs a ces limitations. TMSP peut être défini comme la détection, le stockage et la manipulation de l'information analogique échantillonnée …  Read more

The goal of this thesis was to move toward defining the molecular mechanism(s) of Vitamin A-induced limb malformations. Vitamin A and its biologically active metabolites, the retinoids, are potent limb teratogens, inducing reductive defects, preceded by decreased chondrogenesis and upregulated apoptosis. To target the origins of these effects, we focused initially on characterizing the pathway of Vitamin A-induced apoptosis. Our first objective was to identify mediators of the degradation and commitment phases of this process. We show dose-dependent activation of the effector caspase, caspase-3, and increased mitochondrial cytochrome-c release after treatment. The next objective was to determine whether these changes …  Read more

This thesis presents the phenomenon of communal habitation--from a traditional scene to a contemporary vista--in terms of a historical progression. It exhibits a hypothesis that attempts to justify the reason behind the deterioration of identity, livability and of neighborliness in contemporary neighborhoods. Although this thesis, in accordance with some contemporary community planning theories, pronounces the relevancy and importance of physical as well as social planning, it articulates, in line with annals of contemporary urban history, their incompetency to constitute the virtues of a good living place. In other words, urbanization, according to this thesis, is neither a mere physical pattern …  Read more

Ice accretion is a purely unsteady phenomenon that is presently approximated by most icing codes using quasi-steady modeling. The accuracy of ice prediction is thus directly related to the arbitrarily prescribed time span during which the impact of ice growth on both flow and droplets is neglected. The objective of this work is to remove this limitation by implementing a cost-effective unsteady approach. This is done by fully coupling, in time, a diphasic flow (interacting air and droplet particles) with the ice accretion model. The two-phase flow is solved using the Navier-Stokes and Eulerian droplet equations with dual-time stepping in …  Read more

Cette thèse utilise des techniques d'identification de systémes pour étudier deux relations entrées-sorties importantes pour la biomécanique de la cheville humaine. En premier lieu, elle étudie la relation entre la surface ElectroMyoGram (EMG) et le moment de torsion et élabore un modéle complet pour les contractions isométriques non-stationnaires. La capacité du modèle de EMG-moment de torsion résultant à prédire le moment de torsion avec précision a de nombreuses applications importantes. Deuxièmement, elle examine Dynamique de rigidité articulaire lors de contractions isométriques variant dans le temps. La dynamique de rigidité articulaire décrit les propriétés neuromécaniques d'une articulation et a deux composants: …  Read more

Les biodétecteurs jouent une rôle important dans diverses applications comprenant le contrôle de environnement, le contrôle alimentaire, surveillance biomédicale et clinique, et la sécurité nationale. Les biodétecteurs sont des dispositifs ou des systèmes qui surveillent de divers paramètres physique, chimiques ou biologiques dans l'environnement, et ils fournissent les signaux représentatifs qui peuvent être mesurés ou enregistrées. Les développements rapides en technologies de semi-conducteur ont poussé de plus nouvelles technologies de capteur intégré menant au développement de biodétecteur microsystèmes qui offrent les avantages de facile à employer, point-de-soin, de basse puissance et à prix réduit. Ces microsystèmes permettent la détection fortement …  Read more

Li, Shanling (Supervisor1)  Read more

In stereoscopic images, the behavior of a curve in space is related to the appearance of the curve in the left and right image planes. Formally, this relationship is governed by the projective geometry induced by the stereo camera configuration and by the differential structure of the curve in the scene. In this thesis, I propose that the correspondence problem---matching corresponding points in the image planes---can be solved by relating the differential structure in the left and right image planes to the geometry of curves in space. Specifically, the compatibility between two pairs of corresponding points and tangents at those …  Read more

The present study aims to understand the subject matter of the Shajarat al-Kawn. In the two earlier studies of this text--both translations, the first in English and the second in French with extensive notes--the translators approach the text with specific preconceptions which influence the translations and analyses. In contrast, our approach is to focus on the persons, events and images within the text and thereby to reveal the salient issues and themes. In the analysis we are led to question the authorship of the text, specific details reveal that it may not be by Ibn 'Arabi In spite of this …  Read more

Saroyan, Alenoush (Supervisor2)  Read more

Schmidt, Alexandra (Supervisor2)  Read more

The kidney filters blood through nephrons, to recycle water and solutes in order to maintain homeostasis in the body. A reduction in nephron formation during fetal development renders the affected individual susceptible to hypertension and end stage renal disease. Nephrogenesis relies on the iterative branching of the ureteric bud epithelium, which triggers the metanephric mesenchyme to condense and form nephrons at its tips. A critical question during kidney development is to identify the genes that are responsible for nephron formation. The culture of mouse embryonic kidneys has been an important in vitro model to examine the effects of candidate genes …  Read more

Cette dissertation examine comment la description de la conscience humaine dans les romans de Fédor Dostoïevski incarne le modèle intersubjectif de la formation de l'identité humaine établi en philosophie et en sciences sociales. La relation sociologique des protagonistes de Dostoïevski aux autres personnes et à l'environnement social dépeint incarne les principes de la reconnaissance intersubjective, laquelle représente les canaux interpersonnels et sociétaux reconnaissant une conscience de soi indépendante et autonome. J'argumente que la forme littéraire polyphonique de Dostoïevski, comme elle a été expliquée par Mikhaïl Bakhtine, contient en soi une vision recognitive de l'émergence et de l'existence d'une conscience du …  Read more