McGill University Thèses et mémoires par auteur commençant par B

Antoniou, John (Supervisor2)  Read more

Size fluctuations in amphibian populations at single breeding sites are related to variations in recruitment from the larval stage. However, overall patterns of abundance should be related to the pattern of recruitment success at the many sites where breeding occurs over a landscape. Recruitment patterns for six amphibian species, Ambystoma laterale, A. maculatum, Bufo americanus, Hyla versicolor, Pseudacris crucifer and Rana sylvatica, were investigated at multiple sites within the 10 km 2 Mont St. Hilaire nature reserve during 2001 and 2002. Amphibians bred at eighteen sites but recruitment occurred at only 8 and 11 sites in each year, respectively. Hydroperiod …  Read more

Zilic, Zeljko (Internal/Supervisor)  Read more

Au cours de la dernière décennie, une attention croissante a été accordée aux bénéfices présumés de l'exposition aux espaces verts (c'est-à-dire la disponibilité ou le contact avec des espaces extérieurs naturels ou semi-naturels complètement ou partiellement recouverts de végétation) pour les problèmes de santé mentale et le suicide tout au long de la vie. Cette thèse est basée sur deux articles publiés dans des revues spécialisées de premier plan (désignés par la suite comme Chapitre 3 et Chapitre 4), qui visaient à bonifier l'état actuel des connaissances sur l'exposition aux espaces verts et la santé mentale ainsi que le suicide …  Read more

Background: Given Canada’s recent cannabis legalization, its effects on depression and suicidal ideation/attempt in adolescence is of public health importance. Adolescence is a crucial developmental period marked with high consumption of cannabis, depression, and suicidal risk. Yet, most of the research available to date has focused on these associations in adulthood and few longitudinal studies have explored the direction of association between cannabis use, depression, and suicidal ideation/attempt in adolescence. Objective: The purpose of the present study was to explore both the concurrent and developmental sequence of association between cannabis use, depression, and suicidal ideation/attempt by examining the secondary substance …  Read more

Currently, the system that developing countries use to map coffee crops is expensive, tedious and inaccurate; therefore coffee maps cannot be updated frequently and production cannot be accurately estimated. If such countries could map coffee crops in a cost-effective way, they would have an advantage in terms of setting the prices and getting a higher return for their product. Here I hypothesize that coffee systems can be properly characterized and mapped using the spectral and spatial information derived from satellite images and topographic data. I also believe that during the spatial analysis of the data, the additional information provided by …  Read more

This thesis attempts to show how the little magazine Carmen (1927-28), and its militant supplement, Lola, together provide evidence of the innovative work of a newly emergent generation of poets in the 1920s. An historical overview of literary events in the decade is given in the first chapter in order to situate the more specific comparisons made in the second chapter with other Spanish periodical reviews which were both precursors and contemporary publications. Chapter three and four are dedicated to an in-depth analysis of the contents of Carmen and Lola. By focusing exclusively upon these somewhat neglected reviews, the intention …  Read more

At the present time, the work of Brodmann and the Vogts, and of Economo has placed human cerebral cortical architectonics on a fairly sound basis. In spite of the prediction of the Vogts that two hundred areas will be identified, the one hundred and nine now recognized seem to be sufficient for practical purposes. Beyond that, however, we cannot go in human research. The investigations of the neurophysiologists on the results of extirpations and stimulations in the lower mammals have not been met by comparable strides in the study of human material. This is exactly as it would be expected. …  Read more

In this thesis, we will try to approach Cioran's work using the fragmentary theory. The different types of fragments (anecdotes, maxims, aphorisms, bio-moments, short essays...) that constitute Cioran's work and that mark its variations, appear to result from sloughing (multiple passages and displacement), so that the one who "sloughes" is never the same but does not fundamentally change. In this perspective, the writing of the fragment may not be a deficiency, a collapsing or a fetichism of the part, but rather a matter of instinct, of experimentation that (re)totalizes as it is been written...like a victory over time and death, …  Read more

La supraconductivité à haute température dans les cuprates a été au coeur de plusieurs débats depuis sa découverte il y a plus de 30 ans. Aucun consensus n’a été établi jusqu’à maintenant à propos de la physique sous-jacente, mais les descriptions plausibles sont généralement classées sous deux catégories possédant chacune diverses propositions. Les données acquises au cours des dernières années sur les oscillations quantiques pour l’état normal des cuprates sous un fort champ magnétique ont récemment été utilisées pour obtenir la phase électronique de Berry de différentes substances, se manifestant à travers le déphasage des oscillations quantiques. Cette analyse a …  Read more

Titman, Rodger D. (Advisor)  Read more

An analytical approach is obviously practical only when we want to study nonlinear systems of low complexity. An alternative for more complex processes that has raised a lot of interest in recent years relies on Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs). In this work we will explore an alternative avenue to the problems of control and identification, where Cellular Automata (CAs) will be considered in place of ANNs. CAs not only share ANNs' most valuable characteristics but they also have interesting characteristics of their own, for a structurally simpler architecture. CAs applications so far have been mainly restrained to simulating natural phenomena …  Read more

Nous présentons une méthode numérique de type spectrale pour des problèmes d’advectionavec conditions initiales. En se basant sur le concept de la méthode d’Application Car-actéristique (AC), nous introduisons une discrétisation spectrale de Fourier pour l’espace.Nous proposons par la suite un critère de réinitialisation considérant uniquement le spec-tre de l’application caractéristique, ce qui résulte en une plus grande efficacité de calcul.Nous présentons également une méthode d’interpolation hybride fondée sur le ”Fourierpadding” et l’interpolation de splines, ce qui nous permet d’obtenir une haute résolutiondu développement de structures fines dans les solutions des problèmes d’advection  Read more

The design of a visual system for autonomous mobile robots presents conflicting requirements. Using a foveated sensor, based on models of the primate retina, affords a compromise between requirements of a wide visual field, high resolution, and small fast-to-process output images. From a review of the biology literature and existing models of data reduction performed by the primate retina, it becomes apparent that overlapping receptive field models are more biologically realistic than nonoverlapping ones. They also provide more flexibility in terms of the type of computation masks that can be used. Examples are uniform, Gaussian, difference-of-Gaussians, and edge detection masks. …  Read more

Brossard-Racine, Marie (Supervisor1)  Read more

L'objectif général de cette étude était de définir l'effet des malformations cérébellaires sur la croissance cérébrale et sur les capacités fonctionnelles des enfants âgés de un à six ans.Cette étude décrit une forte prévalence de déficits développementaux chez les enfants ayant une malformation cérébellaire et démontre une importante association entre les volumes cérébellaires régionaux et des déficits développementaux et fonctionnels spécifiques. En outre, nos données suggèrent que les malformations cérébellaires affectent significativement le développement de régions cérébrales spécifiques, incluant les régions sous-genual, mi-temporal, et occipitale inférieure lorsque comparées aux témoins jumelés selon l'âge. De plus, une réduction du volume cérébellaire …  Read more

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the relationship between quality of work life and motivation of French-speaking Correctional Services Officers (CSOs) working in the Montreal area. Three hundred and forty-seven male and female CSOs (ranging from 19 to 58 years of age) working in four different provincial correctional establishments were assessed. Each participant completed an introductory questionnaire, Pelsma, Richard, Harrington, and Burry's (1989) French-translated 8-item Quality of Work Life Survey (QWL-F) and Blais, Briere, Lachance, Riddle, and Vallerand's (1993) French-translated 8-item Work Motivation Inventory (BWMI-F). Assessment of quality of work life and motivation for CSOs were analyzed with …  Read more

Currently, McGill is collaborating with University of Western Australia, Moratuwa Univeristy (Colombo, Sri Lanka), and Waste for Life to create affordable eco-friendly building products for Sri Lanka. By using recycled LDPE waste plastics as well as banana fibers made from waste banana trees, composites can be made for basic housing applications. The composite material is to be made using methods easily reproducible in Sri Lanka at a low cost. Tensile properties, flame retardancy and moisture absorption were investigated to create a strong, safe, and durable product. First the plastic matrix (from Sri Lankan and Canadian sources) and banana fiber reinforcement …  Read more

We consider conceptual climate models of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) system. The models consist of scalar delay differential equations where the state variable portrays the deviation of the thermocline depth from its mean value in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean which acts as an approximation to the sea surface temperature there. Delays are introduced due to the finite velocities of the oceanic waves whereas the seasonal variation is depicted by a nonautonomous periodic forcing. A scalar differential equation with delays defines an infinite dimensional dynamical system and can have interesting dynamics. We consider a system in the limiting case …  Read more

New England and French Canada are adjacent communities on the Atlantic seaboard of the North American continent. Both are quite old, dating respectively from 1608 and 1620. Both were founded at about the same time through for obviously different reasons. Both represent the earliest movements of population westward from Europe to North America, precursors of the vast migrations which were to follow in the years afterward. Both represent organized settlements of people, each in its own way, fairly homogeneous in outlook; hardy stock; pioneers. There are some outstanding differences between these two settlements. The newcomers to French Canada were French …  Read more

There is a great interest in the treatment of spent autocatalyst because, due to large amounts of PGM used by catalytic converters, the autocatalyst scrap is the largest and constantly growing source of PGM available for recycling. A hydrometallurgical method of PGM extraction from honeycomb type catalyst containing platinum (800-1200 ppm) and rhodium (50-60 ppm) using HCl-AlCl$ sb3$-HNO$ sb3$ or HCl-HNO$ sb3$ mixtures was studied. Experimental results of the leaches performed in a bench scale tubular reaction with recycled continuous flow of the leaching solution as well as 1000 cc stirred reactor are presented. The results suggest that Cl$ sp-$ …  Read more

Fusarium head blight (FHB) of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) is a devastating disease, caused by Fusarium graminearum (teleomorph: Gibberella zea), resulting in reduced yield and quality of grain by producing mycotoxins. The resistance in barley to FHB is quantitative and controlled by several genes, thus making it difficult to breed for resistance. In wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) and barley more than 100 quantitative trait loci (QTL) for resistance have been reported against FHB, but the mechanisms of resistance controlled by these QTL are unknown. Metabolic profiling technology was applied to better understand the mechanisms of resistance and to phenotype resistance …  Read more

This thesis explores the function of literary genres in the production and reception of the literary text, examines the ideological significance of the generic system operative in postwar Italy, and analyzes the five novels written by Italo Calvino from 1950 to 1963. The emphasis is on the relationship between the author's ethico-political stance and his negotiations of the generic system. The first part of the study (Chapters I--III) develops the theoretical tools and historical parameters which are applied to the textual analyses carried out in the second part (Chapters IV--VII). In Chapter I the notion of literariness is examined against …  Read more

Ever since the discovery of the electron in 1897, the problem of its structure has been the subject of considerable investigation. No conspicuous success has yet been achieved, though, with the increasing study of high-energy phenomena and the development of quantam electrodynamics, the problem has become of great importance. [...]  Read more

There is a general consensus that economic inequality increased in Canada between 1996 and 2006. However, few studies examine the multi-dimensional causes of this trend at the sub-national scale. Chakravorty (1996, 2006) and others (Morrill, 2000; Martin, 2001, Drennan, 2005) argue that an understanding of what influences national-scale inequality requires in-depth consideration of urban and regional socioeconomic processes. Using microdata drawn from the most recent 20-percent samples of the Canadian Census of Population (1996, 2001, and 2006), this thesis examines the spatial and socioeconomic dimensions of earnings inequality among individuals in Canada's labour force. The thesis makes two main contributions …  Read more

Two high strength alloys of copper, .12% Zr and .3% Cr, were investigated for residual resistance and transverse magnetoresistance at fields up to 10 Vs/m^2. The measurements were made at liquid nitrogen and liquid helium temperatures. The material was in the form of wire of diameter .0025 inch. For comparison purposes commercial grade copper magnet wire, #40 gauge, was also tested. The copper showed a relative increase in resistivity deltap/p of 2.5 at 10 Vs/m^2. Corresponding figures for the zirconium and chromium alloys were up to 1.0 and up to .065 respectively. This wide variation in magnetoresistance is shown to …  Read more

Instrumentation: 1*(1.=picc.)-1-2*(2.-Bb+bass cl.)-1 / 1-1-1-0 / 2 perc., 1 keyb. (piano+celesta) / 1-1-1-1-1 The work is approximately 14 minutes long, and consists of six movements which make up a series of musical tableaux, placing greater emphasis on their contrasting characters instead of on gradual and continuous development of material. These movements take their inspiration from activities or situations encountered in everyday life, thus revisiting the old tradition of "character pieces" as encountered, for example, in the music of many composers such as Schumann, Grieg or Mussorgsky. It is followed by an analysis which examines the harmonic syntax and the language …  Read more

Joe Sacco and Chester Brown are two artists who emerged out of a vibrant tradition of autobiographical comics in the eighties and nineties. This paper argues that Sacco's Palestine and Brown's Louis Riel announce a new way of writing the self rejuvenating the autobiographical genre in comic books which has been lamented for having become overused and excessively solipsistic. Sacco's flamboyant expressionism opposes Brown's aesthetic of silence. Brown's silence is configured so that it is not an absence of speech, but a suppression of it in which attention is continually being drawn to the unspoken. A close analysis of Sacco …  Read more

This study examines the relationship between economic and monetary integration culminating in Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and welfare state trajectories focusing on the cases of Belgium, Italy, and Greece in the 1990s. The conventional wisdom on this relationship expected that EMU would lead to across-the-board downsizing of the European welfare states through imposing macroeconomic austerity in general and budgetary restraint in particular. The study questions the validity of this prediction which is represented by the austerity hypothesis. Based on an analysis of social expenditure data in the run-up to EMU the study reveals that spending levels remained largely stable …  Read more

The AspectOPTIMA project aims to build an aspect-oriented framework that provides run-time support for transactions. The previously established decomposition of the ACID (atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability) properties into ten well-defined reusable aspects had one limitation: it didn't take into account the concerns of transaction life-time support, resulting in the creation of a cross-cutting concern among the aspects. This thesis removes the cross-cutting concern by integrating the transactional life cycle management issues such as determining the transaction boundaries, maintaining a well-defined state and managing the involvement of the participants. The integration process results in the creation of new aspects that serve …  Read more

Located in southern Quebec, at the northeastern extremity of Lake Champlain, the Missisquoi Bay is subject to eutrophication arising from excess nutrients, predominantly phosphorus (P), contributed by agricultural runoff. Land use patterns, agronomic practices, soil properties, and geomorphology have an impact on soil P. Studies have used hydrologic models [e.g., the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT)] to characterize P loadings from the region's agricultural watersheds. The lack of a proper understanding of the impact of spatial variability and heterogeneity of soil properties on the prediction of runoff, sediment and nutrient movement has proven a major challenge. In order to …  Read more

Linear dendritic block copolymers are a class of dendritic nanomaterials composed of a dendron and a polymer. The block structure allows the preparation of amphiphilic macromolecules that can self-assemble into various nanostructures. Their asymmetrical molecular structure, due to the presence of a short and condensed dendron and a long linear polymeric chain, gives them unusual self-assembly properties. Furthermore, the dendron surface can be precisely functionalized giving to their self-assembled structure interesting properties that could be exploited for a variety of applications. In this thesis, a series of pH-responsive amphiphilic linear dendritic block copolymers has been synthesized, and their aqueous self-assembly …  Read more

This study investigated the predatory behaviour of kestrels on insect prey in a modified open-field arena, and assessed the effects of T. pseudospiralis infections on the sequence of predatory behaviours, hunting efficiency and choice of hunting method of the birds. Choice of hunting method in kestrels was related to their appraise energy expenditure and relative success. Hunting from a perch was more common, presumably less strenuous and more successful than hunting afoot. Hunting prey confined to the vertical walls of the arena was considered more strenuous and was less successful than hunting freely-roaming ground prey. Infection with T. pseudospiralis did …  Read more

In most studies of the Mannich condensation, compounds containing active hydrogens on carbon were used. Only a few reactions using compounds possessing active hydrogens on nitrogen have been reported in the literature. The objective of this work was to carry out a systematic study of the Mannich condensation of secondary amines and formaldehyde with compounds containing one or two imino groups in which the hydrogens were activated for this type of reaction by the presence of carbonyl groups. [...]  Read more

The purpose of this study was to investigate the development of the Greek day school Socrates in Montreal and its overall impact on its students vis-a-vis the variables of ethnic identity, socio-personal adjustment and academic achievement. Existing documentation, content analysis of the Greek community press, and participant observation were all used in unfolding the school's historical development. The dependent variables of Greekness, adjustment and achievement were examined via the interviewing of 549 Greek origin individuals, 118 of whom were adults, 255 Socrates students, 158 non-Socrates students, and the rest 18 were Socrates graduates. Although the results obtained did not provide …  Read more

Cette thèse soutient que la pratique de la « pleine conscience » (mindfulness) et de la méditation Vipassana peut contribuer à une éducation anti-oppressive. Cette pratique aide les enseignants à prendre conscience de leur vie intérieure, à interagir avec discernement et compassion, et à interrompre des habitudes maladroites. Se référant à sa propre pratique du « mindfulness » l'auteur examine la pertinence de cette approche pour l'enseignement au secondaire. Il pose aussi un regard critique sur la littérature scientifique émergeante.  Read more

Mosses play a key role in the carbon (C) budget of black spruce forests, which are widely distributed across Canada and throughout the circumboreal region. Mosses are currently not included in the forest C stock accounting of large-scale national models used by Canada to meet international greenhouse gas reporting requirements. It is therefore essential to increase our scientific understanding of the dynamics of moss-C accumulation in black spruce forest ecosystems in a national-scale context. This thesis was inspired by Canada's national-scale carbon accounting model, the Carbon Budget Model of the Canadian Forest Sector (CBM-CFS3). The model was designed to provide …  Read more

An indirectly heated solar drier fitted with a flat plate collector and a directly heated solar drier were compared with open air sun drying of cocoa beans under field conditions in St. Lucia. Sun drying was conducted on two surfaces, perforated steel and non perforated wood. The methods were examined for the ability to adequately dry fermented beans and effect on quality. Loading rates of 13.5, 26.9 and 40.4 kg/m$ sp2$ were examined. Temperature increases of 15$ sp circ$C and 20$ sp circ$C above ambient were achieved in the indirect and direct drier, respectively. The solar driers were more efficient …  Read more

This thesis is qualitative study of the perceptions of aged Italian women in receiving care. It examines intra-ethnic group differences between Italian-Immigrant and Italian-Canadian women, and their definition of the experience of receiving care. Also, it addresses gender, class, and ethnicity issues which have implications for social work practice, policy, and research. Sixty-one interviews were conducted with thirty participants, over the age of sixty-five. Participants were interviewed in their treatment environments with follow-up interviews in their home settings. Semi-structured in-depth interviews documenting these women's life histories, as well as participant observation, were the qualitative methods used to collect data. Interview …  Read more

Dans cette these, nous presentons une analyse complete de la photometrie infrarouge et de la spectroscopie optique de l'echantillon le plus grand (716) et le plus eloigne (z ~ 1,8) des Galaxies de Cluster Plus Brillantes (BCGs), ceux selectionnes a partir de l'adaptation Spitzer De l'enquete Red-Sequence Cluster Survey (SpARCS). Le but de cette campagne etait de determiner le mecanisme physique dominant guidant la croissance de la masse stellaire dans ces galaxies les plus massives de l'Univers. En raison de leur habitat unique au centre de gravite des grappes de galaxies, la formation et l'evolution des BCG sont inextricablement liees …  Read more

1. Distribution of the two photosystems (PS I and PS II) in the thylakoid membranes of the alga Euglena gracilis. The distribution of photosystem I and II (PS I and PS II) in the alga Euglena gracilis Z strain was studied by electron microscopic immunocytochemistry. In this alga, the thylakoids are not organized in gram structures, as they are in higher plants. Two different antibodies were used to identify PS I. One is directed against particles of PS I from maize and the other against the 60 and 62 kDa PS I reaction centre proteins of the cyanobacterium Synechococcus elongatus. …  Read more