McGill University Theses and dissertations by author name (F)

Asbestos is a fibrous silicate which is ubiquitous in modern living because of its many useful qua1ities. However, its inhalation may be associated with undesirable, even lethal, biologica1 effects. A study of the effect of exposure to asbestos on miners and mill workers was carried out in the chrysotile industry of Quebec; subjects were studied by questionnaire, radiological and pulmonary function studies at rest and on exercise. The results of 1034 workers were related with the dust and effort involved in the jobs of the men. The analysis of the results was based on a definition of pulmonary function profiles …  Read more

One of the most crucial issues of our time for social scientists is to understand how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming democratic societies. Here I study Canadian police policy making in the era of AI. As the police enacts the state monopoly of legitimate violence over a given territory, the ways in which it engages with AI to enhance this poweror notand how society responds to it, are crucial dynamics illustrative of the challenges AI pose for policymakers. I introduce the concept of Police AI Technological Innovations (PAITI): the procurement or use of a new piece of capital equipment that …  Read more

The mitochondnal genome was screened for genetic variation associated with production traits in White Leghorns. Analysis was done on an unselected randomly mated population of White Leghorn chickens. An AsnI restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) was detected in the control region of the mitochondrial genome, a region responsible for transcription and replication. The RFLP segregated at a frequency of 0.76 for the AsnI (+) allele (presence of an AsnI restriction site). The AsnI RFLP was in linkage disequilibrium with a previously detected MspI RFLP in the NADH sub-unit IV of the mitochondrial genome for the same population of White Leghorns. …  Read more

Cette thèse examine les concepts de l’histoire et de la culture en six textes publiés entre 1986 et 2006, en relation avec la perte du futur Russe, selon Mikhail Epstein, suite à l’écroulement de l’Union Soviétique. En trois chapitres, les écrits sont classés par décennies comme suit : Moscow 2042 de Vladimir Voinnovich (1987) et Pushkin’s Photograph d’Andrei Bitov (1989); Look into the Eyes of Monsters d’Andrei Lazarchuck et Mikhail Uspenskii (1998)et Slynx par Tat’iana Tolstaia (2000); Girl with the Chinese Lighters par Sergei Luk’ianenko (2002) et Time Backwards! d’Aleksei Kalugin (2005). Malgré le fait que les auteurs sont habituellement …  Read more

Age determinations of various Grenville Province uraniferous granitic rocks from the Bancroft, Mt-Laurier and Johan Beetz areas have shown that these rocks are younger than the ages normally associated with the widespread Grenville orogeny ca. 1150 Ma ago. Previous studies have attributed the origin of many of these occurrences to in situ anatexis of uraniferous protoliths which may be related to the base of the Grenville supracrustal sequence. An Rb-Sr whole rock isochron made up of pegmatitic granite samples from the now defunct Canadian Dyno, Greyhawk and Bicroft mines in the Bancroft area yields an age of 959 Ma. This …  Read more

Near, James Patrick (Supervisor2)  Read more

The amniote limb begins as a bump on the side of the early embryo, and undergoes a well-studied process dictating its growth and establishing the anatomical axes. After the initial outgrowth, the limb forms the nascent structures of the mature organism. The first of these structures to develop are the pre-cartilagenous condensations that arise among its undifferentiated neighbors. My thesis discusses and investigates the nature of the limb at this stage of early skeletal patterning. The first chapter begins with a thorough description of the tissues involved: undifferentiated mesenchyme, condensation, and cartilage. The second chapter considers the gene expression of …  Read more

Snell, J. (Supervisors)  Read more

Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) is the most aggressive subtype of breast cancer (ER-, PR-, or HER2-) and chemotherapy is the only treatment option, but 40% of patients in early TNBC stages do not respond to therapy and will develop chemoresistance. It is imperative to identify biomarkers that will help identify TNBC subpopulations' response to chemotherapy. An in vitro model of chemoresistance was generated in our lab by administering a single high dose of DOX to a TNBC cell line, MDA-MB-436. These DOX-resistant cells had an enrichment of lipid droplets (LDs) and fragmented mitochondria as revealed by electron microscopy. This …  Read more

Of recent years, following the elucidation of the constitution and structure of the more common mono and d1~aooharides, the attention of oarbohydrate ohemistshas been focussed more and more strongly on the higher polysaccharides. For example, among the plant polysaccharides, it has been definitelyestablished that cellulose and starch are long linear chains of anhydroglucose units. In the case of inulin and levan, the chain 1s made up ofanhydro-fructose units, while xylan and other pentosans are linear anhydro-pentose polymers. [...]  Read more

Macallum, A. (Supervisors)  Read more

This dissertation interprets Brecht's Mutter Courage through its protagonist. Most interpreters have derived Courage's meaning from only one term of the contradiction of merchant and mother that constitutes her, either blaming the inhuman, war-mongering merchant for her participation in war, or defending the vital, productive, and nurturing mother for that same (unavoidable) participation. Some have stressed instead the unity formed by Courage's contradiction, without being able to elucidate its meaning. The present interpretation, proceeding from a clue given in scene 7 to the meaning of the text, draws parallels between the drama and Brecht's view of the world, and shows …  Read more

The purpose of this paper is two fold. Firstly, to introduce and study the Silov Boundary of a Banach algebra of continuous complex valued functions defined on a compact Hausdorff space X. Secondly, to apply the definition of Silov Boundary to more general families of functions, namely, to linear spaces and semi-groups of functions. It will be seen that in these latter cases, existence of the Silov Boundary depends on certain restricting assumptions about the linear space or semi-group. [...]  Read more

This thesis examines representations of the madman in British Romantic poetry through a psychogeographical lens to argue that the poet strategically constructs madness as an unreachable place in order to secure his own role in society. In an age that privileges quantifiable labour and the tenets of Reason, the Romantic poet expresses anxiety that his more abstract, imaginative work will not be valued and his social position will thus be considered irrelevant or unproductive. The poet promotes himself as an eccentric, but not an outcast, by hierarchizing types of social exclusion, implicitly privileging his own work through his representations of …  Read more

Brown, E. (Supervisors)  Read more

Le changement rapide du climat actuellement observé dans l'Arctique de l'Ouest Canadien devrait avoir une influence majeure sur le pergélisol représentant plus de la moitié de la masse continentale du Canada. L'isolement de ces vastes étendues a limité les efforts de recherche scientifique à leur sujet et par conséquent le niveau de connaissances des caractéristiques du pergélisol. Plus particulièrement, peu d'information existe au sujet des unités massives de glace de sol, c'est-à-dire de grands corps tabulaire de glace avec une teneur en humidité gravimétrique supérieure à 250% (pour cent en poids sec), que l'on retrouve dans ces régions. Ces glaces …  Read more

Depuis le commencement de l'exploration spatiale, l'usage et les applications militaires ont toujours occupés une place importante dans l'espace. Aujourd'hui, les technologies spatiales continuent d'avantager grandement les forces armées des puissances spatiales, tant au niveau des communications et de la navigation, qu'à celui de la reconnaissance. Malgré le fait que ces satellites fournissent des services essentiels lors de combats terrestres, ils ont rarement été la cible d'attaque directe. Néanmoins, même en l'absence d'attaque, le développement et les tests d'armes antisatellites (ASATs) existe depuis de nombreuses années. La technologie principale, les systèmes à ascension directe, généralement constitués de missiles balistiques, ont …  Read more

Mid-crustal deformation of orogenic belts was investigated through studies of exhumed terrains in the Belmont Domain of the Composite Arc Belt deformed during the Grenvillian Orogeny. The western study area shows a family of broad (~10 km) antiformal sheath structures with NNE-trending axial traces (FM), separated by tight, nearly upright synforms. Within FM entrained parasitic, very tight folds are found (FT). The eastern study area shows similar but more subdued sheath structures. A late fold set (FL), with NW trending axial traces and moderate plunges perturbs FT and F M. Seismic lines through the region show the crust is dominated …  Read more

Ce mémoire explore et dramatise la relation entre la figure, autant légendaire que littéraire, de Faust et la théâtralité. Les deux pièces qui composent le volet littéraire du projet évoquent symbiotiquement une interprétation méphistophélique du théâtre et de la théâtralité. Le volet critique consiste en premier lieu d'une analyse du Faust de Goethe. Les implications de cette oeuvre, surtout la correspondance entre le théâtre et la magie noire, sont examinées par référence aux écrits d'Antonin Artaud, d'Oswald Spengler et de Thomas Mann.  Read more

The p-adic numbers were introduced by K. Hensel [1] in connection with number theory. The absolute value properties of these numbers were subsequently generalized to the theory of valuations. The p-adic numbers generate a non-archimedean metric space, of which the arithmetic properties were investigated by H. Hasse and F. K. Schmidt [2]. The importance of non-archimedean fields in representation theory creates the need for a theory of functions over these fields. J. Dieudonne' [3] , and F. Loonstra [4] have made initial studies in this domain.  Read more

Laikipia County, Kenya, one of East Africa's most exclusive safari tourism destinations, exemplifies both the benefits and challenges that come with pursuing conservation outside government-administered protected areas. In Laikipia, where more than forty percent of land is owned by expatriates, white ranchers, and conservation organizations, Maasai communities on the county's peripheries struggle with declining natural resources, insecurity, poor infrastructure, and weak access to public services. While minority landowners face growing criticism for land inequality in this region, Laikipia remains an icon of the promise or potential of community-based conservation in African drylands. Conservation organizations often cite Laikipia as proof that …  Read more

Les organismes sont souvent confrontés à des changements environnementaux qui se produisent sur des échelles de temps trop courtes pour permettre une adaptation génétique. La plasticité phénotypique permet aux organismes de modifier leurs phénotypes au cours de la vie. Malgré son importance, les mécanismes sous-jacents et les interactions avec l'évolution sont encore mal compris. Ma thèse utilise des techniques moléculaires dans deux systèmes d'eau douce pour explorer ces sujets. D'abord, j'étudie le guppy trinidadien, un poisson d'eau douce vivant dans des rivières isolées par des cascades, soumises à différents niveaux de prédation. Une abondance de connaissances sur l'écologie comportementale des …  Read more

To argue that inferences drawn from a test of writing are valid, empirical evidence must demonstrate that the test adequately represents the construct it is designed to measure (Messick, 1998). The writing component of the Canadian Academic English Language (CAEL) Assessment, was developed in the early 1990's to represent the construct of English in use for academic purposes (EAP). Since that time, EAP approaches have been criticised within the fields of both language testing (Alderson, 1993; Clapham, 2001) and genre and composition studies (Freedman, 1999). Writing is currently viewed as a "site of social and ideological action" (Schryer, 1994), embedded …  Read more

Reid, W. (Supervisor)  Read more

When the present war began in September 1939, the evils of inflation so typical of the first world war induced the warring nations to adopt the principle of price control. Germany had established an over-all price ceiling in October 1936, which indicates how long ago Germany had begun to prepare her economy to withstand the shock of war. An actual price inflation constituted no serious threat to Canada at the start of the war because we had idle capital and idle labour. The amount of economic “slack” arising from developments prior to the outbreak of war is surveyed in Chapter …  Read more

This study explored the relationship of physical mobility; social integration with children, siblings, other relatives, and close friends; and social satisfaction with friend and family relations to the well-being of unmarried Canadians age 75 and older. This study also explored the relationship between each of four social integration measures and physical mobility in potentiating well-being. To take into account any possible effects of demographics the following were included in a multiple regression analysis with the major study variables; age, gender, marital status and living arrangements. A correlational cross-sectional design, using a subsample of 754 unmarried persons living in the community …  Read more

For students and their families that live within the regional school system of Quebec, travel to school by bus has become a "fixed" activity. Households operate within a complex system of time, distance and accessibility constraints in adapting to the impact of this fixed bus schedule. This study focuses on the impact of this daily bus ride on the perceptions and behaviours of these households. The Household Activity-Travel Simulator (HATS) technique, developed at Oxford University, was adapted to a survey of 64 households in the Eastern Townships School Board of Quebec. Households were selected according to time-distance from the two …  Read more

Measles virus (MV) infects an estimated 30 million individuals each year, leading to ~880,000 deaths. The mechanisms that underlie both MV-associated immunosuppression and the dramatic benefit of vitamin A remain poorly understood. Vitamin A supplements are also important for the eradication of vitamin A deficiency, which is implicated in the death of ~1 million children each year, due to blindness and severe infections. In recent years, there has been increasing pressure to include vitamin A supplements in "universal" childhood vaccination programs in the developing world (e.g.: EPI). In this thesis, three studies dealing with the relationship between measles virus, vitamin …  Read more

Ramankutty, Navin (Internal/Cosupervisor2)  Read more

Over the past two decades, large-scale transnational migrations between Central America and the United States have had a significant impact upon both home and host societies. In Guatemala, cross-border movement was spawned by the brutal civil war that devastated many indigenous communities in the early 1980s. Over time, this flow resulted in the formation of complex transnational networks and identities that span home and host locations. This thesis examines the manners in which a community of K'iche' Indians straddled between the highlands of El Quiche, Guatemala and an industrial New England city have responded to the deterritorialization caused by the …  Read more

Purves, C. B. (Supervisor)  Read more

La famille miR-19 de miARNs est liée à une diversité importante de fonctions oncogéniques et la liste des cibles potentielles d'ARNm à travers lesquelles elles exercent ces fonctions est en constante expansion. Les méthodes expérimentales utilisées pour la validation des cibles miARN reposent le plus souvent sur des rapporteurs artificiels, la surexpression des miARNs et l'utilisation de lignées cellulaires ectopiques. En conséquence, les démonstrations de cibles miR-19 fut largement basées sur une stoichiométrie miARN-ARNm altérée et une mauvaise représentation des régions non traduites en 3'UTR qui ne parviennent pas à capturer des interactions transcriptomiques complexes. Nous avons cherché à tirer …  Read more

Duchow, M. (Supervisor)  Read more

Gagnon, Isabelle (Supervisor1)  Read more

Standards are complex phenomena that exist in almost every area of human life, whether in the form of language, stock scenes in literature and films, computer user interfaces or protocols that allow data transfer over the internet. They are important building blocks for any form of human activity. Property rights in standards, provided by the laws of intellectual property, can foster their development by giving incentives to create technologies or works that are capable to become standards; but property rights can also impede further innovation since they allow the owner to exclude others from the use of the protected standard. …  Read more

La voie de réparation des bases (VRB) corrige les bases déaminées, alkylées et oxydées, les sites abasiques ainsi que les cassures simple brin. Certains facteurs de transcription agissent comme facteurs auxiliaires de la VRB et stimulent les activités enzymatiques des ADN glycosylases qui reconnaissent les bases oxydées sur l'ADN. Dans les cellules tumorales présentant des niveaux élevés de radicaux libres, une diminution de l’expression de facteurs auxiliaires entraîne une augmentation des dommages oxydatifs de l'ADN et un retard dans sa réparation. La stimulation des glycosylases produit un plus grand nombre de cassures simple brin, ce qui bloque la transcription, provoque …  Read more

The system under study is that of a two-dimensional, two-degree-of-freedom airfoil (NACA 0012) in a steady subsonic airstream with external forcing. This airfoil is flexibly mounted in both degrees-of-freedom, and thus, describes an aeroelastic system. Non-linearities arising from the aerodynamics are responsible for the phenomenon of dynamic stall when the airfoil oscillates past the static-stall angle of attack. These non-linearities also cause the system to produce non-linear classes of motion, the most important of which is chaotic motion. Aeroelastic instabilities are also present in the system. This thesis explores the instabilities present in this system as well as its non-linear …  Read more

The myelin-associated glycoprotein (MAG) has been identified as the antigen for an IgM paraprotein present in some patients with peripheral neuropathy. The immunochemical characteristics of the MAG epitope recognized by the IgM indicate that the same epitope is recognized by all patients and that carbohydrate is an essential component of this epitope. The synthesis of mouse MAG during development has also been studied. Two developmentally regulated MAG polypeptides have been characterized in the central nervous system (CNS) and it appears that two MAG proteins exist in-vivo. The developmental synthesis of the two MAG polypeptides was abnormal in the CNS of …  Read more

Dans cette thèse, on étudie les propriétés de connexité pour plusieurs modèles de graphes aléatoires. Les résultats généralisent des théorèmes bien connus pour le modèle Erdös-Rényi et la percolation dans une boîte finie. On montre que pour les "Inhomogeneous Random Graphs" et les "Distance Fading Grid Networks", il y a un seuil pour la propriété de connexité et on trouve les valeurs des seuils correspondants. On caractérise aussi le diamètre pour le "Random Connection Model" quand l'espace est le tore de dimension d.  Read more

Guastavino, Catherine (Supervisor2)  Read more