McGill University Theses and dissertations by author name (F)

The thesis examines the Canadian policy and law affecting those services sectors affected by the provisions of the Canada - U.S. Free Trade Agreement which relate to telecommunications, enhanced network services, and computer/information services. In particular, constitutional law and administrative law in telecommunications matters are examined. Also examined in detail are those provisions of the Free Trade Agreement which affect the regulatory measures relating to the telecommunications transport sector and regulatory measures relating to other services which extensively utilize telecommunications, computer and information services.  Read more

Avant d'Al Gore en 2005 documentaire "Une vérité qui dérange" enflammé intérêt général du public pour l'aggravation de la crise de l'environnement, les artistes ont joué un rôle crucial dans les deux illustrant les préoccupations écologiques et dans la construction de logemnt de rechange et des dispositions sociales. Ils l'ont fait avec un sentiment de "responsabilité créatrice" que les institutions politiques officielles et juridiques semblait incapable d'exploiter ou de s'en servir. Cette thèse examine comment les militants de ces mouvements esthétiques qui se produisent simultanément à Toronto et à Windsor en Ontario, a déclenché une forme de «l'imagination constituante» à …  Read more

The study of cost-saving measures involved in the fit-up of the kitchen is explored, and two strategies of cost-saving are identified: reducing kitchen area; and, simplifying construction materials and assembly techniques. Alternative area requirements, as well as alternative materials and assembly techniques are examined in an effort to reduce cost. The cost of a series of compact kitchen layouts are analysed with respect to alternative construction techniques. A method that assesses the functional requirements of the layouts and costs involved is applied and various cost effective designs are examined.  Read more

Adams, Frank Dawson, 1859-1942 (Supervisors)  Read more

The metal industry supplies its products in a great variety of shapes and conditions for use by the fabricator. One of the most important forms is sheet or strip which may be used as they are, or fabricated further by such processes as drawing and spinning. The manufacturing process for metal sheet is the subject of this work; the metal investigated was copper. The purpose of the study was to measure the mechanical properties of copper sheet produced by two different methods, and to compare the data in order to see if one method had any clear advantages over the …  Read more

Larsson, Hans Carl (Supervisor2)  Read more

This thesis considers Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy in light of Friedrich Schlegel's concept of irony. Departing from previous criticism, which focuses on Sterne's playful narrative techniques, the discussion here elucidates other ways in which Tristram Shandy exemplifies the kind of irony Schlegel theorizes. These ways include: Sterne's "Mischgedicht" method, which amalgamates in a single work many types of style, or diverse permutations of form and content; the depiction of Parson Yorick, who epitomizes Socratic irony as Schlegel defines it in the 108th Lyceum fragment; Sterne's gentle satirizing of systematic thinkers, including his own narrator, Tristram; and Sterne's attitude toward words, …  Read more

This thesis extends, to a class of systems of quasi-linear hyperbolic second oder PDE in three variables, the geometric study of a single nonlinear hyperbolic PDE in the plane as presented in [AK97]. The constrained variational bi-complex is introduced and used to define form-valued conservation laws. A method for generating conservation laws from solutions to the adjoint of the linearized system associated to a system of PDEs is given. Finally, Darboux integrability for a system of three equations is defined and a method for generating infinitely many conservation laws for such systems is described.  Read more

According to the historical survey of immunology by Grabar (1) the "art" of immunization can be traced to ancient times. It was known for a long time that after exposure and recovery from an infectious disease one usually did not contract it again. In 1798 Jenner performed the first successful immunization against smallpox and his vaccination procedure is still used today. Kraus (2) observed that resistance could be developed not only by exposure to the intact bacteria, but also to their extracts or toxins. Later it was shown that the introduction of a foreign substance into an animal induced the …  Read more

Les récepteurs couplés aux protéines G (RCPG) représentent une grande classe de récepteurs membranaires servant de médiateurs pour les événements de communication cellulaire en aval dans les cellules. Les RCPG sont largement prisés par les thérapies, mais leurs événements de signalisation en aval sont compris de manière incomplète, en particulier dans le contexte des homodimères et des hétérodimères. La dimérisation des RCPG peut affecter non seulement les voies de signalisation en aval des RCPG, mais aussi le trafic des récepteurs vers la membrane et leur cinétique d'internalisation. Ce projet se concentre sur trois RCPG impliqués dans la régulation de la …  Read more

The x-ray total structure factor of the glassy-metal alloys $Mg sb{70}Zn sb{30}, Ca sb{70}Mg sb{30}$ and $Mg sb{85.5}Cu sb{14.5}$ has been measured at three temperatures: 9K, 150K, and 300K. The data have a statistical precision of about.8% and an absolute accuracy of roughly 3%. Percus-Yevick hard sphere structure factors may be fitted quite accurately to the data in the region of the first peak. In addition, the variation of the experimental structure factor with composition is found to be consistent with the Percus-Yevick theory. At low k values, Percus-Yevick and other theoretical model structure factors are in poor agreement with …  Read more

This thesis examines the efficiency of the price discovery mechanism in small regional markets utilizing the feed grain markets in the Maritime Provinces of Canada as a case study. Through the application of the Law of One Price (LOP), price transmission symmetry and Vector Error Correction Models (VEC), the author determined the price relationships that exist between the feed grain market in the Maritime Provinces and those in Western and Central Canada as external sources of supply. The results suggest that there exists a relatively high degree of arbitrage between Maritime feed grain prices and those of Thunder Bay or …  Read more

The privatization of an economy which has been socialized during seven decades may have seemed unachievable, particularly concerning such a great industrial power as former Soviet Russia. Nevertheless the work performed under Presidents Gorbatchev and Eltsine, who were prompted by a reformist political will, has led to the privatization of the great majority of enterprises. Since 1992, it has made necessary the build-up of a new governmental and administrative structure and of an impressive legislative and regulatory framework. Though the methods of privatization were often similar to those used in the West, Russia has distinguished itself by setting up a …  Read more

Acheron, River of Woe is a large-scale piece for wind symphony accompanied by an analytical thesis. It is a single-movement programmatic piece lasting twelve minutes scored for a wind symphony consisting of three flutes (one doubling piccolo), two oboes, English horn, two bassoons, contrabassoon, E-flat clarinet, three B-flat clarinets, A clarinet, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet, four saxophones, four trumpets, four horns, two trombones, bass trombone, euphonium, tuba, string bass, timpani, and three percussionists. This piece represents a journey on the River Acheron, inspired by quotations taken from several Greek poets of antiquity. The entire piece flows as one long, fluid …  Read more

Cultural resources like traditional medicinal knowledge need to be recognized in their role tied to important regional practices in Zimbabwe. This is especially as a nexus of legal definitions for biological, intellectual and cultural resources will inform a National Sui Generis Legislation for the protection of these resources. Even further, because foreign pharmaceutical companies seeking plant genetic resources, called 'green-gold', benefit from derivatives of traditional medicinal knowledge it is important to protect these practices as part of an entire social and symbolic system. This system can be conceived as traditional medicinal knowledge is accessed, kept, shared, used and valued as …  Read more

Urbanization, increased surface impermeability, and climate change have resulted in changes in the quantity, intensity and quality of urban stormwater runoff. Urban stormwater runoff has ecological impacts. Generally, these impacts are related to the total and peak flow volumes, and the presence of contaminants in runoff. Low impact development (LID) techniques are emerging as alternatives to traditional stormwater management systems to mitigate these impacts. One such technique is to combine soil, plants and infrastructure in a bioretention unit. This technique involves the use of multiple smaller units spread across an area; street tree pits may be suitable as bioretention units.The …  Read more

Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase catalyzes the reduction of 5,10-methylenetetrahydrofolate to 5-methyltetrahydrofolate, a carbon donor for the remethylation of homocysteine to methionine. Patients with severe MTHFR deficiency have $<$20% residual enzyme activity, moderate hyperhomocysteinemia, vascular lesions and neurological dysfunction. Mildly-deficient individuals with a thermolabile enzyme are at increased risk for developing cardiovascular disease. Two MTHFR sequence changes were identified. The first was a C to T transition at bp 764 altering a proline to a leucine codon; this change was found in one severely-deficient patient. The second was a C to T transition at bp 677, substituting a valine for a highly-conserved alanine …  Read more

Certains processus à des échelles spatiales diverses intéragissent avec la structure des communautés. Je me suis intéressée à la fois aux effets de colonisation et de dynamiques locales sur la diversité des araignées dans un champ à l'abandon peuplé d'arbustes situé au sud-ouest du Québec, au Canada. J'ai étudié les mécanismes, variations temporelles et taux de recolonisation d'arbustes préalablement vidés de leurs araignées et j'ai observé que le taux de recolonisation connaissait un pic d'activité entre la mi-Juin et le début Août. Seule l'abondance de la guilde des araignées sauteuses (Salticidae) a été réduite en empêchant la recolonisation terrestre. Cette …  Read more

The intent of this thesis is to set out new data relating to the climate of the savanna in the Rupununi district of Guyana, and to comment thereon with reference to the causes and continuing existence of that savanna. To indicate the significance of the data and the pertinence of the comments it will be necessary to review recent discussion of the nature and causes of savanna in general. [...]  Read more

This thesis investigates the status of intimacy in late modernity. It adresses two questions: how should we consider intimacy today? And how can intimacy help us understand social phenomena such as the Bouchard-Taylor Commission?To answer these questions, intimacy is conceptualized as a form of power that regulates the space of social differentiation that exists between individuals in modern societies. The analysis is inspired by philosophical hermeneutics, but also a series of transdisciplinary approaches enabling us to account for the various dimensions of the issue. The thesis provides a close reading of 64 interventions made during the Quebec Citizen's Forum of …  Read more

Douglas, V. (Supervisor)  Read more

In order to extend application of the gel-degradation mechanism of delignification, model compounds of the general structure (3,4-dimethoxyphenyl)-CH(OR)R$ sp prime$ were treated at room temperature with increasing charges of molecular Cl$ sb2$ in glacial HOAc. Catalytic amounts of Cl$ sb2$ cleaved benzyl aryl ether bonds (OR=2-methoxy-4-methylphenoxy) before any ring chlorination occurred. Yields of cleavage decreased in the order: R$ sp prime$=H; R$ sp prime$=$-$CH$ sb2$-2-methoxyphenoxy; R$ sp prime$=$-$CH(CH$ sb2$OH)-2-methoxyphenoxy. These results support the concept that the delignification of wood pulp by chlorine results from benzyl aryl ether cleavage. The conditions of the reaction, as well as control reactions with hydrochloric …  Read more

Abbas, Khalili Mahmoudabadi (Supervisor2)  Read more

Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell, historian, traveller, archaeologist, author, and king-maker, lives today in the memory of the people of Iraq who are fighting to preserve that independence as a nation which she helped them to achieve. [...] In this thesis I shall discuss Gertrude Bell as a literary artist and show why her writings on the Middle East provide for the average reader an excellent introduction to that little known region. [...]  Read more

Authentication protocols aim to prevent agent impersonation: A is authenticated to B if B knows who A is. Many formal approaches have been used to verify authentication in distributed systems; however, although authentication is directly related to agent knowledge, it has only been formally defined using process algebra, usually in terms of constraints on the order of protocol events. In response, we use epistemic modal logic to define authentication in terms of common knowledge as a form of coordinated action. We apply our definition to verify the Needham-Schroeder-Lowe Public-Key Protocol, as well as its predecessor, the Needham-Schroeder Public-Key Protocol, which …  Read more

Informations de base: L'ischémie-reperfusion est la cause principale du retard de la reprise de fonction rénale, qui est une forme d'insuffisance rénale aiguë. Le retard de la reprise de fonction rénale est nuisible à la survie du greffe à court et à long terme en augmentant le risque de rejet aigu et chronique. Les cellules T régulatrices (Treg) ont classiquement été identifiés par l'expression des marqueurs de surface CD4 et CD25 et le facteur de transcription maître forkhead box P3 (FoxP3). Les Tregs jouent un rôle critique dans la tolérance immunitaire de la greffe et peuvent atténuer l'insuffisance rénale aiguë …  Read more

Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) is an ideal technology for the production of high performance Al alloy components due to its advantages such as net shape production, low porosity and reduced thermal deformation.The rapid solidification experienced during LPBF can increase the solid solubilities of strengthening elements, reduce microsegregation and promote grain refinement, which can further improve mechanical properties. These microstructural properties are determined by the solidification parameters. The increased solidification front velocity can result in higher solid solubilities of strengthening elements, high cooling rate and undercooling can reduce grain size.In order to quantitatively analyze the microstructure evolution under LPBF conditions …  Read more

A knowledge of the thickness of overburden is of utmost importance both in ore exploration and in disclosing underground structure. Owing to the cost of drilling and to the fact that geological features upon the earth's surface are not always sufficient, methods for the determination of depth are often sought from other branches of science even if the information so obtained is only qualitative in nature. Giving results not less definite, but having the advantages of simple arrangements and great economy of both time and cost, geophysical methods are now widely used and they have become a powerful and sometimes …  Read more

"Azospirillum lipoferum and A. amazonense showed significant uptake-hydrogenase CH2 uptake) activities under N2 -fixing condition. The NH4Cl-grown cultures of both species showed negligible activities. However, sparging with H2 during growth caused over a 100-fold induction of uptakehydrogenase activities, suggesting that hydrogenase synthesis requires exogenous H2 as an inducer. Oxygen-dependent uptakehydrogenase activity in A. amazonense was very tolerant to Ü2 and almost unaffected by 20 kPa 02 in vivo, whereas in A. lipoferum and A. brasilense the activities were inhibited by 40 and 100%, respectively. In cell-free extracts (CFE), the uptake hydrogenase of A. amazonense was still 02 tolerant and the …  Read more

Molecular self-assembly, a promising bottom-up strategy for nanofabrication of functional devices, utilizes non-covalent interactions to yield well-defined supramolecular nanostructures. This method provides an inexpensive and versatile route to build the desired nanoarchitectures as compared to current top-down nanolithography methods. On the other hand, understanding and control of the supramolecular ordering of organic semiconducting (OSC) molecules at the interface is also crucial for optimization of thin-film optoelectronic applications. The supramolecular packing of OSC molecules in an active layer at the interface defines the exciton and charge transport properties and hence influences the device efficiency. This thesis studies the self-assembly properties of …  Read more

Affective computing is a growing field of research that aims to study and develop systems that can recognize, interpret, and respond to human affects. As this field lives at the intersection of many disciplines, including engineering, computer science, arts, and psychology, the development and design of affective technologies is challenging from both a technical and human-centered lens. Biomusic is a novel affective technology that translates meaningful changes in autonomic nervous system (ANS) signals, such as heart rate (HR), skin temperature, and electrodermal activity (EDA), into sound. Sonifying these affective-specific changes in the body may allow us to tune into the …  Read more

H1 histones are potentially significant to nuclear reprogramming during the oocyte-to-embryo transition. One characteristic distinguishing the H1 subtypes is that the somatic H1 histones are found primarily in dividing cells, whereas the H10 subtype is predominantly found in differentiated cells. The H1 complement in mouse oocytes and preimplantation embryos from wild-type and H10-/- animals was investigated. Immunocytochemistry of wild-type cells demonstrated that H10 was predominant in oocytes while somatic H1 began accumulating in the 2-cell embryo. In H10-/- cells H10 was not detected, but, surprisingly, somatic H1 was detected beginning at the 1-cell stage. Radiolabeling of wild-type and H10-/- cells …  Read more

Xinyu Liu (Supervisor1)  Read more

Blind and low-vision (BLV) people face persistent barriers to independent access of financial charts, particularly when technical analysis requires rapid interpretation of multi-parameter time-series (trend, momentum, and volatility). This thesis investigates whether a hybrid auditory interface combining parameter-mapping sonification with concise, parameter-explicit text-to-speech (TTS) can support structured stock-chart interpretation without relying on vision. Guided by interview-derived requirements on relational structure, computational context, low-latency monitoring cues, progressive disclosure, manageable multi-indicator layering, and auditability, we design a modular system that renders closing price, Relative Strength Index (RSI), and Bollinger Bands as coordinated auditory streams with interactive controls for replay and isolation.We evaluate …  Read more

Lounis, Hakim (Advisor)  Read more

Brophy, James (Supervisor2)  Read more

The 2-methylbranched chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase (BCAD) is a mitochondrial enzyme that catalyzes the third reaction in isoleucine and valine metabolism, the oxidation of 2-methylbutyryl-CoA and isobutyryl-CoA, respectively. BCAD deficiency would result in the accumulation of branched chain acyl-CoAs or their derivatives. Three patients with a putative defect in BCAD have been reported. This study consists of a molecular examination of one such patient as well as the characterization of the BCAD gene. In Northern blot analysis of human fibroblast RNA, the BCAD cDNA hybridized to two RNA species of 2.7 and 6.5 kb. The 2.7 kb band corresponds to the …  Read more

Scavone, Gary (Supervisor1)  Read more

Arnold, Douglas L. (Supervisor)  Read more