McGill University Thèses et mémoires par auteur commençant par N

This thesis examines the different ways in which English and Arabic queer and feminist language addresses its target audiences in the context of the 2019 uprising in Lebanon, and how these operations occur through the bilingual hashtags used on the Megaphone News Instagram platform. The study is based on an analysis of hashtag patterns examined on Megaphone and explores what specific words such as feminism, queer, and sexism mean in each of English and Arabic, as inferred through the Megaphone hashtags and the relative content. I then build on these patterns to examine more deeply how Arabic addresses readers affectively …  Read more

Wheeled mobile robots moving on uneven terrain are attracting interest at an impressive pace. In the work reported here two distinct architectures of two-wheeled mobile robots are proposed. The first architecture, corresponding to the case where the two wheels linked by a frame lie in a vertical plane, constitutes the material of our earlier research and is laid out in the appendix. The system being unilaterally constrained by the environment, slipping or losing contact with the ground can occasionally occur. Therefore, nine distinct topologies are identified and accounted for in the model describing all the possible motion modes of the …  Read more

The aerodynamic problems, involving the solution of the Euler equations of motion, are presently almost exclusively solved using an Euler formulation. This requires the generation of a spatial grid over which the problem is discretized. The grid generation process adds to the complexity to the problem being solved, especially in the case of complex body-shapes with flow discontinuities, such as shock waves and sliplines. ALso, the Euler formulation is difficult to use for the aerodynamic problems of unspecified geometry. A Lagrangian formulation permits to avoid the complexity of a grid generation while making it possible to obtain very accurate results. …  Read more

This dissertation presents solid-state NMR studies of the chain conformation, dynamics and morphology of three adsorbed polymer systems: two random semi-crystalline copolymers, poly(ethylene-co-acrylic acid) (PEA) and poly(propylene-co-acrylic acid) (PPA), and an amorphous homopolymer, poly(n-butyl methacrylate) (PnBMA). Zirconia (ZrO2) was chosen as the substrate for all three polymers since the binding of carboxylic acids to this metal oxide is well understood. The choice of polymers was based on their particular bulk conformational and dynamic properties as well as their common use in polymer coatings. These studies are motivated by the general lack of a microscopic picture of adsorbed polymers, which can …  Read more

McCusker, Jane (Supervisor2)  Read more

Les Iraniens constituaient le troisième groupe en importance d'immigrants admis au Canada entre 2011 et 2016 (Statistics Canada, 2016). La littérature actuelle sur les immigrants iraniens en Amérique du Nord explore l'intégration des Iraniens dans la société hôte et les communautés iraniennes (Kafili, 2013; Mostofi, 2003). Les études qui documentent un manque de cohésion au sein des communautés iraniennes ont principalement porté sur le rôle des affiliations religieuses ou politiques au niveau communautaire (Malek, 2015b). Cependant, un compte rendu détaillé des interactions interpersonnelles et d'un sentiment d'appartenance à la communauté, font défaut dans cette littérature. De plus, les recherches sur …  Read more

The propagation of acoustic plate-mode waves in composite membranes is studied. A computer program has been developed and used to calculate the wave velocity and electromechanical coupling factor in these structures which may consist of any combination of piezoelectric layers with arbitrary orientation and surface metallization. In particular, shear modes (SH) in zinc-oxide and selenium membranes, as well as stiffened-Lamb modes in ZnO membranes and ZnO/Si, ZnO/GaAs composite membranes are studied. The surface-acoustic-wave propagation in selenium and in selenium layers on tellurium has been extensively studied using an improved computer program. The study shows that surface-wave coupling factors in the …  Read more

'Russet Burbank', the most important potato in North America, was described as a putative periclinal mutation from 'Burbank' and has not parented outstanding cultivars. The current study aimed to: (1) investigate the present chimeral status of NB 'Russet Burbank' based on tuber periderm phenotype, (2) determine if yield and/or processing characteristics of NB 'Russet Burbank' could be improved through selection of intraclones, (3) determine whether pre-selected somaclones had sufficient variation in protein content (crude (CP), total soluble (TSP)), or resistance to Phytophthora infestans (US-8) to select for, and (4) examine long-term stability in protein content. Somatic embryogenesis technology was used …  Read more

Soleymani, M. R. (Supervisor)  Read more

Soleymani, M. Reza (Supervisor)  Read more

Background: Depression accounts for more years lived with disability than any other medical condition. Depression screening has been proposed to identify individuals with unrecognized and untreated depression. A review of studies published in 2013-2015, however, found that a large proportion of primary studies of the diagnostic accuracy of depression screening tools were conducted in samples that inappropriately include individuals currently diagnosed or being treated for depression. This may lead to bias in estimates. Similarly, concerns have been raised regarding sample sizes of such studies. A review of studies published in 2013-2015 found that only 3% of studies reported sample size …  Read more

Polymer clay nanocomposites (PCN) exhibit many advantages over conventional composites, while using substantially smaller quantities of filler. For various reasons, it is desirable, in nanocomposite manufacturing, to employ processes based on melt exfoliation of modified clay particles. While various researchers have studied the effects of processing variables and material properties on the effectiveness of melt exfoliation, many issues remain unresolved. This study attempts to deal with some of these. In this study an amorphous polymer, atactic polystyrene (PS), has been chosen to avoid complications related to crystallization. Three grades of (PS), having different molecular weight, were pre-blended with Cloisite® 1OA …  Read more

Convective heat transfer in a steady developing laminar flow in domains of complex geometry is investigated numerically using the finite difference method and orthogonal boundary-fitted coordinates. A Fortran code was developed and validated. The following cases involving complex flow domains were examined in detail; (1) The flow and heat transfer characteristics of Newtonian and power-law fluids in a two-dimensional duct fitted with transverse fins of triangular, semi-circular, and rectangular sections. The calculated velocity distribution is compared with experimental measurements made with a laser-Doppler anemometer. (2) The flow and heat transfer in a two-dimensional 90$ sp circ$ bend formed between two …  Read more

In the B6.YTIR mouse strain, half of the XY progeny develop bilateral ovaries and the female phenotype. These XY females are infertile mainly due to the death of their embryos. This developmental failure has been attributed to a defect intrinsic to the XY oocyte. The present study examined the transcriptional activity of the X and Y chromosomes in these oocytes. RT-PCR results show that the Ube1y gene is transcribed in the XY ovary at all stages examined and also in growing XY oocytes. The Sry gene was transcribed only at the onset of ovarian differentiation whereas the Zfy gene was …  Read more

During the formation of skeletal muscle, muscle cell differentiation is induced by endogenous and exogenous stimuli which cause mononucleated cells committed to myogenic lineage called myoblasts to fuse into multinucleated myotubes. The molecular mechanisms underlying this process involve myogenic regulatory factors (MRFs) which are under tight regulation. Although transcriptional regulation plays an important role, it alone can not account for the high expression levels of MRFs. In this thesis, a facet of the post-trancriptional regulation of promyogenic factors, namely MyoD and Myogenin, through the RNA-Binding Protein HuR is investigated. The presented studies show that HuR, which specifically binds to the …  Read more

The four main units of the epizonal Strange Lake peralkaline complex (Quebec-Labrador) document a transition from early hypersolvus granite, to transsolvus granite, to geochemically more evolved subsolvus granite and, finally, to highly K-enriched pegmatites. The felsic and mafic minerals constrain the temperatures of crystallization of the different units. The hypersolvus granite has a solidus above 650$ sp circ$C, and the pegmatite has a solidus below ${ sim}590 sp circ$C at 0.7 kbar. The textural transition and reduced solidi of the units are explained by an increase in (Na+K)/Al and fluorine in the evolved granitic melt, which allows crystallization to lower …  Read more

Software projects capture information in artifacts that include production code, test suites, and documentation. Because different artifacts serve different purposes, the information they encode can be redundant. We present an approach to mitigate this redundancy by allowing developers to encode in unit tests information that is used to automatically generate documentation fragments. The result is a set of documentation fragments injected in the reference documentation of the methods under test. We implemented this approach in the form of an Eclipse plug-in. The ability to regenerate the documentation fragments allows documentation to be automatically updated when unit tests are modified. This …  Read more

Software products have become increasingly reliant on smaller software components produced by third-party organizations to accomplish specialized tasks. In this context, documentation is a crucial component of software development to mediate the knowledge exchange between developers who create reusable software components and those who rely on the components for their projects. Creating and maintaining good documentation, however, is an effort-intensive activity that is often overlooked in favor of working on the source code. Prior work has addressed this issue by proposing various methods to generate or to retrieve relevant information from a documentation set based on a query. These techniques …  Read more

Waters, Kristian (Internal/Supervisor)  Read more

INTRODUCTION: Les sarcomes rétropéritonéaux (SRP) sont de taille importante et impliquent souvent des organes adjacents ou des structures vitales. La résection est critique pour la survie à long terme mais il, s'agit souvent de vastes opérations. OBJECTIF: Le but de cette étude était est-de déterminer l'incidence des complications postopératoires précoces après la chirurgie SRP et d'identifier leurs facteurs prédictifs. Le retour à la salle d'opération (SO) et mortalité de toutes les causes dans les 30 postopératoires ont également été examinés. MÉTHODES: Les réclamations administratives du programme d'assurance-santé universel qui couvrent presque tous les résidents du Québec (Canada) ont été utilisées …  Read more

Vector interpolation functions which approximate electromagnetic vector fields are constructed in this thesis. These vector functions are to be used when the solution of Maxwell's equations involves an irrotational or solenoidal vector field. In addition the functions are chosen so that they can easily be used in the implementation of a finite element method. Four bases are constructed. The first two span the spaces of solenoidal or irrotational two component vector polynomials of order one in two variables whereas the other two span the spaces of solenoidal or irrotational three component vector polynomials of order one in three variables. The …  Read more

Les analyses de détection biomoléculaire ont des applications qui s'étendent du diagnostic et de la détection de microbes pathogènes, à la conception de soins médicaux spécifiques et au développement de nouveaux médicaments. Une limitation actuelle de cette approche repose sur le fait que les analytes à détecter sont présentes qu'en faibles quantités. Par conséquent, une méthode efficace d'amplification de l'analyte ou du signal de détection est nécessaire. Nous présentons ici une approche d'amplification du signal qui se fonde sur les nanosphères polymères auto-assemblés, contenant dans leur noyau un grand nombre de centres luminescents basé sur des métaux de transition, et, …  Read more

Chevalier, Simone (Supervisor2)  Read more

The recirculating flows behind a sudden expansion in an open channel are computed using three different turbulence models: (i) a standard single-length-scale $ kappa$-$ epsilon$ model, (ii) a two-length-scale $ kappa$-$ epsilon$, and (iii) a constant-eddy-viscosity model. The performance of these models is evaluated by comparing the numerical results with the experimental data obtained from the previous investigation. The flow simulation is characterized by two basic dimensionless parameters: a turbulent Reynolds number, $Re sb{T},$ which defines the level of eddy viscosity, and a bed-friction number, S, which represents the effect of bed friction. The study shows that in the limit …  Read more

Chu, V. H. (Supervisor)  Read more

Hoffmann's Work is not just a reflection of a life. It is a work of art, an artwork. A common understanding of what art is and should be forms the background to the diverse works' heterogeneous forms of expression. Although the focus of this paper is on one of Hoffmann's Works, it reveals Hoffmann's ideas and ideals as a human being and romantic author, as well as his philosophical outlook on life ("Weltanschauung"). In Hoffmann's "The Devil's Elixirs," practically impossible events often serve a psychological function, by projecting the hero's internal processes externally and portraying mental or emotional events in …  Read more

Purpose: Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a disease that causes central vision loss and is the leading cause of blindness in the western world. A hallmark of AMD is the presence of large, soft drusen in the macular region of the retina. Drusen are lipoproteinaceous deposits found between the basal lamina of the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and Bruch’s membrane. Although the pathogenesis of AMD is unclear, growing evidence suggests a link between drusen formation and photo-oxidative stress caused by short-wavelength blue light (BL). As such, this project aims to investigate the effect of BL-filtering intraocular lenses (IOL) on drusen …  Read more

Deux modèles capables de prédire les diagrammes temps-température-transformation (TTT) pour des oxydes et oxyfluorures liquides ont été développés. Un des modèles est basé sur l'équation de Johnson-Mehl-Avrami-Kolmogorov (JMAK), et l'autre – utilisant la théorie classique de la nucléation (TCN). La base de données la plus récente a été utilisée pour calculer les propriétés thermodynamiques des phases liquides et solides. Le modèle basé sur l'équation JMAK a démontré un accordement avec les données expérimentales bien meilleur que la TCN. Le modèle développé dans cette étude peut être utilisé pour prédire des diagrammes TTT pour les oxydes contenant pas plus que 50 …  Read more

The dissertation records changes in the Kano palace landscape between 1500 and 1990. Patriarchal practices that shaped the initial palace layout at vernacular domestic and state levels are outlined. Royal women were secluded and male slaves occupied public household domains, state strongholds. Later increases in eunuchs' and slave women's powers and spaces are also recorded. The demise of slave women's political realms and the rise of an autocratic and militaristic male state structure following the Fulani jihad of 1807 are then detailed. Lastly, the impact of British imperialism on the landscape of male and female slavery is presented. Because male …  Read more

La cosmologie à 21 cm offre une fenêtre unique sur l’univers primitif grâce à la transitionhyperfine à 21 cm de l'hydrogène neutre. Décalé vers les radiofréquences, ce signal de21 cm peut donner un aperçu de la composition et de l'évolution structurelle de l’univers àtravers le temps cosmique. Mapper of the IGM Spin Temperature (MIST) et ProbingRadio Intensity at high-z from Marion (PRIZM) sont deux expériences à 21 cm globales,c’est-à-dire d’intensité 21 cm moyenne du ciel, conçues pour sonder l’univers à travers laformation et l'évolution des premières étoiles et galaxies au cours d’une période appeléel’aube cosmique. Les principaux défis auxquels sont …  Read more

Yargeau, Viviane (Supervisor2)  Read more

Recently, there has been a growing demand for electrode materials to serve as electrochemical capacitors (EC). It has been an important issue to come up with environment friendly electric power sources to reduce pollution caused by combustion engines of automotive systems. Even though conventional battery systems and fuel cells supply high energy, they lack the high specific power that would be required for hybrid power sources. The ECs can fill the gap between conventional capacitors and batteries. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs), discovered by Iijima in 1991, attracted great attention in recent years for their unique properties, such as mesoporous character, excellent …  Read more

The ideology of the Islamic State in Indonesia did not emerge in an abrupt manner, but was the product of a long development. The ideology was one outcome of the role that Islam had played (through the Islamic movement) in the struggle of the Indonesians for the political independance of their country. According to the nationalist point of view this struggle began with the creation of the Budi Utomo in 1908, but the Islamic group consider 1905, the date of the establishment or the Sarekat Dagang Islam, as the starting point. [...]  Read more

Reason is an important focus-word in Abduh's world view and has a great influence on his theologioal system and views.  Read more

This thesis is an attempt to study 'Abduh's methodological approach in Islamic legal theory, with particular reference to the concept of ijma'. Ijma' according to him, is not a matter of truth or falseness, as it has been viewed by the classical and medieval jurists, but rather it is a mechanism which must demonstrate a dynamic ability in dealing with new problems on the basis of the public interest (maslaha). In order to obtain a proper public interest in any matter, religious considerations alone are not sufficient, rather each matter must be considered from many different angles and disciplines such …  Read more

Blanchette, Mathieu (Internal/Supervisor)  Read more

This thesis deals with the development, analysis and application of a new method to optimize the allocation of jobs on machine tools. The benefits of this method are derived through time-decomposition of the scheduling horizon. The decomposition scheme is based on the scheduled flow of jobs i.e., the input of jobs to the shop floor and their departure after processing. The partitioning procedure divides the planning horizon into 'stages', or time periods, at which the job-mix remains constant. The optimization of job allocation is carried out within each partition and successive stages are treated sequentially. The dynamic nature of the …  Read more

Automated traffic and surrogate safety monitoring at urban intersections commonly use visual-spectrum video-based systems, which offer flexibility and low cost. However, video-based systems face challenges in low-light conditions and accurate distance measurement, requiring manual calibration for precise trajectories mapping in x-y coordinates. Recently, 3D LiDAR-based methods have emerged as an alternative, overcoming these limitations. LiDAR operates effectively in low light and provides direct and calibration-free measurements in x-y-z coordinates. LiDAR sensors yield more accurate spatial data with higher resolution and range than video-based systems. Additionally, LiDAR’s point cloud data can accurately represent road users’ shapes in three dimensions, enhancing the …  Read more

Tak Pan Wong (Supervisor2)  Read more

Les matrikines dérivées du collagène avoir divers rôles, mais en ce qui concerne le cancer, il a été démontré que les matrikines dérivées du collagène ont des propriétés antiangiogenèseet anticancérigène. Ainsi, ces matrikines peuvent avoir rôle important dans le développement du cancer et peuvent éventuellement être utilisées pour le diagnostic et la thérapie du cancer. Une matrikine dérivée du collagène qui a montré des caractéristiques antiangiogenèse et anticancérigène prometteuses est Arresten, une matrikine produite à partir du domaine non-collagène de la chaîne α1 du collagène IV. On a pensé que le suppresseur de tumeur p53 modulait sa fonction de suppresseur …  Read more

Kirmayer, Laurence J. (Internal/Supervisor)  Read more

Heath, Nancy Lee (Supervisor2)  Read more

Talley, William M. (Supervisor)  Read more