McGill University Thèses et mémoires par auteur commençant par R

Schizophrenia is a complex disease that affects up to 1% of the general population. It is manifested by a variable number of negative, positive and disorganisation symptoms giving rise to an important diversity in the expression of this syndrome. The treatment of schizophrenia is mainly based on neuroleptic drugs that alleviate, to a variable extent, psychotic symptoms in the majority but not all the patients. Although its aetiology is still unknown, it is now well established that schizophrenia is a brain disease resulting from the combination of environmental and genetic risk factors. In spite of intensive research, no specific genes …  Read more

The Single Factor market Model is an important tool in contemporary research in finance. The assumption of parametric stability is usually invoked to facilitate statistical estimation of the model. Much of the importance of the model follows from its "beta" parameter which, ideally, measures the sensitivity of returns on a security to changes in a market factor. While stability of this parameter is desirable, this property is neither required nor expected from financial theory. Instances of nonstationarity are commonly observed. The objective of this thesis is to address, theoretically and empirically, the nature and causes of potential instability. To this …  Read more

Schwertani, Adel (Internal/Cosupervisor2)  Read more

Cette étude examine la tradition intellectuelle du tafsīr en Indonésie durant la période autoritaire du Nouvel Ordre (1966-1998) sous la présidence de Suharto. Elle analyse comment les savants musulmans indonésiens — Moh. E. Hasim, M. Dawam Rahardjo, et Syu’bah Asa — ont interprété le Coran dans un contexte socio-politique marqué par un autoritarisme politique prononcé. L'analyse se concentre sur leurs œuvres exégétiques afin d'évaluer la relation entre leur approche herméneutique du texte coranique et leur compréhension des préoccupations contemporaines de leur audience. Cette étude explore les objectifs de chaque savant dans leur interprétation du Coran, la manière dont ils ont …  Read more

La population humaine compte sur les écosystèmes pour l’approvisionnement de nombreux avantages, connus sous le nom de services écosystémiques (SE). Ceux-ci peuvent inclure des services d'approvisionnement comme la nourriture ou le bois, des services de régulation comme la séquestration du carbone ou le contrôle de l'érosion, et des services socioculturels comme les bénéfices récréatifs et spirituels. Le concept de SE est un outil puissant pour les décideurs des gouvernements, des ONG, et d'entreprises qui intègrent de plus en plus les SE pour préserver les écosystèmes et de promouvoir le bien-être des gens. La comparaison et quantification scientifique permet de mesurer …  Read more

Arnold, A. (Supervisor)  Read more

B cells are becoming increasingly recognized as important immune regulatory cells. Depending on their context of activation, the balance of B cell production of proinflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines is affected. Recent work has shown that Toll-like receptor (TLR) ligation is an important signal affecting B cell activation. We sought to determine the effect that the combination of antigen recognition, T cell help and TLR ligation would have on B cell response profiles of both control donors and Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients. We found that TLR8 ligation resulted in enhanced B cell proliferation and survival combined with a marked suppression of …  Read more

Cette recherche est une étude comparative de l’Influence de la culture sociale sur les structures et processus d’organisation. Un cadre Incluant quatre dimensions fondamentales des systèmes de valeurs culturels, soit le pouvoir, la distance d’autorité, l’orientation de groupe et l’orientation cognitive, fut dérivé d’études empiriques passées. Cinq configurations furent Identifiées à partir de ces dimensions et expliquèrent la plupart des organisations étudiées dans des ouvrages antérieurs: l’Autocratie. l’Entourage Politique, la Bureaucratie Traditionnelle, la Bureaucratie Moderne et la configuration du Consensus.[...]  Read more

Contexte: Les professionnels de la santé jouent un rôle primordial dans la promotion de la santé des adolescents. Beaucoup des comportements en matière de santé appris lors de l'adolescence peuvent à leur tour affecter l'état de santé à l'âge adulte. Toutefois, peu d'études ont considéré dans quelle mesure la disponibilité des professionnels de la santé au niveau national affecte la santé des adolescents. De même, l'effet de cette densité de professionnels de la santé sur les inégalités sociales de santé chez les adolescents n'a pas fait l'objet d'études jusqu'ici. Méthodes: Cette thèse est une analyse transversale multi-niveaux de données individuelles …  Read more

Ce mémoire examine l'incompatibilité, en littérature, de deux tendances simultanées dans l'histoire de l'Écosse au dix-huitième siècle, représentées, d'un côté, par l'usage figuratif de « l'esclavage » pour indiquer l'oppression des Écossais et, de l'autre, par le silence de l'Écosse au sujet de sa participation à l'esclavage colonial dans les plantations. Ces tendances contradictoires se concentrent sur l'entrée de l'Écosse dans la sphère du progrès social et économique suite à l'Union de 1707. Dans la version traditionnelle, cette entrée se fait au détriment des jacobites, qui sont tenus à l'écart du régime politique de la Grande-Bretagne moderne, puisque considérés comme …  Read more

The biosynthesis of long chain aliphatic aldehydes required for light emission by bacterial luciferase has been studied in Photobacterium phosphoreum. A fatty acid reductase has been identified and shown to catalyze the conversion of fatty acids to their corresponding aldehydes in a reaction that requires NADPH and cleavage of ATP to AMP. The fatty acid reductase activity was measured using a sensitive luminescence coupled assay with luciferase or from the reduction of {('3)H}tetradecanoic acid to {('3)H}aldehyde using thin layer chromatography to resolve the product of the reaction. The measurement of the enzyme activity in extracts during bacterial growth indicated that …  Read more

The use of fiber reinforced plastic composites in critical applications has increased dramatically in recent years. To take full advantage of the benefits of these materials, it is essential to be able to predict their behavior under impact. The continuum damage model by Nemes and Randles attempts to answer that need. For a complete formulation, the rate dependence of the material under the different modes of damage has to be quantified. Experiments, where the modes of damage are isolated from each other are therefore needed. A punching experiment was chosen to isolate the transverse shear response of the composites. The …  Read more

This work has tried to illustrate the clash between environmental obligations and bankruptcy law, between a strict liability and the possibility for a fresh start. The U.S. law has had a great opportunity to deal with this conflict but all the problems which have arised have not yet been solved. It will take decades a clear conceptualistic structure in this area of law to emerge. This thesis has suggested some ideas about how to treat these problems and may provide European lawyer with a view of the problems which will arise after the reception of CERCLA as a environmental protection …  Read more

This thesis deals with the political participation of Muslim women since the colonial period into the New Order period. It is a study of the Indonesian women's movement in its different trends: the roles of women in gaining and defending Indonesian independence as well as in Indonesia's politics in the Liberal Democracy, Guided Democracy, and New Order periods. It investigates the reasons for the relatively limited participation of women in politics. This low level of political participation is indicated by the ratio of women membership in the House of People's Representatives (DPR, Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat), in the Consultative Assembly (MPR, …  Read more

This study addresses the phenomenon of elite Islamic schools in Indonesia by focusing on Al Azhar Islamic High School in Jakarta. Taking as its starting point the evolution and expansion of Islamic educational institutions in contemporary Indonesia, particularly since the 1970s, it examines the emergence of elite Islamic schools and identifies the unique characteristics that attract many urban, middle-class Muslims to send their children to these schools. In addition, this study attempts to address the lack of research on the history of Islamic education in Indonesia between the years 1970 and 2000. A review of past studies demonstrates that this …  Read more

Cette étude adresse le phénomène des écoles islamiques d'élite en Indonésie en focalisant sur l'école islamique secondaire Al Azhar à Jakarta. Partant de l'évolution et l'expansion des institutions éducationnelles islamiques en Indonésie contemporaine, particulièrement depuis les années 70, elle examine la montée des écoles islamiques d'élite et identifie les caractéristiques uniques qui poussent plusieurs musulmans urbains de classe moyenne à envoyer leurs enfants à ces écoles. De plus, cette étude tend à adresser le manque de recherche sur l'histoire de l'éducation musulmane en Indonésie entre les années 1970 et 2000. Un examen des études existantes à ce sujet montre que …  Read more

Gold nanoparticles were wrapped with polyelectrolytes and were deposited on a substrate coated with polyelectrolyte multilayer films. The adsorption of the colloids on the surface was followed by AFM and UV-VIS spectroscopy. The results suggested that the deposition of particles on a surface was performed successfully just by using a very simple and quick dipping method. Using the same technique, magnetic particles were coated with polyelectrolytes and deposited on polyelectrolyte multilayer films. Once again the adsorption of the particles on polymer films was achieved and more complex assemblies were then built. They consisted of a succession of polyelectrolyte films and …  Read more

Richard Serra's sculpture constitutes a political act through its analytical and operative strategies: analytical, when the work exposes the structures that frame our intersubjectivity, and operative, when the work acts as an example of resistance to the habitual acceptance of these structures. The significance of this oeuvre to architecture is that Serra's sculpture deliberately presents itself as something just shy of architecture, claiming its critical role to be that abandoned by--and proper to--architecture.  Read more

This study concerns the sources of the revolutionary Bolshevik elite's social and ethnic origins in Late Imperial Russia. The key finding is that the Bolshevik leadership of the revolutionary years 1917--1924 was highly ethnically diverse in origin with non-Russians---Jews, Latvians, Georgians, Armenians, Poles, Lithuanians, and Ukrainians---constituting nearly two-thirds of the elite. The 'Russian' Revolution was led primarily by elites of the empire's non-Russian national minorities. This thesis therefore considers the sources of their radicalism in the peripheries of the multinational empire. Although the 'class' language of socialism has dominated accounts not only of the causes of the Revolution but also …  Read more

Contexte: Le Programme d’Intervention Télésanté pour les Aînés (PIT-A) était un programme de soutien téléphonique à grande échelle (n>800), basé sur le volontariat (n>300) durant COVID-19. Bien que les programmes d'appels téléphoniques basés sur le volontariat puissent être des méthodes efficaces pour fournir un soutien en matière de santé mentale, il existe peu de données sur les facteurs prédictifs de réponse. L'identification de ces prédicteurs pourrait contribuer à la conception de futurs programmes d'intervention similaires.Méthodes: Les données cliniques et démographiques de base de 82 participants au programme PIT-A ont été analysées afin de déterminer si le niveau de risque de …  Read more

During sleep and anesthesia the normal cortex displays slow-wave oscillations. Application of GABA-A receptor antagonists, such as bicuculline (BMI), both in vivo and in vitro transforms these slow oscillations into spike-wave discharges (SWDs). We studied if some areas of the cerebral cortex have a stronger propensity to generate SWDs and trigger SWDs in other less prone areas. Ten sequential mouse brain slices were prepared and named after 1-10 from posterior to frontal. During application of BMI spontaneous SWDs were observed in all slices and cortical sites. Interestingly, SWDs recurred at different frequencies in different slices; posterior slices (1-6) had a …  Read more

In a study of the measurement of rainfall by radar Marshall, Xangille and Palmer ( l ) have derived formulae relating the intensity of the power received at the radar from rain to the size of the drops, and so to the intensity of the rainfall. [...] It is the purpose of the present paper to analyse some films similar to those used by Langille and Gunn with a view to studying particularly the vertical motion of the showers, and to compare the film observations and the experimental drop-size distributions with the results arrived at through various theoretical considerations.  Read more

At the present time all known methods for the hydrolysis of proteins are subject to serious limitations. Enzymatic hydrolysis is slow and incomplete, alkalis racemize the optically active amino acids and destroy cystine and arginine, and acid hydrolysis is accompanied by humin formation and tryptophane destruction. The destruction of tryptophane during acid hydrolysis is not, in all cases, due to the direct action of the acid since pure tryptophane is relatively stable in hot dilute sulphuric and hydrochloric acids. The destruction must, therefore, be due to some other constituent or constituents of the protein. Consequently, there is some reasonable prospect …  Read more

La présente thèse aborde le développement d'une nouvelle méthode pour les mesures de friction à l'aide d'un microscope à force atomique. Elle est comparée à la méthode standard pour vérification. Cette nouvelle méthode est utilisée afin d'investiguer les propriétés dans le régime de la limite de lubrification d'un nouvel échantillon de brosse de polymères à très haute densité. Aucune corrélation n'a été trouvé entre le coefficient de friction et le pH ou la concentration de sel du fluide environnant. Le coefficient de friction mesuré est de l'ordre de 0.1.  Read more

This thesis presents an approach for how to build an artificial neural network with neurons for the purpose of comparing how artificial and biological neural networks process information. Image recognition of hand-written digits using a multi-layer perceptron is chosen because the task is complex but well studied, and the network does not have too many neurons. To wire an artificial neural network with neurons, a technique for rapid manipulation of neurites is used and improved. Reliable, rapid pulling speeds and the maximum forces required to manipulate neurites are determined. Using these parameters, multiple magnetic pole pieces are chosen to be …  Read more

A method for the separation and detection of standard resin acids (RAs), commonly found in pulp mill effluent and known to bioaccumulate in fish bile, was optimized using cyclodextrin modified electrokinetic capillary electrophoresis (CD-EKC) with ultra violet (UV) and laser induced fluorescence (LIF) detection. Optimal separation conditions were found with RA standards using UV detection at 214 nm, with a 72 mM sodium borate buffer pH 9.25, containing 35 mM beta-cyclodextrin sulfobutyl ether (SPCD), 15 mM of methyl-beta-cyclodextrin (MECD) and a 37 cm capillary with an internal diameter of 50pm. This resulted in a 12-min separation and the identification of …  Read more

This thesis presents a novel approach to increasing the accuracy and robustness of 3D scene geometry estimates based on two 2D images of the same scene. Our approach focuses on finding feature correspondences, i.e. matching similar features between 2 images and estimating the fundamental matrix (FM), which is a key component to understanding scene geometry given two views. The accuracy of the fundamental matrix is acutely related to the number and accuracy of the correspondences. Determining point correspondences is a difficult and open research problem because many features are not robust enough to handle changes in illumination, scale, and viewpoint. …  Read more

There is a significant amount of waste heat from industrial processes in the form of liquid or gaseous streams. With a growing demand for electrical power, there is a need for solutions to make use of this heat and increase the overall energy efficiency of the processes in question. Although the most practical solution may be to recuperate the waste heat for heating and/or cooling purposes, its transformation into electricity allows for versatility in its end-use. The thermoelectric generator (TEG) presented in this work consists of heat pipes to capture and concentrate the waste heat, coupled with thermoelectric modules to …  Read more

S’appuyant sur 12 mois de recherche de terrain à Bangalore, cette thèse examine la pratique de la responsabilité sociale des entreprises (RSE) en Inde, rendue obligatoire suite aux révisions faites à l’Acte des Compagnies (Companies Act) en 2013. Elle porte plus précisément sur les dimensions historiques, conceptuelles et sentimentales de la dissociation de la politique sociale de l’État indien, politique qui est dorénavant marquée par un accroissement de la responsabilité sociale des entreprises locales et transnationales. En examinant les praticiens de la RSE plutôt que les cibles des programmes de la RSE, en s’appuyant sur des données recueillies en archives, …  Read more

At the beginning of the 20th century, in Argentina, there was a marked increase in the number of women who dedicated themselves to writing professionally. This has resulted in women gradually acquiring a voice of their own and a distinct place in the national literary discourse. By the mid-1960s there was a noticeable tendency among several of these female authors to write and publish their autobiographies, thus contributing to the creation and recreation of alternative public self images, which were usually in marked contrast to the parameters tacitly established for female writing by the Argentine literary, cultural, and social elite. …  Read more

The theme of this thesis is the method of learning. At the beginning of section 11 of the Religio Medici, Browne writes, "In my solitary and retired imagination … I … forget not to contemplate his and his attributes … especially those two mighty ones, his wisedome and eternitie" (lines 305-309). He is referring to the wisdom and eternity of God: our concern will be his contemplation of the wisdom. The very essence of God's wisdom is knowledge of all things, a knowledge he possesses because he made all things. But his greatest wisdom is in the knowledge of the …  Read more

The development of conceptions of the mechanism of absorption from the intestinal tract, as well as absorption in other parts of the organism, can almost be followed by the development of terminology used to describe this process. It is of interest to note that from the start the interpretations of the principles, varied as they were, centred around physical or physicochemical causes. Explanations of various biological phenomena in physical terms came about in the first half of the nineteenth century, when efforts were directed toward solving problems that were attributed to "vital forces" bound up with the living cell protoplasm.  Read more

This thesis presents a minimum energy optimal sampling-based motion planning algorithm, MEAQR RRT*, specifically for systems with non-linear dynamics, non-holonomic and actuation constraints. The motion planner developed is intended for unmanned aerial systems (UAS) whether they be fixed or rotary wing. The eventual implementation in this thesis revolves around a quadrotor platform. This work extends the algorithms presented previously by Webb et al. and Glassman et al. by formulating a fixed-final-state-free-final-time open loop state space pseudometric for nearest neighbours search and the appropriate closed loop steering method for the tree extension heuristic. By doing so, it allows the introduction of …  Read more

La maladie d'Alzheimer est un des plus grands défis qui face notre système de soins de santé, qui est aggravé par le fait que aucun traitement n'existe. Même si des mécanismes exacts qui causent la maladie ne sont La maladie d'Alzheimer est un des plus grands défis auxquels fait face notre système de soins de santé, et qui est aggravé par le fait qu'aucun traitement n'existe. Même si les mécanismes exacts qui causent la maladie ne sont pas clair, l'hypothèse la plus établie est que la suraccumulation du peptide bêta amyloïde est le facteur principal pour la pathogenèse de la …  Read more

The diversity and abundance of the arthropod nest fauna of House Sparrows (Passer domesticus (L.)) and Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor (Vieillot)) in southern Quebec were studied. Over 90,000 arthropods were extracted from the nests, including at least 71 species (50 families) of insects and at least 11 species (8 families) of mites. There were no significant differences in the species richness or diversity of nest arthropods from year to year (1997--1998), or from nest to nest within either host species. There was no significant difference in the overall species richness or diversity between House Sparrows and Tree Swallows. Cluster analyses …  Read more

For many years Labrador has been a land of mystery. The country is not well known, though today for economic reasons, its development is more apparent. Knowledge of the geography of the country is more complete than that of the geology. [...]  Read more