McGill University Thèses et mémoires par auteur commençant par S

Transfer pricing is an area of major concern for tax administrations. The growth of multinational enterprises and an increase in cross border transactions has highlighted the significance of a regulated transfer pricing system. However, this regulated system imposes high penalties for improper transfer pricing. To reduce the risk of high transfer pricing penalties, multinational enterprises have resorted to advance pricing agreements with tax administrations. These agreements, though, are not a simple solution to reduce the risk of penalties. The process of executing these agreements carries with it the major drawback of information disclosure. Given this drawback, the APA programs in …  Read more

Les troubles cognitifs associés à la résistance à l'insuline et au facteur de croissance analogue à l'insuline 1 (IGF-1) représentent un problème de santé publique important et croissant, en particulier dans le contexte de l'augmentation de la prévalence du diabète de type 2 (T2D). Cette résistance est étroitement liée aux troubles neurodégénératifs et neurodéveloppementaux tels que la maladie d'Alzheimer (MA), la maladie de Parkinson (MP) et les troubles du spectre autistique (TSA), dont l'incidence devrait augmenter. Le dysfonctionnement des voies de signalisation du récepteur de l'insuline (ISR) et du récepteur de l'IGF-1 (IGF1R) dans le cerveau est au cœur de …  Read more

La protéine Bcl-XL est un membre essential de la famille des proteins anti-apoptotique Bcl-2, ce qui est nécessaire pour le développement lymphoïde et neuronale normale et dont la surexpression est associée à de nombreuses tumeurs progressives et résistantes à la chimiothérapie dans les patients atteint du cancer. Des travaux antérieurs ont montré que l'expression de Bcl-XL est régulée au niveau à la fois de la transcription de l'ARNm, grâce à l'utilisation de promoteurs alternatifs, et à travers les événements d’épissage alternatif qui donne lieu à de multiples produits protéiques ayant des fonctions différentes. Un exon non codant dans le 5'UTR …  Read more

Les microtubules (MTs) sont des polymères de tubuline existants dans tous les eucaryotes. Ils sont acteurs clés dans beaucoup de fonctions essentielles comme la division cellulaire et le transport intracellulaire. Présents de manière ubiquitaire chez les eucaryotes, les MTs se caractérisent par leur propriété d'instabilité dynamique. Les eucaryotes comprennent des espèces très diversifiées, qui ont donc des besoins différents pour leurs réseaux de MTs. Les MTs d’espèces divergentes présentent des différences de dynamique qui dépendent des propriétés intrinsèques de la tubuline qui les compose. Cependant, les mécanismes moléculaires régissant l’instabilité dynamique et les propriétés intrinsèques de tubulines provenant d’espèces divergentes, …  Read more

Nepal had promulgated its first domestic Civil Aviation Act on 12 April 1959, more than a year before it became a member of the International Civil Aviation Organization on 29 July 1960. Since then it has adhered to a number of international air law conventions. But on the domestic front very few regulations have been made under the Act to deal with only certain aspects of civil aviation. This thesis explores Nepal's obligations under the international air law conventions and analyzes the extent of domestic legislation in Nepal. […]  Read more

A capillary pressure curves provides important information about the porous system such as porosity, breakthrough pressure, fluid–solid wettability and capillary hysteresis. The measurement of capillary pressure curves is one of the most commonly adopted methods of measuring wettability in a porous system. However, to date these measurements are done only at room temperature because of the limitations of utilising existing equipment at higher temperatures. The capillary behaviour of liquid in porous system can be a different when subjected to harsh condition such as high temperature and pressure. An experimental setup has been designed and developed to measure air-water capillary pressure …  Read more

This thesis documents an investigation of the use of the roof diaphragm flexibility in the seismic design and analysis procedure of single-storey steel buildings designed otherwise in accordance with the provisions of the 2010 NBCC and the 2009 CSA S16. The design approach considers the members of the vertical bracing system as the ductile fuse elements in the seismic force resisting system (SFRS), whereas the diaphragm remains elastic. An alternative design approach was also examined in which the steel deck roof diaphragm acts as a ductile fuse element in the SFRS; at present this procedure is not permitted by the …  Read more

In 1949 the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of Montreal became concerned about its structure and function. Because of its awareness that the concept of Federation needed potency as a symbol of Jewish community organization, the interest and participation of practically all the sections of the population concerned with Jewish needs and problems had to be enlisted. In particular a closer relationship was needed with those sections in the population who are organized in special group activities. Many of these groups were administering flourishing programmes outside the orbit of the local central Jewish community organization.  Read more

Magder, Sheldon (Supervisor)  Read more

Bradwejn, Jacques (Supervisor)  Read more

Tumour tissues in vitro show an incorporation of glucose carbon into glycine, alanine, glutamate and aspartate. The incorporation into glutamate and aspartate is lower than that observed in normal rat brain cortex slices or chick embryo. This may be due to a lower rate of operation of the citric acid cycle compared with that of glycolysis in tumours. When normal rat brain cortex slices are incubated with tumour tissues in vitro, in a medium containing 5 mM 14 glucose-U-C14, there is a decrease in the amount of glutamine found in the brain cortex slices, with a concomitant increase in the …  Read more

According to statistics from the Canadian Cancer Society, about 8,000 people will be diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2014, making it the sixth most common cancer in Canada. Even today, radical cystectomy, which involves the complete removal of the bladder, remains the “gold standard” treatment for invasive bladder cancer. Unfortunately, complete removal of organ causes a serious deficit in the quality of life of the patients which leads to exploring radiation therapy as the treatment option. Radiation therapy preserves the bladder and allows for normal urinary and sexual functions; however, the lack of local control of the disease and the …  Read more

Misra, A. K. (Advisor)  Read more

The objective of this study was to determine the impacts of irrigation tailwater and sewage lagoon discharge on the water quality of Crowfoot Creek, Alberta, Canada. The monitored irrigation tailwater accounted for more than 55% of the water flow in the basin. With the exception of the early part of the 1997 irrigation season the irrigation tailwater only impacted the phosphate and total phosphorus levels in the creek. High values for all parameters were recorded in the early part of the 1997 irrigation season, due to irrigation source water quality or deposition of contaminants into the irrigation canals during the …  Read more

A funnel-shaped alteration pipe in Archean tholeiitic to transitional rhyolite and andesite underlying massive Zn-Cu sulphide ore at the Norbec mine in northwestern Quebec was outlined from drill core samples. Geochemical parameters, including mass changes and mobile element ratios were used with normative alteration mineralogy and thin section petrography to determine the extent of the alteration. The alteration was initially characterised by a peripheral zone of sericite-chlorite-quartz and a central chlorite-quartz zone. Isochemical metamorphism of the alteration pipe within the contact aureole of the Lac Dufault stock has converted these assemblages to cordierite-anthophyllite-biotite bearing rocks. Bulk oxygen isotope data for …  Read more

The work described herein represents a preliminary step in the characterisation of the human Tom20 protein and its role in the mammalian mitochondrial import machinery. A hexahistidine-tagged form of the human homologue of Tom20 has been over-expressed in Escherichia coli and purified under native conditions. This Tom20 protein has been shown, in these studies, to compete for the import of a matrix-destined mitochondrial precursor protein, pre-ornithine carbamoyltransferase (pOCT), into mitochondria isolated from a mammalian source (rat heart), as well as to directly bind the presequence-bearing pOCT in vitro. Furthermore, a protocol has been established for the isolation of import-competent outer …  Read more

Platelets have been shown to be a main contributor to thrombus formation in stenotic arteries leading to acute coronary syndromes. It is thought that increased activation and adhesion of platelets under variable shear and complex flow conditions contribute to thrombosis. The objective of this work was to evaluate the relationship between asymmetric stenosis hemodynamics and platelet adhesion using in-vitro models developed to properly simulate physiological conditions. In this study, platelet rich plasma was circulated through stenotic and straight coronary artery models. Adhesion results were obtained by post-perfusion fluorescent labelling and imaging of adhered platelets. Analysis of platelet area coverage has …  Read more

In this thesis we consider the Hausdorff and Hamburger one-dimensional moment problems. The Hamburger moment problem may be stated as follows. [...]  Read more

Although Diophantine analysis has occupied mathematicians from antiquity to our own times, there exist few general methods for the complete solution of Diophantine equations in rational integers. In this paper we illustrate the method developed by E. Rosenthall for the complete solution of reducible Diophantine equations. This method involves, as a first step, the solution of an equation in ideals belonging to subfields of some normal extension, then passing from ideals to integers belonging to the extension considered. In some particular cases, additional restrictive conditions must be satisfied before a solution may be obtained.  Read more

Lariviere, Vincent (Supervisor2)  Read more

Dans ce travail, nous régularisons des champs libres Gaussiens basés sur l'expansion de Fourier-Besse pour étendre une partie des résultats sur la mesure de gravité quantique de Liouville et la relation KPZ en dimensions [1,2] et même en dimensions impaires. Nous adoptons la définition du champ libre Gaussien sur ℝⁿ considéré comme un espace de Wiener abstrait avec l'espace de Hilbert sous-jacent H^(n/2)(ℝⁿ). En particulier, nous pouvons montrer que la mesure de la gravité quantique de Liouville sur ℝ³ est la limite faible des mesures associées à une série pondérée de moyennes sphériques du champ libre gaussien. Nous montrons aussi …  Read more

This thesis presents some novel organosilane reactions catalyzed by titanocenes. Heterodehydrocoupling between silanes and phosphines has been accomplished with titanocenes, as catalysts. The reaction has the characteristics of high yield and high selectivity and can be carried out under mild conditions. Monophosphinosilanes and diphosphinosilanes can be selectively obtained from the reactions of secondary phosphines andsilanes. Primary phosphines react with primary silanes to produce 1,3,5-triphospha-2,4,6-trisilacyclohexanes. A two-catalytic-cycled mechanism is proposed with titanocene hydride as the key catalytic species. Hydrosilation/hydrogenation of some aromatic N-heterocycles (namely pyridine, 3-picoline, 4-picoline, 3,5-lutidine, and quinoline) has been achieved with titanocene derivatives as catalysts. A variety of …  Read more

L'attribution de calcul et de la communication ressources d'une mani`ere qui optimise les performances du syst`eme global est un aspect crucial de la gestion du syst`eme. R´eseau de capteurs sans fil pose de nouveaux d´efis en raison de la p´enurie de ressources et en temps r´eel. Travaux existants a traite distribution temps-reel probl`eme de taux d'´echantillonnage, dans un seul processeur cas et r´eseau cas de routage environment statique. Pour les r´eseaux de capteurs sans fil, afin de parvenir `a une meilleure performance globale du r´eseau, le routage devrait tre examin´e en mˆeme temps que la distribution de taux des flux …  Read more

This thesis is an investigation on the functionalization of aryl C-H bonds in the presence of transition-metal catalysts and oxidants.In the first part of this thesis, an oxidative amidation of 2-arylpyridine derivatives and 1-methylindoles with a variety of amides is described. Copper(I) bromide is used as catalyst and tert-butyl peroxide (TBP) is employed as oxidant. High regioselectivity of this amidation process is achieved through chelation-assisted aryl C-H activation. In the second part of this thesis, a new concept is described for aryl-aryl coupling that involves oxidative decarbonylative coupling of aryl C-H bonds and readily available aldehydes and forms the aryl-aryl …  Read more

In this research, entropy is proposed as a measure of flexibility. First, entropy is presented by tracing its origins in thermodynamics to its role in information theory. Properties of entropy that make it a suitable measure of flexibility are outlined. After that, the strategic importance of flexibility is established. Then, previous research on definitions of flexibility and different measures of flexibility are discussed, as well as entropic measures developed by other researchers. This leads to proposing a entropy as general measure of process flexibility that can be used on a dynamic basis, i.e., along a time continuum. A mathematical model …  Read more

The usefulness of frontal lobe (FL) dysfunction as a conceptual model for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) was investigated. Twenty-four ADHD and 24 normal control (NC) children were tested using tasks sensitive to FL deficits in motor control and problem solving skills and memory tasks sensitive to temporal lobe (TL) dysfunction. ADHD children differed significantly from NCs on measures of FL function, but not on tests of TL functions. Wherever norms were available for normal children on the same FL tests, ADHD subjects performed like 6 to 7 year olds, in spite of their mean age of 10 years and …  Read more

"Mudra" is the transliteration of a Sanskrit word meaning "symbol" or "gesture". This piece is inspired by the interaction of thoughts, breathing patterns, spontaneous bodily movements and sensations which can occur during the yogic practice of 'pranayam'. The work is written for flute/piccolo, oboe, clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, percussion, piano, four violins, two violas, two cellos, and two double basses. The piece is divided into twelve sections, clearly delineated by changes in harmony, texture, meter, and registration. As the music unfolds, seven rhythmic cells and four fixed-pitch collections provide the basis for rhythmic and harmonic development, or …  Read more

1. A modified Lo Surdo tube has been used to investigate Stark effect in metals. 2. Stark effect has been observed in copper in the region 6500-2600 and in nickel for the region 4500-2600 A.U. The maximum field strengths were in excess of 250 kV./cm. 3. Eighty-one lines were photographed in nickel, all of which were found to be undisplaced. 4. Thirty-five copper lines were photographed, of which 17 are displaced. The Stark effect increases fairly rapidly with increasing term number. 5. Several corrections are made to the observations of previous investigators in this field. 6. Displaced and undisplaced levels …  Read more

This study represents a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the Supreme Court of Canada's treatment of the exclusionary rule set out in s.24(2) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The objective of this thesis is to contribute to the theoretical debate between legal positivism and legal realism by examining judicial discretion and the application of s.24(2) by the justices of the Supreme Court. The goal of this work is to demonstrate the weakness of the positivist school in its basic premise that judicial decisions are based solely on the application of the rule of law. It is contended …  Read more

Traditionally, Macbeth has been read as a morality tale about the perils of ambition. The question that has implicitly animated most treatments of the play is, "Why does Macbeth kill Duncan?" By shifting the emphasis away from Macbeth's motives for killing Duncan onto his inability to refrain from killing him, I draw attention to the striking fact that, in killing King Duncan, Macbeth acts against a fully considered better judgment not to. This suggests the possibility that Macbeth's much-discussed ambition can be understood as a subset of the broader theme of akrasia , the condition in which an agent is …  Read more

Grassland is, for the average farmer in Eastern Canada, the most important and at the same time the most abused of all the crops grown on the average farm. The concept that the best fields on a farm should be used for growing grain and cultivated crops is a very old one. Pasture, in many cases, has been placed on land which was too rough for cultivation, or on land reduced in fertility by previous cropping. Indeed, the idea has been quite prevalent in some sections that it is a waste of land to put pastures on soils which are …  Read more

The interface of Cosmology and High Energy physics is a forefront area of research which is constantly undergoing development. This thesis makes various contributions to this endeavor. String-inspired cosmology is the subject of the first part of the thesis, where we propose both a new inflationary and a new alternative cosmological model. The second part of the thesis concentrates on the problems of integrating cosmology with particle physics beyond the Standard Model. Inspired by new opportunities due to stringy degrees of freedom, we propose a non-inflationary resolution of the entropy and horizon problems. In this string-inspired scenario, 'our' dimensions expand …  Read more

Many exceptional situations arise during the execution of an application. When developing dependable software, the first step is to foresee these exceptional situations and document how the system should deal with them. This thesis outlines an approach that extends use case based requirements elicitation with ideas from the exception handling world. After defining the actors and the goals they pursue when interacting with the system, our approach leads a developer to systematically investigate all exceptional situations arising in the environment or in the system that change or fail user goals. Means are defined for detecting the occurrence of all exceptional …  Read more

Human prostate cancer is one of the most common malignancies affecting men. It is associated with a high degree of mortality and morbidity due to the development of non-skeletal and skeletal metastases. A common complication in patients suffering from prostate cancer is the development of hypercalcemia of malignancy. While determination of PSA and PSP-94 levels can serve as diagnostic/prognostic markers, PSP-94 can also serve as a therapeutic agent. The efficacy of PSP-94 to block tumor progression and hypercalcemia of malignancy was tested in our syngeneic in vivo rat model of prostate cancer. Rat prostate cancer Mat Ly Lu cells were …  Read more

Prostate cancer remains one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers in men and is a leading cause of cancer death. While great success has been achieved at curing early stage prostate cancer, limited success has been obtained when treating late-stage hormone independent prostate cancer. This is due to the increased propensity for skeletal and non-skeletal metastases. Thus development of novel effective therapeutic modalities against late stage prostate cancer is of critical importance. Towards these objectives, I have focused my attention on the role of prostate secretory protein (PSP-94) which is expressed in normal individuals and in patients with early stage …  Read more

La neurotrophine BDNF (brain derived neurotrophic factor) participe à la survie cellulaire, la différenciation, maintenance et la plasticité neuronale utilisant des mécanismes rétrogrades et antérogrades. Cependant, les neurones dopaminergiques du cerveau moyen expriment des niveaux élevés de BDNF, qui sont transportés de façon antérograde au striatum. Pour déterminer le rôle de la BDNF dans le système nigrostriatal adulte, nous avons invalidé sélectivement le gène BDNF dans le locus niger de souris adultes utilisant une recombinaison Cre/loxP site-spécifique. Le comportement moteur a été examiné quelques semaines après l’injection. Un appareil rotarod a été utilisé pour examiner la coordination motrice, un champ …  Read more

A study has been made of certain features of the fabrication of a Se-CdO photovoltaic cell having a layer structure usually of the form Al-Bi-Se-CdO-metal. It was found that increasing the substrate temperature during the selenium deposition between 80 and 140$ sp circ$C increased the illuminated short circuit current density in the cell. This clearly demonstrated the necessity of having well-crystallized selenium, as opposed to amorphous selenium, as the active absorber layer in this cell. The CdO layer was normally deposited by d.c. reactive sputtering from a cadmium target in an ambient of argon plus residual air and, as a …  Read more

Ingots of the semiconducting compound CuInSe$ sb2$ have been grown by the Bridgman method using a single sealed quartz ampoule for both the compound synthesis, from starting elements of copper, indium and selenium, and the subsequent crystal growth. The resulting ingots, containing monocrystals of up to 2 centimeters in one dimension, were free of microcracks, voids and free of adhesion to the inner wall of the quartz ampoule. This was made possible by the unique use of a coating of boron nitride deposited on the inner wall of the ampoule prior to charging with the elements. The boron nitride acted …  Read more

This thesis proposes that including North African Jews in Canadian historiography encourages historians to rethink the role of multiculturalism for Jews in Canada and their relationship to the Quiet Revolution. I suggest that the government of Quebec did not alienate all Jews and attempted to accommodate them. I overturn basic inaccuracies about North African Jewish experience in Montreal and contend that their French language did not initially serve them and that their reception by Ashkenazi institutions was challenging rather than beneficial. Finally, I argue that North African Jews did not strive to create their own institutions, and that the formulation …  Read more

This thesis examines the formation of a global Moroccan Jewish diaspora in the latter half of the 20th century, arguing that "Moroccanness," forged through multi-directional migration and the resulting shared history, memory, and culture, has served as a unifying force. The study demonstrates how this sense of shared origin, coupled with ongoing transnational connections, influenced the development of diverse communities, identities, and collective action across various hubs of Moroccan Jewish life. The thesis focuses on under-researched sites of Moroccan Jewish life and activities. It explores the experiences of Moroccan Jews in Israel's peripheral development towns, where a Zionist counternarrative emerged, …  Read more

Hiscott, John (Internal/Supervisor)  Read more

Pluye, Pierre (Supervisor2)  Read more

La ségrégation ordonnée des chromosomes lors de la mitose nécessite la formation correcte d'un fuseau mitotique ainsi que son bon positionnement dans le plan de la division cellulaire. Le dérèglement de l'une de ces conditions engendre des conséquences sévères telles que la mort cellulaire, ou encore le cancer chez les eucaryotes supérieurs. L'organisation et le positionnement du fuseau mitotique sont principalement associés à la fonction des microtubules. Les microtubules émanent de centres organisateurs de microtubules (COMT). Ils sont initialement nucléés par un complexe protéique conservé au cours de l'évolution appelé l'anneau de gamma-tubuline. Connu pour sa fonction de nucléateur, ce …  Read more

This thesis serves to analyze how autobiographical memory is deployed in the current series of the Montreal artist, Susan Shulman. Her cycle of nine works entitled In Our Memories Forever (1998--2001) are created based on the archive of photographs and letters written between her maternal grandparents at the turn of the nineteenth century. This essay will discuss cognitive theories on memory and specifically autobiographical memory types in order to examine the construction of memory in Shulman's series of paintings. A thorough investigation of the works themselves will be included. This examination will culminate with a look into how reconstruction theories …  Read more

Roseborough, H. (Supervisor)  Read more

Human behaviour is usually characterized as being highly original, adaptive, and variable. This fact cannot be denied, and is usually accentuated by studies in Comparative Psychology. The human can undertake a great variety of behavioural and cognitive activities when compared with infra-human species. Notwithstanding this outstanding feature of Homo Sapiens, it still remains true that in certain situations, and under certain conditions, Man's behavioural and thought processes are marked by stereotypy. This characteristic of behaviour has been labelled perseveration, habituation, and rigidification. The investigation reported in this paper is oriented toward an understanding of this particular behavioural phenomenon. [...]  Read more

Vankeerberghen, Griet (Supervisor1)  Read more