McGill University Thèses et mémoires publiés en 1953

Mordell, D. L. (Supervisor)  Lire la suite

Comparative aviation law has evolved from the world wide development of aviation during the past three decades. Aviation, the youngest and speediest of the transportation media has gained the foremost position in the category of carriers. Its primary social and economic function as a carrier of persons and property has been achieved as a result of a rigid regulatory regime.  Lire la suite

Sulphur is contained in certain substances of considerable physiological importance. Some of these compounds are methionine, bile salts, heparin, vitamins such as thiamine and protein hormones such as insulin and anterior pituitary hormones.  Lire la suite

1. A brief history of histamine research has been outlined and the release of histamine in metabolic activity, anaphylactic shock, anaphylactoid shock and trauma has been reviewed. Evidence for the participation of enzyme factors in all of these events has been presented. 2. The so called "histamine liberators" which are believed to release histamine without tissue injury have been reviewed in detail. The many similarities between anaphylactic reactions and the manifest actions of "histamine liberators" suggest that these two conditions produce their effects in the same way: ie. by the activation of an enzyme system. The term "anaphylacto-mlmetic" agent has …  Lire la suite

Industrial and trade activity can be varied by changes in the supply of raw materials, labour, capital, demand for the final products and through the hampering or aiding of the production process. Where these changes are ultimately due to climatic and conventional seasons the consequent variations are called "seasonal variations".  Lire la suite

The study represents a survey of an agency's services to mothers in relation to adoption and the relinquishment of children. The time of a baby's placement for adoption is interwoven with the time required by a mother in making the decision to surrender her child. The study will attempt to discover the possibility of earlier adoption placement of children from available evidence of possible earlier declsions to relinquish children on the part of mothers, and from evidence of the babies' own readiness for adoption.  Lire la suite

Stress-strain concepts and terminology are discussed, and definitions of basic terms given. The concepts of failure in the fields of Engineering, Soil Mechanics, and Geology are reviewed from a geological viewpoint. The conditions of rupture are discussed. Becker's (1893) paper is critically analyzed in the Appendix, and his principal conclusions are shown to be fallacious. [...]  Lire la suite

The reaction of nitrogen atoms with n-butane has been investigated at temperatures of 75 degrees C. and 250 degrees C., while the reaction with isobutene has been studied at temperatures of 100 degrees C. and 260 degrees C. Nitrogen atom flow was held constant while hydrocarbon flow rates were varied from 5 x 10-7 to 2 x 10-5 moles/sec. Hydrogen cyanide was the main product of both reactions. Smaller amounts of C2 hydrocarbons, mainly ethylene and acetylene, were produced in both reactions. Production of HCN, ethylene, and acetylene increased with increasing butane flow rates [...]  Lire la suite

The past decade has witnessed the introduction and development of fee charging in family agencies on this continent. This is a subject of current interest to lay and professional groups in various communities both in Canada and in the United States. Fee charging implies an understanding between client and agency that compensation for the service will be paid by the client. [...]  Lire la suite

This is a study of adoptions completed through The Children's Service Centre of Montreal, to determine by personal interview with 22 adoptive parents how successful they feel their adoption has been, after having had the 25 children in their homes for ten years or more. Since adoption involves deep emotions, success or failure is dependent upon and reflected in attitudes and feelings in the relationships of family members. Thus, in learning how parents actually feel, the study attempts to test theoretical knowledge underlying current adoption procedure.  Lire la suite

The neurophysiology of respiration has been the subject of intensive investigation for well over a century. Early in this period it became apparent that the most fundamental respiratory centres were located within the brain stem, and that the activity of such centres was influenced directly or indirectly by humoral factors and by afferent stimuli from many sources including centres situated more rostrally in the central nervous system. [...]  Lire la suite

Jasper, H. (Supervisor)  Lire la suite

Girard (54) found that rabbits in a state of induced monocytosis produced antisera of higher titre than normal rabbits. He also demonstrated that during active or passive immunization, the antibodies were concentrated in the monocytes. These findings suggest that monocytes may play a part in the production of antibodies or merely store them. Exudates rich in monocytes were obtained from rabbits in a state of artificially induced monocytosis. The monocytosis was induced by injections of MPA (Monocytosis producing agent) which was prepared from an extract of L. monocytogenes. [...]  Lire la suite

In 1949 the Educational Department of the Montreal Young Women's Christian Association was merged with the arts and crafts interest groups of the Young Adult Department and the new Art Workshop and Educational Classes Department was assigned the challenging responsibility of developing an imaginative and creative program in the arts and crafts. The decision to initiate workshops in which young and enthusiastic amateurs could explore the world of design, rhythm and beauty and experience the thrill of creation put the Montreal Association into the ranks of those few Y.W.C.A.'s (1) who for some time have pioneered in the field of …  Lire la suite

The following conclusions may be drawn from electrophysiological study of the efferent pathways of the supplementary and precentral motor areas: 1) Stimulation of the motor cortex by single, short duration square pulses evokes in the cord responses consisting of a stable "direct" early component of fixed latency and of an "indirect" late one, variable in amplitude form and latency. 2) Both components are electrically positive at the recording electrode tip against a diffuse reference. [...]  Lire la suite

The aim of this work is to give a coherent account of experiments designed and carried out to try to illuminate our knowledge of the behavior of humans under conditions of isolation. The particular emphasis will be on susceptibility to changes in attitude produced by such conditions and on an attempt to discover something of the psychological variables involved. Finally, there will be an attempt to formulate some sort of explanatory principles which will give, or at least lead to, a predictive theory of such variations as may be observed in normal behavior.  Lire la suite

For this thesis, an all-welded plate girder, having a ratio of web depth to web thickness of 372, was used. Two panels of this girder had stiffener spacings to web depth of 1 to 1 and 1 to 2. The girder was subjected to loadings considerably in excess of theoretically calculated buckling loads for the two panels. Web stresses were measured at three sections of the girder and these were compared to theoretically calculated values. Bending stresses were measured at the extreme fibres of one section. The variations in stress along one pair of stiffeners was also recorded. [...]  Lire la suite

Most of the peninsula of Labrador-Ungava is within the belt of coniferous forests which extends around the world in northern latitudes, and the present study is on the forests and physiography around Goose Bay, Labrador, an area which has come into recent focus as the site of an important air base. This area, together with almost all of the rest of Canada, has been photographed from the air in recent years, and this has created a tremendous store of material which was formerly unavailable to the research worker due to the difficulty of travelling through the interior of this rough …  Lire la suite

It is well known that proteins interact to form complexes with a large and diverse group of substances. These interactions vary from the highly specific combination shown by the enzyme-substrate complex or the antibody-hapten reaction to the less specific binding which may be shown by blood proteins. The present work deals largely with complexes of the latter type, as manifested by the plasma proteins.  Lire la suite

Over sixty years ago the first chemical investigations were reported on waste sulfite liquor from the pulping of wood, but despite a large volume of research in the intervening period, the sulfonation reaction and its products remain an intriguing unsolved problem. The very great complexity of the starting material, plus the susceptibility to chemical change exhibited by the lignin in the wood, have been major obstacles to the acquisition of knowledge in this field.  Lire la suite

To test the hypothesis that compression hastens the healing of fractures, three groups of experimental fractures in dogs have been devised. The first group was treated by plate immobilization and compression. The control groups were immobilized with bone plates or intra medullary nails. 1). It was found that union occured more rapidly in the group treated with compression. [...]  Lire la suite

( 1) The previously reported (22) 3-hydroxyethyl-1,2: 5,6-diisopropylidene-D-glucofuranose, of specifie rotation -32.5 degrees, was apparently contaminated with 1,2:5,6-diisopropylidene-D-glucofuranose. The correct specific rotation of the former compound was found to be -38.0 degrees. (2) A procedure was developed for preparing pure crystalline 3-hydroxyethylglucose on a larger scale. [...]  Lire la suite

Delinquency among adolescents has become one of the major problems of our society. Much has been written about this problem and many studies by sociologists, psychologists, and psychiatrists, have been made to find the causes. Over the decades many theories as to the cause or causes of delinquency have been postulated by various writers. These theories have varied from that of heredity to those of environmental or social factors. [...]  Lire la suite

To the agricultural economist the problem of land settlement on a national scale is question-begging. The economist observes that farm labour is being inefficiently employed on many Canadian farms, and points out the necessity for migration of labour from the farms to other industries where the productivity of labour is greater and can command a higher award. Thus it is quite rational to ask why further growth of the Canadian farm population should be encouraged by an extensive government sponsored scheme for veteran settlement? [...]  Lire la suite

The near-zone field distribution of an infinite slit and of an elliptical hole was investigated experimentally when these apertures were irradiated at normal incidence by a plane monochromatic electromagnetic wave. The field possesses a structure which is a function of the shape and the dimensions of the aperture. The approximate theories of Bekefi and Neugebauer predict the general structure of the field, but fail to describe it exacty. A modification of the theory which effectively reduces the width of the slit by one-quarter wavelength, results in a much better agreement with experiment.  Lire la suite

The main purpose of this paper is to describe in detail a new vertebral perfusion method: 1) in which the spinal cord is maintained without its natural blood supply, on gaseous oxygen perfused through the heart; 2) that can serve as a pharmacological test object for the demonstration of the effects of drugs on spinal (excitatory and inhibitory) reflexes, and 3) in which the perfusate through the active spinal cord can be conveniently collected and reperfused to test for the possibility of active substance(s) therein.  Lire la suite

The method of A. Young for finding the set of primitive idempotents of the group algebra of the Symmetric group S is classical; it was first elaborated by G. Frobenius using the investigations of A. Young. A more developed treatment and means for obtaining bases for the irreducible representations were later given by Young. A concise acount can be found in and a very detailed treatment in.  Lire la suite

As far back as 1884, Loeffler (59) had directed attention to the haemolytic streptococci which were more or less constantly present in the throats of acutely ill scarlet fever patients. Lemoine (58), in 1895, found streptococci alone in 93 cases when examining the mucus from 117 throats in scarlet fever, while 14 cases had streptococci in association with other organisms. The absence ot streptococci in only 5 of 701 scarlet fever patients was reported by Baginsky and Sommerfeld (3), while Ruediger (88), examining 75 throats of patients ill with this disease, found that 64 showed streptococci alone, with pneumococci and …  Lire la suite

The individuality of animal species as regards responsiveness to hormonal treatment is a well recognized fact in endocrinology. Probably the best example has been furnished by pituitary growth hormone, due perhaps to its multiple metabolic effects and complex mechanism of action. In the case of this hormone, man illustrates perfectly the species idiosyncrasy. The promising therapeutic values expected from experimental work in animals have not been obtained in human subjects.  Lire la suite

Gaspé peninsula forms a tongue of land which extends into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in the eastern part of the Province of Quebec. From its western boundary, the valley of the Matapedia river, to its eastern one, the Bay of Gaspé, the peninsula has a length of approximately 150 miles and a width, between the St. Lawrence estuary and the Bay of Chaleurs, of between 70 and 90 miles.  Lire la suite

Measurements of input impedance of cylindrical antennas have been made with a variation of antenna length, diameter and centre spacing. The results are shown in a series of graphs. The variation of resistance and reactance is shown to be in the same direction as contained in the literature.  Lire la suite

Fatty infiltration of the liver, though a common pathological finding associated with many diseases and frequently observed in routine autopsies, remains largely an enigma to the clinician and the biochemist. The importance of this lesion is recognized, for fatty infiltration has been shown to result in an impairment of hepatic function (54,188) and, if severe, to terminate in cirrhosis (39,41,46,47). Recent reports in the literature on the use of adrenocorticotropic hormone and cortisone for the treatment of acute and chronic liver disease (26,29,82,44) are somewhat conflicting. [...]  Lire la suite

A number of bacteria have been isolated by the soil perfusion method of Lees and Quastel (1946) which actively metabolize cholic acid (Quastel, Scholefield and Stevenson, 1952); during the course of experiments wlth these organisms, it was found that they induced a significantly consistent lymphocytopenia upon injection into rabbits (Stevenson and DeVries, 1952). [...]  Lire la suite

The speckled trout, Salvelinus fontinalis (Mitchill), is highly valued in the Province of Quebec as a game fish. However, little is known regarding the distribution and importance of the helminth parasites of this fish in Quebec, or the biology, the systematic status and morphology of some of the species involved. [...]  Lire la suite

The properties of concrete are being investigated for the last thirty years. Aside from the action of direct load, deformations are produced in concrete by changes in temperature and in moisture content. Concrete, like steel and other structural materials, expands when heated, and contracts when cooled. In general, the coefficient of thermal expansion for concrete is considered to be not much different from that of carbon steel which is 6.5 x 10 -6 per degree F. Therefore, these two materials are assumed to contract or expand together in reinforced concrete structures. [...]  Lire la suite

Few reports have been published concerning the incidence of microorganisms on fruit. Indeed nothing has heretofore been published about the bacteria and yeasts that are indigenous to Canadian apples. Research about the microflora of fruit has been directed, for the most part, toward establishing the effects of preservatives on the keeping quality of fruit and fruit products. Few studies have been made, however, to determine the types and respective numbers of microorganisms initially present on fruit. There seems to be little doubt that the amount of preservative and the type of preservation used for fruit and fruit products depend to …  Lire la suite

The seminiferous epithelium consists of complex associations of cells whose transformations lead to the production of the male germ cell or spermatozoon. Over a century ago, histologists and cytologists were already puzzled by the structure of this tissue. Some of the best histological works of the 1890’s were done in unraveling the complexity of this epithelium. In fact, some of the descriptions given by the workers of this time have remained classical until now. Recently, with the advent of histochemical techniques and of the electron microscope, there has been a renewed interest in the study of the seminiferous epithelium. Several …  Lire la suite

Measurements have been made on the tracks of 16o disintegration stars produced by bombarding oxygen gas contained in a Wilson cloud chamber with neutrons of energies up to 22 Mev. Of the above number 141 events appear to be examples of the 0^16 (n,α) 0^12 reaction and 9 stars are believed to be examples of the 0^16 (n,α) 0^13 reaction. The remaining 10 stars could, on the basis of energy and momentum criteria, be attributed to either of the above disintegration processes but the balance of evidence is in favour of the 0^16 (n, α) 0^13 reaction. Further evidence for …  Lire la suite

An investigation has been made of the application of scintillating crystals in conjunction with a photomultiplier tube as a dosimeter for x-rays. The effects of varying the length, diameter and surface covering of the lucite pipe have been studied in an attempt to find the smallest practical size of the probe for a clinical dosimeter to measure dosages in body cavities or in steep gradients of x-ray intensity. Stilbene, anthracene and calcium tungstate crystals were investigated and a combination of the latter two was used to obtain a crystal response proportional to that of a Victoreen dosimeter over the range …  Lire la suite

Since the subject matter which comes before the modern legislators is so intricate and diverse, lawmaking has tended to shift upward into the executive branch thus relegating the legislature to the function of deliberation. Even though the Cabinet in conjunction with the civil service formulates the legislative proposals and force them through Parliament, the power concentrated in the executive is not so great as many students might believe. For, the crystallization and the actual initiation of policy have shifted downward into the various social and economic groups within the community.  Lire la suite

As early as 1848, Frankland and Kolbe (26) observed the reaction of propionitrile with metallic sodium in the absence of a solvent. The reaction products were sodium cyanide, ethane, and an organic base which they named cyanoethene (I). The structure of (I) was elucidated by Ernst von Meyer (41) in 1889, and was shown to be a derivative of aminopyrimidine. In 1869, A.G. Bayer (6,7) investigated the behavior of acetonitrile toward metallic sodium under similar conditions.  Lire la suite

The Johan Beetz Area is situated on the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and is bounded by latitudes 50°15'N and 50°30'N, and by longtitudes 62°3O'W and 63°00'W. It measures about 22 miles east-west and 17 miles north-south and is approximately 350 square miles in area. Johan Beetz, after which this area has been named, is a small settlement on the shore about midway between the east and west boundaries of the area.  Lire la suite

Riddell, J. E. (Supervisor)  Lire la suite

Previous to World War II, little attention has been accorded to the possible use of vegetable oils in the commercial preparation of shortenings. This was largely due to the fact that most oils of vegetable origin possess relatively strong and objectionable odors which must be eliminated by extensive processing before they are acceptable to and nutritionally sound for the use of the consumer population.  Lire la suite

A paraboloidal optical system is proposed for antenna measurements at microwave frequencies; the precision of measurement would be limited primarily by diffraction due to the finite dimensions of the exit pupil of the device. Multiple scatterine between the feed and the antenna under examination would be minimized by the use of a reflector with a long focal length.  Lire la suite

A greater understanding of the growth and development of children has resulted from recent studies undertaken by experts in the field of child care. The normal pattern of growth and development, the deviations from the normal, and the environmental influences upon growth have been discussed by Gesell and Amatruda. The authors have formulated the concept of developmental diagnosis which refers to the necessity for diagnosing deviant development, in order to learn what can be expected of the child's later development.  Lire la suite

A new isotope Pr137 has been discovered, its half-life measured as 1.5 ± 0.1 hours, and its positron end point energy as 1.7 ± 0.1 Mev. For Pr138 (2.0 hours) a previous tentative mass assignment has been confirmed, and two conversion electrons with energies of 262± 5 Kev. and 299 ± 5 Kev. have been found associated with its decay. These electrons appear to be K and L conversions from a 300 Kev. transition in Ce138.  Lire la suite

Noad, A. S. (Supervisor)  Lire la suite

Leblond, C. (Supervisor)  Lire la suite

Studies on the phenomenon of mechanization have demonstrated that under certain conditions, excessive effort rather than economy of effort is often characteristic of the organism’s adjustment to even relatively simple situations. For example, a child must take a detour for several weeks because of road repairs between his house and the nearby school. Will he continue to take the longer route after the road has been cleared, and if so, for how long?  Lire la suite