McGill University Thèses et mémoires publiés en 2020

Les différences d'immunité entre les sexes sont bien documentées; les femmes ont généralement une réponse plus puissante que les hommes. L'une des conséquences d'une réponse immunitaire extrêmement puissante est le risque de contourner les mécanismes d'auto-tolérance pour favoriser les pathologies auto-immunes. En effet, 80% des patients auto-immuns sont des femmes. Bien que des facteurs hormonaux et génétiques aient été impliqués dans l'immunité sexiste, les mécanismes moléculaires à l'origine de ces différences restent mal compris. Les cellules dendritiques (CDs) jouent un rôle crucial dans le contrôle de la réponse immunitaire. Une fois le stimulus reconnu, les CDs passent d'un «état stable» …  Lire la suite

Renaud, James (Supervisor1)  Lire la suite

Il y a très peu de recherches disponibles qui portent sur les taux alarmants de détresse des étudiants sur les campus postsecondaires canadiens et les approches artistiques en matière de santé et de bien-être des étudiants. La présente étude est une étude sur le problème croissant de la détresse et du suicide chez les élèves et un examen de la façon dont l’utilisation des soutiens axés sur les arts a apporté un changement pour améliorer le bien-être. Avec des centres de counseling surchargés et peu de ressources pour fournir des formes de soutien diversifiées et accessibles, il n’est pas surprenant …  Lire la suite

L'allocation en temps réel de la puissance dans les réseaux de télécommunications est un problème de plus en plus complexe. Alors que des algorithmes à approximations convexes successives tels que WMMSE peuvent obtenir une performance presque optimale, leur complexité informatique les rend inadéquats dans un contexte de temps réel. Récemment, la recherche a démontré que des techniques en apprentissage automatique telles que les réseaux de neurones artificiels (ANN) peuvent apprendre l'application de ces algorithmes et ainsi trouver une solution en temps presque réel. En fait, plusieurs approches de ANN ont été implémentées dans le but de maximiser la somme pondérée …  Lire la suite

The manuscripts of the Roman de Girart de Roussillon (XIVth century, the manuscripts are from the XVth) all have an important peritextual apparatus (rubrics, notæ, manicules). This thesis shows that each of those apparati orients the novel’s reading towars a particular genre: epic, hagiographic or didactic. These scribal interventions in the novel’s manuscripts bear witness to the XVth century copists’ unease regarding the polygeneric work of literature they had to copy  Lire la suite

The objective of this thesis is the use and design of analytics methods (i.e., methods from operations research and management science, artificial intelligence, and statistics) for medical decision making. In particular, this work focuses on methods to assist physicians towards achieving remission in patients suffering from treatment-resistant depression, a severe form of the major depressive disorder. Following a literature review of medical decision making methods relevant for treating depression, this thesis proposes medical decision making methods for (1) finding the best initial treatment modification for incoming patients, (2) characterizing the current timing decisions between appointments and (3) recommending potential successful …  Lire la suite

Les cellules gliales du système nerveux central (SNC) sont essentielles pour le développement neuronal, le maintien de l’homéostasie ionique, l'excitabilité et le métabolisme des neurones, ainsi que le comportement. Cependant, les mécanismes moléculaires et cellulaires sous-jacents sont encore mal compris. Pour l'instant, nous comprenons encore mal i) les caractéristiques moléculaires des différents sous-types de cellules gliales, ii) l'hétérogénéité au sein de ces sous-types, iii) la pertinence de ces caractéristiques moléculaires pour la fonction des cellules gliales, et iv) la conservation de ces caractéristiques entre espèces. Pour ces raisons, mes recherches ont cherché à apporter une description moléculaire détaillée des sous-types …  Lire la suite

The nucleolus has been studied for the past 200 years, leading it to be a well characterized membraneless organelle. It is responsible for many cellular functions, notably ribosome biogenesis. The nucleolus is the target of various drugs for, and is known to be malfunctioning in, neurodegenerative diseases including Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease and in ribosomopathies, diseases caused by ribosomal genes. On the other hand, LINC complexes (links between the nucleoskeleton and cytoskeleton) have only been studied for the past two decades and it is thought that more exist that have not yet been unidentified. Although this field is relatively …  Lire la suite

The neurodegenerative movement disorder, Parkinson disease (PD) has emerged as one of the fastest growing neurological conditions in terms of both prevalence and mortality. Sorely lacking are diagnostic and neuroprotective therapeutic tools for the better management of this debilitating condition. The Schipper laboratory has been studying neurodegenerative disorders, like PD, for over two decades, doing so through the lens of a highly inducible stress protein, heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1). HO-1 catalyzes the conversion of heme into biliverdin, carbon monoxide and free ferrous iron in brain and other tissues. Astrocytes from PD basal ganglia show significant elevation of HO-1 protein, and extensive …  Lire la suite

Huntington’s disease (HD) is an autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disorder characterized by progressive loss of striatal medium spiny projection neurons (MSN), some striatal interneuron subpopulations, and degeneration of striatal afferent systems. HD manifestations include choreiform movements, dystonia, cognitive and emotional problems, often leading to premature death. Many genetic mouse models have been created to reproduce different aspects of this disease. The R6/2 model shows a rapidly progressive phenotype and reproduces much of the cell loss and protein deficits seen in HD patients. In order to determine how afferent striatal afferent systems impact the vulnerability of striatal neurons in HD, we determined …  Lire la suite

La maladie d’Alzheimer (MA) est un trouble neurodégénératif qui évolue à travers une cascade unique de caractéristiques neuropathologiques. Les caractéristiques distinctives comprennent l'accumulation de dépôts de peptide amyloïdes et la dégénérescence neurofibrillaires dans le cerveau, accompagnés de troubles de l'apprentissage et de la mémoire. Ces caractéristiques commencent des années à des décennies avant le diagnostic clinique1. Par conséquent, afin de pouvoir faire un diagnostic précoce, il sera nécessaire de développer des biomarqueurs prodromiques.Les mesures neurochimiques obtenues par imagerie cérébrale non invasive peuvent avoir le potentiel de servir comme biomarqueurs précoces de la MA. Les preuves suggèrent que les altérations des …  Lire la suite

Introduction: The year 2020 will mark 40 years since AIDS was first considered a global epidemic. An ambitious program by UNAIDS, called 90-90-90 initiative, was put in place in 2013. This initiative specifies that by 2020, there will be a significant decrease in HIV incidence. The objectives of the 90-90-90 program will not be realized in this time frame, and it is unlikely that progress can be made unless there can be an understanding of the transmission networks by which the virus continues to propagate.Objectives: A) Analyze the dynamics of spread of the HIV-1 MSM epidemic in Quebec using phylogenetic …  Lire la suite

Luis, Miranda-Moreno, (Supervisor1)  Lire la suite

The legendary adventures of the giants Pantagruel and Gargantua have been the subject of several researches of the sixteenth century scholars of yesterday and today. The work of François Rabelais, famous author of the Renaissance, is particularly well known for the appearance of laughter, carnivalesque aspect and polyphony. In the wake of recent studies on the ventriloquism of women , this mémoire offers a specific look at the multiple speeches of female characters in the first four stories of François Rabelais. This study sheds light on the manifestations of the feminine gender by answering several questions: how does speech fit …  Lire la suite

Rincon, Sonia Victoria Del (Supervisor2)  Lire la suite

Cilia or flagella of eukaryotes are small micro-hair-like structures indispensable to single-cell motility and play an important role in mammalian biological processes. Cilia or flagella are composed of nine doublet microtubules surrounding a pair of singlet microtubules called the central pair (CP). Together, this arrangement forms the canonical and highly conserved “9+2” axonemal structure. The CP, which is a unique structure exclusive to motile cilia, is a pair of structurally dimorphic singlet microtubules decorated with numerous associated protein complexes termed C1 and C2. The corresponding protein complexes which bind around their respective microtubule are therefore named C1a to C1f and …  Lire la suite

Background: Dietary protein provides the body with a source of amino acids and plays a key role in regulating appetite, satiety, and subsequent food intake. Sources of dietary protein differ in their amino acid content and digestibility and may therefore have different effects on appetite regulation. Animal-derived proteins such as beef are generally considered high quality sources of protein; however, the production of sufficient amounts of conventional animal-based protein to meet future global food demands represents a challenge. Edible insects such as crickets (Acheta domesticus) may represent a novel alternative source of dietary protein that may assist in meeting future …  Lire la suite

Architectured and segmented material designs have recently emerged as a powerful approach to high strength and toughness. These materials are made of regular building blocks that can collectively slide, rotate, separate or interlock, providing a wealth of tunable mechanisms. The properties of architectured materials can be tuned with geometry, surface morphology, friction and adhesion between the blocks. This article-based dissertation is organized in three main chapters: First we use experiments and modeling to explore the strength and the stability of idealized segmented systems made of a linear array of cubes subjected to axial pre-compression and to a transverse force. We …  Lire la suite

Blood’s major function aside from being a source of immune cells, is to supply oxygen, nutrients and to provide a sink for metabolic wastes. Tissues are reliant on a sufficient blood flow to maintain their viability, and if the blood flow is reduced or interrupted, tissues ultimately die at a point known as the ischemic limit. Oxygen is a major limiting factor of tissue survival during ischemia: it is an essential component of the oxidative phosphorylation that produces energy for cells. Oxygen concentration fails to meet metabolic requirements in many clinical situations, and even a mild ischemia e.g. due to …  Lire la suite

Le cœur de cette thèse repose sur trois chapitres qui traitent de la nature et des effets du contenu créatif en publicité. Dans le premier chapitre, je propose un cadre d’analyse novateur pour évaluer le contenu créatif en publicité, dit Stratégie Créative en Publicité (SCP), lequel est compréhensif, parcimonieux et ancré dans la littérature sur la commercialisation et la publicité. Ce cadre est composé de deux éléments : la Fonction de la publicité, qui est le message transmis aux consommateurs (c’est-à-dire le contenu publicitaire), et la Forme de de la publicité, qui est la manière dont le message est transmis …  Lire la suite

En raison de la croissance accélérée des domaines liés à la science des données et à l'apprentissage automatique, nous assistons actuellement à un regain d'intérêt pour le développement d'applications analytiques avancées utilisant ces concepts et techniques. Ces projets étant ``gourmands en données'', leur afflux rapide a bouleversé le paysage de la gestion des données. Les bases de données, en particulier celles gérées par les systèmes de gestion de bases de données relationnelles (SGBDR) sont une source majeure de données pour les scientifiques travaillant sur de tels projets. Cependant, les processus liés à la science des données nécessitent le support de …  Lire la suite

Cette thèse prend le roman Sangqing yu Taohong ou Mulberry and Peach : Two Women of China écrit par Nieh Hualing en 1976 pour une imagination littéraire de libertés alternatives qui réfutent l’hégémonie du libéralisme américain pendant la guerre froide. En tant que réfugiée de la République populaire de Chine et de la République de Chine, Nieh est devenue une célébrité littéraire à l’University de l’Iowa, d’abord comme étudiante au Iowa Writers’ Workshop, puis comme cofondatrice et codirectrice de l’International Writing Program. Pas seulement un combattant de la liberté littéraire qui s’échappa héroïquement au totalitarisme, elle fût aussi un agent …  Lire la suite

My research puzzle was shaped around the experiences and stories of two teachers who have created and nurtured a land-based Nipugtugewei Kindergarten programme in Listuguj, First Nation. Drawing on Clandinin and Connelly’s (2000) conceptualization of narrative inquiry, I engaged with this community, lived alongside teachers, and created spaces that invited participants, and other community members, to inquire into these experiences and stories together. The field texts included research conversation transcripts and observations. Two narrative accounts, one for each teacher, were co-composed alongside each participant. As I inquired into field texts and narrative accounts, I was first attentive to how the …  Lire la suite

La decouverte des neutrinos massifs permet de s'interroger sur leur nature : s'agit-ilde particules de Dirac ou de Majorana? Ce dernier serait un nouveau type de particulefondamentale, en violation de la conservation du nombre de leptons par une transitionde particule a antiparticule. La voie la plus prometteuse pour determiner si le neutrinoest un Majoran est la double desintegration beta sans emission de neutrinos. nEXO estune chambre a projection temporelle de la prochaine generation a la recherche d'unedesintegration beta double sans emission de neutrinos dans 5 tonnes de xenon liquide(LXe) enrichi en isotope 136Xe. Les interactions au sein de LXe produisent …  Lire la suite

Moisture can be responsible for oxygen uptake in laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) additive manufacturing (AM) processing. At high processing temperatures, the sensitive feedstock powders and parts can be affected by moisture-induced oxidation reactions. This work aims to evaluate the potential sources of moisture in LPBF AM processing and measure the quantity of moisture from each source. Two such major sources were investigated: (a) the filters used in additive manufacturing and (b) the surface of feedstock Ti-6Al-4V powders.Using dynamic vapor sorption (DVS), the sorption properties of cellulosic fibre filters commonly used in LPBF AM were measured. It was shown that …  Lire la suite

The geometric reconstruction of shower direction at the VERITAS imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescope (IACT) system sees a substantial degradation at large zenith angles (φ > 45◦). A machine-learning-based reconstruction of this direction is not expected to suffer from the same limitations because it does not rely on the geometry of the observation. In this work, we demonstrate the predicted efficiency of a shower direction reconstruction using boosted decision trees. We also test how well this translates to a data analysis by performing a proof of concept with compact and point-source objects  Lire la suite

Infertility affects up to one in six Canadian couples and is a challenging experience, associated with increased stress, depression, and decreased quality of life (Cousineau & Domar, 2007; Fisher & Hammarberg 2012; Greil et al., 2010), and some patients may benefit from accessing counselling services. However, the large difference between patients’ interest in counselling services and actual uptake (Laflont & Edelmann, 1994; Wischmann et al., 2009;) suggests that some patients may experience barriers to accessing mental health care. Common barriers outlined in the mental health help-seeking literature include a lack of information, especially about recognizing symptoms of mental illness and …  Lire la suite

The evolution and regulation of novel castes has contributed to the ecological and evolutionary success of ants. Ant colonies are composed of at least two castes: a winged queen caste and a wingless worker caste. The worker caste of most ants is monomorphic, which means it is composed of morphologically similar individuals. However, in some of the most successful genera of ants the worker caste evolved into two or more subcastes several times independently. The evolution of a worker caste with significant inter-individual variation in size and head-to-body scaling is called worker polymorphism. Despite being wingless, the worker caste of …  Lire la suite

Pshezhetsky, Alexei (Supervisor1)  Lire la suite

Collin-Vezina, Delphine (Supervisor1)  Lire la suite

Brown, Claire (Internal/Supervisor)  Lire la suite

Background & Rationale: Six million Canadian adults are diagnosed with arthritis costing the health care system an average of $33 billion annually. According to the Arthritis Society of Canada, 67% of those affected are women. In the clinic, women afflicted with Osteoarthritis (OA) report higher levels of pain based on multiple diagnostic tests despite having similar levels of radiographic degradation in the joints. A meta-analysis study concluded that women have greater risk, prevalence, incidence, and severity of OA in all joints. Contrary to claims describing OA as a disease due to wear and tear, OA has both inflammatory and neuropathic …  Lire la suite

In the international human rights field, victims play a crucial role. While the victimhood paradigm relies on key-concepts such as trauma, reparation and healing, it seems essential to abandon this framework where suffering prevails and, instead, explore the victims’ agency. This thesis highlights the capacity of victims to generate norms, and thus to articulate visions of future worlds, by looking at the strategies deployed by the families of the more than 60,000 disappeared during Mexico’s drug war launched in 2006. As the Mexican government engages in a transitional justice process to deal with mass violence, local transitional justice responses are …  Lire la suite

This study argues that the liberal hold on the human rights discourse leads to a definition of the right to property disconnected with property relationships as they are experienced on the ground. Abstract universalism prevalent in international human rights law creates an erroneous conflation of liberal property rights (individual and exclusionary rights over commodified objects) and the human right to property. The latter ought to be understood within the context of the human rights mission which, this thesis proposes, is to enable people’s meaningful social participation. Indeed, human rights cannot exist in a vacuum. They are responses to concrete social …  Lire la suite

Consistent with the behavioural conflict they generate, personal drives to play extraordinary social roles (ESRs) were previously found to independently predict delusion-like ideation and disorganization traits seen along the schizotypy continuum. This finding spurred a hypothesis that antipsychotic medications, that have been demonstrated to reduce delusional thinking and disorganization in schizophrenia patients, can reduce this drive by blocking dopaminergic transmission modulating motivational and reward seeking circuits of the prefrontal cortex. The aim of this research was to provide psychometric, behavioural, and electrophysiological evidence of the impact of non-specific antipsychotic-placebo (AP-Placebo) expectations on cognitive mechanisms of social role playing as a …  Lire la suite

The Cenomanian-Turonian thermal maximum occurred in the middle of the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution, during which angiosperms began their diversification alongside many ecologically influent modern insect lineages. The extent of the influence of the physical environment and biotic interactions has yet to be properly determined for this major ecological and evolutionary transition, and the fundamental questions it raises can be addressed in part by constantly expanding the currently available fossil record.This Master’s thesis presents new research on the palaeoecology of the Redmond assemblage, a mysterious locality of estimated Cenomanian age from Labrador, near Schefferville, Canada. The fossils on which it is …  Lire la suite

Cette thèse examine l’impact des politiques d’immigration canadiennes sur la constitution de l’identité sino-canadienne entre 1949 et 1989, en mettant l’accent sur trois moments historiques: la création de la République populaire de Chine (RPC) en 1949, l’accord de réunification des familles entre le Canada et la RPC en 1973, et le massacre de Tiananmen en 1989. J’utilise ces trois moments pour tracer un lien état-communauté et montrer comment l’interaction entre l’état et la communauté quant à les politiques d’immigration canadiennes a façonné la perception d'être chinoise au Canada. Pour clarifier ce processus, mon projet apporte deux concepts interdépendants mais distincts …  Lire la suite

This study evaluated the use of a 17-sensor Xsens MVN Link IMU system to measure joint kinematics in comparison to an 18 Vicon camera (4 V5, 4 Vero 2.2, 2 T40S and 8 T10S) optoelectronic system during ice hockey shooting tasks. Ten high-level ice hockey players performed 10 static wrist shots and slap shots on an in-lab artificial ice surface. Concurrent Xsens and Vicon recordings were obtained of each participant’s ice hockey shots. Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and the Coefficient of Multiple Correlation (CMC) were used to compare the participant’s joint angle measures between the two systems. Across all …  Lire la suite

Genetically determined leukoencephalopathies (gLEs) are a group of rare heritable white matter disorders primarily affecting children, for which there remains many unsolved genetic cases. Identifying the molecular cause of these neurodegenerative diseases is essential as it allows the patients and their families to know the disease course, gain access to therapeutic options if available and obtain genetic counselling to make reproductive decisions.The first section of this thesis focuses on identifying the genetic cause of a cohort of patients with unsolved gLEs using whole exome sequencing (WES). The analysis was performed on 18 patients, 12 of which were second or third …  Lire la suite

The development of complex cyber-physical systems such as aeroderivative gas turbines (AGT) frequently involves running variety of multi-disciplinary design and analysis tools executed along hierarchical workflows in a collaborative environment. The efficient and accurate definition of tool integration workflows is a major challenge because the processing of data for each tool in the sequence is dependent upon the results generated by the other tool. In this thesis, I present a graphical workflow editor to provide an interactive, intuitive and user-friendly tool to define complex tool integration workflows. The workflow editor builds on several innovative ideas: (1) instead of a static …  Lire la suite

L'augmentation de la demande alimentaire liée à la croissance démographique entraîne une hausse des besoins en eau d'irrigation. L’agriculture étant le plus grand consommateur d’eau douce, des sources alternatives d’eaux d’irrigation, tel les eaux usées, pourrait contribuer à alléger la demande en eau douce. Cependant, les eaux usées contiennent des contaminants, tels les métaux lourds, qui pourraient être assimilés par les cultures alimentaires ou contaminer les eaux souterraines. Il existe donc un besoin urgent de développer des techniques simples et rentables permettant de réduire la mobilité des contaminants dans le sol et leur assimilation par les cultures. La présente étude …  Lire la suite

Les émotions sont omniprésentes dans les milieux académiques. Cependant, jusqu'à récemment, le rôle des émotions au cours de l'apprentissage a été négligé dans la recherche en éducation. Pendant des décennies, des appels à la recherche ont été lancés pour examiner le rôle des émotions dans l'apprentissage et pour intégrer les théories de l'émotion aux interventions éducatives. Dans cette thèse, je mène d'abord une analyse de la littérature qui examine les structures théoriques et méthodologiques pertinentes. Des restrictions de recherches précédentes sont identifiées et des recommandations progressives sont proposées : (1) l’évaluation des antécédents et des conséquences des émotions au cours …  Lire la suite

Sewitch, Maida (Supervisor2)  Lire la suite

Seuntjens, Jan Peter Frans (Supervisor1)  Lire la suite

In the piece written for this thesis, Wi(th-e)Red Tree, I use the spectra of various sound objects derived from the double bass as both sonic material and a structural model for an orchestral synthesis (Fineberg, 2000). Additionally, with the use of processes, I create harmonic instability and a sense of hierarchy to perform classifications such as movement from harmonic to inharmonic, smooth to rough, and disorder to order. Exploring these hierarchies brings up the idea of vector of the musical discourse, which is the idea that all processes have a trajectory and imply a directionality. Moreover, vectorization inevitably creates feelings …  Lire la suite

Orsat, Valérie (Supervisor2)  Lire la suite

Parmi les immigrants musulmans qui sont arrivés au Canada ces dernières années, les immigrants ouïghours de la région autonome ouïghoure du Xinjiang (XUAR) de Chine révèlent de nombreuses caractéristiques spéciales. Leur identité religieuse, leur langue, leur éducation et d'autres formes de droits humains ont du faire face à des menaces sérieuses sous le gouvernement chinois actuel. Bien que immigrer dans les démocraties libérales occidentales peut être propice à la protection et au renforcement de leur identités culturelles, cela peut également créer de nombreux et nouveaux défis pour leur identité collective. Dans ce contexte, cette étude comparative se propose d'explorer les …  Lire la suite

Platt, Robert William (Supervisor2)  Lire la suite

Soneji, Davesh (Supervisor2)  Lire la suite

Ray, Saibal (Supervisor1)  Lire la suite