McGill University Thèses et mémoires par auteur commençant par A

Introduction : Les enfants survivants du cancer sont souvent confrontés à des effets secondaires à court et à long terme liés au traitement, notamment des atteintes aux tissus et organes sains. Parmi ces effets, les complications bucco-dentaires sont fréquentes et peuvent engendrer des difficultés cognitives, psychologiques et sociales, affectant considérablement leur bien-être global. Le bien-être est un concept large et multidimensionnel qui renvoie à la manière dont les individus perçoivent et évaluent leur vie en termes de santé, de bonheur, de sens et de fonctionnement. Pour mieux comprendre comment les complications buccales liées au traitement du cancer influencent le bien-être …  Lire la suite

Novel heteroanthracycline antitumor drugs were designed based on structure activity relationship studies and known mechanisms of drug action. Their preparation required the development of a general synthetic approach. After extensive studies, three methodologies were developed for the general synthetic plan. The first method involved photoenolisation of 2,5-dimethoxybenzaldehyde and SO$ sb2$ entrapment of the o-quinodimethane to give 4,7-dimethoxy-1-hydroxy-1,3-dihydrobenzo(2,3-c) thiophene-2,2-dioxide. This compound served as a general intermediate towards the synthesis of several heteroanthracyclinones. It could be reduced to the oxathiin-2-oxide derivative which thermally extruded SO$ sb2$ to yield the o-quinodimethane. Reentrapment of this latter intermediate with various glyoxalates gave key isochroman derivatives. …  Lire la suite

Cette thèse étudie le transport d'électrons et les spectres de perte d'énergie en utilisant la méthode de Monte Carlo et de la méthode de la densité fonctionnelle des atomes. Dans la première partie, les transports d'électrons dans les matériaux massifs et des films minces ont été étudiées à l'aide de simulations de Monte Carlo basées sur le modèle de données optiques. Le modèle de données optique donne l'avantage des calculs des coefficients de rétrodiffusion et de transmission de très faible (environ 100 eV) à très élevé (environ 500 keV) des énergies de faisceau. Les résultats de la simulation pour les …  Lire la suite

This inquiry explores matrilineal autobiographical narratives in the contexts of family stories and memories. This self-study traces the stories of a collective of five women of a common Armenian heritage, who represent various generational, homeland and diasporic portraits and experiences. Carrying the burden of being descendants of genocide survivors, the memories we reconstruct and interpret deal with issues of inherited exile, dispossession, loss, trauma, survival and healing. In exploring these narratives, I engage in self-reflexivity as we construct, re-construct, re-present our narratives and their impact on our constructions and negotiations of self and identity. I use the family album metaphor …  Lire la suite

Psychologists have found that noise reduces human efficiency. This effect may be considerable even for the most phlegmatic individuals. Moreover, almost everyone objects to unnecessary noises. In recent years there has arisen a very insistent demand for quieter electrical apparatus. This applies particularly to household apparatus such as refrigerator motors, vacuum sweepers and the like. Practically noiseless motors are also required for various drives ( refrigerating plants, circulation pumps of hot water systems, big ventilating systems for rooms, organ bellows etc. ) in non industrial plants such as storerooms, business houses, hotels, hospitals, churches, theatres etc> where all noise should …  Lire la suite

The possibility of obtaining side thrust by injection of a vapourizing liquid into a hot supersonic flow is investigated. A simplified analytical solution is presented for the case where injection produces boundary layer separation, and the case where mixing between injected liquid and supersonic stream occurs without separation. The side specific impulse and cooling effect produced by water injection are computed for separation. Very high values of specific impulse and temperature reduction are predicted. Mixing is found to be a generally unsteady condition except at low temperatures and low injection rates. Experiments show that separation does occur and that the …  Lire la suite

Ceramic production and exchange in Early Bronze Age Greece have been studied through provenance determination by neutron activation analysis. The concentrations of Na, K, Rb, Cs, Ca, Al, Sc, La, Ce, Eu, Yb, Th, Ti, Hf, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, and Co were determined, with respect to Perlman-Asaro standard pottery, in 255 objects of the Early Helladic (or EH) II and III periods found at Keramidhaki, Korakou, Phlious, Zygouries, Tiryns, and Asine in Korinthia and Argolis. Multivariate treatment of these data, merged with 162 analyses from the author's earlier work with samples from Lerna (Argolis) and Lake Vouliagmeni (Korinthia), yielded …  Lire la suite

L'évolution des galaxies continue d'être l'un des sujets les plus actifs et fascinant de la cosmologie observationelle. Les mécanismes fondamentaux responsables de la transformation de l'Univers jeune et homogène en un spectre de structures complexes que l'on observe aujourd'hui n'est toujours pas entièrement compris. Les noyaux actifs de galaxies (AGN, pour Active Galactic Nuclei, en anglais) sont des trous noirs présent au centre de leur galaxie hôte, et qui accretent poussières et gaz. On pense que ces AGN jouent un rôle important dans l'évolution des galaxies par rétrocontrôle et étouffement de la formation stellaire. Pour notre échantillon de 50,000 sources …  Lire la suite

Bonnell, R. (Supervisor)  Lire la suite

Kops, L. (Supervisor)  Lire la suite

Polychronakos, Constantin (Supervisor2)  Lire la suite

The role of podocytes in glomerular permselectivity is tightly associated with their intricate morphology, featuring interdigitating foot processes from adjacent cells. The actin cytoskeleton is an integral component of podocyte foot processes and is regulated by a number of proteins expressed in podocytes. Rho-family of small GTPases are known key regulators of the actin cytoskeleton. This study, investigated the role of Rac1 in podocytes, using conditionally immortalized mouse podocytes (MPs). We studied Rho-GTPase activities and morphology/cytoskeleton of differentiating mouse podocytes stably expressing nephrin. We also studied the impact of transfection of various Rho-GTPase mutants and IQGAP1 mutants. We demonstrated that …  Lire la suite

Compte tenu de l’évolution rapide et de la nature exigeante des soins courants en cancérologie (p. ex., nouvelles options de traitement, profils et besoins distincts des patients, charge de travail plus élevée, changements en pratique clinique et pénuries de personnel), les équipes de soins se sentent souvent mal outillées pour répondre à ces nouveaux défis. La pandémie de COVID-19 pose aussi des défis considérables, à court et à long terme, notamment d’importantes perturbations liées au travail, des changements rapides dans les pratiques ainsi que des réductions de la main-d’œuvre. Dans ce contexte, il est important de mieux comprendre le fonctionnement …  Lire la suite

The radiotracer methodology was combined with the Hoagland solution culture of growing soybean in a greenhouse to investigate the absorptions of phosphorus (P), calcium (Ca), and sodium (Na) as a function of salinity. Salt stress was varied by using zero to 120 mM NaCl. The research was initiated because of a need to increase soybean production in the saline soils of the semi-arid regions of the world. Although P absorption increased with time at each concentration of NaCl, increasing its concentrations ([NaCl]) to 120 mM reduced P uptake considerably. The addition of inorganic P (Pi) to the salt medium improved …  Lire la suite

Nous évoquons d’abord la théorie générale des réseaux et des variétés de Shimura en nous attardant sur leurs frontières de type Baily-Borel. Nous abordons ensuite la théorie des variétés de Shimura de type PEL et décrivons la structure de telles varietés associées à des varietés de Shimura orthogonales. Nous poursuivons notre étude de la frontière en fournissant des formules explicites pour le nombre de points de rebroussement de dimension 0 et 1 dans la compactification de Baily-Borel des variétés de Shimura orthogonales. Nous obtenons des résultats algébriques et géométriques sur la structure et configuration de chacune des composantes de la …  Lire la suite

Dans cette thèse nous étudions les corps de nombres abéliens et en particulier leurs fonctions zeta aux entiers négatifs. Les exemples-type de corps de nombres abéliens sont les corps cyclotomiques que l'on étudie fréquemment, un sujet auquel de nombreux textes ont été entièrement consacrés (voir par exemple \cite{washington1997introduction} ou presque tous les textes sur la théorie globale des corps de classes). Nous commençons par construire notre comprehension des caractères des groupes abéliens finis et de ce qui les lie aux fonctions zeta de Dedekind. Ensuite nous utilisons des outils de théorie des nombres comme le théorème de Kronecker-Weber et les …  Lire la suite

Research studies that have already been conducted on the problem of child soldiers and child conscription have focused mostly on psychological trauma. Less attention has been paid to social, economic, and political processes in Africa. The goal of this thesis is to explore perceptions of professionals from various disciplines working in different organizations and government institutions (N = 207) concerning the causes, effects, and solutions to child conscription in Africa. These professionals perceived that poverty, lack of educational resources, lack of community resources, economic hardships, dictates of international funders, corrupt governments, and unemployment were the major causes of child conscription …  Lire la suite

Kaplan, David (Supervisor)  Lire la suite

Harrison, F. (Supervisors)  Lire la suite

Contogouris, A. P. (Supervisor)  Lire la suite

The Standard Model is discussed in general and the predicted (but as yet unobserved) Higgs-boson and top-quark described. Detection of a top-quark at electron-positron colliders and hadron colliders is considered for $m sb t < 80GeV$. The detection of the Higgs-boson is considered at the Z peak in electron-positron annihilation for $m sb H leq 60GeV$, as well as in the continuum for 100 $ leq m sb H leq 200GeV$ (intermediate mass range). For this range of the Higgs-boson mass, consideration is also given to its detection at the Superconducting Supercollider through the tau-lepton decay mode. A dispersive approach …  Lire la suite

"The strange quark is the lightest sea quark in the proton after the up and down quarks, and its production in pp collisions reveals some of the internal proton structure, the fragmentation processes of the proton and improves our understanding of soft QCD processes. In this work, the production of neutral strange hadrons, specifically K⁰s , Λ⁰ and Λ¯⁰ , is studied using minimum-bias data from pp collisions at √ s = 13 TeV recorded by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The kinematic distributions and multiplicities of these particles are presented and compared with predictions from Monte Carlos, where …  Lire la suite

The polyglutamine diseases are caused by an expansion of a CAG repeat sequence. This group of late-onset neurodegenerative disorders is characterised by neuronal cell death and the accumulation of polyglutamine-containing proteins. Several molecular mechanisms have been proposed that may explain disease pathogenesis. In this study, we propose a new pathogenic mechanism for these neurodegenerative diseases. We have demonstrated that expanded CAG stretches are prone to frameshifting to the -1 alanine-encoding GCA frame, and we propose that this phenomenon is due to ribosomal slippage during translation. This slippage depends on the presence of long CAG tracts, and generates polyalanine-containing proteins. We …  Lire la suite

The continuing advances in silicon integrated circuit technology in accordance with Moore's Law have fueled the constant performance improvement of computing systems. At the same time, the deployment of networks of workstations with high-speed processors has driven the need to increase bandwidth capacities in networked environments. Electrical interconnect technologies are plagued by substantial physical problems at high frequencies, that limit their data transmission capacities. With increasing clock rates, high-bandwidth computing and communication architectures become more difficult to implement using electrical interconnects, and therefore creates a strong motivation for exploring both free-space and fiber-based optical interconnect technologies. In this thesis, the …  Lire la suite

Contexte: La dépression parmi les personnes âgées est une préoccupation croissante de santé publique reconnue à l'échelle mondiale. Par contre, les mécanismes physiopathologiques parmi cette population qui expliquent la comorbidité entre la dépression et d'autres maladies chroniques, dont le diabète de type 2, ne sont toujours pas clairs pour les chercheurs. Il se pourrait que l'inflammation puisse expliquer cette association. Les données scientifiques indiquent qu'une concentration plus élevée de la protéine c-réactive (PCR), un marqueur de l'inflammation, est associée aux symptômes dépressifs et au diabète de type 2.Objectifs : Le premier manuscrit de ce mémoire est une revue systématique et …  Lire la suite

The way humans visualize and interact with visual data affects how that data is processed. The current most prevalent paradigm for displaying visual content is a two dimensional display that suffers from a number of shortcomings. One shortcoming is that the display is a flat 2D display. As such, displaying collections of images that have been acquired from widely differing viewpoints becomes a challenge. With the pervasiveness of cameras, there is an abundance of these collections of images. These images are mostly stored and displayed as disparate images, and the information that they share and how the images relate is …  Lire la suite

In light of increased demands for security, we propose a unique approach to automated video surveillance using anomaly detection. The success of this approach is dependent on the ability of the system to ascertain the novelty of a given image acquired by a video camera. We adopt a compression-based similarity measure to determine similarity between images in a video sequence. Images that are sufficiently similar to the previously-seen images are discarded; conversely, images that are sufficiently dissimilar are stored for comparison with future incoming images. The use of a compression-based technique inherently reduces the heavy computational and storage demands that …  Lire la suite

Les techniques traditionnelles utilisées en biochimie, en histologie ainsi qu'en microscopie permettent la détermination d'un maximum de trois protéines à la fois dans l'étude d'une organelle. La mise en œuvre de la spectrométrie de masse en protéomique a complètement changé le panorama d'investigation des organelles. Pour la première fois, il est possible d'étudier le panel entier de protéines présent dans un compartiment sub-cellulaire. Dans cette étude, je démontre dans un premier temps que l'utilisation du dénombrement de peptides redondants permet la quantification des protéines et donc la capacité de comparer l'abondance relative de différentes protéines dans un échantillon complexe tel …  Lire la suite

La popularité durable de Richard Rolle en tant qu’écrivain affectif est démontrée par sa prose accessible, ce qui donne à son lectorat l’opportunité de se sentir à ses côtés et non à distance. Cette thèse examine la pratique pédagogique de Rolle comme un bricolage de pratiques orthodoxes et très émotives, et extra-liturgiques pour encoder une expérience mystique collective. Rolle transforme le processus transcendantal de la contemplation en une expérience profondément personnelle et émotive grâce à des tactiques poétiques et rhétoriques telles que l’apostrophe et la voix pour usurper les frontières de la forme—créant une approche distinctive de la pratique contemplative. …  Lire la suite

Although the physiological nitrogen demand of the soil microbial biomass is a major determinant of N mineralization in forest soils, the exact nature of the relationship is unclear. This study investigated the relationships between a respiration-based indicator of microbial physiological N demand (NIR) and N availability in forest soils. NIR was found to correlate significantly with net mineralized N in the field and annual foliar litterfall N fluxes. In a laboratory incubation, NIR was shown to be sensitive to changes in soil available C and N pools. These results demonstrated that microbial physiological N demand is determined by relative availabilities …  Lire la suite

Hip fracture is a major public health problem in many developed nations. An estimated 30,000 hip fractures occur each year in Canada. To initiate adequate preventive measures, a thorough understanding of hip fracture patients' characteristics and the healthcare services they receive over the continuum of care is warranted. The global objective of this thesis is to contribute to our knowledge base concerning current and future needs, gaps, and solutions to provide optimal care for people with hip fractures.The first part describes the recovery process of patients with hip fractures and its definition. A post acute cohort was followed up to …  Lire la suite

Forage legumes are particularly important in the Province of Quebec. In 1961, hay (grass and legumes) occupied 67% of the crop area and was worth $97,307,000. or 55·8% of the total value of field crops. Improved pastures, not included in the above figures, occupied over 2,000,000 acres (Anon, 1961). Since alfalfa, birdsfoot trefoil, red, alsike, and ladino clovers are dominant in this hay crop, their agricultural importance is apparent. This, together with the fact that alfalfa is a common rotation crop, led to the choice of this plant for study. [...]  Lire la suite

Hay is the most important crop in Quebec. According to the annual report of the Quebec Bureau of Statistics for 1961, of a total cultivated area of 7,864,176 acres in Quebec, 3,458,000 acres were in hay. The value of the hay crop in 1961 was 55.8 percent of the value of all field crops in the province. Since alfalfa, birdsfoot trefoil, red, alsike, and ladino clovers are cominant in this hay crop, their agricultural importance is apparent. This, together with the fact that some of these forage legumes, mainly red clover and alfalfa, are the most common rotation crops, led …  Lire la suite

Koestner, Richard (Supervisor)  Lire la suite

Une vidéo interactive complémentaire à ce résumé est disponible sur le site Internet razlab.mcgill.ca/thesis_aubertbonn.html. Une fois automatisés, certains processus cognitifs retournent très difficilement au contrôle conscient. S'inspirant d'une branche de la recherche selon laquelle la suggestion peut faciliter la dé-automatisation de certains processus cognitifs, la présente thèse cherche à comprendre le rôle des suggestions hypnotiques dans l'automatisation des processus cognitifs difficiles. Nous avons utilisé MoTraK, une tâche basée sur une illusion visuelle documentée en recherche sur la perception, afin de déterminer si une suggestion hypnotique spécifique peut suffire à améliorer la performance sur cette tâche difficile. Nos résultats montrent que …  Lire la suite

Quirion, Remi (Supervisor)  Lire la suite

Integrals of products of unitary matrix elements over the unitary group will be discussed. A group theoretical formula is available to convert them into multiple sums, but unfortunately the latter are often tedious to compute. In this thesis, we develop an alternative method in which these sums are avoided, and group theory is rendered unnecessary. Only unitarity and the invariance of the Haar measure are required for the computation. Then, we return to the more traditional group theoretical approach, and compare its strengths and weaknesses with those of our invariant method. As a result, we are able to introduce another …  Lire la suite

In 1949, Frederic Dard created a character named San-Antonio and he decided to dedicate a series of novels to it. The latter amounts to, up to this day, one hundred and sixty eight titles, to which we must add several outside the series. How can we explain the readers, craze for such works? A possible explanation resides in the quite particular style which distinguishes them. There are any number of neologisms and various styles and levels of language are merrily mixed therein, reminding us of the Rabelaisian tongue to which it is often compared. But shall we end the parallel …  Lire la suite

One of the main goals of technology has been to reduce distances between people by making it easier and faster to communicate across great distances. Nowadays, one can video-call someone from across the Earth in high-resolution video and high-quality audio and have a near-instantaneous two-way conversation. The next logical step is to make people that are physically distant feel like they are in the same location, which is a concept is known as co-presence.This thesis describes an attempt to create a sense of co-presence through sound, such that each participant perceives the others to be present in the room alongside …  Lire la suite

First, the set of G-representations of a finitely generated group is described. This set of functions endowed with the compact-open topology will be used to prove some results in combinatorial group theory. Then we will see that the set of SL2( C )-representations may be viewed as an algebraic set. This new structure will allow some more applications in group theory. Finally, we will describe the set of characters of a finitely generated group and we will show that the set of characters associated to SL2( C )-representations also inherits an algebraic set structure.  Lire la suite

We study the effective action that governs heterotic string theory compactified on a four-dimensional, N = 1 supersymmetric background. A scaling symmetry of the four-dimensional field T that represents the breathing mode on of internal manifold is introduced. This symmetry, being valid at each order in both perturbative series of the theory (string-loop and sigma model expansions), is used to find restrictions on the terms that can correct the truncated supersymmetric functions entering the effective action. We derive the general form of these corrections and show that, contrary to earlier conjectures in the literature, loops are not a priori counted …  Lire la suite

Yong, R. N. (Supervisor)  Lire la suite

EBEX ("E and B Experiment") est un télescope maintenu en haute altitude par un ballon stratosphérique. Ce télescope conçu pour détecter la polarisation de type B du rayonnement cosmologique fossile possède une résolution de 8'. Une telle détection représenterait une évidence forte de la période inflationniste de l'univers. EBEX caractérisera également la poussière galactique ainsi que l'effet de lentille gravitationnelle. Pendant un vol de 11 jours prévu pendant l'été austral 2012-2013 au dessus de l'Antarctique, EBEX opérera 872, 436 et 256 bolomètres en transition supraconductrice dans les bandes de fréquence 150, 250 et 410 GHz, respectivement. EBEX observera une région …  Lire la suite

While most people with schizophrenia face the functional consequences of a lifelong disorder, very few studies have investigated the specific domain of daily living activities performance. The purpose of this thesis was to examine the relationships between daily activity performance, cognitive deficits, and community functioning in people with schizophrenia. More specifically, the objectives were: 1) to describe functional limitations during daily task performance, 2) to explore the existence of subgroups of participants with similar functional limitations profiles, 3) to explore the relationships between daily task performance and cognitive functions as well as 4) with community functioning. This thesis tested the …  Lire la suite

Seguin, Philippe (Internal/Supervisor)  Lire la suite

Farant, Jean-Pierre (Supervisor)  Lire la suite

This thesis focuses on the motivations for cities to participate in global environmental diplomacy. It starts from the premise that cities have no obligation to pursue an international environmental agenda. Nevertheless, some do play leadership roles and demonstrate the importance and capacity of cities in the fight against climate change and environmental degradation. As cities' impacts on the environment are increasing, it is essential to understand how to steer them towards ambitious environmental actions. Drawing on constructivist theories of international relations, this thesis takes an abductive approach and argues that cities are motivated to participate in environmental diplomacy primarily by …  Lire la suite

Les primates, qui utilisent la vision comme outil principal pour naviguer l'environnement, remuent les yeux constamment, faisant de courtes fixations ponctuées d'abruptes saccades. À chaque fixation, les neurones du système visuel s'adaptent localement aux propriétés actuelles du stimulus pour maximiser l'assimilation d'information. Lorsque la saccade déplace la rétine, le système visuel (rétinotopique) doit soudainement encoder une différente partie de l'image. Dans cette dissertation, je cherche à vérifier si l'influence de l'adaptation est maintenue trans-saccadiquement. Pour ce faire, j'ai procédé à l'enregistrement électrophysiologique de neurones corticaux de la région V4 de macaques éveillés performant une simple tâche oculomotrice guidée visuellement. L'utilisation …  Lire la suite