McGill University Thèses et mémoires par auteur commençant par O

Onchocerciasis and lymphatic filariasis are debilitating diseases which are causes of long-term disability and impede socioeconomic development in endemic countries. Control of these parasitic diseases have relied on mass drug administration (MDA) with drugs which are predominantly microfilaricides. The risk of complications in onchocerciasis patients has limited MDA in endemic areas to a single drug IVM, which is contraindicated in regions co-endemic for infections with Loa loa. An urgent need for a safe and effective macrofilaricidal drug is obvious. Flubendazole (FLBZ) is an appealing candidate macrofilaricide. FLBZ has demonstrated profound macrofilaricidal effects in a number of rodent models and one …  Lire la suite

Les essais d'agrégation d'or colloïdal médiés par des aptamères ont été utilisés dans le domaine des biocapteurs pour détecter la présence d'analytes cibles dans des échantillons liquides, allant des marqueurs de maladies infectieuses dans le sang aux contaminants à petites molécules dans l'eau potable. Dans ce travail, des aptamères développés contre la sous-unité S1 de la protéine S du SARS-CoV-2 ont été utilisés de manière similaire pour détecter la présence de la protéine dans l'eau, représentant un biocapteur preuve-de-concept pour l’identification rapide de la COVID-19. Par la suite, il a été postulé que la gamme linéaire de l'essai pourrait elle-même …  Lire la suite

2',3'-cyclic nucleotide 3 '-phosphodiesterase is one of the earliest expressed myelin-associated genes. Highest levels of this protein are produced in oligodendrocytes, the myelinating cells of the central nervous system. Schwann cells, the myelinating cells of the peripheral nervous system possess lower levels, followed by non-neural cells, such as lymphocytes, retinal cells and thymocytes. There are two isoforms of CNP: CNP1 (46kDa) and CNP2 (48kDa). CNP2 differs from CNP1 only by a 20 amino acid N-terminal extension. In addition, CNP2 is more heavily phosphorylated than CNP1. Although a messenger RNA is produced for each, the CNP2 message contains both translation initiation …  Lire la suite

This study of the American business presence in Russia from the late 19th Century to the early Soviet period, focuses on more than twenty individual firms that operated there or otherwise conducted business with Russia. They are presented as primary and secondary case studies in three distinct groups: financial industries, manufacturing industries, and sales, services and light manufacturing industries. The primary cases, American Express, Case and Vacuum Oil Company, offer a detailed insight into: motives for opening installations in Russia, daily operations, the effects of war, revolution and nationalization as well as business relations under the early Soviet government. The …  Lire la suite

This thesis is concerned with the relationship between choline delivery and acetylcholine synthesis in the cat superior cervical ganglion. Increasing extracellular choline did not change the amount of acetylcholine either contained in or released by ganglia, except when choline levels were increased by 100-fold in plasma. In the latter case, most of the extra ACh formed was not releasable and may have accumulated as a result of decreased acetylcholine degradation rather than increased acetylcholine synthesis. Choline transport activity in stimulated ganglia can be monitored using choline analogues and this process was found to have similar, but not identical, characteristics as …  Lire la suite

Audio morphing is a timbre-transformation technique that produces timbres which lie in between those of two or more given tones. It can thus be seen as the interpolation of timbre descriptors or features. Morphing is most convincing when the features are perceptually relevant and the interpolation is perceived to be smooth and linear. Our research aims at producing practical guidelines for morphing musical sound objects. We define a set of features aimed at representing timbre in a quantifiable fashion, as completely and with as little redundancies as possible. We then report the interpolation of each single feature imposed on an …  Lire la suite

Afin de permettre l’amélioration continue des transistors MOSFETs à haute mobilité d’électrons, le remplacement du silicium comme matériau composant les canaux des transistors est nécessaire puisque les améliorations de performance venant de la miniaturisation diminuent. Le Si1-xGex sous tension uniaxiale a été proposé comme matériau de remplacement au silicium puisque le SiGe possède une masse effective de trous plus faible que le silicium ce qui contribue à augmenter la mobilité des porteurs de charge. De plus, une tension uniaxiale compressive contribue également à l’augmentation de la mobilité des trous dans des dispositifs pMOSFET. Cependant, il n’existe pas de technique de …  Lire la suite

Les oligonucleotides (ONs) sont à la base de nombreuses applications thérapeutiques, en particulier le silençage génique incluant les oligonucléotides antisens (AONs), les petits ARNs interférants (siRNAs) et l’édition de gènes (ex : CRISPR-Cas9). Aujourd’hui, on dénombre sept oligonucléotides approuvés par la FDA et beaucoup d’autres à diverses phases d’essais cliniques. Cette vague récente de thérapies approuvées est due principalement au développement de modifications chimiques qui permettent d’ajuster finement les propriétés médicinales des oligonucléotides. Parmi ces dernières, on compte : (i) l’augmentation de l’affinité au récepteur cible ; (ii) la minimisation des effets hors cible ; (iii) l’amélioration de la pénétration …  Lire la suite

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences and needs of families during the admission of a child to a paediatric ward in an acute care hospital. Qualitative research methods were used to access the caregivers' and professionals' perceptions of the culture that families experience in a paediatric in-patient setting. For this project, data collection methods included a review of the literature in the area, individual interviews with caregivers, and focus groups with paediatric health care professionals. In the study, both parents and paediatric professionals described a multitude of experiences and needs of families during a child's admission …  Lire la suite

This thesis presents the result of a research work done in the synthesis of an impedance controller which can execute compliant tasks in oscillating and uncertain environments. A synthesis method is proposed for finding the best control parameters, such as the impedance parameters and the desired trajectory, for a robotic manipulator which has to execute a compliant task. The control parameters are derived from an optimization method. The optimization function simulates the task execution and evaluates the performance according to the specified task goals, which are expressed as inequalities on position, velocity and force responses. These goals are built in …  Lire la suite

This thesis shows how literary primitivism is the pivot around which Davenport's literary designs spin. Thematically as well as technically the material in his first four collections of short stories is all derived from a desire to explore the beginnings, or the primitive wellsprings, of writing and art. The collage-like construction of picture and sentence will be shown to evolve from a knowledge of palaeolithic cave painting, humanity's first writing system, while Davenport's use of cataloguing and paratactic systems will be shown to evolve from ancient Greek. His primitivism also reveals itself in a Rousseau-like concern to highlight the advantages …  Lire la suite

The purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of how the memories of past teachers "live on" and are manifested in the work of teachers. Employing the method of memory-work to engage in self-study, the author worked with three other women teachers and teacher educators, as she explored the relationship between the memories of former teachers and their influence on her life as a woman and teacher educator. Although there has been a great deal of interest in the significance of autobiography and life history approaches to narrative inquiry over the last decade, and a considerable acknowledgment and …  Lire la suite

This thesis will critically examine the project on globalization as articulated by the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada (ATS) in an effort to uncover the presuppositions and motivations that underlie the project, and to situate them historically and with reference to current North American trends in education and politics. It will argue that the project, as it has been described and defined, comes out of the ethos of Protestant liberalism, particularly as this is embodied in missiology and the 19th century Social Gospel Movement, and that this liberal foundation has been influenced since the 1960's …  Lire la suite

Young, Katherine K. (Supervisor)  Lire la suite

Les mécanismes des éruptions volcaniques ont été étudié pendant plusieurs dizaines d'années, mais il y a encore plusieurs inconnus dut au fait que nous ne pouvons pas observer ces processus in-situ. Pour ce projet de recherche nous avons utilisé l'imagerie microtomographique sur des échantillons de vitres volcaniques, riches en volatiles, avec des simulations numériques afin de voir les effets de la distribution des épaisseurs des murs sur la force relative du foam magmatique durant son évolution. La microtomographie a été utilisé pour obtenir des images 2-dimensionnelles pour reconstructions 3-dimensionnelles d'un foam magmatique pendant les 18 premières secondes de son évolution …  Lire la suite

In this study, motion-compensated predictive coding of monochrome image sequences was investigated. The goals were to evaluate the performance limits of this coding method, to determine its relative advantages in comparison to other predictive coding techniques not compensated for motion, and to identify the factors which limit further improvements in performance. A motion-compensated prediction algorithm which estimates displacements only from previously-transmitted data was presented, and was shown to be nearly optimal. At low distortion levels, an adaptive intra-inter-frame predictor not compensated for motion was found to be almost as effective as motion-compensated prediction. At higher distortion levels, however, motion-compensated predictive …  Lire la suite

As we enter the third decade of a devastating worldwide epidemic, much has been done to stem the flow of HIV/AIDS, in particular within North American and Western European urban centres. Successful prevention campaigns in the 1980s had the immediate impact of lowering the rate of HIV infection among gay men, and anti-retroviral drug therapies in the mid-1990s have literally brought thousands of gay men back from the brink. However, by the middle to late 1990s, epidemiological and anecdotal evidence has strongly suggested that gay men have begun to move away from the safer sex orthodoxy of the 1980s. Forty …  Lire la suite

La solitude et l'isolement social sont tous deux des facteurs de risque importants pour la maladie d'Alzheimer. Cependant, la mesure dans laquelle ces dispositions psychosociales sont associées à la structure du cerveau à l'âge adulte reste largement inconnue. S'appuyant sur une cohorte de 108 personnes âgées ayant des antécédents familiaux de maladie d'Alzheimer, ce projet a utilisé des données psychométriques et multimodales d'IRM acquises à des moments antérieurs et postérieurs au début de la pandémie de COVID-19 pour tester les associations entre la solitude, la taille du réseau social, la microstructure des voies de matière blanche reliant les réseaux cérébraux …  Lire la suite

Ce mémoire explore les façons dont les jeunes apprennent ce qu’est la fertilité et l’infertilité et soulève la question suivante: un tel savoir a-t-il sa place dans les programmes d’éducation formelle? Ce sujet est particulièrement d’actualité puisque l’infertilité est définie par l’Organisation Mondiale de la Santé comme une maladie touchant des millions de personnes à travers le monde et que l’accès aux soins demeure un enjeu majeur dans la plupart des pays (OMS, 2024). Au Canada, l’infertilité est en hausse et touche un couple sur six, un chiffre qui a doublé depuis les années 1980 (Fertility Matters, 2024). L’analyse des …  Lire la suite

Background: Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the airways for which there is no cure. The epithelium lines the lumen of airways creating a barrier to inhaled substances and protects the underlying tissue. However, it has been revealed over the past decades that the epithelium partakes in many features of asthma pathogenesis. Recruited inflammatory leukocytes contribute to airway responsiveness by increasing the mass of tissue underlying the epithelium that leads to narrowing of the airways, and also can drive airway structural changes over time. Release of pro- inflammatory cytokines by the epithelium is one way by which these cells …  Lire la suite

Bernard Shaw discovered early in his life that· a private prophet from the other side of the Irish Sea had little chance of winning the public ear in the Capital of Victoria's Empire until he took his trumpet and blew hard and long. The Victorians at this time had had their share of prophets, and one cannot blame them if they were unimpressed when this redbearded messenger mounted his cart and announced again: Lo I am hel G.B.S. the journalist set himself to invent a reputation for Bernard Shaw. He advertised himself so sedulously that, on his own confession, he …  Lire la suite

Avec l’essor de la médecine de précision et l’utilisation de l’intelligence artificielle en radio-oncologie, les chercheurs nécessitent davantage d'accéder aux données réelles des patients. Bien que ces données existent, elles sont typiquement protégées et réparties dans plusieurs bases de données à travers diverses institutions. Les patients, tout comme les chercheurs, ont besoin d'accéder à leurs données, puisque la connaissance de leur maladie et de leur traitement permet de réduire leur anxiété et, potentiellement, d'améliorer les résultats des traitements. Ce projet répond à ces deux besoins en permettant aux patients d'accéder à leurs données de radio-oncologie et de contrôler le partage …  Lire la suite

Andrea Pozzo was an architect, writer and painter spanning the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The focus of this study is on his paintings of perspectival illusions and his treatise on perspective entitled, Perspectiva pictorum et architectorum published in two volumes in 1693 and 1700. This thesis seeks to understand the work of Pozzo in light of contemporary philosophical debate over the deception of the senses and their ability to distinguish truth from illusion. Pozzo's intentions are examined through a study of the positions of Rene Descartes, Galileo Galilei and other related artists and architects on the technical and …  Lire la suite

This work examined the consequences of elevated leptin levels in neonatal rat pups and the possible relationship between leptin and dietary fat levels during development with respect to neuroendocrine and energetic parameters. While acute leptin injection elevated circulating leptin levels, it failed to have an effect on the HPA axis. In contrast, chronic injection of leptin produced a decrease in stress responsiveness as well as a decrease in body weight gain and fat deposition in 10 day old rat pups. Tonic exogenous administration of leptin also resulted in a decrease in stimulated CRF expression, a decrease in NPY expression and …  Lire la suite

On a fait valoir que la simple exposition à un processus d'apprentissage et la participation à des tâches communicatives orientées vers le sens ne mènent pas nécessairement au développement d'une langue seconde (L2) et que l'enseignement centré sur la forme (ECF) peut compenser en attirant l'attention des apprenants sur les caractéristiques de la L2 de manière à en faciliter le développement (par exemple, Swain, 1985, Lyster, 1994). Bien que des effets positifs de l'ECF proactif et réactis aient été rapportés, peu de recherches ont examiné les effets de la pratique répétitive de la communication sur le développement de la L2 …  Lire la suite

Les méthodes d'éléments finis utilisent soit des maillons structurés ou des non structurés pour modéliser la géométrie du problème. Tandis que les maillons non structurés sont plus populaires, les maillons structurés ont récemment attiré l'attention à cause de leur vitesse et robustesse. L'une de ces méthodes est la méthode des éléments finis de voxel non conforme (NVFEM). Dans la NVFEM 2-D, les éléments carrés sont sélectivement et récursivement, subdivisés en quatre plus petits afin de représenter mieux la géométrie. À ce jour, NVFEM n'a utilisé que des éléments de 1er ordre qui, dans le cas scalaire, ont 4 fonctions de …  Lire la suite

The purpose of this study was to compare health-related physical fitness of high school students in two schools that have different physical education programs. Argyle Academy has physical education 6 classes out of 7 days, and Riverside Park Academy has 3 classes out of 7 days. These two high schools are similar (e.g., size, geographical location, common feeder schools, and social economic status) and affiliated with the same school board. Students in the seventh, eighth, and tenth grade physical education classes were selected for testing in each school. Data from 102 students from Argyle Academy and 96 students from Riverside …  Lire la suite

This thesis is a critical examination of the history of philosophies governing public education in the United States. The first half, chapters one through six, outlines American conceptions of the role of the school in relation to the state and to democracy. The second half is an account of critical progressive philosophies that have challenged the American status-quo since the independence. The main argument that I propose here is that the creation of an education system in America has followed the philosophies of federalism and private democracy. These philosophies are economically centered and define the citizen in economic terms. Progressive …  Lire la suite

Cette étude vise à étudier l'effet de la formation des élèves de l'Anglais, langue seconde, de huitième année dans l'application des stratégies de réflexion à voix haute dans la lecture de textes Arabes (L1) et Anglais (L2), dans une école Libanaise privée. Les participants ont été répartis au hasard en deux groupes: Les élèves d'un groupe ont reçu une formation dans l'utilisation et l'application des stratégies de réflexion à voix haute pour les textes rédactionnels et informatifs Anglais; alors que les élèves de l'autre groupe ont lu les mêmes textes suivant leurs stratégies de lecture régulière. On s'attendait à ce …  Lire la suite

The enforcement of the arbitral award is the phase upon which the success of the arbitral process depends. An adoption of the New York Convention, as well as the pro-enforcement attitude that it fosters, helps in creating a system for the facilitation of the enforcement of arbitral awards throughout the world. In Jordan, the benefits sought from adopting the Convention will not be realised unless the Convention's bias towards the enforcement of foreign awards is clearly understood and implemented in the courts' decisions. The autonomous nature of arbitration should make it possible for the Jordanian courts to apply a narrow …  Lire la suite

In this thesis, we investigate the suitability of several routing schemes and network topologies for a high speed free-space photonic network that is currently being developed at McGill. We find that deflection routing is a very suitable routing strategy since it does not require expensive buffers at network nodes, and it does not experience deadlock. After reviewing current research in deflection routing for a variety of network topologies, we conclude that the 11 $ times$ 11-torus, the 5-symbol star graph, and the 7-dimensional hypercube are attractive candidates for a photonic network of approximately 120 nodes. Then, we determine efficient embeddings …  Lire la suite

Topic of this dissertation is the fast placement of hypergraph nodes into multi-dimensional grids. Hypergraphs can be used to model electronic circuits and network topologies, and grids can model the underlying architectures of electronic integrated circuits and optical systems. Thus, placement of hypergraphs into grids is an important problem as it may serve, for example, to reduce interconnection wire length in integrated circuits, or to minimize communication delays incurred in optical networks by routing around unnecessary bends. Fast placement techniques that complete in near-linear run time are desirable as circuit and network topologies are expected to continue to grow in …  Lire la suite

Cette thèse examine la représentation des personnages types dans la littérature et le drame en Angleterre du quatorzième au seizième siècle en mettant particulièrement l'accent sur les transformations des types sociaux entre la littérature médiévale et le drame de la Renaissance, surtout dans les pièces historiques britanniques de Shakespeare. Au plus large, la thèse porte sur le contexte social dans lequel les auteurs médiévaux ont façonné leurs personnages et sur la fabrication conventionnelle des personnages médiévaux à partir des « personnes sociales » telles que définies par Elizabeth Fowler. Les personnages types, je soutiens, créent un espace de perméabilité entre …  Lire la suite

The study suggests that two domestic conditions are critical to foster opportunities for sustainable peace between formerly conflicting societies. The conditions are defined as social capital and political integration. These are explored in the context of Israeli and Palestinian societies following the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993 and through 1999, just one year prior to the outbreak of the al-Aqsa Intifada. Social capital refers to networks of association. Strong networks of relationship are important because they are positively associated with a community and/or society's ability to foster social cohesion, to problem-solve and cope with growing uncertainty such …  Lire la suite

Christoffersen, Peter (Internal/Supervisor)  Lire la suite

Di Giovanni, George (Supervisor)  Lire la suite

Meunier, J. L. (Advisor)  Lire la suite

Meunier, Jean-Luc (Supervisor)  Lire la suite

Gordon Price (Supervisor2)  Lire la suite

La biodiversité végétale est à la base de services écosystémiques essentiels au bien-être de l'homme, notamment en nous fournissant de la nourriture, des médicaments et des abris. Paradoxalement, les facteurs anthropiques sont l'une des principales causes de l'appauvrissement de la biodiversité et constituent à leur tour une menace majeure pour notre mode de vie. Alors que la conservation s'est historiquement concentrée sur la protection de la biodiversité pour le bien de la nature, on observe depuis peu une évolution vers l'intégration de la protection de la biodiversité pour le bien de l'humanité par le biais des services écosystémiques. Toutefois, les …  Lire la suite

Cette étude relève de la philosophie des sciences et de la philosophie de la religion. Elle compare le système de pensée occidental à la philosophie musulmane contemporaine, en tenant compte de la signification des conséquences de celui-là pour celle-ci. La méthode employée repose sur le concept de «vision du monde» en tant que systématisation harmonieuse des connaissances humaines disponibles. De nos jours, beaucoup de laïques attaquent les points de vue religieux; mais ils échouent à développer une vision du monde cohérente et systématique sur laquelle ils s'appuieraient. La pensée de Mario Bunge, un philosophe des sciences argentino-canadien né en 1919, …  Lire la suite

This thesis discusses the prohibition of human cloning in contemporary Islamic legal discourse, which relies on two distinct doctrines: the first seeks support in the Qur'anic text, while the second depends on method of utilitarian legal hermeneutics (al-istiṣlaḥ ). These doctrines are examined by comparing them to the method that contemporary Islamic legal discourse adopts, namely, uṣul al-fiqh. When this is done, a discrepancy emerges in the first doctrine that traces this prohibition back to the text of revelation, which in turn requires further clarification of the foundations of hermeneutics in uṣul al-fiqh---identified here as textual and legislative consistency. For …  Lire la suite

Pharmacological evidence suggests that the sympathetic supply to the blood vessels of the cat's submaxillary gland is adrenergic; but the most conspicuous response of these vessels to sympathetic stimulation is dilatation. Since the existence of adrenercic vasodilator fibres is controversial, the mechanism of this sympathetic vasodilatation has been investigated. It has been found that the sympathin released within the gland is mainly noradrenaline but contains a substantial proportion of adrenaline. [...]  Lire la suite