McGill University Thèses et mémoires par auteur commençant par R

Modern Engineering practice has for the past ten years shown a decided and increasing preference for high voltage transmission of power by alternating currents for lighting and general purposes. [...]  Lire la suite

What is fantasy literature? The formal component of this thesis assesses and critiques critical definitions of fantasy, and considers the conventions and historical development of the genre. This critique is dramatized in the creative component, the novel "Lial's Tale", which reproduces and subverts traditional elements of fantasy fiction.  Lire la suite

Mass loss from the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets is becoming the dominant contributor to future sea-level changes, as well as one of the dominant sources of uncertainty in future sea-level projections. It is well established that the sea-level change associated with ice thickness evolution in one or both of the ice sheets will be geographically variable, and may significantly deviate from the global mean sea-level change due to gravitational, Earth rotational, and deformational (GRD) effects, and patterns of GRD sea-level change are sensitive to the geometry of the ice mass changes. Currently, projections of sea-level change consider the patterns …  Lire la suite

This thesis examines the impact of Soviet anti-religious policies on the Muslims of Central Asia from 1917 to 1938. The long struggle of the Bolsheviks to come to the power, their attempts to perpetuate the Russian hegemony in Central Asia, and the reactions of the Central Asian people towards the new regime will all form part of this thesis. Having successfully brought about the revolution, the Bolsheviks faced many challenges. One the famous slogans of the revolution, recognition of each nationality's right of self determination, boomeranged on the Bolsheviks, with the European proletariat deserting from the path of the revolution …  Lire la suite

We present theoretical scaling and computational analysis of nano-structured free surfaces formed in chiral liquid crystals (LC) and plant-based twisted plywoods. A nemato-capillary model is used to derive a generalized equation that governs the shape of cholesteric free surfaces. It is shown that the shape equation includes three distinct contributions to the capillary pressure: area dilation, area rotation, and director curvature. To analyse the periodic relief in plywood surfaces, these three pressure contributions and corresponding surface energies are systematically investigated. It is found that for weak homeotropic surface anchoring the nano-wrinkling is driven by the director curvature pressure mechanism. Consequently, …  Lire la suite

Damiano, Pasini, (Supervisor2)  Lire la suite

Using counselling sessions conducted by ten "master therapists" (e.g., Rogers, Ellis, Perls) from four different schools of psychotherapy, the present study investigated relationships between four variables: Client experiencing, emotional arousal/expression, productive client in-session behaviours, and therapist interventions. High levels of client experiencing occurred in significantly different proportions across schools in the sample, and had significantly different interactions with clients' productive in-session behaviours across the four schools studied. Likewise, admixtures of client experiencing and strong emotional arousal occurred to significantly different proportions across schools, and these admixtures also had significantly different interactions with clients' productive in-session behaviours across the four schools. …  Lire la suite

Coderne, Daniel (Supervisor)  Lire la suite

The inevitable (creativity). Between the ages of seven and fifteen years, Paul had sexual intercourses with his father. He was introduced to this state of matter by pornographic photos. Described as being representations of love, and thinking as such, he accepts to imitate the depicted characters, at the request of his father. From the Laurentians to Montreal, Paul and his father "will make love" everywhere: Onboard the car, at home, in the washroom of a school... They "will make love" despite questions from a mother who seeks to know the truth and whom Paul considers too weak to help him …  Lire la suite

Russell Steele (Internal/Supervisor)  Lire la suite

This thesis presents the design and implementation of a Nursing Workload Manager module for a Patient Data Management System in an intensive care unit. The Nursing Workload Manager aids in the planning and documentation of the nurse's workload. It automates the generation of the nursing care plan and automatically assigns a score to the care plan based on a nursing workload measurement system. In the thesis a literature survey of patient data management systems, nursing workload measurement systems and system evaluation methods is presented. This is followed by an overview of the work environment of an intensive care unit. The …  Lire la suite

What can we believe about miracles? It is a question to which very divergent answers have been made by a great variety of people. Not infrequently untutored individuals have held views at wide variance with men of vast learning; of men of erudition themselves it would seem true to say that there has never been unanimity of belief; and, if of bygone centuries it be true that no common point of view regarding miracles received assent, it is equally true to affirm that in our own time there is a like disparity of opinion.  Lire la suite

Sterne, Jonathan (Supervisor2)  Lire la suite

The period during and subsequent to World War II has witnessed tremendous progress in the field of agricultural chemicals. Many new organic compounds have been developed and are being recommended for the control of weeds, insects and wireworms in the soil, as well as for the control of fungal diseases of plants. The recent widespread use of some of the newly developed, highly chlorinated hydrocarbons as herbicides and soil insecticides has made it desirable to determine what effect they may incur upon the soil microflora, for it is common knowledge that if such chemicals are bactericidal or even inhibitive to …  Lire la suite

The photochemical reflectance index (PRI) is a remotely sensed vegetation index that detects a decrease in spectral reflectance at 531nm associated with xanthophyll cycle activity. PRI has been shown to track light use efficiency (LUE) in a number of plant species. PRI shows great promise in improving our ability to sense photosynthetic fluxes of CO2 remotely. However, it has not been tested in all environments, and its applicability is particularly uncertain for peatland environments dominated by mosses. This research investigates the ability of PRI to track LUE in a boreal forest and peatland, and examines the spectral signal associated with …  Lire la suite

Two studies were conducted to examine the hypothesis that compliance may be a "keystone" behaviour for intervention for children with developmental delays. The relations among children's behaviours were examined during teaching sessions conducted either by children's mother or an unfamiliar examiner. Specifically, the relations between children's compliance with instructional requests and their attention, affect (positive and negative), and inappropriate behaviours (inappropriate object use, inappropriate vocalizations, inappropriate sitting, wandering, and self-directed behaviour) were examined. In both studies, highly compliant children showed less negative affect and were more attentive to the tasks than were less compliant children. Highly attentive children, in turn, …  Lire la suite

Le récepteur des lymphocytes T (TCR) est essentiel pour reconnaître les antigènes venant du monde très diversifié des agents pathogènes. Alors que le TCR a évolué pour reconnaître sélectivement les pathogènes sous la forme de peptides présentés par des complexes majeurs d'histocompatibilité (pCMH), il doit aussi pouvoir pour discriminer le soi du non-soi. L'éducation des cellules T se produit pendant leur maturation dans le thymus par leurs interactions avec l’ensemble des pCMH du soi. Bien que les cellules T les plus auto-réactives soient supprimées, les autres doivent tout de même obtenir un signal suffisant des pCMH afin d'être sélectionnées dans …  Lire la suite

The existence and nature of God have been the subject matter for the thought of men in most ages. For the demonstration and the explanation of these, Theological and Philosophical writers have put forward many and varying arguments, but with a large proportion of these writings the present paper will not be concerned. [...]  Lire la suite

A subject that is beginning to be discussed more widely - heretofore, especially in Church circles, is the relationship between Sacremental Confession and Psyohotherapy* The problem centres mound the question of how the priest or minister can make use of either or both of these practices to the furthering of his office in the Church, and to the benefit of those committed to his charge. The question is. asked, are the two mutually exclusive, or is there some area in which they both can be used, or are they both to be used together? [...]  Lire la suite

The mature nervous system is composed largely of two cell types, glial cells and postmitotic neurons. All postmitotic neurons of the mature nervous system derive from proliferating neural precursor cells. To generate a neuron, a precursor must cease dividing and express a number of genes that are characteristic of the neuronal phenotype. How these changes in cell behaviour and phenotype are brought about in mammals is still poorly understood. This thesis describes experiments that were designed to explore cell intrinsic mechanisms regulating the generation of neurons from neural precursor cells. Specifically, the regulatory region of the rat Talpha1 alpha-tubulin gene, …  Lire la suite

During the final stage of courtship, the garden snail Helix aspersa attempts to stab its mating partner with a mucus-coated calcareous "love dart." I present evidence supporting two predictions of the most promising hypothesis for the adaptive significance of this behavior: that the dart serves to increase the reproductive success of the shooter by increasing the numerical representation of its sperm in the recipient's storage organ (the sperm loading hypothesis). First, I demonstrate that once-mated snails store more of the sperm transferred by successful shooters than by unsuccessful shooters. Second, I demonstrate that this biased storage results in higher paternity …  Lire la suite

L'histoire occidentale de la relation des femmes avec la botanique et l'étude du monde naturel est longue et entrelacée. Malgré les contributions des femmes aux connaissances botaniques, leur travail a toujours été marginalisé, éclipsé par des hommes scientifiques travaillant dans ce domaine. Cette thèse porte sur l’entrecroisement des femmes, des plantes et de la botanique, à la fois dans l'histoire et dans la sphère numérique. Adoptant une épistémologie féministe de la connaissance située, j’oriente ma thèse sur la création de connaissances du Dre Dorothy Swales, la première femme, directrice-conservatrice de l'herbier du Collège Macdonald (plus tard devenu l'Université McGill). La …  Lire la suite

Investigations of the effect of recirculation on the stability of a small scale combustion tube have been carried out in an attempt to substantiate a theory developed by D.L.Mordell (6). The development and improvement of the apparatus is described. Preliminary runs without recirculation were made in order to obtain basic curves for purposes of comparison. In the original arrangement, recirculation was obtained by means of a jet facing upstream, some results were obtained and estimations of induced reverse flow were attempted. Because of the many unknown and uncontrollable factors this method was eventually abandoned in favor of an adapter which …  Lire la suite

The problem of temperature distribution in heat exchanger tube sheets was investigated from three aspects, (a) a theoretical analysis of tube plate temperatures (b) an investigation of tube entrance length heat transfer coefficients under conditions of high turbulence and relatively high temperature, (c) an experimental confirmation of the applicability of the method of analysis. Results may be summarized as follows: (a) The approximate method of temperature analysis shows good agreement with more exact methods. A cooled and protected tube sheet for high temperature service was analyzed by the technique. (b) A correlation was obtained for heat transfer in turbulent now …  Lire la suite

Courtly love lyrics, like other courtly genres, are dominated by male-voiced texts that privilege male perspectives. In conventional courtly love lyrics, women are silenced and objectified by the male speaker. Still, a handful of women-voiced lyrics--"women's songs"--exist in the courtly love lyrical tradition. This thesis studies women's songs in Middle English and their role in the androcentric courtly love tradition. In the first chapter, I discuss critical perspectives on conventional courtly representations of women. In the second chapter, I locate Middle English women's songs in literary contexts other than courtly love: the Middle English lyrical tradition, the cross-cultural phenomenon of …  Lire la suite

This dissertation explores the impact of gender ideologies held by medieval readerships on the production of books and circulation of texts in late medieval England. The first chapter explores how the professional book trade of late medieval London circulated booklets of Chauceriana which constructed masculinity and femininity in strict adherence to the courtly love literary tradition. In the second chapter, I demonstrate that such a standardized representation of courtly gender could be adapted by a readership removed from the professional book trade, in this case the rural gentry producers of the Findern manuscript, who present a revised vision of femininity …  Lire la suite

The increasing impact of technology on health care has raised some important questions. This study is undertaken to examine how the predominance of a scientific approach to medicine and health care undermines other crucial aspects of the relationship between patients and care givers. The role and function of language and its relationship to the ascription of human agency in the clinical setting is discussed. A patient's understanding and interpretation of the meaning of illness or disease requires a dialogue between patient and care giver such that the patient's agential horizons are incorporated into the decision-making process. A review is called …  Lire la suite

Sweet clover is a new crop of increasing importance, particularly for special locations, it being very hardy, drought and alkali-resisting, and adaptable to a wide range of soil and climatic conditions. Because of these good qualities more especially, its culture is extending; and a better knowledge of its composition and feed producing ability as affected by the time of cutting is desirable. [...]  Lire la suite

Significant and rapid social change has occurred in Russia in the recent decade. With the collapse of communism and the dissolution of the former socialist block, Russian society entered a new stage of development, a stage of transformation towards a capitalist society with a democratic political system. In the course of this transformation, a new social group of Russian private capital owners has emerged. This research focuses on the political attitudes and political participation of Russian businessmen who own and manage their own capital. In particular, it examines the extent to which capital owners are willing to support the consolidation …  Lire la suite

This study questions the implementation of social studies curriculum in Nova Scotia. Indigenous knowledge, and anti-racism educational principles form the basis of high school curricula created from the perspective of African Nova Scotian and Mi'kmaq histories. The courses, African Canadian Studies and Mi'kmaq Studies, were implemented in 2002. To understand the distance between the intended objectives and practical realities of the curriculum, three methods were used: narrative, critical discourse analysis, and teacher interviews. Narrative provided a springboard for the analyses that follows by situating the context in the classroom. Centering on specific language use, critical discourse analysis connects implementation problems …  Lire la suite

With the rise of 5G, artificial intelligence and streaming services, there has been an exponential increase in data traffic. With the ever-growing amount of data being transmitted and stored, we need our communications systems to grow in capacity. Traditional electronic data processing and transmission systems are not fast enough to keep up with these demands. Not only do electronics fail to keep up in data rates, but also they are energy costly which only increases with data consumption. Alternatively, we can turn to photonics, which offers high data transfer rates at low loss and minimal crosstalk. Given the orthogonality of …  Lire la suite

Two main points histories of the Second World War in Canada traditionally emphasize are (1) the role of war-related fiscal policy in finally ending the Great Depression and (2) the success of government control over the economy. Potential output estimates show a large output gap still in existence in 1939, with it quickly closing by 1941. The Dominion government's war-related fiscal policy emerges as the factor explaining this rapid recovery. But Dominion fiscal policy was also important to recovery before the war. Canada's participation in bi-lateral trade negotiations, which lowered tariffs, the chief instrument of contemporary Dominion government fiscal policy, …  Lire la suite

Lesage, Jean (Supervisor2)  Lire la suite

McAdams, Stephen (Supervisor1)  Lire la suite

Cette thèse analyse certains des aspects sociaux et organisationnels impliqués dans la production des données des biopuces grâce à une étude de cas des pratiques de réglementation. La thèse examine l'émergence d'une nouvelle articulation des compétences et de différents types d'expertise mobilisés par la régulation biomédicale. En utilisant les notions et les outils de la sociologie des sciences, la thèse se centre sur les initiatives « à partir de la base » visant à standardiser les techniques de la génomique. Les résultats de la première expérience utilisant des biopuces ont été publiés en 1995, et ils ont soulevé une foule …  Lire la suite

Nine experiments were done to test three theories of auditory stream segregation and to investigate some conditions under which segregated tones re-integrate. In two-part trials, subjects (adults with normal hearing) first heard a segregation-inducing "Induction Sequence" whose effects upon an immediately subsequent "Test Sequence" were measured. The Test Sequence always had tones that alternated rhythmically between two frequencies. Rhythm and total duration of Induction Sequence tones were varied in the first two studies. Similarity of Induction and Test Sequences aided segregation whereas rhythmic predictability and longer tone durations in the Induction Sequence did not. Frequency alternation during the Induction Sequence …  Lire la suite

A survey was planned to explore how estrogen receptor (ER) status of breast cancer was related to dietary and reproductive factors, in postmenopausal patients from Toronto. Unforeseeable circumstances created major delays and, even after enhancements of design, the number of subjects who could be included was seriously reduced. As statistical power had thus become undesirably low, emphasis is placed on the realities of epidemiologic research of this nature, i.e. how inevitable difficulties arise, have to be identified and, at the very least, mitigated. Despite small numbers, the odds of positive ER status were found to be low for patients with …  Lire la suite

In this study, two courses from the McGill Distance Education program with very different learning goals were examined to investigate the instructional role of two communication technologies (i.e., fax and e-mail) in distance education. The data set included verbatim e-mail and fax transcripts, instructor interviews, course syllabi and course assignments. Triangulation procedures were followed to examine the following within the context of two distance education courses with very different learning goals: (1) the general instructional purposes for which the technologies were used; (2) the levels of learning reflected in the mediated interactions; and (3) the relationship between the use of …  Lire la suite

Over the past decade, the ability of the engineer or scientist to solve problems requiring mathematical analysis has been greatly enhanced by the introduction of electronic calculating machines. The abilities and promise of these machines cover such a wide scope, that probably no other technological development in this decade, if in any decade, holds as much promise for human betterment. Many problems that once had to be left unsolved because of the limited abilities of classical mathematics, can now be answered. More important than the absolute limit of man's capabilities are the numerous problem solutions that these machines have brought …  Lire la suite

Millien, Virginie (Internal/Supervisor)  Lire la suite

Karboune, Salwa (Supervisor2)  Lire la suite

Si l'oeuvre de Sylvie Germain est bien connue des critiques littéraires, la thématique de l'errance, qui occupe une place principale dans son écriture, demeure relativement inexplorée. Le présent mémoire étudie l'errance en présentant le thème dans l'oeuvre de l'écrivaine et, ensuite, en examinant, plus particulièrement, son rapport avec le personnage féminin dans le roman Magnus. Cette analyse propose trois modèles de femmes errantes : la femme aliénée, l'aventurière et la criminelle.  Lire la suite

Le but de ce document est de présenter le lecteur processus de Moshe Chaim Luzzatto de Derech Hashem et de Luzzatto à pensée. Il commence par une analyse de l'introduction au travail et puis examine trois thèmes importants : Principes fondamentaux, prophétie, et l'importance de la prière de Shema. Là où applicables, des comparaisons seront faites à d'autres penseurs juifs. Des thèmes seront expliqués dans le cadre de Kabbalistic que le travail de Luzzatto influencé. Vers la fin du papier le lecteur devrait pouvoir saisir les éléments clé et les raisons qui a inspiré Luzzatto écrire ce livre.  Lire la suite

Rudolf Winklbauer (Supervisor1)  Lire la suite

Asgharian-Dastenaei, Masoud (Internal/Supervisor)  Lire la suite