NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
La difficulté de définir le commencement dans la Logique de Hegel

In this thesis, we offer a reading of one of the Science of Logic’s opening sections, called “With what should the beginning of science be made?”, in which Hegel maintains that the beginning of the Logic cannot be analyzed nor defined. Hence, we connect the definition with the spekulativer Satz and propose to distinguish between epistemological and ontological perspectives on the notion of beginning to allow for its proper study. Taking into account the rejection of an epistemological perspective on the beginning, this will show that a positive definition of the beginning is acceptable if the notions of choice (Entschluss) and order that lay beneath the notions of criteria and presupposition are put forward. Such a definition grounds itself in the prescriptive dimension of Hegel’s text and explains why the beginning can be both absolute and one-sided. The difficulty of such a definition, however, remains, due to the very nature of the concept of beginning. Indeed, since the beginning lacks all properties, it also lacks the stability of a definition.

Keyphrases: G. W. F. Hegel, Présupposition, Science of Logic, Doctrine of being (1812), Doctrine of being (1832), Beginning, Definition, Speculative proposition, Criteria, Presupposition
La plateforme Bubbles : un outil d'investigation des différences individuelles de stratégies de reconnaissance de l'identité des visages

The present study aims to create a web-based platform that would examine individual differences in face processing strategies in different categorization tasks. The purpose of this platform is to collect data from geographically dispersed participants with variable face recognition abilities. Indeed, many studies have shown that there is high variability in the spectrum of face recognition ability, ranging from developmental prosopagnosia (Duchaine & Susilo, 2013), a disorder of face recognition in the absence of brain damage, to super-recognizers, individuals with extraordinary face recognition ability (Russell, Duchaine & Nakayama, 2009). Between these extremes, people vary substantially in their ability to recognize faces. To demonstrate the reliability of creating such a platform for individuals of widely varying abilities, we adapted a recognition task of the identity of famous faces using the Bubbles method (Gosselin & Schyns, 2001) and recruited 12 control subjects and a subject with developmental prosopagnosia. We were able to highlight the importance of the eyes and the mouth in face identification. The best observers seem mostly to use the left side of the face (left eye and the left side of the mouth).

Keyphrases: Bubbles, Super-recognizers, Image de classification, Recognizing facial identity, Developmental prosopagnosia, Classification image technique, Visual cognition, Face processing
On the design of customized risk measures in insurance, the problem of capital allocation and the theory of fluctuations for Lévy processes

The aim of this thesis is to study fundamental problems in financial and insurance mathematics particularly the problem of measuring risk and its application within financial and insurance frameworks. The main contributions of this thesis can be classified in three main axes: the theory of risk measures, the problem of capital allocation and the theory of fluctuation. In Chapter 2, we design new coherent risk measures and study the associated capital allocation in the context of collective risk theory. We introduce the family of Cumulative Entropic Risk Measures. In Chapter 3, we study the optimal portfolio problem for the Entropic Value at Risk coherent risk measure for particular return models which are based on relevant cases of Jump-Diffusion models. In Chapter 4, we extending the notion of natural risk statistics to the multivariate setting. This non-trivial extension will endow us with multivariate data-based risk measures that are bound to have applications in finance and insurance. In Chapter 5, we introduce the concepts of drawdown and speed of depletion to the ruin theory literature and study them for the class of spectrally negative Lévy risk processes.

Keyphrases: Processus càdlàg, Drawdown, Coherent and convex risk measure, Capital allocation, Multivariate data-based risk measures, Càdlàg Process, Optimal portfolio problem, Spectrally negative Lévy process, Speed of depletion
Études de l’effet tunnel des spins quantiques macroscopiques

This thesis presents recent theoretical analyses together with experimental observa- tions on macroscopic quantum tunneling and quantum-classical phase transitions of the escape rate in large spin systems. We consider biaxial ferromagnetic spin systems. Using the coordinate dependent spin coherent state path integral, we obtain the quantum phase interference and the energy splitting of these systems. We also present a lucid exposition of tunneling in antiferromagnetic exchange-coupled dimer, with easy-axis anisotropy. Indeed, we obtain the ground state, the first excited state, and the energy splitting, for both integer and half-odd integer spins. These results are then corroborated using per- turbation theory and the coordinate independent spin coherent state path integral. We further present a lucid explication of the effective potential method, which enables one to map a spin Hamiltonian onto a particle Hamiltonian; we employ this method to our models, however, in the presence of an applied magnetic field. This method enables us to investigate quantum-classical phase transitions of the escape rate of these systems. We obtain the phase boundaries, as well as the crossover temperatures of these phase transi- tions. Furthermore, we extend our analysis to one-dimensional anisotropic Heisenberg antiferromagnet, with N periodic sites. For even N, we show that the ground state is non-degenerate and given by the coherent superposition of the two Neél states. For odd N, however, the Neél state contains a soliton; as the soliton can be placed anywhere along the ring, the ground state is, indeed, N-fold degenerate. In the perturbative limit (weak exchange interaction), quantum fluctuation stemming from the interaction term lifts this degeneracy and reorganizes the states into a band. We show that this occurs at order 2s in (degenerate) perturbation theory. The ground state is non-degenerate for inte- ger spin, but degenerate for half-odd integer spin, in accordance with Kramers’ theorem

Keyphrases: Instanton, Soliton, Perturbation theory, Effective potential, Antiferromagnet, Single molecule magnets, Energy splitting, Phase transition, Path integral
Création interactive de mondes virtuels : combiner génération procédurale et contrôle utilisateur intuitif

The complexity required for virtual worlds is always increasing. Conventional modeling tech- niques are struggling to meet the constraints and efficiency required for the production of such scenes. Procedural generation techniques use algorithms for the automated creation of virtual worlds, but are often non-intuitive and therefore reserved to experienced programmers. Indeed, these methods offer fewer controls to users and are rarely interactive. Moreover, the user often needs to find values for several parameters. The user only gets indirect control through a series of trials and errors, which makes modeling tasks long and tedious.  The objective of this thesis is to combine the power of procedural modeling techniques with intuitive user control towards interactive methods for designing virtual worlds. First, we present a technique for procedural modeling of villages over arbitrary terrains, where elements are subjected to strong environmental constraints. Second, we propose an interactive technique for the procedural modeling of waterfall sceneries, combining intuitive user control with the automated generation of consistent content, in regard of hydrology and terrain constraints. Then, we describe an interactive sketch-based technique for editing terrains, where terrain features are extracted and deformed to fit the user sketches. Finally, we present a painting metaphor for virtual world creation and editing, where methods for example-based synthesis of vectorial elements are used to automate deformation and editing of the scene while maintaining its consistency.

Keyphrases: Procedural, Edition interactive, Interactive editing, Intuitive, Virtual Worlds
La production de connaissances dans le cluster montréalais de l’aérospatiale.
Le cas d’un réseau local d’innovation

The importance of the location of firms in their operational dynamic and competitiveness, leads us to focus our attention on the problem of clusters and the influence they can have on knowledge spillovers. Through a theoretical perspective based on the consideration of work on industrial districts and recently on clusters, our approach leads us to highlight a conceptual evolution of the phenomenon of the business location. The place of knowledge spillovers has become a central element of recent studies that focus on industrial districts and clusters. Our examination of the organizational dynamics of these systems allows us to assert that knowledge spillovers are a central feature of clusters as well as their main competitive advantage. Although closely related to inter-organizational networks, knowledge spillovers are not a natural phenomenon, it arises from mechanisms intrinsic to clusters, mechanisms we seek to highlight. To do so, our methodology that borrows the main landmarks of the strategic analysis of organizations leads us to study the practical operation of a network of local innovation, consisting of local companies and institutions present in the Montreal cluster of aeronautics. This network was established through the Consortium for Research and Innovation in Aerospace in Quebec (CRIAQ), a central institution in the operation of the cluster.

Keyphrases: district industriel, cluster, industrial district, knowledge spillover, aerospace, labour market, innovation network
Le discours de l'innovation technologique en médecine régénératrice

This dissertation discusses the idea of technological innovation in regenerative medicine in Canada. While this potentially groundbreaking therapy is publicly funded and at an early stage of the understanding of cellular processes, the analysis shows that it is already concerned with the marketing of the scientific work. This raises questions about how public laboratories framed by a scientific research closely tied up with economic concerns and with a shift in the role of the State carry speculation and lead to a technological oriented production of knowledge. This writing doesn’t debate science as a mean or science as an end. It is rather about the extension of the economic reasoning. Indeed, the market’s reading grid as the starting point is the story of the hegemony of a specific logic which turns regenerative medicine research into an economic venture.

Keyphrases: science, technological innovation, regenerative medicine
Postdramatisme et esthétique de l’indécidabilité dans Cleansed et Phaedra’s Love de Sarah Kane

Faced with the interpretive opacity and failure of language in the analysis of Sarah Kane’s violent plays, what approach could allow us to review the forms and means used by the playwright in order to leave her mark in the mind of the contemporary viewer? The paradigm of the post-dramatic theater, proposed by Hans-Thies Lehmann, constitutes an appropriate device for highlighting the contemporary issues at stake in the work of Kane. Since it strongly depends on the interpretation and the engagement of the viewer, the meaning of the plays are not univocal. Their spectral political nature proves essential here. This political spectrum reveals itself through the prism of violence. The necessity of shock appears to be its bias to redefine the role of theater in modern societies characterized by the flow of images through mass media. A link of co-responsibility between artist and viewer is created. Indeed as viewers/readers, Kane’s plays lead us to question ourselves on the mysterious and intimate depths of human cruelty and our complicity with the omnipresence of violence through consumption of its products. By focusing on the transgressive characteristics of Kane’s dramatic art that shake viewers out of their affective complacency through the references to "culture from below" and through the use of an obscene language and imagery, and through the diversion of pornography’s codes, this postdramatic reading of Cleansed and Phaedra's love intends to restore the energy inherent in Kane’s work. It is an energy that aims for radical change by awakening our senses.

Keyphrases: Sarah Kane, Théâtre "In-Yer-Face", In-Yer-Face theatre, Violence, Postdramatic theatre, Political spectrum, Pornographic imagination, Culture from below, Aesthetics of undecidability, Nasty nineties
La conversion entre intimité et publicité : essai d'imagination sociologique

In this master thesis, I had the objective to pinpoint what is peculiar to conversions, that being what I have called a process of trans-formation. With this original concept, I wanted to guide the observer’s eyes toward the shifting points from intimacy to publicity, which are central in conversions process. To do so, I considered fruitful to acknowledge and reinstate the study of values, a classical theme in sociology. From values held by individuals to public values, the notion of “value” comprises the necessary heuristic potential to study conversions at different analytical scales and across assumed qualifications such as religious, political, sexual, etc. My pragmatic theoretical approach informed by Dewey and the cultural studies’ sensibility to social positions allowed me to analyse how what people value changes in the course of their life. This dynamic representation of conversions adds some insights to grasp a phenomenon often tackle from the perspective of modern and colonial “preferred readings”; readings that need to be challenged and revisited as to allow the exercise of sociological imagination. The contributions of the trans-formation’s concept are illustrated by the comparison of four individual case studies: Paul Claudel, a writer converted to Catholicism; Michelle Blanc, a québécoise transsexual; Joe Loya, a Mexican American who modifies his conceptions of good and bad in solitary confinement; and Mlle Pigut who becomes vegan.

Keyphrases: Conversions, Cultural studies, Prison, Sociology of values, Pragmatism, Intimacy, Publicity, Cultural studies, Religious conversions, Transsexualism, Veganism
Signature optique d’effet Stark dans une bicouche de CuPc:C60

Nowadays, the donor/acceptor (D/A) structure is one of the most popular configuration for organic solar cells. The charge separation mechanisms in this type of systems is now a hot topic of debate in this field of research. To adress this debate, we choose a D/A system made of copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) and fullerene (C60). In this work, we perform quasi-steady-state photoinduced absorption (PIA) measurements which consist of a pump-probe experiment where we measure the fractional change in transmission through the sample. This experiment probes the excited states of our molecules and gives us informations about the photophysics near the interface between the two materials. The measurements were mainly done at T=10K. We observe a strong modulation of the ground state photobleaching that indicates that the laser excitation induces a shift of the ground state absorption spectrum. This shift can be ascribed to two processes: either the pump is heating the sample (heat transfer) or charge are being created at the interface between the two materials (Stark effect). The temperature dependence of the absorption spectrum between T=10K and T=290K shows a thermal signature for a change in temperature of 80K. By calculating the ratio of the Raman Stokes and anti-Stokes peaks, we establish that the pump heat up the sample of 34K, an insufficient temperature to assign the change of transmittance to a thermal effect. We then evaporate our CuPc/C60 bilayer on ITO and sapphire, two substrates with different thermal conductivities and we observe the same signal thereby excluding the assumption of the thermal effect. Since our study bears a resemblance to Stark spectroscopy, we justify the use of a similar analysis by comparing our PIA signal to the transmittance spectrum of our molecules and its first and second derivative. We find that the signal reproduces almost perfectly the second derivative. Thus, we attribute the aforementioned results to an optical signature of Stark effect due to the creation of charges at the heterojunction.

Keyphrases: Organic photovoltaic, Charges seperation, Heterojunction, Donor/acceptor system, Photoinduced absorption
Relecture de l'anarchisme classique à partir du concept d'éducationnisme-réalisateur

Anarchism has seen a revival across the globe since the 1990s and the rise of the movement against globalization. However for contemporary researchers, the link is thin between the current anarchist movement and the anarchist movement of the early 20th century. According to these researchers, contemporary anarchism is more characterized by the experimental nature of its strategies and its focus on the present tense. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate that it is possible to draw parallels between some of the classical anarchists writers and contemporary anarchism. Indeed, some anarchists of the early 20th century lived their anarchism from day to day contrary to what suggest implicitly some researchers who have studied contemporary anarchism. We analyze the cases of anarchists writers of the early 20th century such as Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, Joseph J. Cohen, Albert Libertad, Emile Armand and Rirette Maîtrejean. An analysis of the Aiglemont libertarian colony completes the picture. Our approach focus on the study of activists practices based on three ideals types designs. We consider three types of anarchists practices: insurrectionary anarchist action type, union type and the experimental-educationist type. We conclude that the practices of the contemporary anarchist movement are similar in some ways to the practices of at least a few classical anarchists, that is to say, the experimental-educationist type of anarchists practices.

Keyphrases: Berkman, Goldman, Cohen, Libertad, Armand, Maîtrejean, Classical anarchists, Aiglemont libertarian colony, Anarchists practices, Experimental-educationist
Un cadre conceptuel pour l'étude des castes en Inde : l'ethnographie Caste and kinship in Kangra réinterprétée dans une optique opérationnelle

Inspired by Michel Verdon’s epistemological and anthropological work, this thesis presents a new conceptual grid to study the caste social organization in India. Jonathan Parry’s ethnography, Caste and Kinship in Kangra, is re-analyzed and re-interpreted with the “operational language”. The different approaches to caste's analysis oscillate between two theoretical poles: idealism on one side, notably represented by Louis Dumont’s structuralism, and substantialism on the other, formerly adopted by the colonial administrators and developed more recently in Dipankar Gupta’s work. Unfortunately, these two holistic options mislead the social organization comparative study, because they ultimately render group “ontologically variable” and, thus, not comparable. Rethinking the premises on which rely the mainstream of the theories on social organization, this conceptual grid confers a binary, dis-continued meaning to the group notion, therefore avoiding ontological variability and allowing comparisons. It also favors the study of the relationships between groups and social networks. The re-reading of Caste and Kinship in Kangra ethnography shows its relevance in the study of the caste organization. Instead, in this thesis, the autonomy of households, with their ritual activities alliance networks, is opposed to the segmented caste view. This new description finally calls for new comparisons.

Keyphrases: Caste, Caste system, Social organization, Social networks, Groups, Comparative approach, Sociological theories, Social change, Epistemology, India
Analyse acoustique de la conviction exprimée dans des réponses de sondage : un raffinement des enquêtes téléphoniques

Surveys by phone usually involve the recording of responses in terms of their literal linguistic content ("yes", "never", politician name, etc.). However, oral responses also possess acoustic aspects that express a degree of conviction of respondents. In current survey techniques, this "extralinguistic" information is not considered although it can be used to predict the respondent’s behavior. This paper aims to demonstrate that acoustic measures of the conviction expressed by respondents can be used to improve the prediction of behaviors as estimated by survey techniques. This demonstration is done in two steps involving two experiments. Experiment 1, conducted in a laboratory setting (n = 25), was designed to isolate the vocal variables associated with the expression of the conviction. This first test served to isolate the relevant measurable variables and "categorical" values that could be used to categorize oral responses. Experiment 2 involved the application of these acoustic measures in the analysis of responses recorded during a pre-election telephone survey conducted by Leger in 2010 (a corpus of 400 interviews). This second experiment showed that a categorization of oral responses (n = 188) based on the basis of values of expressed conviction (as defined in Experiment 1) can improve the prediction of the behavior of voters. The results suggest that oral-survey responses contain measurable acoustic cues that express a degree of conviction, which can be associated with a willingness to produce certain behaviors. The nature of the variables also presents the possibility of an automatic detection. The nature of the variables also presents the possibility of an automatic detection.

Keyphrases: Conviction, Political survey, Acoustic measurements
Le cinéma analogique, entre obsolescence et résistance : l’exemple du collectif Double Négatif

This master’s thesis reflects upon the place of analogue cinema in the new digital era of film, particularly within the avant-garde. The first chapter explores from a historical and theoretical point of view the current cinematographic trends, i.e., the status of celluloid in the context of its disappearance, whether it is as a projecting medium or at the production and postproduction stage. Facing an industry which encourages the obsolescence of celluloid (but continues to attempt to reproduce its aesthetic through digital means), there exists filmmaking collectives which continue to defend the use of film in their practice.   The second chapter reveals the pluralism of cinematographic micro-laboratories which offer a form of resistance to digital domination. In order to understand the paradigm shift which occured during the 1950s and 1970s within the avant-garde we will also examine the cooperatives movement such as the Film-Maker’s Cooperative in New York and the London Filmmaker’s Coop. The cooperatives movement was above all searching for artistic autonomy, whereas comtemporary collectives dedicated to celluloid tend to ensure the preservation of an endangered practice.  The third chapter proposes a case study on the Montreal film-collective Double Negative. This chapter relates the history of the collective (creation of the group during their studies at Concordia University), the specificities of their filmography (particularly their musical collaborations) as well as their devotion to the diffusion and  projection of films on celluloid. Like other similar groups (Process Reversal, l’Abominable, Filmwerplaats, to name a few) the Double Negative collective paves the way to ensure the survival of the celluloid medium in cinema.

Keyphrases: Digital revolution, Analogue cinema, Experimental cinema, Artist collectives, Double Negative, Artist-run film Labs