NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
Négociations climatiques et mesures d'adaptation : la prise en compte des droits humains en droit international des changements climatiques

This Master's thesis attempts to underline the link between environmental law, more precisely international climate change law, and human rights law. Since the Rio Summit in 1992 and the emergence of Agenda 21's soft law principles, the growing connection between these two spheres of law seem to have had an influence on the latest programmes derived from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (or UNFCCC) adopted in 1992. Does the latest addition to the UNFCCC adopted in 2015, the Paris Agreement, better highlight the importance of this link between human rights and the environment?   In facing the inevitable effects brought on by climate change, we will explore the efficiency of the Framework-Convention's bodies and programmes tasked with aiding Member States adaptation and mitigation efforts. Do the commitments undertaken by world States in their intended nationally determined contributions underline the urgent need for action? In truth, the international community seems to suffer from a severe lack of ambition, often referred to the "ambition gap" or "emissions gap". Failure to sufficiently mitigate greenhouse gas emissions will undeniably result in a greater need to finance adaptation, yet "climate finance" already suffers from underfunding, which implies that the effects of climate change will not be sufficiently offset to ensure human rights violations won't take place.   Is it possible that by renouncing to take ambitious commitments, Member States violate their human rights obligations as well as their obligations under the Framework Convention? We will explore this question.

Keyphrases: Intended Nationally Determined Contribution, International environmental law, International human rights law, International negotiations, Kyoto Protocol, Paris Agreement, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
Social consequences of the privatization in Bulgaria and socio-economic impact of the neo-liberal economic theory on the transition to free market and democracy in the period from 1989 to 2015

Objectives : We look at the privatization in Bulgaria as defined above from a certain historical distance of 25 years, trying follow the visible now social consequences of the privatization, such as social inequality vs economic development; demographic impact and new social structures and values. Method: We use a two-prong approach. For the socio-economic development we study six constant variables for the defined period such as number of people below poverty line, GDP, Gini Index, demographic dynamcs, employment rate, and Human development index; for the social changes, new structures and values we use a qualitative approach, based on based on interviews, questionnaires, field studies, etc. Results: We find that results by both methods, with all the limittaions they have, rather align with our hypothesis that privatization in Bulgaria was economically necessary, but socially destructive and led to devastating social consequences, mainly as a result of flawed privatization policies and practices. It did emerge from the predominant at that time neo-liberal economic view and the specific practices used in the Bulgarian privatization favoured mainly in short term for some small social groups but for the society as a whole. Conclusion: We find that the way Bulgarian privatization was conducted was socially and economically damaging with long lasting consequences. In the long run the economy has recoverd, however the social divergences tend to grow.

Keyphrases: social inequality, socio-economic development, neo-liberal theory, social values
L'entrée sur le marché du travail des jeunes adultes : enquête longitudinale auprès de diplômés de second cycle à Montréal

Based upon a longitudinal study about ten graduate students in Montreal, this research uses a short temporal perspective of entering into labour market, and highlights the subjective tensions between personal fulfilment at work through constant learning, and economic independence through employment. Monthly interviews from may to december 2016 were made, from witch four consecutive phases emerged : the phase of professional prospection (through the formulation of a professional project), the phase of waiting and delay (by adjusting to new rhythms and autonomous learning), the phase of confrontation with the job market reality (with the potential achievement of professional project), and the phase of professional choice (characterized by labour market integration and by youth and adulthood representations). To that end, this study emphasizes the relationship between work and employment of young adults and its symbolic components, linked to the in-betweenness of emerging adulthood.

Keyphrases: Âge adulte émergeant, Professional Integration, Entry into labour market, Emerging adulthood, Sociology of Work and Employment, Longitudinal study
La prévision des résultats électoraux : application au cas canadien

During the 1970s and 1980s, a small group of political scientists started to develop forecasting equations based on political and economic indicators to predict election results. Election forecasting is now a thriving discipline in the United States, where a large number of different models are being used to forecast the outcome of congressional elections or the fate of presidential candidates. Although forecasting models have been developed for France and the United Kingdom over the past years, Canada, like most other democracies, has received very little attention. The goal of this thesis is to develop a theoretically-driven model that can be used to predict the popular vote share of the incumbent party in Canadian federal elections with sufficient lead time. To this end, we devised an ordinary least squares regression model using the results of elections going back to 1953. This model is composed of five variables; the difference between the unemployment rates in Canada and the United States three months before the vote, the natural logarithm of the number of consecutive months the incumbent party has been in office, a dichotomous variable related to the substitution of the Prime Minister near an election, the number of years of political experience gained by the Prime Minister in relation to his/her main opponent, and a factor related to the province of origin of party leaders.

Keyphrases: Election forecasting, Canadian federal elections, Voting behaviour, Economic voting, Political preferences
Développement fonctionnel du système vestibulaire chez l’opossum Monodelphis domestica

Marsupials are born very immature, but must nevertheless find a teat, unaided by the mother, to which they attach to pursue their development. Sensory inputs are necessary to find the teat and attach to it, but the senses involved are still under discussion. The vestibular system, responsible for the sense of balance, was proposed as influencing motor behavior of newborns in various marsupial species by an action on spinal motor networks. Studies in the opossum Monodelphis domestica suggest that the development of the vestibular system could be advanced enough to influence locomotion at birth but its functionality has never been tested. To do that, we subjected intact opossums aged P0 (Postnatal day 0 ; day of birth) to P21 to vestibular stimulations and immunohistochemically processed their brain tissues to reveal c-Fos, used as a marker of neuronal activity. Immunoreactivity of neurons in the vestibular nuclei was observed only from P15 onwards. To confirm those results, we performed two series of experiments on in vitro preparations of newborn opossums, using stimulation of the vestibular apparatus and physiological recording of the induced motor responses Thus, vertical head tilts did not induce motor response at any of the ages studied (P4-P12). In contrast, mechanical pressure applied on the labyrinth to stimulate the vestibular organs induced motor responses at all ages studied (P1-P9). Our results suggest that the vestibular system’s function is limited by the maturity of its sensory organs and that it can’t influence motor activity in physiological condition before the end of the 2nd postnatal week, even if functional pathways from the labyrinth to the spinal cord seem to be already in place at birth.

Keyphrases: Marsupial, Monodelphis domestica, c-Fos, Vestibular system, Development, Marsupials, Physiology
Homogénéisation biotique de la flore spontanée urbaine

Urbanization is recognized as an important driver of broad scale biotic homogenization. This study aim is to understand this relation at local scale while integrating concepts of community assembly.  Species plant composition was surveyed along three levels of local urbanization in four microhabitats (hedgerows, wall bases, maintained and unmaintained fences) and in one mesohabitat (wastelands) within Montréal and Québec cities. We compared species and functional richness as well as taxonomic and functional beta diversity among treatments (cities, local levels of urbanization, habitats). Our results did not support homogenization associated with urbanization at either large or local scales, as we did not find any convergence in plant composition between cities nor any change of beta diversity along the urbanization gradient within cities. However, the overall most urbanized city (Montréal) had lower beta diversity than the less urbanized one (Québec) while highly managed habitats were usually more homogeneous than the less managed ones. Finally, our results stress the need to establish conservation strategies of native flora in semi-natural habitats in urban areas since we demonstrated that native species in wastelands were functionally more diverse between cities than exotic species.

Keyphrases: Biotic homogenization, Exotic species, Functional traits, Habitats heterogeneity, Multivariate dispersion, Richness difference, Spontaneous flora, Wasteland
La provenance des boutures influence-t-elle le rendement et les taux de phytoextraction des saules dans un sol contaminé?

Plant survival and growth are essential parameters to monitor the effectiveness of phytoremediation protocols and the eventual decontamination of brownfields. The ability of different willow cultivars to survive and adapt to contaminants in polluted soils depends on the nature and concentration of the contaminants. The objective of the study was to identify the cultivars with the highest yields, but also to determine whether the origin of the cuttings (contaminated site or not) might influence survival, growth and phytoextraction of willow cultivars. We compared survival, growth and phytoextraction (Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, Zn) of cuttings of ten willow cultivars in a highly organic-contaminated industrial environment and in an uncontaminated soil. Variations in the response of the cultivars according to the origin of the cuttings were also analyzed for each sites. According to our results, cultivar ˈ5005ˈ (Salix alba) was very productive in an extremely contaminated environment. Cultivar ˈS25ˈ (Salix eriocephala) was also a relevant choice, as it produced nearly twice more root biomass compare to other cultivars. The origin of the cuttings did not have significant influence on survival, growth and phytoextraction for almost all cultivar except the ˈMillbrookˈ cultivar: individuals originating from the contaminated environment produced significantly more aboveground biomass when growing in the contaminated environment compared to individuals who had never been in contact with contaminants. These results could help build more effective phytoremediation protocols in highly contaminated environments by selecting adequate willow cultivars and sampling cuttings in an appropriate environment.

Keyphrases: phytoextraction, contamination, Willow cultivars, Willow physiology, Origin of cuttings, Reciprocal transplant experiment
Modélisation d'étoiles naines blanches magnétiques éléments lourds

We present, for the first time, detailed analyses of white dwarf stars showing heavy metal lines and large magnetic fields. These analyses are carried out with a new atmosphere code able to compute the position and strength of lines for all elements (from carbon to copper) in the Paschen-Back regime for an arbitrary geometry. Firstly, we describe the effect of a magnetic field on the atomic energy levels, first with the Zeeman effect for weak fields then in the Paschen-Back regime when the pertubative approach is no longer valid. We then explore the effect of the magnetic field geometry, especially the differences between models calculated assuming a constant field and those with a dipolar geometry. Some studies recently suggested that in the presence of an intense magnetic field, the convective movement is strongly inhibited, renderingthe atmosphere mostly radiative (Tremblay et al., 2015). We briefly explore the impact the suppression of the convective energy transport can have on the analyses' results of magnetic stars. In order to carry out a thorough analysis of some magnetic stars, we have applied changes to the atmospheric models used, for example by adding magnetic treatment of metallic lines. With these new tools, we analyse for the first time, in a rigorous manner, the stars G165-7, J2105+0900 and LHS 2534, three magnetic stars showing heavy elements. We study their atmospheric parameters such as the effective temperature, surface gravity and metal abundances, and then explore the possibility of having pure radiative atmospheres, where the convection would be inhibited by intense magnetic fields. We find that hydrogen rich models cannot reproduce observations, unlike those rich in helium where the convective movement takes place out of the line forming region. We finally note that a centered dipolar magnetic field is not able to reproduce the line profiles of a given multiplet, since the sigma components (those to the left and the right of the central line) predicted are too broad. Spectroscopic observations are better reproduced with constant magnetic field models, or with a strongly offset dipole in the -z axis, indicating that the actual field geometry probably is more complex than a simple dipole.

Keyphrases: Atmospheric parameters, White dwarfs, Magnetic fields
Convergence d’un algorithme de type Metropolis pour une distribution cible bimodale

In this thesis, we present a new Metropolis-Hastings algorithm whose proposal distribution has been designed to successfully estimate bimodal target distributions. This sampler may be seen as a variant of the usual random walk Metropolis sampler in which we propose large candidate steps at random times. The goal of these large candidate steps is to leave the actual mode of the target distribution in order to find the second one.   We then state and prove a weak convergence result stipulating that if we let the dimension of the target distribution increase to infinity, the Markov chain yielded by the algorithm converges to a certain stochastic process that is almost everywhere continuous. The theoretical result is in the flavour of Roberts et al. (1997), while the method of proof is similar to that found in Bédard (2006).  We propose a strategy for optimally parameterizing our new sampler. This strategy aims at optimizing local exploration of the target modes, while correctly estimating the relative weight of each mode. As is traditionally done in the statistical literature, our approach consists of optimizing the limiting process rather than the finite-dimensional Markov chain.  Finally, we illustrate our method via numerical examples on some target distributions, one of which violates the regularity conditions of the theoretical result.

Keyphrases: MCMC, Distribution bimodale, Random walk Metropolis algorithm, Bimodal distribution, Weak convergence, Optimal scaling
Placement automatique de sondes d’irradiance

Diffuse global illumination within a 3D scene can be approximated in real time using irradiance probes. Probe placement typically relies on significant human input, and final quality of the approximation is often left to the subjectivity of a lighting artist. As demand for realism in rendering increases, the need to enhance the quality of such approximations is greater. We propose a method to automatically place probes in a scene by minimizing an error function. We guide probes to optimal sampling locations by applying gradient descent to an error function that represents similarity between our interpolated results and reference irradiance values. Using weighted nearest neighbour interpolation, we were able to reliably construct probe sets with minimal input in three scenes. Comparing our results to those produced by a set of probes placed on a 3D grid, we were theoretically successful in one scene, in which we could obtain lower error values with fewer probes. We obtained partial success in the other scenes, depending on the number of samples used.

Keyphrases: Irradiance, illumination globale, Rendering, Global illumination, Light probes, Interpolation, Sampling
Étude typo-chronologique et stylistique des boucles d'oreilles en or de Macédoine : de l'époque archaïque à la fin de la période hellénistique

Until now, there are no exclusive repertoires of Macedonian earrings, especially those crafted out of gold. Thus, this thesis is meant to be the first to list the golden Macedonian earrings and their stylistic tendencies that emerged through the archaic, classical and hellenistic periods. The main inventories of jewellery established by Vokotopoulou (Sindos), Ninou, Jackson, Despoinē, Grammenos, Kypraiou, Amandry and Descamps-Lequime have certainly made this study possible due to their expertise on antique jewelry and by their concern to integrate unpublished artefacts. Inspired by these publications, a catalog based on typological analyses was established.  Firstly, a section on goldsmiths and their workshops presents them as wandering craftsmen whose work is generally contractual. These goldsmiths could be at the same time independent of their clientele, such as self-employed and temporarily serving higher social castes to craft expensive and personalized jewellery.  Finally, an extensive chapter on ancient goldsmithing techniques was unavoidable so that the reader can understand the technical terms of the domain and adequately visualize the levels of detail of the earrings. Out of the 147 pairs of earrings that have been identified, there are 23 distinct types of which 32 variants are found in 10 of these types. The most dominant types are lion earrings, Macedonian bands, omega earrings and Eros earrings. This content was subjected to morphological, stylistic, technological and even iconographic analyses for some.  Certain of the attested types were confronted to an origin problem in Macedonia while others revealed an eminent lack of examples making both representation and stylistic evolution interpretation difficult.

Keyphrases: or, aristocratie, analyse comparative, earrings, gold, silver, goldsmith, women, workshop, monarchy, aristocraty, stylistic influence, tends, Northern Greece, typology, catalog, comparative analysis
Entre proximité et distance : comique et rire bergsonien dans le théâtre de Fabien Cloutier

Fabien Cloutier’s plays spark copious laughter in spectators, but said laughter is often accompanied by a sense of discomfort which takes over the theatre. What part does the comic play in Fabien Cloutier’s work, and what is the function of audience members’ laughter during performances? This paper argues that laughter, as provoked by Fabien Cloutier’s theatre, serves a fundamentally critical purpose. Using the dynamics of both identification and distanciation at play in Fabien Cloutier’s theatre, this paper proposes that the critical function of laughter in plays Scotstown, Cranbourne, Billy [Les jours de hurlement] and Pour réussir un poulet be studied in light of the Bergsonian theory of laughter, which conceives of laughter as a social corrective.

Keyphrases: Fabien Cloutier, Theatre, Contemporary Québec theatre, The comic, Laughter
Sa disparition, suivi de fragmentation, répétition, subversion : le procédé du sampling chez Olivier Cadiot

On the morning of April 28th, the narrator arrives at the center where her grandmother, Aline Martin, has been living, only to find that she has disappeared. Deeply shaken, the young woman refuses to leave the residence until her grandmother has been found. The story of Sa disparition builds itself around fragments of discourses drawn from various sources – interviews with residents in care centres, on-line family support groups, ministry policies, reports from NGOs, journalistic coverage – and becomes an investigation whose goal is not so much to find Aline as to shed light on the discourses that have been constructed in our political space in order to justify the disappearance of the elderlies from our social radar. This fragment-based writing is related to Olivier Cadiot’s sampling method, by which he collects, organizes and shakes up oral and textual objects in an attempt to disarticulate prevailing discourses. The essay examines Cadiot’s sampling method by analysing three important aspects of his novel Le colonel des zouaves: the subversion of citations, the loop structure and the fragmentation of the subject.

Keyphrases: CHSLD, disparition, sampling, Olivier Cadiot, citation, fragment, elderly people, investigation, disappearance
La reconstruction identitaire et le rôle du Canada dans l’œuvre migrante de Walter Bauer : une contribution à l’étude de la littérature germano-canadienne

German-Canadian Walter Bauer’s writings are a striking example of the identity struggle he faced as an exiled person. Walter Bauer, who profoundly loved his native country, Germany, and its culture, had to learn to live with the shame inherited from the National-socialist regime. In his work, he is incapable of reconciling his beloved Germany with the horrors of the war and is faced with an identity crisis, leaving him with the need to rebuild his identity. His host country, Canada, played an ambivalent role in this quest, both positive and negative. This master’s thesis explores the role of Canada in the identity quest of the migrant writer Walter Bauer. By analysing both the burden of the German past and the promise of renewal given by Canada, it describes the identity ideal towards which Bauer strived: to be a man from both Canada and Germany, to be at ease on both continents. The way in which the author represents the immigrant experience through his work leads us to conclude that the clash with reality ultimately questions this ideal. The writer’s identity crisis, resulting from the Second World War and his false hopes of a new beginning in an idealised Canada, ends in alienation lived.

Keyphrases: Exil, Immigration, Migrant literature, Canadian literature, German literature, Exile, Identity, Identity reconstruction