NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
Liens prédictifs entre les traits de personnalité et les processus identitaires à l’adolescence : étude longitudinale du rôle modérateur de l’attachement aux parents

The objectives of this study were to evaluate if adolescents’ personality traits at the beginning of high school (age 12-13) predict identity processes two years later (age 15-16) and to determine whether attachment to parents moderate these predictive relationships. The data come from a prospective longitudinal study of 1036 adolescents from seven high schools in the regions of Montreal, Laval and Quebec City. Regression analyses controlling for different cofounding factors confirmed some hypotheses related to the predictive relationships of personality traits (i.e., Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Emotional stability). These analyses also revealed that attachment to parents positively moderate the relationship between Emotional stability and identity commitment. Specifically, the relation between Emotional stability and subsequent identity commitment is stronger for adolescents with high level of attachment to parents. Finally, beyond personality traits, a number of developmental correlates also seem to play a role in identity processes: age, pubertal status, family status, and ethnicity. The results of this study could have theoretical and practical implications such as helping improve screening of adolescents at risk to develop identity difficulties.

Keyphrases: Personality traits, Identity, Identity process, Attachment, Longitudinal study
Métaphysique et physique de la causalité chez Descartes

This dissertation aims to examine the treatment of physical causality in the scientific and metaphysical works of the philosopher René Descartes. At first, the in-depth study of his scientific works have revealed the abundant and seemingly trivial use of the notion of causality. We then contrasted this preliminary reading with the metaphysical theory of continued creation in order to establish clearly the problematic nature of causality within the Cartesian frame of reference. A closer examination of divine creation of the material world led us to posit the discontinuity inherent to time. Furthermore, the different formulations of continued creation opened the possibility for the laws of nature to be considered as causal agents in the Discourse on the Method, as well as bodies themselves from the scientific treaty The World; the texts of the Meditations and the Principles only leading towards a strict occasionalist reading. Within the last chapter of this dissertation, we demonstrate that the concept of force in bodies, similar to that of causality, is used extensively without being thoroughly defined. With the help of an article from the Principles, we were able to qualify force as a secondary attribute in Cartesian ontology. However, based on our readings, this qualification is not sufficient to consider force to be a causal factor behind the bodies.

Keyphrases: René Descartes, Force, Philosophy, Causality, Physics, Metaphysics, Continued creation, Laws of nature, Body
La Construction de la matière dans la Naturphilosophie de F. W. J. Schelling (1797-1800)

This thesis presents the theories on the nature of matter developed by F. W. J. Schelling in his Naturphilosophie writings, notably the Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature (1797), the First Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature (1799), and the Universal Deduction of the Dynamic Process (1800). Schelling falls within the so-called “dynamist” tradition, according to which matter is ultimately composed not of simple bodies interacting by direct contact, but rather of forces which are themselves incorporeal, and whose dynamic relations give rise to corporeal properties such as extension, hardness, and sensible qualities. This tradition is popularized in Germany by Kant, and while Schelling initially subscribes to the Kantian conception of matter, the philosophical aims specific to Naturphilosophie quickly bring him to reject Kantian dynamism in favour of a novel system. I will thus present his position as it developed up to the Universal Deduction, where Schelling undertakes the ambitious project of a common genetic account of matter, the dimensions of space, and the “categories of physics” made up of magnetism, electricity and chemistry—a system that will remain influential in the first half of the nineteenth century, contributing among other things to the discovery of electromagnetism, and to the development of German crystallography and mathematics.

Keyphrases: Philosophie, F. W. J. Schelling, Dimensions, Philosophy, Matter, Space, Naturalism, Dynamism, Magnetism, Electricity, Chemistry
En marge de l’histoire : le traitement du passé dans trois romans québécois contemporains

This thesis focuses on the representation of the «past tense» in three contemporary Quebec novels, La constellation du lynx by Louis Hamelin, Pourquoi Bologne by Alain Farah and Jonas de mémoire by Anne Élaine Cliche. These narratives share an obsession for the past that drives the narrators to investigate problematic and unknown episods that the texts explore while keeping it at a distance. The structure of these texts creates and maintains this gap with the past whose access is always indirect. The analysis of narration and narrators shows how these varying degrees of distance remain dynamic. These novels install also a distance in their uses of the past with the step back they take from established facts and preconceived ideas. The explored past is interpreted and transformed by fiction that proposes a rereading of it. The hypothesis of this thesis, based on « sociocritique », questions the role of fiction and its ability to reveal aspects of the past that remain unattainable to other research fields, especially to History who seeks to eliminate subjectivity.

Keyphrases: Sociocritique, Past, History, Quebec contemporary literature, La constellation du lynx, Pourquoi Bologne, Jonas de mémoire
Regard d'enfant et perspective d'adulte : le travail de la mémoire dans L'Arabe du futur de Riad Sattouf

This thesis aims to explore issues pertaining to the memory process in Riad Sattouf’s autobiographical graphic work The Arab of the Future by focusing on the process of recollection. This approach is characterized by a reciprocation of remoteness and proximity between the view of the child, which is carried by the image, and the perspective of the adult, which is essentially carried by the narration. We study this dynamic in light of the intercultural reality of the author who has a Syrian father and a French mother. Accordingly, the book showcases the cultural identity of a child who left France and was immersed in the culture of the Middle East. By using the recollection process, the autobiography establishes a dialogue between the author’s current writing time and place (today, in France) and his childhood experience (in the eighties, in the Middle East). Our study’s aim is to understand the nature of the relations that are established between narrating subject (the adult) and narrated subject (the child) in the first three volumes of The Arab of the future. We start by studying the child's posture in The Arab of the Future in order to understand the implications of certain recurring aspect that the author associates with childhood (like the artefact or the vivid sensory evocation). Then, we will adress the adult perspective and observe how it sometimes distances itself from the candid child's gaze by using critical comments and time gaps. We will also analyze the use of comedic codes to portray violence, which is most attributable to the adult's vision. The narrator's interventions are therefore often positioned more objectively than the candid child’s view. However, beyond the gaps of the perspectives, we must point out the presence of aspects that bring them closer which at the same time highlight the cultural tension in the comic book especially considering the relationship between the parents. This cultural tension also exists in the character of Riad who has to deal with being different both in Syria and in France.

Keyphrases: Graphic literature, Contemporary comics, Autobiography, Self-narrative, Middle East, Childhood memoirs
Analyse intersectionnelle des séries télévisées Orange is The New Black (2013-) et Transparent (2014-)

This thesis proposes to identify and analyze in an intersectional perspective the representation of the various forms of oppression existing in Jenji Kohan’s series Orange is The New Black (2013-) and Jill Soloway’s Transparent (2014-). Contemporary television series have the language to raise prominent representational issues and reflect a desire to transgress norms and deconstruct hegemony. We propose to adopt an intersectional posture that will allow us an inclusive analysis of the different identities represented in said television series while questioning the power relations that are portrayed in them. By taking into consideration the simultaneity of oppression and the many elements constituting an identity (sex, gender, class, « race », etc.), intersectionality allows a thorough analysis of the issues addressed in the television series. We will analyze representations and issues related to characters from minorities and oppressed identities, in order to see how such television series represent them and how intersectionality can become an interesting tool to better understand them.

Keyphrases: Transparent, Orange is The New Black, intersectionality, representation, television series
Séquençage d’exomes d’une cohorte de familles caucasiennes simplex dont les patients sont atteints du syndrome d’interruption de la tige hypophysaire

Pituitary stalk interruption syndrome (PSIS) is a rare disorder that affects the function of the endocrine system of the affected individuals. The absence of the pituitary stalk, assessed by MRI, characterizes patients with permanent growth hormone deficiency while the etiology of the syndrome remains unknown. PSIS is defined by clinical hypopituitarism together with anatomical findings including a hypoplastic anterior pituitary, ectopic posterior pituitary and reduced or hypoplastic pituitary stalk. We aim to find shared variations (SNP, CNV) among affected patients in coding regions which could explain the origin of the syndrome. We analyzed the exome NGS data from 8 affected French Canadian trio families, with one additional consanguineous Arabic trio family and 5 families with incomplete pedigree. These data were previously analyzed, for the same objective, by other members of the team using a standardize GATK based bioinformatics pipeline. It was desired to reanalyze the complete data set with two other independent pipelines, followed by a comparison of the SNP discovery results. In the present aspect of the study, we built two SNP discovery pipelines, both composed of a different NGS data aligners (Bowtie2) and each composed a different variant caller (Freebayes, SAMtools), then a CNV discovery pipeline which is composed of three different CNV callers (CoNIFER, fishingCNV, xHmm). In addition to the candidate mutations identified in the previous analysis, we identified additional candidate mutations which had not been detected and never been reported. Furthermore, our method helps to discover the sources of variation false discovery which could help to improve existing genomic mutation discovery pipelines.

Keyphrases: PSIS, CNV, NGS, GATK, Bowtie2, Freebayes, SAMtools, CoNIFER, fishingCNV, xHmm, GH, SNP,, SNP, Exome, Pipeline, Syndrome, Rare, Pituitary stalk, Disorder, Endocrine, MRI, Magnetic, Resonance, Growth, Hormone, Genomic, Mutation
Archéologie d’un marchand loyaliste à Montréal, 1805-1815. James Dunlop, son réseau, et l’économie-monde transatlantique

This thesis focuses on the material culture of the period from 1805 to 1815 on the site of Montreal’s foundation (BjFj-101). During this decade, the site had a commercial vocation and belonged to the Scottish merchant James Dunlop. The overall goal is to elaborate the commercial network of James Dunlop from the provenances of the material culture in the study. The reconstructed network will then be inserted in the greater economic frame of the early 19th century British Empire to better understand the commercial choices of Dunlop and the place of Montreal’s foundation site inside his network. To attain this objective, we have reconstructed the stratigraphic contexts and buildings of the site’s Period V (1805-1842), which holds 63 296 artefacts and ecofacts. Using this assemblage, we have studied the materials that are contemporary with Dunlop, in order to gain a picture of the goods and wares that transited the site during the decade 1805-1815. Three groups of materials are particularly indicative of James Dunlop’s business: ceramics, alcohol containers, and raw materials like timber, potash and wheat. Ceramic and alcohol show the importance of the importations from the western United Kingdom, especially Glasgow, which was Dunlop’s base in the British Isles. Inversely, the Canadian raw materials, the principal source of Dunlop’s income, were exported to Britain and the West Indies colonies. While this kind of trade network was typical of its time, the agency of James Dunlop gives us a new angle on the business of colonial merchants. Far from being a simple representative of British interest, Dunlop based his business in Montréal and could react swiftly to the changes in the British market in order to sell Canadian products on the most advantageous terms for him.

Keyphrases: Montréal, Material culture, Commercial network, World-economy, Scottish merchant, History, Montréal, Beginning of the XIXth century, British Empire
Une lorgnette théorique à trois prismes pour éclairer les liens entre le décrochage scolaire et l’évaluation des apprentissages

This article proposes a theoretical lorgnette combining three prisms to invest the links between the phenomenon of School dropout and the assessment of learning. The first focuses on the dimensions of the school form (assessment of learning, writings, and codes) that point towards the exercise of the power of the school. The second is in the tradition of symbolic interactionism rejecting an individualizing view of the dropout, relying instead on the reinsertion of the phenomenon in the social practices that give it meaning. The third prism moves away from the pupil’s deterministic and deficient model; from the domain of practical knowledge, it leads to the conception that it has a margin for maneuver. We will explore the implications of this theoretical lens in order to understand the phenomenon of School dropout, both in terms of research prospects and the intervention in the workplace.

Keyphrases: School dropout, Assessment of learning, School form, Symbolic interactionism, Practical knowledge
Le groupe de codéveloppement : un levier de réflexivité des enseignants en transition professionnelle?

The changing contexts of our time affect all professions, and teaching is no exception : teachers have unstable working conditions, which often place them in periods of professional transition. We suggested to four teachers from a secondary school located on the Island of Montreal to participate to a professional co-development group (PCG), in order to support them in what they experience as a professional transition. In the PCG, the group’s members shared their varied expertise and the group’s discursive resources marked each teachers practice stories. From two such and contrasted stories, we look at how this device foster reflexivity and we try to identify pitfalls.

Keyphrases: Professional transition, Professional codevelopement group, Research-training device, Reflection/experimentation cycle, Mesh of competencies
Trois zones de coconstruction de savoirs professionnels issues des médiations de débats en groupe

This paper presents an analytical framework of teacher professional knowledge, developed from the analysis of teacher’s conversations during a research-training project. Based on the analysis of their conversational negotiations around practical cases, this framework enlightens the professional group activity by identifying three areas of knowledge, “shared”, “accepted” and “contested”, which frames the territory of their practice. We expose this framework’s value for scientiic production of knowledge on a professional activity and for the professional development of practitioners. Finally, we examine the conditions of implementing a kind of intervention that supports those two aims, focusing in particular on the mediations to be mobilized in order to gain access to the knowledge of a professional practice based on the relexivity of the practitioners, and we highlight the contribution of this framework for scientiic communities – especially the communication domain – and the professional ones.

Keyphrases: Professional activity, Areas of collaborative knowledge building, Conversational negotiations, Reflexivity, Mediations
La conciliation des intérêts et enjeux entre chercheurs et professionnels lors de la phase initiale de recherches participatives en éducation

Canadian government agencies now promote participatory research among researchers to find solutions to problems in education with the involvement of professionals working on the field. This text is based on two examples in education and describes the intermediary work done by researchers with professionals at the start-up of the research. It demonstrated how groundwork and communication with the research partners might bring the scientific and professional communities closer.

Keyphrases: Participatory, Partnership research, Research start-up
Expérience esthétique et herméneutique philosophique

The aim of this article is to investigate the link between H.-R. Jauss’s theory of reception and the philosophical hermeneutics of Gadamer. Yet it is Kant’s theory of the judgment of taste that is best suited to show the distance that separates the two authors from the start. Jauss grounds his project on the modern approach to art, which implies what Gadamer characterizes as the “abstraction of aesthetic consciousness.” We know that Gadamer condemns this consciousness, which finds its paradigmatic expression in Kant’s aesthetics, because this consciousness deprives itself of the practical dimension of the work and of its truth. The task for Jauss then is to overcome the loss entailed by such an abstract consciousness, which consists in a feeling of pleasure (aesthesis), in order for the reception of the work of art to be fruitful for the lifeworld, as Gadamer would expect.

Keyphrases: H. R. Jauss, H.-G. Gadamer, Kant, Application, Aesthetic consciousness, Feeling of pleasure
Synthesis of a biotin-functionalized biguanide for the identification of the tumor growth inhibition mechanism of metformin

Metformin is widely used to reduce high blood sugar levels in type 2 diabetes patients. In recent studies, researchers observed an inverse association between metformin use and cancer incidence in different tissues. Inhibition of the mitochondrial respiratory complex I has been proposed to be the cause of the antineoplastic activity of metformin, but the mechanism by which metformin inhibits the complex I and consequently stops proliferation of cancer cells was not fully identified and understood.  In this thesis, we present the functionalization of a biguanide. A metformin - biotin conjugate was synthesized and used to identify the mechanism of action of metformin and its target in mitochondria. Mitochondrial extracts were put in contact with the biotinylated biguanide and were passed over affinity columns containing immobilized streptavidin. The proteins eluted after the washing steps were analyzed by LC-MS/MS and their sequences analyzed using the BLAST algorithm (NCBI). We isolated and identified by mass spectrometry (MS) an 8 KDa protein that specifically and directly binds metformin. This protein has been identified as the ATP synthase-subunit e. Our results suggest that metformin inhibits cancer cell proliferation through the direct inhibition of the ATP synthase of the mitochondrial respiratory chain. The research presented in this thesis has been performed in the Department of Chemistry, in collaboration with the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine, at the University of Montreal.

Keyphrases: Biguanide, ATP synthase, Metformin, Biotin, Streptavidin, Affinity chromatography, Anticancer, Complex I, Mitochondria respiratory chain
La métaphore de la guerre et du tribunal dans la philosophie critique

Obviously, the way Kant uses the juridical metaphor in the CRP allows us to anticipate his developments on public law of the 1790s. But the primary aim of the juridical model in this work is to illustrate the difference between the dogmatic and the critical approaches of metaphysical questions. In fact, if the antagonism between both parties of the Antinomy leads to a resolution of conflict that resembles a war, whose outcome is always contingent, the critical resolution proposed by Kant proceeds on the contrary to a rigorous assessment of the origin of the conflict, just as a tribunal decides on the legitimacy of a claim. In this way, the metaphors of war (state of nature) and of lawsuit (rule of law) contribute to clarify the meaning of the distinction between the “apagogic” and the “ostensive” methods in philosophy, the latter requiring a proof that the juridical vocabulary designates as a “deduction”.

Keyphrases: Kant, Antinomy, Deduction, Right, Apagogic/ostensive
Les triangles sphériques et le paradoxe des objets non congruents

Kant has been concerned with the problem of incongruent counterparts at different moments in his career: for instance in his 1768 article on the directions in space, in his Dissertation of 1770 and in the Prolegomena (1783). The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that 1) the example of the spherical ‘scalene’ triangles is the only one (thus excluding the isosceles and equilateral triangles) that can support Kant’s argument about the intrinsic character of the difference between two similar but nevertheless incongruent spherical triangles, 2) that what is here philosophically at stake is Wolff’s erroneous conception of “similarity” in geometry, and 3) that Kant’s thesis on the intrinsic nature of the difference between incongruent counterparts in space remains valid for his conception of space as “absolute” in 1768 as well as for his view of space as an a priori formal condition of the possibility of experience in 1783.

Keyphrases: Kant, Wolff, Incongruent counterparts, Geometry, Spherical triangles