NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
De l'indépendance à la reconnaissance du génocide : le (re)cadrage des actions collectives de la diaspora tamoule depuis 2009

While previous studies have focused on Tamil diaspora mobilization during Sri Lanka’s civil war (1983-2009), post-war Tamil mobilization within the diaspora remains largely understudied. However, this post-war mobilization is characterized by the emergence of a new discourse on the recognition of the Tamil genocide and represents a major break with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)’s discourse on Tamil Eelam independence. How can we explain this shift in discourse?   This research outlines the reframing of collective actions organized within the Tamil diaspora since 2009 and provides an explanation as to why such reframing is taking place. We focus on five collective actors, namely the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Global Tamil Forum (GTF), the Transnational Governement of Tamil Eelam (TGTE), Tamils Against Genocide (TAG) and the National Council of Canadian Tamils (NCCT). We deconstruct their discourse pertaining to Tamil independence and Tamil genocide using Tamilnet.com, an online news portal.   Using a quantitative and qualitative frame analysis approach, we challenge the causal relationship between opportunity window and reframing. Conversely, our results show that the reframing of Tamil collective actions in the diaspora since 2009 is due to the emergence of new collective actors, bearers of a new discourse on the recognition of genocide. We then suggest that the emergence of new collective actors mediates the relationship between opportunity window and reframing.

Keyphrases: Diaspora, Action collective, Sri Lanka, LTTE, Diaspora, Collective Action, Tamils, Mobilization, Reframing, Cyberspace, Independence
Grotte du Bison : deux chasseurs pour un gibier : analyse archéozoologique de la couche I-J sur le site moustérien de la Grotte du Bison, Arcy-sur-Cure (Yonne, France)

The “Grotte du Bison” is a Mousterian site located along the river Cure at Arcy-sur-Cure (Yonne, France). Level I-J is a Neanderthal occupation of the cave that occurred during the end of marine isotope stage 4 (MIS 4) and the beginning of stage 3. This period is characterised by strong climate instability, which conditioned the Neanderthals’ choices regarding their subsistence. Subsistence patterns are defined by various behaviours such as the type of hunting strategy adopted, carcass transport and butchery practices and residential mobility. What subsistence strategies were adopted by Neanderthal groups who occupied the Grotte du Bison over 50 000 years ago? This thesis presents a zooarchaeological analysis of the faunal assemblage excavated during the 2014 excavations. The results indicate that Neanderthal populations seasonally occupied the site alternating with carnivores such as bears (hibernating in the cave during the winter) and hyenas. Both Neanderthals and hyenas served as bone accumulators in the cave. Preliminary taphonomic analysis of the faunal assemblage from level I-J suggest that the Neanderthals hunted horses and reindeers while hyenas hunted and/or scavenged bovines and horses. Neanderthals from the Grotte du Bison transported whole carcasses to the site where they butchered them, exploiting their bone marrow and grease, processed the skins, made bone tools, and used raptor feathers (possibly as items of personal adornment).

Keyphrases: Taphonomie, Middle palaeolithic, Neanderthal, Zooarchaeology, Subsistence behaviours, Taphonomy
Assessing locomotion in cats trained on a flat treadmill and on a ladder treadmill before and after spinal cord injury (SCI)

The effects of spinal cord lesions on locomotion in animals is often assessed on a flat surface which requires minimal supraspinal demands. Here we investigated whether locomotor training requiring more voluntary commands could improve recovery in cats after a unilateral hemisection on the left side (Thoracic 10). Cats were trained for 6 weeks on a conventional flat treadmill (FTM) or on a ‘ladder treadmill’ (LTM) requiring precise foot positioning. Locomotor parameters such as kinematics and electromyographic activity (EMG) were evaluated before and once a week for 6 weeks after spinal hemisection.  There were differences in angular excursions and limb couplings when comparing walking on FTM and LTM and important changes occurred in the amplitude of EMGs such as an increased second burst in Semitendinosus (St) during LTM stepping. After the left hemisection, this burst disappeared on the left side while it was maintained on the right (non lesioned) side. With LTM training, we observed changes in limb trajectories and disappearance of foot drag of the left foot during FTM stepping suggesting a better control of distal musculature. Our results show that locomotor patterns observed during FTM stepping are influenced by different training modalities and also that training on the LTM after a spinal hemisection, demanding more supraspinal control, leads to a better stepping pattern.

Keyphrases: Locomotor training, Supraspinal inputs, Spinal hemisection, Ladder treadmill, Flat treadmill, Kinematics, Electromyography, Inputs supraspinal
Se convertir à l'épicurisme : ou comment devenir pieux

Were the Epicureans really pious persons? Ancient commentators, among which Cicero and Plutarch, found it difficult to believe: according to them, Epicureans believed that priests were nothing more than butchers, and that cult participation was a mean to dodge potential accusations of atheism. Epicureans, on the other side, were convinced of their own piety. Archeological finds show us that Epicureans were actively participating in traditional cultrelated activities, as long as the school lasted. Despite this evidence, Epicurean theology remains problematic: even though their ethics proclaims the gods as models, the existence of the gods is awkward to their physics. What happened when, in cult-related practices, the gods were invoked, or when they were represented with material objects? Was the Epicurean tradition of piety only cold, distant and purely rational? Even when they bowed and prayed in the temples? But does not such a distant attitude confirm the accusation of hypocrisy brought up by intellectuals like Cicero and Plutarch? With this work, I would like to demonstrate how it was possible for an Epicurean to be pious, in a non-distant way, all the while remaining coherent with the philosophical problem of the representation of the gods. This coherence requires a “conversion” to Epicureanism (and its epistemology) by which it becomes possible not only to see the gods, but to recognize ourselves as gods.

Keyphrases: Ancient philosophy, Epicureanism, Epicure, Piety, Epicurean epistemology
Les erreurs syntaxiques des élèves du secondaire au Québec : analyse de corpus

This Master’s thesis develops an accurate portrait of the syntax errors made by high school students in Quebec by analyzing a text corpus from five groups from secondary 1 to secondary 5. The actual results in ministerial exams from secondary 5’s students show us that the students are having difficulty writing French. A deeper analysis helps us understand that improving the situation requires deeper knowledge of students’ syntax errors. Building on Boivin and Pinsonneault’s (2014) matrix, we analyzed texts written by students from secondary 1 to secondary 5. The data analysis shows that among the seven main categories of mistakes in the matrix, syntax is the one in which students make the most mistakes. A closer look at the six sub-categories within the syntax category reveals that punctuation is the most challenging factor for students at all levels. Mistakes related to determining the words’ grammatical category (homophones) came second.  Further analysis reveals that, for each code, the evolution of the amount of errors from one school year to another. The two main errors, based on the six syntax sub-categories, were those based on the use of the comma and those related to the confusion existing between a verb ending in “er” and an adjective or past participle ending in “é-e-s”.

Keyphrases: Phrase, Error, Syntax, Sentence, High school, Teaching of french, Writing, Text, Punctuation
Chroniques de maux (de l’extrême ordinaire) ; suivi de Attaques à vide : bousculer la situation théâtrale au confluent de l’humour et de l’invective dans la pièce Rouge Gueule d’Étienne Lepage

Alice in wonderland and Nietzsche have in common neither the lace nor the song. However, something much stronger unites them; we shall discover it maybe this day when pigs will fly, or at the end of this play, according to the goodwill of the characters within. Meanwhile, by the very depths of their enclosure, they can’t wait anymore. For what ? Their salute ? The hour of the knell? Their hour of glory? Tremendous incapables, decadent pugilists who kill themselves trying not to kill themselves, who burst out in verbosity, setting themselves up in spite of themselves against eloquence. Fighting this Other who interferes insidiously in itself and who drives to the loss of the me. It is in a crazy lucidity that egos disturb each other without exchanging, attack without reaching, roar without being heard, in the hope, maybe, of waking up in the land of Nod. As indicated in the title, Chroniques de maux (de l’extrême ordinaire) stages a series of chronicles among which the characters are testifying their ill-being. The language and the situation of utterance of this play without acts, falls within resolutely "poetic-trash" esthetics, and the atmosphere aims to alternate heaviness with playfulness.   Rouge Gueule, by Étienne Lepage, presents a structure aiming obviously at "attacking" the Other, whether it is about a character or about a reader-spectator. Attacks commited on the one hand by raw humor, influenced by the popular culture, the trivial; a humor which works in a rather classic way by using processes easily identifiable and ceaselessly reused by the author. On the other hand, the structural design of "fight" shows itself by the invective, as well as by the violence characterized, from the beginning to the end, by a lack in the motivation of the actions. So, this study, Attaques à vide. Bousculer la situation théâtrale au confluent de l’humour et la violence, looks into Rouge Gueule, by being interested in the relations that maintain the humor and the brutal universe of the play, in the perspective where the humor is inextricably connected to the violence. A particular attention is dedicated to the typical character of Lepage as well as the esthetics of the trash "arsenal". The latter is analyzed to better circumscribe the attacks: are they the means, and, if so, to what end considering that the fable, and thus the "quest", in contemporary theater is often questioned. This study will see how, in Lepage’s play, the "vacant" attacks are the driving strength of what Hans-Thies Lehmann appoints the "theatrical situation".

Keyphrases: Québécois, Humour, Invective, Crise, Étienne Lepage, Theater, Contemporary, Humor, Language, Crisis
Évaluation de la production morphosyntaxique chez un enfant québécois francophone porteur d'implant cochléaire

This study describes the development of morphosyntactic and morphophonological structures in French-speaking children between 3 and 6 years. This data will contribute to identifying morphosyntaxic and morphophonoligical difficulties found in the hearing impaired child from Quebec with a cochlear implant. The first purpose of our pilot project aims to compare the morphosyntactic and morphophonological abilities of children with cochlear implants to those of hearing children of the same hearing and chronological age. In particular, this study investigates gender and number agreement between nouns and processes of fusion, elision and liaison. We hypothesize that less auditory experience will have an impact on the acquisition of morpho(phono)logical rules in French. The second purpose of the study is to observe whether or not mastery of certain morphological structures of French is linked to the phonemic production in children with cochlear implants. We created two experimental tasks and used other clinical and experimental tasks to study morphological and phonetic difficulties in children with cochlear implants. The control group consists of 14 typical developing children. They were compared to Vincent, a 59-months-old child with a cochlear implant. This child appears to show a delay in achieving stages of language development, but that this delay corresponds to his hearing age (date of cochlear implant) rather than to his chronological age. On the phonological and morphosyntactic levels, we observed similarities and differences between Vincent and the normal hearing children: he was significantly below standard for certain morphosyntactic structures and morphophonological processes (gender agreement, elision, fusion) and better than controls in the liaison task.   We believe that improved hearing is not the only factor that has an impact on his early language development. Other factors might have influenced results, including age of implantation, communication modality, bilateral implantation, parental investment and learning effects. Finally, we cannot conclude from our case study whether or not phoneme of production mastery is related to mastery of mophological structures and processes.

Keyphrases: Morphophonologie, cochlear implant, children, language acquisition, mophosyntax, morphophonology, language production, hearing impairment
Effet du développement résidentiel sur la distribution et l’abondance des macrophytes submergés dans la région des Laurentides et de Lanaudière

We searched for empirical relationships between whole-lake submerged macrophyte abundance and residential development, lake properties and wetlands in 34 lakes from the Laurentides-Lanaudière region subjected to a wide range of residential development. Submerged macrophyte abundance was assessed by echosounding of the entire littoral zone. Human encroachment was measured at three spatial scales: Within 1- a 100 m-wide buffer strip circling the lake, 2- the fraction of the watershed that drains directly into the lake and 3- the entire watershed. Single and multiple regression were used to test the effect of residential development on macrophyte abundance in the entire littoral zone and within four optical growth zones defined by Secchi depth. The local effect of slope on local macrophyte abundance was also tested in individual lakes.   We found significant positive correlations between submerged macrophyte abundance and dwelling density present within the direct drainage area (r > 0.51).  In contrast, there was no significant relation between macrophyte abundance and human occupation of the 100 m-wide buffer circling lake and the entire watersheds.  Multiple regression analysis suggest that submerged macrophyte abundance is weakly correlated with lake area (+) and wetland importance within the entire watershed (-). Locally, macrophyte abundance is related to slope and depth which explained together 21% of the variance.  Maximum and optimum colonization depths of submerged macrophytes were positively correlated to residence time and Secchi depth and negatively to human occupation and to wetland importance.

Keyphrases: Macrophyte, Laurentides, Human occupation, Echosounding, Eutrophication, Residential development
Reconnaissance des actions humaines : méthode basée sur la réduction de dimensionnalité par MDS spatio-temporelle

Human action in a video sequence can be seen as a space-time volume induced by the concatenation of silhouettes in time. We present a space-time approach for human action recognition, which exploits global characteristics generated by the technique of dimensionality reduction MDS and a cube division into sub-blocks to model the dynamics of the actions. The objective is to provide a method that is simple, inexpensive and robust allowing simple action recognition. The process is fast, does not require video alignment, and is applicable in many scenarios. Moreover, we demonstrate the robustness of our method to partial occlusion, deformation of shapes, significant changes in scale and viewpoint, irregularities in the performance of an action, and low-quality video.

Keyphrases: Action representation, Action recognition, Space-time analysis, Multidimensional scaling (MDS)
L’enseignement de la distinction entre le passé composé et l’imparfait en français langue seconde

Second language (L2) acquisition researchers report that acquiring the perfective-imperfective distinction poses significant challenges to L2 learners. Previous research has focused on identifying the causes of this problem as well as investigating the differential effects of teaching methods. This study uncovers teachers’s knowledge and comprehension of the distinction between passé composé and imparfait and analyzes the teaching material they use in their classrooms. The Aspect Hypothesis has already been identified as the principal cause of L2 learners’ reported difficulties. By analysing data obtained from teacher interviews and from their teaching materials, the present study sets out to address these hypotheses. Nine teachers of French as a second language participated in a semi-structured interview and discussed the teaching material they used to teach the passé composé and imparfait distinction. The obtained results show that teachers rely on textbooks to explain and teach the distinction between passé composé and imparfait. Although teachers were aware of the difficulties associated with the acquisition of the target forms, they used exercises that did not facilitate the learners’ task. In fact, the provided exercises barely focused on the meaning and use of the forms in question and heavily focused on their formal properties. An analysis of the input to which the learners were exposed indicates the predominance of typical input.

Keyphrases: Imparfait, Imparfait, Aspect hypothesis, French second language, Grammar teaching
Évolution à fine échelle des sites d'épissage des introns dans les gènes des oomycètes

Introns are portions of genes transcribed into messenger RNA, but removed during RNA splicing. In eukaryotes, they are called spliceosomal introns as they are removed by spliceosomes.  Introns allow many important processes such as alternative splicing, nonsense-mediated decay and functional-RNA coding. These roles leads to the question of the influence of natural selection on evolution of introns. We focus on mutations that are able to change gene products by modifing introns splice sites. These mutations seems to be an interesting topic as they can affect proteins, but there is currently no software to study them properly. The aim of our project was to design a method to detect and analyze changes in splice sites of spliceosomal introns.  We finally developed a method that locates the evolutionary events on splice sites of spliceosomal introns in a given species set. The method was performed on a set of oomycetes. Several detected events change splice sites and proteins, but there is also many events that seems to modify introns without affecting gene products.  Our method lacks a final step for thorough analysis of the collected events. However, the current method is easily reusable and automates genome analysis for the detection of events. The resulting files can then be analyzed in each study to answer specific questions.

Keyphrases: Intron, Eukaryote, Splicing, Gene, Evolution
Théorème de Pleijel pour l'oscillateur harmonique quantique

The aim of this thesis is to explore the geometric properties of eigenfunctions of the isotropic quantum harmonic oscillator. We focus on studying the nodal domains, which are the connected components of the complement of the nodal (i.e. zero) set of an eigenfunction. Assume that the eigenvalues are listed in an increasing order. According to a fundamental theorem due to Courant, an eigenfunction corresponding to the $n$-th eigenvalue has at most $n$ nodal domains. This result has been originally proved for the Dirichlet eigenvalue problem on a bounded Euclidean domain, but it also holds for the eigenfunctions of a quantum harmonic oscillator. Courant's theorem was refined by Pleijel in 1956, who proved a more precise result on the asymptotic behaviour of the number of nodal domains of the Dirichlet eigenfunctions on bounded domains as the eigenvalues tend to infinity. In the thesis we prove a similar result in the case of the isotropic quantum harmonic oscillator. To do so, we use  a combination of classical tools from spectral geometry (some of which were used  in Pleijel’s original argument) with a number of new ideas, which include applications of techniques from algebraic geometry and the study of unbounded nodal domains.

Keyphrases: Pleijel, Faber-Krahn, Conditions de Dirichlet, Quantum harmonic oscillator, Nodal domain, Eigenfunction, Dirichlet boundary conditions, Sobolev space
La médecine génomique en santé internationale : le rôle des projets internationaux de science ouverte en génomique

Some therapeutic applications of genomic medicine are likely to lead to considerable improvement in the health care of developing countries in the coming years. However, the establishment of efficient innovation policies remains vital in order to ensure the progress of the genomic revolution. In the biomedical field, the commercialisation of the results of research has established itself as the dominant paradigm in the innovation system. However, many recent studies have demonstrated that this emphasis on commercialisation and the protection of intellectual property has led to deceiving results. Some stakeholders of the innovation system thus argue that it is now necessary to go beyond the commercialisation of research and implement policies based on the research valorisation paradigm, which supports the achievement of social as well as economic objectives. The objective of our thesis is to document the impact of international open science genomic medicine projects’ innovation policies on research and developement in genomics capacity building and access to genomic medicine in developing countries. We have thus developed a case study involving four international open science genomic medicine research projects. The results of our study have demonstrated that these projects play an important role in research and development in genomics capacity building in developing countries, but play a more limited role with regard to access to genomic medicine in these countries.

Keyphrases: Valorisation, Genomics, Health, Research and development, Access, Innovation policy, Developing countries