NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
Étude des effets du facteur de croissance épidermique sur la neurogénèse après une irradiation

Patients with cancer receive different treatments such as radiotherapy (ionizing radiation) or chemotherapy. Currently about 60% of children surviving cancer are prone to the development of treatment-related delayed side effects, such as neurocognitive impairments. Given the prospect of psychomotor development of children and central nervous system (CNS) immaturity in these patients, it is especially relevant to study the adverse effects related to cognitive impairment caused by cancer treatments on this population of patients. Studies have shown the existence of close links between this delayed side effects and the abolition of neurogenesis caused mainly by irradiation. This masters degree project concerns the effects of epidermal growth factor, EGF (a growth factor involved in cell proliferation), on neurogenesis in the C57BL/6 mice, which drastically decrease after exposure to ionizing radiation. We also sought a vector of efficient secretion to allow continuous long-term secretion of EGF (2-4 weeks). Our hypothesis is that  EGF will stimulate neurogenesis and protect cells from apoptosis in the brain of mice following radiation. We have shown a positive effect of EGF on the formation and proliferation of young neurons Dcx (+) in the subventricular zone (SVZ) but not in the hippocampus (Hi) following EGF injection directly in the brain using an osmotic pump. We also observed that the increase of young neurons is independent of the ability of EGF to protect them from apoptosis. Moreover, EGF doesn’t protect leukemic human blasts after irradiation. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) genetically engineered to secrete EGF did not stimulate neurogenesis when injected directly in the brain. Finally our results indicate that EGF could be a good candidate for the development of new therapies to treat the side effects that irradiation causes in the brain. The use of pumps to allow the administration of recombinant EGF in specific brain regions becomes very interesting. Indeed this delivery system is increasingly used and effective to help improve the quality of life of patients.

Keyphrases: EGF, MSC, neurogenesis, radiotherapy
Une étude multicas des pratiques de soutien des enseignants du primaire
auprès d’élèves immigrants

This research studies teaching practices that support immigrant students recently arrived in Quebec. In most cases, those students have limited French proficiency and are required to be integrated into regular primary classes. A qualitative study was conducted with two teachers and their three immigrant students. Data collection was based on: 1) Classroom observation that allowed for documenting teaching support practices in real classroom context, 2) One to one interviews with teachers to understand their reasons when applying their supporting practices, 3) One to one interviews with students to comprehend their points of view regarding teaching support practices. Furthermore, some of the student’s written work was analysed. The research data is presented using a multi-case study that describes teaching practices for each participating teacher. For each case-study, the data was categorised based on twenty two supporting sequences described in regards to the context of each class. Then, the data was analysed using two theoretical complementary approaches: the teaching work analysis framework, and the cultural-historical approach.  The results of this research emphasize on the significance of teaching practice that is co-constructed by collaborative interactions occurring between the teachers and their students. These interactions are defined by students and teachers mutual contributions correlated to specific classroom factors. The analysis of teacher’s reasons shows that implementing and processing of teaching support practices are influenced by the decisions that teachers must make momentarily when they encounter a student difficulty. Teachers’ decisions result from an inner negotiation process. Teachers have to choose quickly between implementing supporting practices and maintaining their on-going prescribed tasks. This negotiation process is continued between the teacher and the student during their interactions in order to co-construct the support practice. The concepts borrowed from historical-cultural approach facilitate understanding the dialectical relationship between the student and the teacher during their interfaces. Both the teacher and the student adjust their behaviors towards each other to re-define the meaning of difficulty. Consequently, teaching support practices are shaped concurrently by the teacher’s inner negotiation process and the external negotiation with their students, and also influenced by the context factors of the class. This research main contribution is reinforcing and developing our understanding to teaching practices of support in the context of the regular classroom.

Keyphrases: Teaching practice of support, Immigrant student, Interaction between student and teacher, Multiethnic context, Linguistic integration, Sociocultural integration
Rôle du métabolisme énergétique dans un contexte de vieillissement chez C. elegans

The constant increase of the cases of age-related diseases, including cancers, cerebral accidents and neurodegenerative diseases raises a real problem in our current societies. These disorders are very strongly linked to the increase of life expectancy and to the ageing population. The costs, estimated in billion dollars, requiring vast medical resources and very few treatments exist today. Neuronal diseases, such as the Alzheimer's, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) are characterized by the degeneration of various types of neurons. This represents an important challenge because besides the lack of understanding the underlying mechanisms related to their pathology, it is now clear that some of these disorders involve several genes and lead to the dysfunction of fundmental biological processes such as metabolism. In western societies lifestyle and dietary practices may contribute to disease. The increased quantities of sugar and fat in western diets are thought to contribute to the rise of metabolic disorders, including Type II diabetes, obesity and coronary diseases. Nevertheless, it is important to understand that the metabolism of  glucose, the brain’s main energy source, is essential for survival. In this thesis, two studies using the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans investigated a potential protective role of the glucose in a context of pathological ageing and in conditions of cellular stress. Although ageing seems accelerated in a glucose enriched environment, the test subjects demonstrated an improved resistance to numerous stresses including against toxic proteins involved in the ALS and Huntington's disease. Secondly, it appeared that these effects can be heritably transmitted to successive generations of animals. Thus, a glucose enriched environment allows for increased stress resistance in the offspring, without transmitting the negative effects of accelerated ageing.

Keyphrases: Glucose, C. elegans, Metabolism, Neurodegeneration, Epigenetic
La lévodopa est-elle néfaste pour la cognition dans la maladie de Parkinson? : étude pilote

Background and objectives: While levodopa’s effect on motor symptoms in Parkinson’s disease (PD) has been largely characterized, its cognitive effect still remains without definite conclusion. Since cognitive impairment is an important feature of PD that impacts patients’ quality of life, it is important to establish levodopa’s effect on cognitive functions. Multiple studies regarding this subject remained without specific consensus. The main goal pursued in this study is to observe the effect of clinical doses of levodopa on attention and executive functions. A dose-response curve is also made with the escalating doses evaluated. Methods: Five PD patients were investigated OFF (minimal withdrawal of 12 hours) and ON levodopa (starting dose of 50mg escalating by 50mg per visit) with 2 cognitive (CPT-II and Stroop) and 2 motor (finger tapping and UPDRS-III) tests until reaching an optimal cognitive performance or showing signs of side effects. Practice sessions of the cognitive tests were done at the first visit. Results: While reaction time (RT) in milliseconds increased (median 3.03%), errors slightly decreased (median -9.92%) after medication intake in the CPT-II. Errors however did not change in the Stroop while time evaluated in seconds decreased. The CPT-II showed slowing at the prescribed doses of levodopa (3.5%) while lower doses improved errors with less increase of the RT. These small doses also improved the performance in the Stroop test with a 19% reduction in time while the prescribed doses improved errors instead. The dose-response curve indicates a reduction of errors in the CPT-II for low and high doses while time usually increased, showing a more cautious style. Besides the beneficial effect of low doses, the dose-response curve for the Stroop test did not show any specific tendencies in levodopa’s effect on interference. An important variability was observed in motor evaluations between and within subjects. Conclusion: These results indicate that levodopa does not seem to have an important deleterious effect on attention and executive functions evaluated in this group of parkinsonian patients and that low doses seem to even be beneficial and better than the ones usually taken by the patients. The dose-response curve showed that the cognitive effect of levodopa for these patients varies between the different doses without being clear on the tendencies.

Keyphrases: Attention, Parkinson disease, Cognitive impairment, Executive functions, Escalating doses, Dose-response
Mechanisms of translation regulation in long-term synaptic plasticity

Memories are encoded in the unique configurations of the vast neuronal networks of the brain. Each of these connections possesses the ability to be modified. Such long-lasting changes at the synapse often require the synthesis of new proteins that create what we call memory traces. Evidence suggests that the signal-induced activation of translation in some forms of synaptic plasticity occurs locally, at the activated synapses, rather than in the soma. However, the mechanisms regulating local and rapid de novo protein synthesis are poorly understood. The initiation step of translation is a highly regulated step and is believed to be the main target of control. The present research project challenges this view for a certain form of long-term synaptic plasticity, metabotropic glutamate receptor-dependent long-term depression (mGluR-LTD). We show, using electrophysiological recordings of dissociated hippocampal neurons in cultures coupled to pharmacological inhibitors, that translation regulation depends on elongation and termination, rather than initiation. Moreover, by exploiting RNA knockdown strategies, we demonstrate that the RNA-binding protein Staufen 2 plays a crucial role in mGluR-LTD induced in cultures. Altogether, the findings of the present study support a model of translation regulation that is downstream of initiation.

Keyphrases: mGluR-LTD, protein synthesis, translation regulation, RNA-binding proteins, Staufen 2
A theoretical and experimental dissociation of two models of decision‐making

Decision‐making is a computational process of fundamental importance to many aspects of animal behavior. The prevailing model in the experimental study of decision‐making is the drift‐diffusion model, which has a long history and accounts for a broad range of behavioral and neurophysiological data. However, an alternative model – called the urgency‐gating model – has been offered which can account equally well for much of the same data in a more parsimonious and theoretically‐sound manner. In what follows, we will first trace the origins and development of the DDM, as well as give a brief overview of the manner in which it has supplied an explanatory framework for a large number of behavioral and physiological studies in the domain of decision‐making. In so doing, we will attempt to build a strong and clear case for its strengths so that it can be fairly and rigorously compared to potential alternative models. We will then re‐examine a number of the implicit and explicit theoretical assumptions made by the drift‐diffusion model, as well as highlight some of its empirical shortcomings. This analysis will serve as the contextual backdrop for our introduction and discussion of the urgency‐gating model. Finally, we present a novel experiment, the methodological design of which uniquely affords a decisive empirical dissociation of the models, the results of which illustrate the empirical and theoretical shortcomings of the drift‐diffusion model and instead offer clear support for the urgency‐gating model. We finish by discussing the potential for the urgency gating model to shed light on a number of clinical disorders, highlighting a number of future directions for research.

Keyphrases: Decision-making, Urgency-gating model, Perceptual discrimination, Speed-accuracy trade-off, Random dot motion, Sequential sampling, Hypothesis-testing, Neuroeconomics, Reward rate
Les sympathies dans l’œuvre de David Hume

Sympathy, as a principle by which an idea is converted into an impression, is not the only kind of sympathy that David Hume employs in his works. Hume refers to several of the multiple distinct meanings that the term afforded in 18th century vernacular. The thesis argue that in the end the Scottish philosopher uses the word “sympathy” with five different meanings, besides his own philosophical concept. Identifying these meanings as they appear throughout Hume’s body of work provided a greater understanding of the nature of his own philosophical concept of sympathy. This brought to light the relationship between sympathy and another affection-producing principle that Hume occasionally mentions: contagion. Similarly, this granted insight into the interplay between sympathy and other elements in Hume’s philosophy, especially the animal spirits, their movements, and emotions. Indeed, this analysis has uncovered the key role that animal spirits and their movements play in Hume’s theory of passions, observing that his principle of sympathy merely describes an increase in the agitation of animal spirits. Consequently, sympathy as a principle of conversion of an idea into an impression describes what is in fact in Hume’s thinking a physiological mechanism. Further, this investigation has shown that those impressions which Hume calls “emotions” specifically refer to the movement of animal spirits. Therefore, we must recognize that Hume’s taxonomy not only includes perceptions in human understanding (ideas, passions, sentiments, etc.), but also integrates perceptions in the human body (emotions), and that they are closely correlated. This leads to the hypothesis that there are in Hume’s philosophical works enough elements to delineate a theory of the relationship between body and mind (or soul). Understanding sympathy as a physiological mechanism involving the agitation of animal spirits offers a new outlook on David Hume's conception of human nature.

Keyphrases: David Hume, contagion, physiologie, philosophy, sympathy, animal spirits, physiology
La théorie kantienne du mal comme manière de penser : la gravité du mensonge à soi-même

This thesis aims at deepening the Kantian interpretation of propensity to moral evil as a way of thinking. This not only pressuposes that it is possible to describe this way of thinking but that an image of a morally evel man might be derived from  this description. To achieve this goal, this study conceives the propensity to evil as a way of thinking that serves a double movement. Firstly, propensity to evil is a «moral inversion » where the subject subordinates good to evil. Secondly, this propensity is a move that allows the subjetc  « to turn away from» his own conscience and to justify the fairness of his own selfish interets. It is in this double movement where this study finds its own structure.

Keyphrases: Emmanuel Kant, Philosophy, propensity to evil, moral inversion, self-lying, Kant
Caratérisation de la surface d’énergie potentielle des matériaux complexes et son application sur la cinétique du SiO2/Si

In this Master's thesis, we use the numerical methods such as molecular dynamics  (LAMMPS's code) and kinetic-ART which is an on-the-fly off-lattice kinetic Monte Carlo algorithm that incorporates exactly all elastic effects.   In the first, we compare a number of various algorithms used for sampling energy landscape of complex materials. The various algorithms chosen are those that use the Bell-Evans-Polanyi principle to progress on the potential energy surface.This study allowed us to understand the steps needed to escape a local minimum to another and to control research to quickly find the global minimum. This study also allowed us to understand the power of these methods on the kinetics of the structural evolution of complex materials.  In the second part, we have developed a simulation tool (ReaxFF potential coupled with Kinetics-ART) able to study the first stages  and  oxidation process of silicon compare to the experimental time. To validate the system in place, we have  tested  the very first step of the silicon oxidation. The results obtained are in agreement with the literature. This tool will be used to understand the true oxidation process, the possible transitions of oxygen atoms at the silicon surface and the barrier associated with. Problem that are real challenges for the microelectronics industry.

Keyphrases: Lammps, Kinetic-ART, Lammps, ReaxFF potential
Le travail sociologique en contexte révolutionnaire : l’ambiguïté entre science et politique dans la vie et l’oeuvre de Pitirim A. Sorokin en Russie

Pitirim Aleksandrovich Sorokin is one of the greatest American sociologists of the XXth century. His contributions to sociology are not only numerous but, more importantly, diversified. The majority of his writings have been translated and most of the languages of the world have at least access to one of his books. Nonetheless, in the Western world, his career before his emigration to the United-States has been neglected for a long time, because his critics were mostly interested in his writings post-Russia. Furthermore, very few French writings exist on this classic of American sociology. Solving this situation, this memoir revisit the life and work of Sorokin in Russia and presents to contemporary readers the eclipsed part of his career. More to the point, this research focuses on the Russian career of Pitirim A. Sorokin from a biographical and sociological point of view. The question at the center of it is as follow : How can one explain the sociological production of Pitirim A. Sorokin in Russia? In the first part, his biography from 1889 to 1923 will be presented. The objective is to describe the development of his ''habitus'' and the diverse positions that he occupied. The second part summarizes the researches produced by the sociologist before his exile and explain his scientific positions.

Keyphrases: Pitirim A. Sorokin, History of sociology, Russian sociology, Russian revolution
Vues imprenables ; suivi de Paradoxes du voir et de l'aveuglement dans Ceux d'à côté de Laurent Mauvignier

Vues imprenables is a fictional narrative that explores the standpoints of six characters residing as guests in a luxury hotel for the weekend. Through discursive detours, and textual devices used by each character to avoid facing up to his faults and confronting the reminiscence of past sins, the questions of sight and blindness are closely intertwined with actions being carried out [passage à l’acte]. What are the characters’ failings ? Are they truly able to “see” through their own self? What part did the gaze play in their past actions? Inspired by the game Clue, The Ten Commandments and the aesthetics of the movie The Shining, Vues imprenables explores the notion of repentance, and by doing so attempts to determine to what extent the veil of words can conceal certain acts, and how sight reveals itself to be forever elusive. The essay entitled “Paradoxes du voir et de l’aveuglement dans Ceux d’à côté de Laurent Mauvignier” also establishes close ties with Vues imprenables, as it probes the limits and possibilities of the seeing in the storytelling. Moreover, the study analyses the meanders in which the advent of sight takes place in Mauvignier’s story, how it always foresees its imminent loss, and also traces the many ways by which the criminal act “turns a blind eye” at the very moment it is perpertrated. Revisiting some of the great tales of Greek mythology (Œdipus, Tiresias, Medusa), the analysis focuses on the particular aspects of the alter ego—“the other I,” at times guilty, at times a witness, who haunts Mauvignier’s novel. The multiple paradoxes of vision are thus scrutinized through a close reading of major writers and philosophers, such as Hélène Cixous, Georges Didi-Huberman, J.-B. Pontalis and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

Keyphrases: Voir, Aveuglement, Crime, Paradoxe, Laurent Mauvignier, Sight, Gaze, Blindness, Crime, Paradox, Guilt, Laurent Mauvignier, French Contemporary Literature
Projet Dauphine : laisser la parole aux jeunes femmes de la rue et agir ensemble pour lutter contre la violence structurelle par le biais de la recherche-action participative

This participatory action-research shows how seven street involved young women (18-23 years) in Quebec have experienced structural violence and how they deployed strategies to overcome. It is based on a definition of structural violence inspired by Farmer, Bourgois Scheper-Hughes et al., (2004) who presents this as the root of social inequality and oppression experienced by several social groups. This process operates in three complementary dimensions: 1) the symbolic domination, 2) institutional violence, and 3) the daily violence. A content analysis has identified the participants experience in each of these dimensions. The analysis of symbolic domination revealed that participants were seen through four prejudices: 1) the bad girl, 2) prejudices against welfare recipients, 3) rape culture and 4) heteronormativity. The violence of everyday life and institutional violence experienced by participants may be connected with symbolic domination. Participants experienced institutional violence during their paths within the child protective system, through their efforts to get a job, housing or financial support from government programs, and during their requests for help from community organizations or establishments of the health and social services. It reveals two patterns of structural violence that mutually reinforce each other in a cycle: Social exclusion and social control. Most of participant’s strategies to overcome social exclusion and to fulfill their needs make them vulnerable to social control. Social control helps increase their financial difficulties and their fear of exclusion. These two patterns of structural violence had created context for sexual victimization and intimate partner violence. While structural violence experiences by participants is at the crossroads of power relationship related to gender, social class, age and sexual orientation, it emerges that male domiiv nance is reflected in participants daily life. The analysis of the intersubjective dimension of Yuval-Davis grid (2006) identifies power relationship within the population of street youth, participants struggle to defining violence and to adopt egalitarian relationships with men. Finally, an analysis of the participatory action-research process experienced in this thesis was conducted from Reason and Bradbury (2001)’s criteria of validity. The development of two photo projects, selected by the group as a strategy against structural violence, helped open a dialogue with various stakeholders involved in structural violence against street-involved young women.

Keyphrases: Structural Violence, Intersectionality, Street Youth, Participatory Action Research, Social Exclusion, Social Control, Sexual Violence, Intimate Partner Violence, Marginalization