NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
The Capabilities Approach as a Foundation for an Ethical-Political Theory of the Good

The capabilities approach has seen significant development over the past quarter century, branching out into a variety of fields and directions. Originally developed by Nobel Prize Laureate Amartya Sen, Martha Nussbaum has sought to extend this approach beyond its mainly instrumental role into a tangible foundation for a full-fledged ethical-political theory of the good. However, this move has attracted a great number of criticisms levelled against Nussbaum’s specific version of the capabilities approach. In this thesis, I identify three main groups of observations under which said criticisms can be classified, and assess their respective strength and tenability.

Keyphrases: Sen, Nussbaum, Capabilities approach, Universalism, Pluralism, Relativism, Distributive theory of justice, Ideal observer theory, Realpolitik
The overexpression of the efflux pump Tpo1 leads to the bleomycin resistance in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Bleomycin is a cytotoxic antibiotic that, when used in combination with antineoplastic agents, has more genotoxic potential on testicular cancer than other types of cancer, which often develop resistance to the drugs. Our goal is to identify the resistance mechanism, using the organism Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model. In our laboratory, we have demonstrated that deleted yeast strains on their transcriptional coactivator Imp2 have presented hypersensitivity to bleomycin due to the toxic accumulation inside the cell. This led us to believe that Imp2 might regulate the expression of one or more efflux pumps capable of expelling bleomycin outside the cell. To test our hypothesis, we sought multi-copy of suppressors capable of restoring bleomycin resistance in the mutant imp2. As a result we identified the transcriptional activator Yap1, which binds to a specific region within the promoter and activates the expression of subset of genes, encoding efflux pumps that are involved in drug resistance. Based on the literature, at least 27 efflux pumps have been identified in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Some of these efflux pumps have binging sites for Yap1; such as Qdr3, Tpo2 and Tpo1. To determine whether or not one of these pumps expelled bleomycin, we proceded by single and double mutations in combination with IMP2. We also verified if these single and double mutants were sensitive to the drug, and then we have examined whether the overexpression of Yap1 could restore the wild phenotype in these mutants through the activation of efflux pumps.

Keyphrases: Bleomycin, testicular cancer, Imp2, Yap1, Tpo1, Drug resistance
Moralité internationale et hégémonie : les droits humains au 20e siècle

Two conceptions of morality prevail in the analysis of current moral issues in international relations: the morality of states and the cosmopolitan morality. The first recognises the states as the fundamental units of the international system and the second, the individuals. In this thesis, we develop an alternative conception of morality: the moral hegemonic discourse approach. Our aim is to demonstrate that this perspective is better suited to explaining and understanding morality in the contemporary world. This allows us to emphasise the progression of a dominant moral discourse as well as the role of those who contributed to its development.  In order to critically analyse the dominant history of the modern discourse of rights we first identified two of its fundamental characteristics: individualism and universalism. We then focused on their reproduction over time. To this end, the main irregularities of their history are exposed over the centuries and at two different points in the 20th century.  Following these two steps, we observe that despite its opponents, a certain conception of the rights discourse internationalised itself in the aftermath of the Second World War. Second, a close study of the debates surrounding the writing of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights in 1948 and of the Vienna Conference in 1993 shows that this conception of rights maintained its hegemonic position at the international level.  Therefore, we conclude on the validity of the moral hegemonic discourse approach to understand the significance of the rights discourse at the international level.

Keyphrases: Discours, Human rights, International Morality, Hegemony, Sovereignty, Normative theories
Fabrication d'une tradition montagnarde marocaine berbérophone : singularisation d'une fête dans le Haut Atlas marocain

In a village of the High Atlas in Morocco, a celebration which has been abandoned for more than fifteen years has been renewed in 2010, bringing along journalists, anthropologists and militant associatives. The study of the renewal of tradition in this celebration, through discourse, performances and social interaction, allows us to put into question the models on the fabrication of tradition. The underlying process of this renewal is singularisation, a specific form of resistance to the nationalist culture or any other cultural hegemony. Singularisation is present in every element of the celebration.  It determines a specific link to the past by which it appears as the reversed image of the present, staged as object of loss. It also determines cultural choices such as the one between two musical traditions. Such mechanisms respond to a new spatial organization which is a direct consequence of the recent economic and political changes in Morocco. In this organization, power is no more in the local but outside the community’s territory. Women are marginalized and intermediary figures become the center of the renewal of tradition. The study of singularisation enables to explain how identity is made, to determine conditions for the cultural survival of a group, to characterize the relation between a cultural event and social change, and to bring new elements to the theories of tradition.

Keyphrases: tradition, singularisation, festival, Hobsbawm, berbère, ritual, oral tradition, cultural minority, resistance, ethnomusicology, cultural anthropology
Transformations sociales et identitaires en Mongolie de la fin du 19e à la moitié du 20e siècle

Great social transformations took place in Mongolia from the 19th to the first half of the 20th century where the region changed in a very short amount of time from being a semiautonomous part of the Qing empire to being a theocratic Buddhist state, to finally becoming a People's republic. This thesis illustrates the ways in which social changes  have affected the collective identities and how these came to be adopted by the population. In each of these cases, the social context which brought changes in the definition of identity are analyzed as well as the nature from which the new collective concepts are selected, modified or constructed.

Keyphrases: Mongol, Nation, Ethnie, Dynastie Qing, Identity, Mongolia, Ethnicity, Qing dynasty, Buddhism, Mongolian People's republic, Cultural hegemony
Rapport à l’école et aux savoirs scolaires de jeunes d'origine haïtienne en contexte scolaire défavorisé à Montréal

The research explores the relationship with school and with scholastic knowledge of young native Haitians in disadvantage academic context. Considering some contrasting trajectories of students academically successful, vulnerable students, and students who dropout, it examines the processes that contribute to socio-academic achievement among the first group and to less successful outcomes among the latter two groups by exploring the meaning that these youths attach to school and to the act of learning. The research also documents the way this meaning is constructed in the youths’ socio-academic pathways. This approach, based on in-depth biographical interviews, generated explanatory hypotheses regarding a residual variance that remained unexplained by quantitative studies. It also enhances Charlot’s perspective (2001), which has been considered overly student-centred (Thésée, 2003). While the student is at the centre of this approach, his/her relationship with academic knowledge is analyzed by exploring the pathway of academic, family and community-based socialization. It examines these in terms of the perspective of the youths themselves as well as that of parents, teachers and other significant people involved in this trajectory.  The results indicate that these youths’ relationship with school and with academic knowledge appears to be more complex and more critical among students who succeed academically and who recognize the value of school for developing skills, acquiring qualifications and socializing. These students actively engage in their learning. In contrast, students who experience difficulties put greater emphasis on socialization and qualifications and put less effort into their schooling. Their relationship with academic knowledge, similarly to that of youths who drop out of school, is sometimes characterized by a lack of meaning and disengagement. However, beyond these broader tendencies, the youths’ relationship with school and with academic knowledge plays out differently for each youth depending on specific personal, family and social characteristics, the academic knowledge considered, and the way teachers transmit this knowledge. Lastly, the results highlights the student’s role as an actor in this process, as well as the active role played by the main environments in which the student moves. The school is particularly challenged. Students denounce the scriptural scholastic form, perceived monotonous, heavy and rigid. Besides, according to them, some teaching practices do not promote learning (Fabre, 2007; Pépin, 1994). The research also highlights the importance of values, practices and cohesion, of the family. Finally, the research emphasizes the influence of the network of peers and community settings. Learning and succeeding in school emerge as an individual and social challenge that involves collective mobilization.

Keyphrases: Relationship with knowledge, Academic achievement, Social and educational pathways, High School students, Haitian origin, disadvantage academic context
C’est ici que le verbe habiter s’est déchiré ; suivi de Sudbury : l’habitabilité de la poésie chez Patrice Desbiens

Composed of narrative and poetic fragments, C’est ici que le verbe habiter s’est déchiré follows the journey of a young man returning to his hometown, Québec. While wandering in the streets, but also through his own memories, the narrator will find on his path the point of rupture between past and present. C’est ici que le verbe habiter s’est déchiré proposes a reflexion on these places and times that, even if over, seem to never abandon us, all within a style of writing where silence is sometimes as eloquent as speech. As it’s name indicates, Sudbury: l’habitabilité de la poésie chez Patrice Desbiens is an essay regarding poetry as a living space within the poem Sudbury from Patrice Desbiens, a work that stages the daily routine of a small town in northern Ontario. Confronted to a cold and deserted place where nothing seems to subsist, within this town that he depicts at the same time as artificial, violent and unlivable, Desbiens seems to believe that only writing is authentic and bearer of truth. Hence, by entitling his work Sudbury, the name of the town where he lives, does the poet not present himself as the genuine author of the place? Does he not give a meaning to something that, before, was deprived of one? Is there not, in the end, a substitution of the opressive urban space for the one, more welcoming, of poetry?

Keyphrases: Poésie, Desbiens, habiter, Poetry, creation, space
Douleur, affectivité, personnalité et fonctionnement attentionnel suite à un traumatisme craniocérébral léger

The main goal of this thesis is to study the multifactorial nature of attentional difficulties presented by individuals having sustained a mild traumatic brain injury. Specifically, we sought to determine how pain symptoms, emotional factors, and personality variables impact attentional functioning following mild traumatic brain injury. To achieve this, the present thesis describes the findings of three articles. In the first article we reviewed studies that had investigated the cognitive/neuropsychological impact of pain symptoms, and of psychological variables related to chronic pain. The second article presents the findings of an experimental study in which we explored the relationships between symptoms of pain, emotional factors, and attentional functioning in individuals with mild traumatic brain injury in different phases of recovery. A third article describes the results of another experimental study exploring the associations between personality variables, and attentional efficacy in both normal individuals and in those having sustained a mild traumatic brain injury. Findings of the studies described in this thesis demonstrate that mild traumatic brain injury can decrease attentional efficacy, as attentional deficits can be observed on certain neuropsychological tasks that precisely measure reaction times. Variables concomitant to mild traumatic brain injury can also negatively impact attention; the presence of pain symptoms is associated with decreased performance on attention tasks, and certain personality traits are associated with attentional efficacy or with post-concussion symptoms. This thesis thus demonstrates that various factors contribute to the attentional difficulties presented by persons with mild traumatic brain injury. The neuropsychologist should opt to use cognitive tasks sensitive to mild brain injury when exploring the attentional complaints of these individuals. As well, a thorough evaluation of variables related to pain, and of personality traits should be systematically conducted in the context of a post-MTBI neuropsychological examination.

Keyphrases: mild traumatic brain injury, selective attention, neuropsychology, pain, depression, anxiety, personality
Neuroimagerie fonctionnelle du langage et de la mémoire chez des personnes ayant des atteintes neurologiques

The goals of this research program were, on the one end, to bring a critical understanding of the non invasive techniques used for the localisation and lateralisation of language and memory functions taking into account their respective advantages, limits and relevance in a patient care context. On the other end, we wanted to deepen our understanding of cerebral language organization in the context of the study of acallosal subjects. To meet our first objective, we performed a comprehensive review of the litterature of neuroimaging methods used in language and memory lateralisation and localisation in the context of presurgical assessment of epileptic patients. In this work, we pointed out that some of these new methodologies and moreover their combinations show an interesting potential for the use in a clinical context. We also pointed out that these methods still need to be refined and standardised before replacing the intracarotid amobarbital test in a safe clinical setting. To meet our second objective, we explored patterns of language lateralization in six individuals with callosal agenesis using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) protocol. No differences were found between language lateralization of subjects with agenesis of the corpus callosum and the control groups (High-IQ and IQ-matched) in the receptive speech task. However, for expressive speech, the groups differed with respect to frontal activations, with the acallosal participants showing a more bilateral pattern of activation than the high-IQ participants only. No differences were found in themporal regions. Overall, these results indicate that the corpus callosum is not essential for the establishment of lateralized language functions.

Keyphrases: Mémoire, Hemispheric specialization, Language, Memory, Corpus callosum agenesis, Epilepsy
Les relations d’attachement et d’activation père-enfant : effet modérateur de l’engagement paternel pour prédire le
développement socio-affectif des enfants

Like mothers, fathers are important attachment figure for children. However, the mechanism behind father-child attachment appears to be different and unique. Compared to mothers, fathers engaged in more playful activities with their children, less in nursing activities. The games they do together are also more physical and more exciting. By encouraging his child to explore in a sensitive way, a father becomes a catalyst for risk-taking, helping his child to become confident in himself and in others. That function of opening children to the outside world would have an important impact on children’s socioemotional development. That is what we have learned from studies on father involvement. Until now, very few researchers have studied father involvement and father-child attachment at the same time, but many of them are already suggesting that it is by opening up children to the outside world that fathers become important attachment figure for them. Father-child attachment would build on the quality of their activation relationship. The present thesis aimed precisely at improving our understanding of father-child attachment. Two articles are included. The first article is a theoretical one. It is review of what has been written up to now on father-child attachment and on father involvement. The second article is empirical. It is specifically about evaluating the influence of fathering on the mechanism behind father-child attachment. A total of 53 father-child dyads were included in the present study. Father involvement in comfort, stimulation and discipline was measured when children where between 12 and 18 months old. At this age, attachment and activation quality was also measured, respectively with the Strange Situation and the Risky Situation. The two procedures where then compared to see which one was better able to predict children level of social competency, internalizing problems and externalizing problems during preschool years. Results indicates that the Risky Situation is a better predictor of children’s socio-emotional development (social competency and internalizing problems). No relationship was found with the Strange Situation, even when considering father involvement in comfort. Those results support the activation relationship theory and the importance of openness to the outside world for fathers. This study limitations, as well as it’s theoretical and methodological implications will be explained in the discussion of the second article and in the conclusion of the present thesis.

Keyphrases: Father-child attachment, Activation relationship, Fathering, Father involvement, Socio-affective development, Infancy, Preschool, Social competence, Internalizing problems, Externalizing problems
Industries et industriels français du textile face au défi international 1871-1914

Strongly connected to international trade, the French textile industry experienced erratic changes between 1871 and 1914. The adoption of protectionist tariffs in 1892 favor cotton manufacturers at the expense of wool and silk producers. The latter export their luxury merchandise on markets that are open to competition. They deal very little on colonial markets, due to a lack of interest in their products. Bold direct importation policies on raw materials help overcome some disadvantages, especially in Roubaix. Several manufacturers urge the government to reform its foreign trade services and hire specialists, but they do not act upon recommendations from experts regarding the adoption of certain measures to promote exports. Several shortcomings of French trade were pointed out early on, but it proved difficult to apply swift solutions. In the context of greater foreign competition, France performed better than we would have imagined. The flexibility of the French manufacturing industry helps it to obtain several orders in the luxury and semi-luxury goods niches. Its level of integration, weaker than in other countries, sometimes proves to be an advantage. However, the textile industry is crippled by its leaders’ great difficulty to do stable business outside of their families. That said, those who deal in specialized, rare or patented production manage to reach agreements more easily and gain the upper hand.  The performance and organization of the French textile industry abroad demonstrate that the domestic market provided little incentive to manufacturers to adopt the best possible conditions for production. These companies and those successful exporting their goods are often the strongest and most profitable.

Keyphrases: France, Textile, France, Industry, Manufacturers, Textile, Third Republic, Foreign trade, Wool, Silk, Cotton, Free trade
La diffusion d'archives à l'aide des technologies du Web 2.0 : le cas du Musée McCord

This master thesis explores the concept of archival dissemination in the Web 2.0 era. In the North American context, dissemination from an archival perspective includes the promotion, valorization and communication of archives. Web 2.0 represents new and interesting opportunites for dissemination as it facilitates interactions among individuals. As few studies examined this question, we were interested in studying an organisation where Web 2.0 platforms had been integrated to establish a dialog with their known and potential users, in order to enhance the exploitation of their archives as well as to increase their visibility. In this case study of the McCord Museum of Canadian History, we interviewed members of the personnel involved in the implementation of Web 2.0 platforms to discover the motivations behind the adoption of those technologies, as well as to describe the selected tools and the way they were implemented. The advantages and disadvantages of these new dissemination plateforms were highlighted. In conclusion, we propose guidelines to successfully implement Web 2.0 tools.

Keyphrases: Web 2.0, Web social, Archival Science, Archives, Case study, McCord Museum, Online communications tools, Outreach programs, Public programs, Social Network, User
Le rôle de l’imagination dans l’expérience spirituelle d’Ibn al-ʿArabī et de Jakob Böhme

Henry Corbin wrote that a “Meister Eckhart and Jacob Boehme would fully understand Ibn ʿArabî, and vice versa.” But how can we ensure this dialogue and mutual understanding anticipated by Henry Corbin? This research is essentially on the conditions of possibilities of this dialogue, especially because the comparison between Ibn al-ʿArabī and Böhme is still in its infancy.   By choosing the prism of the imagination, the goal is twofold: approach spiritual phenomena in a non-reductive way by browsing and analyzing the specific logic of imagination; and, under the auspices of the concept of hierohistory, explore the role of imagination in the metaphysics and ethics of Ibn al-ʿArabī and Böhme. It is therefore an effort to read Ibn al-ʿArabī and Böhme as they read themselves the revealed book of their respective tradition.  Finally, it appears that the theophanism characteristic of the metaphysics of both Ibn al-ʿArabī and Böhme is a rich haven for imagination and imaginal. If the comparison between Ibn al-ʿArabī and Böhme is stricto sensu impossible, the comparative and transdisciplinary spirit of this research, as well as its the phenomenological-hermeneutic method, opens up new avenues of re-appropriation for all spirituals phenomena.

Keyphrases: Ibn al-ʿArabī, Jakob Böhme, Imagination, Imaginal, Mysticism, Hierohistory, Transdisciplinarity, Spiritual comparativism, Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, Ethics, Metaphysics, Gnosticism