NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
Analyse comparative de modèles de la qualité des habitats basés sur la densité instantanée et cumulative de poissons

Aquatic ecosystems contain approximately 25% of the global biodiversity and are among the most affected by human activity. This may be caused by the position of “receivers” rivers, lakes and oceans have in their watershed. Aquatic species, specially in freshwater, are thus at high risk of being affected by human activity. Assuring the survival of these species may include protecting and restoring their habitats. Habitat quality models (HQM) can be used to determine which habitats to protect and how to restore damaged habitats. HQM are relationships between habitat quality indices (HQI, e.g., density) and environmental conditions prevailing in those habitats. However, how well an HQM performs depends on the chosen HQI it is computed with. For this research, we compared HQM based on two HQI estimated for fish in a river : 1) instantaneous density, sampled by transect snorkeling survey and 2) cumulative density, sampled by fixed stereo-video recording. Analyses of twelve HQM show that, contrary to our hypothesis, HQM based on instantaneous density had higher explanatory capacities. However, environmental conditions selected by both types of HQM to explain a species’ distribution were different. This may in part be explained by inherent differences of the sampling methods (e.g., spatial scale). We conclude that instantaneous density as HQI produces HQM of higher explanatory capacities, yet both HQI may provide complementary information on the characteristics of habitats to protect and restore.

Keyphrases: video camera, snorkeling, habitat quality model, habitat quality indices, instantaneous density, cumulative density, fish, aquatic ecosystem
Les liens entre la rémunération intangible et le roulement volontaire dans le secteur des TIC au Canada

The purpose of this thesis is to study the links between the intangible reward and voluntary turnover components in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector in Canada. Using Blau’s social exchange theory (1964) and Balkin and Bannister’s resource dependance theory (1994), and the empirical-literature, this thesis proposes two general hypotheses as well as seven sub-hypotheses. The first general hypothesis suggests that intangible reward is associated with lower voluntary turnover. Regarding the seven sub-hypotheses, they come from this first general hypothesis. These are the seven components of intangible reward that are analyzed in this thesis, which are the number of hours worked per week, on average, the possibility of a part-time work schedule, the average number of hours in the normal work week, the presence of a compressed work week, the presence of a summer schedule, the possibility of teleworking and the presence of structured training programs. The second general hypothesis suggests that the number of intangible reward practices offered is associated with a lower voluntary turnover. The cross-sectional data used in this study come from companies operating in the ICT sector in Canada. In partnership with TECHNOcompétences, data collection was carried by Normandin Beaudry’s firm, from January to April 2016. One hundred twenty five surveys were distributed to as many organizations. These surveys were completed by human resources directors from these organizations. Ten of the organizations did not report any data regarding voluntary turnover. Thus, the data of 115 questionnaires were used and analyzed within the framework of this study. The two general research hypotheses are invalidated. Indeed, for the first hypothesis, none of the seven sub-hypotheses (1a to 1g) could be confirmed. The results were not significant. Regarding the second hypothesis, the relationship is not significant, also invalidating the Hypothesis 2. In conclusion, this thesis reiterates the importance for human resources managers and their organizations to offer diversified intangible reward practices that are adapted to the workforce reality that makes up the labor market. It also aims to recall the need to have a complete global compensation offer, where intangible and tangible rewards are complementary.

Keyphrases: TIC, Intangible rewards, Voluntary turnover, ICT
Proust et les limites du corps

What is the status of the body today ? What is the role of the sensible world at a time when the thought of the artificial is shifting the lines of the academic community ? This thesis aims to determine how Proust’s writings have contributed to a contemporary culture centred around the lived body and its modalities. The writer, as a privileged witness of his time, describes how technical devices affect the subject’s “seeing” in a period of overwhelming urbanization. Some authors have taken an interest in the philosophical dimension of 'Remembrance of Things Past', conceiving it successively as initiation (Deleuze, 1964), search for truth (Descombes, 1987) or phenomenology of the subject (Breeur, 2000). If these studies have the merit of exploring a “theory of the subject that articulates in a new and coherent way different aspects of being in the world” (Leriche, 2004), they are nevertheless limited to the terms of an impossible identity and seem to miss the presence of an intracorporeal world that is so fundamental in Proust’s writing.  This project intends to question this unthought, based on the hypothesis that we are witnessing with Proust the emergence of a new way of thinking about the body. Building on the successive readings of the body in the 20th century (reflection on technique in the contemporary era, Merleau-Ponty’s late ontology, cognitive sciences in the early 1990s), our analyses have a precise history. In a first chapter, it will be shown how the crisis of representation contributes to the emergence of a corporeal space. It will then be a question of determining the extent to which phenomenology in post-war France contributes to a recasting of bodily experience. We will see in particular how certain sensitive details (incarnateness, the human face, the tactile palpation of the gaze) sketch the way to an intercorporeality. The third chapter will allow us to integrate different bodies of knowledge in our analyses by underlining how the opacity of body experience can benefit from an epistemological lighting. Finally, we will have to extend our investigation to the problem of expression and to the relationship between body and enunciation.

Keyphrases: Marcel Proust, Technique, 20th century literature, Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, Crisis of representation, Body, Intercorporeality
La mise en fiction du retour au pays natal chez Émile Ollivier, Anthony Phelps et Dany Laferrière

The purpose of this study is to explore the scriptural mechanisms of literary works that thematize the return to the homeland. Based on a corpus of novels published by expatriate writers, it aims to demonstrate the adequacy of their form to their content. In this regard, La contrainte de l'inachevé by Anthony Phelps, Pays sans chapeau by Dany Laferrière, Les urnes scellées by Émile Ollivier meet the criteria of fictions which closely associate theme and structure, meaning and composition, substance and form. These three novels are based on structural and thematic choices that stem from the principle of return, defined as the propensity to submit to a regressive movement or, to put it more clearly, to evolve backwards in time as well as in space. Two axes are thus chosen to highlight the main theme of our research: the definitive return to the country of birth and the return alternately between the host country and the country of origin. The first axis takes into consideration the will for permanent resettlement in their society from certain exiles, the investigation, the repetition, the interpretation, the ritual, the affiliation constituting the textual manifestations of what animates these migrants. As for the second axis, it is focused on the round trip between two territories of fictional characters and is reflected in the stories by the outcrop in the narratives of the motif of the double, the in-between, self-referentiality, of the mise en abyme and by the place reserved for zombies, doppelgangers, dreams, mirrors, etc. This research has thus managed to establish that return as meaning goes hand in hand with return as a principle of composition in the novels analyzed. In Ollivier, Laferrière and Phelps, with the regressive gesture of the fictional characters, on the level of the statement, always echoes in the texts, on the level of the enunciation, the scriptural processes characterized by the principle of return.

Keyphrases: Anthony Phelps, Dany Laferrière, Émile Ollivier, Exil, Haïti, Return to homeland, Exile, Haiti, Narrative device, Fictionalization
Étude de la violation CP dans des processus au LHC 
qui brisent la conservation du nombre leptonique

This thesis is dedicated to the study of CP violation in these processes ūd→tb̄ e⁻ μ⁻ et W⁻→ l-1 l-2 (q′¯ q)⁺.   There are experiments which search to identify these processes at the "Large Hadron Collider" (LHC). The outcome of the observation of these decays would imply violation of lepton number conservation, ∆L = 2. If the neutrino is a Majorana particle, it is its own antiparticle and we can observe processes that violate the conservation of the lepton number, ∆L = 2. The neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ), is a process which is characterized by ∆L = 2, occurs when the neutrinos are Majorana particles. If we observe 0νββ-like processes at the LHC, there is also the possibility of looking for CP violation. Measuring this type of CP violation would give us information about New Physics that could not be easily obtained using other methods. There are three types of CP violation, namely: direct, indirect and kinematic (triple product). This research presents studies concerning direct and triple product CP violation. The first paper is devoted to triple products in the process: ūd→tb̄ e⁻ μ⁻. In addition, the model considered does not involve a Majorana neutrino. Using MadGraph, we have numerically studied and evaluated the CP violation for the two mentioned processes for three types of accelerators: high luminosity HL-LHC (14 TeV), high energy HE-LHC (27 TeV) and for a future FCC-hh collider (100 TeV). We found that the triple product is not measurable at the HL-LHC, may be measurable at HE-LHC, and is certainly measurable at FCC-hh. In the second article, we investigated to see how to generate CP violation with right-handed neutrinos. The second article is on the study of direct CP violation the decay W⁻→ l-1 l-2 (q′¯ q)⁺   by involving two neutrinos N1and N2. It is also observed that the value of CP asymmetry can be measured with an accuracy of 3σ and as 0.1% ≤ ACP ≤ 10%.

Keyphrases: Leptoquark, Majorana Neutrino, CP Violation, Leptoquark, Triple Product
Applications of finite reflection groups in Fourier analysis and symmetry breaking of polytopes

This thesis presents a study of applications of finite reflection groups to the problems related to two-dimensional lattices and three-dimensional polytopes. Several families of orbit functions, known as Weyl orbit functions, are associated with the crystallographic reflection groups. The exceptional properties of these functions, such as continuous and discrete orthogonality, permit Fourier-like analysis on the fundamental domain of a corresponding affine Weyl group. In this consideration, Weyl orbit functions constitute efficient tools for corresponding Fourier-like discrete transforms known as Fourier–Weyl transforms. This research restricts our attention to the two-variable symmetric and antisymmetric Weyl orbit functions of the crystallographic reflection group A2. The main goal is to decompose two types of the corresponding weight lattice Fourier–Weyl transforms into smaller transforms using the central splitting technique. For the non-crystallographic cases, we define the even- and odd-degree indices for orbits of the non-crystallographic reflection groups with 5-fold symmetry by using a representation-orbit replacement. Besides, we formulate the algorithm that allows determining the structures of nested polytopes. Moreover, in light of the relevance of the icosahedral symmetry to the description of various spherical molecules and viruses, we study symmetry breaking of the dual polytopes of non-crystallographic type and related tube-like structures. As well, we apply a stellation procedure to the family of considered polytopes. Since this research partly focuses on the icosahedral fullerenes, we present the construction of the corresponding carbon nanotubes. Furthermore, the approach considered for the non-crystallographic cases is applied to crystallographic structures. We consider a symmetry-breaking mechanism applied to the polytopes obtained using the three-dimensional Weyl groups to determine their possible structural extensions into nanotubes.

Keyphrases: Coxeter group, Weyl orbit function, Discrete Fourier transform, Nested polytope, Convex polytope, Orbit decomposition, Symmetry breaking, Fullerene, Nanotube, Polytope convexe
Unmasking the Enlightenment : Rousseau’s critique of intellectualism

Rousseau’s Discours sur les sciences et les arts predicts the rise of the public intellectual, and along with him, intellectual trends and scientism. It is therefore a treasure to anyone who has wondered about the cults of “authenticity” and “openness,” or slogans like “believe science.” To be more precise, his goal in the Discours is to expose the philosophes of the Enlightenment as hypocrites who laud the advancement of the sciences only to “distinguish” themselves and win power. In this way, the Discours parallels the City of God, where St. Augustine argues that self-love [amor sui] leads to the will to power [libido dominandi]. Rousseau’s Discours is unique however, since he considers the philosophes to be unconscious hypocrites. That is, he does not believe that they treat philosophy and science as “fashions” in order to directly acquire power, but rather because they are over-socialized. In this thesis, I will argue that Rousseau develops a unique method in the Discours for exposing the over-socialized hypocrite: unmasking. Although previous authors such as Molière, La Bruyère and Montaigne often invoked the rhetoric of the mask, I will show that Rousseau is the first to transform this rhetorical device into a method of social theory proper. Ultimately, when Claude Lévi-Strauss argues that Rousseau is the “founder of the sciences of man,” it is this method that he is describing. Of course, Rousseau could not have intended for this method, which sought to expose how institutions socialize people, to itself be institutionalized within the academies.

Keyphrases: Rousseau, Enlightenment, Intellectualism, Philosophes, Unmasking
A deep learning theory for neural networks grounded in physics

In the last decade, deep learning has become a major component of artificial intelligence, leading to a series of breakthroughs across a wide variety of domains. The workhorse of deep learning is the optimization of loss functions by stochastic gradient descent (SGD). Traditionally in deep learning, neural networks are differentiable mathematical functions, and the loss gradients required for SGD are computed with the backpropagation algorithm. However, the computer architectures on which these neural networks are implemented and trained suffer from speed and energy inefficiency issues, due to the separation of memory and processing in these architectures. To solve these problems, the field of neuromorphic computing aims at implementing neural networks on hardware architectures that merge memory and processing, just like brains do. In this thesis, we argue that building large, fast and efficient neural networks on neuromorphic architectures also requires rethinking the algorithms to implement and train them. We present an alternative mathematical framework, also compatible with SGD, which offers the possibility to design neural networks in substrates that directly exploit the laws of physics. Our framework applies to a very broad class of models, namely those whose state or dynamics are described by variational equations. This includes physical systems whose equilibrium state minimizes an energy function, and physical systems whose trajectory minimizes an action functional (principle of least action). We present a simple procedure to compute the loss gradients in such systems, called equilibrium propagation (EqProp), which requires solely locally available information for each trainable parameter. Since many models in physics and engineering can be described by variational principles, our framework has the potential to be applied to a broad variety of physical systems, whose applications extend to various fields of engineering, beyond neuromorphic computing.

Keyphrases: deep learning, machine learning, physics, equilibrium propagation, energy-based model, variational principle, principle of least action, local learning rule, stochastic gradient descent, Hopfield network, resistive network, neuromorphic computing, circuit theory, principle of minimum dissipated power, co-content
Un regard hors de soi : étude des rapports entre corps, caméra et espace dans l’histoire des techniques de prise de vues au cinéma

As a phenomenon that is as much technical as it is formal, camera movement can pose problems to those wishing to analyze it. As Vivian Sobchack (1982, 317) put it, the vocabulary typically used to describe camera movement refers back to filmmaking techniques and is not sufficient to describe the experience of camera movement as seen on screen. The goal of this dissertation is to approach camera movement from the point of view of the relations between bodies, cameras, and spaces, that is, both at the time of filming and in the context of the film viewing experience.  One key example of camera movement guides this project, namely what we call “exo- centric images.” This phenomenon derives from a unique arrangement or the body-camera-space triad that is divided into three steps: 1) the camera is linked to the body which it films, 2) it is carried with, but away from, the body (in front or behind), and 3) it is flipped back onto the body that carries it. Building from these three “movements,” this dissertation focusses on three paradigmatic body-camera-space relations: proximity, emancipation, reflection.  To accomplish its goal, this dissertation builds from phenomenology by proposing descriptions of camera movements that are based solely on the appearance of the phenomenon perceived on screen, a method that allows us to be free from the preconceptions tied to the vocabulary typically used in film studies. More specifically, we call upon Don Ihde’s postphenomenology as well as Vivian Sobchack’s film phenomenology as a way to question the intermediary role of a machine in our experience of the world, as well as to recognize the specificities of the film viewing experience.  Through the exo-centric image, this dissertation puts forward new ways of interpreting camera movement by interrogating the relations between bodies, cameras and spaces throughout the history of filmmaking techniques.

Keyphrases: Filmmaking techniques, Camera movement, Phenomenology, Point of view
Effet des médicaments immunomodulateurs sur la progression de la sclérose en plaques et l’utilisation des soins

Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic disease that can impact on the quality of life of patients in multiple ways. Objectives: The main goal of this thesis is the modelling of the temporal aspects of MS and its treatment. The specific goals of the thesis are: 1) To estimate the long-term effect of immunomodulatory drugs on the progression and the disease activity of MS; 2) To describe, at the population level, the evolution of health services related to MS and to estimate the effect of age at diagnosis on the use of health services for MS; 3) To assess the propensity of group-based trajectory modelling to detect the number of trajectories, the shape of trajectories and the number of subjects in each group of trajectories; 4) To propose a new graphical representation to visualize longitudinal patterns of medication dose and apply it to an immunomodulator used for treating MS patients. Methods: The analysis of objectives 1 and 4 were carried out using data from patients with a diagnosis of MS treated at the Montreal MS clinic, CHUM. The study was based on information collected during the clinical follow-up of patients between September 1975 and December 2016. The socio-demographic characteristics, reproductive history in women, disease progression, comorbidities and medications were collected at each medical visit. For objective 2, the Québec Birth Cohort on Immunity and Health was used. The individuals in this cohort were born between 1970 and 1974 and follow-up was carried out until 2014 using administrative health and demographic databases. Socio-demographic variables and information regarding the use of health services for MS were obtained for everyone. For objective 3, data were generated based on scenario from the literature. The analyses carried out include the use of marginal structural models (objective 1), generalized additive models (objective 2) and group-based trajectory methods (objectives 3 and 4). Results: The results showed that the use of interferon-beta and glatiramer acetate is associated with a decrease in the rate of progression of disability and relapses. We also found some differences in neurologist and general practitioner visit rates between people diagnosed with MS before age 29 and those diagnosed later. In addition, we have shown the importance of using several statistical criteria in order to assess the adequacy of groups of trajectories. Conclusions:  The use of several variables for the outcomes in the first two objectives gave us a holistic view of the treatment, care and progression of MS. This thesis also makes recommendations for the good use of the trajectory modelling and proposes a graphic alternative to visualize patterns of medication dose.

Keyphrases: Québec, Multiple sclerosis, Interferon-beta, Glatiramer acetate, Progression of MS, Health services
Le projet MissTake : entre composition et improvisation ; entre abstraction et matière sensible

This research-creation begins with this questioning : what is at stake when it comes to integrating and coalescing improvisation (active listening, embodied gestures, acting and reacting to the sound in the making) and composition (repeated listening, refine and detailed treatments, auscultation of the material) to an electroacoustic practice?  To answer this, I developed a multichannel improvisation device – called the MissTake project – focused on hybrid technologies (analogue and digital), instability and non-linearity in a morphological and undulatory approach to sound flows.  Three compositions come from this questioning and device. My pieces Volt_#1, Volt_#3 and Dancing on the Edge of Darkness have generated a process of step-down compositional gestures and spatialization movements. The analysis of the works is based on concepts drawn from the new materialism and philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari.   The MissTake performance, designed around a four-track cassette recorder configured in no-input is the culmination of this research-creation. The choice of the multichannel, noise aesthetics and free improvisation brought a fundamental change of focus in my practice and gave rise to a deceleration process at the temporal level of sound. By focusing on the sound material evacuated from any meaning, in perception and abstraction, I was able to develop a thought of music as an opening on the indefinite, in the sensible and the incompleteness of the form.

Keyphrases: improvisation, composition, no-input, noise, spatialization, electroacoustic, Deleuze-Guattari, sonic flux, new materialism