NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
Prédire la renonciation à la libération conditionnelle dans le système correctionnel provincial du Québec

In the Quebec correctional system, parole-eligible inmates are automatically summoned to a parole board hearing unless they waive their right to the hearing. Every year, almost half of all eligible inmates waive this right, but correctional authorities do not know why. The purpose of this study was to identify the provincial inmates in Quebec who are likely to waive their right to a parole hearing. The Quebec correctional services provided us with administrative data on all parole-eligible inmates in 2014-2015 (N = 3 675). These data included sociodemographic information as well as criminal and correctional records. We selected a subpopulation of offenders who were assessed with the LS/CMI during the sentence they served in 2014-2015 (N = 2 579). Next, we performed logistic regressions, first while isolating non-Indigenous men, non-Indigenous women, and Indigenous men, and then while merging them. Findings indicated that the predictors of parole waiving vary according to sex and ethnicity. However, the probation officer's recommendation for the inmate's release was an important predictor for the three examined subgroups. Indigenous men were also significantly more likely to give up their right to a parole hearing than non-Indigenous men (Exp(B) = 2.234) or women (Exp(B) = 2.073), even when other factors were controlled for. This suggests the presence of structural problems that prompt Indigenous men to forego the possibility of a discretionary release. Possible explanations are proposed for our results, practical implications are discussed, and recommendations are offered to correctional authorities.  Keywords: Conditional release, corrections, discretionary release, parole, prison, waivers.

Keyphrases: Prison, Conditional release, Corrections, Discretionary release, Parole, Waivers
Étude du dopage de couches minces de VO2 déposées par ablation laser par des éléments légers (B et C)

Of all the materials that possess a metal to insulator transition, vanadium dioxide (VO2) has the transition temperature (TMIT ≈ 68°C) closest to room temperature. This phase transition is accompanied by an important variation in electrical resistivity (Δρ) and infrared transmission (ΔA). Thin films of VO2 have the potential to be used for a wide range of applications within electronic and optical devices. However, the usefulness of this material for these technologies would be greater if TMIT was closer to room temperature. Via doping, TMIT can be reduced and the most effective dopant amongst those that have been studied is W but this type of doping causes a reduction in Δρ. The search for a better dopant that could reduce TMIT while minimizing the degradation of the electrical properties is therefore of great importance. Boron and carbon are two elements that have been predicted by Density Functional Theory (DFT) to be excellent dopants to reduce the transition temperature of VO2. On another note, one synthesis technique that results in high quality of deposition is pulsed laser deposition. The goal of this master’s thesis has been to develop methods to deposit thin films of VO2 by pulsed laser deposition doped with certain elements, namely boron and carbon, and study the effect of their incorporation on the properties of the phase transition of these thin films.

Keyphrases: VO2, Couche mince, B, C, Phase transition, Pulsed laser deposition, Thin films, Doping
Analyse quantitative de la concentration d'hydrogène jouant un rôle 
dans la fragilisation par l'hydrogène des aciers haute résistance

Hydrogen embrittlement of high strength, aircraft-grade steel alloys was studied by nuclear reaction analysis (NRA) using 15N ions. We have developped an experimental setup to be able to determine hydrogen depth profiles with the sample held at a cryogenic temperature. The hydrogen concentration was seen to decrease during the NRA measurements. The interaction between the ion beam and the steel sample induced a desorption that followed second order kinetics, suggesting that the formation of molecular hydrogen was the limiting process of the desorption. We have studied the effect on absorbed hydrogen of a thermal bake after a layer of Cd had been deposited onto the steel samples by electroplating. The hydrogen concentration near the surface (less than 0.12 micrometers) was clearly higher for the plated sample than the non plated one. Deeper in the sample no difference could be observed between the samples. Annealing decreases the amount of hydrogen in steel. A 16 hour delay between the electroplating and the annealing did not affect the amount of hydrogen in retained in the steel. In spite of the higher hydrogen content of the non-annealed samples seen in the NRA measurements, none of the observed samples was embrittled. This implies that with the NRA technique and the experimental set-up established in our lab, we should be able to easily measure the hydrogen depth profile in samples that do exhibit hydrogen embrittlement.

Keyphrases: Hydrogen, Hydrogen embrittlement, Nuclear reaction analysis, High strength steel, Hydrogen desorption
Philosophie de la conscience : libre arbitre, improvisation musicale et neurosciences

Art is one of the most creative human activities and improvisation is an art form where freedom is maximal. Grinberg-Zylberbaum said that to understand concepts that are associated to consciousness we should start by analyzing the states of consciousness concerning them. Hence, to understand free-will and creativity in a naturalist context, we study the states of consciousness during artistic and improvisational activities, in this paper. Morevover, neuroscience and cognitive science are trying today to study free will. We will see how libertarian incompatibilist free will is compatible with science by showing how the experiments of Libet and Soon et al. do not prove that it is false and by showing how the experiments of Limb, Atasoy and the two-system theory of Kanheman can help us understand it. The different steps of the creative process are composed of an incubation phase where the unconscious mind creates the new information in an indeterministic way, preceded by a phase where the conscious mind (system 2) trains the unconscious mind and followed by a last phase where the conscious mind applies the creative solutions. We establish a Double-Agent model where the unconscious and the conscious minds can act in a two different spontaneous ways, like an orchestra and its maestro. The model describes an incompatibilist libertarian free-will where automatism and spontaneity both participate. Limb and Atasoy compare the brain states, their criticality and brain waves, during altered states of consciousness (like the ones during meditation or sleep) to the ones of improvisation. This also helps us to understand that these brainwaves and their frequency participate to creativity and free-will.

Keyphrases: neuroscience, improvisation, Libet, Free-will, creativity, improvisation, philosophy, consciousness, music
Difference target propagation

Backpropagation has been the workhorse of recent successes of deep learning but it relies on infinitesimal effects (partial derivatives) in order to perform credit assignment. This could become a serious issue as one considers deeper and more non-linear functions, e.g., consider the extreme case of non-linearity where the relation between parameters and cost is actually discrete.  Inspired by the biological implausibility of Backpropagation, this thesis proposes a novel approach,  Target Propagation. The main idea is to compute targets rather than gradients, at each layer in which feedforward and feedback networks form Auto-Encoders.  We show that a linear correction for the imperfectness of the Auto-Encoders, called Difference Target Propagation is very effective to make Target Propagation actually work, leading to results comparable to Backpropagation for deep networks with discrete and continuous units, Denoising Auto-Encoders and achieving state of the art for stochastic networks.  In Chapters 1, we introduce several classical learning rules in Deep Neural Networks, including Backpropagation and more biological plausible learning rules. In Chapters 2 and 3, we introduce a novel approach, Target Propagation, more biological plausible learning rule than Backpropagation. In addition, we show that Target Propagation is comparable to Backpropagation in Deep Neural Networks.

Keyphrases: Neural networks, Machine learning, Deep learning, Representation learning, Optimization, Biological plausibility,, Learning rule, Backpropagation, Target propagation, Rétropropagation
Les créatifs culturels : regard sur un nouveau profil de chercheur spirituel à l’ère de l’ultramodernité

This work revolves around the non-religious spirituality of cultural creatives and its influence in the emergence of a transmodern society, that is, humanely and ecologically sustainable. In the 1980s Western societies entered the axial turn of ultramodernity, entry caused by the global awareness of the environmental emergency caused by human activities (era of the Anthropocene). Cultural creatives who hold postmaterialist values and seem to represent according to sociologists Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson one third of Western population, are driven by an ethical and responsible vision of how we inhabit the Earth. While spirituality and personal improvement are central in their approach, I will present a portrait of this group as an ideal-type of today's spirituality, characterized by an ecosophical consciousness, which aims first at “changing oneself” to then "change the world", in an ethical, social and political project. This portrait would indeed distinguish itself fundamentally from the spiritual researcher "consumer" of beliefs. Based on a rich conceptual framework and a qualitative survey of 19 French-speaking cultural creatives, this research seeks to broaden knowledge about non-religious spirituality but also "reclaim" beliefs behind an alternative discourse that is likely to be important in our Western societies.

Keyphrases: Secular spirituality, Cultural creatives, Ultramodernity, Ecosophy, Unicity, Anthropocene
La céramique attique à figures rouges d’Argilos : étude des fragments mis au jour lors des fouilles de 2010 à 2016

The excavations from 2010 to 2016 at the site of Argilos in Northern Greece have made it possible to uncover a large number of Attic red-figure pottery sherds. The vast majority of this batch (215 fragments in total) comes from the Koutloudis sector, where a commercial complex, Building L, was recently discovered. The exceptions are two fragments from the South-West sector, two others from the sector along the coast and finally, three samples that were found out of stratigraphy.   These discoveries led to the creation of a catalogue constituting the first part of this thesis. There are 179 samples of Attic red-figure pottery, mostly dated from the last quarter of the 5th century to the first half of the 4th century, isolated, small, sometimes re-glued fragments, with the exception of a partially complete bell krater. Although fragmentary, the majority of these pieces provide sufficient information to allow identification of form, dating, and in some cases, attribution to a specific vase-painter or group of vase-painters.   The data collected in this catalogue are then the subject of a report. In addition to discussing and justifying the relative chronology of these fragments, the vase shapes, as well as the scenes, painters, and workshops listed are then grouped and analyzed. At the same time, there are many connections with the material found in Athens and other sites in northern Greece, including Olynthos, Toroni, Ainos and Pella, whose publications on red-figure material show significant similarities with the data collected at Argilos. Among these are the high proportion of late material that is a main theme for this research.

Keyphrases: Attic red-figure pottery, Trade relations, Northern Greece, Classical period
Étude comparative entre des personnages de Ménandre et les Caractères de Théophraste

Diogenes Laërtius tells us that Theophrastus was Menander's teacher in the Peripatetic school. However, it is difficult to observe directly the influence of the philosopher on the comic poet since few texts from them have been preserved. Nevertheless, several critics have alluded to resemblances between Theophrastus' Characters and characters from Menander's plays. Yet these analyses have often been superficial or mainly focused on secondary characters such as cooks, or slaves, who are considered as « stock characters ». For this reason, Menander's main characters have figured little in research. The purpose of the present study is to see if and how similarities exist between them and Theophrastus' work. This thesis examines the speech and behavior of five characters from the plays: Moschion in Samia, Knemon in Dyskolos, and Smikrines, who appears in different plays:Men at Arbitration,The Shield and Sicyonians.

Keyphrases: Menander, Characters, New Comedy, Theophrastus' Characters
Le mirage des oracles militaires en Grèce ancienne : l'exemple de Leuctres (-371)

Divination, in both ancient sources and modern historiography, is closely linked to the ‘Great History’: political and military concerns. According to our sources, cities used oracles before every single battle. However, some historians, sceptical of this dependence on literary sources, are nonetheless confronting this paradigmatic vision. The recent publication of thousands of oracular strips from Dodona tends to vindicate those scholars. Indeed, a simple study of the content of those epigraphic documents, authentic and contemporary to the facts, reveals the ‘banal’ nature of the questions and the private character of the requests; far enough from military preoccupations. Hence, the content of those strips leads to an increasing suspicion of the authenticity of literary oracles, as presented by our ancient sources. In this thesis, an attentive review of those that are associated with the great battle of Leuktra, leaves no doubt that such oracles should not be studied as part of factual History.

Keyphrases: Religion, Oracles, History, Greece, Omens, Military, Leuctra, Dodona
Créer du théâtre en région : le discours de la marge chez les Turcs Gobeurs d'Opium

This dissertation examines the place of creation theater in Quebec’s outlying regions, drawing on a specific case study: Sherbrooke’s Turcs Gobeurs d'Opium company. The first part is of historical and social nature and aims to depict the landscape of creation theater in Quebec’s outlying regions, focusing more specifically on its resources (financial, technical, material) and issues related to its geographical position outside the major centers. The second part examines the Sherbrooke company in more details, with the aim of understanding its creation conditions, but also of analyzing its plays, through a work of poetics, to highlight their artistic value. Finally, using a discourse analysis approach, and in light of Dominique Maingueneau's theories, a work on the Turcs Gobeurs Opium's texts will seek to clarify how the plays replay the marginality of the company.

Keyphrases: Isolement, Villages, Creation theater, Sherbrooke theater, Discourse analysis, Marginality, Regions of Quebec companies, Isolation
Tropismes et expérience radiophonique : la vocalité comme sens chez Nathalie Sarraute

This thesis looks at the importance of vocality in the works of Nathalie Sarraute. More specifically, the research focuses on how the addition of sound, a unique characteristic of vocality, can influence the making and reception of a work of art. Since many of Sarraute’s works for theatre were originally created for radio, a medium where meaning is conveyed only by sound, we will study the voice’s different functions, and how tropisms, « interior movements that precede and prepare our words and actions, at the limits of or consciousness » (L’Ère du soupçon, 1956) develop throughout these works. The research focuses on the written and recorded for radio versions of Nathalie Sarraute’s last play, For no Reason (1980-1981). Our aim is to better understand the impact of voice in each of the versions. First, we will take a glance at Sarraute’s beginnings in the arrays of radiophonic creation, and how she adapted her writing for this new medium. Second, we will look at the production and broadcasting conditions upon the play’s initial release. Finally, with a comparative analysis of the written and recorded versions of the play, we will try to compare the reader and the listener’s experiences, to better understand the importance of voice in both versions.  Keywords : Nathalie Sarraute, Radio Theater, Radio play, Radio, For no Reason, Orality, Vocality, Voice, Tropism, New Novel, Intermediality

Keyphrases: Nathalie Sarraute, Radio, Radio Theater, Radio play, For no Reason, Orality, Vocality, Voice, Tropism, New Novel, Intermediality
L'expérience de la limite dans La Nausée de Jean-Paul Sartre et Aurora de Michel Leiris

This study proposes a joint reading of Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre and Aurora by Michel Leiris. More precisely, following a tradition that considers the dysphoric infinite-unlimited (apeiron) ― in other words, the moving, the chaos, the indeterminated ― as a first and passive reality from which we most remove ourselves to ex-ist ― to enter a world of differentiation, of limitation ―, we would like our inquiry of the aforementioned novels to examine the dysphoric relationship towards limitlessness and, correspondingly, the constitutive role of limitation in the human experience. To this purpose, we will use Julia Kristeva’s abjection theory (Powers of Horror : An Essay on Abjection) to analyze Sartre’s fiction and Gilbert Durand’s anthropological knowledge (The Anthropological Structures of the Imaginary) for the study of Aurora. The theory of abjection, which is a nausea caused by the experience of indistinction, describes an effort made by the subject ― in its earliest years and throughout its life ― to get out of a state of limitlessness (ex. : symbiotic relationship with the Mother) and Durand’s thesis defines imaginary as a universal attempt from human to organize the moving chaos associated with death. This theoretical framework will allow us to understand Roquentin’s episodes of nausea (Nausea) as frightful experiences of dissolution and liquefaction of the subject and Aurora’s unbridled imaginary as a ternary reaction (portray ; deny ; minimize) against degeneration, alteration.

Keyphrases: Aurora, Sartre, Leiris, Limite, Abjection, Psychanalyse, Nausea, Aurora, Sartre, Leiris, Limit, Indetermination, Unlimited, Abjection, Psychoanalysis, Anthropology of the imaginary
Militantisme littéraire, sujets mobiles et poétiques de la figuration dans The Farming of Bones d’Edwidge Danticat et We Need New Names de NoViolet Bulawayo

Throughout this comparative study, I examine the figurative poetics in Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming of Bones and NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names. The writers draw on cinematic and poetry writing techniques to promote a literary militancy. This creative militancy allows them to critique the extreme brutality rooted in the different structures of power such as the nation-state and the global economy.  By elucidating the mechanisms of power, I study their impact on the individuals’ formation of subjectivity. The first chapter of my work examines the mechanisms of brutality visible through the expulsive campaigns orchestrated by the nation-state. Through my close reading, I focus on Bulawayo’s cinematic poetic of chaos and Danticat’s genocidal imaginary. The second chapter deals with the context of post-expulsion. I study the relationship between the political and international helpers and the subaltern migrants and diasporas. The abusive and repressive behavior of the helpers reveals their profound inability to communicate and to act with human values. I also reflect on the value and the limits of the protagonists’ survival strategies. Finally, I compare the alienation of the foreign worker in economic systems such as the Dominican sugar plantation (20th century) and the global neoliberalism at the national scale. Contrary to the other chapters, the brutality is not perpetrated by a repressive actor because it is rooted in the economic system. One of my conclusions is that these figurative poetics are not only aesthetic tools, but they are potential instruments of awareness that help the reader to improve his critical thinking.

Keyphrases: diaspora, migrant, Bulawayo, Danticat, Literary militancy, diaspora, migrant, Poetics of figuration, power, Bulawayo, Danticat, reader, awareness, subjectivity
Designing companions, designing tools : social robots, developers, and the elderly in Japan

This master’s thesis traces a genealogy of a social robot through its conception to its various uses and the ways users interact with it. Drawing on six months of fieldwork in a start-up and two nursing homes in Japan, I first investigate the genesis of a social robot created by SoftBank, a Japanese multinational telecommunications company. This social robot is quite humanlike, made to be cute and have an adorable personality. While developers constitute one of the user populations, this robot, along with several others, is also used by elderly residents in nursing homes. By analyzing the uses of these populations, I underline the tension between the social robot as a companion and a tool. Drawing on ontological anthropology and phenomenology I look at how the robot is constructed as an entity that can be interacted with, through its conception as an ontologically ambiguous, social actor, that can express affect. Looking at multimodal interaction, and especially touch, I then classify three functions they fulfill: discovery, control, and the expression of affect, before questioning whether this acting towards the robot that does not imply acting from the robot, can be considered a form of interaction. I argue that interaction is the exchange of meaning between embodied, engaged participants. Meaning can be exchanged between robots and humans and the robot can be seen as embodied, but only the appearance of intersubjectivity is enough, rather than its actual presence.

Keyphrases: Social robot, Interaction, Touch, Companion, Communication robot, Tool, Phenomenology, Ontology, Interaction, Robot de communication