NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
Phylogéographie comparée d’un système multitrophique : les parasitoïdes du genre Horismenus spp. ont-ils échappé au processus de domestication du haricot au Mexique?

This study aims to compare the evolutionary history of Horismenus parasitoids (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae) to that of their bruchid beetle hosts (Coleoptera: Bruchidae) and their domesticated host plant (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) in the context of traditional agriculture within their Mesoamerican center of domestication. We analyzed the genetic structure of 23 populations of four Horismenus species in Mexico using COI mitochondrial gene fragments and compared the structures to previously published data on bean plant and beetle hosts. We predicted that because parasitoids complete their development within their beetle hosts, within the bean, the genetic structure of both the host and the parasitoid would be similar and equally influenced by human-mediated migration (HMM). Furthermore, because of reproductive manipulation strategies often used by the alpha-proteobacteria endosymbionte Wolbachia spp. to ensure its transmission, the genetic structure of parasitoid populations inferred from mitochondrial genome would be bias consequently to the conjoint transmission of mitochondria and the bacteria according to propagation of the infection within parasitoids populations. The populations of H. missouriensis parasitoids are infected by Wolbachia spp. As predicted, these populations are not differentiated (FST = 0.06) which prevents us to infer on a parallel evolutionary history. Unlike their bruchids hosts, Acanthoscelides obtectus and A. ovelatus, the HMM is not a contemporary process influencing H. depressus population genetic structure according to the strong populations differentiation (FST = 0.34). The genetic structure observed within H. depressus populations is similar to that of its host plant (i.e. historical random dispersal from a highly diversified ancestral gene pool) and is probably the result of extensive gene flow from parasitoids associated with wild beans populations adjacent to crop fields. The study of evolutionary history integrating multitrophic levels has proved to be fruitful in detecting different evolutionary responses among members of the trophic module face to human and parasite interactions, but also points out the pertinence of analyzing ecological systems as a whole.

Keyphrases: Horismenus spp., endosymbiontes Wolbachia spp., Wolbachia spp. endosymbionts, domestication process, multitrophic interactions, phylogeography, parasitoid population genetics
La contestation internationale : les problèmes de la souveraineté et de la domination

In this paper, we first study the case of international activism’s legitimacy. Accordinging to the liberal sovereignty principal, we show that it could be a problem to allow activists to protest on the international stage, as this would create a form of interference against the ones they target. But as we consider that the political pressure of interest groups is necessary to face major problems like the environmental issues, it seems important to us to advocate their work at the global level. To offer a defense of international activism, we base our position on the republican ideas of Philip Pettit for whom, political freedom would not be a non-interference, but a non-domination. After showing that some environmental issues can be understood as domination issues, we argue that international activism is not a necessarily a problem for the State’s sovereignty, but that it offers a protection against some form of ecological domination. In the second half of this paper, we study the legitimacy of the different means of pressure the activists can use to protest. As we keep the idea of freedom as non-domination, we will take our distances from Pettit’s thought of political contestatory. After criticizing the ideas of the deliberative democrats, we will initiate the reflection to find some new criterions that would legitimate some more radical means of pressure like direct actions and civil disobedience. We also offer an original thesis by suggesting that activism and deliberation should not be understood as opposites but rather as a continuum.

Keyphrases: Protest, Activism, Domination, Domination, Sovereignty, Republicanism, Environment
Impact de facteurs sanguins et d'agents thérapeutiques sur la survie de fibroblastes de sujets atteints de la forme canadienne-française du syndrome de Leigh (LSFC)

Leigh syndrome French-Canadian variant (LSFC) is a metabolic disease associated with cytochrome c oxidase (COX) deficiency and characterized by episodes of lactic acidosis, referred to as “crisis”, leading to death at an early age. The mechanisms underlying a crisis and its cellular consequences remain elusive, and there is no effective therapy. The aim of this study was to characterize the effect of peripheral metabolic factors that are potentially altered in patients with LSFC on their cells death and to identify therapeutic agents able to prevent them using cell-lineage from LSFC patients and controls. The hypothesis are that (i) these metabolic factors can induce premature death in patient cells, and (ii) interventions that could rescue these cells may target potential consequences of COX deficiency, namely low adenosine triphosphate (ATP), high nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) and toxic lipids, as well as oxidative stress. A screening of 8 blood factors and 10 therapeutic agents was conducted in fibroblasts. Parameter measured included cell death by necrosis and apoptosis, as well as ATP level and COX activity. LSFC fibroblasts were more susceptible to necrosis (39±6%) induced by high palmitate plus lactate and this was associated with a lower ATP (53±8%). Cell death decreased 2-fold with combined interventions, which presumably act on NADH, ATP, and the accumulation of toxic lipids, but increased with antioxidants. Collectively, our results emphasize the importance of nutrient overload as a factor eliciting premature cell death in LSFC cells and of combining interventions acting through various mechanisms for cell death rescue.

Keyphrases: LSFC, LSFC, Lactic acidosis, Leucine-rich pentatricopeptide repeat containing protein, Leucine-rich pentatricopeptide repeat containing protein, Cytochrome c oxydase, Cytochrome c oxidase, Fibroblast, Palmitate, Palmitate, Lactate, Lactate, Methylene blue
Corps, identité et féminité chez Nelly Arcan et Marie-Sissi Labrèche

In a society in which boundaries between the private and the public are confused, body worship and the prizing of women’s beauty standards seem to pervade fiction and magnify the dualism between being and appearing. The new way of thinking about and conceiving the body, the female body in particular, has certainly had an effect on contemporary women’s writing. Inasmuch as the body is entwined with the formation of the protagonist’s identity, it embodies a new femininity in literary works, of which this master’s thesis strives to explore the literary, psychoanalytical and sociological parameters. In the context of a remapped corporality, this thesis studies the body, identity and femininity in four contemporary novels: Putain and À ciel ouvert by Nelly Arcan, and Borderline and La Brèche by Marie-Sissi Labrèche. Although the body is at the heart of the protagonists’ search for identity, it also often constitutes a hurdle for them, resulting in a bad self-image and reinforcing the protagonists’ negative agency against which all the female characters are struggling. The authors’ ambivalent positions on this matter are representative of the filiation issues characterizing contemporary fiction.

Keyphrases: Filiation, Body, Female identity, Mother-daughter relationships, Women's writings, Intertextuality, Filiation
L’enseignement de la distinction entre le passé composé et l’imparfait et l’utilisation de ces temps verbaux en classe d’immersion française : observations et proposition didactique

The present study is aimed at describing how the distinction in use between passé composé and imparfait, an aspectual distinction that is problematic to learners of French as a second language, is taught (if it is effectively taught) in three 3rd to 5th grade classes of the French early immersion program in the Northwestern Territories, and how the teachers use these verb tenses. Based on nineteen hours of classroom observations and interviews with two teachers, we developed a teaching proposal using Nadeau and Fisher’s « guided reflexion with positive and negative examples » (2006), that brings to light the contrast of use that exists between the passé composé and the imparfait. This teaching proposal gives the teachers a way to teach it, as they don’t teach it at these levels, and exposes the learners to an input in which the frequency of atypical uses is higher than in their teachers’ discourse.

Keyphrases: passé composé, imparfait, aspect, French immersion, form-focussed instruction
Essais en économie de l’environnement et des ressources naturelles sous incertitude

My thesis is composed of three essays on environmental and natural resource economics under uncertainty. The first essay proposes a differential game analysis of the quest for hegemony among countries as a generator of global pollution. The second essay uses stock market data on market capitalization to estimate a stochastic version of the Hotelling rule of exhaustible resource exploitation and uses it to infer on the riskiness of investment in nonrenewable resources and its effect on the resource price paths. The third essay shows how uncertainty about future prospects modifies the Hotelling rule in a context of risk diversification.

Keyphrases: Pollution, Ressources non renouvellables, Hegemony, Pollution, Exhaustible Natural Resource, Risk, Market Capitalization, Proven Reserves, Future Prospects, Stochastic Differential Utility
Structures photoniques à base de nanocristaux de silicium

There are indications that silicon nanocrystals (nc-Si) exhibit an optical gain that is potentially large enough to enable optical amplification in the wavelength range where intense photoluminescence (PL) is measured (600-1000 nm). We fabricated optical cavities on fused silica pieces ion-implanted with Si in order to form a nc-Si layer with a thickness of about 1 μm. Si was implanted at four energies between 1 MeV and 1.9 MeV to obtain an excess atomic concentration varying between 25% and 30%. The pieces were sandwiched between dielectric mirrors consisting of multilayer interference filters. Over a wavelength range of about 200 nm wide, one filter reflects nearly 100%, while the other one shows an average reflection of 90%. We measured and compared the PL spectra of three samples: the first one with no mirrors, the second one with filters reflecting around 765 nm (between 700 nm and 830 nm), and the third one with filters acting around 875 nm (between 810 nm and 940 nm). When exciting the samples with a pulsed laser, timeresolved PL measurements exhibited faster decay rates in the wavelength domain where the reflection of the mirrors is maximal compared to samples without mirrors. Also, PL intensity as a function of excitation flux showed a faster increase in the presence of mirrors, although the increase remained sub-linear. From this, we conclude that stimulated emission could be present in the optical cavity, but does not dominate the other emission and loss processes.

Keyphrases: nanocrystals, silicon, photoluminescence, photoluminescence, stimulated emission
La mobilisation des personnes en situation de pauvreté et d'exclusion à travers des organismes communautaires québécois

This thesis studied the phenomenon of the mobilization of people living in poverty and social exclusion within an existing collective actor and throughout the privileged collective spaces that community organizations comprise. It has three chapters. The first discusses the field of study and the research problem, the second describes the research methodology and the third presents the research results, their analysis and their interpretation. A general discussion of the study’s findings is included in the conclusion. The thesis is unique in its global consideration of the phenomenon of mobilization, examined within the specific context of poverty and social exclusion conceived as structural oppressions as well as from an empowerment perspective. Considering that mobilization results from the amalgamation of a collective actor with a collective action, this thesis brings forth a new understanding of the space in which a mobilization process develops. Indeed, it proposes an innovative distinction between a collective actor, a relatively vague and diffuse entity, and a community organization as such, an entity with well defined borders, that provides a privileged collective space for the development of mobilization. This distinction, in turn, allows for a better grasp of the processes involved and of the role that community organizations can play within them. Based on a thorough and considerably detailed examination of the mobilization process that individuals go through from their first contact with a community organisation to their engagement within an existing collective actor, this research then proposes a new theoretical construct for this current but seldom explored reality and suggests the most adequate avenues for the accompaniment of such processes. Focused on the individual aspects of mobilization and without losing sight of its intrinsically collective character, this thesis reinforces even more explicitly the necessary integration of personal and collective phenomena in the investigation of social problems, and sheds light on the various effects that occur on the individual level, especially regarding the restoration of one’s standing as a social actor. On top of clearly illustrating the links between the process of mobilization and that of individual and collective empowerment, this thesis emphasizes the principal community practices that contribute to them and underscores the main challenges and contradictions associated with them. In this way, it seeks to contribute to the renewal of social and community practices.

Keyphrases: Mobilization, Poverty, Empowerment, Empowerment, Exclusion, Exclusion, Organisation, Organizing, Community, Oppression, Oppression
Étude de l’impact de la température et de l’humidité sur la survie et la dynamique de la ponte de la mouche du chou (Delia radicum L.)

Few simulation models for the cabbage maggot (Delia radicum L.) had been seen, but several include significant weaknesses for the insect genotypic differences and parameters used. The main objective of this project is to collect the missing information to create, in the future, a bioclimatic model that will efficiently simulate the dynamics of the populations of this pest.   The effect of soil temperature and moisture had been measured on eggs and larvae of the cabbage maggot. Humidity affects egg survival below 25% [w/w]. Gradual exposure of eggs to high temperature above 33°C also affects survival. Under tested conditions, larvae survival increases with rising temperatures and humidities. We believe that the maggot is well adapted to muck soil in Quebec, and we recommend to incorporated soil temperature rather than air temperature for above-ground stages into the development of a new model.   Egg-laying activity has also been studied from various pre-established criterions for each of the early- and late-emerging genotypes, at different temperatures. Except for the pre-oviposition which is longer for the early genotype, no differences were observed between genotypes. The majority of criterions, except for the duration of oviposition bouts and egg mortality, responded to temperature. The new information will be used for the preparation and development of a simulation model of the egg-laying dynamic of the cabbage maggot.

Keyphrases: Delia radicum, Oviposition, Cabbage maggot, Soil temperature, Air temperature, Soil moisture, Egg-laying dynamic, Early-emerging genotype, Late-emerging genotype, Bioclimatic model
Effets de l'application de charges aux membres inférieurs sur le patron de marche des personnes hémiparétiques chroniques

Adding a load on the lower limb is a non evidence-based approach used by clinicians to strengthen weak muscles that are important for faster gait. This pilot study was aimed at determining changes in the gait pattern in stroke individuals walking with a load on the affected or non-affected ankle and comparing their results to those of healthy control subjects. It is supposed that a load placed on the paretic/non-dominant leg (ipsilateral load) would increase efforts (moment and power) on the paretic/non-dominant hip during the swing phase and that a load placed contralaterally would increase efforts on this hip during the stance phase, particularly on the hip abductor muscles which stabilizing the pelvis in the frontal plane.  The gait pattern of five chronic stroke participants and five healthy individuals was assessed in laboratory by ground reaction forces and infrared marker recordings. Time-distance parameters, affected/non-dominant hip and trunk kinematics (angles) as well as affected/non-dominant hip kinetics (nets moments, powers and mechanical work) were compared between three conditions (two with a load) at similar cadences using non-parametric statistical tests in both groups. Adding a load had no effect on gait speed in all participants. The load improved the swing and stance symmetry. Few changes in the sagittal plane with load were observed compared to without a load. In the frontal plane, stroke subjects showed a hip abductor moment decrease with the contralateral load while healthy controls showed an increase. Use of a dynamic or postural strategy at the trunk could explain the difference in the load effect on the hip abductor moment. These results require further investigations to assess this strength training specific to the task before recommending its use.

Keyphrases: Biomechanics, Gait, Stroke, Load, Hip, Trunk
Les facteurs ayant une influence négative sur la qualité alimentaire chez les
personnes âgées vivant dans la communauté au Québec

In Canada, the proportion of the population aged 65 and over has increased since 1980. Although under nutrition is not inevitable with aging, some changes and physiological factors, environmental and psycho-socio-economic conditions may cause deterioration in food choices and in the quality of life of seniors [1]. Several studies show the link between nutritional status and morbidity as well as functional capacity [2]. These observations justify the importance of prevention and treatment of under nutrition so as to optimize food intake and improve the health of this population. Objectives : 1) Exploring individual and socio-environmental barriers, whether it is real or perceived that may lead to deterioration of choices and quality food and cause under nutrition in the elderly living at home. 2) Examine the connection of these factors in the population being studied. 3) Examine the relationship between these factors so as to be knowledgeable about the negative determinants of nutrition in older adults to better understand the barriers to a healthy food intake. Methodology: This is a secondary analysis conducted using data collected from participants (n = 1 602), aged between 67 and 84 years in the Quebec’s Longitudinal Study on Nutrition and successful aging (NuAge) that began in 2003 with follow-ups planned over the following five years [3]. The main goal of NuAge was to determine the role of nutrition in the achievement of successful aging. The data include nutritional, functional, social, medical and biological measurements. From a theoretical model of determinants of food intake in the elderly population, these data have been linked to food quality. This was determined by the Canadian adaptation of the Healthy Eating Index (C-HEI) calculated from data of food and nutrition obtained by food frequency questionnaire administered to participants at T1 or their entry into the study. Results : The barriers that might inhibit food quality in women include a fragile emotional status and limited social functioning. What emerges as barriers of the C-HEI among men is an income considered insufficient to meet one’s needs, the use of dentures and eating at restaurant repeatedly. Surprisingly, the number of positive attitudes about nutrition and a higher score of the mental component of SF-36 are predictors of a lower C-HEI. The nature of self-reported responses could explain these results. Conclusion : The results of this research allow the better understanding of the barriers to healthy eating within a healthy community-dwelling elderly population. It is hoped that the results will contribute to the development of effective interventions targeting the older population to promote nutritional and optimal health.

Keyphrases: NuAge, Aging, Older adults, Diet, Risk factors, Nutrition surveys, NuAge
Recherche des facteurs génétiques à l’origine de la maladie de Parkinson dans la population canadienne-française du Québec

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a complex neurological disorder with significant genetic predisposing factors which are extremely heterogeneous. Investigations of familial forms of the disorder revealed causative mutations in six different genes, namely SNCA, LRRK2, Parkin, PINK1, DJ-1 and GBA, and functional analyses of these gene products pinpointed dysfunction of key molecular pathways involved in the neurodegenerative process of the disorder. Further sequencing and genome-wide association studies indicated that some of these genes, including LRRK2, also contain variants predisposing to sporadic forms of PD. Despite these significant breakthroughs, the vast majority of PD genetic predisposing factors remain unknown. Our goal was to identify mutations predisposing to PD in the French Canadian (FC) population from a cohort mostly composed of late-onset sporadic cases. We therefore sequenced the two exons of LRRK2 that contain most of the pathogenic mutations and we performed a case-control association study. Sequencing analysis did not reveal any reported or novel mutations and the case-control association study did not provide any positive signal, thus indicating that common variants in LRRK2 are unlikely to be a significant cause of late-onset PD in the FC population. Because of the allelic and non-allelic genetic heterogeneity observed for PD, we hypothesized that dozens of genes may carry rare pathogenic mutations. The second part of this research project was therefore aimed at identifying new PD causative genes by direct sequencing of genes functionally associated with the known causative gene pathways. Our screening uncovered several rare mutations likely pathogenic in the PICK1 and the MFN1 genes. PICK1 is involved in internalization of AMPA receptors whereas MFN1 is one of the core components of the mitochondrial fusion/fission machinery. Although these observations will need to be replicated, our findings support the previously suspected pathogenic role for glutamate excitotoxicity and imbalanced mitochondrial dynamics in Parkinson’s disease. They further emphasize the value of inbred populations in genetic studies of PD and provide new clues to the molecular pathogenesis of the disorder.

Keyphrases: LRRK2, PICK1, MFN1, Parkinson's disease, Genetics, French-Canadian, Candidate gene sequencing, Sporadic forms, Rare mutations