NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
L'organisation juridique des publicains sous la République romaine

The purpose of this thesis is to verify whether at the time of the Roman Republic, the publicans were organized in a structure similar to the modern corporation. After the introduction, the second chapter introduces the corporation, the other legal structures used to organize a business and legal personality in modern law.  It refutes three preconceived ideas which have influenced historians and jurists.  The third chapter presents the publicans and their activities, since historians and jurists abundantly refer to those in their argumentation regarding the legal organization of publicans.  It is therefore necessary to familiarize ourselves with them.  A critical review of historical literature is conducted. The fourth chapter proceeds to a critical analysis of the position of the historians and the jurists on the legal organization of publicans.  It starts with an explanation of the ordinary partnership in Roman law, it then discusses the evolution of legal personality in Roman law and finally, it presents the special case of the partnerships of publicans.  These were apparently been different from ordinary partnerships, because they had legal personality and had a three-levels internal organization (shareholders, directors and officers).  However, this point of view is based on sources which post-date the Republic by several centuries.  We should therefore examine contemporary sources to verify if they lead us to the same conclusions. The fifth chapter contains an original analysis of the republican documentation.  New pieces of evidence are identified.  It confirms that publican partnerships had an embryo of legal personality during the last century of the Republic; however, it was also the case of ordinary partnerships.  Publican partnerships did not have a three levels internal organisation; in addition; that of the ordinary partnerships included magistri like their own.  The publican partnerships were similar to limited partnerships, not to corporations. The conclusion identifies the new elements contributed to knowledge by each chapter of the thesis.

Keyphrases: societates publicanorum, publicani, Roman Republic, publicans, roman law, legal personality
Of law and land and the scope of Charter rights

This thesis is about the relationship between law and territory, and more particularly, about the relationship between the principle of territoriality and the scope of Charter rights. The author first introduces territoriality as dominant legal paradigm and analyses its underlying premises. The challenges that territoriality and methodological territorialism have recently faced are also examined. The purpose of the first part of this thesis is to show that the territorial paradigm is not immune to challenge, and to provide conceptual tools to get out of the “territorial trap”. The author then looks at how, and to what extent, territoriality currently shapes the scope of Charter rights. By analysing cases on point, the author concludes that although territoriality is, officially, the answer to the question of the scope of Charter rights, in practice, the principle does not provide sufficient guidance to the judiciary. The territorial principle’s normative weaknesses are added to its practical inability to determine the scope of Charter rights. In order to examine potential alternatives to the territorial principle, the author examines the parallel debate regarding the extraterritorial scope of American constitutional rights. American courts, rather than endorsing strict territoriaity, emphasize either the membership of the claimant (the subject of constitutional litigation), the limitations on state actions (the object of constitutional litigation), or pragmatic concerns in order to determine whether a constitutional protection applies in an extraterritorial context. The author then proceeds to examining how an alternative model could be developed in Canada in the context of extraterritorial Charter cases. She argues that the personal entitlement approach, when superimposed on the territorial paradigm, brings more injustice, not less, in that people can be sufficiently related to Canada to trigger a state action, but insufficiently connected to trigger Charter protection, hence creating a state of asymmetry. She also argues that territoriality, if understood in Westphalian terms, leads to the belief that a state action is not an action within the authority of the Canadian government if it is conducted outside of Canada, hence shielding these actions from constitutional srcutiny. The model the author advocates is based on a notion of relational authority and it seeks to emphasize not the place where a government act is performed, nor the identity of the persons subject to it, but the idea that any exercise of government power is potentially amenable to constitutional scrutiny.

Keyphrases: Territoriality, Charter rights, Legal geography, Extraterritoriality, Constitutional theory, Authority, Government act, American constitutionalism
Conception et développement d’une guitare augmentée à des fins compositionnelles

This paper presents the development of an augmented guitar combined with different electroacoustic techniques in order to expand my compositional language. Three works were composed in addition to the processes involved in their production like the design of different processing and sound generation systems based on electronic and computer devices.  Electronic systems are built with different sensors and transmitters on the instrument in order to allow new and unconventional playing techniques. These are piezoelectric, pressure, movement and capacitance sensors. A hexaphonic magnetic string sustainer system was implemented below the strings.  The computer systems consists of specially designed softwares for the instrument, as well as firmware for its integrated microcontroller. The firmware collects and converts the data from the various sensors and transmits it to the computer in addition to directly controlling the sustainer system. As for the softwares, it was developped to control the various sensors and to initiate the playback of samples. It also integrates the sound processing algorithms.

Keyphrases: Hyper-instrument, Composition, Hyperinstrument, Interactive, Sensors, Music, Electroacoustic
L’apprentissage social chez les pirates informatiques : Analyse de l’influence des relations d’entraide et de conflit sur le processus d’apprentissage

Technology has evolved at an unprecedented pace for several years, with no sign of slowing down in the years to come. Likewise, delinquent techniques and practices associated with computer piracy and hacking are also developing at the same speed. Hence, in order to remain prevailing, the individuals involved in such activities must remain on the lookout for technological advances and must be willing to learn those new techniques. As scholars have stated before, learning is a fundamentally social process and hackers form a community that relies on sharing information and knowledge. Several studies have addressed the offenders learning process and others have addressed the process of information sharing within the hacker community. However, few studies have combined the two subjects to try and understand the learning process that is taking place within the hacker community through information sharing.   Using a methodology based on social network analysis and a theoretical framework based on theories of differential association and social learning, this study seeks to understand the influence of collaboration and conflict on the social learning process in the hacker community. The analyses that made it possible were produced using data from an on-line discussion forum from which the edges of mutual support and conflict between the participants were noted. The results of these analyses show that the observed community presents specific members that concentrate the links of mutual assistance and conflict thus serving as the main mentors or tyrants and distributing the information (positive or negative) in a dispersed way and to several recipients. This research therefore illustrates the propensity of the hacker community to rely on the teachings or criticism of a minority, that will reach a majority of actors.

Keyphrases: Hackers, Social learning, Differential association, Helping, Conflicts, Social network analysis
Composer à l'image : style, production et interactivité

The field of composition for the screen presents a fertile terrain for experimentation to the composer.  On the one hand, he or she must adapt to numerous and significant constraints: nature of the project, deadlines, budgets, collaboration with the production team (director, producer, artistic director or audio director), etc. On the other hand, the image inspires, structures and offers unparalleled liberty with regards to numerous aspects of musical creation.  Amongst visual media, video game production comes with unique challenges. Not only does its production, which involves a lot of trials and errors, often take place over a long period of time, but its interactive dimension requires the musician to completely rethink his approach to form and methods of composition. The present work describes the artistic evolution of the author, for whom a connection to the image is essential, through a study of his works and the context of their creation.  Over the course of these analyses, attention will be given to the following points in succession: • Musical language, and in particular its melodic, harmonic and functional aspects • Interactive structures and their integration into a video game • Conditions of production and their creative use Although the majority of works discussed are composed specifically for film or video games, this thesis extends its reflection to concert music, and in particular three elements: the way in which some composers, as with a symphonic poem, structure their ideas based upon a strong visual inspiration; the relationship between the linearity of a concert and the interactivity of a video game; and the second life that the film screening with live music (ciné-concert), or the video game screening with live music (“jeu-concert”) offer to music written for the screen.

Keyphrases: Composition, Image, Film, Music, Screen, Interactivity, Dynamism, Generativity
Une approche interdisciplinaire en composition musicale : dialogues et inspirations entre musique folklorique, textualité et arts visuels

This memoire describes an interdisciplinary approach to musical composition using text and visual arts based on the principles of humanism. Artistic interdisciplinarity is elaborated in three sections: Firstly, Visual Arts as a Sonic Guide explores the theoretical, esthetic, and philosophical connections between music and visual arts. Secondly, The Textuality of the Musical Work elaborates the importance of words and language to lead the composer and the listener within the musical experience. Thirdly, Inclusive Music examines folkloric music and other compositional techniques that possess the intention of communicating and transmitting a specific message to the listener. These three ideas are then applied in a detailed analysis of my musical compositions written during the frame of my master’s under the supervision of Denis Gougeon.

Keyphrases: Composition, Folkloric music, Interdisciplinarity, Accessibility, Communication, Text, Poetry, Visual arts, Humanism, Graphic design
L’espace du geste-son, vers une nouvelle pratique performative

This research-creation thesis is a reflection on the gesture-sound space. The author’s artistic research, based on six elements: body, sound, gesture, video, physical space, and technological space, was integrated in the conception of a motion capture system based on computer vision, the SICMAP (Système Interactif de Captation du Mouvement en Art Performatif – Interactive Motion Capture System For Performative Arts). This approach proposes a new performative hybrid practice. In the first part, the author situates her artistic practice supported by the three pillars of transdisciplinary research methodology: the levels of Reality and perception (the body and space as matter), the logic of the included middle (gesture-sound space) and the com- plexity (elements of the creative process). These transdisciplinary concepts are juxtaposed through the analysis of works bearing a common element to the author’s artistic practice, the body at the center of a sensorial universe. The author then puts forth elements relative to scenic practice arisen by this innovative artistic practice through the expressive body. The path taken by the performer-creator, leading to the conception of the SICMAP, is then explained through a reflection on the “dream instrument” and the realization of two preparatory gestural interfaces. Implying a new gestural in the context of a non-haptic interface that of the free-body gesture, the topology of the instrumental gesture is revisited in response to a new paradigm of the gesture-sound space. In reply to this research, the details of the SICMAP are then presented from the angle of the technological space and then applied to the gesture-sound space. The compositions realized during the development of SICMAP are then presented. These works are discussed from an artistic and poietic point of view through the founding elements of the author’s creative process. The conclusion summarises the objectives of this research-creation as well as the contributions of this new performative hybrid practice.

Keyphrases: art performatif, SICMAP, danse, performing art, multimedia, gesture-sound, space, computer vision, transdisciplinarity, SICMAP, gestural interface, dance
Étude d’inspiration néo-riemannienne des structures harmoniques et scalaires d’extraits musicaux du film The Empire Strikes Back

This thesis is centered on John Towner Williams’s (b. 1932) music composed for the movie Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980). It concentrates on extra-diegetic music, that is, music that originates outside the fictional world where the story takes place. The interest for this repertoire originates in its conception, which is based on classical Hollywood film scores, specifically in its high degree of correspondence with narrative content. This study proposes an analysis of pitch organization (chords, strata in a multi-layer texture) and seeks to establish the narrative connections that the music maintains with the image throughout selected scenes. Rather than relying on traditional tools drawn from functional or Schenkerian approaches, here analysis borrows from the theoretical method of Neo-Riemannian theories such as transformations and Tonnetz. These are used in a conventional way, but also as representations of harmonic spaces capable of encompassing broader musical events aside from simple triadic progressions. For example, they may represent motives, or the connections between the different strata comprised in a layered texture. This allows musical material to unfold through the diatonic, hexatonic or octatonic axis from the Tonnetz. Furthermore, the reiteration of particular transformations suggests harmonic spaces that establish the identity of thematic material in a way similar to that of orchestration or scales. Finally, because this type of soundtrack is punctuated by frequent breaks and changes, we will consider its construction throughout multiples shifts between harmonic spaces.

Keyphrases: John Williams, Star Wars, Film, Transformations, Tonnetz, Neo-Riemannian, hexatonic, octatonic, diatonic
Structure fonctionnelle du plasmidome rhizosphérique dans un contexte de contamination aux hydrocarbures

Phytoremediation, a bioremediation technique that uses plants, is considered to be an effective and affordable “green technology” to clean up hydrocarbon contaminated soils. Plants essentially act indirectly through the stimulation of rhizosphere microorganisms. Root exudation is thought to be one of the predominant drivers of microbial communities in the rhizosphere and is therefore a potential key factor behind enhanced hydrocarbon biodegradation. Many of the genes responsible for bacterial adaptation in contaminated soil and the plant rhizosphere are thought to be carried by conjugative plasmids and transferred among bacteria. A better understanding of these phenomena could thus inform the development of techniques to manipulate the rhizospheric microbiome in ways that improve hydrocarbon bioremediation.  This research aims to study the plasmidome (the overall plasmid content) in the rhizosphere of willow growing in hydrocarbon contaminated and non-contaminated soils, as compared with unplanted soil. Metagenomic analyses based on Illumina sequencing were used to highlight functions carried by plasmids. Our results indicate a strong effect of hydrocarbon contamination on plasmid composition. Furthermore, plasmids harbored genes involved in several metabolic pathways, such as hydrocarbon biodegradation, energy production, signal transduction, chemotaxis, metabolisms of carbohydrates, amino acids and secondary metabolites. To date, this is the first comparative soil metagenomics documenting the plasmidome diversity in a phytoremediation system. The results provide new knowledge on the role of lateral gene transfer in the bacterial adaptation in rhizosphere and in hydrocarbon contaminated soil.

Keyphrases: Metagenomics, Rhizosphere, Phytoremediation, Plasmid, Lateral gene transfer, Hydrocarbon
Mécanismes de propagation du roseau commun envahisseur au Québec

Biological invasions are currently considered by the scientific community drivers of biodiversity and ecosystem change. The rapid invasion of the exotic subspecies of common reed (Phragmites australis) in the northeast of North America is a spectacular example of plant invasion. A prevention and control program of this grass requires adequate knowledge of biology, genetics and ecology of this invasive plant. The overall aim of my thesis is to improve knowledge on the dynamics of dispersal of the invasive common reed in Quebec, by studying its characteristics of biological reproduction, genetic diversity and ecological tolerance that promote its establishment success during the spread stage.  The first objective is to determine the relative contribution of sexual and asexual reproduction modes in the short and long distance dispersal, using field observations of new individuals and genetic analysis of established populations. The second objective is to describe the genetic diversity of populations through thousands of nucleotide markers, using higher resolution of genotypes and distinction of clones through a novel next-generation technology, the genotyping-by-sequencing. The third objective is to identify the level of ecological tolerance of common reed and the adverse environmental conditions to its proliferation, using binary logistic regression models based on biotic and abiotic data collected in invaded and non-invaded sites by the species.  The first project confirms that common reed mainly establishes by seeds over large areas, and laterally expands by rhizomes and stolons at the local scale. New populations are also founded along roads by the dispersal of vegetative fragments. The second project confirms that common reed has a high genetic recombination by sexual reproduction that allows to gain an evolutionary potential and rapid adaptation. The new genotyping approach reduces uncertainties associated with the use of a limited number of microsatellite markers. The third project confirms that common reed colonizes open drainage ditches exposed to sunlight and free of trees. This species does not tolerate the presence of wood and the absence of light. In summary, this thesis presents a biological, genetic and ecological portrait of the characteristics of the invasive common reed that influence its spread in Quebec.  These results support the seeding of native herbaceous and the planting of shrub hedges to restore disturbed ecosystems in order to prevent the existence of seedbeds suitable for the establishment of the common reed by seeds. However, the management of invasive common reed depends on the context, since this plant can also provide many ecological services.

Keyphrases: Perturbations, Common reed, Disturbances, Drainage ditches, Genetic diversity, Genotyping-by-sequencing, Invasive alien plant, Plant competition, Sexual reproduction, Spread, Vegetative propagation
Phytoremediation of soil contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons and trace elements

The rapid urbanization and industrialization has led to an increase of disposal petroleum hydrocarbons (PHC) and trace elements (TE) into the environment. These pollutants are considered as the most toxic contaminants in the world due to their persistence in the environment, and the long range of toxicological effects for living beings when their concentrations exceed critical thresholds.  Recent concerns regarding the environmental contamination have initiated the development of several remediation technologies, including physico-chemical, biological and Dig and Dump approaches. In my thesis, gentle soil remediation options (GRO) were investigated at different scales for the reclamation of PHC and TE co-contaminated soil.  In the first part of my thesis, laboratory experiments were performed to characterize PHC and TE contaminated soil as well as the indigenous microorganisms (bacteria and fungi) present in these contaminated soils. It was found that the studied aged contaminated soil had a negative effect on earthworm’s development and Lepidium sativum biomass. Moreover, a high respiration of microorganisms attributed to the transformation/ mineralization of organic matter or/and organic pollutants was observed. This presence of viable microorganisms suggested an adaptation of microorganisms to the contaminant. Further results showed that the long-term exposure of soil microorganisms to high PHC concentration and the type of isolation culture media did not influence the ability of isolates to effectively degrade PHC. However, phylogenic affiliation had a strong effect on PHC biodegradation.  In the second part of my thesis, preliminary studies in greenhouse trials were performed to investigate the ability of Medicago sativa assisted by compost in the greenhouse aided-phytoremediation of PHC and TE. The results clearly showed that compost amendment into the soil promoted PHC degradation, M. sativa growth and survival, and phytoextraction of TE. Residual risk assessment after the phytoremediation trial also showed a positive effect of compost amendment on plant growth and earthworm development.  Pilot-scale ecopile experiment carried out in the third part of this thesis allow a reduction of up to 80% of PHC and 20% of metals after 17 months.  My thesis showed that alfalfa (M. sativa) and sunflower (Helianthus annus) plants were suitable for phytodegradation of PHC and phytoextraction of TE.  The outcomes of my thesis can be extend to other plants and they bring a new level of understanding that can be helpful for further full-scale phytoremediation studies.

Keyphrases: Petroleum Hydrocarbon, Trace Elements, Gentle Soil Remediation Options, Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon, Respirometry, Ecopile, Bacteria, Fungi, Eléments Traces, Ecopile