NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
Défis technologiques et pédagogiques rencontrés par des enseignants lors de la mise en place d'un "projet portable" dans une école primaire de milieu défavorisé

During the past decade, the presence of ICT and technology in general has increased significantly in many areas of society. Education was no exception, and MELS has even created a transversal competency for that matter under the Programme de formation de l'école québécoise. ICT integration was made through various means, including computer labs, computers in the classroom and, more recently, by the introduction of ubiquitous computing projects, in which each student and the teacher have their own computer. In order to complete this research project successfully, it has been included within a broader project subsidized by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. This project is taking place in a disadvantaged community elementary school of Montreal. Ubiquitous computing asks for rigourous planning and ongoing follow-up by teachers, administrative and IT staff. Moreover, such a project obviously presents some technical and pedagogical challenges for teachers. Regarding this matter, three major categories of factors that can impact success of ubiquitous computing projects in education were identified. Those categories can be described as follows : factors that are internal to the teacher (personal matter), factors that are related to work, as well as factors related to infrastructure and equipment. Several concepts, dimensions and indicators are explained in this paper and correlated in order to better understand the challenges that can arise in such projects.  Regarding the methodoly used in this research, three teachers accepted to participate in individual interviews, and also answered an online questionnaire. Furthermore, the e-mails exchanged between the research group and the teachers were also analyzed. All data coming from those three sources was subject to a qualitative analysis. The data analysis showed that the dominating category of factors was the one with factors related to work, by a vast majority. Challenges, however, were identified for all dimensions and categories.

Keyphrases: TIC, ubiquitous computing, ICT, education, technology, computer
La construction sociale de l’individu chez Tarde et Durkheim

The sociological tradition generally opposes two theses: individualism and holism. The individualist wants to explain society through the actions of its actors. It has been upheld by the German tradition with Max Weber at its head. On the other hand, the holist thesis tries to explain society from above through social facts. The French sociology is central here with Emile Durkheim as its forefather. Despite this antagonism, some French authors have felt the need to reintroduce a forgotten figure from their past: Gabriel Tarde. German sociology already embodied the individualistic view, why then revitalize an old adversary of Durkheim? The working hypothesis was that Tarde might have some very good and different insight on the definition of what the individual needed to be. The comparative study of Tarde’s and Durkheim’s work demonstrates that it isn’t so. They share the same basic common sense definition of the notion of individual. Their opposition was based on some interpretation of statistical theory for sociology. This conclusion points toward the possibility that this notion is the basis for the theorization of sociology which might be a major source of its explanatory problems.

Keyphrases: philosophy, philosophy of social sciences, science studies, epistemology, sociology
Der Literaturskandal: Symbolisches Kapital und Selbstbezug am Beispiel Thomas Bernhards

This master’s thesis analyzes the reception of the Austrian author Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989) and focuses on the scandals that punctuated his career. Acclaimed exceptional writer, he was, however, often referred to as Austria’s injurer. He called into question the in-volvement of his country in National Socialism and proliferated ad hominem attacks on politicians. His role in the public sphere was ambiguous: whilst insisting on the fictive character of his works, he staged himself provocatively. The purpose of this master’s thesis is to show the functioning of scandals as com-plex social events taking place in the public sphere. Scholars consider scandals as public offenses resulting from real or apparent transgressions. Scandals are integrated into the so-cial order and are handled by the media. They trigger actualization of moral values. This study postulates that symbolic capital (cf. Bourdieu) plays a role in scandals. It is both the prerequisite and the catalyst for successful scandalization. An initial accumula-tion of symbolic capital insures quasi automatically media attention. The identity capital of Thomas Bernhard – i.e. the personalization of his symbolic capital – is hybrid and intricate. This renders its interpretation difficult. The complexity of the capital configuration leads to an ambivalent appreciation of the author’s message by journalists and the public. Reactions are disproportionate and Bernhard’s particular though hyperbolic criticism is perceived as a questioning of universal values. Each and every declaration or work by Bernhard is subor-dinated and appreciated in regards to his preceding “scandalous” achievements. This mas-ter’s thesis emphasizes the autorefential nature of scandals and devotes a special interest to performative speech acts (cf. John L. Austin). The corpus includes some of Bernhard’s plays and novels, book reviews, newspaper articles, letters to the editor, court transcripts and Bernhard’s correspondence with his publisher Siegfried Unseld.

Keyphrases: diffamation, Thomas Bernhard, Thomas Bernhard, Austrian literature (1945-1989), fictional and factual, public sphere, publicity, scandal, Speech Act Theory, symbolic capital, Thomas Bernhard
Modelling software quality : a multidimensional approach

As society becomes ever more dependent on computer systems, there is more and more pressure on development teams to produce high-quality software. Many companies therefore rely on quality models, program suites that analyse and evaluate the quality of other programs, but building good quality models is hard as there are many questions concerning quality modelling that have yet to be adequately addressed in the literature. We analysed quality modelling practices in a large organisation and identified three dimensions where research is needed: proper support of the subjective notion of quality, techniques to track the quality of evolving software, and the composition of quality judgments from different abstraction levels.   To tackle subjectivity, we propose using Bayesian models as these can deal with uncertain data. We applied our models to the problem of anti-pattern detection. In a study of two open-source systems, we found that our approach was superior to state of the art rule-based techniques.   To support software evolution, we consider scores produced by quality models as signals and the use of signal data-mining techniques to identify patterns in the evolution of quality. We studied how anti-patterns are introduced and removed from systems.  Software is typically written using a hierarchy of components, yet quality models do not explicitly consider this hierarchy. As the last part of our dissertation, we present two level quality models. These are composed of three parts: a component-level model, a second model to evaluate the importance of each component, and a container-level model to combine the contribution of components with container attributes. This approach was tested on the prediction of class-level changes based on the quality and importance of its components: methods. It was shown to be more useful than single-level, traditional approaches.    To finish, we reapplied this two-level methodology to the problem of assessing web site navigability. Our models could successfully distinguish award-winning sites from average sites picked at random.  Throughout the dissertation, we present not only theoretical problems and solutions, but we performed experiments to illustrate the pros and cons of our solutions. Our results show that there are considerable improvements to be had in all three proposed dimensions. In particular, our work on quality composition and importance modelling is the first that focuses on this particular problem. We believe that our general two-level models are only a starting point for more in-depth research.

Keyphrases: Software engineering, Software quality, Quality models, Empirical studies, Bayesian models, Software evolution, Quality composition
L’« âme escogriffe » des Colocs : ironie et critique sociale dans la chanson québécoise engagée

Since the early studies on songwriting, several researchers have determined that the golden age of Quebec songwriting included productions of the sixties and seventies. It’s in affiliation with the collective spirit of those years that the new protest song of the millennium settled. Indeed, after the hollow musical eighties in Quebec, a band took the lead of the protest song in the early nineties. By defending the marginalized people of society and making themselves their spokesmen, Les Colocs have contributed to the "empowerment" of the unemployed, the homeless, AIDS victims, the depressive and other left out of society. Addressing socio-political issues, the group let us see them from another angle and create a new perspective for the victims. Through the use of ironic processes, Les Colocs managed to install a distance between problems and their victims. Mostly self-ironic, their songs also reveal an irony of situation, also called irony of fate. In parallel to Les Colocs, other artists of the nineties and the early years of the new millenium offer songs with an incurred ironic character, and allow a meaningful comparison. In order to defuse potentially catastrophic situations and develop a form of social critique, Les Colocs have created a production where songwriter’s irony prevailed.

Keyphrases: Les Colocs, Engagement, Songwriting, Les Colocs, Irony, Protest song
La stratégie comme processus cognitif dans le jeu vidéo StarCraft

This thesis offers an analysis of the Real-Time Strategy game StarCraft (Blizzard Entertainment, 1998). Its goal is to explore beyond the visible and audible part of the game to elucidate the concept of strategy into play. Following a description of the game and its constraints, it demonstrates how strategy plays a major role within the skills needed to play. Then, our “heuristic circle of the strategic process” describes how strategy works as a cognitive process, and how it interacts with both the game states inferred by the player and his or her strategic plans. Finally, this model and its underlying concepts are supported by close analyses of StarCraft game sequences.

Keyphrases: StarCraft, Théories cognitives, Real-time strategy games, Strategy, Cognitive theory, Video game studies, Video games
An empirical study of the impact of two antipatterns on program comprehension

Antipatterns are “poor” solutions to recurring design problems which are conjectured in the literature to make object-oriented systems harder to maintain. However, little quantitative evidence exists to support this conjecture. We performed an empirical study to investigate whether the occurrence of antipatterns does indeed affect the understandability of systems by developers during comprehension and maintenance tasks. We designed and conducted three experiments, each with 24 subjects, to collect data on the performance of these subjects on basic tasks related to program comprehension and assess the impact of two antipatterns and their combinations: Blob and Spaghetti Code. We measured the subjects’ performance with: (1) TLX (NASA task load index) for their effort; (2) the time that they spent performing their tasks; and, (3) their percentages of correct answers. The collected data shows that the occurrence of one antipattern does not significantly decrease developers’ performance while the combination of two antipatterns impedes developers significantly. We conclude that developers can cope with one antipattern but that combinations thereof should be avoided possibly through detection and refactorings.

Keyphrases: Blob, Spaghetti Code, Antipatterns, Program comprehension, Program maintenance, Empirical study
Encore ; suivi de Les « monstrueuses anomalies » du Bleu du ciel

Encore (Again) tells the story of a young woman haunted by an abortion, which she thinks has never happened to her, and yet keeps hounding her, especially in her dreams. This is the story of her desire, held against the domestication of her body, and through it, she tries to repossess her womb and make the traces of her past appear, beyond the visible.  My essay addresses the « freakish anomalies » of Georges Bataille’s Blue of Noon (Le Bleu du ciel), as Bataille himself qualified his novel in his preface. How to transgress a genre that has no law, no constraint ? Rather than analyzing the freakishness of the narrative or the characters, I have tried to understand how writing was here performed, or tasked, by formless and chance, two concepts that I have borrowed from Bataille and confronted to his fiction.

Keyphrases: Georges Bataille, Chance, Formless, Novel, Dream, Feminine, Medea, Memory, Abortion
Estimation histologique de l’âge à la mort à partir du deuxième métacarpe chez l’humain

This preliminary study tests the hypothesis that evidence of bone remodeling in the second metacarpal can be used to estimate age at death. The metacarpals used in this analysis originated from an historic European sample from Ontario, Canada (n=63, 34 males and 29 females).  They range in age from 19 to 61 years (mean=41.1±11.6).  Age was known or independently estimated from gross morphology.  For each right and left second metacarpal, Osteon Population Density (OPD; intact and fragmentary osteons/mm2) was recorded on four quadrants (anterior, posterior, medial, lateral), sampling two periosteal to endosteal columns separated by one column width.   Classical calibration analysis produced a series of equations for estimates of age for each sex, sexes combined, and according to laterality. The method reduces the efficiency of estimates but has the advantage of reducing bias.   When the sexes were combined, OPD correlated moderately but significantly with age (right r2=0.35, left r2= 0.28).  However, when males and females were analyzed separately, the correlation between OPD and age in the female sample was improved (right r2=0.48, left r2=0.39) while the correlation in males was reduced (right r2=0.29, left r2=0.22).  It remains unclear why the correlation is better in females than males, but similar results have been obtained in other studies.  These results also indicate that there is a better correlation between OPD and age in the right second metacarpal than in the left.   The results presented here support the hypothesis that the OPD of the metacarpal is correlated with chronological age (known or estimated) as all regressions of the OPD on age (right-left combined and separate, sexes combined and separated) are significant.

Keyphrases: Age Estimation, Histology, Bone remodeling, Metacarpal, Anthropology
Évaluation d’implantation d’un programme de transfert de connaissances par agents multiplicateurs pour la prévention des mauvais traitements chez les jeunes enfants

The study of Public Health prevention practices suggests that evidence-based innovations are not always the most widely used (Ringwalt et al. 2002, Wandersman and Florin 2003). In 2006, in a strong desire to put forward not only an innovation based on evidence, but also an innovation really useful to the community, the Centre de liaison sur l’intervention et la prévention psychosociale (CLIPP) created “Agir en milieu de garde”, a trained-the-trainers program based whose primary objective was prevention of infant abuse. The present study’s goal is to describe the program’s implementation in home day care centers in Quebec and examine the processes that have an influence on this implementation. The results establish the level of implementation on two specific aspects : dosage and adherence. By studying implementation processes, the present study was able to document how the level of implementation is influenced by four different types of factors :individual, organizational, community and specific to innovation. This study also looked at how the interactions between these four types of factors can influence the implementation.

Keyphrases: Train-the-trainers program, Knowledge transfer, Program evaluation, Implementation adherence
Amélioration de la résistance à l'hypoxie des îlots de Langerhans
microencapsulés par l’utilisation d’agrégats de cellules dispersées

Transplantation of microencapsulated islets of Langerhans is a promising treatment for type 1 diabetes mellitus. The microcapsule allows the diffusion of small molecules, while protecting the islet from the antibodies and immune cells. However, microcapsule prevents islet revascularization, thus oxygenation depends on diffusion and islets are exposed to hypoxia. Poor oxygenation is a major limitation in microencapsulated islet survival. It was shown that smaller islets are more resistant to hypoxia because of a better oxygen diffusion. In this study, dispersed islet cell aggregates will be used to improve the oxygenation. When islet cells are dispersed into single cells, they have the ability to re-associate into an islet-like structure.  This study allowed to set up a technique to form aggregates, to characterized them and to compare the resistance to hypoxia of islets and aggregates. Aggregates have a similar structure than islets and they are smaller. For this reason, they survive better to a hypoxic treatment, while restoring efficiently normoglycemia in diabetic mices. Aggregates are an interesting solution for microencapsulated islet transplantation because they have a better oxygenation.

Keyphrases: Microencapsulation, Diabetes, Islet of Langerhans, Microencapsulation, Aggregates, Hypoxia, Oxygenation
Effets des pratiques sylvicoles sur les traits fonctionnels des
communautés végétales de friches arbustives

Different kinds of forest rehabilitation on abandoned farms could have an impact on plant diversity. Plant functional traits analyses could reveal effects of different management strategies. Two shrublands were planted with three hardwood species. They received the following treatments in 1998: total or striped clearing, with or without herbicide. The goal of this study is to determine the effects of these treatments, 11 years later, on functional traits distribution within the plant communities. According to a fourth corner analysis, the functional traits communities variation between treatments was significant, even higher, for the shrubland that had higher light availability. Striped clearing caused a less important successional retreat than total clearing, selecting for traits representative of shaded habitats like the presence of phanerophyte species and species with big seeds. Total clearing allowed a greater light availability in the following years, which selected for functional traits such as presence of exogenous and shade-intolerant species in the sampling units. Herbicide application had few effects on traits but increased black walnut growth when total clearing was applied, as well with strip clearing, but to a lesser extent. With low differentiation of tree growth and survival between treatments, we suggest using the striped clearing on planted shrublands in order to decrease the succession decline, while minimising herbicide use and their impacts on the surrounding plant communities.

Keyphrases: Plant functional traits, Shrubland, Competition, Hardwood plantation
Crise identitaire : Arrested Development et le portrait d’une sitcom dans le paysage télévisuel contemporain

At the end of the 1990’s, the television industry experienced drastic changes to consumption and production practices. Through the exploitation of new media and exploration of new horizons, the industry has undergone a complete transformation. The nature of television programs, which were traditionally linear and designed for a general audience, has changed considerably too, deeply affecting the experience of the viewers. With the emergence of new technologies and the sophistication of public demand, the industry has to rely on brand new concepts, henceforth developing unique and complex narratives. Some of the best sitcoms are now designed as hybrid products, influenced by cultural fads, popular phenomena, reality shows and documentaries. Praised by viewers and critics for its unconventional format, the television show Arrested Development is characterized by its histrionic exuberance, non sequitur storytelling, self-referential lines and intertextuality that have become very influential in contemporary television. This television product contains unique features – considered by contemporary commentators as being somewhat disruptive and controversial – which show how the advent of new practices within the television industry has ultimately transformed the viewer’s entire experience.

Keyphrases: Sitcom, Arrested Development, Comedy, Television, Televisual medium, Viewers, Self-consciousness
Le corps duel dans les Aveux non avenus de Claude Cahun : à la jonction du texte et de l'image

This master’s paper focuses on the representation of the body in Claude Cahun’s Aveux non avenus. First evoking some important aspects of the history of the reflection on the body and of its representation in the Occident since Antiquity, with regards to their relevance for our analysis of Cahun’s work, we then proceed to an analysis of the representation of the body in the textual fragments composing Aveux non avenus, insisting on the ambivalent relationship to the body they express, and on the close relationship between the body and the problematic of identity, central in Cahun’s work as a whole. We then move on to analyze how the body is represented, focusing on the particular type of writing that Cahun uses in the Aveux as well as the intermedial approach that she develops through the presence of the photomontages in the text. We wish to demonstrate that the representation of the body is closely linked to a reflection on identity, and that the dual nature of this representation through text and image complexifies this reflection without taking away any of its coherence.

Keyphrases: surrealism, intermediality, identity, body, photomontage, photomontage, women's writing
Apports de l’imagerie optique à l’étude de l’impact du niveau de scolarité sur la contribution des lobes frontaux à la production de mots

Normal aging is associated with cerebral reorganisation which can be influenced by many factors. For example, the theory cognitive reserve (Stern, 2002) is trying to explain how those factors can have an impact on the reorganization. However, some factors, such as educational level, are known to have an impact on cognitive performance. The aim of this dissertation is to study the effect of educational level in cerebral oxygenation of healthy older adults during both phonologic and semantic verbal fluency tasks. Each task is divided into two criteria: more productive and less productive. Behavioural data showed that less educated elderly generate fewer words than more educated ones for both tasks. Moreover, the differences between the number of words for the more productive criterion and the less productive one are higher for the semantic than for the phonologic task. NIRS data showed that both groups activated prefrontal cortex, without difference between them.  In addition, less educated participants tend to have bigger activations in the left hemisphere regardless of the task and the criterion. On the other hand, higher educated participants’ activations vary according to the task and the criterion unlike the HAROLD model’s predictions.

Keyphrases: Aging, Education, Cerebral reorganization, Cognitive reserve, Verbal fluency, Near-infrared spectroscopy