NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
L’identité chrétienne orthodoxe est-européenne à la rencontre de la diversité culturelle : étude empirico-herméneutique des communautés immigrantes bulgare, moldave et roumaine à Montréal

The thesis studies the relation between the Orthodox Christian identity and cultural diversity in a diaspora context. The problem being examined herein is the invisibility of the Orthodox communities in the public sphere of the city of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the ecclesial and cultural isolation of Orthodox parishes based on an ethnic principle and the lack of interaction between society and Orthodox communities.  The research aims to explore this behaviour and suggests theological guidelines to analyze it. Using the empirico-hermeneutic method, reality of immigrant people is attentively studied and their voices are “translated”, the thesis being voice over for them. The empirical study stems from the observation, the administration of three questionnaires, and 13 interviews with 68 people from Bulgaria, Moldavia and Romania, newcomers and settled-ins through, as well priests and church councils through, making this research a thorough process. The hermeneutic aspect of the research consists of concepts which are de-constructed and then re-constructed around immigrant people in order to zoom in on those concepts according to people’s life experience.  The study reveals complex and simultaneous dynamics of isolation and openness.  In fact, four types of behaviour have been identified upon contact with cultural diversity. This ambivalent relation to cultural diversity emerges not only from historical attitudes from East-European peoples in order to protect their cultural identity but also following the cultural shock they experienced on their arrival, as well as their financial difficulties, the language barriers and their struggles to professional realisation. Ethnic congregations hence become safe, linguistic, and identity gatherings where people can worship and feel at home.  The analysis is conducted through a love paradigm of the Trinitarian theology and of interculturality. Those theoretical, social and theological aspects are then compared and show a distortion with the reality of how invisible, isolated and ecclesially fragmented the East-European communities are in the Montreal diaspora context.  Some practical solutions are presented at the conclusion of this research.

Keyphrases: Orthodoxie, Christian Orthodoxy, Trinity, interculturality, glocal Church, East European communities, Practical Theology, theology of immigration, cultural isolation
Écriture du réel aux frontières de l'expérience mystique : lecture psychanalytique et théologie thérésienne

The real, understood as something impossible to signify, appears to be the point at which philosophers, theologians, and psychoanalysts stumble when they read an account of mystical experience. In fact, mysticism is presented as an impossible real to master through language. Yet, the writing of Teresa of Avila shows that mystical experience, on the contrary, has a close link with the real. To illuminate what of the real is at stake in what, for a mystic, constitutes a singular spiritual experience, we can look to Freud's work on the notion of trace and to the way in which Lacan developed the concept of the real to gain perspective of the mystical theology of Teresa. This dual approach, marked by attention to the boundary between the tangible and the intangible, makes it possible to consider these works as necessary material support for discerning emergent traces of the real. This allows us to postulate that real can be read as a condition of the possibility for the existence of the mystical experience. Thus, Teresa de Avila will be invoked as both a mystic, one who has lived an experience with God, and as a theologian, one who has also pondered this experience. To be able to understand this lived experience as impossible to represent, we can use the way Freud and Lacan discussions concerning the real, read here as God in mysticism. Yet, Freud considered the spiritual to be part of impulse, whereas Lacan defines the mystical experience in the field of jouissance, inscribing it in the field of signifying logic, of which the real is a product. This leads us to reinterpret the trace inscribed in the body as a dimension of real that resists the symbolic representation of the subject. This relationship between the signifier and the real makes it possible to recognize psychoanalytical and mystical knowledge as a kind of “know-how” of what is impossible. In the case of Teresa of Avila, the real takes the form of the Trinity as truth. To indicate this truth, however, is not enough for her, for what is at stake in this experience is living in union with God who ex-sist in language. In this case, the “know-how” with the real become possibly consequential, even a blessing.

Keyphrases: Psychanalyse, Religion, Freud, Lacan, psychoanalysis, Mystical theology, Theresa of Avila, Spirituality, Truth
Repenser la théologie du mariage africain : la célébration du mariage dit « chrétien », est-elle nécessaire en Afrique?

Three types of marriage (African, civil, Christian), three celebrations (in family, at the town hall, the Church), three different officiants (old of the families of future grooms, registrar, priest), three consents (in family, at the town hall, the Church), three rights (usual, civil, canonical), two registers (with the town hall, the Church), three types of financial expenditure (in family, with the town hall, the Church), three premarital investigations (in family, at the town hall, the Church) for the same African catholic person baptized to be recognized as married by Catholic church. That seems too much to require for an action considered free par excellence. The baptized person is excluded, temporarily or definitively, of the access to the other sacraments or certain parochial services, as of the moment when it celebrates the African marriage, considered a public sin and as cohabitation, since the beginning of the evangelization of sub-Saharan Africa. Only the celebration of the Christian marriage enables him to be reconciled with God and the Church. Worried by this situation, the African episcopate called, with the Synod of 1994, with deepened research, being able to allow to avoid the superposition of the three types of marriage and expressed the wish to have some that one. Until today, the initiated solutions never cured it.  Based on the basic conditions and of form, the celebrations of the church wedding in Quebec and the African marriage in democratic Republic of Congo produce civil effects. Our study was inspired some to propose a comprehension of the marriage based on the baptismal theology which incorporates the person in the Church, regenerates it as a child of God and configures it with Christ, by an indelible character. By this baptismal character legal, the celebration of the African marriage would produce religious effects, which would not make necessary the celebration of the marriage says “Christian” for baptized catholic African. For an implementation successful of this prospect, we consider essential the contribution of the civil capacity.

Keyphrases: Dot, Baptism, Assent, Dowry, Right, Catholic Church, African marriage, Marriage say “Christian”, Sacrament, Synod, Theology of the marriage
The violence of bearing witness in Flannery O’Connor and Cormac McCarthy

This dissertation, The Violence of Bearing Witness in Flannery O’Connor and Cormac McCarthy, investigates the narrative expressions of bearing witness in the fiction of two writers of the American South: Flannery O’Connor and Cormac McCarthy. I identify the act of bearing witness as an essential function of the prophet and locate the narrative representation of this act within the tradition of the American jeremiad. I begin my study of O’Connor’s works by investigating her understanding of the significance of the role of the prophet in her writing as well as in modern society. I then situate O’Connor’s literary art within the context of the civil rights movement and trace the evolution of her treatment of Black characters through the progress of a group of stories I have termed the “Geranium Variations.” My hermeneutic analysis of Blood Meridian employs Slavoj Žižek’s typology of violence to argue that though the novel is replete with vivid portrayals of violence, the true horror with which McCarthy reckons is the structural violence that fosters the individual outbreaks of brutality, i.e. warfare, aggressive territorial expansion, and state-sanctioned genocide. I demonstrate that the novel’s excessive descriptions of violence are juxtaposed with an absence of description insofar as the relentless representations of gratuitous violence throughout the novel culminate in the unnarrated death of the protagonist, the kid. I conclude that the allusions to scripture in the opening sentences of the novel foretells the kid’s liminal role in the text as a cursed prophet whose function is to witness the unspeakable horrors of history.

Keyphrases: Flannery O’Connor, Cormac McCarthy, grâce, maledictions, violence, psychanalyse, American Literature, prophets, curses, epiphanies, violence, psychoanalysis, old testament
Análisis del español de los estudiantes francófonos de ELE : el caso del sistema preposicional

This thesis, within the field of applied linguistics, focuses on the usage of prepositions by French-speaking learners of Spanish as a foreign language (ELE). Particularly, this study aims to characterize the use of the Spanish prepositional system throughout different stages of learning and to shed light on the processes that underlie the observed phenomena. The source material for this research came from a corpus composed of texts written by four groups of participants of levels A1 trough B2, as proposed by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages scale. All participants’ native or dominant language was French. The data obtained through the corpus were approached from the perspective of the L2 language research paradigm known as performance analysis. This study describes both normative and non-normative uses of prepositions of lexical content (spatial, temporal or notional), as well as those that carry primarily grammatical value. The results obtained suggest that the latter type of prepositions posed a greater challenge for the learners, which proved to be an area of difficulty that tended to persist, even at more advanced levels. With regard to the processes underlying the usage of prepositions, our findings support the idea that language transfer from the participants’ L1 facilitated the appropriate use of certain prepositions in those cases in which the prepositional marks and notions expressed by these in French and in Spanish converged. In contrast, an increase in inappropriate uses of the prepositions was identified when the prepositional marks in both languages coincided, but not the values they expressed. In part, this was due to a process of negative transfer from the students’ L1. It also became apparent that this process of interference from the L1 often interacted with interference from another L2 (English) and with intralinguistic processes, such as the overgeneralization of rules appertaining the target language (Spanish). Last but not least, this research also found evidence that the aforementioned linguistic mechanisms were reinforced by instruction, that is to say, the way in which the textbook used by the students approached the teaching of the Spanish prepositional system. Keywords: Spanish as a Foreign Language (ELE), Applied linguistics, Interlanguage, Interlanguage Analysis, Performance Analysis, Error Analysis, Prepositions, French-speaking learners.

Keyphrases: Spanish as a foreign language (ELE), Applied linguistics, Interlanguage, Interlanguage Analysis, Performance analysis, Error analysis, French-speaking learners of Spanish
To salt or not to salt : three MALDI-TOF IMS protocols where (de)salting proved essential

Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization imaging mass spectrometry (MALDI IMS) is currently the ionization method of choice for elucidating the spatial distribution of lipids on thin tissue sections. Despite the discovery of lipid friendly matrices such as 1,5-DAN for phospholipids and 2,5-DHB for triacylglycerols, there is a continued need to improve sensitivity. In the first study, we improved the overall sensitivity for phospholipids of entire fly Malpighian tubules microdissected in PBS with a two-step wash in glycerol followed by ammonium acetate that removed the bulk of the salt with minimal species delocalization and tubule displacement. We were able to detect phospholipids in both positive and negative ion modes and revealed an even distribution of most phospholipids along the length of this organ. We compared the method to the results from whole body fly sections acquired in dual-polarity mode at the same spatial resolution and found it to be more suitable for studying the tubules because of the complex three-dimensional structure of this organ within the fly. In the second study, we observed a marked improvement in ganglioside signals on mouse brain tissue sections with ammonium salt addition. Specifically, when the sample was first desalted in a low concentration ammonium formate solution, spray-coated with the same salt, coated with matrix and finally left in the freezer overnight before data acquisition, we observed an average overall improvement in ganglioside signal intensity by ten-fold and the number of species detected by three-fold. This method also did not affect the spatial distribution of the gangliosides, as high spatial resolution IMS results acquired at 20 µm showed no species delocalization. Finally, we sought to determine if salts could be employed directly as matrices. In this work, we tested silver-based metal salts and discovered that spray depositing silver nitrate alone is a viable method for the IMS detection of olefins, particularly cholesterol. With the optimized dry spray parameter, the overall deposition is homogeneous and composed of microscopic salt crystals that allow for high spatial resolution IMS down to 10 µm while maintaining acceptable overall signal quality comparable to that of previously published protocols. Overall, this thesis demonstrates we can manipulate the local salt distribution to influence the sensitivity and selectivity to target specific lipid subfamilies, opening the door for future research to understanding the role salts play during the laser desorption/ionization process.

Keyphrases: MALDI, Sel, Ganglioside, Imaging mass spectrometry, Lipidomics, Salt, Optimization, Phospholipid, Cholesterol, Brain, Malpighian tubules
Conception, synthèse et applications biologiques d’inhibiteurs de biofilms à base d’imidazole et de benzimidazole

Antibiotic resistance is one of the most serious threats to global health nowadays. Emergence of resistant bacteria encourages researchers to develop new antibiotics and strategies to mitigate their different resistance mechanisms. One of these defense mechanisms is the formation of biofilms. In this form, bacteria develop a protective extracellular matrix making them more resistant to various antimicrobial treatments. We have designed and synthesized membrane destabilizing compounds with three key features: a benzimidazolium or an imidazolium cation, a hydrophobic apolar chain, and a lipophilic anion recognition site. These characteristics give these compounds increased antimicrobial activity and greater ability to disrupt cell membranes. These membrane-disrupting compounds act via a fast and efficient mechanism and showed good results against MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus) strains as promising antibiofilms candidates. These new agents have the potential to disperse and inhibit the formation of biofilms and could have a positive impact on human medicine in the future.

Keyphrases: Benzimidazolium, Imidazolium, Biofilms, Ammonium quaternaire, Cellular membrane, Bacteria, Antibiotic, Membrane perturbator, Quaternary ammonium
Design et synthèse des composés azabicycliques contraints : de la chimie médicinale à la catalyse

Azacycles such as morpholines and pyrrolidines, are very widespread in chemistry, especially in the fields of organocatalysis and medicinal chemistry. This thesis will deal with constrained analogues of those azacycles, which, depending on their structures, can modulate the properties of certain drugs or the selectivity of certain reactions.   The case of haloperidol, which is known for its activity on the dopamine D2 and D4 receptors, is at the center of the first part of this thesis, in which new constrained analogs of the 2-oxa-5-azabicyclo type [2.2.2] octane have been developed to overcome its metabolic stability problems.  In a second part, the synthesis of two new bridged morpholine-proline chimeras are reported. Their rigid structures allow the lone pairs on the nitrogen and oxygen atoms to be oriented in spatially different "East-West" and "North-East" directions, respectively. In combination with the presence of a carboxylic acid, the electronic properties of these compounds could be useful in the context of the design of biologically relevant peptidomimetics. Quantitative estimations of the basicity of the nitrogen atoms were obtained using DFT analysis.  In the third part of this thesis, the synthesis of new oxabicyclic pyrrolidines is described. Cyclopentan[c]pyrroles are widely encountered and known for their analgesic properties. The Servier laboratories have synthesized derivatives with substituents at positions 4 and 5, exhibiting good activities as 7 nicotinic ligands, but problems of hERG inhibition. In order to obtain less lipophilic compounds and therefore overcome the problems of hERG inhibition, new oxygenated analogs of the furo[2,3-c]pyrrole type have been developed by different synthetic routes. These new compounds were obtained in enantiomerically enriched forms, using enzymatic resolution.   Proline has been widely used in recent years as an organocatalyst in asymmetric transformations such as aldolizations or Michael additions The success of this motif, has inspired synthesis of derivatives, such as  4,5-methanoprolines, which were first reported by Hanessian in 1997, and shown to be effective as organocatalysts in the Hajos-Parrish and other reactions. The last parts of this thesis develop further these studies by the synthesis of new 4,5-ethanoprolines which act as a catalysts in the Hajos-Parrish reaction and the asymmetric catalytic addition of nitroalkanes to cyclic enones. A DFT study was carried out to explain the reversal of selectivity observed for the new catalysts in Hajos-Parrish reaction and to investigate formation of a reactive enamine in the mechanism.

Keyphrases: Morpholine, Proline, hERG, Pyrrolidine, Conformational restriction, Chimera, Enzymatic reaction, Organocatalysis, Hajos-Parrish reaction, Michael reaction
Les remerciements et leurs fonctions dans le système de la reconnaissance scientifique

In the scientific community, authorship is associated with recognition and credibility and thus plays a central role in decisions related to the hiring and promotion of a researcher, and in the attribution of prizes and funding. In scholarly publications, it is also common practice to acknowledge individuals, institutions, and funding organizations that contributed in various ways to a research project. Although they can be considered as a simple scholar’s courtesy, acknowledgements can also be perceived as a marker of symbolic capital. Acknowledgements shed light on extremely diverse contributions, of cognitive, technical and social nature, that generally do not meet authorship criteria. As such, acknowledgements allow for a better understanding of the role played by individuals and organizations that contribute to research. In this context, our research aims to describe acknowledgements’ functions within the reward system of science to better understand their value, in terms of scientific credit, and to explore factors that can influence their characteristics in the context of credit attribution practices.  Our study addresses scientific credit distribution among all contributors of a research project, authors and acknowledgees. Our analyses of the number of contributors per paper show that the important disciplinary differences in team size, which traditionally characterize collaboration, are greatly reduced when considering acknowledgees as contributors. Our analyses of acknowledgees’ sociodemographic characteristics show that gender disparities, repeatedly demonstrated in terms of authorship, are also present in the acknowledgements, where women are also under-represented. Moreover, women tend to acknowledge a higher proportion of women than men do. Regarding academic status, our results show that acknowledgees who have already published tend to have a higher position in the academic hierarchy than the rest of authors.  Our comparative analysis of acknowledgements’ content highlights important disciplinary trends in terms of types of contributions mentioned. Our results constitute the first large-scale empirical demonstration of disciplinary variations in the content of acknowledgements. Finally, our qualitative analysis of acknowledgements’ content emphasises three main functions of acknowledgements: the description of contributions, the responsibility disclaimers, and the expression of the authorial voice.

Keyphrases: collaboration, contribution, Acknowledgements, Authorship, Reward system of science, Scientific credit, Symbolic capital