NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
Culture organisationnelle et santé mentale au travail

This doctoral thesis aims to better understand the role played by organizational culture as a determinant of mental health problems in the workforce. This is in a context where organizations face several major challenges that could affect their survival and sustainability, but especially towards direct and indirect expenses related to this type of problems which are constantly increasing. This thesis was also inspired by many limits identified in the scientific literature on mental health problems in the workplace. While the main models on occupational stress (e.g. demand-control model by Karasek (1979), demand-control-support model by Karasek and Theorell (1990), the effort-reward imbalance model by Siegrist (1996) and the Job Demands-Resources by Demerouti and al. (2001)) which are guiding the research on the subject, do not take into account the meso organizational context in which work is performed. Our contribution to advancing occupational stress research lies in the development of an integrative stressor-strain framework that better accounts for the complexity of workplace phenomena, and puts organizational culture in a central role in the explanation of the relationship between work organization conditions and mental health problems at work.            The integrative framework is presented in the form of an article in this thesis. There are two major assumptions that stem from this model. The first is that the work organization conditions are associated with psychological distress and burnout once the organizational culture is taken into account. The second hypothesis induced by the proposed model, suggests that the work organization conditions mediate the relationship between organizational culture and mental health problems at work. Theses hypotheses were tested with cross-sectional data obtained from the SALVEO study of the University of Montreal, and the Work and Mental Health Research Team (ERTSM). The results obtained are presented into the shape of two articles, submitted for publication, which constitute and are presented in the chapters five and six of this thesis.  Overall, the integrative framework proposed, in this thesis gets an important empirical support and tends to show that organizational culture is indirectly associated with psychological distress via the influence it exerts on work organization conditions. For burnout, the results show that organizational culture is associated directly and indirectly to the outcome. The results obtained highlighted the importance of including variables relating to broader organizational contexts in models examining stress in the workplace. This thesis concludes on the implications of these results for the research, and for the practical benefits for the human resources management.

Keyphrases: Stress, Organizational Culture, Psychological distress, Burnout, Mental Health, Work organization conditions
Experiencia de la desaparición en Lumpérica de Diamela Eltit, Los planetas de Sergio Chejfec y Los rubios de Albertina Carri

This thesis analyzes how Diamela Eltit’s Lumpérica (1983), Sergio Chejfec’s Los planetas (1999), and Albertina Carri’s Los rubios (2003) articulate the experience of the loss of experience resulting from the dictatorships and post-dictatorships in Chile and Argentina. The last military dictatorships in the Southern Cone either impose or prepare the ground for the establishment of a new neoliberal order that deepens and intensifies with later democratic regimes. In this transition, the military governments deploy strategies of State terrorism that aim to eliminate all forms of resistance to the social reconfiguration necessary for the implementation of neoliberal politics, giving rise to an unprecedented kind of experience that is difficult to communicate. Moreover, both the dictatorships and the post-dictatorial democracies adopt strategies of forgetting, through either repression, political consensus or mass media communications. It is in this context that experience disappears. The discussion on experience of the loss of experience is based mainly on the concept of transition from State to Market in Latin America’s Southern Cone developed by thinkers such as Willy Thayer, Idelber Avelar or Brett Levinson, among others, as well as on Sergio Rojas’s considerations on dictatorial experience and on Walter Benjamin’s reflections on the crisis of experience in modern life. The first chapter, dedicated to Lumpérica, analyzes a nocturnal ritual where the protagonist, a woman named L. Iluminada, seduces the male protagonist, an electric billboard called “el luminoso” that projects publicity messages in the middle of a public square in Santiago; she hopes to make him wound and mark her skin, staging a “photographic desire” to keep a trace of the transition that other media push towards forgetting and erasure. The second chapter focuses on the figuration of excess in Los planetas, analyzing how writing, photography and urban space act as supplements to the voice and to the presence of M, a young man who disappeared during the Argentinian dictatorship, thus accounting for the loss of experience. After revisiting the debate incited by Los rubios, much of which centred on the film’s polemic use of toys, the third chapter analyzes how Carri’s film about the memory of her disappeared parents transmits the experience of post-dictatorial generations and confronts the heritage of the past through play.

Keyphrases: transition, Walter Benjamin, dictatorship, post-dictatorship, photography, writing, memory
Corruption policière et violence : analyse de l'impact de la corruption policière sur les variations du taux d'homicide de 143 pays du monde en 2010

The level of violence, as measured by the homicide rates, varies greatly from one country to the other. Some countries have an homicide rate of 0,5 per 100,000 inhabitants, while others are faced with a rate of more than 50 per 100,000 inhabitants. Poverty, inequalities and other social, economic and demographic factors are cited in the literature as explaining this variation. However, there are very few studies that examine the possible influence of the quality of the justice system on violence. The present study examines the role of police corruption on the variations of the homicide rates between countries. Corruption is defined as acting against one’s duty. In the context of policing, corruption can be seen as the abuse of power, the resort to illegal means or the acceptance of rewards or gratuities. Considering these acts have the main consequence of creating inequalities, there is little or no doubt that what the police do has an influence on the crime rate. This study thus attempts to determine wether there is a relation between police corruption and violence, as measured by the homicide rate for 143 countries. Various univariate and bivariate statistical analyses are conducted to determine which relevant indicators should be included in the various multiple regression models. Results indicate that a relatively strong and significant relation is found between police corruption and homicide rate for the countries included in the study. Moreover, results indicate that inequalities influence police corruption and that both, in turn, influence the homicide rate.

Keyphrases: Criminologie, Corruption, Violence, Criminology, Corruption, Police corruption, Homicide rates, Violence, Inequalities
Évaluation de la modélisation et des prévisions de la vitesse du vent menant à l'estimation de la production d'énergie annuelle d'une turbine éolienne

Following an internship with the company Hatch, we have access to datasets that are composed of wind speed time series measured at different sites accross the world and over several years. The wind speed engineers from Hatch are using these datasets jointly with Environment Canada databases in order to ascertain the wind energy potential of these sites and to know whether it is worth installing wind turbines there. For a few years, some companies are also offering mesoscale simulations of wind speed based on different environmental characteristics from the site we want to evaluate. We would like to know if it is worth paying for those mesoscale datasets and if they can be used to provide better estimations of the wind energy potential. Among other things, these data could be used to provide a better estimation of the long term mean wind speed. Since we already possess measured datasets, we will also use them to test, with statistical methods, the methodology currently used and the different steps leading to an estimation of the wind energy production. First of all, we will see what are the different methods that could be used to extrapolate wind speed to a wind turbine’s height and we will evaluate those methods with the mean squared extrapolation error. Also, we will study wind distribution modelling by the Weibull distribution and consider its variability over time. Finally, cross-validation and block bootstrap will be used to see whether we should use mesoscale data instead of wind data from Environment Canada or whether it would even be beneficial to use both kind of data to predict wind speed. In summary, the whole methodology used by wind speed engineers to estimate the energy production will be tested from a statistical point of view and we will attempt to propose changes in this methodology that could improve the estimation of the wind speed annual energy production.

Keyphrases: Distribution Weibull, Wind energy, Wind speed modelling, Weibull distribution, Block bootstrap, Wind speed extrapolation, Wind shear coefficient
Drawing in the margins : identity and subjectivity in contemporary autobiographical comics

This dissertation argues that the comics form can be mobilized to destabilize dominant notions of identity in an autobiographical context. Drawing on current theories of life writing that stress the construction of the self through the autobiographical process, it explores how the specific formal properties of comics provide opportunities for women and minority artists to assert subjectivity and contend with hegemonic ideas concerning the representation of gender, trauma, sexuality, ethnicity, and disability through the embodiment of the self on the comics page. Through formal visual analysis, the dissertation shows how the highly personal and hand-drawn aesthetics of a form that thrives on generic instability and the continual (re)mixing of verbal and visual codes allows artists to destabilize conventional representational schemes in a complex dance of appropriation and resignification that is always open to the creation of new meanings. Following the introduction, Chapter 2 shows how Julie Doucet resists the visual pleasure associated with looking at women in comics by using the originally misogynistic concept of grotesque female materiality as a generative principle from where she articulates a critique in both form and content of normative and restricting representations of the female body. Chapter 3 examines the comics form’s ability to depict trauma, and focuses on Phoebe Gloeckner’s attempts to come to terms with childhood sexual abuse through a recursive return to key visual memories. Chapter 4 argues that the form’s serial nature, multimodality, and association with zine culture provides Ariel Schrag with the tools to experiment with visual and verbal codes in order to delineate and assert a sense of the in-flux and queer teenage self in an experimental four-volume Künstlerroman. Chapter 5 argues that Lebanese-born artist Toufic El Rassi uses the visual form to expose the mechanism behind the production of anti-Arab prejudice, and that he asserts personal identity through the temporary rhetorical power afforded by the inhabitation of a known stereotype. Chapter 6 shows how Al Davison employs the comics form to stage dynamic staring encounters with the implied observer that have the potential to help the author elude the objectifying gaze commonly associated with looking at disability.

Keyphrases: comics, graphic novels, autobiography, identity, subjectivity, minority discourse
Impacts de la compétition électorale sur les inégalités de revenus au Brésil

This study aims to look at whether electoral competitiveness in Brazil led to more efficient income  redistribution  policies.  Chapter  1  takes  a  look  at  which  criteria  were  used  to  measure electoral competitiveness for Governor. From the country’s 27 States, we have identified a group of 5 States considered to have a high level of electoral competitiveness and another group of 5 States with low levels of competitiveness.  We have then outlined a single State for each of these two groups. Chapter 2 details the factors explaining  income inequality  in Brazil.  The remainder  of the study focuses on the analysis of policies favouring better income redistribution for the single State selected for each group (chapter 3) and for both groups as a whole (chapter 4). The analysis reveals that a higher level of electoral competitiveness  does not necessarily lead to better income redistribution policies.

Keyphrases: Ceará, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, Electoral competitiveness, Inequality, Income
Savoirs d’expérience et savoirs professionnels : un projet expérimental dans le champ de la santé mentale

This thesis is a contribution of social epistemology on the construction and nature of professional and experiential knowledge of mental health issues and an exploration of their relationship rooted in a research projet in Montreal. This federal research and demonstration project aims to assess the impact of the Housing First approach for homeless people with mental health problems.  In Montreal, people with a lived experience of the realities of mental health and homelessness have been involved in the research project. Over the months, the presence of these peers had mixed effects, contributing sometimes to build up barriers between different types of knowledge and existing professional hierarchies, and allowing, on other occasions, to overcome them and get into a process of co-production of new knowledge and practices. The analysis underlines the complementary nature of professional and experiential knowledge in the field of health and social services and the strength of the experimental approach mobilized in the project. This thesis also provides a contribution to the literature on citizen participation by offering a look on the capacity of the citizens to transform the state institutions.  The qualitative data was collected both throughout observation during a PhD field work and fifty individual and group interviews conducted between 2012 and 2013 with 25 peer support workers, clinical staff (nurses, social workers, and psychologists), program managers and psychiatrists.

Keyphrases: Expertise, Psychiatrie, Professional and experiential knowledge, Experimental project, Hierarchy of knowledge, Co-production of knowledge, Public participation, Peers and peer-support, Psychiatry
The figure of the vampire as an emblem of tradition

To perpetuate itself in time, tradition makes recourse to figures that convey it. This study takes as its object the vampire figure that, in transmitting important aspects of the cultural tradition, takes the form of its own tradition, manifesting itself in a series of narrative and cultural works. As this study maintains, the vampire figure possesses its own literary and cinematographic tradition, even as it provides an understanding of transmission, tradition, and education.  In order to persist through time, traditions need to retain a static core, while also being malleable enough to allow for the transformation of the secondary features. The vampire is a malleable cultural figure, making it the perfect emblem of the concept of tradition. Moreover, five recurring traditional constellations are present, in various degrees, in vampire-centric narratives. The victim choice, the vampiric bite and the transformative blood exchange – with its undeniable relation to “perverse” sexuality, the training process, the desire to belong to a family or a community, and the search for one’s origins all illustrate the link between the vampire and the concept of tradition.   This thesis explores the impact of the vampire figure as an emblem of tradition through the most classic – the most traditional – narrative, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and through the first three installments of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles – Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, and Queen of the Damned – as well as through their film adaptations.

Keyphrases: Transmission, Tradition, Figuration, Vampire, Perversion, Simili-mort, Undeath
La mobilité occupationnelle entre pères et fils au Québec et en Ontario, 1852-1881

Marked by the gradual development of important socioeconomic and demographic transformations, the second half of the 19th century constitutes the context of our analyses of the intergenerational social mobility in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, specially focusing on the period 1852-1881. Taking advantage of the availability of census microdata databases – which are to a great extent representative of the population residing in those two provinces in 1852 and in 1881 – as well as of the development of a recent technique of automatic linkage, we used a sample of 4226 individuals who were linked between the Canadian censuses of 1852 and 1881. Those individuals are boys aged 0 to 15 years in 1852, who lived mainly in a rural area in Ontario or in Quebec and who are included in the 20% Canadian census sample of 1852. From this linked sample we could observe the characteristics of the family of origin in 1852 – e.g. the occupational status of the father and the boy’s school attendance – as well as the subject’s own occupational status as an adult in 1881. Despite some challenges posed by the availability and the type of the data as well as by the linking procedure, this sample illustrates quite well the transformations of the labour market that took place during the period of the study, notably the decline of the occupational group of the farmers in favour of the non-manual and manual skilled workers. Nevertheless, despite the decline in the proportion of farmers among sons (in 1881) compared to their fathers (in 1852), using this linked sample we discovered that agriculture continued to play an important role in economic activity and that this sector was even open to individuals with different occupational or socioeconomic backgrounds, i.e. to sons of non-farmer fathers. The sustained importance and openness of the agricultural sector seems to have been more important in Ontario than in Quebec. This difference could be associated with the contrasts between those two provinces regarding the characteristics and the development of the agricultural sector during the second half of the 19th century.

Keyphrases: Intergenerational social mobility, Industrialization, Data linking, Canadian censuses of 1852 and 1881, Historical demography
Les assortiments éducationnels des unions exogames immigrants-natifs à titre d’indicateur de stratification sociale; une étude exploratoire à partir de données canadiennes

Using the 2006 Canadian census data, this thesis examines the educational assortative mating of exogamous couples formed of an immigrant and a native as an indicator of social stratification. First, results from multinomial logistic regression confirm the presence of exchange (status exchange: Merton 1941; Davis 1941) between natives and immigrants, meaning that an immigrant is more susceptible to have native spouse if his education level is higher than the native’s. These results support the existence of a social stratification between natives and immigrants. Second, the analysis reveals that exchange appears for immigrants of both sexes that have at least a bachelor degree, whereas for immigrants that are less educated, exchange is only apparent with men. Third, for immigrants of visible minorities, exchange is present for immigrant of first and second generation, whereas for immigrants who are not of a visible minorities, exchange only appears for first generation immigrants.

Keyphrases: Immigrants, Canada, natives, social stratification, exchange theory, exogamy, endogamy, educational heterogamy
Problèmes de commande optimale stochastique généralisés

This thesis is divided into two chapters: the first one deals with some optimal control problems in one dimension and the second one with these problems in two or more dimensions. Note that, in this thesis, the time variable is not taken into account.  In Chapter 1, at first we compute the dynamic programming equation for the minimal expected value F of the cost function considered. Next, we apply Whittle's theorem if the condition between the noise v and the functions b and q associated with the control variable is satisfied. Otherwise, we proceed differently. Indeed, if we make a change of variable, we obtain a Riccati equation for G= F', but without initial conditions. In some cases, from the symmetry of the infinitesimal parameters and of the function q, we can deduce the point x' where G(x')=0. If this is not possible, we limit ourselves to good approximations. The same approach is still possible if we are in specific situations, for example, when we have only one barrier.  In Chapter 2, we discuss problems in dimension two or more. Since the condition in Whittle's theorem is  difficult to satisfy in this case, we try to generalize the results obtained in Chapter 1. We then use in some examples the method of similarity solutions, which enables us to transform the problem into a one-dimensional one. Next, we propose a new resolution method. This method linearises the dynamic programming equation, which is a non-linear partial differential equation. Finally, we must find initial conditions for the new function, and also verify that the n expressions for F are equivalent.

Keyphrases: Solution approximative, Dynamic programming equation, Infinitesimal parameters, Whittle's theorem, Optimal control, Cost function, Approximate solution, Minimum time