NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
Rawlsian justice and the challenge of diversity

This thesis examines the role of diversity in a conception of justice. I begin by considering the abstraction from difference involved in the reasoning used to arrive at a conception of justice. I then evaluate the role of social group difference in the application of principles of justice, considering whether justice demands principles that are the same for all in the form of individual rights or whether groups can claim differentiated rights. This thesis uses John Rawls’s original position to evaluate the first question, and his account of the self and social group to discuss the second. I argue that we can and should use the abstraction of the original position, so long as we are aware of its limits. While Rawls’s political conception of the self is also useful for defending individual rights, his account of the social group is inappropriate for cultural or historically oppressed groups, as it relies too heavily on the notion of voluntary association. I follow Will Kymlicka’s argument for minority rights and extend Rawls's theory to consider inequality between groups. I close by considering concerns regarding minorities within minorities, and conclude that minority rights are only justified when they are consistent with individual rights, not when they reinforce a different inequality. Therefore, even though the abstraction at the theoretical level is justified, minority rights for groups will require attention to the differences between groups, as well as within them.

Keyphrases: Rawls, Kymlicka, Rawls, Diversity, Original position, Veil of ignorance, Autonomy, Feminism, Kymlicka, Multiculturalism, Equality
Scheduled service network design for integrated planning of rail freight
transportation

This thesis studies a scheduled service network design problem for rail freight transportation planning. Rails follow a special two level consolidation organization, and the car-to-block, block-to-service handling procedure complicates daily operations. In this research, the two consolidation processes as well as the operation schedule are considered simultaneously, and by solving this problem, we provide an overall cost-effective operating plan, including blocking policy, train routing, scheduling, make-up policy and traffic distribution.  In order to describe various rail operations at the tactical level, we extend the physical network and construct a 3-layer time-space structure, in which the time dimension takes into consideration the temporal impacts on operations. Furthermore, operations on trains, blocks, and cars are described in different layers. Based on this network structure, we model the rail planning problem to a service network design formulation.   The proposed model relies on a complex mixed-integer programming formulation. The problem is very hard to solve due to the computational difficulty as well as the tremendous size of the application instances. Three versions of the problem are studied, which are the simplified model (with only non-stop services), complete model (with both non-stop and multi-stop services) and very-large-scale complete model. Heuristic algorithms are developed to provide good feasible solutions in reasonable computing efforts.  A special case with non-stop services is first studied. According to a specific characteristic of the direct service network design problem, we develop a tabu search algorithm. The tabu search moves in a cycle-based neighborhood, where flows on blocks are re-distributed according to the cycles in a conceptual residual network.  A slope scaling based algorithm is developed for the complete model, and we propose a new method, called ellipsoidal search, to further improve the solution quality. Ellipsoidal search combines the good feasible solutions generated from the slope scaling, and collects the features of good solutions into an elite problem, and solves it with exact solvers. The algorithm thus takes advantage of the convergence speed of slope scaling and solution quality of ellipsoidal search, and is proven effective. The algorithm also presents an alternative for solving the simplified problem.  Finally, we work on the very-large-size complete model. A hybrid heuristic is developed by integrating the ideas of previous research with column generation. We propose a new slope scaling scheme where, compared with the previous scheme, only approximate service costs instead of both service and block costs are considered. The new slope scaling scheme thus separates the block decisions and service decisions, and provide a natural decomposition of the problem. Experiments show the algorithm is good to solve real-life size instances.

Keyphrases: service network design, rail freight transportation, time-dependent network design
Identidty, displacement and embodiment in women's independent cinema

My thesis examines the various forms of displacement resulting from deportation as well as the diasporic experience of dislocation from home and relocation to new socio-cultural spaces in the independent and experimental film and video of Julie Dash, Rea Tajiri, and Trinh T. Minh-ha. I highlight the deconstruction and reconstruction of intercultural identity through travel and the cinematic and narrative techniques or strategies of representations used by these artists to re-imagine identity. I propose new interpretations of women‟s position in different cultural settings in my consideration of dance as a metaphor for the empowerment and reconfiguration of women‟s identities as they distance themselves apart from inherited cultural traditions. Women‟s experiences of history and memory are expressed in the work of Dash, Trinh and Tajiri not only through travel and dance movements, but also in terms of intermedial relations between photography, video and film. The transfers and mutual transformations between these media result in complex depictions of women‟s activities in varying rhythms.

Keyphrases: History, Travel, Dance, Intercultural identities, Intermediality
Vers un outil d'évaluation du langage préscolaire et détecteur de préalables pour l'éducation de base au Cameroun en cas de retard de langage

The study aims at the building of the first normalized language assessment test intended for French-speaking preschoolers living in African countries where language delays are ignored and where there is a lack of public services in speech-language therapy. Being inspired by the format of standardized language tests, and based on language acquisition theories, we developed a tool named Batterie de tests de dépistage approfondi (BATEDA) which combine eleven tests organized in three batteries assessing respectively modalities (BATEM), language components (BATEL) and memory (TMV). From a sample of 159 Cameroonian French-speaking four-to-five-years old children, the tool has been normalized using standard scores technique (the z score and the percentile). Tests have an inter-scorer reliability, an internal consistency of 96% (α de Cronbach=0,958) and a predictive validity of the primary school success of children (r=0,700). The application strategies of BATEDA aim at encouraging the screening of language delays in order to take charge of these difficulties in Cameroon by implicating teachers and parents as main participants. Among the implications of this study, we have the better knowledge of difficulties related to language delays, the better consideration of children affected, the establishment of early screening and language assessment on behalf of intervention, and a potential decrease of the rate of school abandon and expulsion of children with language delays.

Keyphrases: Dépistage, Language test, Language assessment, language screening, Language psychometrics, Language delay, Language development, Primary education
Élaboration et validation empirique d'un modèle de consultation individuelle auprès des enseignants afin de favoriser l'inclusion scolaire des enfants ayant un TDAH

Classroom management interventions, such as behavior and academic strategies, are well-established interventions for improving social behavior and academic skills of children with ADHD (DuPaul & Eckert, 1997; Hoza, Kaiser, & Hurt, 2008; Pelham & Fabiano, 2008; Zentall, 2005). However, bridging the gap between research and practice raises the question of the practicality of interventions. Therefore, results from controlled studies need to be replicated in regular classrooms with a format that takes into account the practicality of the intervention. The aim of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness of a consultation-based program for teachers (CPT), using a problem-solving approach and a functional assessment to support elementary school teachers in the knowledge of the principles, design and implementation of classroom management evidence-based practices for children with ADHD. First, a review of the literature identifying the main interventions for ADHD children is presented. Then, the consultation-based program for regular class teachers involving solutions in the implementation of these evidence-based strategies in the classroom is detailed. Finally, the evaluation of the CPT implemented with thirty-seven child-teacher pairs is presented. All children were diagnosed as ADHD and received a stimulant medication treatment (M). The parents of some of these children had previously participated in a parent-training program (PTP). The final group composition is: M (n = 4); M + PTP (n = 11), M + CPT (n = 11), M + PTP + CPT (n = 11). Findings confirm the effectiveness of the CPT above and beyond M, and M + PTP to prevent the intensification of inappropriate behaviors and to improve academic performance of ADHD children. Results also indicate that teachers who participated in the CPT and had previous continuing education on ADHD showed a significant improvement of their classroom management strategies. Overall findings offer valuable information for discussing clinical implications for the psychosocial treatment of ADHD children.

Keyphrases: Interventions scolaires, Interventions multimodales, Evidence-based practice, School intervention, Multimodal intervention, Teacher consultation-based model, Efficient strategies, Regular classroom, Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
Tendances de l’incapacité chez les aînés vivant dans les ménages privés au Canada, et
caractéristiques sociodémographiques associées, 1994-2005

The ongoing aging of the Canadian population that will accentuate in the coming years will cause a lot of challenges for health care administration and long-term services. However, improved functional health status of the population could reduce the rate of growth in the number of disabled elderly. Using cross-sectional data from the National Population Health Survey (NPHS) and the Health Survey (CCHS), this study analyzes trends in disability levels among people aged 65 years old and over living in private households in Canada between 1994 and 2005, and the sociodemographic characteristics associated with the risk of being disabled. The results show that the prevalence of disability has been declining during the period, and that among people with disability, the proportion with mild disabilities has decreased. Other things being equal, several sociodemographic characteristics increase the risk for an elderly to declare be disabled. These include age, being a woman, low education, and being widowed, separated or divorced. However, important limitations on data quality lead us to interpret these results with caution.

Keyphrases: Canada, Disability, Functional limitations, Functional health, Elderly
An examination of the effects of 4E-T-mediated re-localization of eIF4E on eIF4E
function

The eukaryotic translation initation factor eIF4E (4E) is a potent oncogene due to its ability to facilitate export and/or translation of certain transcripts, many of which are, themselves, oncogenes. 4E has many protein-binding partners including the 4E transporter protein (4ET). The ability to alter the subcellular localization of 4E via 4E-T could offer a mechanism by which to alter the oncogenic potential of a cell. Overexpression of 4E-T in osteosarcoma cells leads to formation of larger and more numerous P-bodies that can effectively colocalize with 4E than either a vector control (E) or a less efficient 4E-binding version of 4E-T (Y30A). However, the overexpression of 4E-T did not affect the 4E’s function as determined by examining global levels of transcription, polysome profile, cytoplasmic/nuclear distribution, or protein levels of most of the transcripts tested. The observation that there was cytoplasmic enrichment and reduced loading of ribosomes on cyclin D1 and ODC transcripts (polysome profile) in the 4ET line suggests a possible 4ETmediated cytoplasmic sequestration of certain transcripts by an as yet to be determined mechanism.

Keyphrases: 4ET, eIF4E, P-body
Grounds for telling it : transnational feminism and Canadian women's writing

This dissertation explores connections between contemporary Canadian women’s writing and transnational feminism. The category of the transnational is increasingly important within Canadian literary criticism, but it is infrequently evoked in relation to feminism. Throughout this thesis, I develop a transnational feminist reading methodology that can be brought to bear on Canadian women’s writing, even as the literature itself participates in and nuances transnational feminist mobilizations of concepts such as complicity, collaboration, silence, and difference. Furthermore, my transnational feminist reading strategy provides a method for the rehistoricization of certain texts and moments in Canadian women’s writing that further allows scholars to trace a genealogy of anti-essentialist feminist expression in Canadian literature.  To this end, I read texts by Daphne Marlatt, Dionne Brand, and Suzette Mayr, alongside Tessera, a collectively-edited journal, and conference proceedings from the 1988 Telling It conference; these texts speak to national and colonial critique, post-colonial and diasporic identities, and the potentials of feminist collaboration across various borders. In the first chapter, I situate my reading methodology by arguing for a transnational feminist understanding of Tessera, a bilingual feminist journal that began publishing in 1984. My second chapter examines the collectively-edited publication that emerged from Telling It in the context of North American feminist evocations of difference in recent decades. Notably, my research on Telling It benefits from rarely-accessed archival material that grounds my discussion of the gaps and silences of collective work. In my third chapter, I perform a close reading of Daphne Marlatt’s 1979 multi-genre text “In the Month of Hungry Ghosts” as it explores the complex connections between colonialism, post-colonialism, complicity and globalization. The subject of my fourth chapter is the 1994 film Listening for Something…, a transnational feminist collaboration between Dionne Brand and Adrienne Rich. Finally, my fifth chapter discusses the place of the transnational in relation to the regional, the national – and the monstrous in the context of Suzette Mayr’s Venous Hum.  In all of these close textual readings, my dissertation asks how Canadian women writers represent, theorize, and critique the kinds of collaboration across differences that lie at the heart of transnational feminist action. My research is therefore located at the crossroads of Canadian literature, contemporary feminist theory, and postcolonial and globalization studies. The vibrant field of transnational feminist theory is relevant to this disciplinary intersection and, furthermore, contemporary Canadian women’s writing provides important interventions from which to imagine transnational feminist collaboration.

Keyphrases: Transnational feminism, Canadian literature, Collaboration, Essentialism, Dionne Brand, Daphne Marlatt, Suzette Mayr, Tessera, Telling It, Women's writing
Mariage et divorce : harmonisation des normes civiles et religieuses dans une perspective de droit préventif

Married couples with strong religious beliefs must respect two parallel legal orders : the state order and the religious order. Conflicts can arise between these two orders, in particular when the parties divorce. A brief presentation of Quebec’s marriage and divorce  laws and catholic, muslim and jewish religious law allows comparison between these systems of law and reveal some normative jonction points. In a preventive law perspective, ways to harmonize these two normative universes are explored : arrangement of the civil marriage contract, of the family mediation’s processus and of the writing of the agreements between partners.

Keyphrases: Divorce, Get, Talak, Marriage in Quebec's law, Religious marriage, Divorce, Get, Talak, Marriage contract, Family mediation, Agreements between partners
L’atorvastatine prévient l’apoptose précoce suivant une lésion contusive médullaire thoracique et favorise la récupération locomotrice

The systemic administration of atorvastatin has been shown to be neuroprotective after spinal cord injury (SCI), by decreasing the inflammatory response at the lesion site and by reducing neuronal and oligodendrocyte apoptosis. The latter effect spares white matter at the injury site and improves locomotion. The aim of this study was to confirm the neuroprotective efficacy of atorvastatin as well as its early action in limiting apoptosis with its administration post-SCI. Female Sprague-Dawley rats received an intra peritoneal injection of: (1) statin/saline (5 mg/kg) at 2 h after the contusion injury; (2) physiological saline at 2 h post-SCI; or (3) physiological saline without injury. Statin-treated rats showed significant (p<0.05) improvement in locomotion at week 4 post-SCI compared to vehicle-treated animals. Explaining this outcome, caspase-3 activity decreased by 50% (p<0.05), and the histological TUNEL method revealed a decrease of approximately 20% in apoptotic cells at the injury site (p<0.01) at 4 h post-SCI in atorvastatin-treated rats in comparison to vehicle-treated controls. These data demonstrate that atorvastatin is effective after experimental spinal cord contusion injury in preventing early apoptosis at the injury site within 2 h post-administration.

Keyphrases: Rats, Locomotion, Atorvastatin, Rats, Spinal cord injury, Apoptosis, Locomotion
L’intérêt de l’enfant : notion polymorphe susceptible d’instrumentalisation ou de détournement : l’exemple de l’avant-projet de Loi modifiant le Code civil et d’autres dispositions législatives en matière d’adoption et d’autorité parentale

The child’s interest is a “polymorphous” notion the limits of which are difficult to define. We postulate at the outset that its polymorphous nature makes it susceptible to instrumentalisation because players in the social sector portray it in ways which serve their interests. The present thesis seeks to demonstrate this using the example of the draft bill of the Act to amend the Civil Code and other legislative provisions as regards adoption and parental authority. The first part of this thesis traces the history of the ever-evolving notion of the child’s interest from the moment of its reception in case law and in Québec adoption laws, to its incorporation in the jus commune following the abrogation of the concept of paternal authority.  Its foundations in English Law, in international law, in the Charters and in natural law are also identified. Finally, as there are multiple elements to the definition of this concept, an attempt is made to conceptualise it, to outline its legal foundations and to analyse its doctrinal and judicial attributes.  In order to test our postulates, the second part of this thesis then examines the presentations of 23 stakeholders at the hearings of the Committee on Institutions with regards to the draft bill mentioned above. In sum, while academics take an approach which is not to insist upon those elements of the child’s interest which coincide with their agenda, the angle taken by professional corporations, pressure groups and para-governmental organisations is quite the opposite.

Keyphrases: adoption, filiation, child's interest, adoption, parental authority, filiation
Le peuplement fondateur de la région de Lotbinière et ses conséquences démogénétiques

A founder effect occurs when a small number of immigrants form a new population and thus the descendants carry a majority of genes from these few ancestors. Québec’s founder effect, which resulted from the settlement of a few thousand French immigrants during the 17th and 18th centuries, is well documented. But regional founder effects have also been identified. This master’s thesis aims to determine whether a regional founder effect is at work in the Lotbinière region (Chaudière-Appalaches), where the initial settlement goes back to the 17th century. With the BALSAC database and the Registre de la population du Québec ancien, two groups of descendants have been set up: 715 individuals married during the late eighteenth century, and 60 others married during the late twentieth century. By reconstituting ascending and descending genealogies, immigrant founders and regional founders of the area have been identified. The results indicate that the regional founder effect still had a strong footprint among the group of eighteenth century descendants, but that this impact diminishes for the contemporary descendants. The homogeneity demonstrated by kinship coefficients and the founder’s uniform number, the small number of regional founders and the fact that 65 % of contemporary genes were already introduced in 1800 are signs that point to a regional founder effect. However, the nonisolation of the region, the moderate proportion of contemporary genes introduced by the first regional founders and inbreeding levels which are similar to other regions of central Quebec, suggest a less straightforward conclusion. In fact, there are possibly two Lotbinière: the old Lotbinière, on the river bank, and the new Lotbinière, inland, each one having its own gene pool and settlement history.

Keyphrases: Genetic contribution, Demogenetics, Historical demography, Founder effect, Population genetics, Registre de la population du Québec ancien, Registre de la population du Québec ancien, BALSAC database, Lotbinière, Lotbinière, Québec, Québec
Lorsque l'imaginaire migratoire rencontre les réalités de la migration : parcours de migrants volontaires et qualifiés de l'Afrique de l'Ouest au Québec

Different realities and contexts in today’s world are causing more and more people to consider migration as a life plan. This study is interested in their imagined migration as a mobility factor, but also as a modulation factor in the reactions and views of migrants in relation to their migration experience. Thus, this study begins in West Africa, where young educated and qualified Africans eagerly plan their migration to Canada, and Quebec in particular. Their migration to Canada is fuelled by a longing to go abroad, representations of the West, their quest for self-fulfillment and the impossibility of achieving their desired career plans in Africa. Although they are filled with a great deal of determination and optimism, the clash between what they imagined and the reality of daily life in Quebec as immigrants and emigrants is not always easy. This study will not only reveal the depth of their dreams, myths and ambitions, but their individual flaws, values and uncertainties, and above all, their ability to re-examine their imagined migration, reclaim the migration experience and make new plans. The difference between the imagined experience and the actual experience will lead us to question what conveys the messages and images that circulate about Canada and the West. Moreover, it will demonstrate the predominance of the factual and psychological preparation undertaken by individuals to anticipate and more readily accept the realities of the migration experience.

Keyphrases: anthropology, sociocultural anthropology, migratory imagination, voluntary migration, skilled migrants, West Africa