NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
Conflicts and order : controversies over municipal solid waste incineration in China

The past few decades have witnessed the growth of controversies regarding municipal solid waste (MSW) incineration in many cities around the world. This is especially true when it comes to large and medium-sized cities in China. Various categories of actors—including the state, local authorities, market actors, and the civil society—seek to exert their influence on the construction, expansion, and/or operation of incinerators. Even though the controversies over MSW incineration have been discussed across a range of disciplines in previous literature, we are not in the presence of a sufficient collective understanding of stability and change of the meso-level social order. This dissertation addresses the following question: How and to what extent do interactions and competition between pro-incineration and anti-incineration groups contributes to defining a strategic action field (SAF) where the incineration-dominated industrial structure and waste disposal policies are challenged or maintained? To answer the question, this study considers MSW incineration in China an SAF and attempts to clarify what is happening in this SAF from three aspects: actors, strategic action, and policy impacts. Based on a qualitative research design, a great volume of primary and secondary data were collected, including 42 semi-structured interviews, 557 online posts, research reports, archival materials, environmental impact assessment reports, online news, statistical data, and policy documents. With the help of collected data, this study deepened the understanding of the relationship between proponents and opponents in the field of incineration and shed light on their respective arguments. In addition, the process through which activists used social media for consensus mobilization was given additional attention. Moreover, by analyzing the dynamics of the interplay between activists and policy makers, this study revealed and contextualized the evolution of the SAF over the past few decades. The findings showed that controversies around MSW incineration had gone beyond the concerns for personal interests and environmental well-being. This allows to introduce more refined explanations compared to conventional discourses regarding anti-incineration protests and provide a more nuanced understanding of local activism. This exploratory analysis also helped to better understand the political and social significance of public controversies through local practices of MSW management. In a broad sense, this dissertation makes it possible to review the usual conceptions with regard to the relations between conflict and order.

Keyphrases: Action collective, Municipal solid waste incineration, Strategic action field, Collective action, Social order, China
Ecos en la escritura. Tecnología y experiencia en la novela latinoamericana de vanguardia

Ecos en la escritura (Echoes in Writing) explores how the Latin American avant-garde novels represent a type of modern experience. Drawing from the ideas of Walter Benjamin, we define “experience” as a way of making sense of a series of perceptions and bodily affections, on the one hand, and of a certain historical discourse and historicity, on the other. From the 19th century and first decades of the 20th, experience is radically transformed as a result of the emergence of new media and inscription technologies, such as the photography and the cinema, the phonograph, the typewriter, and the radio. In dialogue with the media theorists Friedrich Kittler and Katherine Hayles, and, in Latin American contexts, with the writings of Rubén Gallo and Flora Süssekind, we analyze a group of Latin American avant-garde novels to show the effects of inscription technology on the modalities of literary representation.  The corpus includes the following novels: Los siete locos (1929) y Los lanzallamas (1931) by Roberto Arlt; Cubagua (1931) by Enrique Bernárdo Núñez; La casa de cartón (1928) by Martín Adán; Un año (1935) and Ayer (1935) by Juan Emar; Débora (1927) by Pablo Palacio; Museo de la novela de la Eterna (1925/1967) by Macedonio Fernández. We read the new modalities of representation as a contestation of the modes of representations embodied in the 19th century realist novel, still prevalent in the early 20th century. In our presentation of these novels’ representation of the profound shift in experience, we have organized the chapters to demonstrate the move away from the realism and the progressive incursions of inscription technologies.  Media technologies first appear as a theme or in a more subtle descriptions of perceptions for the characters, and are later shown to affect the modalities of representation, the very quality of writing, and to inspire a meta-narrative turn that effectively dissolves the diegesis typical of the popular realist novel. Finally, the avant-garde concern for media turns to the novel’s material substratum, the printed book, whose disappearance allows for others forms of inspirations to appear. Throughout this research on the Latin American avant-garde we think about the effects of technology on the constitution and formation of experience, and about the relations between experience and forms of representation.

Keyphrases: Avant-garde, Novel, Inscription technology, Media, Experience, Novela, Novel, Inscription technology, Media, Experience, Novela
Captive bodies, dissident voices : carcerality and resistance in third-world women's narratives

This dissertation seeks to produce new understandings of the “carceral” as a mode of subject formation and social production that captures and contains subjects, collectivities, emancipatory alternatives, and imaginative capacities. Drawing on “Third-World” women’s narratives (We Lived to Tell : Azadeh Agah, Sousan Mehr, Shadi Parsi, 2007 ; Memoirs from the Women’s Prison : Nawal El Saadawi, 1984 ; Imaginary Maps : Mahasweta Devi, 1994 ; Zoo City : Lauren Beukes, 2010 ; Moxyland : Lauren Beukes, 2008), this dissertation investigates multiple tropes and sites of imprisonment, enclosure, subjection, and immobilization that reinforce carceral logics and impede collective agency. Through a multidisciplinary examination of carceral arrangements that include punitive institutions, heteronormative nation states, patriarchal discourses, sexual trafficking, debt bondage, global capital, political dehumanization, digital surveillance, and corporate violence, this dissertation offers a gendered critique of the local and global, micropolitical and macropolitical mechanisms of violence against captive subjects and precarious communities. The dissertation also invites a rereading of carceral narratives that enable the reinvention of vocabularies, ethics, and practices of resistance and the emergence of collective liberatory projects that transgress the political, social, discursive, and epistemological confines of the neoliberal agenda. Through its different theoretical frameworks, this dissertation engages in a critical dialogue between literary, feminist, postcolonial, and materialist studies in order to elucidate new ways of thinking about carcerality, freedom, and resistance.

Keyphrases: Études postcoloniales, Carcerality, Women's Writing, Resistance, Female Body, Materialisms, Postcolonial Theory, Transnational Feminism, Ethics, Biopower
L’étiologie des comportements antisociaux : une étude prospective de la contribution des gènes sérotoninergiques et de la violence parentale

Background. The etiology of antisocial behaviors is complex, and likely vary across the life course. While the multifactorial nature of these phenotypes is clear, uncertainties remain as to which genes are involved whether or not these genes interact with putative pathogenic environments. Aim. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the unique and joint contributions of serotonergic genes and parental violence in three developmental periods: childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. Methodology. Data were from 410 male members of the Quebec Longitudinal Study of Kindergarten Children, who were prospectively followed from kindergarten to early adulthood. Antisocial behaviors were assessed in childhood (7-12 years), adolescence (15 years) and early adulthood (21 years) using a multi-method and multi-informant strategy, including teacher ratings, clinical interviews and self-report questionnaires. Negative binominal regressions were used to investigate the main and interaction effects between the cumulative indexes encompassing 11 serotonergic candidate genes (HTR1A, HTR2A, HTR2C, HTR5A, HTR6, HTR7, SLC6A4, MAOA, MAOB, TPH-1, TPH-2), two forms of parental violence – child-directed and child-witnessed parental violence – and antisocial behaviors. Results. Haplotype-based cumulative genetic indexes explained between 2% and 8% of the variance in antisocial behaviors, measured in childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. Moreover, these multigenic serotonergic risk indexes moderated, in some instances, the association between parental violence and antisocial outcomes. Conclusions. This thesis offers additional support suggesting that the serotonergic candidate genes may be involved in the etiology of antisocial behaviors. It also provides further evidence that these genes may interact with parental violence in antisocial social behaviors exhibited in childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. However, these interactions did not arise uniformly and took multiple forms. Overall, our findings suggest that the investigation of the genetic and environmental etiology of antisocial behaviors should be pursued to better delineate their synergic effect, if any, and to eventually mobilize this knowledge to inform the search of the underlying mechanisms and to improve our theoretical and conceptual models.

Keyphrases: Violence parentale subie, Antisocial behaviors, Serotonergic genes, Child-directed parental violence, Child-witnessed parental violence
Une (sur)vie de colon – en quête d’une conquête : dynamiques identitaires et territoriales de la culture coloniale québécoise

There is an emerging trend in social movements, territories and collectives in struggle, as well as in several fields of social sciences and to a certain extent in popular culture. It concerns the need to rethink relationships to the land and the living, and more generally relationships to the earth. In opposition to the productivist and extractivist diktats of colonial liberalism, many invoke the need for a renewed way of dwelling, anchored in the land: a dwelling in touch and in phase with its milieu. Although fruitful in many respects, such forms of dwelling cannot remain impervious to anti-colonial or decolonial critiques, which underline the way in which innocent or romantic relationships to colonized territories entail a reproduction of coloniality. This thesis studies this general problematic as it unfolds in the contemporary Quebec settlement colony. Each chapter deals with an example (or a composition of related examples), problematizing both its actual dimensions (historicity, socio-cultural context, political forces, discourses and practices) and its virtual dimensions (more abstract tendencies relating to a certain level of generalization). An account is developed that includes : 1) the breviary of miscegenation, contacts and alliances   strongly mobilized by Franco-descendant society in a "horizontal" and flattening manner to make sense of its relationships with Indigenous peoples and to inscribe its trajectory on the American land; 2) various conceptions of the political action which, each in their own way, underlie a total refusal and a conception of the collective formation not based on communitarian nor identitarian relationships; 3) the figure of the « colon » as it emerges within the radical neo-nationalist wave of the 1960s and 1970s; 4) the possibilities of an anticolonial dwelling, in particular through a shift in the question of foundation and origin. Each chapter can be understood as offering a cross-section of the general problematic, while adding concrete and material dimensions to it. No imposing thetic outcome is aimed for. Instead, the thesis is driven by a requirement: to expose and investigate a problem by addressing both its actual and virtual dimensions, attempting to add perspective reviving the roughness of the real, adding complexity and texture to it. The thesis takes the form of an essay aiming to elaborate and deepen the colonial problem (starting from its identitarian and territorial implications), consolidating our grasp of it so that, faced with its often paradoxical conditions, repercussions and effects, we, « colons », can and should opt to initiate a clear and radical break with it.

Keyphrases: culture, privilège, settler colonialism, identity, territory, miscegenation, earth, materialism, constructivism, power, resistance, privilege
Nouvelles exploitations des tétrazoles comme précurseurs en synthèse organique: accès aux morpholines, cyanamides et produits naturels

Nitrogen-containing rings are core entities in the living world. This theme is conveyed in the manuscript through tetrazoles and morpholines. Morpholines are saturated azacycles possessing numerous physico-chemical and structural properties, which makes them a motif of interest in medicinal chemistry. The impact of morpholines is even more important as pharmaceutical industries try to avoid overuse of unsaturated rings in favor of saturated motifs that allow for more complex structures in the three dimensions. Therefore, development of new methods to access morpholines is an ongoing activity in many laboratories. The approach presented herein relies on the hydride reduction of oxabicyclic tetrazoles to morpholines. A detailed mechanism of the reductive cleavage of the tetrazole unit is presented. Cyanamides are endowed with an ambident electronic character that adds value to this functional group. They are widely used in drug design as covalent inhibitors. Even though cyanamides were discovered in late 19th century, their synthesis has traditionally relied on the cyanation of amines using toxic cyanide reagents. 1-Substituted 5-metalotetrazoles undergo rapid cycloreversion releasing dinitrogen and forming N-metalated cyanamide salts. The salts can be isolated or alkylated in situ, providing a new method for accessing cyanamides without the use of cyanide reagents. The obtained cyanamides could be subjected to an addition reaction with organolithium reagents, thereby yielding novel amidines. The alkaloid Polygonapholine is a 2,6-disubstituted morpholine isolated in 1997. The reported structure has never been confirmed, nor has the natural product been synthesized in the laboratory. Efforts towards its total synthesis and stereochemical confirmation is presented in the last chapter of the thesis.

Keyphrases: morpholine, cyanamide, amidine, Polygonapholine, tetrazole, reductive cleavage, mechanistic study, total synthesis
Iiyiyiw iituun : l’alternative patrimoniale des Iyiyiwch (Cris du Québec) : stratégie d’auto-patrimonialisation et reconfigurations épistémologiques, politiques et ontologiques

This doctoral thesis proposes an intracultural study of the relations that a First Nation, the Iyiyiwch (Cree of Quebec), have with the concept of heritage and the process of heritage creation, or heritagization, of their own culture. My research shows how the Iyiyiwch implemented a self-heritagization strategy at the level of the Cree Nation Government in the context of their discussion with the Government of Quebec on the one hand and what are the concrete manifestations of this strategy at the level of a community, Waswanipi in this case, on the other hand. Through this comparative approach, my thesis puts forward the choices of politicians and administrative officials, families, and persons in charge of other central groups in the iyiyiw world (groups of hunters and religious groups) to define themselves what heritage could be, mostly in relation with the concept of iiyiyiw iituun ('iyiyiw way of doing'). The self-heritagization strategy of the Iyiyiwch is dedicated to ensuring that they themselves take charge, with or without the heritage tools available in Quebec, the process of heritage creation of their culture, that is to say the updating, transmission, protection and enhancement of their local knowledge (oral tradition, hunting and forestry knowledge, and ritual knowledge), according to iyiyiwch epistemological, ontological and political principles and with the aim, in priority, of achieving their objectives, addressing their needs and concerns. The thesis shows that this strategy creates dynamics of homogenization and particularization of the local knowledge and its practices, as well as dynamics of inclusion and exclusion of the local knowledge and its practices between the different conceptions of iiyiyiw iituun. It also demonstrates that it is the relationships the Iyiyiwch continue to maintain in their world that constitute the frame of reference for all these reconfigurations. The thesis thus proposes to consider this context specific to the Iyiyiwch as an alternative approach to what heritage could be today in the Indigenous worlds, but also in Quebec, in Canada and at the internation level.

Keyphrases: iiyiyiw iituun, alternative, Heritage, strategy of self-heritagization, local knowledge, epistemological, ontological, and political principles, alternative
Développement d’une nouvelle stratégie neuroprotectrice efficace et d’une méthode de quantification précoce non invasive des lésions de la matière blanche cérébrale immature sur un modèle animal

Very premature infants are particularly vulnerable to inflammatory white matter injury (WMI) which increases the risk of long-term cognitive and neurodevelopmental disorders in this population. The use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in this population has allowed non-invasive assessment of the progression of WMI and a better understanding of the pathology. WMI is associated with activation of microglia and astrocytes and the production of pro-inflammatory mediators, including interleukin 1 (IL-1). Using a model of inflammatory WMI induced by intracerebral injection of lipopolysaccharides (LPS), we first evaluated the changes in DNA methylation during the acute phase (24 h) and the chronic phase (21 days) of inflammation. We then determined the ability of multimodal MRI to detect the lesion and the therapeutic response to an IL-1 receptor antagonist. Finally, using an antagonist and an allosteric modulator of the IL-1 receptor, we evaluated in vitro the contribution of IL-1 signaling during the acute phase of the modulation of microglia and astrocytes activation by LPS. We have shown the presence of persistent alteration DNA methylation profile in the brain that was associated with pathways involved in neurodevelopment and immune response. In addition, the application of multimodal MRI in our model made it possible to evaluate in vivo the lesion and the therapeutic response during the acute phase (24 h) of the inflammation. The changes at the MRI correlated to post-mortem evaluation by immunostaining. In vitro, LPS induce a mixed response of microglia and astrocytes which evolved over time toward a pro-inflammatory and neurotoxic phenotype. Although IL-1 is highly expressed by microglia and astrocytes, its inhibition has a limited effect on the modulation of glial activation due to the multitude of pathways activated by LPS during the acute phase of inflammation.

Keyphrases: Astrocyte, Lipopolysaccharides, Astrocyte, DNA methylation, Interleukin 1 receptor antagonist, Lipopolysaccharides, Magnetic resonance imaging, Microglia, Periventricular leukomalacia
Acclimatation aux appareils auditifs par les personnes âgées avec perte auditive

Hearing aids (HAs) are the primary rehabilitation intervention recommended for older adults with hearing loss, as they provide a wide range of benefits. However, a large proportion of individuals who own HAs does not use or underuse them. The most recurring reason reported by non-HA users is their difficulty to understand conversations in noisy environments even when they use HAs. It is unclear if these individuals tried to use their HAs for an extended period of time before abandoning their use. If they gave up too soon after being fitted with their HAs they may not have benefited from an auditory adaptation to the new auditory stimulation, referred to as auditory acclimatization. The main objective of this thesis is to evaluate the contribution of HA experience on auditory acclimatization. The first study aimed to determine, by means of a systematic review, if an acclimatization effect occurs after HA use and if so, to establish the magnitude and time-course of this effect. Fourteen articles that assessed acclimatization through behavioural, self-reported and physiological outcomes met the inclusion and the exclusion criteria. Although their general scientific quality was low or very low, the results of systematic review support the existence of an acclimatization effect as calculated by all three types of outcome measures. For speechrecognition- in-noise performance, improvement ranged from 2 to 3 dB in signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) over a minimum period of 1-month. This study highlights the importance of using the HAs on a regular basis after being fitted with HAs. The goal of the second study was to conduct a longitudinal investigation in order to determine whether acclimatization to HAs by older adults can be assessed data obtained on a speech-recognition-in-noise task and by measures of listening effort. Thirty-two new HA users and 15 experienced HA users were tested over a 38-week period using a dual-task paradigm. For new HA users, the results showed a significant improvement of 2 dB SNR on a speech-recognitionin- noise task after 4 weeks of using the HAs post fitting. Based on the proportional dual-task cost data and by the response time measures recorded on the secondary task. No improvement of speech perception performance in noise was observed for the experienced HA users. 8 The general findings from this thesis support the presence of an acclimatization effect as measured by behavioural, self-reported and physiological measures following regular HA use. Specifically, new HA users show a clinically significant change of 2 and 3 dB SNR on speechrecognition- in noise tasks following their initial fitting. Therefore, new HA users should be informed of the possible improvement in speech recognition over time, as it could entice them to pursue the use of their HAs for a longer period of time before deciding to abandon them.

Keyphrases: adaptation, hearing aids, hearing loss, acclimatization, older adults, speech in noise, listening effort, dual-task paradigm