NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
Lagrangian-based methods for single and multi-layer multicommodity capacitated network design

The multicommodity capacitated fixed-charge network design problem (MCFND) and the multilayer network design problem (MLND) are among the most important network design problems. In the single-layer MCFND problem, several commodities have to be routed between different origin-destination pairs of a given potential network. Appropriate capacitated links have to be opened to route the commodities. The problem is to find the minimum cost design and routing such that the demands are satisfied and the capacities are respected. In the MLND, there are several potential networks, each at a given layer. In each network, the flow requirements for a set of commodities must be satisfied. However, the selection of the links is interdependent. To open a link in a particular layer, a chain of supporting links in another layer has to be opened. We address the multilayer single flow-type multicommodity capacitated fixed-charge network design problem (MSMCFND), where commodities are routed only in one of the layers. Lagrangian-based algorithms are one of the most effective solution methods to solve network design problems. The traditional Lagrangian relaxations for the MCFND problem are the flow and knapsack relaxations, where the resulting Lagrangian subproblems decompose by commodity and by arc, respectively. We present new node-based relaxations, where the resulting subproblem decomposes by node. We show that the Lagrangian dual bound improves significantly upon the bounds of the traditional relaxations. We also propose a Lagrangian-based algorithm to obtain upper bounds. Network design problems have been the object of extensive literature reviews. However, in recent years, interesting applications of multilayer problems have appeared that are not covered in these surveys. We present a review of multilayer problems and propose a general formulation for the MLND. We also propose a general formulation and an efficient Lagrangian-based solution methodology for the MMCFND problem. The method is competitive with (and often significantly better than) a state-of-the-art mixedinteger programming solver on a large set of randomly generated instances.

Keyphrases: Network design, Multilayer network design, Lagrangian relaxation, Subgradient method, Bundle method, Mixed-integer programming
The architectural nature of the illustrated books of Iliazd : (Ilia Zdanevich, 1894-1975)

This dissertation proposes the application of Le Corbusier’s conception of the architectural promenade to a selection of four distinctive illustrated books conceived and produced by Iliazd (Ilia Zdanevich, 1894-1975, born Tiflis, Georgia). The four books examined in this study are Pismo (1948), Poésie de mots inconnus (1949), Chevaux de minuit (1956), and Le Courtisan grotesque (1974). While all of Iliazd’s editions featured carefully conceived structures and integrations of typeset texts and engraved elements, as opposed to the largely generic designs of his contemporaries, each of these four books in particular presents successive variations of atypical page foldings. The experimental structures of these books allow for their justifiable designation as architectural constructions, as scholars have previously recognized. The complex architectonics of the books demands a critical vocabulary of the kind Le Corbusier’s architectural promenade, which has been broadly proposed as the basis for the structures of his buildings, provides. The architectural promenade in effect asserts a chain of elements which guide the explorer of Le Corbusier’s buildings to successive perspective points, which present views of internal and external spaces during an ascent from entry level to rooftop.  Flora Samuel wrote a monograph (The Elements of Le Corbusier’s Architectural Promenade, 2010) in which she proposed five stages for the promenade. Modifications of her stages are used for the present study, altered for the transition from building to book. These stages, some of which are descriptive and some analytical, while presented as the likely experience of a general viewer, are based on my individual understanding of all the details of the structures of these books. The complex structures, while fascinating, are not an end in themselves, but rather the enabling support of an individual aesthetic experience. This study asserts that the architectural promenade illuminates the experience of Iliazd’s unique conception of the illustrated book, enabling a hitherto unparalleled appreciation of their complexity.

Keyphrases: Iliazd (Ilia Zdanevich), 1884-1975, Samuel, Flora, Pismo (1948), Poésie de mots inconnus (1949), Chevaux de minuit (1956), Le Courtisan grotesque (1974), Architectural promenade, Illustrated deluxe edition
Montréal fantasmagorique : illuminations monumentales et récits de ville au début du XXIe siècle

In this doctoral thesis, I examine how large-scale lighting is used to organize and perform urban space, be it through architectural lighting, mapping-based video projections, or LED screens and other light-producing devices, all of which I regard as embodiments of the myths, values and desires that circulate within the cities where they operate. In my analysis of the visual artifices produced by large-scale lighting and the relationship this type of lighting maintains with the commodification of the city, I invoke phantasmagoria, here understood both as a theoretical idea, and as a practice. I thus deploy multiple meanings of the word “phantasmagoria”: to describe the 19th-century magic lantern plays where ghostly figures seemed to fly into the audience, and its use by Walter Benjamin in his later writings, where it refers to the sheen specific to urban modernity, that palpable expression of economy within a culture. This thesis includes three Montréal-based case studies: Quartier des spectacles’s lighting strategy, the Cité Mémoire video projection itinerary, and the Jacques-Cartier Bridge’s lighting system, Connexions vivantes. Each of these cases allows for a better understanding of digital creativity’s role in Montréal’s international outreach strategy, as well as the ways large-scale lighting can lend visibility to discourses such as those concerning the “cultural metropolis” and the “smart city”. Through these case studies, I am able to identify certain characteristics of contemporary phantasmagoria, phenomena that embody the desire for total environments, the fiction that society is devoid of social unrest, and a reification of technique.

Keyphrases: Montréal, Quartier des spectacles, Cité Mémoire, Connexions vivantes, Walter Benjamin, phantasmagoria, light, urban lighting, image of the city, reenchantement
La surprise partagée au cinéma : contours d’une poétique

This thesis focuses on what we chose to call the “shared surprise”. This singular poetic modality concerns the surprises that partially share their execution with the spectator. We must hear “share” in the sense of “giving a part”: offering an invitation behind the scenes of the fiction, to afterward share not only the surprise to come, but mostly the pleasure of its invention and execution.  As any surprise causes a reconfiguration of our knowledge of the world – whether it’s fictional or not –, we will ask ourselves if the shared surprise would also provoke a reconfiguration of the rules upon which depended the fictional feint. Would this surprise invite to enjoy the events and twists from another point of view, maybe from an oblique angle, simultaneously facing the representation – playing along – and looking from its margins – accomplice of its tricks?   Situated in the poetic field, this research will lead us to observe the effects of the surprise as a rupture within the plot and as an unannounced occurrence affecting the feint and the film images upon which it is based. The analyses, organized around different artificiality indicators (“novelistic”, “theatrical”, “cinematographic spectacular”), will be the occasion to observe how the “shared surprise” problematizes the relations between the verisimilitude and the implausible, the illusion and the artifice, and also, between the credible and the incredible. Is the object of the surprise hidden in the ideal of a character, in an adjacent representation, or simply in the reality? These are the questions that will be asked throughout the analyses, allowing us to better define both this surprise that announces itself in an accomplice way and its effects on the fictional game.  By analysing the artificial part of the films from the larger sense of “novelistic”, “theatrical” and “spectacular”, we propose to observe how poetic art may invite oneself to adopt certain “ways of being” in the world, certain attitudes toward it. Inversely, we will also observe how those “ways of being” can mediate poetic works: mobilizing the novelistic as an attitude or placing the theatrical at the center of the representation. While the “novelistic” and the “theatrical” often have a pejorative sense, indicating insanity, delusion, or also excessive and unnatural behaviors, we will advance that those two attitudes do not necessarily chase away the reality and that they can even be the guarantee of a sustained attention to reality, a welcoming attention to its surprises.

Keyphrases: Cinema, Novelistic, Theatrical, Surprise, Fiction
Ottawa, Brasília, Astana : the invention of capital cities in Canada, Brazil, and Kazakhstan (1850-2000)

This doctoral thesis aims to study the construction, both physically and symbolically, of newly established and relocated capital cities in Brazil, Canada, and Kazakhstan from the mid-nineteenth century up until the late twentieth century. The research adopts a comparative approach that is informed by perspectives from cultural and political history, the history of architecture, and urban planning. The investigation is grounded in what this thesis claims to be the three sine qua non phases of construction in contemporary capital cities: (a) legislative and executive activities geared toward choosing new sites of government; (b) the adoption of architectural and planning designs for governmental buildings or districts which seek to represent the State in these new sites of government; and (c) inauguration ceremonies for the newly-appointed capital cities in the form of large state-sponsored events, designed to promote the new loci of political power. The exploration of these three historical aspects not only enables one to efficiently grasp the difference between capital cities and other types of cities but also provides an advantageous angle from which to explore the link between statehood and cityhood, as these interact and co-construct each other within the space of contemporary capital cities. Through an analysis of the three phases in three capital cities I propose to rethink the intellectual and political projects of elites and individuals who were involved in the process of each capital’s elaboration, in order to understand how their aspirations and political projects were translated into the material reality of the cities that would be defined as ‘capitals.’ Previous studies essentially regarded capital cities as a by-product of the development of nation-states or empires, taken as separate and unrelated cases, or explored the symbolic meaning of capital cities through a study of their geographical, architectural, and planning arrangements. This thesis strives to demonstrate that the emergence of at least three contemporary capital cities was due to complex and entangled relationships between former empires and current nation-states, for these were also based on the ongoing exclusion of those groups of people who did not fit easily within the official representations of national identity which the ruling elites were attempting to forge.

Keyphrases: Histoire comparative, Capital city, Comparative history, History of nation-states
Représentation et altérité : la vision du païen par les chrétiens latins de Charlemagne aux croisades de Prusse

Paganism was a European reality for most of the medieval period. Missionaries and monarchs worked to reduce it through proselytism, conquest and assimilation of the various pagan populations. Many texts bear witness to these contacts between Christians and idolaters, while the chroniclers, recounting great events of their time, had no choice but to speak of the conflicts that broke out between them. Possessing writing unlike their pagans’ counterparts, Latin Christians thus left their vision of these strange adversaries. Tinged with numerous filters, the latter in no way represented historical reality, but rather the perception maintained by the elite with regard to heathenism.  Thus, in this study, we propose to study this vision of otherness, while we examine the accounts of these contacts between Christianity and their pagan neighbours. Focusing on the period between 772 and 1283, we propose a case study, composed of four sets. In the first chapter, Charlemagne’s war against the Saxons between 772 and 804 will be discussed. Then, we will approach the Slavs who were fought by the Ottonians and the Salians between the Xth century and the great revolt of 1066. Third, we will focus on the Wendes against whom crusades were carried out between 1147 and 1185. Finally, we will conclude this analysis with a study of the Prussians during the crusades against them in the 13th century.  By a qualitative analysis of the vocabulary used to characterize the heathens, we can highlight certain characteristics attributed to them, allowing, in conclusion, a comparative analysis thereby allowing a portrait of the evolution of the representation of pagans.

Keyphrases: Religion, Saxons, Wendes, Pagan, Paganism, Heathen, Heathenism, Representation, Slavs, Prussians
Relations interterritoriales, hydroélectricité et pouvoir : le cas du fleuve Churchill au Labrador

The hydroelectric development of the Churchill River in Labrador is a story of ongoing conflict between the provinces of Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador. The dispute originated from the signature of the contract on May 12, 1969 between Hydro-Québec and Churchill Falls Corporation (Labrador), which guarantees close to the entire capacity of the Churchill Falls dam to Hydro-Québec. This electricity is sold to Hydro-Québec at ridiculous rates for a period of 65 years, that is until 2041. Very few studies contribute to understanding the political and border context in which this situation was unfolded and how these impact the identities and the territory of each province. Moreover, the vast literature on hydroelectricity in Quebec does not include the major contribution of the Churchill Falls dam in its hydroelectric development. The central objective of this dissertation is thus to understand how interterritorial contexts in which the Churchill River was developed affect the territories and identities of both sides of the Labrador border. To meet this objective, a historical and geographic analysis of the Churchill River hydroelectric development and its consequences will be conducted. Conceptually, this research demonstrates the importance of interterritoriality in understanding the construction of territories and identities and the changing nature of borders. Interterritoriality is in this case initiated by the "joint" hydroelectric development project between the provinces of Quebec and Newfoundland, Churchill Falls, as well as with the contract governing the interterritorial relationship. This research demonstrates through many empirical examples that this interterritoriality is first influenced by the borders and identities but that it also contributes to their construction. Empirically, this research demonstrates that the Churchill Falls hydroelectric project primarily contributed to the development of more hydroelectric projects in the province of Quebec. This thesis confirms that this situation is explained by the power of the Government of Quebec on the border territory of the Churchill River which allows it to control this territory. Thus, Churchill Falls allows the reproduction of the territory of hydroelectric dams in Quebec which is central to the construction of the Quebec identity projected by Hydro-Québec and the Government of Quebec. The Quebec identity associated with its national pride, which comes initially from its hydroelectric development in Northern Quebec, is finally also the result of a hydroelectric dam located outside its formal borders.

Keyphrases: Churchill Falls, Québec, Canada, Hydroelectricity, Interterritoriality, Territory, Borders, Power, Identity, Nationalism, Churchill Falls, Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, Canada
Culturalisme libéral et républicanisme néo-romain : réponses normatives à la diversité culturelle et religieuse

This dissertation examines the responses that liberal culturalism and neo-Roman republicanism provide to the question of what position the democratic state should adopt in contexts characterized by the presence of individuals and groups who have different cultural and religious commitments to those of the majority culture and religion. Our study consists of an original and comparative theoretical reconstruction of the answers given to this question by eight dominant political theories within these two currents. Concerning liberal culturalism, this dissertation examines the answers given by the liberal theory of minority rights (Kymlicka), the perfectionist theory (Raz), the nationalist theory (Tamir) and the neutralist theory (Patten). Regarding the neo-Roman republicanism, this dissertation examines the theory of freedom and government (Pettit), the deliberative theory (Maynor), the critical theory (Laborde) and the republican patriotism (Viroli, Habermas and Laborde). This research is intended to contribute to the clarification and systematization of these theories and defend the idea that liberalism and republicanism are both philosophically compatible with the government consideration of cultural and religious diversity, in particular because of the adaptation of their fundamental principles to the contemporary pluricultural reality.

Keyphrases: Multiculturalism, Liberalism, Republicanism, Cultural and Religious Diversity, Normative Political Philosophy
La conscience linguistique dans la production littéraire en domaine picard (fin XIIe-fin XIIIe siècle)

This thesis examines how trouvères of Artois chose the Picard as their writing language, unique for its strong dialectal coloration. Based on a scripta, naturally Franco-Picard, the research explores linguistic behaviour and discursive practices in Arras, a catalyst and accelerator of literary and linguistic innovations, from the end of the twelfth until the end of the thirteenth century. At the crossroads of complementary perspectives on the Picard literature and language, the concept of linguistic awareness is verified in the connection between linguistic diversity and common linguistic usage (koinè), where the speaker takes a stand based on his own representation of the linguistic situation. Although the promotion of the vernacular is relatively generalized in the oïl territory, in the Picard area, particularly in urban area (Arras), it is characterized by the stability, the vitality and the longevity of its scripta. A town, where the consciousness of belonging to a group, especially by its mode of literary production, generates a distinctive linguistic identity and attests the premise of a Lokalpatriotismus, identified by Charles Th. Gossen. Across linguistic diversity and variation, the analysis is structured using the variational grid (W. Labov) in four dimensions: diachronic, diatopic, diastratic and diaphasic. The results reveal different markers of linguistic awareness and demonstrate that these speakers, this community of speakers, affirm their attachment to their city and to their linguistic differentiation, thus testifying to an unprecedented sociolinguistic cohesion.

Keyphrases: Fin XIIe-fin XIIIe siècle, Linguistic awareness, Old Picard, Arras literary corpus, The 12th and the 13th century, Linguistic variation
La théâtralisation de l'exil dans la dramaturgie migrante au Québec (1980-2010)

Migrant literature brings together texts of immigrant authors speaking of the experience of exile, and the difficulty of adapting to the host country, until the emergence of a plural identity : this is an often disturbing experience in which the exiled person is divided between discordant identities. Migrant literature, and especially migrant novels, have often been analyzed in the Québec context. We have chosen to focus on the experience of exile as it is represented in Québec theatre, on the assumption that the theatrical genre brings something specific to the treatment of an already widespread theme. Our study is based on three key concepts in drama : character, space, and time. Highly problematized in contemporary dramatic art, these three concepts are also at the heart of exiles’ experience : exiles are oxymoronic characters, both plural and spectral, caught between the space/times of their country of origin and host country. In our view, this convergence, both formal and thematic, makes theatre a privileged genre to deal with exile. Our research is the first general study of this subject, covering playwrights of various origins who have had an impact, to varying degrees, on the Québec theatre scene between 1980 and 2010 : Marco Micone, Abla Farhoud, Wajdi Mouawad, Pan Bouyoucas and Miguel Retamal. Through a comparative analysis of their plays, we focus on the social aspect of exile as we examine how the works incorporate, and sometimes dramatize, the various stages of the exile’s experience : from the dream of a new country to dispossession of identity, intergenerational rupture, and social dissolution – but also to the emergence of a migrant identity that might transcend the exile’s identity and family split.

Keyphrases: exil, transmission, migrant drama, Québec theatre, migrant literature, contemporary theatre, exile, dispossession, plurality, border, transmission
Une route à soi : représentations et récits de fugitives de la Belle Époque à la Seconde Guerre mondiale

Major Western metropolises saw the birth of multiple new modes of transportation (bicycles, cars and airplanes) during the years between the Belle Époque and the Second World War. Whilst they appeared, for contemporaries, to satisfy a need for speed and freedom, they have also been criticized when women seized those symbols of technological progress. At the time, transportation methods were strongly associated with masculinity due to their ties with modernity and their use in the public space. By using them, female cyclists, motorists and aviatrix then transgressed societal and sexual norms and were often related to the female emancipation phenomenon and the modern woman figure. By focusing on female users of those vehicles, which we call fugitives, we will redefine the term « modern woman », as it has rarely been seen through the prism of technical abilities. This reformulation will be grounded, on one part, on the literary, visual and cinematographic representations of the fugitives and on the other part on texts written by female writers having experienced new modes of transportation. This study will define the fugitive’s imaginary ; the way she was perceived and staged in her day and how it participated in a reconfiguration of the feminine identity, a topic of great interest in the early 20th century.

Keyphrases: Fugitive, Imaginaire social, Modern woman, Modernity, Social imagination, Representation, Bicycle, Car, Airplane, 20th century literature