NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
Analyse d’information tridimensionnelle issue de systèmes multi-caméras pour la détection de la chute et l’analyse de la marche

This thesis is concerned with defining new clinical investigation method to assess the impact of ageing on motricity. In particular, this thesis focuses on two main possible disturbance during ageing : the fall and walk impairment. This two motricity disturbances still remain unclear and their clinical analysis presents real scientist and technological challenges. In this thesis, we propose novel measuring methods usable in everyday life or in the walking clinic, with a minimum of technical constraints. In the first part, we address the problem of fall detection at home, which was widely discussed in previous years. In particular, we propose an approach to exploit the subject’s volume, reconstructed from multiple calibrated cameras. These methods are generally very sensitive to occlusions that inevitably occur in the home and we therefore propose an original approach much more robust to these occultations. The efficiency and real-time operation has been validated on more than two dozen videos of falls and lures, with results approaching 100 % sensitivity and specificity with at least four or more cameras. In the second part, we go a little further in the exploitation of reconstructed volumes of a person at a particular motor task : the treadmill, in a clinical diagnostic. In this section we analyze more specifically the quality of walking. For this we develop the concept of using depth camera for the quantification of the spatial and temporal asymmetry of lower limb movement during walking. After detecting each step in time, this method makes a comparison of surfaces of each leg with its corresponding symmetric leg in the opposite step. The validation performed on a cohort of 20 subjects showed the viability of the approach.

Keyphrases: Gait analysis, fall detection, multiple cameras, depth camera
Peut-on vouloir le mal pour le mal dans la pensée de Thomas d’Aquin?

This paper proposes to analyse the theory of will in interaction with evil in Thomas Aquinas’s thought. Evil is a privation of being, and being is identical to good. The will is an intellectual form of appetite, as well as the governor of lower faculties and of reason, which is also its principle. Appetite is a movement towards the good of a nature; it is therefore difficult to accept that will could elect its opposite, which is evil. Plato’s thesis consisting of attributing the will towards bad to ignorance is discarded, because Thomas’s explanation concerns the consent towards evil witch is known. Now, if evil can be wanted, we cannot want it without referring it to good. In that way, free will, though having God for principle, is the principle of the first bad choice. The comprehension of the problem has to go through the division of that which belongs to the will’s exterior and to it’s interior. In itself, an exterior act can be immoral, like stealing, but the good intentioned will that choses this act then becomes evil, keeping nonetheless the merit of its good intention. The bad choice is sometimes attributable to ignorance, but since we do not always ignore evil, we have to accuse a certain weakness in the will for not being able to fulfill its nature. When it repeatedly acts weakly towards evil, it makes itself available for the mischievous habitus, and it then, on its own, searches the evil act. None of these principles, though, can apply to the original man or for the devil. They will not have any other principle for their choice than that of pride in the free exercise of their will.

Keyphrases: Morale, Philosophy, Thomas Aquinas, Evil, Bad, Being, Appetite, Will, Moral, Original sin, Devil
Facteurs de risque de calcifications vasculaires en insuffisance rénale constituant une contre-indication à la greffe rénale

Background: Vascular calcifications (VCs) are observed in 60% of patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) and are thought to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality. The purpose of this study was to identify the risk factors associated with VCs preventing the eligibility for a kidney transplant (KTx).  Methods: We conducted a case control study in a cohort of 1472 adults evaluated for KTx from 1992 to 2009. Cases were defined as patients who were refused for KTx because of severe VCs and controls as patients who were accepted for KTx.  Results: The study included 80 cases and 80 controls. In multivariate models, the strongest risk factors for VCs preventing eligibility for KTx were diabetes (adjusted Odds Ratio (OR): 5.55 (1.98 - 15.59)), age (OR: 1.14 (1.09 – 1.2)), smoking (OR: 9.51 (2.55 – 35.51)) and dialysis (OR: 6.83 (2.33 – 20.05)). Although significant in univariate analyses, the phosphocalcic product (CaxP) was not a significant predictor in multivariate models.  Conclusion: This study suggests that the CaxP could be a marker of prolonged ESRD rather than a risk factor of VCs preventing eligibility for KTx and emphasizes the importance of early referral for transplantation and aggressive smoking cessation management for all patients with ESRD.

Keyphrases: Vascular calcifications, End-stage renal disease, Case control study, Phosphocalcic product, Renal Transplant
Prévalence du VPH dans le cancer ORL localement avancé et impact sur le pronostic et l'efficacité de la chimio-radiothérapie concomitante

Background: HPV is recognised as a good prognostic factor in head and neck (H&N) cancer. However, most of the data is derived from randomised trials with different treatment options or small heterogeneous cohorts. This trial aims to determine the prevalence and prognostic impact of HPV on overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS), local regional control (LRC) and treatment toxicity, in patients with locally advanced SCCHN treated with concomitant platinum-based chemoradiation therapy (CRT) and followed prospectively. Methods: Prospective data on efficacy and toxicity was available for 560 patients treated with CRT. Of these, 270 fixed and paraffin embedded specimens were collected. DNA was extracted from specimens and HPV detection was performed as previously described (Coutlée, J Clin Microbiol, 2006). Analysis was performed using Kaplan-Meier survival curves, Fisher's test for categorical data and log-rank statistics for failure times. Results: Median follow-up was 4.7 years. DNA extraction was successful in 255 cases. HPV prevalence was 68.6%, and 53.3% for HPV-16 specifically. For HPV+ and HPV- respectively, median LRC were 8.9 and 2.2 years (log-rank p = 0.0002), median DFS were 8.9 and 2.1 years (log-rank p=0.0014) and median OS were 8.9 and 3.1 years (log-rank p=0.0002). Survival was statistically significantly different based on HPV genotype, stage, treatment period and chemotherapy regimen. COX adjusted analysis for T, N, age, and treatment remained significant (HR 0.45, p=0.004). Subgroup analysis for genotype, TNM, primary site and chemotherapy regimen will be presented at the meeting. Conclusions: An increasing proportion of oropharyngeal cancer is linked to HPV. This large study with confirms that HPV status is strongly associated with improved prognosis among H&N cancer patients receiving CRT, and should be a stratification factor for clinical trials including H&N cases. Toxicity of CRT is not modified for the HPV population.

Keyphrases: Oropharyngeal cancer, Chemoradiotherapy, HNSCC, HNSCC, Human papillomavirus
La contribution des attentes à la régulation de la douleur

The experience of pain and response to pain treatments are influenced by psychological factors, such as expectations. This doctoral dissertation aims at refining the comprehension of the impact of expectations on pain regulation through two quantitative studies. First, an experimental study examined the impact of expectations on analgesia induced by heterotopic noxious counter-stimulation. Healthy volunteers were assigned to a control group or one of three experimental groups in which expectations were either assessed (a priori expectations) or manipulated using suggestions (hyperalgesia or analgesia). Acute shock-pain, shock-related anxiety and the nociceptive flexion reflex were measured in response to electrical stimulations before, during and after the application of a tonic cold pain. Results suggest that a priori expectations predict the magnitude of analgesia, while manipulated expectations either enhance or block counter-stimulation analgesia, independently of anxiety processes. Subsequently, a clinical study examined the association between expectations and clinical outcomes of chronic pain patients treated in multidisciplinary pain centers. Prior to their initial visit, patients' expected treatment outcomes were assessed. Six months after their initial visit, changes in pain intensity, depressive symptoms, pain interference and pain catastrophizing, along with satisfaction with treatment and impression of change were measured. Structural equations modeling analyses support the predictive association between expectations and all clinical outcomes as well as the mediating effect of patient’s impression of change. In addition to being superior to an alternative model, the proposed model was shown to be relevant across subgroups. Overall, this thesis contributes to the demonstration of the determinant role of expectations on physiological and therapeutic processes in the context of pain regulation. These findings reiterate the need to consider the patient's perspective and offer a valuable avenue towards the optimization of treatments intended at relieving pain.

Keyphrases: Expectation, Pain, Analgesia, Modulation, Anxiety, Impression of change, Nociceptive reflex, Heterotopic noxious counter-stimulation, Multidisciplinary, Issue thérapeutique, Treatment outcome
Un projet de recherche exempté d’évaluation éthique : quelques précisions

This piece responds to the comments made by Caillé and Beauregard by offering clarifications regarding the exemption from ethics review of a research project.

Keyphrases: Recherche qualitative, Qualitative research, ethics review, research participant, research ethics
Disclosure of HIV status and stigma in rural communities in Brazil: A conundrum for researchers

Stigmatization and discrimination are common consequences following disclosure of HIV serostatus; such factors are especially problematic in rural communities where “everyone knows everyone”. In this case study, researchers conducting ethnographic field studies in remote areas of Brazil decided to impersonate friends or relatives of research participants living with HIV as a means to protect participants from inadvertent disclosure of their serostatus to fellow community members. These acts of “wilful deception” raise issues about honesty and integrity in research, and how to balance issues of confidentiality with communicating research findings to communities and the broader public.

Keyphrases: HIV/AIDS, stigma, rural community, ethics, impersonation, confidentiality, anonymity of research participants, deception
Telling the truth about HIV? Testing and disclosure in a culture of stigma

HIV stigmatization is one of the most notable barriers to individual testing, seriously impairing global efforts in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Because stigmatization is strongly embedded in local cultural and social habits, humanitarian healthcare workers providing HIV testing, counselling and prevention programs in low and middle income countries (LMICs) have become a serious alternative to local healthcare providers. This case study addresses some of the ethical dilemmas that humanitarian healthcare workers face when confronted with HIV-associated stigma.

Keyphrases: HIV/AIDS, stigmatization, humanitarian, healthcare workers, low and middle income countries
Friedrich Nietzsche. Metteur en scène de la forme aphoristique

Reading Friedrich Nietzsche’s (1844-1900) aphoristic works poses an evident difficulty  for any reader. This difficulty was not lost on the author of Menschliches, Allzumenschliches (1878), Morgenröthe (1881), Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft (1882) and explains why he recommended to his readers, subsequently in 1887 in his preface to Zur Genealogie der Moral, that they read him by means of a “art of exegesis [Kunst der Auslegung]” [KSA, V, p. 255, §  8.]. Unfortunately, Nietzsche remains ambiguous with regards to what such an art of reading involves. The present dissertation will nevertheless employ the ‘theatre metaphor’ recurrent throughout Nietzsche’s works in the aim of shedding light on this fundamental (hermeneutical)  question: How can we, as readers of Friedrich Nietzsche’s aphoristic writings, correctly interpret our role?  The first part of the present dissertation examines what Nietzsche has himself said on  the subject of “short expressions” in his work (the maxim, the adage, and especially the aphorism), along with the expectations he has of a reader of such forms of expression. This philological analysis of Nietzsche’s writings will also be followed by the commentaries of his philosophy offered by Peter Sloterdijk (1947-) and Sarah Kofman (1934-1994).   I will then conduct my own analysis of Nietzsche’s expectations regarding his  readership, on the basis of which I will mount a critique of Sloterdijk and Kofman’s readings, both of whom also employ the ‘theatre metaphor’ in order to show how Nietzsche stages his thought. The brunt of this critique will be directed towards the synthetic nature of their philosophical interpretations. Sloterdijk and Kofman construct their readings thematically and  trans-aphoristically and in so doing neglect the distinctiveness and autonomy of the individual aphorisms through which Friedrich Nietzsche expresses himself.

Keyphrases: philosophy, interpretation, maxim, adage, aphorism, theatre metaphor, Nietzsche
Épistémologie du mécanisme et sélection naturelle

This thesis considers whether natural selection can (and should) be understood as an evolutionary mechanism. Indeed, in the philosophy of science, the very notion of what it means for something to be a mechanism is still much indebted to 20th century advances within the epistemology of physics. However, it is far from certain that these advances adequately capture the nature of biological mechanisms. Moreover, even with a renewed interest for the notion of biological mechanism, interest which has spawned a copious literature focused on the epistemology of mechanism, it’s unclear that the conceptions offered are able to account for natural selection.  Peter Machamer, Lindley Darden, Carl Craver, Stuart Glennan, James Woodward and William Bechtel (to name a few), have all contributed to an analysis of mechanisms as an alternative to the nomological account which has dominated much of the 20th century. It remains to be seen if (and how) one of these representations of mechanism can account for the probabilistic nature of natural selection.

Keyphrases: Philosophy, Epistemology, Biology, Evolution
Le problème du mal dans la Summa de bono de Philippe le Chancelier

This master’s thesis intends to clarify Philip the Chancellor’s answer to the problem of evil in the Summa de bono (1225-1228). To this end, we focus on the concept of evil as located within the transcendental system and the division of created good resulting from the supreme good. This sum, which is conceived from the primacy of the transcendental notion of good, was drafted in opposition to the Manichean doctrine of Cathars, a belief popular in the thirteenth century, which states that two metaphysical principles cause good and evil and it is from these principles that all things are created by nature. For this reason, we decided to study the concepts of good and evil only in a general sense, because the author dismantles the possibility of natural evil at the universal level of the ontology of the good and, prior to the deployment of the created good, it is through the sum’s questions that specific problems can be resolved. Here, we offer for the first time a French translation of several questions useful to this project.

Keyphrases: analogie, privation, Philip the Chancellor, philosophy, medieval thought, scholasticism, metaphysics, theory of the transcendentals, potentiality and actuality, convertibility, analogy, supreme good, Manichaeism, concept of evil, privation
De la postmodernité : Pierre Perrault et la culture innue

This dissertation, juxtaposing modernity and postmodernity to Pierre Perrault’s documentary movies, will define what we understand from those philosophic concepts. Influenced with Les Lumières, modernists have always considered necessary to put forward scientific technology progress to reach universal beatitude. For them, science is the key to society’s salute and rationalism. The problem with this process is that all thinking dissociating from rationality brings its immediate annihilation by progress and “over-progress” domination. Far from us to say that modernity needs to be forbidden but maybe it would be time to call into question some of these concepts.        Popularized by Jean-François Lyotard, postmodernity criticizes the exaggerated science domination into trying to understand our world and wants to find solutions to counter the problem. Yet, there are other ways to apprehend this world of ours, like myths and believes. These irrational stories often reveal important moral, ecologic or spiritual values. The works of Perrault abound with community stories to refer to and we have chosen two pictures that are obvious examples.  Le goût de la farine (1977) and Le pays de la terre sans arbre ou le Mouchouânipi (1980)  present Innus’ traditions opposed to progress dictatorship. This same opposition allows the movie director to create a critical thinking about this modernity (in brief, a postmodernist thinking).

Keyphrases: Pierre Perrault, Modernity, Postmodernity, Direct cinema, Innus, Natives, Colonialism, Traditions, History
Analyse ludique de la franchise Saw

The Saw saga is a franchise that marked the horror film industry in the 2000’s. This report will try and give a thorough and detailled study while using the idea of a game. At the same time taking a cursory glance at contemporary horror films and observing how the critics were received by studying different articles. This assignment will in majority analyse the Saw saga using a recreational approach of movies in general as well as the one adopted by Bernard Perron. This study will be elaborated on a "diegetique" and "spectatoriel" level – the goal being to show the importance that games occupy in this film series.

Keyphrases: Puzzle, Horror movies, Game, Torture
Intégration sociale des immigrants au Canada : conformité des comportements matrimoniaux des jeunes immigrants face à la population canadienne au fil des générations

Nearly one out of five Canadians was born abroad. Immigration levels keep growing and the ways in which these newcomers integrate into Canada will greatly affect the future of the country. In studies of integration, particular attention should be paid to young people of first and second generations, as they represent the intergenerational link between their families, cultural communities and native Canadians. This thesis focuses on the covariates of the matrimonial behaviours of different generations of immigrant men and women from different origin regions, compared to those of the local population, and examine the possible effects of cultural communities. Using 2001 census data, the analysis distinguishes between Quebec and the rest of Canada, and focuses on the probability of living in union by age and, of those in union, the probability that the union be marital versus common-law. Results show that the behaviors of immigrants of mixed unions (with one Canadian-born parent) are much more similar to those of local population, than those with both parents born abroad. Moreover, migrants of different geographic regions of origin display markedly different behaviors and different patterns of social integration across the generations, with some showing no evidence of a convergence to local norms. Finally, the effects of size and presence of a cultural community varies across the different models.

Keyphrases: immigrants, mixed unions, marriage, common-law, immigrants, integration, generation, census, Canada
Tendances et déterminants de l’utilisation de l’aide à domicile subventionnée par le gouvernement par les personnes âgées au Canada, 1996-1997 à 2009-2010

It is known that the aging of the Canadian population will increase the demand for home care and that insufficient support from the public sector increases the implication of the informal and private networks. Using cross-sectional data from the National Population Health Survey (NPHS) and the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS), this research analyzes the trends and predictors of subsidized home care in Canada and Ontario between 1996/97 and 2009/10.  It shows that the proportion of care receivers aged 65 and older is decreasing, going down from 9.9% to 9.2% in Canada (1996/97 to 2005) and from 10.2% to 8.8% then 9.6% in Ontario (1996/97, 2005, 2009/10). Government cuts are particularly felt in terms of home support services, like support for housework (from 51% to 34% in Ontario). Older persons, women, people living alone or those who need assistance to perform some activities of daily living (ADLs) or instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) are receiving less and less subsidized home care.  In conclusion, the actual health system, that appear to focus on health care instead of home support services, do not meet the needs of older persons. Furthermore, the Ontario case evokes the effect that policies can have on home care utilization. Results suggest that between 1996/97 and 2005, it is mostly persons aged from 18 to 64 years old or needing health care that benefited from the public program. During the next period (2005 to 2009/10), there seems to be a greater interest for the 65 and older, whose proportion of users increases more rapidly.

Keyphrases: Canada, Ontario, Subsidized home care, Older persons, Canada, Ontario, Trends, Predictors, Andersen and Newman model, Health surveys
La dérive des travaux communautaires/bénévoles au Québec : échec d’une alternative... ou alternative à un échec

Community work services are usually unpaid work performed by an offender in the interest of the society.  In this paper, we seek both to understand the perceptions of actors carrying out the community work services in Quebec and secondly whether legal actors (lawyers, prosecutors and judges) and non-judicial (alternative justice agencies, youth workers and host organizations) and young offenders do give a restorative aspect to community work services. We address these questions using two schemes: the functional scheme to understand the function(s) of community work services and the hermeneutic scheme to capture the symbolic value, the meaning that is given to community work.  The results of this study show variations between the points of view of the different groups and that, around three main themes: the nature of community work, community work objectives and effects of the latter. Despite some differences of views and some difficulties in the implementation of the community work services, the actors are mostly satisfied with this measure.

Keyphrases: Restorative justice, Criminal justice, Alternative justice, Community work services, Volunteer work, Punishment, Sense of responsability, Reintegration, Rehabilitation, Reparation