NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
La perspective des scripts appliquée aux homicides et implications pour les enquêtes criminelles

Context and objectives. Several studies were conducted to support criminal investigations (especially for homicide cases). The level of injuries is generally used to infer the relationship between the suspect and the victim. Such an approach has however been questioned by investigators and the scientific community. The present study combines the script perspective and a dimensional approach to offer a procedural analysis of the homicide process. Methodology. Data were collected from 100 homicide investigations that took place between 1988 and 2011. Scripts were developed to detail the crime commission process leading to expressive and instrumental homicides involving a female or a minor victim. Results. Results indicate that the level of injuries sustained by the victim must be considered in relation to other variables in order to infer its relationship with the suspect. First, when the victim has suffered significant injuries, the murderer is usually a relative, regardless of its initial motive (e.g. burglary or simply killing the victim). Second, the level of expressiveness depends on the presence of crime facilitators (the type of weapon) and the victim’s resistance to the aggressor. At last, high level of injuries are mainly observed when the killing takes place in a private place. Conclusion. The present results suggest that situational factors should – alongside personality variables - be integrated to profiles. Different levels of injuries are sometimes dependent upon contextual contingencies such as the presence of weapons on the crime scene and the victim’s resistance.

Keyphrases: Script, Homicide, Profilage, Expressive, Instrumental, Profiling, Criminal investigation
Développement d'un nouveau critère pour déterminer les limites d'utilisation des détecteurs en dosimétrie non standard

In recent years, the radiation dosimetry community has shown a keen interest in extending broad beam dosimetry protocols such as AAPM's TG-51 and IAEA's TRS-398 to nonstandard fields which involve the use of an additional correction factor. Yet, these correction factors are difficult to determine precisely in a time frame that is acceptable. For small fields, these factors increase rapidly with field size, whereas for composite IMRT fields, detector positioning uncertainties render a case-by-case correction impractical. In this study, a theoretical criterion based on radiation detectors' dose response functions is used to determine in which situations a given dosimeter can be used without correction. The responses of four ionization chambers, a liquid-filled chamber, a diamond detector, an unshieded diode, an alanine dosimeter and a plastic scintillator detector are characterized at 6 MV and 25 MV. Several strategies are also suggested to reduce/eliminate correction factors such as reporting the absorbed dose to a volume and modifying the non-sensitive components of a detector to compensate for mass density effects. A new method of density compensation based on a perturbation function is presented. Finally, results show that the scintillator detector can measure nonstandard fields used in the clinic with corrections under 1%.

Keyphrases: Monte Carlo, Medical physics, Nonstandard dosimetry, Radiation dosimetry, Intensity modulated radiation therapy, Small beams, Radiation detector, Monte Carlo, Correction factor
Etude spectroscopique d’un plasma micro-onde à la pression atmosphérique et son application à la synthèse de nanostructures

The purpose of this master thesis is to characterize the axial distribution of tubular discharges at atmospheric pressure sustained by electromagnetic surface wave and to explore their potential for materials and nanomaterials synthesis. A previous doctoral thesis, aimed at determining the mechanisms driving radial plasma contraction in rare gas discharges shed light on a yet unknown phenomenon occurring in surface wave discharges (SWD). As a matter of fact, increasing the power injected into the system leads to a change of the axial distribution of the discharge, in sharp contrast with the behavior commonly observed in reduced-pressure plasmas. In this context, we have performed a parametric investigation of atmospheric pressure SWD sustained in Ar gas. Based on our axially-resolved measurements of the electron density, excitation temperature, and number density of Ar atoms in metastable state (Ar 3P2), we found that the peculiar change of the axial distribution of the light intensity with power is not linked to a modification in the discharge kinetics (linked to the electron temperature and metastable number density) but rather to an anomalous power deposition (linked to the electron density). More specifically, such anomalous power deposition can be attributed to a wave reflection in the high gradient of charged particle densities near the end of the plasma column; a behavior that is more apparent in short plasma columns. Then, we have realized a parametric investigation of the discharge with the addition of organic precursors. Particularly, we used HMDSO for organo-silicon material synthesis and TTIP for organo-titanium material synthesis. It is found that because SWD are characterized by high charged particle densities (>10^13 cm^-3), higher precursor dissociation rates can be achieved with respect to other cold, atmospheric-pressure plasmas such as low-density dielectric barrier discharges. In this case, powder-like nanomaterials with sizes below 100 nm are obtained. Moreover, the addition of small amounts of oxygen into the discharge leads to the formation of round-like silicon oxide or titanium oxide nanoparticles.

Keyphrases: atmospheric pressure, surface wave discharge, optical diagnostics, materials and nanomaterials synthesis
Développement d’une méthode d’extraction des contaminants émergents dans les solides particulaires par LDTD-APCI-MS/MS

We developed a protocol to quantify 12 emerging contaminants (pharmaceuticals and hormones) and pesticides extracted from suspended particulate matter (SPM) of river water and municipal wastewaters samples. The separation of suspended solids was carried through filtration of water samples. We tested a series of 6 different filter types. The effect of filtration on the concentrations of dissolved contaminants was evaluated in order to minimize losses of target compounds. The river bottom sediments samples were lyophilized and both SPM and sediment samples were subjected to ultrasonic extraction combined with C18 cartridge clean-up. Quantifications were realized using mass spectrometry. The overall method recoveries of all compounds ranged from 38 to 112 % in all studied matrices, poor recoveries were achieved for sulfamethoxazole and diclofenac (recoveries for all other compounds in the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) samples were 68 to 111%). The detection limits in sediments and SPM from river samples for the 12 analytes varied from 0.7 to 9.4 ng g-1 and from 21 to 92 ng g-1 for WWTP SPM samples. All target emerging contaminants were detected with concentrations ranging from 3 to 5440 ng g-1 in the studied matrices, with the highest concentrations observed in WWTP SPM samples. A significant portion of some of those contaminants is clearly associated with bottom sediments or suspended particulates. Optimization of water treatment processes and environmental fate must absolutely consider the fraction of contaminants which is particulate-bound if one hopes to have a reasonable mass balance.

Keyphrases: LDTD, Filtration, Extraction, Suspended particulate matter, Emerging contaminants, Sewage sludge, Wastewater treatment plant
La pertinence et les enjeux éthiques d'interventions de santé publique envers
l'infertilité et l'âge maternel avancé

Recent studies have demonstrated an increased prevalence of infertility in Canada and a tremendous growth in assisted reproductive technologies use. In 2010, the Quebec government launched a public funding program for assisted reproductive technologies, which aims to provide equitable access and to protect the health of mothers and children. Various stakeholders have identified a number of shortcomings to this program, including the absence of prevention and health promotion measures aimed towards reducing the prevalence of infertility. Indeed, a significant proportion of infertility cases is attributable to modifiable and lifestyle related factors such as smoking, sexually transmitted infections, weight problems, environmental toxins and age. In addition, both advanced maternal age and assisted reproductive technologies utilization pose risks to the health of mothers and children, about which the population is not adequately informed. Preventative approaches have been proposed by many organizations in various countries but few have been implemented. A reason for this might be that these initiatives represent major challenges in terms of social acceptability, due to the sensitive nature of the subject and the strong social respect for reproductive autonomy. Health communication ethics highlights these issues such as the use of persuasive tactics, the risk of stigmatization, and undue attribution of responsibility. If designed effectively with these challenges in mind, health communication campaigns for infertility prevention have the potential to adequately inform the public, thus fostering reproductive autonomy and health, without causing iatrogenic damage. The ‘ethics of empowerment’, with its requirements for assigning only prospective individual responsibility, providing concrete resources and involving communities in social change, helps in identifying the needs for policy solutions that address the social context in order to enhance reproductive health and reproductive autonomy.

Keyphrases: Empowerment, Infertility, Assisted reproductive technologies, Advanced maternal age, Public health, Health communication ethics, Empowerment
Le lien entre le stress parental du père et le développement de la relation d’activation chez les enfants âgés entre 12 et 18 mois

Nowadays, the father is increasingly present in everyday life of his child. By his commitment and involvement, the father has an important and unique role in the child’s development. His contribution would be related to the child openness to the outside world and in encouragements to take risks. As with being a mother, being a father involve coping with a lot of new situations every day, living with imbalances and unpredictability and not being always in control of many given situations. So, exercising this role can cause a certain level of stress which can influence the development of the child. The aim of the present study is to examine the existence of a link between fathers’ parental stress and activation relationship of their 12 to 18 months-old children, as well as the father-child attachment relationship. Data were collected among 58 father-child dyads. The results show that parental stress is neither significantly associated to activation relationship nor to attachment relationship. Moreover, the child’s gender does not act as a moderator in this relationship. However, it appears that the child’s gender is correlated with activation relationship. The results show that boys are activated more positively than girls.

Keyphrases: relation d'activation, parental stress, activation relationship, father-child attachment, child development, 12-18 months old, fathers, attachment, strange situation, risky situation
Spectroscopie de luminescence à température et pression variables pour des complexes des lanthanides et de l'or

The overall goal of this work is to contribute to the understanding of luminescence properties of transition metal compounds. The first part of this thesis describes the spectroscopic characterization of a pyridine-substituted nitronyl nitroxyde radical 2-(2-pyridyl)-4,4,5,5-tetramethyl-4,5-dihydro-1H-imidazolyl-3-oxide-1-oxyl abbreviated (NIT2-Py) and its complexes with Tb(III) and Y(III), [Tb(hfac)3NIT2-Py] and [Y(hfac)3NIT2-Py], respectively. Their luminescence spectrum show resolved vibronic structure and variations with temperature The energy difference between vibronic luminescence maxima decreases with increasing temperature. This decrease is on the order of 200 cm-1 between 80 K and 240 K and is not due to decreasing Raman frequencies. The variations of temperature do not have a significant influence on the molecular structures, as illustrated by the very small variation of Raman maxima between 80 K and 300 K. Luminescence spectra were calculated using the time dependent theory of spectroscopy. Calculated luminescence spectra show that the variations with temperature are reproduced by using specific combinations of experimental frequencies and by adjusting the width of the vibronic transitions, determining the resolution of the luminescence spectrum. The second part of the thesis describes the luminescence spectroscopic properties of a series of trimetallic gold(I) complexes at variable temperature and pressure. Aurophilic interactions are very important for these compounds and influence the luminescence spectra. The spectroscopic features are compared to structural changes at variable temperature and pressure. Even small changes in structure lead to significant changes in luminescence, for example a shift of the maximum of the luminescence band by 60 cm-1/ kbar to lower energy for one of the gold(I) complexes studied.

Keyphrases: Pression variable, Luminescence spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, Variable temperature, Variable pressure, Coordination chemistry of the lanthanides, Coordination chemistry of gold(I)
Modélisation et analyse des interventions d’équitation thérapeutique utilisées à des fins de réadaptation

Context and research question. According to the Canadian Therapeutic Riding Association, therapeutic riding regroups all equestrian activities offered to persons with disabilities. Therapeutic riding can be divided into different approaches, including hippotherapy, a rehabilitation strategy practiced by occupational therapists, physiotherapists and speech language specialists. Hippotherapy bases itself on the three dimensional movement created by the horse which favours the improvement of various neuromotor skills such as muscle tone of the trunk and head, standing posture and postural adjustments. Although therapeutic riding is gaining momentum in Quebec, official regulation still does not exist. As a consequence, much confusion exists between the different forms of therapeutic riding and hippotherapy (presently the only medically recognised rehabilitation therapy using horses). Clientele presenting with severe neuro-musculo-skeletal disabilities are often and regularly referred to centers not offering hippotherapy and are thus exposed to important risk. Objectives. To modelize therapeutic riding interventions in order to make the components and relationships of these interventions explicit. To also analyze the plausibility that these interventions will reach the set therapeutic goals. Methodology. Therapeutic riding techniques were modelized via interviews with the main therapists offering therapeutic riding services in Quebec. A literary review of the rehabilitation principles guiding these interventions was also conducted. Results. The created models helped improve the knowledge of therapeutic riding and hippotherapy practices in Quebec. Consequences. The models have allowed the conversation surrounding regulation of these practices in Quebec and Canada to begin as well as promoted the reference process to the various centers offering these services.

Keyphrases: Hippotherapy, Therapeutic riding, Rehabilitation, Logical model, Cerebral palsy, Autism spectrum disorder, Stroke
The effects of administration of a nuclear factor kappa-B inhibitor on pulmonary endothelial dysfunction after cardiopulmonary bypass: impact on oxygenation and hemodynamics and development of therapeutic and preventive modalities in a porcine model

Background: Cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) can lead to pulmonary endothelial dysfunction and consequent pulmonary hypertension. The novel agent SN-50 acts at the level of the transduction pathway to prevent these responses and may limit or reverse post-CPB pulmonary endothelial dysfunction and pulmonary hypertension without the untoward effects on hemodynamics seen with other known therapies. Methods: Four groups of Landrace-Yorkshire swine that received one of four treatments before undergoing 90 minutes of normothermic CPB and 60 minutes of reperfusion were compared: (1) Nebulized milrinone; (2) nebulized sildenafil; (3) placebo consisting of nebulized NaCl solution; and (4) intravenous SN-50. Invasive hemodynamic monitoring was used throughout all experiments. Vascular reactivity of second-degree pulmonary arteries was evaluated in response to acetylcholine and bradykinin. Results: Sildenafil produced a significant increase in mean pulmonary artery pressure (PAP) at 60 minutes after CPB compared to baseline. Both the sildenafil and milrinone groups had increased mean PAP/MAP ratio at 60 minutes after CPB compared to baseline, however this ratio was not different between the groups. Endothelial-dependent relaxations to bradykinin were improved in the SN-50 and milrinone groups and especially the sildenafil group as compared to placebo. SN-50 produced worse endothelium-dependent relaxations in response to acetylcholine compared to the other groups including placebo. Conclusion: Sildenafil better prevented pulmonary endothelial dysfunction than all other treatments. The improvements seen with SN-50 may be suboptimal as dose could not be titrated to length of CPB. Inhaled sildenafil and SN-50 both merit further study in human trials and animal models, respectively.

Keyphrases: Endothelial dysfunction, Cardiopulmonary bypass, Pulmonary hypertension, Nuclear factor kappa-B, Phosphodiesterase inhibitors
Le Caravage en représentation : continuités et ruptures d'un discours biographique

The Lives of Caravaggio, published by Giovanni Baglione, Gian Pietro Bellori, Guilio Mancini and Francesco Suninno, had considerable influence on the reception of the artist’s oeuvre. Often considered to be primary sources, these literary works express stylistic criticism and stage historical facts through fiction. This master’s thesis situates Caravaggio’s myth in the context of Italian literary production and its ancient and contemporary heritage. The stereotypes that define the painter are perceived in their changes and confronted with the perception of their violence and eroticism by modern historiography and popular culture, particularly in Derek Jarman’s movie Caravaggio (1986).

Keyphrases: Baglione, Bellori, Derek Jarman, Violence, Caravaggio, Biography, Self-representation, Homosexuality, Myth, Literature
Sunlight exposure and prostate cancer risk : a case-control study in Montreal, Canada

Objectives: To investigate the association between sunlight exposure during leisure time, at work and globally, and prostate cancer (PCa) risk. Methods: In the context of a case-control study conducted in Montreal, Canada, interviews were conducted with 1371 incident PCa cases diagnosed between 2005 and 2009, and 1479 population controls. Detailed questionnaires were used to elicit the frequency and duration of engagement in any outdoor recreational activity during adulthood, as well as a description of each job held over the lifetime. A Canadian job-exposure matrix was applied to attribute a sunlight exposure level to each job. Cumulative indices of sunlight exposure were developed based on the number of outdoor leisure-time events, the duration of occupational exposure, separately and combined. Logistic regression was used to estimate the association between each sunlight exposure index and PCa, adjusting for potential confounding factors. Results: As a whole, there was no association between any of the exposure indices, and PCa risk, or PCa aggressiveness. Some trends for slightly lower PCa risks among men exposed to sunlight were observed, but results were not statistically significant and there was no dose-response pattern. Conclusion: Our findings provide little evidence for an association between sunlight exposure during adulthood and prostate cancer development.

Keyphrases: Cancer, Prostate, Epidemiology, Case-control, Cancer, Prostate, Sunlight, Leisure, Occupation
Utilisation de systèmes d'information géographique pour l'évaluation des risques liés à la dégradation du pergélisol. Étude de cas : Tasiujaq, Nunavik, Québec

Northern regions underlain by permafrost will largely be affected by the projected increase in air temperature. A growing number of structures that were once built with great confidence on perennially frozen soils are already starting to show signs of deterioration. Processes caused by permafrost degradation can cause significant damages to infrastructure and require high costs of repair. The current climatic context therefore commands that the implementation of projects in permafrost regions follows a well-thought planning in order to account for the potential impacts of permafrost degradation. This thesis focuses on the use of geographic information systems (GIS) applied to the identification of the development potential of communities located in permafrost regions. Using a GIS approach, the goal is to develop a methodology to produce risk-assessment maps to help northern communities better plan their built environment. A multi-scale analysis of the landscape is necessary and should include the investigation of surficial deposits, topography, as well as permafrost, vegetation and drainage conditions. The complexity of all the interactions that shape the landscape is such that it is virtually impossible to account for all of them or to predict with certainty the response of the system following disturbances. This research also presents some of the limitations to the use of GIS in this specific context and explores an innovative method for quantifying uncertainty in risk-assessment maps.

Keyphrases: Land-planning, Permafrost, Geographic information system (GIS), Multicriteria analysis, Climate change
Recherches sur la plasticité du discours oraculaire: l'exemple de l'oracle du "Mur de bois" (Hérodote, 7, 140-146)

The aim of this thesis is to apply the study of oracles in Greece to the long mistreated case of the oracle of the Wooden Wall. While modern historians are becoming increasingly critical of oracular literature since the discoveries of epigraphy, this oracle appears to resist this new wave: anything and everything were alleged to preserve it from the label of post eventum. The components of this oracle, which predicts the outcome of the second Persian War, and according to which the Athenians would find their salvation behind the now famous Wooden Wall, will be dissected in light of the historical context surrounding Herodotus’ work. The “Decree of Themistocles” found in Troezen, which ordered the evacuation of Athens, will also be addressed. In the conclusion of this thesis, the episode of the wooden wall will be seen to be definitely post eventum.

Keyphrases: Religion, Oracles, Salamine, History, Greece, Religion, Oracles, Herodotus, Themistocles, Athens