NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
Dépôt de couches minces nanocomposites par nébulisation d'une suspension colloïdale dans une décharge de Townsend à la pression atmosphérique = 
Nebulization of colloidal suspensions for the deposition of nanocomposite thin film by atmos-pheric pressure Townsend discharge

This PhD work is focused on the development of a new generation of nanocomposite thin films using cold plasma at atmospheric pressure. The main objective is to improve the understanding of the mechanisms involved in this process. The strategy is based on the injection of a metal oxide nanoparticles suspension in a dielectric barrier discharge operating in nitrogen (Townsend discharge). At first, the nanocomposite thin film is deposited sequentially: the fabrication of the inorganic matrix of silica (SiO2) is separated from the collection of the nanoparticles (TiO2). Then, the nanocomposite layers are obtained by a one-step process using a direct injection inside the discharge of nanoparticles dispersed in a polymerizable organosilicon precursor (HMDSO). This manuscript is divided into four major parts: first, the synthesis of the nanoparticles and the study of their dispersion in different solvents are presented. Then, in the second part we focus on the atomization of the colloidal suspension, on the analysis of the size distributions of the injected objects and on the study of their transport towards the discharge area. These results are then used to assess the influence of the discharge on the transport and the quality of deposited nanocomposite thin films. Finally, the thin films properties are investigated when depositing on wood substrates.

Keyphrases: Townsend discharge, Atmospheric pressure, Couche mince, Thin film, Nanocomposite, Colloidal suspension, Nanoparticle, Spray, Wood, Dielectric barrier discharge
Recherche de la matière sombre à l’aide de détecteurs à liquides surchauffés dans le cadre de l’expérience PICO/Picasso

Dark matter makes up 85% of the matter content of the universe and we still don’t know what it is made of. The Picasso experiment, now named PICO, has been searching for it for several years with the use of superheated liquid detectors. Following the interaction of a particle with a superheated liquid freon of the CXFY family, a bubble is formed through a phase change and is detected with several types of sensors, telling us about the nature of the event. Located at SNOLab, in Ontario, these detectors produce some of the best results in the field.  The present work will go through three types of superheated liquid detectors. A full description of the working principles will be presented for each of them. In addition, the fabrication, the operation mode and the data analysis will be shown. Detector calibration techniques will then be presented with different particle sources. Finally, the most recent results will be discussed, demonstrating the performance of the superheated liquid detector technique.

Keyphrases: WIMP, Neutralino, Neutron, DAQ, Dark matter, Superheated liquid detector, Freon, Neutron background, Alpha acoustic discrimination, Ultra low background techniques, Detector read-out techniques
La mémoire collective aux temps de la justice transitionnelle

This thesis focuses on the role of collective memory in transition countries. We aim to provide a clear understanding of the construction of collective memory and its specific function towards national identity in transition countries (especially Tunisia, Libya and South Africa). The construction of collective memory seems to result in a more efficient and sustainable political, social and economic transition. More specifically, our research focuses on the benefits of collective memory in the context of transitional justice (TJ). For many countries, TJ was the answer to ensure the transition from an internal conflict or a dictatorship towards a new democracy, that is to say, a system based on respect of human rights and the rule of law. TJ is therefore a complex process, which consists of several phases and mechanisms of action. From a broad perspective, TJ aims to build or rebuild a society and institutions that are just enough to ensure stability and stable enough to ensure justice. Two general approaches are possible to establish TJ while gauging its many challenges: the holistic approach (De Grieff) and an approach that we will call, for lack of a better term, "atomistic" (Elster). In general, those who support the atomistic conception of TJ see in the various mechanisms of TJ distinct and independent elements, which can lead to prioritize certain mechanisms over others and sometimes reject those who seem less important. Since the different aspects of transition are in relationship with each other, we intend to defend that it is better to think about the how to combine the elements, rather than how to isolate them. Hence, we present collective memory as the way by which the different components of TJ can effectively be related and integrated to one another. The question of collective memory therefore has a dual role in this project: at first we will describe it as one of the elements of TJ, but it will also turn out to be the sphere where the different mechanisms of TJ interact. Our question therefore is: how can collective memory help a society to come to terms with its past? Two alternatives are presented in the literature on this question: the strategy of "forgive and forget", which consists in forgetting the past and starting from scratch as if nothing happened, and that of "revealing is healing," which consists in determining all past responsibilities iv (individual and collective), recognizing the role of everyone (victims, perpetrators, opportunists, etc.) and work on a past that is still present.

Keyphrases: Justice, Transition, Transitional justice, Holism, Collective memory, Truth commission
Savoir et savoir-faire : la connaissance pratique entre intellectualisme et anti-intellectualisme

The goal of this thesis is to present a theory of knowing how which avoids the main problems plaguing the two major types of positions in this debate – intellectualism and anti-intellectualism. According to the intellectualists, knowing how must generally be understood as a species of propositional knowledge. That is, knowing how to do something is knowing a certain amount of facts about that activity. Conversely, according to the anti-intellectualists, knowing how must generally be understood as the possession of some form of capacity or disposition. In this text, I explore in details the implications associated with each position and highlight the main challenges they need to overcome. For instance, against intellectualism, one may doubt that knowing how to swim is merely a matter of knowing facts about swimming. Conversely, against anti-intellectualism, one may ask whether one really needs to be able to swim to know how to swim. In order to avoid the problems undermining both theories, I argue for a hybrid conception which presents knowing how in a strict sense and practical knowledge in a wider sense as types of knowledge which are based on a minimal knowledge of facts, though they cannot be reduced to this knowledge of facts and can grow without learning more facts.

Keyphrases: Expertise, Disposition, Gilbert Ryle, Jason Stanley, Knowing how, Knowledge, Epistemology, Intellectualism, Anti-intellectualism, Ability
Tests de permutation d’indépendance en analyse multivariée

The main result establishes the equivalence in terms of power between the alpha-distance covariance test and the Hilbert-Schmidt independence criterion (HSIC) test with the characteristic kernel of a stable probability distribution of index alpha with sufficiently small scale parameters. Large-scale simulations reveal the superiority of these two tests over other tests based on the empirical independence copula process. They also establish the usefulness of the lesser known Pearson type III approximation to the exact permutation distribution. This approximation yields tests with more accurate type I error rates than the gamma approximation usually used for HSIC, especially when dimensions of the two vectors are large. A new method for scale parameter selection in HSIC tests is proposed which improves power performance in three simulations, two of which are from machine learning. The problem of testing mutual independence between many random vectors is addressed. The closely related problem of testing serial independence of a multivariate stationary sequence is also considered. The Möbius transformation of characteristic functions is used to characterize independence. A generalization to p vectors of the alpha -distance covariance test and the Hilbert-Schmidt independence criterion (HSIC) test with the characteristic kernel of a stable probability distributionof index alpha is obtained. It is shown that an HSIC test with sufficiently small scale parameters is equivalent to an alpha -distance covariance test. Weak convergence of the HSIC test is established. A very fast and accurate computation of p-values uses the Pearson type III approximation which successfully approaches the exact permutation distribution of the tests. This approximation relies on the exact first three moments of the permutation distribution of any test which can be expressed as the sum of all elements of a componentwise product of p doubly-centered matrices. The alpha -distance covariance test and the HSIC test are both of this form. A new selection method is proposed for the scale parameter of the characteristic kernel of the HSIC test. It is shown in a simulation that this adaptive HSIC test has higher power than the alpha-distance covariance test when data are generated from a Student copula. Applications are given to environmental and financial data.

Keyphrases: Characteristic function, Distance covariance, Hilbert-Schmidt independence criterion, Independence, Mutual independence, Möbius transformation, Permutation test, Quadratic distance, RV coefficient, Serial independence, Coefficient RV
Irrégularité, surgénéralisation et rétroaction négative (quelques aspects du traitement et de l’acquisition de la morphologie verbale du russe)

This thesis aims at studying certain aspects of Russian verb morphology processing and acquisition. The goal was two-fold: first, we investigated the productivity of morphonological alternations that lead to irregular verb stem allomorphy among adult speakers of Russian. The verbs in the study are known to undergo overregularization in Russian child speech. Second, we tested the (potentially) lasting effect of negative feedback on the retreat from overregularization errors in children.  In the first paper, we present experimental data on the processing of loanwords and nonce words that focus on a morphonological alternation (palatalization) in Russian. This study addresses the issue of how stem allomorphy involving palatalization of the velar/palatal and dental/palatal types in the Russian verb system is processed by adults. Processing of palatalization is shown to be quite variable and to depend on: (i) different distribution of allomorphs (past/non-past or 1Sg./other forms) within the verb paradigm, and (ii) overall productivity of verbal classes. We also hypothesized that these differences should be reflected in child language verb morphology acquisition.   The study presented in the second article investigates negative feedback effects on inflectional morphology acquisition in Russian. With that goal in mind, we conducted a series of elicited tasks with Russian speaking children aged from 3 to 4 years. Verbs which undergo overregularization in the non-past tense resulting from applying the yod /j/-pattern (typical errors for children of this age) were used as stimuli. Four groups of participants were formed accordingly to three types of feedback (Correction, Clarification question and Repetition), and a control group without feedback. Our results revealed a significant effect of time on target verb form production. However, no significant difference was observed as a function of feedback type, or even where there was no feedback. This finding supports the general hypothesis that negative feedback is not an important factor of language acquisition.   Altogether, the results presented in this thesis provide new insights on irregular processes in Russian verb morphology, as well as on the inefficiency of negative feedback in the acquisition of L1 morphology.

Keyphrases: verb morphology, productivity, overregularization, language acquisition, negative evidence, negative feedback
Inferring API Usage Patterns and Constraints : a Holistic Approach

Software systems increasingly depend on external library and frameworks. Software developers need to reuse functionalities provided by these libraries through their Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). Hence, software developers have to cope with the complexity of existing APIs needed to accomplish their work, and overcome the lack of usage directive in the API documentation. In this thesis, we propose a holistic approach that deals with the library usability problem at three levels of granularity. In the first step, we focus on the method level. We propose to identify usage constraints related to method parameters, by analyzing only the library source code. We applied program analysis strategies to detect four critical usage constraint types. At the second step, we change the scale to focus on API usage pattern mining in order to help developers to better learn common ways to use the API complementary methods. We first propose a client-based technique for mining multilevel API usage patterns to exhibit the co-usage relationships between API methods across interfering usage scenarios. Then, we proposed a library-based technique to overcome the strong constraint of client programs’ selection. Our technique infers API usage patterns through the analysis of structural and semantic relationships between API methods. Finally, we proposed a cooperative usage pattern mining technique that combines client-based and library-based usage pattern mining. Our technique takes advantage at the same time from the precision of the client-based technique and from the generalizability of the library-based technique. As a last contribution of this thesis, we target a higher level of library usability. We present a novel approach, to automatically identify third-party library usage patterns, of libraries that are commonly used together. This aims to help developers to discover reuse opportunities, and pick complementary libraries that may be relevant for their projects.

Keyphrases: Program comprehension, API usability, Usage pattern mining, Usage constraint inference, API documentation
Évolution des génomes par mutations locales et globales : une approche d’alignement

During the evolution process, genomes accumulate mutations that may affect the genome at different levels,  ranging from one base to the overall gene content. Global mutations affecting gene content and organization  are mainly duplications, losses and rearrangements. By comparing gene orders, it is possible to infer the most frequent events, the gene content in the ancestral genomes and the evolutionary histories of the observed gene orders.  In this thesis, we are interested in developing new algorithmic methods based on an alignment approach for comparing two or a set of genomes represented as gene orders and related through a phylogenetic tree, based on global mutations.  We study the theoretical complexity and the approximability of different variants of the two gene orders alignment problem by duplications and losses. Then, we present the existing exact exponential time algorithms, and develop efficient heuristics for these problems.  First, we developed DLAlign, a quadratic time heuristic for the two gene orders alignment  problem by duplications and losses. Then, we developed OrthoAlign, a generalization of  DLAlign, accounting for most genome-wide evolutionary events such as duplications, losses,  rearrangements and substitutions.  We also study the phylogenetic alignment problem. First, we adapt our heuristic OrthoAlign  in order to infer ancestral genomes at the internal nodes of a given phylogenetic tree.  Finally, we developed MultiOrthoAlign, a more robust heuristic, based on the median  problem, for the inference of ancestral genomes and evolutionary histories of extent  genomes labeling leaves of a phylogenetic tree.

Keyphrases: Duplication, Algorithm, Alignment, Gene orders, Dynamic programming, Complexity, Loss, Genomic rearrangements
Méthodes d’analyse de mouvement en vision 3D : invariance aux délais temporels entre des caméras non synchronisées et flux optique par isocontours

In this thesis we focused on two computer vision subjects. Both of them concern motion analysis in a dynamic scene seen by one or more cameras.    The first subject concerns motion capture using unsynchronised cameras. This causes many correspondence errors and 3D reconstruction errors. In contrast with existing material solutions trying to minimize the temporal delay between the cameras, we propose a software solution ensuring an invariance to the existing temporal delay. We developed a method that finds the good correspondence between points regardless of the temporal delay. It solves the resulting spatial shift and finds the correct position of the shifted points.    In the second subject, we focused on the optical flow problem using a different approach than the ones in the state of the art. In most applications, optical flow is used for real-time motion analysis. It is then important to be performed in a reduced time. In general, existing optical flow methods are classified into two main categories: either precise and dense but computationally intensive, or fast but less precise and less dense. In this work, we propose an alternative solution being at the same time, fast and precise. To do this, we propose extracting intensity isocontours to find corresponding points representing the related optical flow.    By addressing these problems we made two major contributions.

Keyphrases: isocontours, temporal delay, epipolair geometry, 3D reconstruction, temporal delay invariance, optical flow
Les représentations de saint Antoine (1190-1231) dans les azulejos portugais du 17e et 18e siècles : la fabrication d'un mythe

Saint Anthony, known in Portugal  as Saint Anthony of Lisbon, is one of the saints, most featured on tile panels (azulejos) during the 17th and 18th century. Our thesis demonstrates the inexistence of a specific iconography of St. Anthony of Lisbon compared to Saint Anthony of Padua. The concept of Saint Anthony's representation on tiles (azulejos) is largely influenced by the art of other European countries.  Italy (notably Padua) has been the main production centre of the Anthonian image.  Italian, Flemish and German engravings, directly inspired, or not, by Italian painters, travelled across Europe revealing the Saint's lifetime miracles. Martin Engelbrecht's engravings, based on Thomas Scheffler's drawings, are the main inspiration for tile (azulejo) painters during the second half of the 18th century. Our study presents an extensive inventory of the iconography of Saint Anthony on tiles (azulejos).  This register, organised according to scenes presented on panels of the 17th and 18th centuries in Portugal and Brazil, allows the identification of models used by painters for the representations and their evolution through time. Our study evaluates also the interrelations between art and cult.  The contribution brought by the representation of Antonian scenes in St.Anthony's mythical process.  In our opinion, the tiles (azulejos) embodied and encouraged the mythification process.  The oversizing of images, tailored to this artistic support, largely impacted the reception of the image which contributed directly to the mythification effect.

Keyphrases: Azulejos, Portugal, Saint Anthony, Tiles, Franciscan, Brazil, Italy, Padoua
La stratégie pétrolière de la France en Algérie, 1962-1971

After an eight-year war, Algeria gained full independence. Saharan oil, a major reason for the extension of the war, became the property of the new independent republic. On the other hand, French petroleum companies, which had a quasi-monopoly over the oil industry, kept their former privileges. Nevertheless, the Evian Accords of March 1962, which guaranteed these privileges, were challenged by the new Algerian authorities meeting in Tripoli, Libya, a few months later. This was in line with the will of the Algerian governing party to nationalize the gas and oil industry. Finally the adoption of the socialist path by the new leadership, in addition to the departure of the majority of the European population, compromised the French strategy to keep control of Saharan supplies, the more so that they were payable in French francs. This thesis asks the following question: what strategies did France adopt to safeguard its interests in anticipation of the nationalization of the oil industry it considered inevitable? A chronological approach makes it possible to show the evolution of Franco-Algerian relation in the field of oil between 1962 and 1971. Sources are mainly the archives of the French petroleum company TOTAL and the French Foreign Affairs ministry. For the Algerian side, it makes uses of the personal archives of the Algerian minister of industry and energy at the time, Abdesselam Belaïd. The dissertation demonstrates that, starting from the beginning of 1960’s, the main goal of France was to diversify its sources of supply and to diminish its dependency towards Algerian oil. Saharan resources were part of the strategy. In addition, this research shows that, starting in the middle of the 1960’s, French petroleum companies diminished their level of engagement in Algeria to the minimum. Finally, the thesis highlights the limits of the French strategy of diversification of its oil supply.

Keyphrases: France, Pétrole, Diversification, Algéria, Petroleum, Nationalization
Les enseignements sociaux de l'Épiscopat catholique de Madagascar, entre régime marxiste et réformes néolibérales (1982-2002) : analyse contextuelle et postcoloniale

Based on the perspective of contextual theologies, this research focuses on the discursive strategy of Local Catholic Social Teachings (ESCL) as theological discourses aimed at liberating the population of Madagascar from possible confusions in their social discernment. Using a postcolonial approach, the analysis of the discourses addressed in this thesis studies the way in which Catholic leaders develop their social teachings. These theological discourses are designed according to their interpretation of the situation of the country between 1982 and 2002. Using postcolonial discursive analysis mean scrutinize the presence of colonial categories in the ESCL. The presence of generalizations and unfounded affirmations, the way of thinking in dichotomy, and the hierarchization of ideas and humans will be verified. The analysis takes into account the importance of the relationships that link the ESCL to the Malagasy cultural identity combined to the process of neoliberal globalization and the process of democratization of the Island of Madagascar.

Keyphrases: Postcolonialisme, Contextual theology, Catholic social teachings, Liberalization, Globalization, Democracy, Discursive analysis, Postcolonialism