NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
Effet de la RNase HI sur l’expression génique et sur le surenroulement de l’ADN chez Escherichia coli

R-loops generated during transcription elongation are implicated in many DNA reactions, including replication, recombination and gene expression both in prokaryotes and in eukaryotes. Many studies have shown that negative supercoils excess and G-rich sequences induce the formation of R-loops.  Up to now, our results allow us to establish a direct link between topoisomerases, supercoiling level, and the formation of R-loops.  However, what the physiological significance, if any, of R-loops is still largely unknown. In the first article, a detailed study on double topA rnhA mutants showed that the depletion of RNase HI activity induces a cellular response which renders gyrase unable to perform supercoils. This is the first evidence implicating RNase HI as a major player in DNA supercoiling regulation. Our results also show that R-loops formation can lead to the inhibition of gene expression. However, the exact mechanism(s) leading to the inhibition of gene expression are not yet understood. The accumulation of shorter than full length RNAs could be caused by road-blocks during transcription elongation or by the degradation of full length RNAs.  In the second article, we show that hypernegative supercoiling can lead to sequence independent R-loop formation. The physiological consequence is extensive RNA degradation which ultimately culminates in the formation of truncated proteins. In conclusion, this study clearly shows a close link between RNase HI activity, R-loop formation, DNA topology and gene expression. In addition, this study also provides some evidence for the synthesis of a gyrase inhibitor that can regulate gyrase activity directly or indirectly via unidentified mechanisms. This surprising observation is still preliminary taking into consideration that many antibiotics target gyrase. Finally results from this study could open up avenues for research in eukaryotes.

Keyphrases: Topoisomérase I, gyrase, RNase HI, R-loops, Topoisomérase I, gyrase, RNase HI, R-loops, supercoiling
Effets d'agents morphogénétiques sur la prolifération et la différenciation neuronales et épithéliales chez la pensée de mer Renilla koellikeri

Retinoic acid receptors were recently reported in the sea pansy, Renilla koellikeri, and in other anthozoans, and NO seems to play various roles in several cnidarians. Retinoic acid (RA) and nitric oxide (NO) are known for their implication in inducing neurite outgrowth in both vertebrates and invertebrates. But so far, no role of these agents has been identified in this basal metazoan  phylum. In order to show that these agents have a morphogenetic role in neuronal development in the ancestors of bilateral metazoan. We used primary cultures of cells from the cnidarian anthozoan Renilla koellikeri (sea pansy), with the most primary nervous system. We found that both 9-cis and 11-trans retinoic acid induced cell proliferation in dose- and time-dependant manners in petri dishes coated with polylysine. Cell cultures exposed to retinoic acid in dishes devoid of polylysine were observed to differentiate into epithelial cells. On the other hand, NO induced extensive neurite outgrowth in polylysine-coated culture dishes. No other celle type underwent differentiation in the presence of NO, and the density of dedifferentiated cells was reduced. The neurites of the differentiating neurons appeared to intertwine and form a loose nerve net. These observations suggest that retinoic acid, but not NO, has mitogenic activity, and that retinoic acid and NO are differentially involved in nerve cell specification in the sea pansy. The type of action, mitogenesis or cell differenciation (epithelial or neural), depends on the degree of cell adhesion to substrate. As both molecular and paleontological evidence place cnidarians such as the sea pansy closest to the eumetazoan ancestor, our results suggest that the morphogenetic role of retinoic acid and NO was rooted in the commun ancestor of all metazoans.

Keyphrases: Polylysine, Anthozoan, Cnidaria, Cells culture, Polylysine, Retinoic acid, Nitric oxide, Proliferation, Differentiation
Le rôle de l'expérience sensible dans les dialogues de maturité de Platon

The purpose of this dissertation is to define the role of sense-experience within the theory of knowledge applied to Plato’s middle dialogues, namely the Phaedo, the Phaedrus, the Symposium and the Republic. To achieve this, we will initially examine the notion of recollection through the study of Phaedo 72-77 and its different interpretations. Then we will establish that the four dialogues share a common epistemology, to finally look at the different functions of sense-experience. The objective of this study is to demonstrate that despite Plato’s critical views regarding the senses and the imperfection of the sensible world, sense-perception nevertheless plays an important epistemological and pedagogical role : it is part of the process that leads to concept formation, it directs the philosopher-to-be towards the intelligible world and it allows the experienced philosopher to remember the arguments in favour of the immortality of the soul and the necessity of philosophy.

Keyphrases: Sens, Plato, Middle dialogues, Phaedo 72-77, Theory of knowledge, Epistemology, Sense-experience, Senses, Recollection, Education, Immortality of the soul
« Citoyennisation » et consolidation d’entités supranationales : les cas de l’Union européenne et de l’Organisation des Nations Unies

The contemporary political sphere is characterized by an increase in the number of regulation levels. A new structure has been emerging, defined by the overlay of national institutions, sub-state entities and supranational (regional and international) organizations. The State, while remaining in a privileged position, no longer monopolizes the production of policies; the national area is not the sole locus of political life anymore.   Such dynamics of change have affected the design of citizenship, central element of politics.  The 1990s have seen a proliferation of studies regarding post/trans/supra-national, or global, citizenship; according to those analyses, the locus of citizenship is less and less national and more and more supranational.   From a multiple and dynamic understanding of citizenship, the dissertation proposes to move beyond the locus issue. Citizenship is here conceived as a dynamic construction, whose moving outlines evolve through time and space. Individuals are not citizens « by nature »; they become citizens through a « citizenization » process, as political entities are built and consolidate. Institutional structures and public policies set up within supranational political entities create citizenship links with individuals, and those links evolve as institutional structures and policies are changing. The dissertation presents a contextualized analysis of the « citizenization » processes in progress at the supranational level.   In this regards, it questions the meaning of the recent developments that affected the European Union and the United Nations for supranational citizenship-building.  Important pillars of the multilevel governing structure characterizing the current political sphere, both entities have been engaged for the last years in profound institutional reform processes.  Relying notably on the concepts of « citizenship regime » and « governance » and an institutionalist theoretical framework, the dissertation proposes an analysis of the impact of the institutional changes in progress within the European Union and the United Nations in citizenization terms.

Keyphrases: Participation, Institution-building, Citizenization, European Union, United Nations, Governance, European citizenship, Active citizenship, Participation, Institution-building, Institutionalism
Surveillance et ordre commercial :  ethnographie d’un centre de contrôle de vidéosurveillance en milieu privé de masse

In the perspective that Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) has become an essential tool in the world of security, our research project attempts to understand the ways in which this tool is used to create order in a mass private property (a private property that the general public is invited to visit). It is a matter of understanding the role of a CCTV system, and of the command center, in the security management of the shopping center. More specifically, we wish to describe the inner functioning and the objectives of the surveillance technologies, as well as the control methods, used in a mass private property. Also, we want to describe the practices of the agents assigned to the control center and their perceptions on safety and order, with a particular attention given to the surveillance of the environment. The selected site for this study is a commercial building located in downtown Montreal, which houses several restaurants and shops. In order to achieve our research objectives, we completed more than 150 hours of active observation in a CCTV monitoring control center. Our observations were supplemented with spontaneous discussions in order to better understand the dynamics and interactions between agents, other employees and visitors. As such, our empirical material is mainly qualitative in nature; however, we complemented these data with a quantitative analysis grid allowing for a meticulous analysis of the security agents’ timetable using a computerized file. We are able to establish that monitoring in a mass private property aims primarily image management, and safety itself is considered less important than marketing and consumption encouragement. Moreover, we discovered that security agents’ day-to-day activities were not guided by a global mission, but rather serve the timely organizational needs. As for the CCTV monitoring control center, we claim that its main role is to help the establishment’s managers insure that all activities progress as planned.

Keyphrases: Surveillance, Security agent, Control, Monitoring, Mass private property, CCTV
Modèles murins de prééclampsie et effets préventifs de l’entraînement physique

Preeclampsia is the primary cause of maternal and foetal mortality and morbidity and no treatment, apart from delivery are known to date. To better understand this pathology, we investigated three different animal models.  First, we needed to confirm preeclampsia-like symptoms in p57kip2 deficient mice, a protein implicated in the trophoblast cell cycle. Conversely to the Japanese group, we observed neither hypertension nor proteinuria in this model. However their placentas showed labyrinthine trophoblast structure loss as well as microcalcification. We therefore studied the impact of Japanese diet, which induced foetal growth restriction and endothelial dysfunction independently from genotype. Our results demonstrate that placental alterations and genetics are not sufficient to induce preeclampsia-like symptoms in this model, and that diet can have deleterious effects on pregnant mice, independently from genotype. We then demonstrated that hypertensive mice overexpressing human angiotensinogen and renin developed de novo proteinuria and had a significant increase of their hypertension during gestation. Their placentas are affected by necrosis and labyrinthine trophoblast structure loss as well as an overexpression of sFlt-1 receptors. These mice represent the first animal model of superimposed preeclampsia on chronic hypertension. Finally, we used normotensive females overexpressing human angiotensinogen, which develop preeclampsia-like symptoms when they are mated with males overexpressing human rennin, to establish that exercise training normalised hypertension and proteinuria at the end of gestation. Moreover, exercise training ameliorates foetal and placental growth as well as endothelium-independent relaxation, independently from the genotype. Exaggerated and disorganised proliferation of trophoblasts in this model is also normalised. Exercise training prevents preeclampsia-like symptoms in this model. Taken together, our results will help a better understanding of this disease and its prevention.

Keyphrases: Placenta, Transgenic mice, Renin-angiotensin system, Pregnancy, Placenta
La communauté musulmane en contexte migratoire et la réarticulation d’un « cosmos sacré » islamique : le cas de l’association Bel Agir de Montréal

My study of a Montreal Muslim association draws on the concept of community in social sciences to explore the social and religious dynamics of the Bel Agir association, where I conducted  fieldwork for more than six months. Composed mainly of former members of a non violent Moroccan Islamist movement and entirely of migrants, the association offers a space where continuity and discontinuity in its members social and religious life is articulated. My analysis examines, in part, the role of the religious community in the immigration and settlement process. However at the principal aim of my thesis is to understand how the involvement of members in the association contributes to internalizing a specifically Muslim ethos and how, in return, their participation in the community articulates this ethos with the social context of Québec. In doing so, I offer an analysis of what motivate members to integrate to the community and apply the teachings of the group to their individual lives.

Keyphrases: islam, Québec, religion, immigration, Anthropology, ethnology, Islam, Québec, religion, religious community, immigration
Caractérisation des souches de Salmonella Typhimurium responsables de septicémies chez le porc

For many years, there has been an emergence of new multi-drug resistant Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium strains responsible for high mortality rates in regards to swine infections. This represents a major problem for the swine industry and also for public health. The objective of this project was to characterize an isolate capable of creating swine septicemic illness and another which is naturally present in this host’s intestinal tract. The study conducted here includes observations of bacteria-epithelial cell interactions, bacteria-macrophage interactions and identification of genes expressed during different epithelial cell infections. Bacterial adherence and invasion of cells were observed after epithelial cell infection. This type of assay underlines the ability of the isolates to colonize the intestinal tract. The commensal strain has a better adherence then the other. Macrophage infections allowed characterization of bacterial phagocytosis and intracellular survival. Survival within macrophages reflects the capacity of the bacterial isolates to infect and survive in the host. There’s no difference between the two strains with the condition we test. A technique termed SCOTS (Selective Capture of Transcribed Sequences) was used to capture unique transcripts from the isolate which caused illness during swine infection. SCOTS was also used to find unique genes expressed by the commensal isolate. The captured fragments were cloned, their strain specificity was analyzed by dot blot and the genes transcribed were identified by direct sequencing followed by bioinformatic analysis. SCOTS carried out with the septicemic and the commensal isolates was done. During the SCOTS conducted with the strain isolated from a sick swine or with the isolate from healthy swine, common Salmonella genes were found. Thus, even though these two isolates cause different pathologies, virulence of the strains does not rely on the acquisition of new genes, but perhaps on differential gene expression among both.

Keyphrases: Typhimurium, SCOTS, swine
« Shonen », le monstre invisible : marginalisation de la jeunesse japonaise par le discours et les représentations de la délinquance juvénile entre 1997 et 2009

Five murders in Japan committed by juvenile criminals attracted immense attention from the media in the years 1997 and 2000. A new discourse about juvenile delinquency followed these incidents stipulating that juvenile delinquents had become more cruel, more violent, more abnormal, and more numerous than ever before. This discourse, initially created by academics acting as “moral entrepreneurs,” was widely supported by the mass media. However, the discourse developed on its own, taking a radical ideological turn: it began to apply not only to juvenile delinquents, but labeled the entire population of Japanese youth as dangerous, incomprehensible, and abnormal while seeming to be proper and normal members of society. The boundary between juvenile delinquents and young law-abiding Japanese individuals ceased to exist, and every young girl or boy could potentially be a criminal regardless of their circumstances or socioeconomic background. The discourse strongly influenced the Japanese society ideologically and legally, and labeled its youth as "invisible monsters". This study presents the beginning, development, and consequences of this particular discourse that led to the negative portrayal of the Japanese youth in the first decade of the 21st century. Key concepts used as characteristics of this cohort are examined, breaking down the discourse into sociocultural and ideological reasoning and systems. The study also demonstrates the incoherence and inadequacy of the representation of juvenile delinquents, which are a far cry from the actual reality of juvenile criminality.

Keyphrases: Japan, Youth, Juvenile delinquency, Discours, Discourse, Marginalization
Être résistance : illustration d’une nouvelle théorie de la résistance chez le dernier Foucault

In this dissertation, I revisit Foucault’s work through the various analyses he offered between 1981 and 1984 while teaching at the Collège de France. Against the opinion which sees a radical turn in Foucault’s thought – opinion which is seemingly justified by the author’s break with his past demonstrations on the relation between power and knowledge, and his shift towards the study of the various spiritual exercises in Antiquity – I illustrate that there is a continuity and a complementarity between his earlier studies and his later interests. Foucault uncovers, at the basis of Greco-roman political practice, an ethics defined as an exercise of the self. He then attempts, throughout his last years at the Collège de France, to reinstate askêsis as the long forgotten foundation of ethics, and the êthos as the condition of political efficiency. Until 1980, Foucault is mainly interested by the mechanisms and devices enabling the government of populations. From 1980 on, it is the question of the government of self as a necessary condition for the government of others which invests his analyses. My objective, throughout this dissertation, is to illustrate how Foucault’s redefinition of ethics allows him to advocate a new theory of resistance in his last years at the Collège de France. This dissertation therefore implicitly suggests further clarification pertaining to the function of Foucault’s last two publications (L’usage de plaisir and Le souci de soi) within his work understood as a whole.

Keyphrases: Philosophy, Government, Ethics, Ascetics, Politics, Antiquity, Stoicism, Cynics, Corps, Body, Plaisir, Pleasure
Mesure de la concentration en métaux traces dans la solution de sol par microlysimétrie

This study focuses on evaluating a method of acquiring soil solution in the soil-root interface of the rhizosphere. The liquid phase of the rhizosphere constitutes the main area where plants absorb contaminants like trace metals. Thus the rhizosphere soil solution is key to determine the amount of bioavailable trace metals. Microlysimetry has been described as the most appropriate in situ method to tackle difficulties inherent to the microscopic scale of the rhizosphere. Despite the lack of an exhaustive evaluation of their performance, microlysimeters have gained popularity for in situ studies on the bioavailability of trace metals. The objective of this study was to evaluate the capacity of microlysimeter to preserve the chemical integrity of the soil solution and also to determine their optimum use conditions. To do this, microlysimeter have been submitted to a series of laboratory experiments with solutions and soils. The volume of solution extracted and trace metals (Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb, Zn) behaviour were studied.   Results show that microlysimeters work optimally when soil water content is above field capacity and when the amount of clay and organic matter is low. Sandy soils with low organic carbon content have a better reproducibility for extracted volume and soil solution extraction is possible even when soil water content is below field capacity. Using microlysimeters in this soil type is thus optimal. In solution experiments, microlysimeters reached equilibrium with the control solution after ten hours of extraction. In optimal conditions (acidic pH and high DOC) and after this ten hours period, microlysimeters preserve the chemical composition of the solution. In soil experiments, this equilibrium has not been reached after eight samplings throughout ten days. Organic matter content and microbial activity could be responsible for the modification of concentrations of trace metals during sampling. This is especially true for FH horizon where microlysimeters perform poorly. In contrast, the concentrations reach the reference values toward the end of sampling serie in the B horizon and microlysimeters have a better overall performance in this horizon. Although higher values are observed for microlysimeters, trace metals concentrations are comparable to other extraction methods, specifically for the B horizon. Even if their uses are optimized in sandy soil, the B horizon should be privileged for future field studies involving microlysimeters.

Keyphrases: Microlysimeter, Trace metals, Soil solution, Rhizosphere, Bioavailability
Le livre sous la loupe : Nouvelles formes d’écriture électronique

The project proposes a new type of interface, that we have called zoom-editor, allowing the user to increase and decrease the degree of detail of the text by zooming-in and out. The main feature of this new kind of textuality would be a 3D textual layout on the three axis (X, Y, Z), i.e. an in-depth structure based on several layers of details and meaning. We have called this type of text, z-text, and the corresponding processes of reading and writing, z-reading and z-writing. The first part describes the theoretical framework of the project. The first two chapters deal with the code/text dialectics and the analytic methods of the electronic text aesthetics, as compared with the printed forms. The third chapter analyses five types of digital documents: literary hypertext, cyberpoetry, blog, free encyclopaedia and on line newspaper.  The second part describes the sources of the proposed model, the model itself, and the components and functionality of zoom-editor. This section also contains references and discussions related to the theoretical framework portrayed in the first three chapters.  The third part proposes some hypotheses on the possible applications of the model, starting from the idea of a z-text as a multidimensional space. Each dimension would metaphorically correspond to a type of magnifying glass, implying a certain kind of analysis or exploration of a text. The domains considered for discussion are literary criticism, creative writing, pedagogy, encyclopaedias and dictionaries, documentation. The project also supposes the construction of a number of z-texts, according to the principles of z-writing, by using the zoom-editor.

Keyphrases: Electronic text, Fractales, Fractals, Cartography, Z-text, Z-reading, Z-writing