NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
Alzheimer prediction from connected speech extracts : assessment of generalisation to new data

Many advances have been made in the early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) using connected speech elicited from a picture description task. The use of hand built linguistic and acoustic features as well as Deep Learning approaches have shown promising results in the classification of AD patients. In this research, we compare both approaches on the Cookie Theft scene from the Boston Aphasia Examination with models trained with features derived from the text and audio extracts as well as a Deep Learning approach using BERT. We train our models on the newer ADReSS challenge dataset and evaluate on the CCNA dataset and vice versa in order to asses the generalisation of the trained model on unseen examples from a different dataset. A thorough evaluation of the interpretability of the models is performed to see how well each of the models learn the representations related to the disease. It is observed that the models do not perform well when evaluated on a different dataset from the same domain. The selected and learned representations from the models trained on either dataset are very different and may explain the low performance in the evaluation step. While we demonstrate the importance of linguistic features in the classification of AD vs non-AD, we find the best overall model is BERT which achieves a test accuracy of 62.6% on the ADRess challenge dataset and 66.7% on the CCNA dataset.

Keyphrases: Natural language processing, Transfer learning, Machine learning, Alzheimer's disease
Variational aleatoric uncertainty calibration in neural regression

Calibrated and reliable confidence measures are a prerequisite for most robotics perception systems since they are needed by sensor fusion and planning components downstream. This is particularly true in the case of safety-critical applications such as self-driving cars. In the context of deep learning, the sources of predictive uncertainty are categorized into epistemic and aleatoric uncertainty. There is also distributional uncertainty associated with out of distribution data. Epistemic uncertainty, also known as knowledge uncertainty, arises because of noise in the model structure and parameters, and can be reduced with more labeled data. Aleatoric uncertainty represents the inherent ambiguity in the input data and is generally irreducible in nature. Several methods exist for estimating aleatoric uncertainty through modified network structures or loss functions. However, in general, these methods lack calibration, meaning that the estimated uncertainties do not represent the empirical data uncertainty accurately. Current approaches to calibrate aleatoric uncertainty either require a held out calibration dataset or to modify the model parameters post-training. Moreover, many approaches add extra computation during inference time. To alleviate these issues, this thesis  proposes a simple and effective method for training a calibrated neural regressor, designed from the first principles of calibration. Our key insight is that calibration can be achieved by imposing constraints across multiple examples, such as those in a mini-batch, as opposed to existing approaches that only impose constraints on a per-sample basis. By enforcing the distribution of outputs of the neural regressor (the proposal distribution) to resemble a target distribution by minimizing an f-divergence, we obtain significantly better-calibrated models compared to prior approaches. Our approach, f-Cal, is simple to implement or add to existing models and outperforms existing calibration methods on the large-scale real-world tasks of object detection and depth estimation. f-Cal can be implemented in 10-15 lines of PyTorch code, and can be integrated with any probabilistic neural regressor in a minimally invasive way. This thesis also explores the estimation of distributional uncertainty for object detection, and employ methods designed for classification setups. In particular, we attempt to detect out of distribution (OOD) samples, examples which are not part of training data distribution. I establish a background-OOD problem which hampers applicability of distributional uncertainty methods in object detection specifically.

Keyphrases: Aleatoric uncertainty calibration, Probabilistic learning, Robotic vision, Uncertainty estimation
Typer a de la classe : le polymorphisme ad hoc dans un langage avec des types dépendants et de la métaprogrammation

Modularity is an important concern for software development, especially when the latter is enriched with proofs in a language with dependent types. Typer is such a language, and in order to increase its modularity, and also provide a way to overload operators, we take inspiration from Agda and Coq and extend it with instance arguments, a generalization of Haskell’s type classes. An aspect that sets our design apart is that since Typer generalizes definitions, it greatly simplifies the generalization of class constraints. In order to allow writing proofs for class laws, we must also implement the dependent elimination of inductive types. In return, instance arguments facilitate some details of dependent elimination. Using both features, we suggest a solution to the problem of Boolean Blindness.

Keyphrases: ad hoc polymorphism, type classes, dependent types, metaprogramming
Continuous coordination as a realistic scenario for lifelong learning

Current deep reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms are still highly task-specific and lack the ability to generalize to new environments. Lifelong learning (LLL), however, aims at solving multiple tasks sequentially by efficiently transferring and using knowledge between tasks. Despite a surge of interest in lifelong RL in recent years, the lack of a realistic testbed makes robust evaluation of lifelong learning algorithms difficult. Multi-agent RL (MARL), on the other hand, can be seen as a natural scenario for lifelong RL due to its inherent non-stationarity, since the agents' policies change over time. In this thesis, we introduce a multi-agent lifelong learning testbed that supports both zero-shot and few-shot settings. Our setup is based on Hanabi --- a partially-observable, fully cooperative multi-agent game that has been shown to be challenging for zero-shot coordination. Its large strategy space makes it a desirable environment for lifelong RL tasks. We evaluate several recent MARL methods, and benchmark state-of-the-art lifelong learning algorithms in limited memory and computation regimes to shed light on their strengths and weaknesses. This continual learning paradigm also provides us with a pragmatic way of going beyond centralized training which is the most commonly used training protocol in MARL. We empirically show that the agents trained in our setup are able to coordinate well with unknown agents, without any additional assumptions made by previous works. Key words: multi-agent reinforcement learning, lifelong learning.

Keyphrases: Lifelong Learning, Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning, Hanabi, Benchmark
Simul-marcheur : configurer le jeu vidéo différemment

This research uses the creation of a new genre of hyper-narrative video games, the walking simulator, as a pretext to revisit theories related to narratology and video games studies that are at first glance unsuited to this new type of video game manifestation. Points of discordance are raised to enrich the theoretical background of the field of video game studies by trying to create a compromise and an opening to video games whose gameplay is less essential to the player's experience. Taking as a starting point Jesper Juul's definition of the classic video game and the proposal of a new media configuration, in the sense understood by Philippe Marion, this dissertation then attempts to better define this new configuration by closely analysing the relationship between playability, narrative and the player.

Keyphrases: genre, walking simulator, narratology, gameplay, video games, storytelling, cognitivism
La représentation des interfaces utilisateur au cinéma : d'une image informatique à une image cinématographique

The blue bubble of a text message, the window of a web browser, the programming lines in a computer terminal, the diagrams displayed on the control screens of a spaceship: from 2001 to 2020, these images of interfaces are everywhere in the movies. In computer science, the user interface is the virtual environment useful to the user to interact with the machine. In cinema, the representation of the interface is the way to represent this interaction while immediately borrowing from the machine's images. If the interfaces are more and more frequent in the cinema, their representation is nevertheless very standardized, obeying most often very faithfully the conventions of the cinematographic genres that have shaped it. However, by drawing up an inventory of four main types and observing a few exceptions, their representation reveals a cinematographic grammar endowed with new narrative means, filmic tricks and editing effects that remain to be defined and whose added value will be measured.

Keyphrases: interface, interaction, compositing, Graphic, User, Computing, Tricking, Computer, Pictogram, Software
L'étrangeté lynchéenne : l'inquiétant cinéma de David Lynch accompagné d'un essai de mise en scène : Les Chemins de l'Oubli

This thesis aims to explore the different cinematographic means implemented by David Lynch in order to understand how he manages to transport his audience in a fantastic and of course, strange world. By informing ourselves about the first Freudian definitions of what represents the uncanny (Das Unheimliche), we will explore the recurrent codes and images in Lynchian cinematography which make the director’s films works uncanny, right after having studied in detail the elements that allow us to classify the author’s works in the fantastic genre section.

Keyphrases: David Lynch, Freud, genre, arts, fantastic, cinema, the uncanny, weird, psychology, cinematographic techniques, arts, directing
L’exposition Zeugma, le Grand oeuvre drolatique de Gérard Garouste présentée du 15 mars au 15 avril 2018

Gérard Garouste is recognized as a contemporary French painter, sculptor, and the founder of the humanitarian association La Source. Our brief seeks to reveal the place of personal discourse in its interpretation of myths. We present the exhibition of March-April 2018, Zeugma the Great Drolatic Work, in order to highlight the obvious relationship between man and artist to redefine in his works the close link between his art, his illness, and his history. Our view of the exhibition is based on the question of myth, and precisely its function in human development, in order to understand its application in the Garoustian myth. To do this, we take as support the process of mythification of Gérard Bouchard in order to analyze the issues underlying the creation of a myth within the framework of our corpus. We introduce the three major works of the exhibition in order to study their structural composition and demonstrate their complementarity. In addition, using the concept of collective memory and its autobiography, we analyze the way in which the corpus arises from an individual search for identity as evidenced by the exhibition.

Keyphrases: Gérard Garouste, Zeugma, Grand oeuvre, Individual myth, the great work, Art History
La représentation du vieillissement et de la vieillesse dans la photographie artistique contemporaine : Cindy Sherman et Donigan Cumming

In recent years, demographic studies have shown a clear aging of the North American population, while seniors face many stereotypes and prejudices that contribute to their marginalization from society. We postulate that a "gerontophobic culture" is developing and that ageist behaviors are internalized by individuals. Within this gerontophobic culture, which values youth, rapidity, efficiency, and the refusal and rejection of old age and "old people", several options are available to older people: conform to the ideals of youth and appearance of today's society or challenge them by fully assuming their age and their body. This dissertation is a study of Cindy Sherman's Society Portraits and Donigan Cumming's Pretty Ribbons series that differently explore the representation of age and the issue of gerontophobia in their respective photographic series. The cultural gerontological studies of Julia Twigg and Wendy Martin, the feminist studies of Kathleen Woodward, Michelle Meagher and Judith Butler, as well as the photographic theories of Anca Cristofovici and Olivier Lugon, will be used to analyze these two opposing attitudes towards old age for women who are victims of a double standard. This double standard, denounced by Susan Sontag and feminist gerontological studies, places older women in an impasse, as they are confronted with sexist prejudices, in addition to being constantly under the pressure of appearances and the cult of youth. In the history of art and the regime of artistic images, we see a recent movement to revalue old age and the experience of older and aging people. Many artists are seeking to change negative perceptions of old age and challenge gerontophobic assumptions about it. This thesis aims to analyze Sherman’s and Cumming's images in detail, ending with a comparative study of their series seeking to demonstrate how this movement to revalue and deconstruct stereotypes is taking shape in contemporary photographic images.

Keyphrases: Cindy Sherman, Donigan Cumming, Art contemporain, Representation of old age, Photography, Contemporary art, Feminist studies, Gerontology
Le cinéma des religieuses au Québec : pour la valorisation d’un patrimoine ignoré

This thesis focuses on films made by religious sisters in Quebec. Since the 1930s, women religious communities have produced numerous amateur films, which have received practically no critical or academic attention. This essay begins with a survey of past and ongoing research, based mainly on the work of historian Jocelyne Denault, the first (and only) person to have written on this subject to date. An incursion is then proposed into the cinematographic productions of three communities located in Montreal. In doing so, we link the various objects under study to three more established categories: utilitarian cinema, the home movie, and the compilation or found footage film.The case study of the film Le Livre d'or (Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception 1964) allows us to look at hybrid films, mixing these three categories. We then turn our attention to the documentary value of the nuns' productions, relying mainly on the example of Chez nous (Barrette s.g.m. 1961) and the documents corollary to its production. Having demonstrated the historical and patrimonial value of the films made by the sisters, we proceed to a presentation of the current status of their preservation. Starting with the observation that these films are more threatened than ever, as much by oversight as by destruction, we consider two possible processes of enhancement and envision the different ways in which they could be put into practice: exhibitions and audiovisual reuse. We conclude with an urgent call for action to safeguard and bring to light these precious elements of collective memory.

Keyphrases: Religious communities, Amateur cinema, Quebec cinema, Women's cinema, Exhibition, Found footage filmmaking, Religious archives, Religious heritage, History of cinema, Audiovisual heritage
Une autre journée : de la destruction dans le cinéma extrême

This research-creation project aims to analyse the motif of destruction in extreme cinema. With a specific interest toward an underground and « unacceptable » part of the genre and its unspoken connection to the writings of the Marquis de Sade, I will attempt to show how destruction is represented (and exhausted) therein through a passage from the destruction of others to a destruction of one’s self. The written portion of this thesis is accompagnied by a medium-lenght film, Une autre journée [Another day] (see Annexe 2) as well as a preleminary video installation, Your heart out (see Annexe 1).

Keyphrases: Destruction, Autodestruction, Torture, Automutilation, Marquis de Sade, Extreme Cinema, Self-destruction, Sadism
«Porter leur haine plus loin que la mort» : Élie Benoist et la question des cimetières protestants dans la France de l'édit de Nantes (1598-1685)

This master’s thesis analyses the place that the dead occupied in the rivalries that took place between Catholics and Protestants in France under the Edict of Nantes. It will be studied through the 3,660 pages of pastor Élie Benoist’s L’Histoire de l’édit de Nantes contenant les choses les plus remarquables qui se sont passées en France avant et après sa publication, à l’occasion de la diversité des Religions : Et principalement les Contraventions, Inexecutions, Chicanes, Artifices, Violences, & autres Injustices, que les Réformez se plaignent d’y avoir souffertes, jusques à l’édit de révocation en Octobre 1685. Avec ce qui a suivi ce nouvel Édit jusques à présent aux attaques perpétrées par les catholiques (1693-1695).  This research will thus investigate a subject which has only been superficially studied by the historians of death: the treatment of Protestant dead and cemeteries by the Catholics during the period of application of the Edict of Nantes. In the first chapter, the historiographic assessment of the history of death gives a better understanding of the intellectual and emotional context of Benoist’s references to the dead and to cemeteries. At first glance, they seem to be lost in the overabundance of details that Benoist puts forward to condemn the persecutions that the French Protestants had to suffer between the Wars of Religion and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. But in chapter two, we discover that these testimonies are part of a larger plan that allows the pastor to build his argument on solid evidence. In order to fully grasp the construction of Benoist’s story and the methods he uses to communicate his thoughts, we decided to divide his work in ten periods, separated by events that led to a change in the application of the Edict. We will then be able to understand that, by using a rigorous historic methodology, though marked by rhetorical process that tended toward generalisations, Élie Benoist managed to offer his personal vision of the period, and to defend it through traces of history. Based on this information, we will be able, in chapter three, to study in depth the different aggressions inflicted to Huguenot dead and to show the difference between the aggressions committed by the state, the church and the population. In doing so, we will see that Benoist’s will was not only to promote the value of confessional coexistence, but also, by the litany of the complaints against the Catholic treatment of Huguenot dead, to maybe call his Protestant contemporaries to resistance.

Keyphrases: édit de Nantes, Élie Benoist, France, XVIIe siècle, Death, Mentalities, Identity, Protestantism, Absolutism, Edict of Nantes, 17th century
Les politiques de gestion de crises de Charles le Chauve en marche d’Espagne et de Bretagne : comparaison d’espaces politiques troubles

Charles the Bald’s reign was a period of political and ideological transformations for the carolingian royalty. The troubles with the Breton and Spanish march along with the external raids are probably the sources of tension which have captured the most attention from medievalists. The so-called armorican emancipatory quest or the personal and familial ambitions of the septimanian and iberian magnates are still cited as evidences of the weakening of Carolingian political power following the 843 treaty of Verdun. By focusing on the king’s conflict resolution policies in these two territories, apparently hostile to his power, this study wants to establish wheter the tensions in the marches were as complex and irremediable as the primary sources suggested.  By comparing the field policies visible in the royal charters, we noticed that theses troubles were not fundamentally different from those present elsewhere in the kingdom. The strategies employed by the king shows that the royalty had the means to overcome these obstacles and to affirm his political supremacy. Noticeably, these oppositions do not seem to be so particular. The political and economic issues that they were impliying were reflecting the main political concerns of the Carolingian kings following the 840-843 civil war. It was important to them to promote their divine legitimacy as well as appearing as the only political choice for the kingdom’s elites.

Keyphrases: Haut Moyen-Âge, High Middles-Ages, West Francia, Charles the Bald, Breton march, Spanish march, Carolingian elites, Carolingian politics, Carolingian State, Royal charters, Comparative History
Projections du cortex visuel au claustrum de la souris : reconstructions tridimensionnelles d’axones individuels

The claustrum is a subcortical telencephalic structure present in all mammals. It is widely and reciprocally interconnected with the entire cerebral cortex. It has been suggested to be involved in the synchronization of cortical oscillations and in attention. The claustrum in mice exhibits a clear dorsoventral organization of longitudinal bands dedicated to different sensory cortical projections, that can also overlap. Presently, there are no studies of the cortical projections to the claustrum at the single axon level. Single axon quantitative morphometric parameters help understanding how information is distributed within a structure and how it interacts with the entire brain. To reveal axons of the visual cortex projection to the claustrum, iontophoretic injections of the anterograde neuronal tracer Phaseolus vulgaris leucoagglutinin (PHA-L) were performed in the visual cortex of adult C57BL/6J mice. Individual axons of the projections from the visual cortices to the claustrum were reconstructed using Neurolucida 360 (MBF Biosciences). These projections were shown in central region of the dorsoventral axis in the ipsi- and contralateral claustra. There were three morphological types of axon: some traveled all the length of the claustrum without significant branching, some were long and branched, and others were short. Local arborizations might suggest smaller modules within the longitudinal organization of the claustrum. Some collaterals of the main axon exit the central visual domain to branch into other sensory modalities. The visual projection to the claustrum is formed by poorly diversified axon regarding to their morphology. Individual axons route the information through all the rostro-caudal length of the claustrum. Axonal bifurcations suggest that visual information can be directed to other territories associated to other sensory modalities. The varicosity distribution suggest that synapses are established randomly.

Keyphrases: Claustrum, Multisensoriel, Axons, Connections, Multisensory, Visual cortex