NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
Applications of complex numbers to deep neural networks

In the past decade, a convergence of hardware, software and theory have allowed artificial intelligence to experience a renewal: a "spring" that, unlike previous times, seems to have led not to a burst hype bubble and a new "AI winter", but to a lasting "summer", anchored by tangible advances in the field.  One of the key such advances is truly ``deep'' learning. In many applications, the architects of neural networks have had great success by deepening them, and there is now little doubt about the value of deep, composable, hierarchical, automatically-learned-from-examples representations.  But there exist other, less-well-explored avenues for research, such as alternatives to the real-valued number system most commonly used: low-precision, complex, quaternions. In 2017, myself and one of my primary collaborators discussed the seeming lack of interest given to purely complex-valued processing of digital signals, either directly available in complex form or convertible to such using e.g. the Fourier Transform (1D, 2D, short-time or not). Since this area seemed under-explored, we threw ourselves into it and, after a year spent dealing with the challenges of neural networks with purely complex-valued internal representations, we obtained good results in computer vision and music spectrum prediction. We also expose the pitfalls of naively initializing and normalizing such complex-valued networks and solve them with custom formulations adapted for the use of complex numbers.

Keyphrases: Artificial intelligence, Deep learning, Machine learning, Neural networks, Complex numbers
Peter Krausz : Et in Arcadia ego

Peter Krausz is known as a socially conscious artist essentially concerned with the relationship between the human being and nature. Since the 1970s, the discourse of his artistic production has revolved around a critique of territorial and border issues. While represented in a formal language very like that of his prior body of work, the 28 works comprising his most recent series, Et in Arcadia ego (2014-2017), involve a different approach to landscape. How does the absence now of a human figure and of spatiotemporal markers prompt a reflection in spectators on their relationship with the landscape? The compositions in these egg tempera paintings and pastels on paper highlight the pastoral and idyllic aspects of the Mediterranean landscape, an idealization also evinced in the series title, which explicitly refers to the myth of Arcadia. In Antiquity, poets nourished legends about this Greek realm of bounteous nature and eternal spring. Krausz reactualizes the myth by borrowing from the title of Nicolas Poussin’s painting Et in Arcadia ego (1638). The present research examines the meaning of the phrase, usually translated as “I, Death, exist in Arcadia” taking into consideration that Krausz’s series belongs to an entirely different historical period and context of production. Research for this thesis is informed by the concept of landscape as cultural construct developed by philosopher Anne Cauquelin. This concept allows me to establish the historiographic link between the collections of Classical poetry, classicist painting of the 17th century, and the work of Krausz. The artist’s vision of nature will be presented from the perspectives of a fashioned collective memory, and from a singular view of the contemporary landscape. I intend to demonstrate how the Et in Arcadia ego series effectively enables a reflection on the 21st century’s own context of environmental deterioration.

Keyphrases: Peter Krausz, Et in Arcadia ego, Memento Mori, Paysage pastoral, Pastoral landscape, Cultural construction
« Êtes-vous Monsieur Makhmalbaf? »: présence et réalisme du réalisateur-acteur Mohsen Makhmalbaf

The question “Are you Mister Makhmalbaf” is the link between two films in which appears the Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf. These two cases show in an original way the presence of this man. The value one can give to this presence can be problematized by the evaluation of it’s making and linked to the demonstration that it generates a reality-based process. During the analysis of these two films, we see that one of them – Close-up (Kiarostami 1991) – develops a presence in a progressive way and the other one presents Makhmalbaf in a regressive way - Helo Cinema (Makhmalbaf 1995). In the first case, Makhmalbaf is presented by three modes: the name, the body and the film; in the second, he is represented by three other modes: the actor, the filmmaker and the director. By the production of meaning through the presentation and representation, the two films studied define our connection with this man. Thus, the figure which is presented and the type which is represented show that cinema is a realist medium. If reality is that towards which the projection of cinema is directed, it must be the reason behind our will to know if this man present is or not Mister Makhmalbaf.

Keyphrases: Imaginaire, Médiation, Figure, Type, Star, Presence, Realism, Aesthetic, Imaginary, Meaning, Mediation
Les femmes et les menstrues : quand le cinéma, les séries télévisées et les publicités dictent les règles

Menstrual taboos continue to exist in society. Many feelings exist around menstruation in movies and TV shows with different types of female characters. When we think about the female period, there’s shame and disgust provoked by the bodily substance, embarrassment or pettiness produced by the menstrual experience, and gender inequalities and restrictions. How is this subject treated for the spectators of fictional films? Are there beneficial or unfavorable aspects for the female public? How does the use of such a theme in film respond to the current era and form social discourse on sexual issues? Which strategies are movies using to attract an essentially feminine public when they address the theme of menstruation? This thesis wants to contribute to the advancement of the female condition by focusing on menstruation. This theme is rarely used and poorly addressed in cinema and television. The initial hypothesis is that cinema and TV shows have exploited physical codes to represent women at different ages and have adopted social codes of lure and disgust related to the body. I’ve also created a webseries script based around this thesis with six episodes per season, each ranging from 2 to 4 minutes. The series, called “Ces Nobles Règles”, is about different female characters during their menstrual period.

Keyphrases: Menstruation, Cinema, Woman, Representation, TV shows
«La bonne cuisine» : discours alimentaires et goûts populaires au Québec des années 1920 à 1949

Acknowledging the fact that there is sometimes a dichotomy between food’s prescriptions and food’s practices, this thesis aims to illustrate the role played by popular tastes in the making of food choices. The study takes place in the spatiotemporal framework of Quebec between the years 1920 and 1949. This period stands out by the important amount of industrial and urban transformations in the Quebec society that are fit to create new food’s habits within the population. The aim of this thesis is to identify the way in which popular taste is constructed during this peculiar period, by the relation within several factors such as taste, economics, dietary or material considerations. To do so, this research explores the culinary content product in four major magazines of the time, which are La Revue moderne, La Revue populaire, La Terre de chez nous and the publications made by the Cercles de Fermières. Furthermore, we deconstruct the content of the culinary recipes to bring out certain food preferences and to extricate multiple sensorial components related to the perception of taste. Thereafter, we study discourses found in the culinary chronicles in order to locate the tastes and the preferences in the cultural context that generate them. Ultimately, we aspire to uncover a primordial aspect of the food act but often discarded from historical study, namely the taste.

Keyphrases: Culinary culture, Cookery literature, Foodways, Popular tastes, Taste perception, Cultural representation
Pour la paix ou le chaos? : la justification des violences dans le camp républicain pendant la guerre civile espagnole : 1936-1937

The Spanish Civil War is most commonly seen by the Spaniards as a tragic and violent part of their history. In the last thirty years, this war’s historiography broadly studied the matter of the political violence that emerged during this conflict. In this thesis we are examining the discourses used and mobilized by the press to justify the war and the violence that originated from it. In this research, we focused on how this conflict was thought as a just war while its objectives were far greater than a mere victory over the enemy. While the right realized a coup d’état against the leftist Frente Popular government, elected on February 16th 1936, it was easy for the Republicans to take the moral high ground by saying that they were defending themselves against a massive threat. All this during a period where the use of violence was depicted as something amoral after the trauma caused by the Great War in the entire world. In such a context, Republican’s aim was exactly to elaborate a propaganda line that would prove the morality of their cause and argue that their victory over the Francoist troops was the easiest way to guarantee peace. By analyzing newspapers, we concentrate our efforts over the apparent oxymoron, but far from being unique, that permitted the Republicans to defend the fact of waging a war while arguing, at the same time, that this war was fought over to obtain nothing else than future and permanent peace. This Republican camp was anything but a homogeneous group. Its components included ideologies such as left Republicans, Socialists, Stalinists Communists, Antistalinists Communists and even Anarchists. The threat of Fascism over their ultimate goal forced them, in a certain way, to form this unusual political alliance around the Republican banner to defend themselves against their Spanish and their Axis enemies. Antifascism united those ideologies that might have fought between themselves before the beginning of the war. The mobilization of a pacifist discourse was clearly a common factor for those groups united into the Republican camp. Nonetheless, the content of these discourses rested upon totally different ideological references that diverged the role of these ideologies during this conflict. This thesis is thus a way to unite the fields of studies of pacifism, total war and violence during the particular case of the Spanish Civil War at its highest moments of turbulence which is from summer 1936 until the end of summer 1937.

Keyphrases: Violence, Spanish Civil War, Pacificism, Total War, Spain's War, Republican Newspaper, War Mobilization, Spain, Prensa republicana
Entre savoir profane et Révélation : la pratique exégétique à l’université d’Oxford 1229-1267

Through a study of the exegetical works of various masters associated with the University of Oxford between 1229 and 1267, we attempt to describe a freer environment than the one provided by the Université de Paris, which had prohibited the teaching of Aristotle’s libri naturales in 1210 and 1215. Robert Grosseteste, Richard Fishacre, Simon of Hinton and Roger Bacon articulate a conception of knowledge and the value of philosophical activity that seems to favour a more peaceful reception of the Greek philosopher, since the practice of literal exegesis legitimizes the speculations about nature to which this activity gives rise. This thesis attempts to understand the connections made by thinkers of the young University of Oxford, through their practice of exegesis, between Revelation and profane knowledge, and to see how their idea of theological inquiry evolved in the 13th century. We show that for the Oxford masters, answers to questions about Scripture are provided by natural philosophy and that all forms of profane knowledge, therefore, are seen as necessary, while always in the service of faith.

Keyphrases: Grosseteste, Bacon, Fishacre, Simon Hinton, Oxford, exegesis, natural philosophy, Middle Ages
L’industrie des croisières au Québec et les impacts environnementaux sur le Saint-Laurent

Cruises represent the form of tourism that has experienced the greatest growth in the last 30 years, a phenomenon to which Québec does not derogate. While the environmental issue is ubiquitous in the economic development processes, no study has examined the environmental impact of the cruise industry on the St. Lawrence River. The research has four distinct components. The first part deals with the environmental issues of the cruise industry, and will present the 10 environmental issues of the industry. The second part deals with the evolution of cruise traffic in Québec since 2003. It shows that cruise tourism is developing in a context of globalization, while showing a growth rate slightly higher than the world average. The third component aims to determine how the industry responds to demand. The research demonstrates how the modernization of port facilities, investments in marine development projects, the offer of local-flavoured experiences and the concentration of activities during the fall s eason have enabled the industry to develop a niche within an extremely competitive market. The fourth part deals with ecological development principals that are integrated in corporate strategies. The analysis will show that the main environmental priority of cruise lines is the release of pollutants into the air, while the internal energy optimization of ships and waste management are the least important issues for the industry. The research methodology is based on a literature review, annual company reports, environmental reports and websites of various cruise lines operating on the St. Lawrence River. An analytical grid with six environmental variables will be used to evaluate the evolution of ecological practices since 2008. These variables include: wastewater management, drinking water consumption on board ships, waste management, discharges in the air, management and energy consumption and internal optimization of ships.

Keyphrases: Québec, Transport maritime, Canada, Cruise shipping industry, St. Lawrence River, Tourism, Environment, Green cruises, Maritime transportation
La Diègèsis sur la construction de Sainte-Sophie : analyse et héritage

This essay deepens the understanding of the text of the Διήγησις περὶ τῆς οἰκοδομῆς τοῦ ναοῦ τῆς μεγάλης τοῦ θεοῦ ἐκκλησίας τῆς ἐπονομαζομένης ἁγίας Σοφίας and offers a translation. Although specialized literature has often questioned this narrative, no global portrait has presented a context of its production, and unveiled the posterior influence of the text. Nevertheless, this story is of paramount importance, since it is one of the few witnesses of local legends circulating in the city of Constantinople at a time when literary production is more oriented towards hagiographies and books of rhetoric. By relying, first of all, on primary sources of Byzantine or foreign origin from the VIth to the XVIth century and, furthermore, on modern literature, this thesis proposes a global vision of the narrative and, consequently, an examination of the literary and patrimonial image of the most important of the churches of Constantinople, Hagia Sophia.

Keyphrases: Empire Byzantin, Constantinople, Hagia Sophia, Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, Greek medieval litterature, Diegesis, Basil I, Justinian
Le suicide dans l'œuvre tragique de Sénèque

The question of the interaction between Seneca's dramatic and philosophical works is still debated in the scholarly literature. How can we not consider Seneca's theater to have been influenced by his philosophical writings or, as some would claim, be a tool for the diffusion of his philosophy ? But at the same time, how can we reconcile this claim with the fact that Seneca never mentions his dramatic work in his philosophical texts (leading to the opinion that there were two Senecas : Seneca tragicus, not to be confused with Seneca philosophus, Nero's minister). To add to the problem, how can we construct a satisfying philosophical interpretation of these plays that doesn't come across as excessive or distracting from their original purpose ? The aim of this work will therefore be to assess the question by considering the place suicide occupies in the different tragedies. Suicide, indeed, being a very important concept within Senecan philosophy, it seems natural to inquire whether it should also be important in his dramatic works. Answering this question would undoubtedly bring an important contribution to the broader question, by inquiring whether the different suicides in Seneca's dramatic works are or are not justified by what he argues in his philosophical writings.

Keyphrases: Mort, Suicide, Roman theater, Roman Philosophy, Seneca, Death
« L’empêchement moteur » : les fonctions des procédés métatextuels dans l’œuvre d’Hervé Bouchard

The work of Hervé Bouchard embraces a self-reflective aesthetic and, at the same time, a mimetic link with reality. This approach of illusion and artificiality is perpetual and produces distancing effects that take part in the awareness of the context of enunciation and largely of an ongoing reflection on the act of writing. In this thesis, we show different relationships between the metatextual processes, distancing effects and the characters’ impediment to express themselves, thematized in Bouchard’s work. The metatextual processes, in their function of exposure, can refer to the themes explored by the author, like shame, mourning and childhood taboos ; in addition they attest to his aesthetic choices, that question the limits of all types of representation, including theater and language. Our first chapter is dedicated to the theatricality and how it is used as a metatextual process, expressed by a dramaturgic formatting, a mise en abyme of theater as a space and the metaphorical use of theater as a prescriptive framework. From those generic and referential ruptures, our second chapter takes on the repercussions of the characters’ impediment to express themselves on the texts’ syntax and structure. The analysis of the repetitive patterns, ellipses and digressions allows us to establish a sample of the various processes used by the author. With a more poetic perspective, our third chapter shows the links between the interruptions and the digressions. They are the start of brief stories, which can be perceived as fragments of a larger narrative. The analysis of the effects of continuity created by intratextual references, the language, the place and the forms of the author, call for a legendary horizon in which these stories would be connected. In the same way, the coherence of Bouchard’s work is strongly and willingly emphasised.

Keyphrases: Hervé Bouchard, Metatextuality, Distancing effect, Theatricality, Intratextuality, Québec literature, French Canadian literature
Portrait de l'artiste moderne dans Manette Salomon des frères Goncourt et Les Enfants Tanner de Robert Walser

This thesis portrays the modern artist, as it emerges from the analysis of six characters borrowed from the novels Manette Salomon (1867) by the Goncourt brothers and The Tanners (1907) by Robert Walser : Anatole, Garnotelle, Coriolis and Crescent – belonging to the first novel –, Simon et Kaspar – belonging to the second one. Through the study of their will and their degree of self-consciousness, their different temperaments will be outlined, bringing forth a range of modern artistic types : the clown (Anatole), the conformist (Garnotelle), the innovator (Coriolis), the dropout (Crescent), the recluse (Simon) and the professional artist whose embodiment is Kaspar. The characters will be studied in sequence, from the one who manifests the least degree of will and self-consciousness to the one who displays the most, in an attempt to showcase the progressive individualization of art typical of modernity, whose most accomplished work of art will be the result of the combination of the senses and of the intellect in a celebration of life and of the self. The first half of the thesis shall be devoted to the analysis of the characters’ will, revealing that its intensity is independent of its constructive or destructive nature, as well as of the originality or of the subjectivity of the artistic quest. The characters’ artistic project being a part of their life project, intentionality will serve at times to ensure their social presence (Garnotelle, Kaspar), while at others it will contribute to their self-effacement (Crescent, Simon). Will can also be used either to bring about innovation (Coriolis, Kaspar) or to support the status quo (Garnotelle) and can prove the prerogative of an iconoclastic individual possessing a vivid personality (as Kaspar), as well as that of a perfectly conventional one (Garnotelle). The second half of the thesis will show that the artistic ideal is intimately connected to the artist’s temperament, being merely the externalization of his inner nature. It is thus not due to the creation of an artificial set of values, being already present in the artist’s depths and therefore only needing recognition. It ensues that the more self-conscious a character will be, clearer his own ideal will appear to him, facilitating its materialization into a work of art. The convergence of the most powerful will and of the highest degree of self-consciousness will mark the emergence of the modern temperament, characterized by the rising of the aesthetic attitude to a moral standard.

Keyphrases: Goncourt, Walser, Manette Salomon, The Tanners, Artist, Modern, Romantic, Will, Ideal, Temperament, Subjectivity, Aesthetics
Relire Feu la cendre de Jacques Derrida, ou, De l'interprétation comme brûlure inextinguible

Jacques Derrida’s Cinders (Feu la cendre) is wholly centered on the analysis of a short, enigmatic sentence: “Cinders there are” (“Il y a là cendre”), written by Derrida himself ten years earlier at the very end of his Dissemination. Cinders can therefore be considered as a self-comment or a self-analysis, even though the author never reveals the precise meaning of his sentence. On the contrary, Cinders reveals the unreadability of “Cinders there are,” its fugitive nature, the untamed potential of its meaning. This reading corresponds to the author’s conception of “dissemination.” The aim of this master thesis is to read Cinders as a reiteration of Derrida’s thought on “dissemination,” a notion that opposes the hermeneutical conception of interpretation claiming the right to seize the univocal and stable meaning of a text. Specifically, this thesis will identify and analyze the writing strategies deployed by Derrida in order to perform, and thus experiment, this uncontrolled wandering of meaning. Three of these “incinerations” of meaning will be examined: firstly, the “polylogal” form of the text that divides the identity of the enunciator and his authority over his own writing; secondly, the play of echoes between the three different published versions of Cinders; and, lastly, the “open” structure of the book, its limitlessness that protects its hospitality to the Other.

Keyphrases: Jacques Derrida, Paul Celan, trace, Cendre, Hermeneutics, Poetics, Cinders