NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
Osteopénie chez les jeunes adultes nés prématurément

Background Preterm infants are at increased risk of osteopenia of prematurity due to insufficient bone mineral accretion. Data on long term effects of osteopenia of prematurity are conflicting. This study aimed to compare bone mineral density in young adults born very preterm to those born at full-term and to examine factors associated with long-term bone health. Methods This observational cohort study enrolled young adults (18-29 years) born <29 weeks of gestation and sex- and age-matched term born controls. Participants underwent dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry to measure bone mineral density and body composition. Group comparisons were performed with generalized estimated equations to adjust for weight and height Z-scores. Results 101 young adults (18-29 years) born very preterm and 95 term born controls participated to the study. Bone mineral density was reduced at the lumbar spine, the femoral neck and whole body in the very preterm group. After adjusting for height and weight, bone mineral density Tscores remained lower by -0.4 units (95% confidence interval -0.8; -0.1) in preterm versus fullterm participants. Low bone mineral density (T or Z-score ≤-1) at any site was observed in 45% of young adults born preterm versus 30% born full-term (P=0.021). Within the preterm group, those with low bone mineral density were more likely to be male, to have longer oxygen therapy and neonatal hospitalization, and have a history of poorer weight gain from neonatal discharge to 6 months corrected age. Conclusions Very preterm birth is associated with lower bone mineral density in young adulthood, especially at the level of the femoral neck. Severity of neonatal morbidity impacts adult bone mineral density. Interventions to maximize peak bone mass in the preterm population is crucial to prevent risk of osteoporotic fractures later in life.

Keyphrases: Prematurity, Bone health, Osteopenia, Bone mineral density
La fragilité comme prédicteur de la durée du séjour hospitalier après les chirurgies orthopédiques majeures électives chez les patients âgés

With the ageing population and the development of osteoarthritis, total joint replacement procedures are increasing in numbers. Frailty, defined as a lack of physiological reserves and the inability to adequately respond to external stressors is also rising. Therefore, we conducted a prospective study to assess the prevalence of undetected frailty among elderly patients awaiting elective orthopedic surgery and to assess whether it is associated with adverse outcomes (transfer to rehabilitation center and prolonged hospital length of stay). A total of 87 patients 65 years and older were recruited at the preoperative evaluation clinic at Maisonneuve-Rosemont hospital. The Clinical Frailty Scale classified 4.5% of all patients are frail while the FRAIL scale classified 22.9% as frail. The mean age of our cohort was 73 years old and 65.5% were female patients. Patient classified as not robust on the Clinical Frailty Scale was significantly associated with discharge to rehabilitation center (p=0.038) and longer hospital length of stay (p=0.005) while not for those classified on the FRAIL scale. More studies are needed to confirm our findings before future interventional trials.

Keyphrases: Frailty, Elderly, Orthopedic surgery, Outcome, Clinical Frailty Scale, FRAIL scale
L'impact d'un stress hyperoxique néonatal sur la néphrogenèse chez le rat

Throughout the world, one in ten infants is born prematurely. Not having a fully prepared organism for the extrauterine life makes them the most fragile of newborns. Premature birth occurs at a time when organ systems are still actively developing and causes them to be exposed to the extrauterine conditions long before they were physiologically supposed to be. One of the major changes in the infant’s environment is the high oxygen content, which greatly influences the newborn’s homeostasis. Oxygen has already been recognized to be involved in several adverse outcomes of prematurity, such as retinopathy of prematurity and bronchopulmonary dysplasia. Yet less is known about its influence on other developing systems. My master’s thesis focuses on the effects of high oxygen exposure on renal development and the mechanisms involved. Within this scope, we are particularly exploring the role of HIF-1alpha. In this project, we have shown that exposure of newborn rat pups to high oxygen levels leads to impaired nephrogenesis, mediated by decreased HIF-1alpha levels. Renal development was restored by stabilizing its expression in the developing kidney.

Keyphrases: Hyperoxie, HIF-1alpha, Renal development, Prematurity, Nephrogenesis, Hyperoxia, HIF-1alpha
La traduction comme instrument paradiplomatique : langues, publics cibles et discours indépendantiste en Catalogne

There are still only a few studies that deal specifically with the part played by translation in political independence processes, despite the fact that nowadays Translation Studies as a field focuses largely on political and power-related matters. Topically relevant, this work takes a first look at the role played by translation in Catalonia’s independence process, as well as exploring the concept of paradiplomacy in Translation Studies. Indeed, in the aftermath of the 2010 legal and political crisis related to the status of Catalonia within Spain, the Catalan independentist civil society undertook an extensive translation campaign in favour of independence. The aim of this campaign was to make the international community aware of the Catalan independence cause. Our corpus comprises 21 documents produced and translated in two or more languages between 2010 and 2014 and that deal primarily with the independence of this autonomous community of Spain. Our objective is to study the phenomenon of translation as an instrument of paradiplomacy, exploring the choice of target languages and audiences in particular, as well as the discourse conveyed by the campaign. Our research draws on two approaches, namely descriptive and analytical, using works from the fields of Sociology of Translation, Sociology of Language, Postcolonial Studies and Discourse Analysis. Our descriptive approach deals with the organization of the campaign and uses the content of documents as well as paratextual features. Our analytical approach is twofold. First, we perform a general analysis of all 21 documents taking into account the general content, subject matter, objectives, target audiences and languages, and the translation agents. Second, we conduct a critical discourse analysis drawing on the text of the three books in our corpus. The results show that the main target audience of this translation campaign is the European Union and that it aims at legitimizing the independence of Catalonia before this target audience, but also before the international community at large.

Keyphrases: discours, Catalonia, civil society, discourse, independence, multilingualism, paradiplomacy, target audience, target language
Psychothérapie en réalité virtuelle pour traiter les hallucinations auditives réfractaires de la schizophrénie : un essai clinique pilote

Schizophrenia is a chronic and severe psychiatric disorder that poses significant challenges. While many pharmacological and psychosocial interventions are available, many treatment- resistant schizophrenia patients continue to suffer from persistent psychotic symptoms, notably auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH), which are highly disabling. This unmet clinical need requires new innovative treatment options. Recently, a psychological therapy using computerized technology has shown large therapeutic effects on AVH severity (d=0.8) by enabling patients to engage in a dialogue with a computerized representation of their voices (Craig et al., 2017). These very promising results have been extended by our team using immersive virtual reality (VR). Our study was a 7-week phase-II, randomized, controlled, partial cross-over trial. Nineteen schizophrenia patients with refractory AVH were recruited and randomly allocated to either VR-assisted therapy (VRT) or treatment-as-usual (TAU). The group allocated to TAU consisted of antipsychotic treatment and usual meetings with clinicians. The TAU group then received a delayed 7 weeks of VRT. A follow-up was ensured 3 months after the last VRT therapy session. Changes in psychiatric symptoms, before and after TAU or VRT, were assessed using a linear mixed-effects model. Our findings showed that VRT produced significant improvements in AVH severity, particularly associated distress (d=1.2), depressive symptoms and quality of life that lasted at the 3-month follow-up period. VRT is a highly novel and promising intervention for refractory AVH in schizophrenia.

Keyphrases: Schizophrenia, Auditory hallucinations, Treatment-resistance, Psychotherapy, Virtual reality
Parallaxes : lectures tangentes d'historiographie critique et d'épistémologie de la traduction

This thesis proposes a series of tangential readings in the fields of epistemology, historiography and critical theory of translation.. So I come to three conclusions: 1) any processing of data in translation studies is based on an a posteriori knowledge and should be implemented with “soft” axiomatics dealing with trends and regularities with¬out any necessary binding to strong causal or final conditions; 2) any proposition formu¬lated in this framework should keep a non deterministic profile; 3) translation as experience and self-examination is governed by an evolutive protocol. My conclusions are evolving toward a “general theory of drifting”, a work in progress that synthesizes the data scrutinized and fleshed out in the former series of essays. I will start with a personal tenet that should earn for me the status of an axiom: we can no more reduce the experience of translation to an ancillary role oscillating back & forth between a so called “original” and an end product bound by the double bind between formal equivalence (source-oriented) and dynamic equivalence (target-oriented). As put forth by Walter Benjamin, translation evolves in a medium forming a continuum of metamorphoses, being as such a seminal vector of transformation of values and expanding the horizons as well as a discrete but effective trigger of paradigm shifts and conceptual revolutions.. What I call here “general theory of drifting” is nothing else than the principle according to which translation is not a “derivative by-product” of a so called original, but an agent and matrix of its drifting. .

Keyphrases: Translation, Historiography, Epistemology, Critical theory
Vers une typologie des collocations à verbe support en malgache

This thesis investigates verbal collocations in Malagasy, focusing on characteristics of support verb collocations. It is designed to determine their lexical semantic and syntactic properties. Our work aims primarily to provide clarification on the linguistic behavior of support verb collocations in a VOS language (Verb-Object-Subject) such as the Malagasy. To account for this behavior, we have relied on the Meaning-Text Theory which offers formal tools such as Lexical Functions to precisely describe the collocations. Our study was approached from the perspective of synthesis, that it is to say from the meaning to the text. At the lexical level, the criteria for defining a phrase with a support verb as a collocation are clarified. It is also shown that, in Malagasy, the collocate support are not necessarily verbal. Further, the lexicographical treatment of collocations in a Malagasy monolingual dictionary is considered. At the semantic level, the meaning of collocate supports and that of the base that they support have been explored. It is shown that a support verb is completely semantically empty or desemanticized, or there is only a partial meaning. In addition, the different meanings that may be added to the collocate supports are also examined. Subsequently, we analyse the predicative nouns and established their typology according to their collocate supports. An examination of the meaning of derived and root predicative noun is also carried out. To sum up this level of analysis, the semantic link between the collocate supports and the base is also established. Syntactically, the constraints imposed on the collocation phrase and on the sentence with support verbs are examined, including constraints at the level of determiner, constraints at the level of noun modification, constraints at the level of voice, and constraints on the syntactic actants.

Keyphrases: Collocations a verbe support, Lexicologie, Support verb collocations, Lexicology, Semantics, Lexical functions, Meaning-Text Theory, Malagasy
Impact des antipsychotiques à action prolongée sur l’évolution des jeunes adultes présentant un premier épisode psychotique

Background: Poor adherence to antipsychotics is frequent among youth with first episode psychosis (FEP) and negatively affects symptomatic and functional outcomes. The majority of randomized studies have demonstrated no superiority of long-acting injectable antipsychotics (LAI-AP) over oral antipsychotics (OAP) in reducing relapses and hospitalization rates. However, participants in these types of studies represent a minority of patients who may benefit from LAI-AP. Mirror and naturalistic studies generally demonstrate efficacy of LAI-AP on more representative samples, but studies on FEP are scarce. Objectives: To describe LAI-AP’s impact on FEP outcome in a naturalistic setting. Methods: 3-year longitudinal prospective and retrospective study of all consecutive admissions from two Early Intervention Services for psychosis (EIS) in Montréal, Canada, comparing the characteristics and evolution of patients who received LAI-AP for at least 12 months to those who received OAP. Results: 375 FEP patients were included. The 26,7% who received LAI-AP were more likely to be male and to have lower premorbid functioning, lower education, a history of childhood trauma, of homelessness and legal problems, a substance use disorder and schizophrenia spectrum diagnoses. Despite a more severe illness (CGI-S) and lower functioning upon admission in the LAI-AP group, clinical and functional improvements were observed, but to a lesser extent than for the group prescribed OAP, probably because of premorbid factors. Conclusion: FEP with poor prognostic factors seem to benefit from early prescription of LAI-AP in a naturalistic context.

Keyphrases: Long-acting injectable antipsychotics, first episode psychosis, naturalistic study, symptomatic outcome, functional outcome, service use
Évaluation de l’acceptabilité du test de concordance de script : une étude nationale chez les résidents en oto-rhino-laryngologie

OBJECTIVES. Script concordance test (SCT) is an objective assessment method of clinical reasoning which assesses the ability to interpret medical information under conditions of uncertainty. Many studies have supported its validity as a tool to assess higher levels of learning, but little is known regarding its acceptability by major stakeholders. Thus, the objective of our study is to compare the acceptability of SCT when administered at a national level to Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery (OTL-HNS) residents and a reference group of experts.   METHODS. In 2013 and 2016, SCT formative questions, as well as an exit survey, were included in the national in-training exam (NITE) of OTL-HNS. This exam is administered to all OTL-HNS residents across Canada, from second to fifth year of residency. The same SCT questions and survey were then sent to a group of OTL-HNS physicians from five canadian universities.   RESULTS. For 64% of faculty and residents, the study was their first exposure to SCTs. Overall, residents found it difficult to adapt to SCTs, thought that the clinical scenarios were not clear and believed that SCTs were not useful for assessing clinical reasoning.  In contrast, the vast majority of experts felt that SCTs reflected real-life clinical situations, and would  recommend  SCT as an evaluation method in OTL-HNS.  CONCLUSION. There is a great difference in the acceptability of SCT as an assessment tool for clinical reasoning between OTL-HNS residents and expert faculty.  To improve the perception of SCT by residents, education and an increased exposure to the SCT would be necessary.

Keyphrases: Script, Concordance, Reasoning, Acceptability, Otolaryngology
Learning visual representations with neural networks for video captioning and image generation

The past decade has been marked as a golden era of neural network research. Not only have neural networks been successfully applied to solve more and more challenging real- world problems, but also they have become the dominant approach in many of the places where they have been tested. These places include, for instance, language understanding, game playing, and computer vision, thanks to neural networks’ superiority in computational efficiency and statistical capacity. This thesis applies neural networks to problems in computer vision where high-level and semantically meaningful representations play a fundamental role. It demonstrates both in theory and in experiment the ability to learn such representations from data with and without supervision. The main content of the thesis is divided into two parts. The first part studies neural networks in the context of learning visual representations for the task of video captioning. Models are developed to dynamically focus on different frames while generating a natural language description of a short video. Such a model is further improved by recurrent convolutional operations. The end of this part identifies fundamental challenges in video captioning and proposes a new type of evaluation metric that may be used experimentally as an oracle to benchmark performance. The second part studies the family of models that generate images. While the first part is supervised, this part is unsupervised. The focus of it is the popular family of Neural Autoregressive Density Estimators (NADEs), a tractable probabilistic model for natural images. This work first makes a connection between NADEs and Generative Stochastic Networks (GSNs). The standard NADE is improved by introducing multiple iterations in its inference without increasing the number of parameters, which is dubbed iterative NADE. With a historical view at the beginning, this work ends with a summary of recent development for work discussed in the first two parts around the central topic of learning visual representations for images and videos. A bright future is envisioned at the end.

Keyphrases: neural networks, representation learning, video captioning, unsupervised learning, supervised learning, visual representation
Feedforward deep architectures for classification and synthesis

This thesis by articles makes several contributions to the field of deep learning, with applications to both classification and synthesis of natural images. Specifically, we introduce several new techniques for the construction and training of deep feedforward networks, and present an empirical investigation into dropout, one of the most popular regularization strategies of the last several years. In the first article, we present a novel piece-wise linear parameterization of neural networks, maxout, which allows each hidden unit of a neural network to effectively learn its own convex activation function. We demonstrate improvements on several object recognition benchmarks, and empirically investigate the source of these improvements, including an improved synergy with the recently proposed dropout regularization method. In the second article, we further interrogate the dropout algorithm in particular. Focusing on networks of the popular rectified linear units (ReLU), we empirically examine several questions regarding dropout’s remarkable effectiveness as a regularizer, including questions surrounding the fast test-time rescaling trick and the geometric mean it approximates, interpretations as an ensemble as compared with traditional ensembles, and the importance of using a bagging-like criterion for optimization. In the third article, we address a practical problem in industrial-scale application of deep networks for multi-label object recognition, namely improving an existing model’s ability to discriminate between frequently confused classes. We accomplish this by using the network’s own predictions to inform a partitioning of the label space, and augment the network with dedicated discriminative capacity addressing each of the partitions. Finally, in the fourth article, we tackle the problem of fitting implicit generative models of open domain collections of natural images using the recently introduced Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) paradigm. We introduce an augmented training procedure which employs a denoising autoencoder, trained in a high-level feature space learned by the discriminator, to guide the generator towards feature encodings which more closely resemble the data. We quantitatively evaluate our findings using the recently proposed Inception score.

Keyphrases: Dropout, Neural network, Machine learning, Deep learning, Supervised learning, Unsupervised learning, Generative adversarial network, Activation function, Convolutional network, Object recognition, Image synthesis
Stochastic mesh approximations for dynamic hedging with costs

This thesis focuses on computing the optimal solution to a derivative hedging problem in discrete time. The problem is to minimize a risk measure, defined as the expectation of a convex function of the terminal profit and loss of the portfolio, taking transaction costs into account. In the presence of costs, it is sometimes optimal not to trade, so the solutions are characterized in terms of trading boundaries. In general, the optimal policies and the associated risk functions are not known explicitly, but a well-known strategy is to approximate the solutions recursively using dynamic programming. Our central innovation is in applying the stochastic mesh method, which was originally applied to option pricing. It allows  exibility for the price dynamics, which could be driven by a multi-dimensional stochastic process. It also yields both low and high biased estimators of the optimal risk, thus providing a measure of closeness to the actual optimum. We look at various ways to improve the computational efficiency. Using the control variate technique reduces the noise that comes from using derivative prices estimated on the stochastic mesh. Two additional techniques turn out to provide complementary computation time reductions : using a single grid for the mesh states and using a so-called Russian roulette procedure. In the last part of the thesis, we showcase an application to the particular case of the negative exponential risk function and a stochastic volatility model (the exponential Ornstein-Uhlenbeck model). We study the behavior of the solutions under various configurations of the model parameters and compare the performance of the mesh-based policies with that of well-known heuristics.

Keyphrases: Monte Carlo, quasi-Monte Carlo, Derivative, Risk, Volatility, Dynamic programming, Variance reduction, Efficiency improvement