NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
De l'idéal au désenchantement : l'évolution du discours régionaliste chez Harry Bernard (1898-1979) de 1924 à 1951

Novelist and journalist Harry Bernard (1898-1979) is associated with regionalist authors whose works are marked by clerico-nationalist ideology. This is unquestionably true given that Bernard’s novels generally fit into the mold of the «terroir», an inevitable dictate that shaped Quebec’s literary production in the first half of the twentieth century. Bernard’s affiliation with the regionalist movement, considered more ideological than literary, marks his work so much that it is largely ignored in histories of Quebec’s literature. It is nevertheless worth questioning why his work occupies such an invidious position. Although his early novels, L'homme tombé (1924) and La terre vivante (1925), are in line with clerico-nationalist ideology, this is not the case of his last novel, Les jours sont longs (1951). This novel presents an emancipation of sorts from the Catholic moral order and an openness to more realism, revealing changes of perspective with regard to identity, ideology and symbolism (such as the mingling and hybridization of cultures, individual liberties, etc.). By examining the discursive evolution in Bernard’s novels over a period of 25 years, from the ones written in his youth to his mature later novel, we learn that his work cannot be reduced to a single paradigm of identity, but rather reflects a discourse that evolved in parallel with the advent of modernity.

Keyphrases: Harry Bernard, Literature, Regionalism, Discourse analysis, Sociocriticism
L’univers dans un point noir : esthétique et matérialité dans l’oeuvre de Jack Kirby

Our research examines the aesthetic and materialistic features of the work of American comic book artist Jack Kirby (1917-1994) and how they respond to arrangements designed to deconstruct and reconstruct forms and shapes on the page. Contemporary of Will Eisner, Kirby is widely regarded as one of the most influential author and illustrator of his time, co-signing the very first adventures of some superheroes that still exist today both in print and as Hollywood’s new treasure trove (i. e. Captain America, the Fantastic Four, Hulk, etc.). His protean work is composed of heavy textures and superposition of (re)covered objects and deflected figures that find in its stance towards materiality its defining axioms. Seeking in its work to identify the functions of the many piles of black dots (baptized by critics and artists as the kirby dot), we depart structural analysis models to constitute an ecosophical approach to comics. We’ll then use the schizoanalysis theorized by Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) and Felix Guattari (1930-1992) in their book Anti-Oedipus (1972) to identify the nature of the significant and asignifiant sign production associated to the kirby dots. To do this, we’ll reconsider the comic book (and the bande dessinée at large) as a sequencialised ecology, composed of panels without icons, that is to say of spaces and existential territories taken as close to the page – for itself and in itself – without causal relationships or predetermined structures. We’ll analyse the archaic territorialities of comics to better define what could be their ontogeny and the nature of its machinic and schizo relationships as the various spaces (which we distinguish in striated and smooth spaces) and the different pen strokes of the board become intertwined. Finally, we’ll explain how the kirby dot appears as an abstract machine, meaning an instance capable of auto-generating and auto-poietising its own representational mystery.

Keyphrases: Jack Kirby, Bande dessinée, Comic book, Gilles Deleuze, Fantastic Four, New Gods, Philosophy, Schizoanalysis, Machinic unconscious, Deterritorialization
Sí, señor, soy colombiana de pura cepa, et toi? : las formas de tratamiento del español colombiano en Montreal

Present work outlines –for the first time– the state of the Spanish language spoken by the Colombian community in Montreal with reference to the forms of pronominal and nominal address and verbal politeness. In order to conduct this study, a fieldwork was undertaken through a questionnaire and semi-conducted oral interviews addressed to 30 informants. The analysis of the collected data has allowed us to establish the first research comparing the way Colombian inhabitants and Colombians in Montreal speak and to identify some of the main linguistic changes in this spoken Spanish community. It is mostly in relation to the forms of address and politeness actions that have been affected by the influence of French and English languages. The analysis that has been carried out takes into consideration the linguistic, pragmatic and social factors of the speakers. In this way, the results provide recent insights about the description of the dynamics of the forms of address from speakers of three different representative dialectical zones of Colombia such as the oriental Andean region, occidental Andean region and the Caribbean coastal zone. Together with other previous studies, our work contributes to a better understanding of the linguistic reality of the Spanish language spoken by monolingual, bilingual or trilingual Colombians.

Keyphrases: Colombian Spanish, Spanish in Montreal, Pronominal and nominal address forms, Verbal politeness, Linguistic variation
Glossolalie, traduction et dissonance : l'écriture hors-la-loi d'Antonin Artaud

In a number of his writings, Antonin Artaud formulated, repeatedly, the terms of what might be considered an anarchic poetry, a form of language that would allow the abolition of distance between words and things, which is what he ultimately hopes to achieve through his writings. However, Artaud was never able to achieve this sense of literary anarchy. Therefore, since the concept of anarchy put forth by Artaud cannot fully explain what is really at work in his writings, this thesis raises the following questions: What does Artaud’s poetry ultimately achieve? Is there a figure which can illustrate the writing modalities at work in the French poet’s various texts?  The figure of the outlaw is relevant in this case because it opens up the realm of reflection and conceptualisation. With the figure of the outlaw as the main starting point, this thesis formulates the hypothesis that what is played out in Antonin Artaud’s textuality is an outlaw poetic – a subversion of the Law through the use of different literary devices. In other terms, the outlaw poetic produces dissonant effects within the Symbolic. In order to reinforce this hypothesis, I shall work on two different axes of reflection which were brought forth through the analysis of Artaud’s traductologic and glossolalic literary devices. Subversion will first be seen through the notions of space and territory, and it will then be studied in its relation to temporality.

Keyphrases: Antonin Artaud, Lewis Carroll, Antonin Artaud, outlaw, poetic, translation, glossolalia, subversion, Lewis Carroll
Politiques du passage de l'individuel au collectif dans Les Années d'Annie Ernaux

This thesis intends to present Annie Ernaux's constant concern to reach out to others throughout her work, resulting from her belief that individuals are the result of the speeches they go through and of the social world surrounding them. Influenced by Bourdieu’s sociology and by her own experience as a parvenu, Ernaux also shows a great sensitivity to power and dominance relationships, omnipresent in the society. Through her work, she seeks to turn illegitimate experiences into legitimate ones, in that way making her approach similar to Foucault’s. This includes the lifestyle and collective memory of the dominated, rarely depicted in literature or in the prevailing discourses. She also wishes to show that experiences lived as an individual are in fact largerly shared and have social and political origins. Even though each of her books intends to accomplish this passage from the individual to the collective, this thesis is particularly interested in Les Années, which combines narrative strategies employed in her previous books to a new form of narration in the third person, allowing her to deliver an even more “auto-socio-biographical” work.

Keyphrases: discours, perception, dé-subjectivation, identity, socialization, power, speech, de-subjectivization
Développement de nouveaux polymères amphiphiles comme floculants versatiles pour le traitement de l’eau issue de l’industrie pétrolière

Water soluble polymers are extensively used in industry to achieve solid-liquid separations of particles in colloidal suspensions. In a way to reduce the environmental footprint of the mining exploitation, the oil sands industry is searching for new methods to treat tailings resulting from the extraction processes, by separating the solids and recycling the water. The objective of this work is to improve the flocculation and dewatering efficiency of the water-based tailings through the use of new synthetic polymers. Acrylamide homopolymers of different molecular weights were synthetized to study the effect of molecular weight on flocculation efficiency. Initial settling rate (ISR) was the parameter measured to characterize and compare the flocculation efficiencies. The important effect of polymer molecular weight on the flocculation efficiency was confirmed. The minimum molecular weight of polyacrylamide for optimal flocculation efficiency of kaolin colloidal suspensions has been determined to be around 6.8 MDa. To study the effect of charge on flocculation efficiency, anionic and cationic copolymers were synthetized. Copolymers of acrylamide and acrylic acid have been synthetized to study the effect of anionic charge, whereas copolymers of acrylamide and diallyldimethylammonium chloride and copolymers of 4-vinyl pyridine and 1-methyl-4-vinyl pyridinium have been synthetized to study the effect of cationic charge. Anionic copolymers have shown limited effect on the flocculation efficiency and their behaviour in salt solution was revealed to be different than expected from the literature. Cationic copolymers have shown no improvement in the flocculation efficiency.    Amphiphilic copolymers were synthetized with acrylamide, N-alkylacrylamides and acrylonitrile monomers to study the effect of amphiphilicity on the dewatering efficiency of tailings. The net water release parameter was measured to compare the dewatering efficiency of the polymers. Amphiphilic copolymers that improve tailings’ dewatering, compared to polyacrylamide, were developed. Thus far, it was not possible to define a trend between hydrophilic/hydrophobic balance and dewatering efficiency of the copolymers.

Keyphrases: amphiphilic polymers, oil sands, tailings, Flocculation, dewatering
Localisation du langage et de la mémoire verbale en magnétoencéphalographie

It is imperative to determine hemispheric dominance of language and to localize language areas in this hemisphere as part of the presurgical evaluation of epileptic patients. New non-invasive evaluation methods should be developed to reduce the risks associated with more invasive methods such as the intracarotid sodium amobarbital procedure (ISAP). The main objective of this dissertation is to develop an alternative non-invasive presurgical evaluation protocol using magnetoencephalography (MEG) to determine the lateralisation and localization of language and verbal memory that would eventually be accessible to a French-speaking paediatric population suffering from epilepsy. Article 1 is a literature review summarizing MEG studies on the presurgical evaluation of language. Thirty-seven articles were analyzed to determine which tasks allow to obtain the best results with regards to language lateralization and localization with MEG in the assessment of receptive and expressive language in neurologically healthy individuals as well as epileptic patients. We conclude that the word recognition task is well suited to assess receptive language and verbal memory, while a verbal fluency task, such as the verb generation task allows the assessment of expressive language with very good results. Article 2 allowed the validation of a language protocol with neurological healthy participants based on the tasks identified in article 1. The protocol included a task evaluating receptive language functions and verbal memory (word recognition task) and a task evaluation expressive language (verbal fluency). After having validated the tasks using principal component analysis, they were administered to a group of patients with epilepsy. Laterality findings and source analysis showed that MEG can be used to lateralize and localize language and could therefore be used in the presurgical assessment of patients with epilepsy. However, the verbal fluency task, when compared to the verbal memory task, provided additional information for only one patient and in none of the neurologically healthy participants. In summary, the two articles of this dissertation demonstrate the clinical potential of MEG for the presurgical evaluation of patients with refractory epilepsy.

Keyphrases: MEG, Mémoire verbale, Epilepsy, Presurgical evaluation, MEG, Language, Verbal memory, Verbal fluency, Receptive language, Expressive language
Marqueurs électroencéphalographiques du développement d’une maladie neurodégénérative dans le trouble comportemental en sommeil paradoxal

Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (RBD) is a parasomnia characterized by the loss of normal muscle atonia during REM sleep leading to undesirable and often violent behaviors associated with dream mentation. Idiopathic RBD (iRBD) patients are particularly at risk of developing a synucleinopathy such as dementia with Lewy bodies, Parkinson’s disease or multiple system atrophy. Indeed, subtle signs of neurodegeneration are seen in these patients including a slowing of brain electrical activity (EEG) during wakefulness and the presence of cognitive impairment. The purpose of this thesis is 1) to investigate waking EEG abnormalities specific to RBD patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and 2) to assess the usefulness of baseline EEG spectral analysis performed during wakefulness for predicting the development of a neurodegenerative disease.   The first study compared a group of iRBD patients with MCI to cognitively intact patients and a group of healthy control. Only those with concomitant MCI showed waking EEG slowing in the posterior cortical regions, namely higher relative theta power in the parietal, temporal, and occipital regions, lower relative alpha power in the occipital region, and higher slow-to-fast frequency ratio compared to patients without MCI and controls. Moreover, the spectral ratio negatively correlated with attentional/executive function, visuospatial abilities and verbal episodic memory. The second study compared baseline waking EEG of iRBD patients who developed disease on a mean longitudinal follow-up of 3,5 years with patients who remained disease-free and controls. iRBD patients who developed disease showed higher absolute delta and theta power and higher slow-to-fast power ratio in all five cortical regions compared to disease-free patients and controls. This thesis identified specific EEG abnormalities during wakefulness in iRBD patients with MCI. Moreover, these anomalies are associated with greater short-term risk of developing parkinson’s disease, dementia with Lewy bodies or multiple system atrophy. Therefore, EEG slowing seems to be a promising marker of neurodegeneration in iRBD patients.

Keyphrases: REM sleep behavior disorder, Electroencephalography (EEG), Parkinson’s disease, Dementia with Lewy bodies, Mild cognitive impairment
Attitudes et comportements alimentaires des athlètes québécoises pratiquant un sport esthétique à un haut niveau : caractéristiques personnelles et comparaison à un groupe de contrôle

The practice of an aesthetic sport is considered by some to be a risk factor for the adoption of inappropriate eating behaviors and attitudes towards food and body image (IEBA) and ultimately the development of an eating disorder (ED). However, the current literature on this issue reports conflicting results. In addition, some methodological flaws related to sample heterogeneity limit the interpretative scope of these results. To overcome the current limitations of the literature, the goal of this thesis is to explore the problematic of eating disorders in young elite athletes in aesthetic sport. To do this, a homogeneous sample of 145 adolescents aged between 12 and 19 years was recruited; 52 high level athletes and 93 non-athletes. The sports represented are figure skating, synchronized swimming and ballet.  From this sample, two studies were conducted. The objective of the first study was to compare the intensity of IEBA and the prevalence of ED using the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) and the Eating Disorder Inventory-3 (EDI-3). The results indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups in regard to the intensity of IEBA and the prevalence of ED.   The second study consisted of two goals. First, compare personal characteristics of the two groups. Selected personal characteristics are body image disatisfaction (BID), normative eating self-efficacy NESE), body image self-efficacy (BISE), perfectionism (P), asceticism (As), emotionnal dysregulation (EMD) and interoceptive deficit (ID). The second exploratory objective of this study was to describe and compare the personal characteristics that are associated with IEBA in each group. To achieve these objectives, two other questionnaires were used; the Eating Disorder Recovery Self-efficacy Questionnaire-f (EDRSQ-f) and the Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ). The analysis indicated that the athletes of the sample have lower levels of NESE and EMD. Once age and body mass index are controlled, the results also showed that the NESE and the BID contribute to the prediction of IEBA (e.s. drive for thinness) in each group. The NESE has also been associated in both groups to the intensity of bulimic symptoms. However, the models  differ in the main predictor variables. Among the athletes sample, the intensity of bulimic behaviors was associated with EMD while it was more related to ID in the non athlete group.    Finally, in addition to discussing and comparing all these results with the current literature, the distinctive contributions of the thesis and the main limitations of the studies were discussed. Ideas to guide future research and practical clinical implications are also proposed.

Keyphrases: eating disorders, aesthetic sport, adolescent athletes, self-efficacy
Il était une fois une cible et un distracteur : électrophysiologie des mécanismes corticaux de l'attention visuelle en perception et en mémoire

This thesis explore various aspects of attentional processing of visual targets and distractors as well as their electrophysiological expression. First, the opening chapter investigate target and distractor specific attentional processing during a visual search task. Splitting the N2pc into an NT and a PD allows us to reject the hypothesis that all salliant distractors require an attentionnal processing, since no distractor-specific lateralized activity can be observed for a lateral green distractor. After then, during the second chapter, we separate target and distractor specific activity during VSTM retrieval to explore the lateralization of memory structures. We identified a temporal lateralized negative component, the TCN, which is solely related to the retrieval of the target from VSTM. We also found a posterior distractor-related positive component. Both components suggest a lateralized activation of structures during VSTM retrieval related to the encoding hemisphere during perception. Then finally, during the third chapter, despite the absence of systematic attentional processing, we explore the effect of low salience distractors on attentional deployment during a visual search task. Inserting grey distractors around color potential targets increases the difficulty to individuate the potential targets and lead to attentional deployment delay. Increasing the number of grey distractors lead to an increased proportion of N2pc activity being delayed into the following Ptc time-window. Also, more delayed activity can be observed when grey distractors are placed between the potential targets instead of outside this region. Across this thesis, we also address the attentional salience of color as a recurent source of attentional imbalance. Red generate distractor-specific lateralized activity, while green do not and green is harder to individuate with surrounding grey distractors compared to yellow.

Keyphrases: Attention, N2pc, TCN, Ptc, Attention, Visual search, VSTM, Target, Distractor, Color
Identification des corrélats neuronaux associés à la clôture perceptive des objets : une étude en potentiels évoqués

The human visual system has come to prevail over partially hidden boundaries and edges of objects in order to render a unified and holistic representation of the surrounding world. This phenomenon, also referred to as perceptual closure, was further investigated in the context of this current thesis. More precisely, this doctoral thesis aimed at examining the neural mechanisms underlying perceptual closure processes. In order to achieve this goal, the first study to track the spatio-temporal dynamics of electrical brain activity during a pictorial object recognition task to determine whether closure processes are  reflect an interplay between low-level and higher-level mechanisms and whether they are solicited during early or late stages of visual processing. We found that perceptual closure is temporally linked to the occurrence of the N80 and P160 which is the earliest negative ERP component sensitive to closure processes reported until now in previous similar studies. Results indicate that closure processes are implicated earlier during visual processing of fragmented object images. We propose here that perceptual closure is a transitional process that reflects the proactive interactions between neural mechanisms trying to match fragmented current sensory input with memory representations.    Furthermore, the second study sought to explore the time-course of neural correlates underpinning perceptual closure, during an object recognition task, to determine whether closure processes are associated with an abrupt or gradual change in ERP responses in adults with high functioning autism (HFA), Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) and in typically developing (TD) individuals. We found that, in individuals with HFA and AS, perceptual closure was associated with changes in early ERP (N80 and P160) responses for fragmentation and identification effects, while there were no significant modulations of later ERP responses. However, for TD individuals, perceptual closure was characterized by significant differences in early ERP responses (N80 and P160) between objects and non-objects as well as gradual modulations in late ERP responses for identification effects (450-550ms). Our results suggest that adults with autism rely mostly on low-level processes to achieve closure and do not illustrate the characteristic interplay between early and late ERP responses observed in typically developed individuals, thus revealing the atypicality of perceptual closure mechanisms in this population. We propose here that the interactive matching of incoming fragmented visual information with corresponding candidate object representations is atypical in individuals with autism. Following these articles, we will discuss the theoretical and clinical implications of this work. Finally, we will also propose limitations within our studies and discuss new perspectives for future research.

Keyphrases: Perceptual closure, Event-related potentials, Autism, Object recognition, Fragmented objects