NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
Comparison of vitrification protocols in immature equine oocytes

Oocyte cryopreservation would facilitate the conservation of female genetic material and allow more flexibility in the application of assisted reproductive techniques in domestic animals and endangered species. The overall success rate of this technique in the horse is low compared with other species. Therefore, further research is required to elucidate the species-specific mechanisms responsible for poor survivability following vitrification. This study aimed to evaluate the effect on maturation rate, cleavage and blastocyst development of vitrified immature equine oocytes, using a three-step vitrification protocol with ethylene glycol (EG) and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO); and comparing the effect of media without freezing. The vitrification protocol was designed based on the results of preliminary experiments. Oocytes were recovered from immature follicles of live mares. Oocytes were held overnight at room temperature (14-24 hrs) in a holding medium. Oocytes were then denuded and placed in a base solution (BS) composed of 20% fetal bovine serum (FBS) + M199/Hanks’ salts. Oocytes were randomly allotted to control, vitrification, and cryoprotectant agents (CPAs)-exposed groups. Control oocytes were cultured directly for in-vitro maturation (IVM). Three oocytes were exposed to a three-step vitrification protocol composed of a pre-vitrification solution (PVS) 1 (5% EG/ 5% DMSO); PVS 2 (10% EG/ 10% DMSO) during 40s each; and finally vitrification solution (VS) (17.5% EG/ 17.5% DMSO/ 3 M sucrose), during 10s. All media were diluted in M199/Hanks’ salts + 20% FBS. Oocytes were then transferred to a 75-μm sterile stainless steel mesh. The oocytes were warmed at 42 °C in the BS for 5 minutes. Oocytes from the vitrified group were plunged into liquid nitrogen, while oocytes from CPA-exposed groups were only exposed to cryoprotectants. Oocytes were then subjected to IVM, fertilization and embryo culture. Fisher's Exact Test analyzed differences in maturation, cleavage and blastocyst rates between groups. The maturation rate of vitrified and CPA-exposed groups did not differ significantly from control oocytes. However, no blastocysts were obtained from CPA-exposed and vitrified groups. Vitrification and control groups showed that immature equine oocytes could maintain viability and meiotic competence; moreover, cryoprotectant exposure did not show any blastocyst formation as compared to control. Further investigation is necessary to understand the overall physiology of equine oocytes in order to optimize the developmental capacity of embryos.

Keyphrases: Vitrification, Ovocytes immatures, Cryopreservation, Vitrification, Equine, Immature oocytes, Cryoprotectants
Le métier de chanteur lyrique au Québec (2000-2020) : médiation de la musique et nouvelles modalités du concert

This master thesis proposes to explore how the music mediation and the new modalities of the concert fit into the careers of lyric singers in Quebec. The corpus of my research is made up of a documentary analysis of mediation activities in North American lyrical institutions and the analysis of the singer’s training, as well as a qualitative survey of 12 Quebec singers. This study draws up a portrait of the mediation activities and the new modalities of the concert which are used to make opera accessible, then to highlight the contribution of the singers by the functions they occupy within the mediation of lyrical art. Even though all the singers we met have done mediation activities in their career, there are many factors that influence the continuation of mediation activities. There are social constraints which are linked to the notoriety of the singers influenced by the lower reputational value of the mediation activities compared to the performance as a soloist. But also economic constraints, which oblige the singers to have several activities to make a living from their art. It emerges from this study that music mediation is an additional tool for singers, as they become versatile if they mediate alongside a concert. It can also be a way to diversify their activities if the singers decide to create mediation workshops and concerts that are presented in new modalities. On the other hand, mediation can become an obligation in the career of singers, despite the fact that they were not trained for it during their studies.

Keyphrases: Music mediation, Modalities of the concert, lyric singer, musician career
Economic evaluation of a new genetic risk score to prevent nephropathies in type-2 diabetic patients

The current screening method for diabetic nephropathy (DN) is based upon the detection of urinary albumin and the decline of estimated glomerular filtration rate, which occurs relatively late in the course of the disease. A polygenic risk score (PRS) was developed for early prediction of the risk for type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients who experience DN. The aim of this study was to assess the economic impact of the implementation of the PRS for the prevention of DN in T2D patients, compared to usual screening methods in Canada. First, a systematic literature review was conducted to examine all published economic evaluations in T2D and DN. The main trends in modelling technics obtained from this review were used to conduct a cost-utility analysis using a Markov model. Health states include pre-end-stage renal disease (Pre-ESRD), ESRD and death. Model efficacy parameters were based on prediction of outcome data by polygenic-risk testing of the ADVANCE trial. Analyses were conducted from Canadian healthcare and societal perspectives. Over a lifetime horizon, the PRS was a dominant strategy compared to usual screening methods, from both a healthcare system and societal perspective. In other words, the PRS was less expensive and more effective in terms of quality-adjusted life years compared to usual screening technics. Deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses showed that results remained dominant in the majority of simulations. This economic evaluation demonstrates that the adoption of the PRS would not only be cost saving but would also help prevent ESRD and improve patients’ quality of life.

Keyphrases: Diabetic nephropathy, End-stage renal disease, Type 2 diabetes mellitus, Polygenic risk score, Cost-utility analysis, Markov model
Sourds et muets entre savoir et fiction au tournant des Lumières

At the intersection of the history of linguistic ideas and the history of representations, this thesis studies scholarly and fictional discourses on deafness between the final years of the Ancien Régime and the beginning of the Restoration (1776-1815). This period covers the years where the Abbé de L'Épée and the Abbé Sicard carried out their work. It matches the period of changes in the course of the history of the deaf people in France and how they were considered. The emergence of a specialist discourse on deafness, the setting up of institutions dedicated to the collective education of deaf people and the development of sign language and their literacy, mark the beginning of the integration of deaf people into society. Educators and philosophers are not the only ones to talk about deafness; the deaf people and their education also entrhal novelists and authors of short fiction. The sentimental novel seized the silent character and its sign language, sometimes separating him from deafness. Without doubt, the novelists have been interested much more by muteness than deafness, because the former enabled them to question the social function of speech. In their works, the novelists use contrast to reveal the malfunction of speech caused by the Revolution. The aim of this thesis is twofold. First, we put speech on deafness back in the scholarly context of the times and explain how it helps us understand the linguistic, anthropological and philosophical changes of this period. Secondly, through the history of the representations, we show how knowledge and fiction meet in the process of metaphorization of the idea of deafness of the end of the eighteenth century.

Keyphrases: XVIIIe siècle, XIXe siècle, eighteenth century, nineteenth century, deafness, novel, history of representations
Biohacking and code convergence : a transductive ethnography

This dissertation examines creative practices and discourses intersecting computer and biotech cultures. It queries influential metaphors and analogies on both sides of the inter- section, and their positioning of biotech and information technologies as expression media. It follows mediations across their incarnations as codes, both computational and biological, and situates their analogical expressivity and programmability as a process of code conver- gence. Converging visions of technological freedom facilitated the entrance of computers in 1960’s Western hobbyist hacker circles, as well as in consumer markets. Almost fifty years later, the analogy drives claims to freedom of information —and freedom of innovation— from biohacker hobbyist groups to new biotech consumer markets. Such biohacking practices are understood as individuations: as ongoing attempts to resolve frictions, tensions working through claims to freedom and openness animating software and biotech cultures.  Tensions get modulated in many ways. One of them, otherwise known as “forking,” refers here to a critical bifurcation allowing for differing iterations of biotechnical and computa- tional configurations. Forking informs —that is, simultaneously affords and constrains— differing collective visions of openness. Forking also operates on the materiality and agency invested in biotechnical and computational practices. Taken as a significant process of co- constitution and differentiation in collective action, bifurcation invites the following three questions: 1) How does forking solve tensions working through claims to biotech freedom? 2) In this solving process, how can claims bifurcate and transform to the point of radically altering biotech practices? 3) what new problems do these solutions call into existence?  This research found these questions, and both scales of material action and agency, in- carnated in three extensive ethnographical journeys spanning three years (2012-2015): the first in a Brooklyn-based biotech community laboratory, the second in the early days of a biotech community group in Montreal, and the third in the world’s first synthetic biology startup accelerator in Cork, Ireland. The inquiry’s guiding empirical logic is neither solely deductive or inductive, but transductive. It borrows from Gilbert Simondon’s philosophy of communication and information to experience epistemology as an act of analogical creation involving the radical, irreversible transformation of knower and known. Transductive heuris- tics offer unconvential encounters with practices, metaphors and analogies of code. In the end, transductive methods acknowledge code convergence as a metastable writing games, and ethnographical research itself as a transductive process.

Keyphrases: Biohacking, Biotechnologies, Code, Convergence, Individuation, Transduction, DIYbio, Amateur Biotech, Bioart, biotechnology, writing
La Spirale, Le Zodiaque, and Mana : the convergences between Georges Migot and André Jolivet (1932-1937) = La Spirale, Le Zodiaque, et Mana : les convergences entre Georges Migot et André Jolivet (1932-1937)

This Master’s thesis explores the convergences between the French composers Georges Migot (1891-1976) and André Jolivet (1905-1974) during the 1930s, in terms of their respective musical aesthetics, compositional techniques, and involvement in the Parisian music scene. The aim is to provide a clearer picture of the relationship between Migot and Jolivet, to evaluate its influence upon their musical ideas and shared interest in the development of the concert society La Spirale, and to assess its significance in the wider sphere of French music. Currently, music history of this period is saturated with writings on Stravinsky, Ravel, and the Groupe des six. This study seeks to provide a better understanding of the other various musical manifestations in 1930s Paris.   The first chapter of this thesis consists of an examination of Migot and Jolivet’s respective aesthetics ideas and a discussion of their similarities. The second chapter explores a shared project of the two composers: the concert society La Spirale (1935-1937). While largely un-studied, this organization is known for having given rise to the group La Jeune France (1936-1942), an association formed by Olivier Messiaen, Daniel-Lesur, André Jolivet, and Yves Beaudrier, as the first three also took part in the executive of the former society. Through an exploration of La Spirale’s activities, this thesis not only provides a complete and revisited list of all works performed at its concerts, but also qualifies the involvement of Jolivet and Migot.   Finally, this research will conclude with a comparative analysis of select movements from solo piano collections by Migot and Jolivet, Le Zodiaque (1931-1932) and Mana (1935), respectively. While Migot uses a more modal language to convey his lyrism, Jolivet employs an emancipated post-tonal idiom. This analysis will take into consideration pitch and motivic structure (modal and serial practices) and temporal sequences. Moreover, it will provide an examination of the use of the Golden Mean and the Fibonacci series in some pieces.

Keyphrases: André Jolivet, Georges Migot, La Spirale, analysis, Paris, 1930s, aesthetics, Le Zodiaque, Mana, French Music, Concert Society
Sentiment moral et contrainte légale Kant lecteur de Hutcheson

In this article, I would like to examine the evolution of the role of moral feeling in Kant’s philosophy from the Inquiry Concerning the Distinctness (1762) to the Doctrine of Virtue (1797). In 1762, moral obligation (Verbindlichkeit) is grounded both on a purely formal-rational component, inspired by Baumgarten and Crusius, and on a material component based on a moral feeling explicitly borrowed from Hutcheson. But by later adopting the legal model (Crusius) of a moral law conceived as a rational principle on which, from then on, the moral obligation is exclusively grounded, Kant is led to downplay the status of moral feeling by seeing in it a simple effect of the law on sensibility. Through this feeling the necessitation (Nötigung) implicit in moral obligation is literally felt. Accordingly, the feeling of respect will not be considered as the criterion of the good, but rather as the incentive (Triebfeder) of the moral action.

Keyphrases: Kant, Hutcheson, Baumgarten, Crusius, Obligation, Moral feeling
Effects of intermittent versus continuous access to nicotine self-administration in rats

Although cigarette smokers consume nicotine and other tobacco products found in cigarettes intermittently throughout each day, procedures to study nicotine effects in laboratory animals involve continuous nicotine access during self-administration sessions. Here, we compared the effects of intermittent versus continuous nicotine self-administration on behavioural features relevant to drug addiction, using an animal model.  Four groups of male rats self-administered different doses of nicotine (i.e., 0.015 or 0.03 mg/kg/infusion) during 14 sessions (7 h/session) either as continuous nicotine access (Long Access, or LgA) or intermittent access (IntA; 12 minutes of access to nicotine per hour). We assessed group differences in nicotine intake, as well as nicotine seeking under a progressive ratio schedule of reinforcement (a measure of incentive motivation for drugs). Following nicotine withdrawal, we also measured the susceptibility to cue (withdrawal days 15-30) as well as nicotine-primed (0.075–0.15–3 mg/kg, subcutaneous; withdrawal days 30–38) reinstatement of nicotine-seeking behaviour (measures of relapse). LgA-0.03 rats consumed the most nicotine across the 14 self-administration sessions; however, despite taking much less nicotine than LgA groups, IntA groups showed similar levels of responding for nicotine under a progressive ratio schedule. After nicotine withdrawal, all groups also showed equivalent levels of cue and nicotine induced reinstatement behaviour. IntA nicotine self-administration results in much less drug intake than LgA self-administration, yet the two procedures are equally effective in producing behavioural signs relevant to tobacco addiction. Also, IntA nicotine self-administration serves as a better model of the intermittency of cigarette smoking in humans. Our findings have important implications for preclinical studies investigating the behavioural, psychological, and neurobiological processes involved in tobacco addiction.

Keyphrases: Nicotine, Addiction, Self-administration, Intermittent consumption, Continuous consumption, Consommation intermittente, Consommation continue
Limiter la production d’angiopoiétine-like 2 vasculaire prévient le développement de l’athérosclérose associé à la sénescence endothéliale

Aging is associated with progressive deterioration of the organism functions leading to death. Accumulated alterations in aging favor the appearance of age-related diseases including cardiovascular diseases. Senescence is the cellular process underlying aging and the cause of organism decline. Senescent cells lose their ability to proliferate but remain metabolically active by secreting a cocktail of molecules involved in chronic inflammation and progression of age-related diseases such as atherosclerosis. Angiopoietin-like 2 (Angptl2) is a pro-inflammatory and an anti-apoptotic protein involved in the development of atherosclerosis and secreted by senescent cells. In this light, we hypothesized that an inhibition of vascular Angpt12 would be conducive to an attenuation of atherogenesis associated to endothelial senescence. The aim of my project was to study the beneficial effects of an in vivo reduction of Angptl2 in the development of atherosclerosis and endothelial senescence in severely dyslipidemic mice (LDLr - / -; hApoB100 + / +). Using a serotype 1 adeno-associated virus containing a short hairpin ARN against Angptl2 (AAV1-shAngptl2), we showed that blocking the expression of vascular Angptl2 decreased plaque size by 58% in the thoracic aorta of mice. These results are explained by a decrease in senescence, recruitment of monocytes and lower inflammation in the endothelium as well as a decrease in inflammation and infiltration of macrophages in the media of arterial wall. In addition, few days after the administration of AAV1-shAngptl2, we showed that senescent endothelial cells are eliminated by apoptosis, which in turn promotes the recruitment of endothelial progenitor cells in order to renew the endothelium, collectively contributing to a reduction of atherogenesis. These results demonstrate a link between Angptl2 and senescence in atherosclerosis, and they were validated by clinical data showing that vascular expression levels of Angptl2 correlates with the expression of the senescence marker p21 in the mammary arteries of patients with coronary artery disease. In conclusion, our study suggests that inhibition of vascular Angptl2 could be a new senolytic pathway to reduce atherosclerosis.

Keyphrases: AAV1-shAngptl2, inflammation, Angiopoietin-like 2, senescence, atherosclerosis, aging, AAV1-shAngptl2, endothelium, inflammation, apoptosis, senolytic
Instrumentation et méthodes d’analyse appliquées à l’évaluation du développement rétinien chez le souriceau par tomographie par cohérence optique

This master thesis is including a manuscript submitted for publication and is divided into two sections. In particular, the document describes the development of optical instrumentation and methodological tools to study the retinal development in an animal model through optical coherence tomography (OCT). The first section is divided into two chapters. Chapter 1 describes the theoretical basis and the problem to solve. Chapter 2 describes the tools developed or adapted to enable the performance of the experiments. In particular, this chapter details the optical system designed to allow the optimal focalization of the light beam onto the retina, which maximizes the signal and minimizes the impact of spherical aberrations and light dispersion on image quality. Also, the processing algorithm used to segment retinal tissues from OCT tomography is discussed. The second section is divided into two chapters. Chapter 3 is a manuscript that was submitted for publication to Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science. This work describes the growth and maturation of specific retinal layers in the wild type mouse (129S1/SvImJ) between 7 and 21 days of life. The manuscript also describes the image processing and segmentation algorithm that allows the quantification of the thickness of the layers over time. Then, Chapter 4 describes specific research projects where these OCT imaging tools can be applied. Specifically, this chapter shows the potential to study retinal developmental diseases as well as perfusion methods.

Keyphrases: Optical coherence tomography, Retinal development, Mouse pup, Image processing, Angiography, Physiology
Molecular characterization of XerS/difSL site-specific recombination system in Streptococcus suis

The circular state of the bacterial chromosome presents a specific problem during replication. An odd number of homologous recombination events results in concatenated dimer chromosomes that cannot be partitioned into daughter cells. To solve this problem, bacteria have developed a mechanism of dimer resolution based on site-specific recombination system. This is performed by the Xer/dif system. In this system, the Xer proteins perform a recombination reaction in the dif site at the cell septum immediately prior to cell division. In most bacteria this reaction is performed by two recombinases, XerC and XerD. However, an important zoonotic pathogen; Streptococcus suis harbors a different recombination system, composed by a single recombinase enzyme called XerS, that catalyzes the recombination reaction in an unconventional dif site; difSL. A region characterized by two imperfect inverted repeat regions that flank a central region of 11 bp.To characterize the mode of cleavage of XerS, EMSA experiments were performed by using HEX-labelled PCR fragments and “nicked suicide substrates”. Our data suggests that; 1.) XerS is able to bind the entire difSL sequence; 2.) XerS binds more efficiently the left half side on incomplete difSL mutants than the right half side; 3.) XerS cleaves both the top and bottom strands of the difSL site, with a more efficient reaction at the bottom strand; 4.) Nucleotides at the outermost region of a T rich region seem to be determinant for binding selectivity and modifications of the extra spacing between the inverted repeat arms as well as length modifications of the central region change cleavage preference. 5.) XerS did not show any specific activity on another unconventional dif site in Firmicutes, as tested on difH. 6.) XerS interacts with FtsK-y subunit. This research aims to understand how XerS recombination works in the single recombinase system of Streptococcus and how this recombination is regulated by host factors. Exploration of these recombinases will provide a better understanding of the mechanisms of DNA exchange and genome stability in bacteria. It can also increase our knowledge of the evolution and speciation of recombinogenic bacteria.

Keyphrases: Site-specific recombination, XerS, Tyrosine recombinases, dif sites, Dimerization.