NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
Études génétiques moléculaires des gènes de la polarité planaire cellulaire dans les anomalies du tube neural chez l’Homme

Neural tube defects (NTDs) are among the most common congenital malformations in humans affecting 1–2 infants per 1000 births. NTDs are caused by failure of the neural tube to close during embryogenesis. The most common forms of NTDs in humans are anencephaly and spina bifida. Their etiology is complex implicating environmental and genetic factors. Wnt signaling has been classified as canonical Wnt/ β-catenin dependent or non-canonical planar cell polarity (PCP) pathway. Misregulation of either pathway is linked mainly to cancer or neural tube defects (NTDs) respectively. Both pathwaysseem to antagonize each other. In this study, we investigate the role of Lrp6andANKRD6 as molecular switches between both Wnt pathways as well as CELSR1 as PCP member, in a novel ENU mouse mutant of Lrp6 (Skax26m1Jus) and in human NTDs. For Lrp6, we demonstrate that Skax26m1Jus represents a hypermorphic allele of Lrp6 with increased Wnt canonical and abolished PCP-induced JNK activities. We also show that Lrp6Skax26m1Jusgenetically interacts with a PCP mutant (Vangl2Lp) where double heterozygotes showed an increased frequency of NTDs and defects in cochlear hair cells’ polarity. Importantly, our study also demonstrates the association of rare and novel missense mutations in LRP6 that is an inhibitor rather than an activator of the PCP pathway with human NTDs. We show that three LRP6 mutations in NTDs led to a reduced Wnt canonical activity and enhanced PCP signaling. For ANKRD6: We identified four rare missense mutations in 0.8% of the NTD patients and 2 rare missense mutations in 1.3% of the controls. Notably, when all 6 mutations were validated, only two mutations identified in NTD patients, p.Pro548Leu, p.Arg632His, significantly altered DIVERSIN activity in Wnt signaling assays in a hypomorphic fashion. For CELSR1: We identified one nonsense mutation in exon 1 of CELSR1 that truncates the majority of the protein in one NTD patient and one in-frame 12 bp deletion that removes a putative PKC phosphorylation“SSR” motif in one caudal agenesis patient. We also detected a total of 13 novel missense variants in 12 patients (11 NTDs and 1 caudal agenesis) that were predicted to be pathogenic in silico. Our data confirm an inhibitory role of Lrp6 in PCP signaling in neurulation and indicate that rare missense mutations in LRP6 and ANKRD6 could affect a balanced reciprocal and a highly dosage sensitive antagonism between both Wnt pathways in neurulation and act as predisposing factors to NTDs in a subset of patients. Also, our findings implicate CELSR1 as a risk factor for NTDs or caudal agenesis. Our findings provide additional evidence for a pathogenic role of PCP signaling in thesemalformations and an important tool for better understanding their molecular mechanisms.

Keyphrases: ANKRD6, LRP6, CELSR1, Extension Convergente, DIVERSIN, Caudal agenesis, Neural Tube Defects, Planar cell polarity, Convergent extension, Wnt signaling
Études de cas multiples sur l’exercice d’un leadership transformatif par les directions dans trois écoles primaires en milieu défavorisé montréalais

The aim of the present study is to describe how elementary school principals implement transformative leadership in three Montreal elementary schools in disadvantaged areas. Principals were selected by the Une école montréalaise pour tous program, due to their high interest in social justice. We first describe participants’ knowledge about social justice. We then examine their actions to promote transformative leadership, while paying special attention to the context in which these actions were taken. Finally we compare all three principals on their use of transformative leadership. Data was collected in four formats (i.e., direct observation, interviews, questionnaire and official school internal guidelines and documents) using the multiple case method. The data was analysed using content analysis in accordance with the Archambault and Garon (2011a) model. Results showed that the different levels of reflection exhibited by the principals on transformative leadership greatly influenced their attitudes and behaviours, both stated by participants and directly observed, and their knowledge about the subject. However, few transformative leadership behaviours were directly observed during the course of the study. This leads us to discuss the importance of understanding the way in which principals learn and interpret transformative leadership. We hope this information will help schools principals to more easily implement transformative leadership.

Keyphrases: Leadership de justice sociale, Leadership, Transformative leadership, Social justice leadership, Social justice, Leadership, School principals, Case study, Disadvantaged schools
Contribution du mécanisme d'inhibition présynaptique à l'induction de réactions posturales efficaces suite à une perturbation d'équilibre

Falls are a significant problem among the elderly or persons with a neurological impairment, and reflect a deficit in the nervous mechanisms underlying postural control. Previous research shows that the integration of sensory feedback is a crucial component of postural control and that presynaptic inhibition (PSI) plays an important role in controlling the sensory processing of information. The aim of this study was to identify the contribution of PSI to the induction of effective postural responses following an unexpected balance perturbation. We hypothesized that a decrease in PSI would contribute to the induction of these responses by increasing the influence of sensory feedback onto spinal networks during the perturbation. First we assessed the level of spinal excitability during perturbations, using the soleus H-reflex. Results show that spinal excitability is modulated according to the direction of the perturbation (forward and backward tilts) and that this modulation occurs 75 and 100 ms after tilt-onset in all subjects (p<0.05). To further estimate changes in PSI, spatial facilitation techniques were used. PSI was shown to decrease in both perturbation directions shortly after tilt onset at 75 and 100 ms (p<0.05), suggesting an increase in sensory transmission in the spinal cord. These observations suggest that sensory feedback is critical for the induction of effective postural responses and that impaired sensory transmission or integration, due to CNS lesions or ageing, may lead to certain balance deficits. Identifying patients with such impairments may improve fall risk-assessment and prevention.

Keyphrases: Presynaptic inhibition, H-reflex, postural responses, risk of falls, balance
L'astronomie nouvelle de Kepler et la logique de la découverte

This thesis offers a study of the theoretical and empirical reasons involved in the elaboration of a new astronomy by Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) as displayed in his work Astronomia nova (1619).  The thesis consists of two parts: the first part deals with Kepler’s actual writings, whereas the second part uses the notion of abduction in order to interpret with logic that process of discovery and justification. The first part begins with an analysis of Kepler’s project and its philosophical, metaphysical and theological foundations as displayed in his first work piece, Mysterium cosmographicum. Then follows a review of Kepler’s own words regarding the nature and status of astronomical hypotheses as proposed through a study of his treatise entitled Apologia pro Tychone contra Ursum. A careful study of philosophical, mathematical and scientific sources that have influenced Kepler for his new astronomy is then proposed prior to a detailed analysis of the scientific arguments and different demonstrative steps that are presented in Astronomia nova.  The second part aims at enlightening the debate on abduction first by looking at three traditional approaches (Plato, Aristote and Epicurus) relative to the scientific knowledge of celestial phenomena that bring about a plausible discourse or a series of explanations that fit with the phenomena. Finally, four modern abductive interpretations of the discovery process followed by Kepler in Astronomia nova are presented, reformulated and reviewed in order to propose a new abductive interpretation that leave a greater place to the actual project of building a new astronomy based on causes. This provides tools to better understand the meaning and significance of what can be understood as the “Keplerian revolution”, namely the transition from a geocentric system to a system not simply heliocentric but heliodynamic, which freed astronomers from the paradigm of circular orbits.

Keyphrases: Kepler, Abduction, Philosophy, Astronomy, History of science, Logic of discovery, Kepler, Abduction, Heliodynamics
La nanosanté : perspective et enjeux sociologiques de l'application des nanotechnologies à la médecine

Nanomedicine – the application of nanotechnology to medical practice – is seen as the medicine of the future. Thus, nanomedicine is not just a new biomedical field. It carries a new biomedical paradigm promoting a technoscientific conception of healthcare. This new paradigm grows from and brings together the three current tendencies of healthcare research: predictive medicine, personalized medicine and regenerative medicine. Its focus is on the technical control of the molecular mechanisms underlying the biological development of the body. The growing of this new biomedical paradigm is largely the result of government supports and economic potential. It is both a scientific and a politico-economic construction. In that sense, analysing nanomedicine means analysing the form and the conditions of the current biomedical progress. In other words, nanomedicine helps us to grasp and understand the issues and implications of the ‘‘technoscientifization’’ of healthcare. This thesis aims to highlight the socio-cultural nature of the technoscientific model of healthcare promoted by nanomedicine. To do so, I propose the construction of an ideal-type of this technoscientific model, which I call nanohealth. If nanomedicine refers to the different technological applications of nanotechnology to medicine, nanohealth refers to the different sociological dimensions and impacts of nanotechnological applications on health and society. The nanohealth ideal-type is constructed around three dimensions: transversality, enhancement and globalization. The synthetic nature of this tridimensional ideal-type helps us to tackle the crucial issues surrounding the development of the nanomedicine. It helps us to understand the meaning and impacts of the scientific, political and economic engagement in nanomedicine; to highlight the centrality of technoscience in the cultural conception of medical and social progress; to grasp the new forms of power upon life and identity, and the new forms of inequality and exploitation, which are characteristics of a society focusing on the technical adaptability of human being and the economization of health and body.

Keyphrases: technoscience, nanohealth, nanomedicine, nanotechnology, technoscience, medicalization, bioeconomy, transhumanism, biocitizenship, bioinequality, biocolonialism
Renouveau du genre fantasy pour la jeunesse dans Ellana de Pierre Bottero

Fantasy literature, heiress of many literary and cinematographic forms, has developed rapidly at the turn of the XXth and XXIst centuries. In this recent corpus, several works concur to the renewal of the conventional parameters of fantasy. Pierre Bottero takes part in this joint action through a singular feminine figure, Ellana, who belongs to the marchombre guild, and whose freedom quest refers to the author’s goal to dispel the commonplaces of fantasy genre. Indeed, after the writing of La Quête d’Ewilan (2003) and Les Mondes d’Ewilan (2005), Bottero moves away from tolkienian tradition and arthurian legend in order to create Le Pacte des marchombres, a trilogy relating the emancipation of Ellana’s figure by the way of a “poetical” writing practice.   This thesis searches for fantasy writing’s potentialities that are observable in the book Ellana (2006), first volume of Bottero’s final trilogy. Ellana comes under a particular transfictional writing practice – the prequel – that is done back to front. While the first trilogies of Bottero are based on Merlin’s myth, the author changes the focus to Ellana’s figure who plays a pivotal role in the alavirian cycle. We highlight the main features of the fantasy genre with the aim to identify the topoï that Ellana renews or infringes. At the same time, we set about studying the botterian imaginary that Ellana’s figure is dependent on. By turning the protagonist into a mythical figure, the author builds the image of a wild yet graceful feminine that nothing prevents from living apart from men.

Keyphrases: Pierre Bottero, Roman fantasy, Amazone, Merlin, French literature of XXIst century, Fantasy novel, Youth literature, Rewriting of topoï and medieval figures, Amazon
Les articulations de l'arabité et du genre à travers les chaines d'équivalence : le cas de Uprising of Women in the Arab World

This master’s thesis is concerned with the aftermath of the popular protests that have emerged in light of the « Arab Spring ». It addresses these issues by means of an analysis of the  « Uprising of Women in the Arab World », a Facebook page that deals with women’s rights in the « arab world ». From a critical discursive standpoint, the research attempts to grasp the dynamics of this feminist collective through the lens of arabity and gender. On the one hand, the notion of arabity refers to a common belonging to the « arab world » that stems from the production of common religious and linguistic signifiers. On the other hand, gender refers to a privileged language used to signify power relations (Scott, 1988). I examine the intersections of gender and arabity through the concept of articulation (Hall, 1980) considered as the non-necessary assemblage of different production practices and hegemonic forces of a particular epoch that constitute a discourse. I use this concept of articulation to explore the intersections of different discourses through and by which gender and arabity are produced in the UWAW page. These articulations are analysed through the concept of chains of equivalence (Laclau, 2008), a concept that designates the aggregation of competing claims based on relations of equivalence and relations of difference. The latter are produced through the affirmation of the claims ‘particularity, while the former are constituted through the display of the claims' communalities.  This research is guided by the following research proposal: UWAW can be understood as a discursive space constituted by chains of equivalence where articulations of arabity and gender are materialized through relations of difference and relations of equivalence. This proposal is explored through a critical discourse analysis of three of the campaigns that took place on the UWAW in 2014. Focusing on these campaigns as discursive spaces where competing and heterogeneous statements emerge, I examine how the production of meaning is both impacted and informed by the competing knowledges brought to the fore by UWAW.   The analysis suggests that arabity is configured differently in each campaign. It is homogenized and universalized in « Do You Know », cleaved in « Israel Apartheid Week » and framed in civic terms in Je ne resterai pas silencieuse. Gender appears to be much more stable as it operated, for the most part, as a universalizing force throughout the campaigns.

Keyphrases: Articulation, Arab world, Arabity, Gender, Articulation, Chain of equivalence, Discursive spaces
In search of protection : sexual minority women in Canadian refugee determination

Canada has accepted refugee claims on the basis of sexual orientation for more than 20 years; however, research suggests that claims brought by women on the basis of sexual orientation have not always received fair adjudication. To ensure equitable access to protection for sexual minority women, an analysis of their risk of persecution must incorporate gender and other social and cultural factors that influence their experiences. Based on a case study of claims brought by women on the basis of sexual orientation between 2010 and 2013, which were subsequently rejected by the Canadian Immigration and Refugee board, this research identifies decision making that poses obstacles to sexual minority women’s access to refugee protection. The findings from this case study demonstrate that an intersectional analysis, which considers various forms of oppression within a particular social context, is crucial to a complete and informed assessment of the risk of persecution for sexual minority women. In light of these findings, this paper proposes that an intersectional analysis accompany continued training for Immigration and Refugee Board members on issues particular to sexual minorities.

Keyphrases: Canada, Sexual minorities, Lesbian, Women, Refugees, Intersectionality, Sexual orientation, Gender, Gender-based persecution, Immigration and Refugee Board, Canada
L'ingénierie des documents d'affaires dans le cadre du web sémantique

In this thesis, we present the problems of business document exchanges. We propose a methodology to adapt the XML-based business standards for the Semantic Web technologies by mapping documents defined on DTD or XML Schema to an ontological representation in OWL 2. Next, we propose an approach based on formal concept analysis techniques to regroup the ontology classes sharing some semantics to improve the quality, readability and the representation of the ontology. Finally, we propose ontology alignment to determine the semantic links between heterogeneous business ontologies generated by the transformation process to help entreprises to communicate fruitfully.

Keyphrases: Document Engineering, Semantic web, business standard, Ontology matching, Formal Concept Analysis
Influence of plant species and richness on pollutant removal in treatment wetlands

Treatment wetlands (TWs) are complex engineered ecosystems designed to remove pollutants from wastewater. In selecting plant species for TWs, the use of polycultures as well as the choice of local non-invasive species is increasingly recommended. However, to date, the majority of TWs have been planted in monoculture using invasive species, probably because the performance of native species and the possible advantages associated with plant diversity have not been clearly demonstrated. The research questions of my thesis are:  Are polycultures as good as or better than monocultures for pollutant removal, and could a native species be as efficient as an exotic invasive species in TWs?  Three experiments were performed to answer this question. The influence of plant richness on pollutant removal was tested in two mesocosm experiments: 1) comparing two emergent plant species in monoculture and planted in sequence, and 2) evaluating four free-floating species, each in monoculture versus pairs of species (all possible combinations) and the four species planted together. A third experiment was carried out to compare the removal efficiency of the invasive European haplotype of common reed (Phragmites australis) and the native non-invasive subspecies (P. australis subsp. americanus).   Plant species composition influenced the performance of TWs. The comparison of the performance of monocultures versus polycultures showed that, overall, TWs planted with a combination of species were as efficient as monocultures of the best performing species. Comparing the performance of native and invasive P. australis strongly suggests that the native could replace the invasive species in TWs, thereby avoiding possible environmental risks without compromising treatment efficiency.  The promising results of the native P. australis subspecies need to be further tested in full-scale experiments in order to encourage the use of this species in TWs. The results obtained comparing plant species combinations suggest that under circumstances in which the performance of available macrophytes is unknown or cannot be determined, using a mixture of species offers the best chances of achieving the highest possible level of pollutant removal. Furthermore, it has been suggested that plant diversity contributes to TWs in terms of their resilience to stress and disease.

Keyphrases: Phragmites australis, Constructed wetlands, Wastewater treatment, Biodiversity, Ecological services, Invasive plants, Free-floating plants
Dynamiques d’intimidation contre la force publique : enjeux pour les policiers et les agents correctionnels

One of the most salient characteristics of police and correctional officers lies in their legitimate use of coercion to impose their authority. In theory, this public force must have precedence over any private force. In the study of violence, this feature makes their victimization particularly peculiar. Unlawful pressure and influence as well as intimidation tactics experienced by law enforcement officers have not been the focus of much attention. This thesis aims at bringing a better understanding of the intimidation dynamics, at identifying the major issues for the public force and at offering a more general theory of criminal intimidation. Public force being an inherently State function, we focussed first at the problem of intimidation in a global manner. By testing the theory of the action of security (Cusson, 2010), we observed that an intimidated and corrupted public force leads to a loss of legitimacy and efficiency of the judicial system in its fight against crime. We then adopted an interactionist approach to understand the everyday dynamics of intimidation. We asked ourselves what were the factors that officers considered severe and credible enough for them to consider an intimidation. By identifying the world of objects of police officers (Blumer, 1986), we observed that acts of intimidation that occurred outside the professional setting were considered more serious. Also, the fact that the intimidator belonged to a criminal organisation raised the gravity of the threat. Then, we looked into the social identities of correctional officers that experienced intimidation (Tedeschi et Felson, 1994). We discovered that minor but repeated acts of intimidation had a tendency to modify the professional practices of prison guards. An integrated analysis sheds light on two types of intimidation: on one side, a reactive and mild intimidation; on the other, a programmed and serious intimidation. This brings three issues for the public force: its symbolic aspects, a transformation of its action and its legitimacy. By integrating those issues, we have been able to offer a theory of the criminal intimidation. Lastly, preventive and repressive measures are discussed as a solution to criminal intimidation.

Keyphrases: Police, Prison, Violence, Intimidation, Guards