NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
Deep active localization

Mobile robots have made significant advances in recent decades and are now able to perform tasks that were once thought to be impossible. One critical factor that has enabled robots to perform these various challenging tasks is their ability to determine where they are located in a given environment (localization). Further automation is achieved by letting the robot choose its own actions instead of a human teleoperating it. However, determining its pose (position + orientation) precisely and scaling this capability to larger environments has been a long-standing challenge in the field of mobile robotics. Traditional approaches to this task of active localization use an information-theoretic criterion for action selection and hand-crafted perceptual models. With a steady rise in available computation in the last three decades, the back-propagation algorithm found its use in much deeper neural networks and in numerous applications. When labelled data is not available, the paradigm of reinforcement learning (RL) is used, where it learns by interacting with the environment. However, it is impractical for most RL algorithms to learn reasonably well from just the limited real world experience. Hence, it is common practice to train the RL based models in a simulator and efficiently transfer (without any significant loss of performance) these trained models into real robots. In this thesis, we propose an end-to-end differentiable method for learning to take in- formative actions for robot localization that is trainable entirely in simulation and then transferable onto real robot hardware with zero refinement. This is achieved by leveraging recent advancements in deep learning and reinforcement learning combined with domain randomization techniques. The system is composed of two learned modules: a convolu- tional neural network for perception, and a deep reinforcement learned planning module. We leverage a multi-scale approach in the perceptual model since the accuracy needed to take actions using reinforcement learning is much less than the accuracy needed for robot control. We demonstrate that the resulting system outperforms traditional approaches for either perception or planning. We also demonstrate our approach’s robustness to different map configurations and other nuisance parameters through the use of domain randomization in training. The code has been released: https://github.com/montrealrobotics/dal and is compatible with the OpenAI gym framework, as well as the Gazebo simulator.

Keyphrases: Localization, Deep Learning, Reinforcement Learning, Active Localization, Robotics
La voix du territoire : représentations territoriales plurielles dans l’œuvre d’Eruoma Awashish

In the indigenous way of thinking, territory (Nitaskinan) is an important and multidimensional notion; it includes the historical, geographical and political territory, which is reclaimed, as well as the cosmological territory inscribed into rituals and ancestral beliefs. This thesis will present how the atikamekw artist Eruoma Awashish articulates and harmonizes this multiformal territory. It aims to address the way in which the artist represents this territory, both with the will to anchor it into traditions, and to contemporarily re-actualize it under a diachronic perspective. The artist displays a frank and colored aesthetic. She is working to shift colonial codes and to develop strategies in order to contribute to current claims and territorial affirmations of the First Nations. Through a politicized artistic production, Eruoma Awashish applies a decolonising lens: she reinvents colonial history by offering indigenous symbols and narrations a central and active place in her work. This thesis puts subsequent emphasis on the capacity of indigenous nations to adapt, self-define and self-represent. The artists are the witness and vectors of this affirmation and search for sovereignty which, for Awashish, is visual, cultural and territorial. This study deploys an interdisciplinary approach, faithful to the production of the artist. It is also based on the writing of indigenous thinkers in order to present the artistic process and production of an artist rooted into a complex contemporary context, exposed to political, cultural and territorial challenges. If the art of Awashish transmits and spreads territorial claims, it is because they are, before all else, the reflection of the territorial Atikamekw history and beliefs.

Keyphrases: Eruoma Awashish, Atikamekw, Art autochtone, Indigenous art, Territory, Cosmology
De l'alimentation à la nutrition : comment bien manger à Shanghai dans les années 1930 au travers du magazine Ling Long(玲珑杂志）

Based on an analysis of the discourse about food contained in the Ling Long magazine (玲珑杂志 1931-1937), this dissertation focuses specifically on the transformations of the Chinese food habits that occurred in Shanghai in the 1930s by contact with nutritional knowledge from the West and under the impetus of Chinese elites who were looking for solutions to strengthen the nation. We show how Ling Long magazine participated in this phenomenon, not only by introducing its readership to the principles and concepts underlying scientific nutrition, but especially by adapting these new food standards and practices to both the local Chinese context and the concerns of its female readers.

Keyphrases: Ling Long, Chine, nutrition, Shanghai, Ling Long, China, medicine, health, food
Le mythe de Volta chez Pline l’Ancien et l’iconographie d’urnes étrusques du IIe siècle av. J.-C.

A series of Etruscan funerary urns from the Hellenistic period shows a particular scene where a werewolf comes out of a well and attacks a group of warriors. One of them is offering up a libation near the monster and the well. A few centuries later, the Roman author Pliny the Elder referred to an old Etruscan legend about the king of Volsinii named Porsenna who invoked a lightning strike to get rid of the monster called Volta, which had previously devastated the city’s countryside.  This research paper tries to establish relationships between the images of the different urns and the myth from the second book of the Natural History which are still being debated amongst etruscologists. Moreover, this paper will set my own position in the debate and, grounded on previous works about the subject, will cover the complete history of the urns originating from Perugia and Volterra in most cases presented. The first chapter of this paper will provide an updated historiography concerning the core subject, the interpretation of the mythical scene, and a short review relating to Etruscan funerary urns from the Hellenistic period. The second chapter will address the symbolism of the wolf and the werewolf from an anthropological view. This section will also look for any archaeological and literary evidence concerning the wolf and the werewolf during ancient times (Greece, Rome and Italic populations, Etruria) concluding that they belong to the underworld. The chapter will end with the link between the werewolf of the urns and the monster depicted in Pliny the Elder’s story. The last chapter will provide additional insights about the urns and the Plinian sources that deserve further investigation; for instance, Etruscan beliefs about the invocation of lightning, the well as a symbolic passage to the afterworld and the reference to the mythical king Porsenna. This thesis, centred on cultural history, provides an updated view of a debate that is a century old. This paper also brings new evidence to bear that the Etruscan urns could actually represent the same myth as the one from Pliny’s text. This research document also reinforces the hypothesis that this Etruscan legend had survived many centuries of exterior influences up to its spread through the Roman world during the Flavian dynasty.

Keyphrases: Loups, Lycanthropes, Etruscans, Etruria, Etruscan religion, Hellenistic cinerary urns, Pliny the Elder, Wolves, Werewolves, Well, Archaic Rome
Les relations diplomatiques franco-autochtones à Montréal, 1701-1713

The Great Peace of Montreal (1701) is a manifestation of the success of French-Amerindian diplomacy, highlighting the many cultural adjustments that allowed for a global alliance and peace between New France and the nations of the Pays d’en Haut. This study looks at the following decade, and the ways in which diplomatic relations between French and Natives developed in Montreal at the beginning of the 18th century. Examining the colonial correspondence that was sent back and forth from Versailles to Montreal, it analyses colonial discourses to better understand how diplomatic practices evolved, and how Montreal played a key role as the urban setting for these pluricultural negotiations. Although these letters present a Eurocentric point of view, a particular consideration was given to Native speeches given during peace negotiations that are transcribed in the correspondence, but also to everything left unsaid by the official correspondents. This study analyses first how diplomacy took place in Montreal, taking an interest in the actors, the urban setting and the practices that surround it. Then it observes the development brought to diplomatic practices by new political stakes in the early 18th century. Ending the analysis at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession (Utrecht, 1713), the thesis concludes that this decade contributed to the continuous strengthening of a pluricultural diplomatic tradition that was ingrained in the urban setting of Montreal.

Keyphrases: Diplomacy, New France, 18th century, Diplomats, Native Americans, Urban history
Stabilisation du paysage périglaciaire suite à un épisode de ravinement par thermo-érosion : implication pour la structure et la stabilité thermique du pergélisol de surface

Thermo-erosion gullies dissect the ice-wedge polygonal terrace in Qarlikturvik valley, Bylot Island (Nunavut), and gullies stay in the landscape as stabilized features following their catastrophic formation. After such disturbances, long-term transitions of the landscape in the continuous permafrost zone needs to be studied thoroughly to understand the recovery processes and new permafrost structure that results, and how it contrasts from pre-disturbance conditions. In this master’s thesis, we investigated how permafrost first formed and then went through a disturbance-stabilization transition. We also examined the processes that contributed to the recovery of surficial permafrost. Special attention was paid to the cryostratigraphic patterns of surficial permafrost due to landscape recovery. The thermo-erosion gully results from the partial erosion of an ice-wedge network, that previously developed in glaciofluvial sands and gravels, alluvial sediments and an organic matrix mixed with eolian silts. An area of 226 ± 22 m2 per linear meter of eroded permafrost was impacted by degradation and stabilization. Aggradational ice and rejuvenated ice wedges (found in the gully slopes) are two features indicative of permafrost stabilization lead by negative feedbacks acting on permafrost. On a one-meter deep profile, we learned that globally, drained polygons and slopes’ permafrost from both sides of the gully channel reached thermal conditions comparable to pre-degradation permafrost state. Regarding the drained polygons only, its surficial permafrost now has 1.2 time more latent heat than intact polygons, meaning more energy is necessary to induce its thawing. This modification in the permafrost structure suggests these stabilized drained polygons are in a better posture to face future climate warming compared with pre-disturbance permafrost. This study confirms the importance of long-term investigations of thermokarst terrain to understand landscape evolution in the context of climate change and puts to light permafrost resiliency.

Keyphrases: cryostructures, Permafrost, Stabilization, Aggradational ice, Thermo-erosion gully, Ice-wedge
Impacts des Water operators partnerships « WOPs » sur la prestation des services d’eau dans la ville de Quito, Équateur

To improve access to water and sanitation the United Nations created in 2006 a cooperation program among water operators, the Water Operator's Partnerships (WOP). This program was born in response to the general problems to achieve the UN's goals for water and sanitation.  There are still problems in the world, most especially in the South, to access drinking water. These problems will increase with the contamination of water sources, caused by lack of sanitation and lack of wastewater treatment. Urbanization, which concentrates more and more people, worsens this situation and brings together the most pressing problems in the cities. Latin America is the most urbanized region of the South. Marginal areas, not served by municipal services, are growing, and the absence of ownership of the lands of its areas makes it difficult for people to claim their right to be served by the services provided by the city. As defended by the urban political ecologies (UPE), urban water will organize the city, and social power will produce unequal urban environments. These changes must be understood in a global context of néolibéralisation of economies, and adoption of "private ethics" by the public sector. It seems that public companies that market water have become the most common model of water operator.  In this global context, the WOPs will be presented as a solution to strengthen local water services, which will improve access to water and sanitation. Since 2010 the UN to create a WOP database set up around the world. Subsequently, in 2013, they began to follow up on these partnerships, with the intention of highlighting a collection of WOP good practices. We were fortunate to be able to participate in one of its evaluations on a WOP conducted in Latin America between the water operators of the cities of Quito (Ecuador) and Medellin (Colombia)

Keyphrases: Water Operator’s Partnerships, Access to water, Latin America
Le chant du mycélium ; suivi de Le monologue polyphonique dans la pièce Éden Matin Midi et Soir de Chloé Delaume

This master’s thesis is divided into two parts: creation and research. The first part is a fiction designed to be transposed into podcasts. The thirteen monads it is made of could be read and listened to in a random order (except the first one and the last one). The proliferation of textual forms (different voices and enunciative instances, pieces in verse and prose...) echoes the gradual transformation of the character's perception of the world. The hybridization processes aim to blur its sensitive and mental boundaries and to allow the emergence of a double that constantly disrupts their mental health and its bodily integrity. In the second part, that is devoted to research, the essay focuses on Éden Matin Midi et Soir (2009) by Chloé Delaume, writer and literary performer. The form of the discourse reveals its hybrid nature, in-between theatrical monologue, fictional monologue, polyphonic narrative and autofiction. The relationship to an unstable, multiple and polymorphic self-awareness is deeply embedded in a fragmented writing, always on the verge of psychosis and enunciative schizophrenia. This analysis explores the issues related to the fragmentation of the Self of the narrator-character, which is broken down into several autonomous voices that respond to each other, invective and scream. The essay, through the study of enunciative dynamics, aims to demonstrate how the text manages to bring about an open yet structuring polyphony from a monological framework.

Keyphrases: Chloé Delaume, monologue, polyphony, enunciation, hybridization, creative writting
L’écueil des mondes, suivi de Érotisme interethnique : éthique du voyage chez Houellebecq, Le Clézio et Mauvignier

Written during a journey around the world, L’écueil des mondes is a collection of seven short stories that take place in different places on the planet. The narratives show erotic relationships between travellers and the natives of the countries they visit. The connections are, however, upset by natural disasters or mysterious events, as if to underline the difficulties, even the inability of the tourist to fully understand “the other.” Thanks to the internal focus, depending on the viewpoint of the traveller characters, the reader should better perceive the displacement experienced by these tourists in search of exoticism.  Is it possible to give an implicit discourse on cultural diversity, starting from the representation of attraction for the other? Érotisme interethnique : éthique du voyage chez Houellebecq, Le Clézio et Mauvignier is an essay that looks at how these three authors use interethnic eroticism to represent an attraction among peoples that seems to derive from the cultural mix caused by travel and tourism. From lustful exchanges in the novels La quarantaine of J. M. G. Le Clézio, Lanzarote of Michel Houellebecq and Autour du monde from Laurent Mauvignier, it would be possible to identify an ethical discourse of these authors on the intermingling, but especially on the prioritization of cultural relations between the peoples.

Keyphrases: J. M. G. Le Clézio, Michel Houellebecq, Laurent Mauvignier, La quarantaine, Lanzarote, Autour du monde, Érotisme, Interethnique, Éthique, Voyage, Eroticism, Interethnic, ethic, travel
Réjean Ducharme, un écrivain de la « résistance à la disparition de soi »

In this master’s thesis, I approach Rejean Ducharme’s novels through the concept of « resistance to the disappearance of the self ». This theme is derived from the literary essays of Milan Kundera, in which he contends that the novel is a special place of resistance to « the forgetting of being » (Heidegger), and works against the unfortunate tendency of modern thought to reduce being to a purely scientific understanding and leave aside what Husserl called the « Lifeworld » (« die Lebenswelt »). In the works of Ducharme, protagonist/narrators exist in a state of tension, and engage in a sort of resistance against a vast and abstract enemy who can barely be perceived. This gives rise to one of the principal hypotheses of this thesis : this enemy generates « the forgetting of being ». This particular approach also has the effect of placing Ducharme in the context of « world literature » rather than in Quebec’s national/cultural context. While I perform a close reading of Ducharme’s novels, this memoir also serves as a reflection on the novel as a form of art – a reflection guided by Kundera’s essays, and by a few other writers/thinkers (Duras, Deleuze).

Keyphrases: Milan Kundera, Forgetting of being, The art of the novel, World literature, Literary posture, Resistance to the disappearance of the self, Self-annihilation, Enemy
Memorias sobre la guerra interna en el Perú : los jóvenes del Movadef y el colectivo Hijos de Perú

This study analyzes some aspects of the memory of the internal war in Peru of two groups: the youth of the Movement for Amnesty and Fundamental Rights (MOVADEF) and the Hijos de Peru. Between 1980 and 2000, Peru suffered one of the most violent conflicts in its history that pitted the State against the subversive groups Shining Path and the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA). After the conflict and after the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2001-2003) that investigated its causes and consequences, numerous academic and nongovernmental studies emerged about the memories of different actors, victims, survivors, perpetrators and bystanders. Among the different memory groups, there are also young people who did not necessarily "live" through those years but have a memory about it. How have they formed that memory of events? In the case of young partisans the Movadef, the political wing of the Shining Path, this thesis analyzes the intergenerational transmission of the memory about the armed conflict. In the case of the Hijos de Peru, formed by children of MRTA subversives, we analyze the characteristics of their memories based on their life experience.

Keyphrases: Movadef, Individual memories, Post-memory, Internal war in Peru
Gender, globalization and beyond in Karen Tei Yamashita's Tropic of Orange and Jhumpa Lahiri's The Interpreter of Maladies

This thesis explores two major concepts: globalization and diaspora and their impact on the literary representation of women in Jhumpa Lahiri’s collection of short stories The Interpreter of Maladies and Karen Tei Yamashita’s novel Tropic of Orange. In the first chapter, using Vijay Mishra’s theory on the Literature of the Indian Diaspora: Theorizing the Diasporic Imaginary, the thesis examines the diasporic state of Mrs. Sen through Mishra’s notion of “impossible mourning”. I juxtapose Mrs. Sen’s character to two other female characters to argue that mobility and crossing borders do not affect all women equally, especially if they come from different social class and caste backgrounds. In addition, I compare Mrs. Sen’s diasporic condition to her husband’s to contend that the impact of immigration is more beneficial to him than her. This thesis, hence, rethinks some of the reasons why people migrate across the world and its various impacts on individuals, especially women whose displacement often curtails rather than expands their mobility, freedom and independence. In the second chapter, therefore, I use Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s Feminism without Borders to highlight the difference between Western women and so-called Third World women. Furthermore, using Mohanty’s essay “‘Under Western Eyes’ Revisited,” which condemns the detrimental effects of capitalism and globalization and promotes an anti-capitalist and anti-global project based on solidarity, I study the characterization of Emi and Rafaela, two central characters of Yamashita’s novel, within the context of globalization and its deviant operations. Referring to the criminal and criminalizing operative modes of global capitalism, including organ and sex trafficking, deviant globalization is a critical concept in this thesis through which I read Yamashita’s novel and its female characters’ complicity with and resistance to global capitalism.

Keyphrases: Globalization, Diaspora, Gender, Borders, Mobility, Deviant globalization, Feminism, Solidarity, Genre
Étude de la mortalité aux grands âges à l’aide du Registre des décès d’Antananarivo (Madagascar)

For 60 years now, mortality has been declining sharply in Madagascar, mainly at young ages. Fertility has also decreased significantly in the last two decades. Individuals aged 65 and over, which currently accounts for 3% of the total population, are to represent an increasing share of the population in future years. Given that around 60% of the workforce labors in the informal economy and as a consequence will not have access to a pension system, it becomes crucial to better understand old age mortality in order to determine the extent of the coming phenomenon. In this context, this research examines the evolution of the modal (i.e. most frequent) age at death (M), a suitable indicator for monitoring improvements in old-age survival. Our paper focuses on Antananarivo, the capital and a city for which detailed and virtually complete data on deaths since 1976 are available. From a nonparametric P-spline smoothing approach, and estimates of the population exposed to the risk of death for each year, we obtain relatively accurate estimates of M and the standard deviation of ages at death above the mode for both sexes. Our results show that great progress in longevity has been made in Antananarivo since the mid-1980’s, especially for men. This increase in modal age at death came with a mortality compression above the mode. In other words, inequalities in old age mortality noticeably narrowed. These positive developments are due primarily to a continued strong reduction in infectious-related mortality. However, further progress will now require efficient measures aimed at fighting circulatory system diseases (cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases).

Keyphrases: Madagascar, Modal age at death, Old-age causes of death, Sub-Saharan Africa, Lifespan dispersion, P-spline smoothing, Mortality compression