NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
Processus post-transcriptionnels inédits dans la mitochondrie des diplonémides

Our laboratory has recently discovered an unprecedented mode of expression of mitochondrial genes in D. papillatum, a biflagellate protozoan. In addition to its mtDNA formed of hundreds of circular chromosomes, genes are fragmented. For example, the cox1 gene which encodes the subunit one of the cytochrome oxidase complex, comprises nine modules carried by nine chromosomes. The cox1 mRNA is obtained by trans-splicing and is also edited by the insertion of six uridines between two modules. My thesis project focused on the study of post-transcriptional processes in diplonemid mitochondria. We characterized the fragmentation of cox1 in three other species belonging to two diplonemids genera: Diplonema ambulator, Diplonema sp. 2 and Rhynchopus euleeides.  The cox1 gene is fragmented into nine modules in all species but the modules are carried by chromosomes of different size and sequences from one species to another. We have shown that there are no motifs for classical introns, including spliceosomal and archaeal introns, as well as introns of group I and II, that might be implicated in the trans-splicing of cox1 modules. No significant complementarity exists between the flanking regions of two neighboring modules, nor are any conserved residues within a species or across species. We therefore concluded that the trans-splicing of cox1 in diplonemids involves a novel mechanism implicating trans rather than cis-factors. Trans-splicing and editing of cox1 probably involve guide RNAs, but it is also possible that the trans-factors are proteins or DNA molecules. The study of different species has also shown that the insertion of six uridines between two cox1 modules in mRNA is a shared trait in these diplonemids. We discovered that four other mitochondrial genes are also edited in D. papillatum and that RNA editing is not limited to mRNA. So, fragmented genes and RNA editing are common characteristics of diplonemids.  We elucidated D. papillatum’s mitochondrial transcript maturation steps. All transcripts undergo three coordinated and precise processes including end processing, trans-splicing and / or editing and polyadenylation. The processing of the 5 'and 3' ends gives rise to three kinds of maturation intermediates. A primary transcript with one free end can bind to its neighbor and trans-splicing occurs without directionality. In the case of edited transcripts, editing precedes trans-splicing. These studies have prepared the ground for functional studies of trans-splicing and RNA editing with the long term goal to elucidate the molecular mechanisms involved in post-transcriptional regulation in this intriguing system.

Keyphrases: Transcription, Gene fragmentation, Transcription, Ends processing, Trans-splicing, U-addition RNA editing, Diplonemids, Euglenozoa, Mitochondria
Sectaire et "inter-dit" : introduction à la dimension du croire dans l'écoute du dire des personnes en cause dans le sectaire

The thesis questions the conditions of listening concerning the testimonies of people who lived a sectarian experience, as well as the ethical and methodological issues arising from the way literature proposes to understand the telling of these people. A literature review shows that the main theoretical frameworks used to explain the sectarian (alienation, mental manipulation, addiction) determine the way the telling of these people is listened. Thereby, the meaning of the sectarian directs not only our understanding of people, but it also outlines the conditions of the listening. The premise of the dissertation is that the introduction of the « dit-mention » (the mension of the telling) of the believe as an interpretative intersection leads to develop a listening concerning both the speaking subject and the dimension of the being. From a theorization of believe as a movement of the living distinct from religion, spirituality, belief and mysticism, the dissertation moves the problematic of a sectarian experience from its polemic structure to give full value to the telling of people. Thus, by setting the listening on its symbolic side, that is in a way that takes into account the subject's relation to the Other, the meaning produced by an act of listening to a believe does not rely anymore on an external meaning to explain and report a sectarian experience. It is produced by the binding of the signifiers together, which opens a research space where something of the subject can happen. The hypothesis of a subject « à croire sur parole » (which words must be believed) then offers a basis for a differential act of listening, since it allows the working out of an effective knowledge, a knowledge that moves, surprises, revives the subject.

Keyphrases: Croire, Sects, Believe, Belief, Subject, Unconscious, Intervention, Discursive reading
Pratiques et usages de l'Europe dans le maintien de la paix : la coopération franco-irlandaise au Tchad

This dissertation is about European Union-led military operations and their effects on two issues: processes of Europeanization and the evolution of peacekeeping. For rational choice scholars, Europeanization reflects the preferences of Europe’s main powers, which impose those preferences on other states, especially when it comes to defence policies. On the opposite, constructivists argue that handling international crises collectively results in adaptations and a certain rapprochement of national ways to do things. To sort out this debate, this research puts forward and defends a sociological approach to EU military operations, which is inspired by the practice turn in international relations and usages of Europe in European studies. This approach emphasizes the context of interaction, actors’ social strategies, and the merits of an interpretive method grounded in actors’ experiences. The empirical demonstration rests upon a qualitative and comparative analysis of two most different cases: French and Irish actors during the military operation EUFOR Tchad/RCA, in which they got involved. The research concludes that Europeanization is not a linear and homogenous phenomenon, and that its shape mostly depends on the context and actors under scrutiny. At the political and decisional level (in Brussels), national logics prevail, and each actor tries to take advantage of its opportune resources (material, ideal, symbolic) in order to enforce its national preferences. However, the further one moves away from Brussels (towards the operation’s headquarters or the field), the more military actors – the main actors concerned with EU operations – develop common practices that come on top of their national singularities. The operational context of peacekeeping yields dynamics of socialization and learning, which themselves make common usages of military Europe possible. These usages make up the grounds of a “European” approach to peacekeeping, which is a hybrid combination of existing practices imported from other contexts (national, NATO, UN) and new, EU-specific practices. However, this Europeanization tends to remain mostly at the military’s level. It does not bring about convergence at the formal, political and decisional level, where national dynamics still prevail.

Keyphrases: Usages, France, Tchad, European Union, Security, Peacekeeping, Europeanization, Practices, Ireland, Chad
Réduction de la durée de vie des porteurs de charge dans le silicium noir par implantation ionique

The goal of this project is to study the effect of crystalline damage on the optoelectronic properties of photodetectors made from “black silicon” (i.e. femtosecond-laser microstructured silicon, which make it appear black).  Black silicon samples were annealed then implanted with either 300 keV Si+, 1500 keV Si+ or 2000 keV H+ ions.  The fluence used for the implantation was 1E11, 1E12 or 1E13 ion/cm2, resulting in nine different samples with a crystalline damage distribution of various depth and concentration.  Photodetectors were fabricated on these samples, together with a control detector made from a non-implanted black silicon sample and then characterized.  The I-V curves, spectral responsivities and frequency responses of the detectors were measured in short-circuit or under bias and compared.  The detectors display an approximately ohmic behavior, but those implanted at a higher fluence show a slightly better current rectification.  The implantation had a strong effect on the responsivity.  The external quantum efficiency increased from (0.069 ± 0.001) % at 900 nm for the control detector up to (26.0 ± 0.5) % for the 1E12 cm-2, 1500 keV Si+ detector.  With an applied bias of -0.50 V, the responsivity is increased and some detectors exhibit above unity photocurrent gain.  Similarly, the cutoff frequencies of the implanted detectors are higher.  A contactless experiment was attempted for the measurement of the effective carrier lifetime. The implantation damage was expected to reduce the carrier lifetime.  The setup didn’t meet all experimental conditions required to detect the signal using frequency-domain photo-induced reflection.

Keyphrases: Black silicon, Ion implantation, Photodetector, Characterization, Lifetime
Amiante et conflits d’intérêts : l’Université McGill pointée du doigt

This case study highlights certain situations of conflict of interest related to the epidemiological research of professor John Corbett McDonald regarding the effects of chrysotile asbestos on human health.

Keyphrases: conflict of interest, scientific integrity, asbestos industry, Industry-sponsored university research
Dessine-moi une maison : psychanalyse d’un processus de design

This research is a continuation of those invested in order to clarify the question of the design process, especially the architectural design of the house. It also seeks to develop the reflexivity of the designer on his acts by offering a view from the perspective of psychoanalysis. It extends the initiatives brought by the third generation of design methods researches focusing on an unexplored field: the unconscious process of architectural design. Its’ problematic is the unconscious origins of creative work of the designer in architecture. Creation is one of the important topics of psychoanalysis, several psychoanalytic concepts like Freudian sublimation, try to explore and explain it. The design being a creative discipline, psychoanalysis can lighten us about the design process, and give us the opportunity to observe and approach it. The architectural metaphor, used to express the Freudian theory, is also the scope of several psychoanalytic theories and concepts. Architecture in general, and particularly architecture of the house, offers a field where many of the psychoanalytic concepts can be observed and applied, because of the emotional investigation that the designer, the user, or the builder invest in it. This research will approach the architectural example according to the concepts developed by the three most important psychoanalytic theories of Freud, Lacan and Jung. The application of these concepts will be made through an auto-analysis that puts the designer in a double stance: the research subject and the researcher, which highly promotes the reflexivity that the design researches look for. Free association is the first step that will start the self-study process, and follows its development. Applied to the speech and the shape of the house, free association will seek to distinguish several psychological mechanisms that inform our investigation. The results of the application of Freudian concepts will serve as a basis on which the concepts of Lacanian and Jungian theory will be applied. At the end of this analysis, we would be able to present a model of the unconscious process of design that lead to the creation of the house used as an example. We will discover the nature of the unconscious process that precedes and follows the creative work of the designer. We will also see how this process is fed from designer experiences dating back to the early years of his childhood. This would help to see the possibility of applying psychoanalytic concepts in architectural design and help identifying potential approaches to the contribution of psychoanalysis to the practice of design and it’s teaching.

Keyphrases: architecture, creation, design process, house, psychoanalysis
Les inégalités sociales dans le dépistage du cancer du sein, quand le système s'en mêle...

Research has demonstrated significant disparities amongst populations in regard to chances of survival to breast cancer. It has proven to be the case that immigrant women are more likely to die of breast cancer than non-immigrants. Several studies attribute this to poor adherence to mammography testing within this group of women. Thus, late detection of this disease unavoidably reduces their chances of survival. In Quebec, the Quebec Breast Cancer Screening Program sends a letter of invitation to women when they attain 50 years of age. This letter is a prescription for a screening mammogram. The present study has demonstrated that this letter is a barrier for immigrant communities in Montreal, ore specifically the underprivileged Haitian community. This is due to their low level of literacy. Consecutive to the results obtained in this study, we suggest modifications to the letter of invitation, in order to ensure that its content is accessible to all women, including women in underprivileged circumstances.

Keyphrases: breast cancer, mammography, screening, immigrants, socioeconomical status, strategies for breast cancer screening promotion, breast cancer screening programs
Sur la pertinence de la culture en pragmatique

There is a strong division between those who believe in linguistic relativity and those who tend more towards universalism. Since Whorf, many experiments were conducted to determine how and if language could influence thoughts, but not often they were focussed on pragmatics. I revisit the debate on linguistic relativism by considering pragmatics only. There are two different theoretical models in pragmatics at the time, and they support opposing views on relativism: ethnopragmatics and relevance theory. Using models of cultural interaction from anthropology, in particular the ideas of Bourdieu and the concept of assemblage, I show that relevance theory is flexible enough to be able to incorporate a relativistic component, without having to modify its core principles. To illustrate this necessary transformation, I introduce the Cognitive Identity that could interact with the universalistic relevance of the model and still be relativistic itself.

Keyphrases: Pragmatics, Linguistic Relativity, Relevance Theory, Ethnopragmatics, Semantic primes, Bourdieu, Assemblage, Cognitive identity, Context
Localisation et fonction de CHK2 en mitose

Centrosomes function primarily as microtubule-organizing centres and play a crucial role during mitosis by organizing the bipolar spindle. In addition to this function, centrosomes act as reaction centers where numerous key regulators meet to control cell cycle progression. One of these factors involved in genome stability, the checkpoint kinase CHK2, was shown to localize at centrosomes throughout the cell cycle. Here, we clarify that CHK2 only localized at centrosomes during mitosis. Using wild-type and CHK2-/- HCT116 human colon cancer cells, or human osteosarcoma U2OS cells depleted for CHK2 with small hairpin RNAs, we show that several CHK2 antibodies are non-specific for immunofluorescence and cross-react with an unknown centrosomal protein(s). To analyse further CHK2 localization, we established cells expressing inducible GFP-CHK2 and Flag-CHK2 fusion proteins. We show that CHK2 localizes to the nucleus in interphase cells but that a fraction of CHK2 associates with centrosomes in mitotic cells, from early mitotic stages until cytokinesis. In contrast to previous data obtained by A. Stolz and colleagues with the human colon carcinoma HCT116 cell line, our experiments exploring the possible functions for CHK2 during mitosis did not support a role for CHK2 in the bipolar spindle formation and the timely progression of mitosis in human osteosarcoma U2OS cells.

Keyphrases: Chk2, Centrosome, Cell Cycle, Mitosis, Dommages ADN, DNA Dammage
«Le grand retour» : le processus de rapatriement chez l’étudiant en échange à l’international

The rapidly increasing interconnectedness of the world brought on by the expansion of globalization calls for a redefinition of the traditional notion of higher education. As such, many Canadian educators, government officials, and students alike are insisting on the importance of internationalizing higher education through intercultural exchanges and studying abroad, in the hopes that current and future generations of Canadians will acquire a global perspective and become citizens of the world (Advisory Panel on Canada’s International Education Strategy, 2012). Yet in order to ensure that students are gaining the most from their international experience, it is important to understand the impact that studying abroad can have, both in the short and long term. While many past studies have focused on the short-term, or the actual time spent abroad and subsequent impacts, few have examined the exchange student’s re-entry into their society of origin and subsequent long-term effects, such as personal developments that surface during repatriation.  In this qualitative study, eight undergraduate students from the University of Montreal were interviewed regarding how they lived their reintegration into Montreal society after returning home post studying abroad. While academics that have broached the subject in the past tended to view repatriation as a static series of events, our data analysis showed a similar pattern that surfaced in all respondents’ testimonials allowing us to henceforth recognize this repatriation as an interconnected three-step process. By borrowing from Kim’s theory of Intercultural Personhood (2008), we are now able to define these three distinct phases as stress, adaptation, and growth; all of which not only help to better understand the difficulties students face during their process of reintegration but also facilitate the identification of possible identity transformations that surface upon re-entry and how these transformations impact the repatriation process.

Keyphrases: study abroad, repatriation, reintegration, exchange student, re-entry, international higher education
D’une structure de gouvernance canado-américaine pour la gestion du Passage du Nord-Ouest : l’apport du transgouvernementalisme

Transgovernmentalism is based on the existence of transboundary networks between sub-national entities exercising similar functions in order to address common issues. Canada-United States transgovernmentalism can be characterised by limited relinquishment of sovereignty by partners, significant participation of regional actors, informality in the relations and the integration of the private and public sectors and civil society into mixed networks.   The governance model in place in the St. Lawrence basin and the Great Lakes region presents all the features of the typical model of Canada-United States transgovernmentalism. A thorough analysis indeed reveals a complex and strong matrix of transgovernmental networks which ramifications now extend far beyond the strict framework of agreements under whose auspices these networks arose.  However, if transgovernmentalism is the solution adopted by both governments for the collaborative management of the St. Lawrence basin and the Great Lakes, it is an appropriate governance model for the management of the Northwest Passage? Although the model in place in the region of the St. Lawrence basin and the Great Lakes can not be entirely reproduced for the management of the Northwest Passage, a “bottom-up” transgovernmental model focused on the implementation of common rules in the field of navigation, and on collaboration at the operational level to ensure the implementation of this regulation, is appropriate for the management of Northwest Passage.

Keyphrases: Canada, Northwest Passage, transgovernmentalism, St. Lawrence, Great Lakes, governance, binationalism, United States, networks
Queering the Cross-Cultural Imagination: (Trans)Subjectivity and Wilson Harris's The Palace of the Peacock

This study contains two parts: a theoretical component and a literary text. The theoretical component discusses desire as a thematic and philosophical methodology in Wilson Harris’s The Palace of the Peacock. Chapter one argues that Harris paradoxically makes use of forms of empirical desire to demonstrate its epistemological limits. Chapter two discusses the problematic situation of female subjectivity in relation to male subjects, through environmental and anatomic metaphors, which Harris’s writing necessitates. Chapter three discusses contemporary poetics in order to situate my impetus for literary writing and attempts to salvage some of Harris’s theoretical concepts in dialogue with my own poetics. Chapter four contains the creative writing project, HEROISM/EULOGIES—an excerpt from a larger project—that charts the movement of various subjects across an imagined American landscape.

Keyphrases: Wilson Harris, cross-cultural imagination, desire, relationality, erotics
Étude des maxima de champs gaussiens corrélés

In this study, results about maxima of different Gaussian fields will be presented. More precisely, results for the convergence of the first order of the maximum of a set of Gaussian variables will be presented. Some results on the convergence of the second order, and of the law will also be explained. The models presented here are the Gaussian field of i.i.d. variables, the hierarchical model and the Gaussian free fields model. These fields differ from one another by their correlation structure. The main result of this study is that the first order convergence in probability of the maximum is the same for the three models. Finally, numerical simulations results will be presented to confirm theoretical results.

Keyphrases: Maxima, Gaussian free field, Hierarchical model, Random walk
Abstraction et plasticité sonore : une nouvelle approche à la composition de musique acousmatique

My artistic practice can be divided in two paths: acousmatic music composition and abstract painting. Far from independent, these two practices meet on many aspects and can be perceived in a very complimentary manner. It becomes clear that the way in which I approach the mechanisms of the creative process in both practices is in fact quite similar. When painting or composing, I’ve come to realize that the result I strive for is in terms of structure and in terms of how I attempt to organize both the sound events in my compositions and the plastic materials I use on canvas. This text presents a potentially new approach to acousmatic composition derived from the techniques and concepts found in modern visual arts, more specifically non-figurative painting. In order to illustrate these ideas, I’ve composed a series of short composition studies that attempt to experiment the suggested methods and techniques.

Keyphrases: Abstract painting, Electroacoustic music, Composition techniques