NCube/papyrus huggingface dataset:
Isolation, culture et caractérisation phénotypique de cellules musculaires lisses endobronchiques équines

Endobronchial smooth muscle is one of the main stakeholder in asthma by alteration of his volume and phenotype. Sampling airway smooth muscle using endobronchial biopsies is performed in order to study pathways associated with remodeling, but currently, little is known regarding the stability of the ASM phenotypes during in vitro culture. Specifically, whether the contractile phenotype is maintained in culture and his evolution across passages is not established. Two problems could explain this lack of information: first the sampling, secondly the maintenance of contractile phenotype in culture.     We developed culture condition based on tracheal smooth muscle in the aim to ensure the upkeep of contractile phenotype. Then we developed a sampling protocol to harvest and maintain in culture ASM cells from endobronchial biopsies on a live animals. The stability of the ASM contractile phenotype was evaluated at each passage using immunofluorescence, FACS and western blot for α-sm-actin, desmin and myosin contents over a 2-month period. No significant differences were observed between the first and the fourth last passage (4th to 7th). 96.4% of the tracheal smooth muscle cell expressed α-sm-actin, 83.3 and 77% of cells expressed desmin and myosin respectively, at the 7th passage. Endobronchial smooth muscle expressed 84% of α-sm-actin, 57% of desmin and 69% of myosin, respectively.   Contractile phenotype was maintained and we determined evolution of contractile phenotype in standardize conditions that will provide a characterized support for coming research.

Keyphrases: Biopsie, Airway smooth muscle, Biopsy, Contractile phenotype, Characterization, Horses
Le corps humain converti en gisement de ressources économiques – À propos de Le Corps-Marché, de Céline Lafontaine

Building on a review of the work of French and Anglo- Saxon researchers, Céline Lafontaine’s book provides a description of the commodification of human life in the era of the bioeconomy, as mentioned in the subtitle of the book. The text below is a summary and a philosophical perspective of the phenomenon presented by the author shows.

Keyphrases: objectivation, technosciences, dignité, Céline Lafontaine, human body, ethics, bioeconomy, commodification, objectification, technosciences, dignity, Céline Lafontaine
La délinquance chez les jeunes : une évaluation approfondie de l’enchâssement social et du chevauchement des sphères relationnelles

Abstract: It is well established in the criminology literature that delinquent peers can have a detrimental effect on young people’s behaviors. The analysis of social environmental characteristics is therefore essential to fully comprehend the unraveling of individual actions. Since it is impossible for a youth, whether he offends or not, to completely isolate himself from the conventional world (Sykes et Matza, 1957, Warr 2002), the overlapping of conventional and delinquent relationships needs to be considered to grasp the extent of the social influence phenomenon. In addition, youth’s social networks are not limited to friends, family members, classmates and co-workers all have a potential influence on their behavior. This study conducted an analysis of the social environment of 237 youth aged 14-24, attending community organizations in Quebec. The results reveal that: 1) crime participation in a youth community sample is frequent, 2) social network’s relational characteristics reflecting social embeddedness are not indicative of crime participation 3) high intensity interactions with social network members significantly reduces market crime commission rates, even when controlling for the presence of offenders in the network, 4) presence of delinquent contacts in multiple social network’s relational spheres allows to create a delinquent dispersion index in order to reflect youth’s criminal embeddedness and finally 5) the more offenders are scattered across different relational spheres that make up the youth’ social network, the greater the risk of involvement in crime is. However, this measure of network delinquency does not predict offending rates. For intervention purposes, looking at network’s delinquent dispersion index might improve prevention of delinquent behaviors.

Keyphrases: Delinquency, Social network, Social embeddedness, Criminal embeddedness, multiplexity
Design, synthèse et application en catalyse verte d’un ligand alkyl imidazolium β-cyclodextrine

Chemistry keeps evolving in new directions. Research has provided improved methodologies for the design and synthesis of targeted molecules. At the same time, the 21st century is witnessing increasing concern about the environmental impacts of chemical wastes. A new philosophy of chemical research and engineering has emerged, known as «Green chemistry». This concept encourages the design of products, processes and technologies that minimize the use and generation of hazardous substances. Therefore, there is an urge to develop environmentally friendly process to convert molecules into product of interest.  In the present thesis, we describe the synthesis, characterization and catalytic properties of a novel alkylimidazolium-modified β-cyclodextrin (-CD). Our strategy was to construct a single amphiphilic bimodal ligand by the combination of a mass transfer unit (-CD), covalently bound to a ligand moiety (alkylimidazolium, an N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) precursor) for aqueous catalysis. First, we demonstrated that the introduction of a dodecyl chain on the imidazolium moiety attached to the primary face of a native β-CD allows the formation of a highly active micellar self-assembled catalytic system in neat water with remarkable recyclable properties for the Suzuki–Miyaura coupling. In addition, we studied the versatility of this self-assembled bimodal system by performing Heck coupling in neat water.

Keyphrases: Alkyl imidazolium, Recyclage, Catalysis in water, Suzuki-Miyaura coupling, Heck coupling, Cyclodextrin, Alkylimidazolium, Supramolecular assembly, Recycling, Green chemistry
Développement d’une méthode de transfert de protéines présentes dans des sections tissulaires minces sur des cibles fonctionnalisées pour augmenter la spécificité de l’imagerie MS du protéome

Imaging mass spectrometry (IMS) is a technique in full expansion that is used in a large range of studies such as the correlation between molecular expression and the health status of a tissue and developmental biology. A common limitation of the technology is that only the more abundant and/or more easily ionisable molecules are usually detected, in particular in protein analysis. One of the methods used to alleviate this limitation is the direct specific transfer of proteins from a tissue section to a functionalized surface with high spatial fidelity. In this case, only proteins with an affinity for the surface will be retained whereas others will be removed. The chemical nature of the surface is therefore critical. The research work presented in this document proposes a high spatial fidelity transfer method for proteins from a tissue section onto a nitrocellulose surface. The method uses a homebuilt apparatus that allows the transfer process to be done without any direct physical contact between the tissue section and the transfer surface while still using physical pressure to help protein migration. In subsequent work, the developed method was used to transfer proteins from a mouse kidney section onto the nitrocellulose surface. Serials sections were also collected either to be colored with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) to assess the high spatial fidelity of the transfer process, or to be directly analyzed as a control sample to access the different signals detected after transfer. Results showed a high spatial fidelity transfer of a subset of proteins. Some of the detected transferred proteins were not observed after direct tissue analysis and/or showed an increase in sensitivity.

Keyphrases: MALDI, Mass spectrometry, proteins, surface chemistry, imaging
Analyse anthropologique des politiques de brevetage génétique : le cas du BRCA 1/2 au Québec

The biotechnology company Myriad Genetics owns the diagnosis of genetic predisposition of breast and ovarian cancer since 1996. The patent, which grants an international license, reverses the right of molecular analysis by other laboratories. This monopoly allows the company to apply an excessively higher price than public laboratories and pursue the offenders in justice. However, since 2001, Quebec is the only province to respect (in part) the patent, using the company for the complete sequencing. This research analyzes the gene patent politics in its legal structure of intellectual property and the cultural meanings of biotechnology. I rely on an analytical framework of theories of property and biomedical research. I also proceeded to the discourse analysis of physicians and genetic counsellors in Quebec through interviews conducted in hospitals in the region of Montreal and Sherbrooke. This qualitative study identifies how doctors and genetic counsellors analysis the role of patents in the screening and diagnosis of cancer and how genetic patents express a medical culture. The study aims to explore how gene patents are perceived in analyzing and comparing the variations between ideological limits and practical limits.

Keyphrases: BRCA, Anthropology, Intellectual property, Genetic Patent
Le potentiel musical des analyses sonores et autres phénomènes vibratoires

This thesis about the musical potential of sound analysis consists in an artistic and creative research on characteristic properties of sound behavior revealed by various types of analysis and likely to assist musical composing. This work presents the elaboration of analysis tools programmed and used on purpose, in addition of a corpus of six works which the order of presentation corresponds to their chronology of writing, and which both conception and musical analysis are unevenly exposed (from brief to exhaustive overviews). As the research occurs, the featured repertory integrates, by a conceptual enlargement, some analytic considerations for other vibratory phenomena (as light or the harmony of the spheres) and, aesthetically, all that approach is founded on the aristotelician concept of mimesis, in which the artistic ideal consists in the sublimation of nature.

Keyphrases: mimesis, contemporary music, sound analysis, mimesis, aesthetism, harmony of the spheres, synaesthesia
Essais en économetrie et économie de l'éducation

This these is organized in three chapter; the first two chapters are in Econometrics and the third in labor Economics.  The econometrics chapters focuses on estimating parameters in data rich environments. I investigate how to establish causal effect or treatment effect  in high dimensional setting using regularization techniques. The last chapter of this thesis focuses on the  outcomes associated with general and specific education. In particular I study the effect of specialization in high school on college major choice and performance in  college.  In the first chapter, entitled \textquotedblleft Regularized LIML for many instruments \textquotedblright (joint with Marine Carrasco), I consider the efficient estimation of a finite dimensional parameter in a linear model where the number of potential instruments is very large or infinite. The use of many moment conditions improves the asymptotic efficiency of the instrumental variables estimators. I propose regularized a versions of the limited information maximum likelihood (LIML) based on three different regularizations: Tikhonov, Landweber Fridman, and principal components.  The second chapter, entitled \textquotedblleft Efficient estimation with many weak instruments using regularization techniques \textquotedblright, (Joint with Marine Carrasco), extends  the previous works, to allow for the presence of a large number of weak instruments or weak identification.  The problem of weak instruments is due to a very small concentration parameter. To boost the concentration parameter, I propose to increase the number of instruments to a large number or even up to a continuum. I show that normalized regularized 2SLS and LIML are consistent and asymptotically normally distributed.  The third chapter of this thesis is entitled \textquotedblleft High school human capital portfolio and  college outcomes" investigates  the trade-off between acquiring specialized skills, in high school, which will be useful for a particular college major and acquiring a package of skills that diversifies risk across majors. Using the 1980 High School and Beyond (HS\&B) survey, I study the empirical relationship between college performance and different  types of courses taken during formal high school education. This panel shows that students sort into majors according to the subject in which they acquired more skills. However, I  find a U-shaped relation between diversification and college performance, suggesting a trad-off between specialization and diversification. The underlying  trade-off is assessed by estimating a structural model of high school human capital acquisition and college major choice. Policies experiments suggest that one more high school quantitative course increases enrollment in  Science Technology Engineering, and Math (STEM) majors by  4 points percentage.

Keyphrases: High-dimensional models, LIML, Many weak instruments, MSE, Regularization, Human capital, Discrete Choice, College major
L’influence du vieillissement normal et pathologique sur le traitement des expressions faciales et du jugement de confiance

To determine whether someone looks trustworthy or not is, throughout our lives, a basic decision in our social interactions. Recent studies have suggested that this type of judgment may be an extension of facial expression judgments, more specifically of anger and happiness judgments (Todorov, 2008). Even though trustworthiness judgments play a great role in our social interactions throughout our lives, little is known about the evolution of this process through aging. However, knowing that older adults are less efficient than younger adults in identifying facial expressions (Ruffman et al., 2008; Calder et al., 2003), one could expect to find differences between young and older adults in the way they judge trustworthiness. This work aimed to explore, for the first time, perceptual processes underlying trustworthiness judgments in a healthy older adult population as well as in a population of fronto-temporal dementia (FTD) patients. Results show that anger, happiness and trustworthiness representations are similar between young and older adults, and they suggest that a relationship does exist between emotional judgments and trustworthiness judgments. Moreover, results show that this relationship persists throughout aging, but that older adults rely more on their representation of anger than younger in adults while judging trustworthiness. Finally, patients with fronto-temporal dementia show different representations of anger, happiness and trustworthiness than that of the controls. Also, for trustworthiness judgments, they rely more on their representation of happiness than controls.

Keyphrases: Aging, Visual perception, Social cognition, Facial expressions, Trustworthiness judgment, Fronto-temporal dementia
L’apport des infirmières au processus de consentement aux soins en milieu pédiatrique
et enjeux éthiques qui en découlent

This research will address the perception that nurses working in a pediatric setting have of their contribution to the process of consent for care. Data analysis reveals an extension of the more conventional definition: here, the very con-cept of consent is perceived as to include the dimension of a process initiated and continued in dialogue and negotiation. Participants hardly spoke about autonomy but mostly of constantly repeated and renegotiated consent to individual or even routine acts of care. The intent of the nurse is less to obtain the patient’s permission for the caregiver to do his or her job with immunity, in legal terms; it is more to empower the child and his or her parents so as to obtain a collaboration to enable co-management of the disease. Very often, nurses discussed the importance for them of teamwork as the logical way to design their work. It is also logical to extend to parents and children an invitation to partici-pate in the therapeutic team. This is not to say that everything always goes smoothly. The child or the parent may raise opposition. Value conflicts then arise: conflicts and moral distress among nurs-es generated by the confrontation of beliefs and cultural and religious values differ-ent from those the nurse would more easily be comfortable with. But often, the nurse demonstrated a great cultural and religious sensitivity, and even would seek advice from colleagues who could know, more than she, about the value systems that raise questions. We used a set of interpretative initial referents as a conceptual framework that inte-grates concepts from the nursing model of Corbin and Strauss, as well as from the symbolic interactionism perspective.

Keyphrases: Empowerment, Nurse, Pediatric setting, Consent to care, Ethical issues, Conflicts of values, Symbolic interactionism, Empowerment, Comanagement of illness, Nursing model of Corbin-Strauss, Cultural and religious sensitivity
L’accès et le partage des avantages des savoirs traditionnels en Amérique latine : comment les droits de propriété intellectuelle peuvent empêcher la biopiraterie

This thesis examines the legal protection of traditional knowledge against biopiracy perpetrated by some pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. Despite the ongoing debate on this topic, since the signature of the Convention on Biological Diversity, traditional knowledge rests largely unprotected. The purpose of the thesis is to analyse mechanisms capable of protecting traditional knowledge associated with biodiversity of interest to the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. Using intellectual property rights found in international law and in certain domestic legislations, the thesis evaluates these initiatives according to their efficiency leading to a recommendation as to the most appropriate legal tools for countries which lack legislation on the topic. The thesis also considers how the best practices identified could be incorporated into the international legal framework. The thesis presents an analysis of the Brazilian, Costa Rican and Peruvian legislation, as well as international legal instruments such as the Convention on Biological Diversity/Nagoya Protocol and the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore. The analysis points to a number of mechanisms found in national legislation which would benefit countries without legal protection for traditional knowledge. Also these same mechanisms could be very useful in updating and reinforcing international treaties. Despite these innovative national initiatives, the thesis concludes that the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights remains the most interesting forum for binding and effective protective measures against biopiracy. Inspired by constructivist theoretical fundamentals, this thesis demonstrates that countries of the South – biodiversity and traditional knowledge rich – can lead the development of international legislation for the protection of traditional knowledge which better meets the needs of traditional knowledge holders.

Keyphrases: Amérique latine, Brevet, Marque, Traditional knowledge protection, Latin America, Intellectual Property, Patents, Trademarks, Geographical indications, Acces and benefit sharing, Pharmaceutical industry, Biodiversity, Biopiracy
Application et efficacité d'une thérapie basée sur les inférences auprès d'une population d'accumulateurs compulsifs: une étude de cas clinique

Studies shows that there is about 4% hoarders in the population (Samuels et al., 2008). Consequences on their lives are high, hoarding could lead to break up, loss of jobs and mental and physical health issues (Frost et al., 2000; Frost et Gross, 1993; Frost et Hartl, 1996; Tolin, Frost, Steketee, Gray et Fitch, 2008). Treatments have been tried on hoarders, including a special design of cognitive behavioral therapy. Unfortunately, treatments success are low, hoarders seemed refractary to treatment (Steketee, Frost, Tolin, Rasmussen, Brown, 2010). It’s what led Kieron O’Connor to try to adapt his cognitive approach, the inference based therapy, to hoarders.   The goal of this project is to evaluate the faisability of an inference based therapy with hoarders. Nine people who received an inference based therapy for hoarding between 2003 and 2014 at the Centre de Recherche de l’Institut Universitaire en Santé Mentale de Montréal were evaluate. Two of them were studied in depth in clinical case studies. We found a clinically significant decrease at 66% of the sample (n=9). Four of them were sub clinical and one of them had light symptoms of hoarding on the Y-BOCS at the end of therapy. Fifty-six percent had a clinically significant decrease of their depressive symptoms and 33% of their anxious symptoms. An effect size of 0,8 for the Y-BOCS, 0,3 for the BDI and of 0,2 for the BAI were found.

Keyphrases: Hoarding, Inference based therapy, Decluttering, Hoarders, Clinical Psychology
La formine Diaphanous est essentielle pour l’organisation et la maturation de l’anneau contractile pendant la cytokinèse

Cytokinesis is the intricate process by which eukaryotic cells divide in two. It involves the coordination of many components in order to avoid the formation potentially cancerous cells. Initially, a Rho GTPase- and actomyosin-dependent contractile ring (CR) drives constriction at the cell equator until a stable actin-independent midbody ring (MR) forms and ultimately guides the separation of the two sister cells. Diaphanous (Dia), is a Rho-dependent formin that nucleates unbranched actin filaments, localises to the cleavage furrow and is required for cytokinesis. We have examined the role of Dia during cytokinesis by time lapse video microscopy of Drosophila S2 cells expressing markers tagged with fluorescent proteins (FPs). A functional Dia-FP was recruited to the CR independently of actin and stayed in the nascent MR, but was absent from the mature MR. The timing of its disappearance coincided with the transition of the MR to an actin-independent structure. RNAi-mediated depletion of Dia slowed furrow ingression, enhanced furrow oscillations and, in 70% of the failures, prevented furrow completion, consistent with a role for Dia in CR organization. The F-actin probe, LifeAct-FP, revealed a decrease in F-actin in Dia-depleted cells specifically at the CR while Anillin-FP and Myosin-FP were aberrantly recruited in punctate structures. Our findings are consistent with a model in which Dia nucleates actin filaments at the CR to maintain the dynamic organization of the actin-dependent CR and that the regulated loss of Dia from the nascent MR guides the formation of the stable, actin-independent MR.

Keyphrases: Diaphanous, Cytokinesis, Actin, Contractile ring, Midbody ring