VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Poétique de l’image dans le roman de Georges Rodenbach « Bruges-la-Morte » et dans l’œuvre autobiographique de Suzanne Lilar

Oscillant entre l’intelligible et le sensible, entre le réel et l’imaginaire, cette catégorie d’entre-deux par excellence qu’est l’image fascine par sa dynamique fort complexe. L’image semble être encore plus fascinante lorsqu’elle entre dans le monde de la littérature et forme avec le verbal ce qu’on appelle un iconotexte. La présente thèse exploite les modalités d’inscription de l’image et ses fonctions dans l’œuvre de Georges Rodenbach (1855-1898) et de Suzanne Lilar (1901-1992), deux écrivains belges d’origine flamande et d’expression française. Comme son objet d’étude, cette thèse se veut aussi une sorte d’entre-deux, car les recherches effectuées croisent non seulement la littérature, mais aussi les beaux-arts et la philosophie. La première partie de notre thèse tente de situer la problématique de l’image dans le contexte des tendances artistiques et littéraires traversant le XIXe siècle, et présente de nombreuses réflexions théoriques sur la notion d’image. La deuxième partie de ce travail est consacrée au roman de Rodenbach Bruges-la-Morte (avec ses images photographiques et son frontispice, dessin du célèbre peintre symboliste Fernand Khnopff). Enfin, la troisième partie porte sur quatre textes autobiographiques de Suzanne Lilar. Nous analysons deux livres illustrés d’images photographiques (le Journal de l’analogiste et À la recherche d’une enfance) et deux textes non illustrés (l’autobiographie Une enfance gantoise et le roman autobiographique La Confession anonyme). Nous menons notre étude à partir de trois axes : l’image verbale (ekphraseis, descriptions), l’image matérielle (iconique) et leur interaction. L’approche adoptée vise à étudier dans les textes privilégiés les rapports entre le lisible et le visible en termes de dialogues mutuellement enrichissants plutôt qu’en terme d’oppositions. Cette thèse met en évidence les différents rôles complémentaires, ainsi que contradictoires, que joue l’image dans les textes de Rodenbach et de Lilar. Notre étude s’efforce de démontrer que l’iconotexte se prête toujours à différentes interprétations et ne fonctionne que par de constants va-et-vient entre deux systèmes sémiologiques à la fois distincts et interdépendants. Une telle dynamique se résume en cet inachèvement fécond qu’est l’entre-deux, nourri de non résolu, de non vu, de non dit, de mystères.

Keywords: Rodenbach
Lilar
image
photographie
ekphrasis
iconotexte
écriture de soi
identité
analogie
poétique
oeuvre d'art
philosophie
Advisor: LeBlanc, Julie
Literary Branding in the Romantic Period

This thesis argues that, unlike the study of commodity branding, the study of literary branding should not focus solely upon book advertising, but rather investigate all of the processes of attribution that connect conceptual domains with literary labels, enabling their common use in the perception and navigation of the cultural world. Such processes should not be understood exclusively by analogy with the forms of commodity branding that originated in the consumer revolutions of the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, but rather as the inherent consequences of more ancient and fundamental practices of naming and poetry. Rather than interpret the reactions of historical readers to Byron, for instance, largely in terms of the author as subject – as has been the tendency with earlier approaches to the question – this thesis seeks to explore historical readers’ reactions to the author’s name as label. The readers of Don Juan in 1819 knew Byron, not as we do after two centuries of biographical research, scholarly inquiry, and literary criticism, but as a literary label with relatively few associations. Arguing that the recent vogue for celebrity studies risks reifying elements of what Jerome McGann has called the Romantic Ideology, this thesis attempts to begin to redress this critical imbalance by examining the deployment of a number of interconnected literary labels in a series of case studies. If we wish to know more about what “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” “Byron,” or “Wordsworthian” might have meant to readers in the Romantic period, we must examine the uses of those labels in situ.

Keywords: Literary branding
Literary labelling
Advisor: Jackson, Heather
Regulation of Graded Intracellular Gli Activities in Hedgehog Dependent Ventral Spinal Cord Ppatterning

The Hedgehog (Hh) signaling pathway is essential to guide tissue patterning and cell fate specification during development. Congenital malformations arise from disruptions to Hh signaling, whereas aberrant pathway activation is implicated in cancer formation. The outcome of Hh signaling is mediated by Gli transcription factors. In the spinal cord, a balance of Gli activators and repressors orchestrates the dorsoventral spatial expression of cell fate determinants in naïve progenitors. How a gradient of Hh signaling governs Gli to generate distinct intracellular Gli activities for the specification of diverse ventral cell fates remains unclear. Proteolytic processing, proteasomal degradation, sequestration and subcellular distribution, mediated by a number of post-translational modifications including phosphorylation and ubiquitination, all play a role to regulate Gli. Using genetic and biochemical approaches, my studies have revealed that Kinesin family protein 7 (Kif7), Suppressor of fused (Sufu) and Speckle-type POZ protein (Spop) cooperatively and antagonistically regulate intracellular Gli activities. I demonstrated that the distinct and overlapping negative functions of Kif7 and Sufu restrict Hh pathway activation and prevent ectopic specification of ventral progenitor cell fates. I established a positive role for Kif7 to promote robust Hh signaling by antagonizing the formation of inhibitory Sufu-Gli complexes, a crucial step toward Gli transcriptional activation. My work also uncovered an essential, positive role for Sufu to promote maximal Hh signaling, demonstrating that sequestration of Gli by Sufu serves dual purposes. I showed that Sufu is required for Gli stabilization, to offset Spop-mediated Gli ubiquitination and proteasomal degradation. Moreover, I ascertained the biological function of mammalian Spop to down-regulate Hh pathway activity and prevent ectopic pathway activation in the ventral spinal cord. Altogether, these findings elucidate how Kif7, Sufu and Spop translate graded Shh signals into distinct intracellular Gli activities, providing significant insight to our understanding of Hh signaling.

Keywords: Hedgehog signaling
Morphogen
Spinal cord patterning
Cell fate specification
Suppressor of fused
Kif7
Spop E3 ubiquitin ligase adaptor protein
Gli transcription factors
Advisor: Hui, Chi-chung
Money, Meals, and Honour: The Economic and Honorific Organization of the Corinthian Ekklesia

In standard portrayals of Paul’s Corinthian ekklesia, the Christ-group is said to have existed without the level of economic and honorific organization we know to have been rather generalized in Greco-Roman associations: it did not collect subscription fees, failed to appoint or elect temporary officers, and neglected presentation of formal honorific prizes to its service-providers (e.g., crowns, proclamations, honorific inscriptions). In contrast to ancient associations, the ekklesia, many scholars presently maintain with very little disagreement, had no true organization (Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, 298), and its members shared a close relationship (Meeks, First Urban, 88) that is often described as ecclesiastical egalitarianism. This dissertation offers a different perspective by setting the practices of the Corinthian Christ-group alongside practices that are much more fully known from Greco-Roman associations, and asks whether the structural features (economic and honorific) we know to have been common in Greco-Roman associations might also be evidenced in the Corinthian Christ-group. My argument is that the ekklesia was a structurally sophisticated group equipped with a common fund and a schedule for subscription fees, a hierarchy of elected temporary officers, and competition among members to perform services that would be reciprocated with crowns and other forms of formal commendation.

Keywords: Early Christianity
social status
Corinth
Paul
Advisor: Kloppenborg, John
'The Poet and Publisher at Variance!': Comic Representations of Literary Professionals in Eighteenth-Century Fiction and Drama

This dissertation investigates the fictionalization of the eighteenth-century literary marketplace, which is consistently presented through the lens of comedy in the imaginative literature of the period. Illuminating the surprising degree of variation among representations of literary professionals in conversation, my analysis of texts like Henry Fielding’s The Author’s Farce and Tobias Smollett’s The Expedition of Humphry Clinker underlines how seemingly programmatic scenes of the author-character’s oppression by the bookseller-character are complicated and subverted by comedy. I posit that readers are encouraged to construct a paradigm of Literary Professionalism against the unprofessionalism—as well as glimpses of professionalism—among the characters involved in the "literary" literary marketplace. Both the conflict and concord among characters accentuate a set of professional standards graspable to individual readers sensitive to the nuances of comedy and power in these negotiations. A lively and persuasive argument for print is ultimately made through the interactive nature of the comedy in these works. The first chapter examines the conditions of eighteenth-century literary marketplace, surveying developments in professional writing and publishing. I also present an overview of the period’s debate about commercial authorship and introduce the literary stereotypes of the author and the bookseller. In the middle chapters of the dissertation I use outcome power, the ability to affect outcomes, to group and separate the fictional dialogues between literary professionals that appear in eighteenth-century fiction and drama. The final chapter is a focused reading of The Adventures of an Author, which contains multiple representations of literary professionals in different kinds of narrative encounters.

Keywords: eighteenth century
fiction
drama
comedy
power
representation
book trade
authorship
Britain
Advisor: Corman, Brian
Advances in Debug Automation for a Modern Verification Environment

Over the past three decades, the growing list of requirements for integrated circuits has continually presented new challenges to the electronic design community. One of the biggest challenges in the design process is that of functional debugging, which aims to find the root-cause of a functional failure after it has been detected. In recent years, this key challenge has grown in size and scope as bugs commonly appear in both the design and verification environment. This increase in size and scope has made functional debugging one of the largest bottlenecks in the design cycle and points to an urgent need for more scalable and innovative debugging solutions. This dissertation presents multiple novel contributions that address the challenges of increased size and scope of modern functional debugging. In particular, these contributions address the scalability of existing automated design debugging techniques, as well as introduce novel automated tools specifically for debugging the verification environment. The first contribution introduces an unsatsifiable core-guided abstraction and refinement technique for design debugging that focuses on managing the design size aspect of debugging complexity. The second contribution introduces a path-directed abstraction and refinement technique that aims to manage the error trace length aspect of debugging complexity. The third contribution presents a novel method that utilizes unsatisfiable cores in design debugging to manage the multiple design errors aspect of debugging complexity. The fourth contribution presents an automated technique to aid debugging of errors found within formal properties themselves. The final contribution presents an automated technique to aid debugging of missing assumptions that are needed during verification methodologies that use formal methods.

Keywords: debugging
diagnosis
verification
debug
Advisor: Veneris, Andreas
Regulation of mRNA decay by Pumilio in Drosophila melanogaster

During early embryogenesis in all animals, development is driven by maternally loaded mRNAs synthesized in the female parent during oogenesis. These maternally synthesized mRNAs are regulated by post-transcriptional mechanisms, including mRNA localization, degradation and translational activation and repression. Many of these processes rely on RNA-binding proteins to initially recognize and bind specific mRNAs and then, subsequently, recruit the appropriate post-transcriptional machinery. Eventually the products encoded by the zygotic genome regulate embryo development. My thesis focuses on an RNA-binding protein called Pumilio and its role in regulating the degradation of maternal mRNAs in Drosophila melanogaster embryos. Pumilio protein and pumilio mRNA are both maternally loaded and deficiencies in pumilio are maternal-effect lethal. While homologs of Pumilio had been implicated in mediating mRNA degradation, the global role of Pumilio itself had been unclear, with contradictory results from embryos and whole flies with a conditional pumilio mutant genotype. I first produced transgenic flies expressing a tandem affinity tagged Pumilio transgene. Then, by pulling down tagged Pumilio followed by next-generation sequencing of co-purifying RNAs, I found that the Pumilio protein associates with ~200 mRNAs in early embryos. Using a null pumilio allele combination, I found that Pumilio regulates the decay of a set of mRNAs in a manner that, in part, appears to be dependent on zygotically encoded factors. I observed that many of the mRNAs whose stability is affected in pumilio mutant embryos are amongst those physically associated with Pumilio protein in early embryos and validated my findings using reporter transgenes. My data show that Pumilio is a regulator of maternal transcript degradation in D. melanogaster.

Keywords: post-transcriptional regulation
maternal mRNA decay
Advisor: Hughes, Timothy
Lipshitz, Howard
The Role of Stat3 in Mouse Models of Inherited Photoreceptor Degeneration

Inherited photoreceptor degeneration (IPD) is characterized by progressive death of mutant photoreceptors (PRs). To date, mutations in over 186 genes have been associated with IPD. Unfortunately, little progress has been made towards treatment to prevent PR death. Here I show that expression of the signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) is increased and activated by tyrosine phosphorylation in both PRs and Müller glia of three mouse models of IPD (Tg(RHO P347S), Prph2rds+/- and Pde6brd1/rd1). To determine whether this endogenous activation of Stat3 expression influence PR degeneration, I genetically manipulated Stat3 expression in these two cell types in three IPD models. PR-specific deletion of Stat3 significantly accelerated PR death in Tg(RHO P347S) and Prph2rds+/- retinas. These data revealed, for the first time, that the increased expression of endogenously activated PR-STAT3 is a survival response in mutant PRs. Accordingly, increases in Stat3 expression may form the basis of a PR protective therapy in IPDs. To examine this hypothesis, I transgenically expressed various Stat3 alleles specifically in the PRs of wild type and IPD mice. The expression of a wild type Stat3 allele or a constitutively active Stat3 allele (Stat3C) in the PRs increased their survival in Tg(RHO P347S) mice at PN30 and in Prph2rds+/- mice at 6 months. Phosphorylation of STAT3 at tyrosine 705 was required for the pro-survival effect as the introduction of a Stat3Y705F allele was not protective. Unexpectedly, the deletion of Stat3 from PRs of Pde6brd1/rd1 mice improved PR survival. The basis for this contrasting result is unclear. However, as with the other two IPD models, PR survival was increased with expression of wild type Stat3 or Stat3C alleles in the PRs of Pde6brd1/rd1 mice. When Stat3 was deleted specifically in Müller glial cells in Prph2rds+/- retinas, a small but significant increase in PR survival was observed at 6 months of age, suggesting that the increased expression of Stat3 in Müller glial in IPDs may be pathogenetic. In summary, I have demonstrated that the increased expression and activation of STAT3 is a survival response in mammalian IPDs, a finding with important therapeutic implications for human retinal degenerations.

Keywords: Retina
Photoreceptor
Neuron death
Advisor: McInnes, Roderick
Early Employment Experiences of Canadian Young Adults Living with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, Juvenile Arthritis and Spinal Cord Injury

Background: Participating in employment is an important milestone signaling the transition to adulthood. Few studies have examined how chronic diseases influence early work experiences. Purpose: This study examined barriers and facilitators to the employment status of young adults, ages 18-30 years, with systemic lupus erythematosus, juvenile arthritis and spinal cord injury; researched employment outcomes like work-health conflict, absenteeism, job disruptions and perceived productivity loss; and investigated barriers to employment among those not working. Methods: 155 participants were recruited from clinics in four Canadian provinces. Participants completed a 30-minute online cross-sectional survey of their work experiences. Demographic, health, psychosocial and work context information was collected. Bivariate and multivariable analyses were performed. Results: Over half of respondents were employed; a quarter of respondents were enrolled in school. Older participants, those reporting greater independence/autonomy, and participants reporting that fewer job accommodations would help them work, were more likely to be employed. Employed participants reported moderate work-health conflict and close to half reported absenteeism, job disruptions and some productivity losses. Greater perceived independence/autonomy, less fatigue and disease activity, and disclosing to others was related to lower work-health conflict. Less fatigue and social support, and greater self-disclosure and job control were related to absenteeism. Job control also was associated with less productivity loss. Among respondents not working, health was generally not a perceived barrier to employment, but drug benefits and work scheduling flexibility were desirable accommodations. Conclusions: Respondents were able to work and be productive despite health problems like pain, fatigue and activity limitations. Relationships with others that were supportive but also fostered independence/autonomy were important to the employment experiences of respondents and deserve greater attention in research. Policies and practices that emphasize work scheduling flexibility and recognize the importance of ongoing health management may help young adults with chronic diseases find and maintain work.

Keywords: Employment
Productivity
Young adulthood
Work and health
Disabled workers
Systemic lupus erythematosus
Juvenile arthritis
Spinal cord injury
Advisor: Gignac, Monique
A Multi-Dimensional Outcomes Study in an Inception Cohort of Patients with Interrupted Aortic Arch

The fundamental goal of pediatric cardiac surgery is to enable patients with congenital heart disease to achieve a long and healthy life; hopefully, one comparable to that of their peers. While there is an understanding that long-term assessment is required over the course of a patient’s lifetime, the manner in which the success of surgical intervention is measured in these patients should be multi-dimensional with outcomes measured in numerous domains. This thesis explores the outcomes of patients within a multi-institutional prospective inception cohort of patients with interrupted aortic arch in relation to the durability of surgical intervention, functional health status, and transition to adult care from pediatric care. We first demonstrate that there is a persistent risk of subsequent procedures and mortality in patients after interrupted aortic arch repair. We also demonstrated that interrupted aortic arch is a chronic disease of a complex nature whereby patients often require multiple procedures after their index repair, that the risk of aortic arch and left ventricular outflow tract procedures varies by phase (time-related), and the factors associated with both of these in addition to mortality. Our study on functional health status demonstrates that both adolescents and young adults with interrupted aortic arch primarily rated themselves the same or better than their normal peers. Our study on transition to adult care demonstrates that transition occurred in only 32% of patients by age 21, and was associated with Canadian residence. Questionnaire results also demonstrated poor levels of patient knowledge regarding their disease and strong parental involvement. The studies presented represent the diversity of long-term outcomes that should be analyzed in order to improve patient care using a multi-dimensional approach. Future studies will focus on definitive repair techniques, ameliorating factors associated with poor functional health status, and improving transition to adult care.

Keywords: Surgery
Cardiac surgery
Congenital cardiac surgery
Congenital heart disease
Interrupted aortic arch
Subsequent interventions
Functional health status
Transition to adult care
Advisor: McCrindle, Brian W.
Homelessness, Health, and Literacy: An Institutional Ethnographic Study of the Social Organization of Health Care in Ontario, Canada

This thesis presents findings from an institutional ethnographic study that examined the experiences of 27 individuals who frequented an Open Access homeless shelter in Greater Toronto, Ontario. Many participants interviewed in the study either lacked an Ontario Health Insurance Card, or they expressed little interest in acquiring one. Individuals who had chosen not to seek reissuance of their health cards either implicitly or explicitly self-excluded themselves from participation in programs and services that, although useful to them, might be seen to regulate, control, and thereby subordinate their interests to those of the dominant institution. This study sought to map, locate, and make visible the local, everyday experiences of individuals at an Open Access shelter, and to situate that map within the translocal and often invisible realm of broader neoliberal ideologies and their related bureaucratic health care policies and directives. Neoliberal doctrines have also been evidenced in recent health care reforms, including the reduction in welfare spending and social subsidies, the centralization of federal power and authority over provincial mandates, and the implementation of high-tech computerized monitoring and management systems designed to reduce fraudulent access to health care. This study not only explicated the different forms of literacy (organizational, technological and health literacies) that are both employed and reproduced in institutional settings, but it also examined the role of literacy within larger social, political, and economic contexts. Using an institutional ethnographic method of inquiry, this study examined the ways in which literacy (or the lack of literacy) shapes and mitigates the experiences of homeless individuals attempting to gain access to health care. This study asked: How are institutional health policies evidenced in the everyday, material lives of real people? Are such policies potentially exclusionary?

Keywords: health care
access
Advisor: cooper, karyn
roxana, ng