Le topos procès et la mise en scène de l'efficace littéraire

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.[À l'origine dans / Was originally part of : Thèses et mémoires - FAS - Département de littérature comparée

Coping with Environmental Constraints: Geographically Divergent Adaptive Evolution and Germination Plasticity in the Transcontinental \u3cem\u3ePopulus tremuloides\u3c/em\u3e

Societal Impact Statement Syntheses clearly show that global warming is affecting ecosystems and biodiversity around the world. New methods and measures are needed to predict the climate resilience of plant species critical to ecosystem stability, to improve ecological management and to support habitat restoration and human well-being. Widespread keystone species such as aspen are important targets in the study of resilience to future climate conditions because they play a crucial role in maintaining various ecosystem functions and may contain genetic material with untapped adaptive potential. Here, we present a new framework in support of climate-resilient revegetation based on comprehensively understood patterns of genetic variation in aspen. Summary Elucidating species\u27 genetic makeup and seed germination plasticity is essential to inform tree conservation efforts in the face of climate change. Populus tremuloides Michx. (aspen) occurs across diverse landscapes and reaches from Alaska to central Mexico, thus representing an early-successional model for ecological genomics. Within drought-affected regions, aspen shows ploidy changes and/or shifts from sexual to clonal reproduction, and reduced diversity and dieback have already been observed. We genotyped over 1000 individuals, covering aspen\u27s entire range, for approximately 44,000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to assess large-scale and fine-scale genetic structure, variability in reproductive type (sexual/clonal), polyploidy and genomic regions under selection. We developed and implemented a rapid and reliable analysis pipeline (FastPloidy) to assess the presence of polyploidy. To gain insights into plastic responses, we contrasted seed germination from western US and eastern Canadian natural populations under elevated temperature and water stress. Four major genetic clusters were identified range wide; a preponderance of triploids and clonemates was found within western and southern North American regions, respectively. Genomic regions involving approximately 1000 SNPs under selection were identified with association to temperature and precipitation variation. Under drought stress, western US genotypes exhibited significantly lower germination rates compared with those from eastern North America, a finding that was unrelated to differences in mutation load (ploidy). This study provided new insights into the adaptive evolution of a key indicator tree that provisions crucial ecosystem services across North America, but whose presence is steadily declining within its western distribution. We uncovered untapped adaptive potential across the species\u27 range which can form the basis for climate-resilient revegetation

Deep learning of chest X‑rays can predict mechanical ventilation outcome in ICU‑admitted COVID‑19 patients

The COVID-19 pandemic repeatedly overwhelms healthcare systems capacity and forced the development and implementation of triage guidelines in ICU for scarce resources (e.g. mechanical ventilation). These guidelines were often based on known risk factors for COVID-19. It is proposed that image data, specifically bedside computed X-ray (CXR), provide additional predictive information on mortality following mechanical ventilation that can be incorporated in the guidelines. Deep transfer learning was used to extract convolutional features from a systematically collected, multi-institutional dataset of COVID-19 ICU patients. A model predicting outcome of mechanical ventilation (remission or mortality) was trained on the extracted features and compared to a model based on known, aggregated risk factors. The model reached a 0.702 area under the curve (95% CI 0.707-0.694) at predicting mechanical ventilation outcome from pre-intubation CXRs, higher than the risk factor model. Combining imaging data and risk factors increased model performance to 0.743 AUC (95% CI 0.746-0.732). Additionally, a post-hoc analysis showed an increase performance on high-quality than low-quality CXRs, suggesting that using only high-quality images would result in an even stronger model

Normal zone propagation in various REBCO tape architectures

The normal zone propagation velocity (NZPV) of three families of REBCO tape architectures designed for superconducting fault current limiters and to be used in high voltage direct current transmission systems has been measured experimentally in liquid nitrogen at atmospheric pressure. The measured NZPVs span more than three orders of magnitude depending on the tape architectures. Numerical simulations based on finite elements allow us to reproduce the experiments well. The dynamic current transfer length (CTL) extracted from the numerical simulations was found to be the dominating characteristic length determining the NZPV instead of the thermal diffusion length. We therefore propose a simple analytical model, whose key parameters are the dynamic CTL, the heat capacity and the resistive losses in the metallic layers, to calculate the NZPV.The authors acknowledge the funding of this research by FASTGRID Project (EU-H2020, 721019), the Projects COACHSUPENERGY (MAT2014-51778-C2-1-R), SUMATE (RTI2018-095853-BC21 and RTI2018-095853-B-C22) from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness which were cofunded by the European Regional Development Fund, the Project 2017-SGR 753 from Generalitat de Catalunya and the COST Action NANOCOHYBRI (CA16218). Polytechnique Montréal authors also acknowledge NSERC (Canada), FRQNT (Québec), the RQMP infrastructure and CMC microsystems for financial support. ICMAB authors also acknowledge the Center of Excellence awards Severo Ochoa SEV-2015-0496 and CEX2019-000917-S.With funding from the Spanish government through the ‘Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence’ accreditation (CEX2019-000917-S).Peer reviewe

Control of Gene Expression by the Retinoic Acid-Related Orphan Receptor Alpha in HepG2 Human Hepatoma Cells

Retinoic acid-related Orphan Receptor alpha (RORα; NR1F1) is a widely distributed nuclear receptor involved in several (patho)physiological functions including lipid metabolism, inflammation, angiogenesis, and circadian rhythm. To better understand the role of this nuclear receptor in liver, we aimed at displaying genes controlled by RORα in liver cells by generating HepG2 human hepatoma cells stably over-expressing RORα. Genes whose expression was altered in these cells versus control cells were displayed using micro-arrays followed by qRT-PCR analysis. Expression of these genes was also altered in cells in which RORα was transiently over-expressed after adenoviral infection. A number of the genes found were involved in known pathways controlled by RORα, for instance LPA, NR1D2 and ADIPOQ in lipid metabolism, ADIPOQ and PLG in inflammation, PLG in fibrinolysis and NR1D2 and NR1D1 in circadian rhythm. This study also revealed that genes such as G6PC, involved in glucose homeostasis, and AGRP, involved in the control of body weight, are also controlled by RORα. Lastly, SPARC, involved in cell growth and adhesion, and associated with liver carcinogenesis, was up-regulated by RORα. SPARC was found to be a new putative RORα target gene since it possesses, in its promoter, a functional RORE as evidenced by EMSAs and transfection experiments. Most of the other genes that we found regulated by RORα also contained putative ROREs in their regulatory regions. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) confirmed that the ROREs present in the SPARC, PLG, G6PC, NR1D2 and AGRP genes were occupied by RORα in HepG2 cells. Therefore these genes must now be considered as direct RORα targets. Our results open new routes on the roles of RORα in glucose metabolism and carcinogenesis within cells of hepatic origin

Le concept de roman postmoderne

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal

Prosody perception in hearing loss (Karimi-Boroujeni et al., 2023)

Purpose: Prosody perception is an essential component of speech communication and social interaction through which both linguistic and emotional information are conveyed. Considering the importance of the auditory system in processing prosody-related acoustic features, the aim of this review article is to review the effects of hearing impairment on prosody perception in children and adults. It also assesses the performance of hearing assistive devices in restoring prosodic perception. Method: Following a comprehensive online database search, two lines of inquiry were targeted. The first summarizes recent attempts toward determining the effects of hearing loss and interacting factors such as age and cognitive resources on prosody perception. The second analyzes studies reporting beneficial or detrimental impacts of hearing aids, cochlear implants, and bimodal stimulation on prosodic abilities in people with hearing loss. Results: The reviewed studies indicate that hearing-impaired individuals vary widely in perceiving affective and linguistic prosody, depending on factors such as hearing loss severity, chronological age, and cognitive status. In addition, most of the emerging information points to limitations of hearing assistive devices in processing and transmitting the acoustic features of prosody. Conclusions: The existing literature is incomplete in several respects, including the lack of a consensus on how and to what extent hearing prostheses affect prosody perception, especially the linguistic function of prosody, and a gap in assessing prosody under challenging listening situations such as noise. This review article proposes directions that future research could follow to provide a better understanding of prosody processing in those with hearing impairment, which may help health care professionals and designers of assistive technology to develop innovative diagnostic and rehabilitation tools. Supplemental Material S1. Features of the assessment tools evaluating prosody perception. Supplemental Material S2. Summary of studies focused on prosody perception in hearing aid and cochlear implant users. Karimi-Boroujeni, M., Dajani, H. R., & Giguère, C. (2023). Perception of prosody in hearing-impaired individuals and users of hearing assistive devices: An overview of recent advances. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_JSLHR-22-00125</p