A conceptual model for anticipating the impact of landscape evolution on groundwater recharge in degrading permafrost environments

Temperatures in the arctic and subarctic are rising at more than twice the rate of the global average, driving the accelerated thawing of permafrost across the region. The impacts of permafrost degradation have been studied in the discontinuous permafrost zone at Umiujaq, in northern Quebec, Canada, for over 30 years, but the effects of changing land cover on groundwater recharge is not well understood. The water table fluctuation method was used to compute groundwater recharge using four years of water level data and soil moisture readings from five field sites characteristic of different stages of permafrost degradation and vegetation invasion. Results indicate that as vegetation grows taller, groundwater recharge increases, likely due to increased snow thickness. Results were then combined with a preexisting conceptual model that describes the evolution from tundra to shrubland and forests to create a new model for describing how groundwater recharge is affected by landscape evolution

Regard sur le cadre normatif transnational entourant les sociétés de gestion collective du droit d’auteur dans le domaine musical

À partir de la fin du 19e siècle, les droits de propriété intellectuelle étant de plus en plus reconnus, des sociétés ont été fondées pour gérer les droits d’auteur collectivement. Dans le monde entier, il existe aujourd’hui de nombreuses sociétés de gestion collective. Cet essai cherche à savoir si ces sociétés de gestion collective sont adéquatement réglementées, particulièrement dans le domaine de la musique. Dans une perspective transnationale, il décrit leur fonctionnement général et suggère des pistes de réponse à cette question complexe qui se pose au sujet d’un domaine du droit relativement nouveau et en constante évolution

État québécois, crise et néolibéralisme

La crise financière et économique de 2007-2008 semble justifier pour le gouvernement du Québec la mise en place  de politiques publiques qui approfondissent l’expérience néolibérale de marchandisation du commun. Par le biais de deux politiques phares, la « révolution tarifaire » et le « Plan Nord », nous assistons non pas à un ajustement structurel de l’économie québécoise visant à éviter les impacts d’une nouvelle crise économique, mais à une nouvelle phase du développement capitaliste.  Ces deux politiques publiques mettent en place les pierres d’accise  d’un développement et d’une accélération  des logiques extensives du capitalisme. Dans cette note de recherche, nous ciblons les éléments clés de ces politiques tout en soulignant leur caractère non-nécessaire. Nous avancerons que, dans les deux cas à l’étude, la crise n’a servi que de prétexte afin de déclencher et de légitimer ces nouvelles politiques plus qu’elle n’en explique le bien-fondé.The 2007-2008 economic crisis has been used by the Quebec government to establish a series of public policies which further propel the neoliberal commodification of common goods. Rather than embodying a structural adjustment of the Quebec economy aiming at avoiding the impact of a new economic crisis, two of these policies, the “révolution tarifaire” and the “Plan Nord”, are better understood as part of a new phase of capitalist development. These two policies set the basis for the development and intensification of extensive capitalist logics. In this research note, we will circumscribe the key elements of these policies whilst emphasising their non-necessary character. We will argue that, for these two case study, the crisis was merely a pretext in order to establish and legitimize these new policies, rather than their original trigger

"Ritus hereticorum" : les rites de l'hérésie des "bons hommes" comme construction cléricale au sein de deux registres d'Inquisition (Albi, 1286-1287 et 1299-1300)

Tableau d’honneur de la Faculté des études supérieures et postdoctorales, 2010-2011Ce mémoire s'applique à analyser les descriptions de rites des « bons hommes » languedociens au sein de la dynamique du discours inquisitorial de deux registres albigeois (lat. 11847 de la BnF, procédure de 1299-1300; lat. 12856 de la BnF, procédure de 1286-1287), tant dans leur mise en forme écrite que dans leur contenu. Il s'appuie sur le renouvellement des études sur ce sujet au cours des dernières décennies, privilégiant une approche déconstructionniste des sources. On y expose en premier lieu comment toute une mise en forme des manuscrits met en évidence certains rites, notamment par des annotations tant au sein des tables construisant une image graphique de la communauté de la dissidence religieuse que dans la mise en page des dépositions. La répartition de ces dernières annotations marginales semblent créer l'image type de l'hérétique autour des pratiques rapportées par les déposants-clefs de chaque procès. Est ensuite expliqué comment la répartition des descriptions dans les registres propose que les rites hérétiques étaient les principales preuves d'hérésie au sein de ces procédures, l'évolution de ces dernières étant tributaire du nombre et du type de ces rituels au sein de chaque témoignage. En dernier lieu, l'analyse du contenu des descriptions suggère que les rites sont décrits dans ces documents à partir du vocabulaire et de referents propres à l'orthodoxie chrétienne, projetant sur les pratiques dissidentes une image de dépravation fondée sur des balises catholiques. Les caractéristiques de ces rites propres à la dissidence sont ainsi difficilement décelables, mais semblent sous-tendues par un ritualisme et une hiérarchie moins rigides que ceux de l'Église romaine, se rapprochant de caractéristiques propres aux confréries laïques de l'époque

Zooplankton assemblages along the North American Arctic: Ecological connectivity shaped by ocean circulation and bathymetry from the Chukchi Sea to Labrador Sea

We defined mesozooplankton biogeography in the North American Arctic to elucidate drivers of biodiversity, community structure, and biomass of this key component of the Arctic marine ecosystem. A multivariate analysis identified four mesozooplankton assemblages: Arctic-oceanic, Arctic-shelf, Coastal-Hudson, and Labrador Sea. Bathymetry was a major driver of the distribution of these assemblages. In shallow waters, Cirripedia and the copepod Pseudocalanus spp. dominated the Coastal-Hudson and Arctic-shelf assemblages, which showed low species richness (19) and biomass (0.28 and 1.49 g C m-2 , respectively).The Arctic-oceanic assemblage occupied the entire North American Arctic, except for shallow breaks in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago downstream of sills blocking the Atlantic Water layer circulation below a depth of 200 m. This assemblage showed high copepod biomass (4.74 g C m-2 ) with a high share of Calanus hyperboreus, C. glacialis, and Metridia longa. In habitats below 200-m depth, C. hyperboreus represented 68% of the copepod biomass, underscoring its role as a keystone species in this ecosystem. Strong numerical representation by the borealAtlantic C. finmarchicus and Oithona atlantica stressed the strong Atlantic influence on the subarctic Labrador Sea assemblage on the northwestern Labrador Sea slope. The mixed Arctic-Atlantic composition of the Labrador Sea mesozooplankton resulted in high species richness (58) and biomass (5.73 g C m-2 ). The low abundance of Atlantic and Pacific taxa in the areas influenced by Arctic currents did not alter the Arctic status of the Arctic-oceanic, Arctic-shelf, and Coastal-Hudson assemblages.This study identifies hotspots of mesozooplankton biomass and diversity in Central Amundsen Gulf, Lancaster Sound, North Water Polynya and Baffin Bay, known for their high biological productivity and concentrations of vertebrate predators. The continental-scale zooplankton mapping furthers our understanding of the importance of bathymetry and ocean circulation for ecological connectivity in a vast and complex portion of the Arctic marine ecosystem

Landscape-related ground ice variability on the Yukon coastal plain inferred from computed tomography and remote sensing

Warming in the Arctic causes strong environmental changes with degradation of permafrost (permanently frozen ground). Active layer deepening (gradual thaw) and permafrost erosion (abrupt thaw) results in the mobilization and lateral transport of organic carbon, altering current carbon cycling in the Arctic. Ground ice content is a crucial factor limiting our understanding and ability to determine the rates and dynamics of permafrost thaw and its impact on potential thaw subsidence rates, changes in lateral hydrological pathways and its driving mechanisms on a landscape scale. In this study we investigate ground ice content and its characteristics across the most dominant landscape units of the Yukon coastal plain (Canadian Arctic), using two spatially and technically contrasting approaches. In our bottom-up approach, twelve permafrost cores were collected from moraine, lacustrine, fluvial and glaciofluvial deposits using a SIPRE corer (mean drilling depth of 2 m) in spring of 2019. Ground ice and sediment contents within polygon centers were analyzed and classified using computed tomography and image recognition software (k-means). Our top-down approach quantified ice-wedge volumes from remote sensing imagery tracing the circumference of polygon troughs over the same area. Preliminary results - extrapolated to the entire coastal plain - show that the ground-ice content in polygon centers vary significantly from massive ice in the polygon troughs (wedge-ice). Total ice volume was estimated around 80.2 vol.-%, of which 68.2 ± 18.1 vol.-% was attributed to ground ice in polygon centers, and 12 ± 3.1 vol.-% of the landscape is massive ice in wedge-ice along polygon troughs. Additionally, differences among and between landscape units are also substantial, with highest ice volume contents in moraines landscapes, where polygon centers contain 58.8 vol.-% ground ice and wedge-ice volume is 16.2 vol.-%), while the lowest ice contents are found in glacio-fluvial deposits (22.1 vol.-% resp. 9.1 vol.-%). Our results reveal a higher average and a larger variability in ground ice contents than previously found, suggesting a need of both ground-based measurements and remote sensing imagery to further our understanding of the future landscape subsidence, but also to avoid a likely under- or overestimation associated with the chosen approach. We conclude that due to the high ground ice contents on the Yukon coastal plain, substantial changes of the permafrost landscape will occur under current warming trends. These will include subsidence, abrupt erosion, changes in hydrology and organic carbon mobilization, degradation and export processes, which will differ between landscape units

Hydrogeology of a complex Champlain Sea deposit (Quebec, Canada) : implications for slope stability

The thick sequences of marine clayey deposits which blanket the St. Lawrence Lowlands in south-eastern Canada are highly susceptible to landslides. With 89% of the population of the Province of Quebec living in this region, improving our understanding of the mechanisms causing landslides in these sediments is a matter of public security. To accomplish this goal, instruments were deployed at a field site in Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade, Quebec, Canada to monitor atmospheric, soil, and groundwater conditions. Field and laboratory measurements of soil geotechnical and hydraulic properties were also performed. Results indicate that the groundwater and pore pressure dynamics at the site cannot be explained using simplified site conceptual models. Further analysis indicates that groundwater dynamics and pore pressures in the massive clay deposits on-site are determined by (i) the highly-heterogeneous nature of the local geological materials (ii) the contrasting hydraulic and geotechnical properties of these materials, (iii) the presence of two unconfined aquifers at the site, one surficial and one at depth, and (iv), the presence of the Sainte-Anne River. These results were used to create a new conceptual model which illustrates the complex groundwater flow system present on site, and shows the importance of including hydrogeologic context in slope stability analysis

Pénicilline détruite par la pénicillinase ou par la soude et croissance du Poulet

Ferrando F., Brenot-Antier D., Philippe J., Fortier R., Basquin R., Bressou Ch. Pénicilline détruite par la pénicillinase ou par la soude et croissance du Poulet. In: Bulletin de l'Académie Vétérinaire de France tome 106 n°6, 1953. pp. 345-348

Green Edge ice camp campaigns : understanding the processes controlling the under-ice Arctic phytoplankton spring bloom

The Green Edge initiative was developed to investigate the processes controlling the primary productivity and fate of organic matter produced during the Arctic phytoplankton spring bloom (PSB) and to determine its role in the ecosystem. Two field campaigns were conducted in 2015 and 2016 at an ice camp located on landfast sea ice southeast of Qikiqtarjuaq Island in Baffin Bay (67.4797∘ N, 63.7895∘ W). During both expeditions, a large suite of physical, chemical and biological variables was measured beneath a consolidated sea-ice cover from the surface to the bottom (at 360 m depth) to better understand the factors driving the PSB. Key variables, such as conservative temperature, absolute salinity, radiance, irradiance, nutrient concentrations, chlorophyll a concentration, bacteria, phytoplankton and zooplankton abundance and taxonomy, and carbon stocks and fluxes were routinely measured at the ice camp. Meteorological and snow-relevant variables were also monitored. Here, we present the results of a joint effort to tidy and standardize the collected datasets, which will facilitate their reuse in other Arctic studies

The Quebec Respiratory Health Network Biobank

The Quebec Respiratory Health Network (RHN) Biobank is a multi-site infrastructure located in the province of Quebec (Canada) to collect, store, and supply high-quality human biological specimens for research on respiratory diseases. The sample types are diverse (plasma, serum, buffy coat, primary lung cells, lung parenchyma, bronchial biopsies, polyps, others), disease-oriented, and mirror research activities conducted at each site. The biobank currently manages approximately 57,000 specimens from 8,000 research participants or patients treated by standard of care. Specimens’ inventory and corresponding clinical data from all sites are denominalized and linked to a centralized database with retrieval and querying capabilities. Archival samples from recent to nearly 20-year collections are available to academic and industry researchers studying respiratory diseases.   Funding statement: The infrastructure is supported by the Quebec Respiratory Health Network (rsr.chus.qc.ca) of the 'Fonds de la recherche du Québec – Santé' (FRQS), the research centers involved, local foundations and users of the biobank. Each biobank site is responsible to sustain their activities