Fiducies de revenu, fiscalité et médias : une analyse de cas en économétrie financière

Le présent mémoire est une analyse économétrique du rendement boursier des fiducies de revenu. Les fiducies de revenu ont constitué jusqu'à 15% des entités inscrites à la Bourse de Toronto et ont été un placement populaire jusqu'en 2006. Étant donné que les détenteurs de parts des fiducies n'étaient pas admissibles au crédit d'impôt pour dividendes et que le rendement boursier est un rendement avant l'impôt des particuliers alors il s'en suit que le rendement boursier des fiducies devait être, à risque égal, systématiquement plus élevé que celui des sociétés par actions afin de compenser pour l'absence de crédit d'impôt. Cette compensation se nomme «effet fiducie» et nous cherchons à estimer sa présence dans le rendement des fiducies à l'aide de modèles économétriques d'évaluation d'actifs financiers. En raison de certaines caractéristiques fiscales, la valeur théorique de l'effet fiducie est inconnue mais strictement positive. Par ailleurs, puisque la médiatisation des fiducies a été importante, nous avons ajouté à nos modèles des variables dichotomiques captant l'impact de certaines caractéristiques médiatiques dans le temps. Trois modèles ont été estimés et deux de ceux-ci ont pour facteurs explicatifs des variables financières et économiques. Le dernier a comme facteurs des composantes principales. Lorsque les variables médiatiques sont ajoutées à ces modèles, l'effet fiducie est significatif dans les trois cas. L'effet fiducie est toutefois plus élevé et davantage significatif avec le modèle à composantes principales. Toutefois, lorsque les variables médiatiques sont omises, l'effet fiducie est significatif uniquement avec le modèle à composantes principales

New platinum(II) complexes conjugate at position 7α of 17β-acetyl-testosterone as new combi-molecules against prostate cancer : design, synthesis, structure-activity relationships and biological evaluation

Prostate cancer is a major public health problem worldwide and, more specifically, new treatments for hormone-refractory cancers are highly sought by several research groups. Although platinum(II)-based chemotherapy and other strategies grow in interest to treat castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC), they still exhibit modest activity on CRPC and overall patient survival. In this study, we designed and prepared new combi-molecules using 17β-acetyl-testosterone and amino acid platinum(II) complexes linked at the position 7α to target and to improve the antiproliferative activity of platinum(II)-based chemotherapy on prostate cancer cells. Twelve chemical intermediates and six new combi-molecules were prepared and characterized. Structure-activity relationships studies show that the platinum complex moiety is essential for an optimal cytocidal activity. Moreover, stereochemistry of the amino acid involved in the platinum complexes had only minor effects on the antiproliferative activity whereas pyridinyl (10a and b) and thiazolyl (10f) complexes exhibited the highest cytocidal activities that are significantly superior to that of cisplatin used as control on human prostate adenocarcinoma LNCaP (AR+), PC3 (AR-) and DU145 (AR-). Compounds 10a, b and f arrested the cell cycle progression in S-phase and induced double strand breaks as confirmed by the phosphorylation of histone H2AX into γH2AX. Compounds 10a and f showed 33 and 30% inhibition, respectively of the growth of HT-1080 tumors grafted onto chick chorioallantoic membranes. Finally, compounds 10a and 10f exhibited low toxicity on the chick embryos (18 and 21% of death, respectively), indicating that these new combi-molecules might be a promising new class of anticancer agents for prostate cancer

Using Biofeedback while Immersed in a Stressful Videogame Increases the Effectiveness of Stress Management Skills in Soldiers

This study assessed the efficacy of using visual and auditory biofeedback while immersed in a tridimensional videogame to practice a stress management skill (tactical breathing). All 41 participants were soldiers who had previously received basic stress management training and first aid training in combat. On the first day, they received a 15-minute refresher briefing and were randomly assigned to either: (a) no additional stress management training (SMT) for three days, or (b) 30-minute sessions (one per day for three days) of biofeedback-assisted SMT while immersed in a horror/first-person shooter game. The training was performed in a dark and enclosed environment using a 50-inch television with active stereoscopic display and loudspeakers. On the last day, all participants underwent a live simulated ambush with an improvised explosive device, where they had to provide first aid to a wounded soldier. Stress levels were measured with salivary cortisol collected when waking-up, before and after the live simulation. Stress was also measured with heart rate at baseline, during an apprehension phase, and during the live simulation. Repeated-measure ANOVAs and ANCOVAs confirmed that practicing SMT was effective in reducing stress. Results are discussed in terms of the advantages of the proposed program for military personnel and the need to practice SMT

StepMix: A Python Package for Pseudo-Likelihood Estimation of Generalized Mixture Models with External Variables

StepMix is an open-source software package for the pseudo-likelihood estimation (one-, two- and three-step approaches) of generalized finite mixture models (latent profile and latent class analysis) with external variables (covariates and distal outcomes). In many applications in social sciences, the main objective is not only to cluster individuals into latent classes, but also to use these classes to develop more complex statistical models. These models generally divide into a measurement model that relates the latent classes to observed indicators, and a structural model that relates covariates and outcome variables to the latent classes. The measurement and structural models can be estimated jointly using the so-called one-step approach or sequentially using stepwise methods, which present significant advantages for practitioners regarding the interpretability of the estimated latent classes. In addition to the one-step approach, StepMix implements the most important stepwise estimation methods from the literature, including the bias-adjusted three-step methods with BCH and ML corrections and the more recent two-step approach. These pseudo-likelihood estimators are presented in this paper under a unified framework as specific expectation-maximization subroutines. To facilitate and promote their adoption among the data science community, StepMix follows the object-oriented design of the scikit-learn library and provides interfaces in both Python and R.Comment: Sacha Morin and Robin Legault contributed equall

Initiatives communautaires de développement local et gouvernance métropolitaine : quel emboîtement ?

La mondialisation des échanges, la restructuration des économies urbaines et la reconfiguration de l’État-providence ont conduit à deux types de stratégies de développement au sein des métropoles nord-américaines : d’une part, celles qui relèvent d’initiatives communautaires de développement local et qui s’attaquent au chômage et à la pauvreté ; d’autre part, celles qui reposent sur diverses formes de gouvernance métropolitaine et qui visent le positionnement de ces métropoles sur l’échiquier international. Y a-t-il un arrimage entre ces deux types de stratégies et les organismes qui les portent ? C’est à cette question que tente de répondre le présent article en comparant quatre métropoles : Montréal, Toronto, Boston et Pittsburgh

Impact of contrast injection and stent-graft implantation on reproducibility of volume measurements in semiautomated segmentation of abdominal aortic aneurysm on computed tomography

Purpose To assessthe impact of contrast injection and stent-graft implantation on feasibility, accuracy, and reproducibilityof abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) volume and maximaldiameter (D-max) measurements using segmentation software. Materials and methods CT images of 80 subjects presentingAAA were divided into four equal groups: with or without contrast enhancement, and with or without stent-graft implantation. Semiautomated software was used to segment the aortic wall, once by an expert and twice by three readers. Volume and D-max reproducibility was estimated by intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC), and accuracy was estimated between the expert and the readers by mean relative errors. Results All segmentations were technically successful. Themean AAA volume was 167.0±82.8 mL and the mean D-max 55.0±10.6 mm. Inter- and intraobserver ICCs for volume andD-max measurements were greater than 0.99. Mean relative errors between readers varied between −1.8±4.6 and 0.0± 3.6 mL. Mean relative errors in volume and D-max measurements between readers showed no significant difference between the four groups (P≥0.2). Conclusion The feasibility, accuracy, and reproducibility of AAA volume and D-max measurements using segmentation software were not affected by the absence of contrast injection or the presence of stent-graft

Sugar Sweetened Beverage Consumption among Primary School Students: Influence of the Schools’ Vicinity

The purpose of the research was to explore the associations between the characteristics of schools’ vicinity and the risk of sugar sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption in elementary students. Findings exposed an important variation in student’s SSB consumption between schools. Schools with a lower socioeconomic status or in a densely built environment tend to have higher proportion of regular SSB drinkers. These characteristics of the school’s vicinity partly explained the variation observed between them. We estimated that a student moving to a school with a higher proportion of SSB drinkers may increase his/her chances by 52% of becoming a daily consumer. Important changes in dietary preferences can occur when children are in contact with a new social environment. Findings also support the idea that dietary behaviors among children result from the complex interactions between biological, social, and environmental factors

L’agglomération hospitalière de Cholet

Like other hospitals during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the hospital at Cholet evolved according to a series of structuring facts: the legislative context, urban functions whether old or new, population growth, social demands for quality healthcare, professionalisation of the medical personnel, chronic financial difficulties... The hospitals of Cholet are a reflection of a fast-growing town, based on an active industrial sector, a sub-prefecture with barracks for army regiment, a town which, in the 1960s opted for a new hospital centre at the edge of town and left its old hospital in a state of abandonment. Where its real estate history is concerned, this old hospital is the result of local and national building agencies: figures in the administration, benefactors, the prefect, the ministry of War and the ministry of Health. The construction, in the 1830s, of a modern, hygienic building, specially for soldiers, is at the origins of the hospital agglomeration. The implantation of this building, its cost and its architectural forms will have a strong influence on subsequent additions. In a maze of intertwining buildings, the general plan is of a comb design, maintained up to the additions of 1912. But this triumph of economic reasoning was never seen as an evidence. Each time a new addition was planned, the proponents of the pavilion model (mostly medical professionals) defended this vision, but to no avail. Now, at the end of the twentieth century, the problem is one of how to convert a hospital site, in a state of abandonment. The municipal team has two ambitions: to use the space for the creation of teaching facilities and for the arts of the spectacle, and to enhance the existing heritage but not to the point of refusing all new build. It is now a site with a privileged place in the town, offering two visions of hospital heritage but, unfortunately, without any traces of its former hospital activities

Entre Cévennes et Garrigues, sites de hauteur et fortifications du nord-ouest gardois au milieu de l’âge du Fer (fin VI^e/IV^e siècle av. n. è.)

International audienceAt the limit of the eastern Languedoc region, the twenty-seven hilltop sites known from the north west of the Gard departement, are distributedover 1 000 km2. While some of the summits were occupied or frequented from the Late Neolithic until the Late Bronze Age, the corpus is dominated by seventeen sites dating from the end of the 6th to the end of the 4th cent. B.C., distributed between the foothills of the Cevennes andthe the border of the Garrigues. Eight of them have either naturel defenses or have no recognised enclosure, four have external earthworks andfive are actual promontories The inhabited areas of the unfortified sites are quite small (between 500 and 750 m2 after the prospections) as are the surfaces enclosed by the ramparts (from 2 000 m2 to 3,5 ha), sign of a local particularity common to the Southern Ardeche departement.Aux confins du Languedoc oriental, vingt-sept sites perchés reconnus du nord-ouest du Gard, se répartissent sur environ 1 000 km2. Si quelques sommets sont occupés ou fréquentés au Néolithique final et au Bronze final 3, le corpus est dominé par dix-huit sites de la fin du VIe à la fin du IVe siècle av. n. è., répartis entre les premiers reliefs des Cévennes et la bordure des Garrigues. Neuf d’entre eux sont naturellement défendus ou sans enceinte reconnue, quatre sont de type rebords de plateaux aménagés et cinq sont des éperons barrés. Les zones d’habitations des sites non fortifiés sont apparemment peu étendues (entre 500 et 750 m2 d’après les prospections) comme les surfaces encloses par les remparts (de 2 000 m2 à 3,5 ha), signe d’un particularisme local commun avec l’Ardèche méridionale