Edmonton, Alberta, like many other northern cities, has a history of overprotecting its citizens from the climatic elements. Through constructs of climate-control, like pedways and shopping malls, we have severed ourselves from outdoor life and fallen out of love with a season whose inherent beauty and unique attributes have the potential to play a pivotal role in the identity of the city. This thesis studies ways of using architecture and urban design to engage the city dweller across all four seasons. Through the adaptive reuse of the Rossdale power plant and its adjacent lands, the project aims to provide the city of Edmonton with a destination of climatic comfort that begins to thread the disconnect between its citizens and their northern surroundings.

Partagé entre d'anciennes traditions et une pratique médicale moderne, le thermalisme contemporain s'est construit comme une culture particulière de la santé qui confronte, sans pour autant les opposer, ces deux champs de savoir. Un regard ethnographique, fondé sur plusieurs terrains effectués en France (Aix-les-Bains) et en Italie (Salsomaggiore), permet de préciser plusieurs particularités de la pratique thermale européenne. En premier, l'expérience du corps et de la maladie relève autant de l'expérience individuelle que de l'expérience sociale. Dans la pluralité et la diversité des recours médicaux disponibles, le thermalisme a aussi cette particularité de mettre en avant la volonté du curiste qui est devenu un acteur de la « mécanique » physique et psychique du traitement. Non seulement il interagit activement avec ses thérapeutes mais il contribue à la construction et à la diffusion de la mythologie et de l'imaginaire thermal. Un imaginaire qui est d'ailleurs véhiculé par la ville thermale. Cette-dernière n'est pas qu'un lieu de cure mais plutôt un théâtre ou se met en scène et se légitime une certaine vision de la santé. Enfin, un dernier élément participe à l'épanouissement de la pratique thermale, le soin lui-même qui se compose de l'efficacité de l'eau et de la qualité des prestations des soignants. Ces derniers ont développé, au fil de leurs pratiques un rapport particulier au corps fait de proximité et de distance. Ils jouent ainsi le rôle du « passeur » et mettent en contact le curiste et la source. / Shared between ancient traditions and modern health practice, contemporary hydrotherapy has become a peculiar health culture encompassing, without mutually excluding, both of these knowledges. This ethnographic work based on field studies in France (Aix-les-Bains) and in Italy (Salsomaggiore) shed light on several aspects of the use of hydrotherapy in Europe. First, the perception of one's own body and of the disease rises from both personal and social experiences. Among all available health practices, hydrotherapy is peculiar in giving a central role to its user, at the same time subject and object of both the physical and psychological aspects of the treatment. Not only he actively interacts with his therapists, but he plays a pivotal role in building and spreading the mythology and the imagination of thermal baths, which are in turn conveyed by the spa town. This becomes not just the geographical place where the therapy is held, but also and most importantly a stage to represent and legitimate a certain view of health. A final important aspect contributing to the flourishing of hydrotherapy is the treatment itself, the effectiveness of the therapeutic water, the quality of the services provided by the therapists who developed a particular relationship with illness. At the crossroads of different types of medicines, ‘ medecines savantes', popular and alternative medicine, modern hydrotherapy revealed itself as a dynamic reality whose plurality allows the use of syncretism to explain the combining of different (often contradictory) beliefs and practices.

L’étude des effets quantiques nucléaires (NQE) suscite de plus en plus d’intérêt. En effet, les effets quantiques comme l’effet tunnel ou l’énergie de point zéro, peuvent profondément modifier les propriétés de matériaux constitués d'atomes légers comme l'hydrogène. Les méthodes standards de simulation des NQE sont basées sur les intégrales de chemin. Le bain thermique quantique (QTB) constitue une alternative à ces méthodes: le principe est que les degrés de liberté classiques du système obéissent à une équation de Langevin et sont couplés à des oscillateurs harmoniques quantiques. Dans l’équation de Langevin classique, la force aléatoire est un bruit blanc et le théorème de fluctuation-dissipation classique est vérifié; avec le QTB, le théorème de fluctuation-dissipation quantique est vérifié. Nous étudierons à travers des modèles simples la validité et les limites du QTB et montrerons qu'il permet de simuler des systèmes de la matière condensée en incluant les NQE en générant leurs propriétés structurales et dynamiques. Nous montrerons que le QTB est particulièrement adapté à l’étude de la symétrisation de liaisons hydrogènes et permet d'identifier précisément une pression de transition. Celle-ci dépend de la distance entre deux oxygènes voisins comme dans la glace sous haute pression, mais est modifiée par la présence d'impuretés ioniques ou par l'environnement atomique des liaisons hydrogènes comme dans la phase delta de AlOOH. De plus, en comparant des simulations classiques à des simulations QTB, nous pouvons identifier les rôles respectifs des effets quantiques et thermiques dans ces transitions de phase. / Increasing interest has risen for nuclear quantum effects (NQE) in the recent past. Indeed, NQE such as proton tunneling and zero point energy often play a crucial role in the properties of hydrogen-containing materials. The standard methods to simulate NQE are based on path integrals. An alternative to these methods is the Quantum Thermal Bath (QTB): it is based on a Langevin equation where the classical degrees of freedom are coupled to an ensemble of quantum harmonic oscillators. In the classical Langevin equation, the random force is a white noise and fulfills the classical fluctuation-dissipation theorem, while within the QTB formalism, it fulfills the quantum fluctuation-dissipation theorem. We investigate through simple models the reliability and the limits of the QTB and show that the QTB enables realistic simulations including NQE of condensed-phase systems, generating static and dynamic information such as pair correlation functions and vibrational spectra which can be confronted with experimental results. We show that the QTB is particularly successful in the study of the symmetrization of hydrogen bonds in several systems. Indeed, the difficulty lies in the identification of a precise transition pressure since this phase transition is often blurred by quantum or thermal fluctuations. In high-pressure ice, it depends on the oxygen-oxygen distance but it can be affected by ionic impurities and by the asymmetric environment of hydrogen bonds as in the delta phase of AlOOH. Moreover, by comparing results from QTB and standard ab initio simulations, we are able to disentangle the respective roles of NQE and thermal fluctuations in these phase transitions.

[pt] Consideramos a equação de Boltzmann espacialmente não homogênea para esferas duras inelásticas, com coeficiente de restituição constante alfa pertence (0, 1), sob a termalização induzida por um meio hospedeiro com uma distribuição Maxwelliana fixa e fixando e pertence (0, 1) qualquer. Quando o coeficiente de restituição alfa é próximo de 1, comprovamos a existência de soluções globais considerando o regime próximo ao equilíbrio. Também estudamos o comportamento de longo prazo dessas soluções e comprovamos uma convergência para o equilíbrio com uma taxa exponencial. / [en] We consider the spatially inhomogeneous Boltzmann equation for inelastic hard-spheres, with constant restitution coefficient alpha element of (0, 1), under the thermalization induced by a host medium with a fixed Maxwellian distribution and any fixed e element of (0, 1). When the restitution coefficient alpha is close to 1 we prove existence of global solutions considering the close-to-equilibrium regime. We also study the long-time behaviour of these solutions and prove a convergence to equilibrium with an exponential rate.

Spa is located on the outskirts of the Swiss city of Yverdon. Area is surrounded by disparate buildings especially residential character. There are historical buildings on the land and buildings of the spa and hotel. The current spa and the outbuilding of hotel don´t meet requirements, that´s why the buildings will be replaced by a new complex. Neighbourhood doesn´t have any relationship with the spa, that´s why the whole land is surrounded by a wall. Water surface with three “floating” pavilions is inserted into this closed spa park. There are the public spa, the therapeutic spa and the part of the hotel on the water surface. Each of them works largely independently; they are connected by the water surface. The complex is separated by a part of shallow water from the park. It´s solitaire in the park, but it has close connection with it. The spa complex is located near the forest on the south part of the land, because the whole system is quite open.