Les logiciels s'orientent de plus en plus vers des architectures évolutives, capables de s'adapter facilement aux changements et d'intégrer de nouvelles fonctionnalités. Ceci est important pour plusieurs classes d'applications qui ont besoin d‘évoluer sans que cela implique d'interrompre leur exécution. Des plateformes dynamiques à composants autorisent ce type d'évolution à l'exécution, en permettant aux composants d'être chargés et exécutés sans requérir le redémarrage complet de l'application en service. Toutefois, la flexibilité d'un tel mécanisme introduit de nouveaux défis qui exigent de gérer les possibles erreurs dues à des incohérences dans le processus de mise à jour, ou en raison du comportement défectueux de composants survenant pendant l'exécution de l'application. Des composants tiers dont l'origine ou la qualité sont inconnus peuvent être considérées à priori comme peu fiables, car ils peuvent potentiellement introduire des défauts d'applications lorsqu'il est combiné avec d'autres composants. Nous sommes intéressés à la réduction de l'impact de ces composants considérés comme non fiables et qui sont susceptibles de compromettre la fiabilité de l'application en cours d'exécution. Cette thèse porte sur l'application de techniques pour améliorer la fiabilité des applications dynamiques à composants. Pour cela, nous proposons l'utilisation des frontières d'isolation pouvant fournir du contingentement de fautes. Le composant ainsi isolé ne perturbe pas le reste de l'application quand il est défaillant. Une telle approche peut être vu sous trois perspectives présentées: (i) l'isolement des composants dynamiques, régi par une politique d'exécution reconfigurable, (ii) l'autoréparation de conteneurs d‘isolement, et (iii) l'utilisation des aspects pour séparer les préoccupations de fiabilité à partir du code fonctionnel. / Software is moving towards evolutionary architectures that are able to easily accommodate changes and integrate new functionality. This is important in a wide range of applications, from plugin-based end user applications to critical applications with high availability requirements. Dynamic component-based platforms allow software to evolve at runtime, by allowing components to be loaded, and executed without forcing applications to be restarted. However, the flexibility of such mechanism demands applications to cope with errors due to inconsistencies in the update process, or due to faulty behavior from components introduced during execution. This is mainly true when dealing with third-party components, making it harder to predict the impacts (e.g., runtime incompatibilities, application crashes) and to maintain application dependability when integrating such third-party code into the application. Components whose origin or quality attributes are unknown could be considered as untrustworthy since they can potentially introduce faults to applications when combined with other components, even if unintentionally. The quality of components is harder to evaluate when components are combined together, especially if it happens on-the-fly. We are interested in reducing the impact that can be brought by untrustworthy components deployed at runtime and that would potentially compromise application dependability. This thesis focuses on applying techniques for moving a step forward towards dependable dynamic component-based applications by addressing different dependability attributes namely reliability, maintainability and availability. We propose the utilization of strong component isolation boundaries, by providing a fault-contained environment for separately running untrustworthy components. Our solution combines three approaches: (i) the dynamic isolation of components, governed by a runtime reconfigurable policy; (ii) a self-healing component isolation container; and (iii) the usage of aspects for separating dependability concerns from functional code.

Com o intuito de avaliar os polimorfismos de mtDNA e a diversidade genética na população brasileira, foram estudados 84 indivíduos não aparentados: 49 caucasóides e 35 negróides da região sudeste do Brasil. As amostras de sangue obtidas por punção da polpa digital foram colocadas em papel de filtro e o mtDNA extraído pelo método orgânico. Foram amplificadas as regiões hipervariáveis HV1 a partir do nucleotídeo 16.051 até 16.365 e HV2 entre os nucleotídeos 71 e 340. O fragmento foi purificado e após a reação de seqüenciamento, as fitas sense e anti-sense foram alinhadas com a seqüência de Anderson e sobrepostas para confirmação. Foram encontradas 108 posições contendo transições, 15 transversões, 11 deleções e 4 inserções. Nove regiões apresentaram duas variantes de seqüência polimórfica. A maioria das seqüências foi observada uma única vez e em 84 indivíduos foram observados 80 haplótipos distintos. O índice de diversidade genética e a probabilidade de semelhança entre duas seqüências escolhidas ao acaso foram respectivamente de 0,9714 e 0,0286 para os negróides e de 0,9788 e 0,0212 para os caucasóides. Ao realizar análise pareada dos haplótipos, a média de nucleotídeos diferentes entre as seqüências foi de 14,36 ± 5,68 bases em um total de 3.486 pares comparados, indicando uma alta diversidade entre haplótipos nesta população. Os resultados demonstraram que o mtDNA é informativo para identificação humana e o conhecimento da freqüência dos haplótipos na população de interesse tem utilidade significativa na aplicação Forense, principalmente para se avaliar estatisticamente os resultados, fornecendo maior precisão, exatidão e dados contundentes nas investigações. / In order to evaluate the mtDNA polymorphism and demonstrate the sequence diversity in Brazilians, we established a database of 84 unrelated individuals, 49 Caucasians and 35 negroids from the southeast of Brazil. The samples were collected on a whatman paper by finger punction, the mtDNA was extracted by organic method and hipervariable regions, HV1 from 16.051 to 16.365 bp and HV2 from 71 to 340 bp were amplified. Both sense and anti-sense strands were sequenced. When compared to Anderson sequence, 108 transitions, 15 transversions, 11 deletions and 4 insertions were found. Nine positions exhibited two variants of polymorphic sequence. The majority of the sequences were observed once, and in 84 sequences, 80 haplotypes were observed. The sequence diversity and the probability for two individuals randomly matching over two hypervariable regions were 0.9714 and 0.0286 for persons of color and 0.9788 and 0.0212 for Caucasians. In pair wise comparison, the mean sequence difference of 14,36 ± 5,68 nucleotides over 3,486 pairs compared, indicates a high diversity in this population. The data demonstrates that mtDNA sequencing can be informative in forensic cases, but it is of crucial importance to know the frequency of the mtDNA haplotypes to statistically evaluate the results.

No description available.

Les objectifs de ces travaux de recherche portent sur le développement d'outils d'évaluation des performances électriques des interconnexions de circuits intégrés des générations sub-CMOS 65 nm et sur la proposition de solutions d'optimisation de ces performances, permettant à la fois de maximiser la rapidité des circuits et de minimiser les niveaux de diaphonie. Cette optimisation est obtenue en jouant sur les largeurs et les espacements des interconnexions mais aussi sur le nombre et de taille des répéteurs placés à leurs interfaces. Une attention toute particulière a également été portée sur la réduction de la complexité de ces réseaux d'interconnexions. Pour ce faire, un simulateur basé sur des modèles de propagation des signaux a été construit. Pour les composants passifs les données d'entrée du simulateur sont issues de modélisations fréquentielles électromagnétiques précises ou de résultats de caractérisation hyperfréquences et, pour les composants actifs que sont les répéteurs, de modèles électriques fournis par des partenaires spécialistes des technologies MOS. Le travail de modélisation s'est focalisé tout particulièrement sur cinq points : la modélisation de réseaux couplés complexes, le passage dans le domaine temporel à partir de mesures fréquentielles discrètes limitées, la vérification de la causalité des signaux temporels obtenus, la modélisation de l'environnent diélectrique incluant notamment les pertes et la présence éventuelles de conducteurs flottants et enfin l'intégration de la connaissance des charges aux interfaces des interconnexions. La problématique de la mesure a elle même été adressée puisqu'une procédure dite de « de-embedding » est proposée, spécifiquement dédiée à la caractérisation aux hautes fréquences de dispositifs passifs enfouis dans le BEOL. Sont investiguées enfin des solutions de fonctionnalisation alternatives des interconnexions tirant bénéfice des couplages très forts existant dans le BEOL des technologies sub-CMOS 65 nm. Les résultats de simulations ont souligné un certain nombre de difficultés potentielles notamment le fait que les performances des technologies CMOS sur la voie « more Moore » allait requérir plus que jamais depuis la génération 45 nm une approche globalisée et rationnelle de la réalisation des circuits. / X

Actuellement les smartphones possèdent un grand éventail de fonctionnalités. Ces objets tout en un, sont constamment connectés. Il est l'appareil favori plébiscité par les utilisateurs parmi tous les dispositifs de communication existants. Les applications actuelles développées pour les smartphones doivent donc faire face à une forte augmentation de la demande en termes de fonctionnalités tandis que - dans un même temps - les smartphones doivent répondre à des critères de compacité et de conception qui les limitent en énergie et à un environnement d'exécution pauvre en ressources. Utiliser un système riche en ressource est une solution classique introduite en informatique dans les nuages mobiles (Mobile Cloud Computing), celle-ci permet de contourner les limites des appareils mobiles en exécutant à distance, toutes ou certaines parties des applications dans ces environnements de nuage. Certaines architectures émergent, mais peu d'algorithmes existent pour traiter les propriétés dynamiques de ces environnements. Dans cette thèse, nous focalisons notre intérêt sur la conception d'ACOMMA (Ant-inspired Collaborative Offloading Middleware for Mobile Applications), un interlogiciel d'exécution déportée collaborative inspirée par le comportement des fourmis, pour les applications mobiles. C'est une architecture orientée service permettant de décharger dynamiquement des partitions d'applications, de manière simultanée, sur plusieurs clouds éloignés ou sur un cloud local créé spontanément, incluant les appareils du voisinage. Les principales contributions de cette thèse sont doubles. Si beaucoup d'intergiciels traitent un ou plusieurs défis relatifs à l'éxecution déportée, peu proposent une architecture ouverte basée sur des services qui serait facile à utiliser sur n'importe quel support mobile sans aucun exigence particulière. Parmi les principaux défis il y a les questions de quoi et quand décharger dans cet environnement très dynamique. A cette fin, nous développons des algorithmes de prises de décisions bio-inspirées : un processus de prise de décision bi-objectif dynamique avec apprentissage et un processus de prise de décision en collaboration avec les autres dispositifs mobiles du voisinage. Nous définissons un mécanisme de dépôt d'exécution avec une méthode de partitionnement grain fin de son graphe d'appel. Nous utilisons les algorithmes des colonies de fourmis pour optimiser bi-objectivement la consommation du CPU et le temps total d'exécution, en incluant la latence du réseau. Nous montrons que les algorithmes des fourmis sont plus facilement re-adaptables face aux modifications du contexte, peuvent être très efficaces en ajoutant des algorithmes de cache par comparaison de chaîne (string matching caching) et autorisent facilement la dissémination du profil de l'application afin de créer une exécution déportée collaborative dans le voisinage. / Not bounded by time and place, and having now a wide range of capabilities, smartphones are all-in-one always connected devices - the favorite devices selected by users as the most effective, convenient and neces- sary communication tools. Current applications developed for smartphones have to face a growing demand in functionalities - from users, in data collecting and storage - from IoT device in vicinity, in computing resources - for data analysis and user profiling; while - at the same time - they have to fit into a compact and constrained design, limited energy savings, and a relatively resource-poor execution environment. Using resource- rich systems is the classic solution introduced in Mobile Cloud Computing to overcome these mobile device limitations by remotely executing all or part of applications to cloud environments. The technique is known as application offloading. Offloading to a cloud - implemented as geographically-distant data center - however introduces a great network latency that is not acceptable to smartphone users. Hence, massive offloading to a centralized architecture creates a bottleneck that prevents scalability required by the expanding market of IoT devices. Fog Computing has been introduced to bring back the storage and computation capabilities in the user vicinity or close to a needed location. Some architectures are emerging, but few algorithms exist to deal with the dynamic properties of these environments. In this thesis, we focus our interest on designing ACOMMA, an Ant-inspired Collaborative Offloading Middleware for Mobile Applications that allowing to dynamically offload application partitions - at the same time - to several remote clouds or to spontaneously-created local clouds including devices in the vicinity. The main contributions of this thesis are twofold. If many middlewares dealt with one or more of offloading challenges, few proposed an open architecture based on services which is easy to use for any mobile device without any special requirement. Among the main challenges are the issues of what and when to offload in a dynamically changing environment where mobile device profile, context, and server properties play a considerable role in effectiveness. To this end, we develop bio-inspired decision-making algorithms: a dynamic bi-objective decision-making process with learning, and a decision-making process in collaboration with other mobile devices in the vicinity. We define an offloading mechanism with a fine-grained method-level application partitioning on its call graph. We use ant colony algorithms to optimize bi-objectively the CPU consumption and the total execution time - including the network latency.

A Araucaria angustifolia é uma conífera endêmica das regiões sul e sudeste do Brasil sendo considerada uma espécie em extinção devido ao extenso extrativismo madeireiro. Atualmente, existem inúmeros projetos visando o reflorestamento e o uso sustentável deste pinheiro. Em vista destes pontos, o estudo das propriedades dos componentes das folhas com o intuito da utilização destes com fins comerciais tornou-se de extrema importância. As suas folhas foram submetidas à extração com solventes e foram identificados seis biflavonóides majoritários, dentre estes a amentoflavona e a ginkgetina, que são apontados como agentes contra inflamações e artrites. A fração rica de biflavonóides (BFF) extraída da araucaria foi testada frente a sua atividade em proteger contra danos em biomoléculas provocadas por espécies reativas de oxigênio, capacidade em quelar metais e proteção contra raios UV. A capacidade do BFF em proteger contra danos provocados por espécies reativas de oxigênio foi comparado com compostos conhecidamente antioxidantes, como o α-tocoferol, Trolox®, quercetina, rutina e com padrões de biflavonóides, a amentoflavona e ginkgetina. O BFF demonstrou que possui uma constante de supressão do 1O2 (50 x 106 M-1s-1), superior ao da quercetina (9 x 106 M-1s-1) e foi o mais eficiente na proteção contra quebras de simples fita em DNA plasmidial, provocado por esta espécie reativa. Ainda em relação à proteção de DNA plasmidial o BFF foi capaz de proteger também contra estes danos provocados através da reação de Fenton, apesar de não demonstrar a mesma eficiência da quercetina que mostrou ser um potente protetor destes danos. O BFF protegeu contra lipoperoxidação em lipossomos de fosfatidilcolina induzida por raios UV e reação de Fenton. Em análises realizadas com espectrometria de massas foi observada a formação de complexos destes biflavonóides com íons metálicos como ferro, cobre e alumínio que possuem um papel importante na formação de radicais livres. Em relação à capacidade fotoprotetora do BFF, este inibiu a formação de dímeros de pirimidina que são apontados como causadores de câncer de pele induzidos, principalmente por radiação UV-B. Esta ação protetora foi superior àquela conferida ao p-metoxicinamato de octila, um conhecido fotoprotetor. Com o intuito de permitir a solubilização do BFF em soluções aquosas e assim, avaliar a ação do BFF em células, incorporou-se o BFF em ciclodextrina. Essa inclusão favoreceu a incorporação de BFF em células CV1-P na concentração aproximada de 0,4 µg/ml após 24 horas de incubação. Essa concentração incorporada não demonstrou ser tóxica para as células no teste com MTT. Assim, o BFF tem despertado grande interesse em relação ao seu potencial na utilização nas mais variadas áreas como cosmética, alimentos e fitoterápicos. / Araucaria angustifolia is an endemic conifer in southern and southeastern Brazil endangered due the extensive loggings. Nowadays, there are several projects aiming the recovering of forest and the sustainable use of their products. Its needles contain six major amentoflavone-type biflavonoids, including amentoflavone, ginkgetin and tetra-O-methylamentoflavone, all reported to possess a variety of biological activities such as anti-inflammatory and antiarthritic activities. The organic fraction rich in biflavonoids (BFF) extracted from Araucaria was evaluated regarding its activity to protect against damage to biomolecules promoted by reactive oxygen species, its capacity to chelate ion metals and protection it affords against UV radiation. The ability of the BFF prevent oxidative damages was compared to antioxidants compounds, such as, α-tocopherol, Trolox®, quercetin, rutin and with standards of biflavonoids amentoflavone and ginkgetin. The BFF showed a higher 1O2 quenching rate (50 x 106 M-1s-1) than individual quercetin (9 x 106 M-1s-1). Accordingly, BFF was shown to strongly inhibit plasmid DNA single strand break (ssb) induced by 1O2 generated by NDPO2. On the other hand, BFF did not protect plasmid DNA against ssb triggered by the Fenton reaction as effectively as quercetin and rutin. BFF, quercetin and rutin were able to protect liposomes against peroxidative degradation caused by UV-irradiation. Since there is considerable evidence relating oxygen species with UV phospholipid degradation, the protective effect of quercetin and rutin is likely to result from their well-known scavenging activity against hydroxyl and peroxyl radicals and superoxide anion radicals. Using electrospray ionization mass spectrometry, metal (Fe3+, Cu2+ and Al3+) biflavonoids complexes were also detected and characterized. The sunlight UV region is believed to be largely responsible for the greatest damage to the skin including indution of the pirimidine dimers formation suggested to be implicated in skin cancer. BFF was able to diminish the formation of this photoproduct more efficiently tham octyl methoxycinnamate. Solubilization of BFF in aqueous solutions was performed using cyclodextrin, which allowed the incorporation of 0,4 g/ml of biflavonoids in CV1-P cells after 24 hours. In this conditions the BFF was not cytotoxic to CV1-P evaluated by the MTT assay.Altogether, these properties point BFF as an excellent candidate for successful employment as antioxidant compound in several systems.

The aim of this thesis was to examine the ability of metal organic frameworks (MOFs) to store and controllably release biologically significant amounts of nitric oxide (NO). Initial work involved the synthesis of a series of isostructural MOFs, known as M-CPO-27, which display coordinatively unsaturated metal sites (CUSs) when fully activated (guest solvent molecules both coordinated and uncoordinated to the metal atom are removed). Two of these frameworks (Ni and Co CPO-27) displayed exceptional performance over the entire cycle of activation, storage and delivery showing the largest storage and release of NO of any known porous material (up to 7 mmolg⁻¹). These frameworks would therefore be considered for initial research into the formulation of MOFs, for possible use in medical applications. It was shown that they still release large amounts of NO even when placed inside porous paper bags, creams or hydrocolloids. The other versions of M-CPO-27 also displayed significant adsorption of NO however they show poor total NO release. It was also shown that it is possible to synthesise both Ni and Co CPO-27 using microwave synthesis without any detrimental effect to the porous structure. Several iron-based MOFs were also investigated for NO storage and release. The results showed that Fe MIL-88 based structures adsorb good amounts of NO but only release a small amount of the irreversibly adsorbed NO. Two successfully amine grafted giant pore MOFs were then investigated to attempt to improve the NO adsorption and release. This result was not observed however, due to the poor total amine grafting coverage and pore blockage resulting from the amines. In-situ IR studies reveal that when exposed to NO, activated Fe MIL-100 forms a chemical bond with the NO. The studies also displayed that when water is then allowed to attempt to replace the NO that only a small amount of NO is actually released, the majority of the NO either remains chemically bonded to the Fe atom or forms N₂O in conjunction with a Fe-OH group. Other MOFs were also successfully synthesised and characterised for NO storage and release. Both Ni succinate and Ni STA-12 display good adsorption and excellent release of NO. This indicates that Ni based MOFs show the best results for NO adsorption and release. In the conclusion of the thesis I am able to categorise the NO release ability of MOFs based on composition and formulate a theory as to why this happens.

The Quality of Service (QoS) routing approach is gaining an increasing interest in the Internet community due to the new emerging Internet applications such as real-time multimedia applications. These applications require better levels of quality of services than those supported by best effort networks. Therefore providing such services is crucial to many real time and multimedia applications which have strict quality of service requirements regarding bandwidth and timeliness of delivery. QoS routing is a major component in any QoS architecture and thus has been studied extensively in the literature. Scalability is considered one of the major issues in designing efficient QoS routing algorithms due to the high cost of QoS routing both in terms of computational effort and communication overhead. Localized quality of service routing is a promising approach to overcome the scalability problem of the conventional quality of service routing approach. The localized quality of service approach eliminates the communication overhead because it does not need the global network state information. The main aim of this thesis is to contribute towards the localised routing area by proposing and developing some new models and algorithms. Toward this goal we make the following major contributions. First, a scalable and efficient QoS routing algorithm based on a localised approach to QoS routing has been developed and evaluated. Second, we have developed a path selection technique that can be used with existing localized QoS routing algorithms to enhance their scalability and performance. Third, a scalable and efficient hierarchical QoS routing algorithm based on a localised approach to QoS routing has been developed and evaluated.

The maturity level of Internet Protocol (IP) and the emergence of standard Ethernet interfaces of Hydrocarbon Process Automation Application (HPAA) present a real opportunity to combine independent industrial applications onto an integrated IP based network platform. Quality of Service (QoS) for IP over Ethernet has the strength to regulate traffic mix and support timely delivery. The combinations of these technologies lend themselves to provide a platform to support HPAA applications across Local Area Network (LAN) and Wide Area Network (WAN) networks. HPAA systems are composed of sensors, actuators, and logic solvers networked together to form independent control system network platforms. They support hydrocarbon plants operating under critical conditions that — if not controlled — could become dangerous to people, assets and the environment. This demands high speed networking which is triggered by the need to capture data with higher frequency rate at a finer granularity. Nevertheless, existing HPAA network infrastructure is based on unique autonomous systems, which has resulted in multiple, parallel and separate networks with limited interconnectivity supporting different functions. This created increased complexity in integrating various applications and resulted higher costs in the technology life cycle total ownership. To date, the concept of consolidating HPAA into a converged IP network over standard Ethernet has not yet been explored. This research aims to explore and develop the HPAA Process Control Systems (PCS) in a Converged Internet Protocol (CIP) using experimental and simulated networks case studies. Results from experimental and simulation work showed encouraging outcomes and provided a good argument for supporting the co-existence of HPAA and non-HPAA applications taking into consideration timeliness and reliability requirements. This was achieved by invoking priority based scheduling with the highest priority being awarded to PCS among other supported services such as voice, multimedia streams and other applications. HPAA can benefit from utilizing CIP over Ethernet by reducing the number of interdependent HPAA PCS networks to a single uniform and standard network. In addition, this integrated infrastructure offers a platform for additional support services such as multimedia streaming, voice, and data. This network‐based model manifests itself to be integrated with remote control system platform capabilities at the end user's desktop independent of space and time resulting in the concept of plant virtualization.

Soit $p_1 = 2, p_2 = 3, p_3 = 5,\ldots$ la suite des nombres premiers, et soient $q \ge 3$ et $a$ des entiers premiers entre eux. R\'ecemment, Daniel Shiu a d\'emontr\'e une ancienne conjecture de Sarvadaman Chowla. Ce dernier a conjectur\'e qu'il existe une infinit\'e de couples $p_n,p_$ de premiers cons\'ecutifs tels que $p_n \equiv p_{n+1} \equiv a \bmod q$. Fixons $\epsilon > 0$. Une r\'ecente perc\'ee majeure, de Daniel Goldston, J\`anos Pintz et Cem Y{\i}ld{\i}r{\i}m, a \'et\'e de d\'emontrer qu'il existe une suite de nombres r\'eels $x$ tendant vers l'infini, tels que l'intervalle $(x,x+\epsilon\log x]$ contienne au moins deux nombres premiers $\equiv a \bmod q$. \'Etant donn\'e un couple de nombres premiers $\equiv a \bmod q$ dans un tel intervalle, il pourrait exister un nombre premier compris entre les deux qui n'est pas $\equiv a \bmod q$. On peut d\'eduire que soit il existe une suite de r\'eels $x$ tendant vers l'infini, telle que $(x,x+\epsilon\log x]$ contienne un triplet $p_n,p_{n+1},p_{n+2}$ de nombres premiers cons\'ecutifs, soit il existe une suite de r\'eels $x$, tendant vers l'infini telle que l'intervalle $(x,x+\epsilon\log x]$ contienne un couple $p_n,p_{n+1}$ de nombres premiers tel que $p_n \equiv p_{n+1} \equiv a \bmod q$. On pense que les deux \'enonc\'es sont vrais, toutefois on peut seulement d\'eduire que l'un d'entre eux est vrai, sans savoir lequel. Dans la premi\`ere partie de cette th\`ese, nous d\'emontrons que le deuxi\`eme \'enonc\'e est vrai, ce qui fournit une nouvelle d\'emonstration de la conjecture de Chowla. La preuve combine des id\'ees de Shiu et de Goldston-Pintz-Y{\i}ld{\i}r{\i}m, donc on peut consid\'erer que ce r\'esultat est une application de leurs m\'thodes. Ensuite, nous fournirons des bornes inf\'erieures pour le nombre de couples $p_n,p_{n+1}$ tels que $p_n \equiv p_{n+1} \equiv a \bmod q$, $p_{n+1} - p_n < \epsilon\log p_n$, avec $p_{n+1} \le Y$. Sous l'hypoth\`ese que $\theta$, le \og niveau de distribution \fg{} des nombres premiers, est plus grand que $1/2$, Goldston-Pintz-Y{\i}ld{\i}r{\i}m ont r\'eussi \`a d\'emontrer que $p_{n+1} - p_n \ll_{\theta} 1$ pour une infinit\'e de couples $p_n,p_$. Sous la meme hypoth\`ese, nous d\'emontrerons que $p_{n+1} - p_n \ll_{q,\theta} 1$ et $p_n \equiv p_{n+1} \equiv a \bmod q$ pour une infinit\'e de couples $p_n,p_$, et nous prouverons \'egalement un r\'esultat quantitatif. Dans la deuxi\`eme partie, nous allons utiliser les techniques de Goldston-Pintz-Yldrm pour d\'emontrer qu'il existe une infinit\'e de couples de nombres premiers $p,p'$ tels que $(p-1)(p'-1)$ est une carr\'e parfait. Ce resultat est une version approximative d'une ancienne conjecture qui stipule qu'il existe une infinit\'e de nombres premiers $p$ tels que $p-1$ est une carr\'e parfait. En effet, nous d\'emontrerons une borne inf\'erieure sur le nombre d'entiers naturels $n \le Y$ tels que $n = \ell_1\cdots \ell_r$, avec $\ell_1,\ldots,\ell_r$ des premiers distincts, et tels que $(\ell_1-1)\cdots (\ell_r-1)$ est une puissance $r$-i\`eme, avec $r \ge 2$ quelconque. \'Egalement, nous d\'emontrerons une borne inf\'erieure sur le nombre d'entiers naturels $n = \ell_1\cdots \ell_r \le Y$ tels que $(\ell_1+1)\cdots (\ell_r+1)$ est une puissance $r$-i\`eme. Finalement, \'etant donn\'e $A$ un ensemble fini d'entiers non-nuls, nous d\'emontrerons une borne inf\'erieure sur le nombre d'entiers naturels $n \le Y$ tels que $\prod_ (p+a)$ est une puissance $r$-i\`eme, simultan\'ement pour chaque $a \in A$. / Let $p_1 = 2, p_2 = 3, p_3 = 5,\ldots$ be the sequence of all primes, and let $q \ge 3$ and $a$ be coprime integers. Recently, and very remarkably, Daniel Shiu proved an old conjecture of Sarvadaman Chowla, which asserts that there are infinitely many pairs of consecutive primes $p_n,p_{n+1}$ for which $p_n \equiv p_{n+1} \equiv a \bmod q$. Now fix a number $\epsilon > 0$, arbitrarily small. In their recent groundbreaking work, Daniel Goldston, J\`anos Pintz and Cem Y{\i}ld{\i}r{\i}m proved that there are arbitrarily large $x$ for which the short interval $(x, x + \epsilon\log x]$ contains at least two primes congruent to $a \bmod q$. Given a pair of primes $\equiv a \bmod q$ in such an interval, there might be a prime in-between them that is not $\equiv a \bmod q$. One can deduce that \emph{either} there are arbitrarily large $x$ for which $(x, x + \epsilon\log x]$ contains a prime pair $p_n \equiv p_{n+1} \equiv a \bmod q$, \emph{or} that there are arbitrarily large $x$ for which the $(x, x + \epsilon\log x]$ contains a triple of consecutive primes $p_n,p_{n+1},p_{n+2}$. Both statements are believed to be true, but one can only deduce that one of them is true, and one does not know which one, from the result of Goldston-Pintz-Y{\i}ld{\i}r{\i}m. In Part I of this thesis, we prove that the first of these alternatives is true, thus obtaining a new proof of Chowla's conjecture. The proof combines some of Shiu's ideas with those of Goldston-Pintz-Y{\i}ld{\i}r{\i}m, and so this result may be regarded as an application of their method. We then establish lower bounds for the number of prime pairs $p_n \equiv p_{n+1} \equiv a \bmod q$ with $p_{n+1} - p_n < \epsilon\log p_n$ and $p_{n+1} \le Y$. Assuming a certain unproven hypothesis concerning what is referred to as the `level of distribution', $\theta$, of the primes, Goldston-Pintz-Y{\i}ld{\i}r{\i}m were able to prove that $p_{n+1} - p_n \ll_{\theta} 1$ for infinitely many $n$. On the same hypothesis, we prove that there are infinitely many prime pairs $p_n \equiv p_{n+1} \equiv a \bmod q$ with $p_{n+1} - p_n \ll_{q,\theta} 1$. This conditional result is also proved in a quantitative form. In Part II we apply the techniques of Goldston-Pintz-Y{\i}ld{\i}r{\i}m to prove another result, namely that there are infinitely many pairs of distinct primes $p,p'$ such that $(p-1)(p'-1)$ is a perfect square. This is, in a sense, an `approximation' to the old conjecture that there are infinitely many primes $p$ such that $p-1$ is a perfect square. In fact we obtain a lower bound for the number of integers $n$, up to $Y$, such that $n = \ell_1\cdots \ell_r$, the $\ell_i$ distinct primes, and $(\ell_1 - 1)\cdots (\ell_r - 1)$ is a perfect $r$th power, for any given $r \ge 2$. We likewise obtain a lower bound for the number of such $n \le Y$ for which $(\ell_1 + 1)\cdots (\ell_r + 1)$ is a perfect $r$th power. Finally, given a finite set $A$ of nonzero integers, we obtain a lower bound for the number of $n \le Y$ for which $\prod_{p \mid n}(p+a)$ is a perfect $r$th power, simultaneously for every $a \in A$.