Dans un contexte présentiel, un acte de communication comprend des expressions orales et émotionnelles. A partir de l’observation, du diagnostic et de l’identification de l’état émotionnel d’un individu, son interlocuteur pourra entreprendre des actions qui influenceraient la qualité de la communication. A cet égard, nous pensons améliorer la manière dont les individus perçoivent leurs échanges en proposant d’enrichir la CEMO (communication écrite médiatisée par ordinateur) par des émotions ressenties par les collaborateurs. Pour ce faire, nous proposons d’intégrer un système de reconnaissance, en temps réel, des émotions (joie, peur, surprise, colère, dégoût, tristesse, neutralité) à la plate-forme pédagogique “Moodle”, à partir de l’analyse des expressions faciales de l’apprenant à distance lors des activités collaboratives. La reconnaissance des expressions faciales se fait en trois étapes. Tout d’abord, le visage et ses composants (sourcils, nez, bouche, yeux) sont détectés à partir de la configuration de points caractéristiques. Deuxièmement, une combinaison de descripteurs hétérogènes est utilisée pour extraire les traits caractéristiques du visage. Finalement, un classifieur est appliqué pour classer ces caractéristiques en six émotions prédéfinies ainsi que l’état neutre. Les performances du système proposé seront évaluées sur des bases publiques d’expressions faciales posées et spontanées telles que Cohn-Kanade (CK), Karolinska Directed Emotional Faces (KDEF) et Facial Expressions and Emotion Database (FEED). / In face-to-face settings, an act of communication includes verbal and emotional expressions. From observation, diagnosis and identification of the individual's emotional state, the interlocutor will undertake actions that would influence the quality of the communication. In this regard, we suggest to improve the way that the individuals perceive their exchanges by proposing to enrich the textual computer-mediated communication by emotions felt by the collaborators. To do this, we propose to integrate a real time emotions recognition system in a platform “Moodle”, to extract them from the analysis of facial expressions of the distant learner in collaborative activities. There are three steps to recognize facial expressions. First, the face and its components (eyebrows, nose, mouth, eyes) are detected from the configuration of facial landmarks. Second, a combination of heterogeneous descriptors is used to extract the facial features. Finally, a classifier is applied to classify these features into six predefined emotions as well as the neutral state. The performance of the proposed system will be assessed on a public basis of posed and spontaneous facial expressions such as Cohn-Kanade (CK), Karolinska Directed Emotional Faces (KDEF) and Facial Expressions and Emotion Database (FEED).

本論文應用隱喻與轉喻之理論觀點，探討台灣客語分類詞諺語之認知語意機制如何運作。首先，根據Kövecses and Radden (1998) 從認知語言學角度所提出的轉喻理論，分析台灣客語分類詞諺語中的轉喻類型。接著，本論文分析台灣客語分類詞諺語中隱喻機制的運作，結果發現普遍而言，隱喻都是以轉喻為基礎。此外，本研究針對Radden (2003) 所提出以轉喻為基礎的隱喻之四種來源分類提出修正。 除了呈現認知語意機制，文化制約之世界普遍性及台灣客家文化之特殊性也在台灣客語分類詞諺語中展現出來。最後，透過Lakoff and Turner (1989) 所提出的生命物種之大鏈隱喻，我們了解諺語所表達的最終概念是以人為中心，而且諺語通常帶有勸世的功能。簡言之，本論文藉由探討認知語意機制如何在台灣客語分類詞諺語中運作，呈現人類認知過程以及展現台灣客家文化。 / This thesis aims to explore how the cognitive mechanisms are operated in the classifiers and measure words in Taiwanese Hakka proverbial expressions, in particular metonymy, the interaction between metaphor and metonymy, idiomaticity, and cultural constraints. Since human conceptual system is fundamentally metaphorical in nature, classifiers, representing conceptual classification of the world, are found to manifest metonymically and metaphorically. First, based on the metonymic relationships proposed by Kövecses and Radden (1998), cases involving metonymy are carefully spelled out. Then, cases involving the interaction between metaphor and metonymy are elaborated. The metaphors activated in these cases are generally grounded in metonymy, which evidences that metaphors generally have a metonymic basis (Radden 2003). Apart from displaying cognitive mechanisms, the classifier/measure word proverbial expressions in Taiwanese Hakka exhibit Taiwanese Hakka-specific cultural constraints and near universality in conceptual metaphors (Kövecses 2002). Cases which are more specific to Taiwanese Hakka are semantically more opaque whereas cases which are more near universal are semantically more transparent (Gibbs 1995). Furthermore, through the GREAT CHAIN METAPHOR proposed by Lakoff and Turner (1989), we know that all the proverbial expressions are ultimately concerned about human beings. Moreover, proverbial expressions tend to carry pragmatic-social functions, conveying exhortations. In brief, the cognitive mechanisms of metonymy as well as the interaction between metaphor and metonymy are pervasively found in classifier/measure word proverbial expressions in Taiwanese Hakka. Through unraveling the conceptual mechanisms associated with classifiers and measure words in Taiwanese Hakka proverbial expressions, this study betters our understanding of human cognition in general and Taiwanese Hakka culture in particular.

Dans ce travail, nous commençons par étudier le recalage et la mise en correspondance de formes 2D ou 3D (courbes ou surfaces). Nous définissons et minimisons des distances entre ces formes. Afin d'avoir un certain contrôle sur le chemin suivi lors de la minimisation, nous introduisons une généralisation du gradient de forme permettant d'ajouter une contrainte sur la forme du gradient de différentes manières.<br />Dans une seconde partie plus applicative, nous présentons nos travaux sur l'analyse automatique d'expressions faciales appliquée à des patients épileptiques et explorons la possibilité d'utiliser cet outil pour l'aide au diagnostic.

La thèse présentée ici a pour but de proposer des systèmes de détection, de composition de constituants sémantiques et d'interprétation dans la compréhension de la langue naturelle parlée. Cette compréhension se base sur un système de reconnaissance automatique de la parole qui traduit les signaux oraux en énoncés utilisables par la machine. Le signal de la parole, ainsi transcrit, comporte un ensemble d'erreurs liées aux erreurs de reconnaissance (bruits, parasites, mauvaise prononciation...). L'interprétation de cet énoncé est d'autant plus difficile qu'il est issu d'un discours parlé, soumis à la disfluence du discours, aux auto-corrections... L'énoncé est de plus agrammatical, car le discours parlé lui-même est agrammatical. L'application de méthodes d'analyses grammaticales ne produit pas de bons résultats d'interprétation, sur des textes issus de transcriptions de la parole. L'utilisation de méthodes d'analyses syntaxiques profondes est à éviter. De ce fait, une analyse superficielle est envisagée. Un des premiers objectifs est de proposer une représentation du sens. Il s'agit de considérer des ontologies afin de conceptualiser le monde que l'on décrit. On peut exprimer les composants sémantiques en logique du premier ordre avec des prédicats. Dans les travaux décrits ici, nous représentons les éléments sémantiques par des frames (FrameNet ). Les structures de frames sont hiérarchisées, et sont des fragments de connaissances auxquels on peut insérer, fusionner ou inférer d'autres fragments de connaissances. Les structures de frames sont dérivables en formules logiques. Nous proposons un système de compréhension de la parole à partir de règles logiques avec le support d'une ontologie, afin de pouvoir créer des liens à partir de composants sémantiques. Puis, nous avons mené une étude sur la découverte des supports syntaxiques des relations sémantiques. Nous proposons une expérience de composition sémantique afin d'enrichir les composants sémantiques de base. Enfin, nous présentons un système de détection de lambda-expression pour mettre en hypothèse les relations à trouver à travers le discours

<p>The present thesis investigated the relationship between rapid facial muscle reactions and emotionally relevant stimuli. In Study I, it was demonstrated that angry faces elicit increased <i>Corrugator supercilii</i> activity, whereas happy faces elicit increased <i>Zygomaticus major</i> activity, as early as within the first second after stimulus onset. In Study II, during the first second of exposure, pictures of snakes elicited more corrugator activity than pictures of flowers. However, this effect was apparent only for female participants. Study III showed that participants high as opposed to low in fear of snakes respond with increased corrugator activity, as well as increased autonomic activity, when exposed to pictures of snakes. In Study IV, participants high as opposed to low in speech anxiety responded with a larger difference in corrugator responding between angry and happy faces, and also with a larger difference in zygomatic responding between happy and angry faces, indicating that people high in speech anxiety have an exaggerated facial responsiveness to social stimuli. In summary, the present results show that the facial EMG technique is sensitive to detecting rapid emotional reactions to different emotionally relevant stimuli (human faces and snakes). Additionally, they demonstrate the existence of differences in rapid facial reactions among groups for which the emotional relevance of the stimuli can be considered to differ.</p>

The present thesis investigated the relationship between rapid facial muscle reactions and emotionally relevant stimuli. In Study I, it was demonstrated that angry faces elicit increased Corrugator supercilii activity, whereas happy faces elicit increased Zygomaticus major activity, as early as within the first second after stimulus onset. In Study II, during the first second of exposure, pictures of snakes elicited more corrugator activity than pictures of flowers. However, this effect was apparent only for female participants. Study III showed that participants high as opposed to low in fear of snakes respond with increased corrugator activity, as well as increased autonomic activity, when exposed to pictures of snakes. In Study IV, participants high as opposed to low in speech anxiety responded with a larger difference in corrugator responding between angry and happy faces, and also with a larger difference in zygomatic responding between happy and angry faces, indicating that people high in speech anxiety have an exaggerated facial responsiveness to social stimuli. In summary, the present results show that the facial EMG technique is sensitive to detecting rapid emotional reactions to different emotionally relevant stimuli (human faces and snakes). Additionally, they demonstrate the existence of differences in rapid facial reactions among groups for which the emotional relevance of the stimuli can be considered to differ.

This thesis explores how verbal and nonverbal signs communicate attitudes and the rhetorical functions of such attitudinal signs. Attitudes are regarded as rationalized evaluations of attitudinal objects, and through their manifestation in signs an attitudinal gestalt is communicated. This gestalt is regarded as the audiences perception of the rhetors attitude. It is shown that the attitudinal signs function as ethical, logical and pathetic proofs and that they can create identification between the audience and the rhetor. The signs can have effects on the audiences perception of the attitudinal objects, their perception of the rhetor and influence the social dynamic of the discourse. A three-step method of rhetorical criticism is proposed, where the rhetors display of attitudinal signs is analyzed according to form &amp; meaning, the attitudinal gestalts they convey, and the rhetorical effects they have.

Le gouvernement du Québec et la société civile québécoise ont joué un rôle de premier plan dans le processus menant l'Organisation des Nations Unies pour l'éducation, la science et la culture (UNESCO) à adopter, en octobre 2005, la Convention sur la protection et la promotion de la diversité des expressions culturelles. Cette activité soutenue de la diplomatie québécoise s'inscrit dans la participation de plus en plus importante des gouvernements locaux et régionaux aux activités internationales. Cette fragmentation de la politique étrangère, qui relevait jadis des seuls gouvernements centraux, nécessite une redéfinition des acteurs internationaux et des relations entre eux et, par conséquent, un nouveau cadre d'analyse pour situer les acteurs subétatiques dans un contexte politique qui dépasse la distinction traditionnelle entre la politique intérieure et la politique étrangère. À partir du cas du Québec, nous présentons les principaux déterminants qui expliquent le développement d'une paradiplomatie de la part d'une entité subétatique, à savoir la mondialisation, la crise de l'État et le nationalisme. Nous voyons ainsi qu'en raison de ces déterminants, il a été plus efficace pour le Québec d'utiliser ses propres voies diplomatiques pour défendre ses intérêts, et ainsi de jouer un rôle distinct de celui du Canada dans le dossier de la diversité culturelle. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Québec, relations internationales, paradiplomatie, politique étrangère, diversité culturelle

This thesis is structured in four parts for a total of ten chapters. The first part, introduction and review (Chapters 1 to 4), presents an extensive state-of-the-art review of both symbolic and connectionist GI methods, that serves also to state most of the basic material needed to describe later the contributions of the thesis. These contributions constitute the contents of the rest of parts (Chapters 5 to 10). The second part, contributions on symbolic and connectionist techniques for regular grammatical inference (Chapters 5 to 7), describes the contributions related to the theory and methods for regular GI, which include other lateral subjects such as the representation oí. finite-state machines (FSMs) in recurrent neural networks (RNNs).The third part of the thesis, augmented regular expressions and their inductive inference, comprises Chapters 8 and 9. The augmented regular expressions (or AREs) are defined and proposed as a new representation for a subclass of CSLs that does not contain all the context-free languages but a large class of languages capable of describing patterns with symmetries and other (context-sensitive) structures of interest in pattern recognition problems.The fourth part of the thesis just includes Chapter 10: conclusions and future research. Chapter 10 summarizes the main results obtained and points out the lines of further research that should be followed both to deepen in some of the theoretical aspects raised and to facilitate the application of the developed GI tools to real-world problems in the area of computer vision.

In formal language theory, studying shortest strings in languages, and variations thereof, can be useful since these strings can serve as small witnesses for properties of the languages, and can also provide bounds for other problems involving languages. For example, the length of the shortest string accepted by a regular language provides a lower bound on the state complexity of the language. In Chapter 1, we introduce some relevant concepts and notation used in automata and language theory, and we show some basic results concerning the connection between the length of the shortest string and the nondeterministic state complexity of a regular language. Chapter 2 examines the effect of the intersection operation on the length of the shortest string in regular languages. A tight worst-case bound is given for the length of the shortest string in the intersection of two regular languages, and loose bounds are given for two variations on the problem. Chapter 3 discusses languages that are defined over a free group instead of a free monoid. We study the length of the shortest string in a regular language that becomes the empty string in the free group, and a variety of bounds are given for different cases. Chapter 4 mentions open problems and some interesting observations that were made while studying two of the problems: finding good bounds on the length of the shortest squarefree string accepted by a deterministic finite automaton, and finding an efficient way to check if a finite set of finite words generates the free monoid. Some of the results in this thesis have appeared in work that the author has participated in \cite{AngPigRamSha,AngShallit}.