Bien que découverte il y a 75 ans, la fission nucléaire fait toujours l'objet de recherches. En effet, la compréhension de ce phénomène présente encore des difficultés théoriques dues à sa complexité. Cela nécessite une bonne compréhension de la structure du noyau de l'atome ainsi qu'une description détaillée du mécanisme pilotant l'évolution du système fissionnant.Un nouveau modèle statistique, appelé SPY (Scission Point Yields), a été développé pour déterminer les caractéristiques des fragments (rendements de fission, énergie cinétique, énergie d¹excitation). Ce modèle est basé sur le modèle de Wilkins développé en 1976. Il consiste en une description statistique du processus de fission au point de scission où les fragments sont complètement définis. L'une des principales avancées du modèle SPY est l'introduction de la description microscopique de la structure nucléaire dans le calcul de l'énergie du système à la scission.Il permet d'étudier la relation entre les propriétés des fragments et leur structure nucléaire. Avec le modèle SPY, il est possible de calculer les propriétés des fragments et d'identifier les tendances globales pour environ 3000 noyaux fissionnants de Z=70 à Z=109, de la drip line neutron jusqu'à la drip line proton.Après une présentation générale de la version de référence du modèle SPY, les résultats obtenus pour la fission thermique de l'uranium 235 et la fission spontanée du californium 252 sont comparés aux données expérimentales. Une étude systématique sur l'ensemble des noyaux actuellement synthétisés est également menée avant d'étendre cette étude bien au-delà de la zone des noyaux synthétisables. Deux développements seront ensuite détaillés. Le premier concerne la manière de calculer l'énergie d'interaction coulombienne entre les deux fragments. Les distributions de charges issues de calculs microscopiques seront introduites afin d'améliorer le calcul de l'énergie d'interaction coulombienne. La possibilité de redéfinir le point de scission du système grâce à ces distributions de charge sera également discuté.Le deuxième développement porte sur le lien entre la modélisation du noyau et les observables associées aux fragments de fission. D'une part, différents modèles du noyau pour le calcul de l'énergie individuelle des fragments, tel que le modèle de la goutte liquide, seront envisagés et l'impact du choix de la modélisation du noyau sera étudiée.D'autre part, l'impact de la prise en compte de la structure nucléaire des fragments dans le calcul des densités d'états sur les observables sera étudié. / Although discovered 75 years ago, nuclear fission is still under investigation. Indeed, the understanding of this phenomenon still presents theoretical difficulties due to its complexity. This requires a good understanding of the structure of atomic nucleus and at the same time a detailed description of the mechanisms driving the evolution of a fissioning system.A new statistical scission point model named SPY (Scission Point Yields) is developped to model the fission mechanism and determine nascent fragments characteristics (yields, kinetic energy, excitation energy). This model is based on the Wilkins model developed in 1976. It consists in a statistical description of the fission process at the scission point where fragments are completely defined and well separated. One of the main advance brought by SPY model is the introduction of microscopic description of the nuclear structure in the calculation of the energy of the system at scission. Therefore, this model can be regarded as a theoretical laboratory for fission modeling since it allows to study the relationship between fission fragments properties and their nuclear structure.With SPY, we were able to calculate the properties of fragments and to identify global trends for about 3000 fissioning nuclei from Z=70 to Z=109 and from proton drip line to neutron drip line.After a general presentation of SPY model, results for thermal fission of uranium 235 and spontaneous fission of 252 californium are compared with experimental data. A systematic study over all currently synthesized nuclei is also done before extending this study beyond the synthesizable nuclei area. Finally the main developments of the model performed will be detailed.The first one is related to calcultation of the Coulomb interaction energy between the two fragments. The charge distributions from microscopic calculations are introduced to improve the calculation of the energy of Coulomb interaction. The ability to redefine the scission point of the system thanks to these distributions will also be discussed. The second development concerns the relationship between nucleus modeling and observables related to fission fragments. On the one hand, different models of the nucleus to calculate the individual energy of the fragments, such as liquid drop model, will be considered and the impact of the choice of the nucleus modeling will be studied. On the other hand, the impact of the inclusion of the nuclear structure of the fragments in the calculation of states densities on observable will be studied.

Le minimalisme de l’œuvre en vers et en prose du poète ligure Camillo Sbarbaro (1888-1967) est lié à la forme du fragment et au dépouillement antirhétorique du style, qui apparaissent comme les deux versants d’une recherche d’essentialité de l’expression poétique. Cette thèse se propose d’interroger les notions d’aridité et de fragmentation, au croisement de la vision du monde de Sbarbaro et de l’émergence de son style. Il s’agit de dépasser le simple constat du caractère épuré de ce style pour analyser précisément son fonctionnement, à travers une lecture croisée des textes en vers et en prose de Sbarbaro, afin de rendre compte du décloisonnement générique qu’opère son écriture. Loin de sacraliser l’individualité du style d’auteur, cette étude se penche sur les rapports qu’entretient l’écrivain avec son époque, en premier lieu à travers l'analyse de l'influence des avant-gardes italiennes du début du XXe siècle. Le style de Sbarbaro n’est ni exempt d’apports exogènes ni dépourvu de variations. L’examen des variantes d’auteur et des traductions de la main de Sbarbaro montre en effet que ce style, caractérisé globalement par une forme de paupérisme, peut pourtant apparaître parfois comme une tension vers un surcroît de littérarité. D’une façon plus générale, l’aridité minimaliste n’exclut pas la saillance des figures syntaxiques et analogiques, et la discontinuité fragmentaire n’empêche pas la construction de structures phrastiques ou textuelles qui témoignent d’une prévalence de la logique syntagmatique sur la logique paradigmatique. Le style sbarbarien résulte alors de cette tension entre le dépouillement et le relief figural, entre la déliaison et le réticulaire. / Camillo Sbarbaro (1888-1967) is a ligurian poet whose work in prose and poetry is characterised by its minimalism. Through the form of the fragment and its stark style, the poetic language is stripped down to the essential. This thesis is a study about the concepts of aridity and fragmentation, halfway between Sbarbaro’s vision of the world and his peculiar style. Trying to go beyond the mere observation of a rhetorical starkness, my aim is to analyse precisely how Sbarbaro’s style could be described and defined, opting for a comparative reading of his prose and poetry, in order to show how the author breaks down the barriers between genres. Avoiding to sanctify the individuality of this style, the links between the writer and his own time are reported, since his literary career and the development of his style are influenced by traditional models and by contemporary movements, among which the Italian avant-gardes of the 20th century. Sbarbaro’s style is partially made of exogenous patterns and does not exclude diversity. The author’s variations and his translations show that his style, despite its general poverty, can sometimes tend to increase the initial literarity of the text. Plus, there is no absolute contradiction between the minimalist aridity of Sbarbaro’s style and the relief – or emphasis – of some stylistic devices, nor the fragmentation prevents the author from constructing complex sentence structures or textual sequences, as if the syntagmatic relations prevailed over the paradigmatic organisation. Sbarbaro’s style is the result of a tension between the starkness and the relief of figures, and between discontinuity and the syntagmatic structures.

Le « cinématographe » de Robert Bresson vise à atteindre la vérité du réel d’une façon différente du « cinéma », considéré comme le théâtre photographié. Le cinéma de Robert Bresson, qui est également le résultat de l’application de sa théorie, est constamment dans la négativité de l’image représentative. Le montage bressonien décompose le raccord classique et fragmente l’espace narratif. Dans ce contexte, l’objet dans le cinéma de Bresson, sans appuyer sur le rôle narratif et le sens symbolique, contribue à décomposer la cohérence et la continuité du récit filmique. Comparable à la nature morte hollandaise au XVIIème siècle, la singularité de l’objet dans les films de Bresson, est sa présence non narrative. L’objet matériel et concret s’oriente généralement vers les deux aspects : d’une part, l’objet en gros plan se déconnecte de l’acte et de l’évènement et fait les imaginer dans le hors-champ. La déconnection entre l’objet présenté et l’évènement imaginaire entraîne la problématique de la discontinuité. D’autre part, l’objet, par la composition avec le corps morcelé, produit l’acte et l’évènement qui restitue le récit d’une façon fragmentaire. Cette façon de déconnecter et de fragmenter l’évènement, c’est la manière, pour l’objet, de présenter le réel. Notre étude abordera comment l’objet matériel et non narratif figure l’apparition du réel. / The « cinématographe » of Robert Bresson, has the aim to reach the truth of the reality in a different way than the one commonly used in the « cinéma », considered as being the photographed theater. The cinema of Robert Bresson, which is also the result of the application of his theory, is constantly in the negativity of the represented image. The bressoniens montage breaks into parts the classic match and splits up the narrative space. In this context, the object in the cinema of Bresson, without pressing on the narrative role and the symbolic meaning, contributes to split up the coherence and the continuity of the cinematic narrative. Compared to the Dutch still life in the XVIIth century, the peculiarity of the object in the films of Bresson, is his non narrative presence. The material and concrete object turns generally towards both aspects : on one hand, the object disconnects from the act and from the event, and the disconnection involves in the question of discontinuity. On the other hand, by the composition with a part of the body, the object produces the act and the event which create the narrative in a fragmentary way. This discontinuity and the fragment is the way, for the object, of presenting the reality. Our study will devoted to approach how the material and not narrative object contribute to the appearance of the reality.

Les concepts de dystopie et de postmodernisme ont pris une dimension nouvelle depuis une vingtaine d’années environ.Ces concepts, qui ont fait l’objet d’études multiples tant sur le plan littéraire qu’historique, pour ne citer que ces deuxdomaines-là, ont révélé d’autres perspectives qui, de notre point de vue, n’ont pas encore été abordées. Il s’agit parexemple du rapport entre la dystopie et les ruines. A travers cette thèse, nous avons étudié les concepts de dystopie et deruines tel qu’ils apparaissent dans trois oeuvres (Riddley Walker, (1980) de Russel Hoban, Cloud Atlas, (2004) de DavidMitchell et The Book of Dave (2006) de Will Self) à la lumière des évènements contemporains et en rapport avec lepostmodernisme. Ce corpus a permis de souligner des liens entre dystopie et postmodernisme grâce à la valeuresthétique, éthique, poétique et politique des ruines dont l’ubiquité nous a fait considérer les oeuvres dystopiquescomme un portrait du monde où nous vivons. Cette thèse a par ailleurs permis de souligner le comportementautodestructeur de l’homme, en rapport avec la notion de progrès qui est constamment remise sur le métier, devenantplus une illusion qu’une réalité au moyen de scènes de violence dont les principales illustrations restent les deux conflitsmondiaux avec la Shoah et les bombes atomiques larguées sur Hiroshima et Nagasaki ainsi que l’utilisation des armeschimiques. En plus d’être un trait d’union entre dystopie et postmodernisme, les ruines s’érigent en témoin du passésinistre de l’homme vers lequel elles guident les contemplateurs tout en leur rappelant la vanité de leur vie etl’évanescence de toute existence. L’ubiquité des ruines ne cesse de plonger survivants et contemplateurs dans unemélancolie à laquelle s’ajoute le trauma lié à la perte et la menace de répétition du passé. Les ruines deviennent alorsune forme d’expression, un langage pour les dystopies postmodernes et, à travers elles, les disparus prennent la parole.Les traces de ce qui a été sont ainsi devenues des médias par lesquels le silence des ruines devient la parole de ceux quine sont plus, révélant de manière continue la présence du passé. / The concepts of dystopia and postmodernism have taken a new dimension for the past two decades. These conceptshave been explored in multiple studies from both literary and historical viewpoints, to name but these two areas thathave revealed other perspectives, which, to our knowledge, have not yet been addressed. This is the case, for example,of the relationship between dystopia and ruins. The present work explores the concepts of dystopia and ruins as theyappear in the three books (Riddley Walker (1980) by Russell Hoban, Cloud Atlas (2004) by David Mitchell and TheBook of Dave (2006) by Will Self) in the light of contemporary events and in connection with postmodernism. Thiscorpus was used to discover the links between dystopia and postmodernism through the aesthetic, ethical, poetic andpolitical values of ruins, the ubiquity of which brought us to consider the dystopian works as a depiction of the world inwhich we live. The present study has also helped highlight the destructive behavior of Man in relation to the notion ofprogress that is constantly questioned, thus becoming more of an illusion than a reality because of scenes of violencemainly illustrated by the two World Wars with the Shoah and the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,as well as the use of chemical weapons, commonly called mass destruction weapons. Besides being a bridge betweendystopia and postmodernism, ruins stand as witnesses of Man’s sinister past toward which they direct contemplatorswhile reminding them of the vanity of their lives and the evanescence of any existence. The ubiquity of the ruinsrelentlessly plunges survivors and contemplators into a melancholy supplemented by the trauma associated to thefeeling of loss and the threat of a repetition of the past. The ruin thus becomes a form of expression, a language forpostmodern dystopias and through it, the departed speak. The traces of what has been have thus become media through

La fabrique du discontinu apparaît dans les romans des Goncourt sous différents aspects. Elle résulte de la formation des deux frères qui portent un intérêt particulier aux objets rares et aux détails. Se voulant modernes, les écrivains ne cessent de critiquer le roman idéaliste qu’ils considèrent comme une forme usée et montrent une préférence pour le modèle fantaisiste. Dans leur tentative de « tuer le romanesque », les auteurs de En 18.. font du roman un espace de liberté où ils n’hésitent pas à briser la linéarité du récit, à morceler la matière narrative en des petits chapitres, bref, à donner au lecteur un texte laconique qui sollicite sa collaboration. Constitué de plusieurs fragments du Journal, le roman des Goncourt devient le réservoir de textes de première main. La genèse de l’œuvre participe ainsi à la création de la discontinuité et engendre une grande diversité discursive et générique qui deviendra source de la modernité des romans goncourtiens. / The fashioning of the discontinuous takes various forms in the novels of Goncourt. It results from the construction of two brothers who have a particular interest in rare objects and details. In a bid to be modern, writers constantly criticize the idealist novel as a used form and show a preference for the whimsical model. In their attempt to "kill the romance", the authors of En 18 ..make the novel a space of freedom where they do not hesitate to break the linearity of the story, to break up the narrative material into small chapters, and to give the reader a terse text that solicits his collaboration. Consisting of several fragments of the Journal, the novel Goncourt becomes the reservoir of firsthand texts. The genesis of the work, thus, contributes to the creation of discontinuity and generates a great discursive and generic diversity that will become the source of the modernity of the Goncourt novels.

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy hat neben fünf vollständigen Symphonien das Fragment des ersten Satzes einer letzten Symphonie in C-Dur hinterlassen, an dem er zwei Jahre vor seinem Tod letztmalig arbeitete. Führt man sich Mendelssohns Arbeitsweise vor Augen, die lange Unterbrechungen des Kompositionsprozesses eines Werkes miteinschloss, erscheint es gut möglich, dass der Komponist die Arbeit an diesem Sinfoniesatz noch einmal wieder aufgenommen hätte. 2002, im letzten Jahr meines Studiums an der Hochschule für Musik und Theater Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Leipzig habe ich dieses Fragment im Stil Mendelssohns vervollständigt und aufführbar macht. Im folgenden Text erörtere ich meinen Umgang mit dem Fragment, begründe wichtige formale Entscheidungen und stelle Ausschnitte aus der Partitur vor. Eine Präsentation meiner Arbeit im Rahmen eines Werkstattkonzerts – im Fall einer solchen, stilistisch einheitlichen Vervollständigung wünschenswert, um den Anteil authentischer und ergänzter Passagen genau offenzulegen – wäre von diesen und weiteren Ausführungen begleitet, und böte so Gelegenheit, einem Konzertpublikum auf anschauliche Weise Aspekte musiktheoretischen Denkens zu vermitteln. / Besides five complete symphonies, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy left behind a fragment of the first movement of a last symphony in C major on which he last worked two years before his death. Following examination of Mendelssohn’s modus operandi, which included long interruptions in the compositional process, it seems entirely possible that he in fact returned to work on this movement. In the final year of my study at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy in Leipzig I completed this fragment in Mendlessohn’s style and made it available for performance. In the following article I defend my approach to the fragment, justify important formal decisions, and present excepts from the score. A presentation of my work in the context of a workshop-concert – ideally a stylistically consistent completion in order to clearly differentiate between authentic and added passages – would be accompanied by these and other considerations, and would offer an opportunity to communicate music-theoretical concepts to a general public in an approachable manner.

Breakdown of the disc extracellular matrix is thought to arise from increased activity of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs). Aggrecan, one of the major disc matrix macromolecules, is degraded through action of MMPs and aggrecanases and its concentration falls early in the degeneration process. Loss of the constituent glycosaminoglycans (GAGs), which are osmotically active, leads to a decrease in osmotic pressure and subsequently to a fall in tissue hydration. Apart from the major biomechanical consequences, fall in extracellular osmolarity is known to influence cell function. Apart from aggrecan, other macromolecules such as fibronectin are also broken down by MMPs. Fibronectin fragments (Fnfs) have been identified in degenerate discs. Such Fnfs have been found to stimulate production and activity of MMPs in articular cartilage but little is known about the effect of these fragments on disc cells. The aim of the work was thus to determine whether Fnf stimulated expression of MMPs and hence induced aggrecan breakdown and loss in the disc and whether extracellular osmolarity influenced this potential response. NP cells or explants were harvested from adult bovine caudal discs. They were cultured in DMEM culture medium over a range of osmolarities with or without Fnf treatment. Profiles of gene expression of MMPs and their inhibitors and effect of changes in osmolarity on expression of selected MMPs were determined. The effect of Fnf on responses of cells and tissue explants from the central region of the disc, the nucleus pulposus (NP) and the role of changes in extracellular osmolarity in relation to GAG loss and expression of selected MMPs was then examined both at the protein level and by gene profiling using a microarray. My results showed that expression of MMPs by disc cells is regulated by extracellular osmolarity rather than the 30 kD Fnf, with the level of some MMPs secreted by disc cells and involved in degradation of disc matrix rising as osmolarity falls. These results could explain in part the finding that MMP expression increases with degree of disc degeneration i.e. with loss of aggrecan and fall in extracellular osmolarity. These also suggested that a fall in osmolarity could induce a degenerative cascade with proteolytic digestion of aggrecan leading to a fall in osmolarity and hence a further increase in proteinase expression and matrix degradation.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

O presente trabalho busca analisar alguns elementos estéticos presentes na criação da obra O Guesa, do poeta maranhense Joaquim de Sousa Andrade, mais conhecido como Sousândrade. Procura-se demonstrar que a forma de sua poesia não consiste apenas em um capricho da subjetividade romântica, carente de programa estético definido. A partir da liberdade das formas conquistada no romantismo, o poeta demonstra lucidez em sua criação poética, utilizando a \"reflexão\", a \"imaginação\" e a \"fragmentação\" para criar uma forma de objetivação homóloga à natureza selvagem da lenda do muísca do Guesa. Além disso, tal forma poética estabelece-se como meio de expressão de seus conflitos internos e da sua visão acerca dos conflitos sociais de sua época. / This paper seeks examine some of the aesthetic elements present in the creation of O Guesa, of maranhense poet Joaquim de Sousa Andrade, better known as Sousândrade. Looking up show that the form of his poetry not just in a romantic whim of subjectivity, lacking in aesthetic programme defined. From the freedom of forms conquered in romanticism, the poet demonstrates clarity in his poetic creation, using the \"reflection\", the \"imagination\" and the \"fragmentation\" to create a form of objetivation counterpart to the wild nature of the muísca legend of Guesa. Moreover, such a poetic establishes itself as a means of expression of their internal conflicts and their vision about the social conflicts of his time.

Thesis advisor: Udayan Mohanty / The stabilization of particular conformations of protein and nucleic acid structure is believed to play an important role in many important biological functions. In chapter one, the α -helical conformation and structural stability of single and double stapled all- hydrocarbon cross-linked p53 peptides when bound and unbound to MDM2 are investigated. Our study provides a comprehensive rationalization of the relationship between peptide stapling strategy, the secondary structural stability, and the binding affinity of p53-MDM2 complex. In chapter two, we study counterion-mediated collapse of a strongly charged model polyelectrolyte chain by Group-II divalent metal cations using coarse-grained Brownian dynamics simulations. Polyelectrolyte effects govern the association of counterions with the chain. Large ions are less effective in counterion condensation than small ions. However, upon counterion condensation, the reduction of the backbone charge is independent of size of the metal cations. Above a threshold value of Coulomb strength parameter, counterion release entropy drives the formation of counterion-induced compact states. In chapter three, the nature of surface tension in the random first order theory of supercooled liquid is analyzed within the framework of Landau-Lifshitz fluctuation theory. We show that the surface tension of a droplet satisfies the differential equation 4πr2(dσ)+ 8πrσ(r)− Br1/2 = 0 , where B/ T = 12πkBcv , T is temperature, kB is dr Boltzmann constant, and cv is heat capacity. A consequence is that the slope of the relaxation time at the glass transition temperature, i.e., the fragility index, is expressed as the square of the ratio of heat capacity and configurational entropy of the supercooled liquid. When backbone extended nucleosides are incorporated into a double helix, a unique helical structure is formed. In chapter four, we find that the predicted stability of modified backbone DNA strands in aqueous solution is in good agreement with experimental melting temperature data. The incorporation of extended backbone nucleosides into a duplex results in elongation of the end-to-end chain distance due to the distortion of the B-DNA conformation at the mutated base-pair insertion. We also find that the modified backbone helical twist is approximately 40 degrees, larger than B-DNA helical twist and closer to the twist angle predicted for D-form DNA. The folding of RNA tertiary structure has been described as an equilibrium between partially folded I (intermediate) states, and the fully folded native conformation, or N state. RNA is highly sensitive to the ionic environment due to its negative charge, and tertiary structures tend to be strongly stabilized by Mg2+. There is a need for models capable of describing the ion atmosphere surrounding RNA with quantitative accuracy. In chapter 5, we present a generalized Manning condensation model of RNA electrostatics for studying the Mg2+-induced RNA folding of the 58mer ribosomal fragment. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Chemistry.