From my own experience working in Institutional Research for the past seven years, there is not a proper, reliable, and comprehensive model for forecasting student enrolment quickly. In many funding formulas, enrolment is the main driver of government grants and student tuition fees, which are sources of income to the university. Existing enrolment management tools developed within Institutional Research departments tend to be “ad hoc” spreadsheets with multiple individuals manipulating them with the result that the output comes too late for departments to take remedial action in terms of their budgets and does not provide multiple scenarios in support of strategic decision-making. The purpose of this study is to describe a functional automated enrolment projection system methodology I developed from scratch through a case study of the Faculty of Arts & Science at the University of Toronto. My primary research was to actually build the model. The model in effect, is the thesis. The system provides multiple scenarios that allow senior management in a multi-campus university system to generate multiple income scenarios, enabling them to make well-informed decisions concerning the operation of their institution and timely calculation and allocation of resources to academic departments. The study then shows how this addresses the problems of “ad hoc” approaches, and how it may be applied in other situations.

From my own experience working in Institutional Research for the past seven years, there is not a proper, reliable, and comprehensive model for forecasting student enrolment quickly. In many funding formulas, enrolment is the main driver of government grants and student tuition fees, which are sources of income to the university. Existing enrolment management tools developed within Institutional Research departments tend to be “ad hoc” spreadsheets with multiple individuals manipulating them with the result that the output comes too late for departments to take remedial action in terms of their budgets and does not provide multiple scenarios in support of strategic decision-making. The purpose of this study is to describe a functional automated enrolment projection system methodology I developed from scratch through a case study of the Faculty of Arts & Science at the University of Toronto. My primary research was to actually build the model. The model in effect, is the thesis. The system provides multiple scenarios that allow senior management in a multi-campus university system to generate multiple income scenarios, enabling them to make well-informed decisions concerning the operation of their institution and timely calculation and allocation of resources to academic departments. The study then shows how this addresses the problems of “ad hoc” approaches, and how it may be applied in other situations.

The mammalian neocortex is an exquisite, highly organized brain structure composed of hundreds of subpopulations of neurons and glia, precisely connected to enable motor control, sensory perception, information integration, and planning. Unique molecular, structural, and anatomical neuronal properties underlie diverse functionality, endowing much of the neocortex’s complex processing power. Neocortical size correlates with information processing capacity, suggesting that increased neuronal number and diversity begets increased sophistication. One excitatory projection neuron type, callosal projection neurons (CPN), has disproportionately expanded with cortical size increase. CPN directly connect homotypic regions of the two neocortical hemispheres by sending axons via the largest white matter fiber tract in the brain, the corpus callosum (CC), allowing quick relay, integration, and comparison of information. In humans, the CC contains over 300,000 axons, CPN have been centrally implicated in autism spectrum disorders, and absence or surgical disruption of CPN connectivity in humans is associated with defects in abstract reasoning, problem solving, and generalization. Therefore, CPN are critical to complex brain functions, and their diversity likely contributes to these roles. Work presented in this dissertation addresses molecular controls over CPN development, specifically genes that are expressed by, and function in, particular subpopulations of CPN. While much progress has been made in identifying molecular controls over neocortical arealization, lamination, and broad subtype specification, CPN diversity has remained largely unaddressed. Therefore, this work begins by identifying genes more highly expressed in CPN than other closely related projection neuron populations, and uncovers molecular diversity within CPN. From this molecular diversity, functional analysis of three candidate molecular controls over CPN subtype diversity follows. Cited2 acts broadly in neocortical progenitor development and postnatally in refining somatosensory CPN identity. Caveolin1 identifies a population of CPN with dual axonal projections. Tmtc4 is mutated in human CC disease and can function in CPN axonal development. These analyses of CPN molecular diversity in mouse then expand to an investigation of which molecular subpopulations are conserved, expanded, or uncommon between rodent and primate, allowing both for comparative evolutionary theories of CPN function, and indicating which CPN populations critical for human brain function can be best studied in rodent models.

Cette thèse s'intéresse à la structure, aux fonctions, et aux bases cognitives des termes d'offense (tels que le terme "boche"). Les termes d'offense, ainsi que leurs équivalents psychologiques, posent des problèmes intéressants et possiblement fondationnels à propos de la nature de la signification, de l'expressivité dans les langues naturelles, du rôle des émotions dans la catégorisation. Ce travail discute de ces questions - ainsi que de nombreuses autres - en s'intéressant à différentes théories existantes ou originalesdu phénomène. De nouvelles données linguistiques sont mises en avant qui remettent en cause des théories linguistiques telles que les visions vériconditionnelles ou présuppositionnelles du phénomène, et de nouvelles théories non-linguistiques du phénomène sont développées, invoquant les concepts de qualité seconde ou la notion d'essence. Les propriétés linguistiques particulières des termes d'offense, telles que la projection ou l'expressivité, apparaissent dans ce travail être des conséquences linguistiques d'un phénomène essentiellement psychologique : la possibilité d'une composante émotionnelle ou évaluative dans la structure même des concepts. / The present work investigates the structure, function and cognitive underpinnings of slurring terms (such as "boche"). Slurring terms, and the mental correlates that I posit they have, raise interesting and possibly foundational issues about the nature of meaning, about expressivity in natural language, about the role of emotions in categorization. I discuss these questions - among many others - by studying different existing or original accounts of the phenomenon. I present novel linguistic evidence against linguistic views such as truth-conditional or presuppositional accounts, and develop new psychological (i.e. non-linguistic) theories of the phenomenon based on a connection with responsedependent concepts, or with essentialist concepts. The interesting linguistic properties of slurs, such as projection and expressivity, appear to be the linguistic consequences of the essentially mental fact that concepts may be loaded with emotional or evaluative content.

En orthodontie, le diagnostic et la planification d'un traitement reposent sur la connaissance de l'architecture dentaire du patient relevée, entre autre, par un moulage en plâtre. Aujourd’hui, des logiciels permettent de manipuler des modèles numériques des arcades dentaires obtenus après numérisation des moulages. Afin d’observer l’engrènement des dents, il est nécessaire de mettre en occlusion les deux arcades numérisées séparément. Cette étape est actuellement manuelle et l’objet de ces travaux de thèse est de proposer une chaîne robuste de traitements permettant un recalage automatique des deux arcades guidé par plusieurs photos "en bouche" du patient. L'approche proposée consiste à définir trois types de points singuliers et à mettre en place des méthodes robustes de détection automatique à la fois sur les modèles 3D et les images couleur s’appuyant sur la courbure et la texture. Une fois mis en correspondance, ces points homologues 2D/3D permettent d'estimer les matrices de projection puis la transformation rigide (6ddl) pour positionner au mieux la mandibule par rapport au maxillaire en minimisant les erreurs de reprojection dans plusieurs vues. Afin de s’affranchir du bruit de détection, les positions 2D et/ou 3D des points sont améliorées au cours du processus d’optimisation. De nombreux tests sur des données virtuelles et réelles valident l'approche choisie. L’occlusion finale obtenue par recalage automatique est proche de la référence de l’expert. Les résultats sont encourageants pour fournir une alternative automatique à intégrer dans un outil d'aide au diagnostic. / In orthodontics, the diagnosis and the planning of a treatment rest on the knowledge of the dental architecture of the patient using, among others, a dental cast in plaster. Today, dedicated software allow to manipulate digital models of the dental arches obtained after digitalization of the casts. To observe the contact of teeth, it is necessary to register both arches scanned separately. This stage is at present manual and the object of this thesis research is to propose a robust chain processing allowing an automatic registration of both arches guided by several photos of the patient mouth. The proposed approach consists in defining three types of singular points and in setting up strong methods of automatic detection at the same time on the 3D models and the color images leaning on the curvature and the texture. Once put in correspondence, these 2D / 3D equivalent points allow to estimate the projection matrices then the rigid transformation (6ddl) to position at best the mandible in relation to the maxillary by minimizing the reprojection errors in several views. To free itself from the noise of detection, the 2D and/or 3D positions of the singular points are improved during the optimization process. Numerous tests on virtual and real data validate the proposed approach. The final occlusion obtained on the real data by automatic registration is close to the reference of the expert. These are encouraging results to supply an automatic alternative to be integrated into a help tool for the diagnosis.

Reduzir a dimensão de bancos de dados é um passo importante em processos de reconhecimento de padrões e aprendizagem de máquina. Projection Pursuit (PP) tem emergido como uma técnica relevante para tal fim, a qual busca projeções dos dados em espaços de baixa dimensão onde estruturas interessantes sejam reveladas. Apesar do relativo sucesso de PP em vários problemas de redução dimensional, a literatura mostra uma aplicação limitada da mesma em bancos de dados com elevada quantidade de atributos e poucas amostras, tais como os gerados em biologia molecular. Nesta tese, estudam-se formas de aproveitar o potencial de PP em problemas de alta dimensão e poucas amostras a fim de facilitar a posterior construção de classificadores. Entre as principais contribuições deste trabalho tem-se: i) Sequential Projection Pursuit Modified (SPPM), um método de busca sequencial de espaços de projeção baseado em Algoritmo Genético (AG) e operadores de cruzamento especializados; ii) Block Sequential Projection Pursuit Modified (Block-SPPM) e Whitened Sequential Projection Pursuit Modified (W-SPPM), duas estratégias de aplicação de SPPM em problemas com mais atributos do que amostras, sendo a primeira baseada e particionamento de atributos e a segunda baseada em pré-compactação dos dados. Avaliações experimentais sobre bancos de dados públicos de expressão gênica mostraram a eficácia das propostas em melhorar a acurácia de algoritmos de classificação populares em relação a vários outros métodos de redução dimensional, tanto de seleção quanto de extração de atributos, encontrando-se que W-SPPM oferece o melhor compromisso entre acurácia e custo computacional. / Reducing the dimension of datasets is an important step in pattern recognition and machine learning processes. PP has emerged as a relevant technique for that purpose. PP aims to find projections of the data in low dimensional spaces where interesting structures are revealed. Despite the success of PP in many dimension reduction problems, the literature shows a limited application of it in dataset with large amounts of features and few samples, such as those obtained in molecular biology. In this work we study ways to take advantage of the potential of PP in order to deal with problems of large dimensionalities and few samples. Among the main contributions of this work are: i) SPPM, an improved method for searching projections, based on a genetic algorithm and specialized crossover operators; and ii) Block-SPPM and W-SPPM, two strategies of applying SPPM in problems with more attributes than samples. The first strategy is based on partitioning the attribute space while the later is based on a precompaction of the data followed by a projection search. Experimental evaluations over public gene-expression datasets showed the efficacy of the proposals in improving the accuracy of popular classifiers with respect to several representative dimension reduction methods, being W-SPPM the strategy with the best compromise between accuracy and computational cost.

L’impact énergétique de la tribologie sur la vie économique et industrielle est important ; diminuer le frottement et l’usure des pièces mécaniques est un véritable enjeu pour des secteurs industriels très divers. Cette étude s’inscrit dans le cadre de la prévention de l’usure d’éléments mécaniques pouvant être soumis à des conditions sévères d’utilisation telles que les hautes températures. La réalisation de revêtements protecteurs céramique-métal est alors particulièrement indiquée afin d’apporter respectivement la résistance à la corrosion induite par les hautes températures avec un alliage adapté, et la résistance à l’usure grâce à la dureté des céramiques. D’autre part, le développement des recherches dans le domaine nanométrique a montré l’intérêt de la diminution de l’échelle sur l’amélioration des propriétés tribologique globales des revêtements. La projection thermique regroupe alors les procédés les plus adaptés à la réalisation de tels revêtements. Dans ce travail, des revêtements multi-composants (céramique-métal) et multi-échelles (micrométrique-nanométrique) sont développés par projection plasma afin de répondre à la problématique de résistance tribologique à haute température. La réalisation des dépôts est mise en œuvre à l’aide d’une torche tri-cathodes (TriplexPro-200) avantageuse pour sa stabilité et les larges possibilités laissées par sa fenêtre opératoire étendue. Les spécificités de cette torche seront étudiées afin d’adapter au mieux le procédé à la réalisation complexe de dépôts à composante multi-échelle. Une démarche innovante de projection hybride associant projection de poudres micrométriques et de suspensions de poudres nanométriques sera alors développée. Les étapes ayant amenées à la réalisation de ces revêtements sont détaillées dans ce travail puis les caractéristiques et le comportement tribologique des dépôts sont finalement étudiés. / Nowadays, tribology has a high energetic impact on economic and industrial areas. Thus, reducing wear and friction of mechanical parts has become a real stakes for various industries. This study is focused on the wear prevention of mechanical parts subjected to severe operating conditions like high temperatures.The realization of protective ceramic-metal coatings is thus particularly appropriated to improve corrosion resistance induced by the high temperatures, with a suitable alloy, and the wear resistance, thanks to the ceramics hardness. Furthermore, researches development in the nanoscale field have shown the interest of scale reduction on the improvement of coatings tribological properties. Thermal spraying is then the most appropriate process for the realization of such coatings.In this work, multi-components (ceramic-metal) and multi-scales (micrometric-nanometric) coatings are developed by plasma spraying in order to give an answer to the high temperature tribological resistance issue. Coatings are realized using a three-cathodes plasma gun (TriplexPro-200) which provides a more stable plasma jet and offers wide possibilities by an extended operating window. First, the special features of this kind of plasma gun will be studied in order to adjust the process to the complex realization of multi-scale coatings. An innovative approach using a hybrid spraying process was thus developed, combining conventional micrometric powder spraying and suspension of nanoscale powders spraying. In a second time, the steps leading to the production of such coatings will be detailed, and finally, their main properties and their tribological behavior will be studied.

La projection est une des techniques utilisées pour permettre de réduire les besoins en terme de taille mémoire nécessaire aux moteurs de requêtes XML (in-memory). L'idée sous-jacente à cette technique est simple : étant donnée une requête Q à évaluer sur un document XML D, au lieu de procéder sur D, la requête est évaluée sur un document D', plus petit que D, construit lors du chargement de ce dernier en mémoire, par élagage des parties de D inutiles pour Q. Le document D', est une projection du document initial D. Il est souvent de taille drastiquement inférieure à celle de D.Alors que cette technique de projection a été étudiée et développée assez largement pour l'interrogation de document XML, à notre connaissance, ce type de technique n'a pas été explorée ni appliquée aux mises à jour de documents XML.L'objet de cette thèse a donc été de proposer une technique d'optimisation de mises à jour de documents au format XML exploitant le typage des documents.La contribution a porté sur la spécification de l'algorithme Merge, c'est-à-dire la fusion des modifications avec le document initial, ainsi que sur le développement d'un prototype sur lequel des tests ont été effectués. / XML projection is one of the main adopted optimization techniques for reducing memory consumption in XQuery in-memory engines. The main idea behind this technique is quite simple: given a query Q over an XML document D, instead of evaluating Q on D, the query Q is evaluated on a smaller document D' obtained from D by pruning out, at loading-time, parts of D that are unrelevant for Q. The actual queried document D' is a projection of the original one, and is often much smaller than D due to the fact that queries tend to be quite selective in general.While projection techniques have been extensively investigated for XML querying, we are not aware of applications to XML updating.This Thesis investigates application of a projection based optimization mechanism for XQuery Update Facility expressions in the presence of a schema. The current work includes study of the method and a formal development of Merge algorithm as well as experiments testifying its effectiveness.

Les technologies de projection et de diffusion des oeuvres cinématographiques ont la réputation d'être des facteurs d'importance négligeable. Or, à l'inverse, elles jouent un rôle fondamental dans leur diffusion et donc leur réception. Par ailleurs, ces technologies, bien que leurs grands principes fondateurs n'aient pas changé depuis près d'un siècle, sont au coeur d'un processus d'évolution perpétuelle. Ce processus permanent aura, lui aussi, un impact sur la manière dont des oeuvres, tournées à l'aide d'équipements aujourd'hui devenus obsolètes, vont se transmettre de génération en génération, par des processus de recopie et de duplication complexes, et dont les conséquences esthétiques et philologiques pour les films restent mal connues. Cette thèse a pour objectif d'étudier, dans une démarche archéologique, les modalités et les processus de cette double évolution à travers les traces que lèguent au présent oeuvres et contextes de diffusion disparus. Ce sont autant de « prophéties », selon le mot de Walter Benjamin, qui feront l'objet de réinterprétations et de réappropriations plus ou moins complexes par les générations suivantes, lesquelles lègueront à leur tour à la postérité des traces de leur propre passage. Cela engendre un complexe processus perpétuel de sédimentation, encore aujourd'hui mal connu, qui constitue le principal objet d'étude de cette thèse. / The technologies involved in theatrical projection and the watching of movies have the reputation to be of neglible importance. On the contrary, they have an impact that is at the core of movie reception processes. Even though their basic principles have barely changed in almost a century, those technolgies are involved in a perpetual evolution process. It wil, too, have an impact as to how films shot using equipment now obsolete will require complex duplication and printing operations to ensure they keep being showed. The aesthetical, ethical and philological consequences of these operations are still partly unknown. So, this thesis aims to study, in an archeological way, the said evolution processes and their different consequences, focusing especially on the evidence obsolete and forgotten films or technologies bequeathed to us. In other words, this thesis studies the « prophecies », of the past, as Walter Benjamin put it, prophecies that will be subject to subtle and complex recycling by the next generations. Those will, in turn, hand down the mix they made to posterity, adding evidence of their own existence. That infinite sedimentation mechansim remains scarcely understood This thesis is meant as a contribution on this matter.

Le sujet de recherche de cette thèse est consacrée à l'étude du comportement à une haute température de revêtements nanostructurés à base de zircone, lequel comprend: la caractérisation des matières premières, la fabrication et caractérisation des propriétés des dépôts et finalement le plus important du travail a été son comportement à une haute température, surtout dans des ambients agressifs. Trois types de techniques de projection thermique ont été utilisés pour élaborer les dépôts: flamme (FS), plasma atmosphérique en utilisant comme matière première des poudres (APS) et suspensions (SPS). Trois types de substrats ont été utilisés et caractérisés pour la fabrication des revêtements: un acier à faible carbone (AISI / SAE12L15), acier inoxydable 304L et superalliage Inconel 718. Une couche de liaison de Ni-Al-Mo a été utilisée pour la projection thermique pour flamme et une couche de liaison de NiCrAlCo-Y2O3 pour la technique de APS et SPS. Les revêtements ont été caractérisés pour analyser sa morphologie de la section transversale, la surface, la composition élémentaire des zones d'intérêt, des phases, l'épaisseur, la porosité, la microdureté, groupes vibratoires, la résistance à la corrosion et à l'usure. En addition, le plus important était caractériser les performances à haute température des dépôts par des tests comme le choc thermique, l'oxydation isothermique et la corrosion à chaud avec des sels. Pour analyser le comportement des revêtements après avoir été soumis à ces essais, une étude de la morphologie de la surface et section transversal, la composition élémentaire et l'analyse des phases dans les régions d'intérêt ont également été effectuées. / The research topic of this thesis is devoted on the study of the behavior of nanostructured coatings based on zirconia, which extends from the characterization of raw materials through manufacturing, characterization of the properties of the coatings and then end up in the study of their behavior at high temperature, especially in strong environments to make them comparable. Three kinds of techniques were used for manufacturing the coatings: flame spraying (FS), atmospheric plasma spraying (APS) and suspensions plasma spraying (SPS).Three types of substrates were used and characterized for manufacturing the coatings: a low carbon steel (AISI/SAE12L15), stainless steel 304L and superalloy Inconel 718. A surface treatment of blasting with corundum was applied to all substrates in order to generate a noticeable roughness (> 5 µm), then apply a bond coat of Ni-Al-Mo for the technique FS and a bond coat of NiCrAlCo-Y2O3 for the technique APS and SPS. The coatings were characterized to know and correlate the morphology of the cross section and surface, elemental composition of the zones of interest, phases, thickness, porosity, microhardness, vibrational groups, corrosion resistance and wear resistance. Additionally, the most important was to characterize the high temperature performance of the coating by tests as thermal shock, isothermal oxidation and hot corrosion with salts. For knowing the behavior of the coatings after being subjected to these tests, a study of the morphology of the surface and cross-section, elemental composition and phases analysis in the regions of interest have also been carried out.