La figure des « pionniers » et des « pionnières » est devenue un référent culturel identitaire fondamental dans le développement de la mémoire collective québécoise. Nous montrons que ces objets culturels s’intègrent et participent à la représentation identitaire imaginée et conçue à l’intérieur d’un discours visant à affirmer une identité fondée en bonne partie sur l’histoire des Canadiens issus de l’immigration française du XVIIe siècle. La conjoncture politique du XIXe siècle favorise l’émergence d’un récit patriotique et d’un discours nationaliste conservateur, tissés par certains auteurs et appuyés par les élites politiques et les membres du clergé. Ces discours ont contribué à construire la nation canadienne et à l’inscrire dans un passé lointain et glorieux - dans l’imaginaire des « civilisations ». Dans cette perspective, l’objet culturel « pionnier » et l’objet culturel « filles du roi » sont mobilisés avec force dans la construction du passé magnifié de la nation canadienne. Nous nous intéresserons donc à la construction de l’image de ces deux figures pionnières dans les récits sur les origines nationales, ainsi qu’à leur utilisation dans le développement d’un sentiment identitaire canadien-français. / The “ pioneer ” figure has become a fundamental cultural identity referent in the development of Québec folk memory. We show that these cultural objects are integrated and take part in imagined identity representation, devised from within a discourse seeking to establish an identity based in large part on the history of Canadians descending from 17th century French immigrants. The political climate of the 19th century favoured the emergence of a patriotic account and a nationalistic conservative discourse, formulated by certain authors and approved by the political elites and clergymen. This discourse contributed to building the Canadian nation and inserting it in a distant and glorious past of “ imaginary civilizations ”. In this perspective, the construction of a magnified past of the Canadian nation relied heavily on the cultural objects “ pioneer ” and “ King’s Daughters ”. We explore these two pioneer figures’ changing image in accounts of national origins, and their use in developing a French Canadian sense of identity.

Le Siam - l'actuelle Thaïlande - est le produit d'un métissage, encore dynamique de nos jours, qu'il s'agisse de son peuplement, de sa culture ou de sa littérature. L'influence occidentale, apparue avec les Européens au début du XVIième siècle, s'est accélérée au XIXième, quand ses rois se sont préparés à faire face aux appétits coloniaux français et britannique. Le roi Vajiravudh (1910-1925), éduqué en Grande-Bretagne, a tenté de faire connaître à ses compatriotes le théâtre à l'occidentale, d'abord par des traductions d'œuvres françaises et anglaises, puis par des adaptations et des œuvres originales. Contrairement à ce qui est généralement admis, son action ne représente pas une rupture dans l'histoire littéraire du Siam : il se place dans une continuité littéraire ininterrompue et n'a jamais rejeté les thèmes anciens. Ses pièces de théâtre ont surtout apporté des techniques dramatiques et scénographiques, dont le développement s'est poursuivi tout au long du siècle passé. Plus que l'acteur d'une révolution dans la dramaturgie siamoise, il est le marqueur de son évolution continue depuis des siècles.

Background: In 2003, the National Commissioner of the South African Police Service gave instructions that all the new student constables should undergo a personnel capacity-building programme as part of their basic training. This led to the development of the Self-Management Programme by Police Social Work Services. This programme IS, since July 2004, an integral part of the empowerment of more than 8000 recruits annually. A comprehensive study into the short and long-term effects of the programme on recruits, as well as its overall return on investment (ROI), was started in 2004. In this document, only the results that were achieved with the measurement of the programme's decision-making and purpose-in-life components will, however, be covered. Objectives: The study had a twofold purpose. The first was to measure the short and long-term effect of the Financial Management, Planning of Goals, Self-knowledge, Problem-solving and HIV/AIDS Awareness modules on recruit's knowledge, attitude and behaviour. It, secondly, endeavoured to measure the programme's return on investment coefficient. Method: The study utilised an experimental research design, as well as focus groups and triangulation. It involved an average of 400 experimental group respondents, 120 control group members, 12 focus group participants and 14 presenters per module. A total of 23 questionnaires and a focus group schedule was designed and utilised in the generation of data. Results: All five modules had a practical significant effect on the respondents' knowledge, attitude and behaviour and improved their personal and professional functioning considerably. The "decision-making" and "purpose-in-life" components, as well as the programme as a whole, also produced a very high return on investment. It, therefore, implies that the Self-Management Programme should be seen as both a very effective capacity-building tool and a financial asset for the South African Police Service. / Thesis (Ph.D. (MW))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

Background: The success achieved with the South-African Police Service’s generic Personnel Capacity-Building Programmes contributed to a 2003 decision by the National Commissioner that a similar type of intervention should be included in the basic training of SAPS recruits. This led to the development of the Self-Management Programme. This programme is, since July 2004, an integral part of the empowerment of more than 8000 recruits annually and is presented on a bi-annual basis. A comprehensive study into the programme’s short-term and long-term effect and return on investment (ROI) was launched in 2004. This thesis will report on the results achieved with the measurement of the programme’s human relation and health maintenance components. Objectives: The primary aim of the study was to determine the effect of the Self-Management Programme’s human relations and health maintenance modules on the knowledge, attitude and behaviour of SAPS recruits, as well as the programme’s return on investment coefficient. Method: The study utilised an experimental research design, as well as focus groups and triangulation. It involved an average of 520 recruits (400 for the experimental groups and 120 for the control groups) per module. This was supplemented by qualitative research in which 91 recruits participated in various focus groups. The modules and programme was also subjected to a structured and comprehensive return on investment analysis. Results: Through the triangulation of measurements it was ascertained that the human relations and health maintenance modules had a practical significant effect on the recruits’ knowledge, attitude and behaviour and empowered them on both a personal and a professional level. The ROI analysis also showed that the programme was of considerable financial benefit to the SAPS and should remain as an integral part of all new recruits’ training in the future. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Social Work))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

Background: The success achieved with the South-African Police Service’s generic Personnel Capacity-Building Programmes contributed to a 2003 decision by the National Commissioner that a similar type of intervention should be included in the basic training of SAPS recruits. This led to the development of the Self-Management Programme. This programme is, since July 2004, an integral part of the empowerment of more than 8000 recruits annually and is presented on a bi-annual basis. A comprehensive study into the programme’s short-term and long-term effect and return on investment (ROI) was launched in 2004. This thesis will report on the results achieved with the measurement of the programme’s human relation and health maintenance components. Objectives: The primary aim of the study was to determine the effect of the Self-Management Programme’s human relations and health maintenance modules on the knowledge, attitude and behaviour of SAPS recruits, as well as the programme’s return on investment coefficient. Method: The study utilised an experimental research design, as well as focus groups and triangulation. It involved an average of 520 recruits (400 for the experimental groups and 120 for the control groups) per module. This was supplemented by qualitative research in which 91 recruits participated in various focus groups. The modules and programme was also subjected to a structured and comprehensive return on investment analysis. Results: Through the triangulation of measurements it was ascertained that the human relations and health maintenance modules had a practical significant effect on the recruits’ knowledge, attitude and behaviour and empowered them on both a personal and a professional level. The ROI analysis also showed that the programme was of considerable financial benefit to the SAPS and should remain as an integral part of all new recruits’ training in the future. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Social Work))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.

This thesis addresses authenticity and integrity of medical images using watermarking. Hospital Information Systems (HIS), Radiology Information Systems (RIS) and Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (P ACS) now form the information infrastructure for today's healthcare as these provide new ways to store, access and distribute medical data that also involve some security risk. Watermarking can be seen as an additional tool for security measures. As the medical tradition is very strict with the quality of biomedical images, the watermarking method must be reversible or if not, region of Interest (ROI) needs to be defined and left intact. Watermarking should also serve as an integrity control and should be able to authenticate the medical image. Three watermarking techniques were proposed. First, Strict Authentication Watermarking (SAW) embeds the digital signature of the image in the ROI and the image can be reverted back to its original value bit by bit if required. Second, Strict Authentication Watermarking with JPEG Compression (SAW-JPEG) uses the same principal as SAW, but is able to survive some degree of JPEG compression. Third, Authentication Watermarking with Tamper Detection and Recovery (AW-TDR) is able to localise tampering, whilst simultaneously reconstructing the original image.

Importance prioritised coding is a principle aimed at improving the interpretability (or image content recognition) versus bit-rate performance of image coding systems. This can be achieved by (1) detecting and tracking image content or regions of interest (ROI) that are crucial to the interpretation of an image, and (2)compressing them in such a manner that enables ROIs to be encoded with higher fidelity and prioritised for dissemination or transmission. Traditional image coding systems prioritise image data according to an objective measure of distortion and this measure does not correlate well with image quality or interpretability. Importance prioritised coding, on the other hand, aims to prioritise image contents according to an 'importance map', which provides a means for modelling and quantifying the relative importance of parts of an image. In such a coding scheme the importance in parts of an image containing ROIs would be higher than other parts of the image. The encoding and prioritisation of ROIs means that the interpretability in these regions would be improved at low bit-rates. An importance prioritised image coder incorporated within the JPEG 2000 international standard for image coding, called IMP-J2K, is proposed to encode and prioritise ROIs according to an 'importance map'. The map can be automatically generated using image processing algorithms that result in a limited number of ROIs, or manually constructed by hand-marking OIs using a priori knowledge. The proposed importance prioritised coder coder provides a user of the encoder with great flexibility in defining single or multiple ROIs with arbitrary degrees of importance and prioritising them using IMP-J2K. Furthermore, IMP-J2K codestreams can be reconstructed by generic JPEG 2000 decoders, which is important for interoperability between imaging systems and processes. The interpretability performance of IMP-J2K was quantitatively assessed using the subjective National Imagery Interpretability Rating Scale (NIIRS). The effect of importance prioritisation on image interpretability was investigated, and a methodology to relate the NIIRS ratings, ROI importance scores and bit-rates was proposed to facilitate NIIRS specifications for importance prioritised coding. In addition, a technique is proposed to construct an importance map by allowing a user of the encoder to use gaze patterns to automatically determine and assign importance to fixated regions (or ROIs) in an image. The importance map can be used by IMP-J2K to bias the encoding of the image to these ROIs, and subsequently to allow a user at the receiver to reconstruct the image as desired by the user of the encoder. Ultimately, with the advancement of automated importance mapping techniques that can reliably predict regions of visual attention, IMP-J2K may play a significant role in matching an image coding scheme to the human visual system.

No description available.

Au premier millénaire, Babylone est la plus grande ville de Mésopotamie, et est surtout considérée, par les Babyloniens et dans l' historiographie contemporaine, comme la ville des dieux et une ville sacrée de première importance. Face à cette prédominance du fait religieux, l' un des enjeux de ce travail est de s' interroger sur la place laissée au roi temporel, et plus généralement au pouvoir politique, dans la ville de Babylone. Cette thèse s'articule en trois points : comment le roi temporel s' inscrit- il dans la ville du souverain éternel, cité à la topographie sacralisée? En quoi Babylone est-elle au fondement d' une royauté sacralisée ? Et enfin, quelles sont les manifestations concrètes du pouvoir royal temporel dans Babylone ? Fondée sur l' étude d'inscriptions royales commémoratives, de mythes et de documents de la pratique, cette étude permet, ainsi, de revoir et de réapprécier le rôle de Babylone en tant que capitale politique, et tente de parvenir à un rééquilibrage du rôle du souverain temporel à l' intérieur de la ville de Marduk. / In the first millennium BC, Babylon is the bigest city of Mesopotamia. lt is mostly regarded by the Babylonians and by contemporary historiography as the city of the gods, and as the most important sacred city. Facing this predominance of religion, one of the challenges of this work is to question the place left to the temporal king, and more generally, to political power in the city of BabyIon. This dissertation is divided into three points : how the temporal king fit into thecity of the eternal ruIer, city with sacred topography ? ln what BabyIon is on the basis of a sacred kingship ? And finally, what are the concrete manifestations of the temporal royal power in Babylon ? Based on the study of commemorative royal inscriptions, myths and documents issued from private and institutional archives, the aim of this study is to review and reassess the role of BabyIon as political capital, and attempts to achieve a rebalancing of the role of the temporalsovereign within the city of Marduk.

L’objet de cette thèse est de faire connaître un poème inédit du XIVe siècle, conservé à la bibliothèque du Château de Chantilly sous la cote 1477.Nous proposons une édition annotée de ce texte et complétée par différents glossaires et index qui permettent de le situer dans l’histoire littéraire du Moyen Âge.Dans un deuxième volet, nous avons cherché à apporter des réponses sur l’histoire du manuscrit, son auteur, les dédicataires à qui il était destiné. Nous avons également tenté de restituer le contexte culturel, historique et religieux du Livre royal ainsi que les intentions de son auteur. La dédicace indique qu’il était destiné à Philippe VI de Valois, premier roi de la dynastie des Valois et sa famille ; cette dédicace permet de dater l’ouvrage de 1345-1347. Il est donc royal par sa destination et sa qualité artistique ; il peut s’apparenter à un Miroir aux princes ou plutôt aux princesses car il semble destiné en priorité à un public féminin pour lequel il est rédigé en français. Il reflète les vicissitudes du temps puisqu’il fut composé lors de la première phase de la guerre de Cent Ans qui opposa le roi à Edouard III souverain anglais. Dans le domaine politique, le Livre royal apparaît comme l’œuvre d’un publiciste du pouvoir en place. Il témoigne également des préoccupations morales et religieuses de son auteur, soucieux de contribuer à la formation des élites et, à ce titre, il est un exemple de vulgarisation religieuse. Le Livre royal qui puise dans des sources nombreuses et variées se présente donc aussi bien comme un témoin de la circulation des textes et de leur réception dans le milieu des lettrés que le témoin d’une culture, celle d’un clerc du XIVe s. / The purpose of this thesis is to present an original poem of the fouteenth century, preserved in the library of the Château de Chantilly in classification mark 1477.We therefore propose an annotated edition of the text and supplemented by various glossaries and indexes that situate him in the literary history of the Middle Ages.In a second phase, we sought to provide answers about the history of the manuscript, the author, the didicatee in which it was intended. We also attempted to restore the cultural, historical and religious context of the Royal Book and the intentions of its author. The dedication says it was intented to Philippe VI, the first king of the dynasty of Valois and his family ; this dedication makes it possible to date the book from 1345 to 1347. The manuscript is a royal destination and its artistic quality ; it can be likened to a mirror for princes or princesses rather because it seems aimed primarily at a female audience for which it is written in French. Il reflects the vicissitudes of time since it was composed in the first phase of the Hundred Years War that pitted the king Edward III English sovereign. In politics, the Royal Book appears as the work of a publicist in power. Il also reflects the moral and religious concerns of its author, anxious to help train the elite and as such, it is also an example of religious outreach. The Royal Book that draws from many diverse sources presents itself both as a witness to circulation of texts and their reception in the middle of the scholars that the witness of a culture, that of a clerk of the fourteenth century.