Ce mémoire offre une lecture de trois œuvres du poète Guillevic : Terraqué, Sphère et Paroi. Grâce à une approche qui allie analyses énonciatives, pragmatiques et thématiques nous tentons de mettre en lumière le rôle fondamental que joue la paroi dans l’émergence du sujet poétique, ainsi que dans la poétique de l’auteur. Nous postulons que la paroi est au cœur de la poétique de Guillevic et qu’elle module en grande partie l’expérience que le sujet fait du réel. La paroi est dans toutes les frontières – l’espace, le temps et le soi face à soi-même – et c’est paradoxalement grâce à un « refus de dire / [c]reusé dans le oui » , que l’écriture sur l’invisible et intangible mur devient possible et permet au poète de (se) «vivre en poésie» . / This thesis is about three works from the french poet Eugène Guillevic : Terraqué, Sphère, Paroi. Through an approach that combines enunciative, pragmatic and thematic analyzes, this paper will attempt to highlight the fundamental role played by the wall (paroi) in the emergence of the poetic subject, as well as in the poetics of the author. The postulation is that the wall is at the heart of Guillevic’s poetics and that it largely modulates the experience that the subject makes of reality. The wall is in every boundary – space, time and self to oneself – and it is, paradoxically, thanks to this “refusal that says yes” that writing on the invisible and intangible wall becomes possible and allows the poet to “live in poetry”.

Candida albicans est une levure saprophyte présente dans la flore digestive humaine. Elle peut néanmoins devenir pathogène chez des individus immunodéficients et causer des infections sévères associées à de forts taux de mortalité. La paroi de C. albicans, en contact avec l’hôte, contient des β-1,2 oligomannosides (β-Man) liés à de multiples molécules pariétales telles que le phospholipomannane (PLM) ou le phosphopeptidomannane (PPM). Ces β-Man sont présents dans les espèces les plus pathogènes de Candida (principalement C. albicans, mais également C. glabrata et C. tropicalis) et sont considérés comme des facteurs de virulence. L’identification d’une famille de 9 gènes codant pour des β-mannosyltransférases (CaBmt) a permis une meilleure compréhension du rôle de 6 de ces enzymes. Des études de génétique inverse ont montré que la β-1,2-mannosylation du PPM était assurée par les enzymes CaBmt1 à 4, tandis que CaBmt5 et 6 étaient impliquées dans celle du PLM. Une première enzyme responsable de l’initiation de la β-mannosylation du PPM, CaBmt1, a donc été caractérisée dans l’équipe grâce à l’étude de l’activité d’une forme recombinante soluble.L’objectif de cette thèse est de caractériser l’activité et la structure de CaBmt3, l’enzyme qui initie la polymérisation des β-Man suite à l’action de CaBmt1, pour mieux comprendre le mécanisme catalytique des β-1,2-mannosyltransférases. Ainsi, nous avons précisément identifié le substrat accepteur de CaBmt3 et défini ses paramètres enzymatiques. Par une approche combinant la diffusion des rayons X aux petits angles (SAXS), la modélisation moléculaire in silico et la mutagenèse dirigée de protéines recombinantes, nous proposons un modèle structural et catalytique de CaBmt3 qui pourrait être étendu à l’ensemble de la famille. En parallèle, nous avons montré que des iminosucres mono- et multivalents étaient capables de moduler l’activité des β-mannosyltransférases. Enfin, nous avons amorcé le travail sur une dernière enzyme, CaBmt4, qui est susceptible de polymériser le β-Man initié par CaBmt1 et CaBmt3. Pour conclure, ces travaux offrent une meilleure compréhension de la β-mannosylation du PPM de C. albicans. Ces études fonctionnelles, couplées aux avancées structurales, pourraient conduire à l’élaboration d’inhibiteurs de CaBmt et développer ainsi de nouvelles approches thérapeutiques contre les candidoses invasives. / Candida albicans is a saprophytic yeast of human gastro-intestinal tract. It can however become pathogenic in immunocompromised individuals and cause severe infections associated with high mortality rates. The cell wall of C. albicans, in contact with the host, contains β-1,2 oligomannosides (β-Man) linked to several parietal molecules such as phospholipomannan (PLM) and phosphopeptidomannan (PPM). These β-Man are found in the most pathogenic Candida species (primarily C. albicans, but also in non-albicans species such as C. glabrata and C. tropicalis) and are considered as virulence factors. The identification of a family of 9 genes coding for β-mannosyltransferases (CaBmt) led to a better understanding of the role of 6 of these enzymes. Reverse genetics studies showed that CaBmt1-4 were responsible for the β-1,2-mannosylation of PPM, whereas CaBmt5-6 were involved in the β-1,2-mannosylation of PLM. A first enzyme responsible for the initiation of the PPM’s β-mannosylation, CaBmt1, was characterized in the lab by studying the activity of its recombinant soluble form.The goal of this thesis is to characterize both activity and structure of CaBmt3, the enzyme initiating β-Man polymerization following CaBmt1’s activity, in order to further the understanding of β-1,2-mannosyltransferases catalytic mechanism. Thus, we precisely identified CaBmt3 acceptor substrate and characterized its enzymatic parameters. Combining small angle X-ray diffraction (SAXS), in silico molecular modelization and site-directed mutagenesis of recombinant proteins, we propose a structural and catalytic model of CaBmt3 which could be extended to the whole family. In parallel, we showed that mono- and multivalent iminosugars were able to modulate β-mannosyltransferases activity. Finally, we started to work on one last enzyme, CaBmt4, which could potentially polymerize the β-Man initiated by CaBmt1 and CaBmt3.In conclusion, the synthesis of these investigations offers a better understanding of the β-mannosylation processes occurring on the PPM of C. albicans. Functional studies, in conjunction with structural advances could ultimately lead to the development of CaBmt inhibitors in order to design new therapeutic approaches for the management of invasive candidiasis.

La présente thèse se concentre tout d'abord à mettre en place des expérimentations de compaction dynamique de poudres.Un montage expérimentale est conçu, testé puis validé. Le but de ce dernier est de générer des ondes de compaction unidimensionnelles et de pouvoir observer le milieu granulaire à l'échelle des grains. Deux types de poudres sont considérés : une poudre de polypropylène et une poudre d'explosif (RDX).Pour cela, des caméras ultra-rapides (50 000 images/s) sont utilisée pour enregistrer les essais. Une technique de corrélation d'image est utilisée pour remonter aux champs de déplacement et de vitesse des grains.Un modèle de compaction multiphasique est implémenté. Les phénomènes de friction grain/paroi sont ajoutés au modèle suite aux observation expérimentale. Une partie du travail a été consacré à l'amélioration de l'équation d'état granulaire et à sa détermination expérimentale.Les résultats numériques sont en bon accord avec les expérimentations, tant que le montage expérimental ne se déforme pas sous l'effet de la pression des grains.De premières expérimentations avec les poudres d'explosifs ont été réalisées. Le montage expérimental nécessite encore certaines améliorations mais il a prouvé son utilité dans l'étude de la transition combustion-déflagration-détonation. / The first part of the present PhD focuses on the conception and the validation of an experimental set up. The aim of the experiments is to generate one-dimensional compaction waves and to observe the media at the grains scale. Two type of powder are used : polypropylene powder and an explosive powder (RDX).The experimental apparatus uses ultra-fast cameras (50 000 images/s) to record the tests. Image correlation is used to compute the displacement and velocity fields.A multiphasic compaction model is then coded. Grain/wall friction is added as the experimental work underlined its importance. Additional work has been provided concerning the granular equation of state and its experimental determination.Numerical results are in good agreement with the experimenations, as long as the experimental set up is not deformed because of the grains' pressure.A few experiments have been done with explosive powders. The experimental set up still needs some improvement but it proved its usefullness for deflagration to detonation studies.

The aim of this thesis is to create a business plan for an existing company Design Bath, which operates as a wholesale and exclusive distributor of company PORCELANOSA Grupo on the Czech market of ceramic tiles. The plan is focused on building and extending current distribution network of PORCELANOSA Grupo products and should serve as a background for future decision making process and development of long-term strategy of company Design Bath. On the basis of this business plan we should be able to evaluate its feasibility. The theoretical part of this thesis contains basic introduction into business plans from theoretical point of view and market research methodology. The practical part includes the description of international and Czech market of ceramic tiles in order to understand the business opportunity. Description of competition, market research, proposal of suitable forms of distribution and financial plan are all included in the practical part in the way that the chapters logically follow each other. Financial plan revealed that the business plan is viable. Potential risks and conditions of successful realization complete the last part of the thesis.

De tous les matériaux multiferroïques, BiFeO3 est celui qui est le plus étudié. C’est un ferroélectrique, antiferromagnétique dont les températures de transition sont bien au-dessus de la température ambiante. De plus, le couplage magnétoélectrique entre ces deux paramètres d’ordre a été observé aussi bien dans les cristaux que dans les couches minces. BiFeO3 possède également la plus grande polarisation ferroélectrique jamais mesurée, 100µC/cm². De gros efforts sont fournis pour comprendre et exploiter les propriétés physiques de ce matériau. Dans ce but, il est important de pouvoir contrôler sa structure en domaines afin d’étudier les phénomènes émergeant aux parois de ces domaines. C’est l’objectif de cette thèse : étudier quelques une des propriétés de BiFeO3, comme la photoélectricité et le magnétisme, tout en prêtant en parallèle une attention particulière à la caractérisation de ces propriétés, dans un domaine et dans une paroi, avec des techniques originales telles que la microscopie de photocourants à balayage (MPB) et le rayonnement synchrotron ou les champs magnétiques intenses. Les images obtenues par MPB, révèlent qu’un champ dépolarisant proche d’une paroi de domaine à 180° peut améliorer de manière significative le rendement des effets photoélectriques : les parois de domaines peuvent être générées et positionnées dans le but de contrôler localement le rendement de l’effet photoélectrique. De plus, l’imagerie de la figure de diffraction de surface d’un réseau de parois de domaines dans des couches minces, par diffusion magnétique résonante de rayons X, permet de montrer que les parois de domaines entraînent la formation de structures magnétiques particulières qui pourraient donner lieu à une aimantation. / Among all multiferroics, BiFeO3 is a material of choice because its two ordering temperatures are well above 300K. It is a ferroelectric antiferromagnet, and magnetoelectric coupling has been demonstrated in bulk and in thin films. Remarkably, BiFeO3 has the largest polarization of all known ferroelectrics (100µC/cm²). A huge research effort is carried out worldwide to understand and exploit the physical properties of this material which requires to design and tailor BiFeO3 on many scales. In this sense, developing methods and tools to control the domain structure is essential to explore new emergent phenomena arising at domain walls. This is the aim of the present PhD work. Some of the original properties of BiFeO3 have been investigated including its photoelectric and magnetic properties. A particular attention is given to characterize in a parallel fashion bulk properties and domain walls properties, using original techniques of characterization such as Scanning Photocurrent Microscopy (SPCM), scattering synchrotron facilities or high field pulses. SPCM mapping reveals that depolarizing fields in the vicinity of a 180° domain wall can significantly improve the photovoltaic efficiency. Thus domain walls can be generated and precisely positioned in order to tailor the local photovoltaic efficiency. Moreover, X-ray resonant magnetic scattering on thin films with periodic domain structure shows that domain walls generate specific magnetic structures with possible uncompensated magnetization.

This thesis investigates turbulent wall-bounded flows using the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method. The first part focuses on the SPH method itself in the context of the Navier-Stokes equations with a special emphasis on wall boundary conditions. After discussing classical wall boundary conditions a detailed introduction to unified semi-analytical wall boundary conditions is given where the key parameter is a renormalization factor that accounts for the truncated kernel support in wall-bounded flows. In the following chapter it is shown that these boundary conditions fulfill energy conservation only approximately. This leads to numerical noise which, interpreted as form of Brownian motion, is treated using an additional volume diffusion term in the continuity equation where it is shown to be equivalent to an approximate Riemann solver. Two extensions to the boundary conditions are presented dealing with variable driving forces and a generalization to Robin type and arbitrary-order interpolation. Two modifications for freesurface flows are then presented, one for the volume diffusion term and the other for the algorithm that imposes Robin boundary conditions. The variable driving force is validated using a Poiseuille flow and the results indicate an error which is five orders of magnitude smaller than with the previous formulation. Discretising the wave equation with Robin boundary conditions proves that these are correctly imposed and that increasing the order of the interpolation decreases the error. The two modifications for flows under the influence of external forces significantly reduce the error at the free-surface. Finally, a dam break over a wedge demonstrates the capabilities of all the proposed modifications. With the aim of simulating turbulent flows in channels, the thesis moves on to extending the unified semi-analytical wall-boundary conditions to three dimensions. The thesis first presents the consistent computation of the vertex particle mass. Then, the computation of the kernel renormalization factor is considered, which in 3-D consists of solving an integral over a two dimensional manifold where the smoothing kernel intersects the boundary. Using a domain decomposition algorithm special integration areas are obtained for which this integral can be solved for the 5 th -order Wendland kernel. This algorithm is successfully applied to several validation cases including a dam break with an obstacle which show a significant improvement compared to other approximative methods and boundary conditions. The second part of this thesis investigates turbulent flows, in particular turbulent channel flow. This test case is introduced in detail showing both the physical properties as well as established numerical methods such as direct numerical simulation (DNS) and large eddy simulation (LES). In the penultimate chapter several SPH simulations of the turbulent channel flow are shown. The first section deals with a quasi DNS of the minimal-flow unit, a channel flow with a minimal domain size to sustain turbulent flow structures. The Eulerian statistics are compared to literature and show good agreement except for some wall-normal quantities. Furthermore, preliminary Lagrangian statistics are shown and compared to results obtained from a mesh-based DNS. The final simulation shows a LES of a full-sized channel at Reynolds number Re τ = 1000. The Eulerian statistics are compared to literature and the discrepancies found are explained using simulations of the Taylor-Green vortex, indicating that the momentum is not transferred appropriately due to an unresolved velocity-pressure-gradient tensor.

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Natural disasters usually occur without any warning. They can leave trail of destruction and cause much tragedy. We are at a time when we witness fast technological advances; hence, we need to apply the force of scientific advancements to decrease economic losses and the number of human deaths. Tsunami is one of the extreme environmental events that leaves nothing but a path of death and destruction, and as a result, it is essential to understand this phenomenon and identify the mitigation strategies. Several mitigation strategies have been proposed so far; however, more investigations are still required to achieve an acceptable solution. Researchers around the world are studying different aspects of this phenomenon. One of the proposed solutions that has received much attention is designing tsunami-resistant structures which can withstand the force of a tsunami bore. Various studies have been done so far to understand the base shear force of tsunami bore on structures. The focus of this thesis is to improve and better understand the characteristics of the tsunami base shear forces on structures. Hence, in this thesis, two numerical studies were proposed and performed with the main goal of estimating the total tsunami forces on structure under two different conditions. Those include structures with various cross sections, as well as positioning a mitigation wall at an appropriate location relative to the structure. The first study focused on developing a numerical model to study the relationship between tsunami forces and the geometry of the structure. The main goal of this study was to define a numerical model capable of simulating this case precisely. To ensure the accuracy of the model, a comparison was carried out between the results of the numerical model and experimental test performed at the NRC-CHC (National Research Council- Canadian Hydraulics Center) laboratory in Ottawa, Canada and Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL), Belgium, which revealed a very good agreement between the results of the experimental test and numerical model. Further, the validated model was applied to investigate the tsunami force on structures with various cross sections. The second study focus was on developing a numerical model for understanding the role of mitigation wall (a novel idea proposed as a mitigation strategy by the second author of technical paper 2) on reducing the exerted force of tsunami on structures. After developing various models and applying several turbulence models, a valuable result was obtained which demonstrated that a Large Eddy Simulation (LES) model seems to be an excellent approach for predicting the tsunami forces on the structure with a mitigation wall in the direction of the flow. The results of this study will be used to better estimate the tsunami forces exerted on coastal structures which will light the path to the main goal of designing tsunami resistant-structures.

Damage observed after previous earthquakes indicates that a large number of existing buildings are vulnerable to seismic hazard. This research intends to assess seismic vulnerability of regular and irregular shear wall buildings in Canada, having different heights and different levels of seismic design and detailing. As seismic hazard is a probabilistic event, a probabilistic methodology has been adopted to assess the seismic vulnerability of the shear wall buildings. The proposed research encompasses a comprehensive fragility analysis for seismic vulnerability of shear wall buildings in Canada. The first phase of the investigation involves shear wall buildings with different heights (hence different structural periods), designed based on the 2010 National Building Code of Canada. The second phase involves shear wall buildings designed prior to 1975, representing pre-modern seismic code era. The third phase involves the evaluation of pre-1975 shear wall buildings with irregularities. 3-Dimensional simulations of the buildings were constructed by defining nonlinear modelling for shear wall and frame elements. These models were subjected to dynamic time history analyses conducted using Perform 3D software. Two sets of twenty earthquake records, compatible with western and eastern Canadian seismicity, were selected for this purpose. Spectral acceleration and peak ground acceleration were chosen as seismic intensity parameters and the first storey drift was selected as the engineering demand parameter which was further refined for irregular cases. The earthquake records were scaled to capture the structural behaviour under different levels of seismic excitations known as Incremental Dynamic Analysis. The resulting IDA curves were used as the input for seismic fragility analysis. Fragility curves were derived as probabilistic tools to assess seismic vulnerability of the buildings. These curves depict probability of exceeding immediate occupancy, life safety and collapse prevention limit states under different levels of seismic intensity.