Perpetuating African ancestral customs, Mardi Gras Indians in New Orleans avoid the African American identity crises illuminated by the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance. The poetry of Langston Hughes, Claude McKay and Waring Cuney incorporate W.E.B. DuBois’ double-consciousness theory to reveal the identity issues and ancestral alienation plaguing African Americans at the turn of the twentieth-century. In comparison, unique political and social circumstances in New Orleans allowed enslaved Africans to practice their ancestral customs weekly. The preservation of this heritage fostered a black community in New Orleans rich in traditions, pride and self-conviction. The development of Mardi Gras Indian culture and the allusions to Africa in Harlem poetry reveal the power of ancestry to establish identity.

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Les antibiotiques β-lactamines sont parmi les médicaments antimicrobiens les plus anciens et les plus utilisés. L'enzyme bactérienne β-lactamase hydrolyse l'antibiotique β-lactame en cassant la structure de base "anneau β-lactame". Pour identifier les nouvelles β-lactamases, une étude complète a été réalisée dans diverses bases de données biologiques telles que Human Microbiome Project, env_nr et NCBI nr. L'analyse a révélé que les séquences ancestrales putatives et les recherches de profil HMM jouaient un rôle important dans l'identification de la base de données homologue et métagénomique à distance dans l'enzyme β-lactamase existante comme matière noire. Les larges analyses phylogénétiques des β-lactamases existantes et nouvellement identifiées représentent les nouveaux clades dans les arbres. En outre, l'activité d'hydrolyse des antibiotiques β-lactamines de séquences nouvellement identifiées (provenant d'archées et d'humains) a été étudiée en laboratoire, ce qui montre l'activité de la β-lactamase. La deuxième phase de l'étude a été entreprise pour examiner l'évolution fonctionnelle des β-lactamases. Premièrement, des séquences de protéines ß-lactamase 1155 ont été extraites de la base de données ARG-ANNOT et des valeurs CMI la littérature correspondante. Les résultats ont révélé que l'activité fonctionnelle de la β-lactamase évoluait de manière convergente au sein de la classe moléculaire. La troisième phase de cette thèse représente le développement d'une base de données intégrative de β-lactamases. La base de données publique actuelle de β-lactamases a des informations limitées, par conséquence, une base de données intégrative a été développée. / The β-lactam antibiotics are one of the oldest and widely used antimicrobial drugs. The bacterial enzyme β-lactamase hydrolyzes the β-lactam antibiotic by breaking the core structure “β-lactam ring”. To identify the novel β-lactamases a comprehensive investigation was performed in different biological databases such as Human Microbiome Project, env_nr, and NCBI nr. The analysis revealed that putative ancestral sequences and HMM profile searches played a significant role in the identification of remote homologous and uncovered the existing β-lactamase enzyme in the metagenomic database as dark-matter. The comprehensive phylogenetic analyses of extant and newly identified β-lactamase represent the novel clades in the trees. Further, the β-lactam antibiotic hydrolysis activity of newly identified sequences (from archaea and human) was investigated in laboratory, which shows β-lactamase activity.The second phase of the investigation was undertaken to examine the functional evolution of β-lactamases. First, 1155 β-lactamase protein sequences were retrieved from ARG-ANNOT database and MIC values from the corresponding literature. The results revealed that the functional activity of β-lactamase evolved convergently within the molecular class.The third phase of this thesis presents development of an integrative β-lactamase database. The existing public database of β-lactamase has limited information, therefore, an integrative database was developed.

Paiwan（排灣）祖源及遷徙敘事相當豐富與多元，反映出此民族組成的複雜程度與多層面。口傳敘事乃一民族之集體記憶、知識、感官與思想，具有歷史性、文化性之價值。因此，本論文即以Paiwan（排灣）祖源及遷徙口傳敘事為素材，試圖進行起源敘事脈絡、文化面貌以及民族史溯源的分析。 本論文章節安排除緒論與結論外，共分為五章進行探討。第壹章以排灣口傳敘事文學的義界與評述為主，針對口傳敘事文學之定義、歷來研究成果的回顧與評論，並由前人採錄成果來診斷目前口傳敘事的活力。第貳章聚焦於「地」生起源敘事的分析，從Paiwan（排灣）土地思維切入，探索包含石生、竹生、蛇生、壺生、人類再生等母題。另外，也解析階級系統與Vusam（長嗣）思維與起源敘事之關連以及象徵意涵，接著分析其分布區域。第參章以太陽卵生敘事討論為主，針對其文學性質、象徵意涵、Naqemati神權觀念與分佈等進行深度分析。第肆章則進入遷徙敘事文學的探究，從遷徙動因、過程，以及遷徙後的部落社會，理出遷徙階段的模式。另外，進一步探討新王族的誕生對階級文化的影響。第伍章則對於祖源及遷徙說之脈絡進行分析，以及探討其穩固階級制度、維護部落秩序之功能，最後對於歷來Paiwan（排灣）起源史脈絡的論述提出反思，進而提出本文之觀點。 本研究結果發現，祖源其遷徙口傳敘事反映umaq（家）的思維，而且概念也投射至整個社會文化。再來，祖源敘事之形成脈絡是由石生→竹生→太陽卵生、蛇生、壺生→人再生，其象徵與生命起源、農耕社會有關。另外，透過考古資料與本研究成果交相比對，推測出祖源敘事有其對應人群間接證實Paiwan（排灣）起源的多元性。遷徙敘事方面，本文發現Paiwan人遷徙有多種動因，並且其模式可得出「重新出發型」與「持續探索型」兩種。接著，本文也探究出移居地新王族的產生模式出現“創立式”、“封立式”、“協議式”王族等類型。最後，經由多元混生的發現，歸納出Paiwan（排灣）人的起源脈絡，歷經原始遷徙與漂流時期→新文明時期→多元發展時期。 / This thesis is based on the origin and migration of Paiwan ancestors oral narrative material, attempted origin narrative context, cultural landscape, analysis of national history traceable. Chapters arranged in addition to the introduction of this thesis and conclusions, is divided into five chapters explore. The first chapter is to discuss the Paiwan oral narrative literature. The second chapter focuses on the analysis of the origin of terrestrial narrative. The third chapter in the sun Oviparous main narrative discussion. The fourth chapter is to explore narrative literature of migration. The fifth chapter is the analysis of ancestral origin and migration of narrative context. The results of the study found that the source of their ancestral migratory oral narratives reflect Umaq (home) thinking, and the concept is also projected to the whole of the social and cultural. Second, the ancestral origin of the formation of the narrative context: Born from the stone→bamboo→sun→snakes, pot→humans. Its symbol and the origin of life, farming community concerned. In addition, through the archaeological data and the results of this study compare. Found that narrative has its corresponding source ancestral population, and can further confirm the origin is the diversity of the Paiwan. Narrative aspects of migration, we find Paiwan people migrate for many reasons, and "re-start type" and "continue to explore the type" modes. The study also found that emigrated to produce leaders modes are: creation, division, agreement. Finally, through the Amalgamation concept, can find the origin of the context of the Paiwan people through: The original period of migration and drift→The new era of civilization→ Multiple development period.

The study sets to establish trends with regard to the role of the praise singer, the changes with regard to the traditional praise singer's rendition/performance and the material or content of his/her poetry. Thus the study highlights the distinction observed between the praise singer of the past and the present praise singer. The study also shows that the praise singer's performance, in terms of his/her role and content, is in the state of flux. The study also demonstrates that the singer of the past and the present praise singer have the same role and their chants or poetry or songs have the same effect. It also highlights situations where praises are chanted in modern times. These are graduation ceremonies, weddings, political gatherings and traditional ceremonies, for example, the annual rain making ceremonies. These events or occasions are inextricably linked to traditional praises. The study also highlights the fact that traditional praises present the history and heroic deeds of members of the clan to which the beneficiary belongs. They also express the deep feeling of royalty and loyalty. Like in the past they boost morale. / African Languages / M.A. (African Languages)

En bio-informatique, comprendre comment les molécules d’ADN ont évolué au cours du temps reste un problème ouvert etcomplexe. Des algorithmes ont été proposés pour résoudre ce problème, mais ils se limitent soit à l’évolution d’un caractèredonné (par exemple, un nucléotide précis), ou se focalisent a contrario sur de gros génomes nucléaires (plusieurs milliardsde paires de base), ces derniers ayant connus de multiples événements de recombinaison – le problème étant NP completquand on considère l’ensemble de toutes les opérations possibles sur ces séquences, aucune solution n’existe à l’heureactuelle. Dans cette thèse, nous nous attaquons au problème de reconstruction des séquences ADN ancestrales en nousfocalisant sur des chaînes nucléotidiques de taille intermédiaire, et ayant connu assez peu de recombinaison au coursdu temps : les génomes de chloroplastes. Nous montrons qu’à cette échelle le problème de la reconstruction d’ancêtrespeut être résolu, même quand on considère l’ensemble de tous les génomes chloroplastiques complets actuellementdisponibles. Nous nous concentrons plus précisément sur l’ordre et le contenu ancestral en gènes, ainsi que sur lesproblèmes techniques que cette reconstruction soulève dans le cas des chloroplastes. Nous montrons comment obtenirune prédiction des séquences codantes d’une qualité telle qu’elle permette ladite reconstruction, puis comment obtenir unarbre phylogénétique en accord avec le plus grand nombre possible de gènes, sur lesquels nous pouvons ensuite appuyernotre remontée dans le temps – cette dernière étant en cours de finalisation. Ces méthodes, combinant l’utilisation d’outilsdéjà disponibles (dont la qualité a été évaluée) à du calcul haute performance, de l’intelligence artificielle et de la biostatistique,ont été appliquées à une collection de plus de 450 génomes chloroplastiques. / In Bioinformatics, understanding how DNA molecules have evolved over time remains an open and complex problem.Algorithms have been proposed to solve this problem, but they are limited either to the evolution of a given character (forexample, a specific nucleotide), or conversely focus on large nuclear genomes (several billion base pairs ), the latter havingknown multiple recombination events - the problem is NP complete when you consider the set of all possible operationson these sequences, no solution exists at present. In this thesis, we tackle the problem of reconstruction of ancestral DNAsequences by focusing on the nucleotide chains of intermediate size, and have experienced relatively little recombinationover time: chloroplast genomes. We show that at this level the problem of the reconstruction of ancestors can be resolved,even when you consider the set of all complete chloroplast genomes currently available. We focus specifically on the orderand ancestral gene content, as well as the technical problems this raises reconstruction in the case of chloroplasts. Weshow how to obtain a prediction of the coding sequences of a quality such as to allow said reconstruction and how toobtain a phylogenetic tree in agreement with the largest number of genes, on which we can then support our back in time- the latter being finalized. These methods, combining the use of tools already available (the quality of which has beenassessed) in high performance computing, artificial intelligence and bio-statistics were applied to a collection of more than450 chloroplast genomes.

What must we transform in ourselves as white settlers to become open to the possibility of ethical, respectful, authentic relationships with Indigenous peoples and Indigenous lands? Situating this research in Stó:lō Téméxw (Stó:lō lands/world) and in relationships with Stó:lō people, this question has become an effort to understand what it means to be xwelítem and how white settlers might transform xwelítem ways of being towards more ethical ways of being. Xwelítem is a Halq’eméylem concept used by Stó:lō people which translates as the hungry, starving ones, and is often used to refer to ways of being many Stó:lō associate with white settler colonial society, past and present. Drawing on insights and wisdom of Stó:lō and settler mentors I consider three aspects of xwelítem ways of being. First, to be xwelítem is to erase Stó:lō presence, culture and nationhood, colonial history and contemporary colonial realities of Indigenous oppression and dispossession, and settler privilege. Second, being xwelítem means attempting to dominate, control, and repress those who are painted as “inferior” in dominant cultural narratives, it means plugging into racist colonial narratives and stereotypes. Third, being xwelítem is to be hungry and greedy, driven by consumption and lacking respect, reverence and reciprocity for the land. Guided by Indigenous and decolonizing methodologies, critical place inquiry, narrative therapy, and autoethnography, I shape three narratives that speak to each aspect of being xwelítem, looking back towards its roots and forward towards pathways of transformation. I draw on interviews and experiences with Stó:lō and settler mentors, personal narratives, family history, and literature from critical Indigenous studies, anti-colonial theory, settler colonial studies, analytic psychology, and critical race theory. I aim to share what I have learned from rather than about Stó:lō culture, stories, teachings, and practices as these have been shared in relationships and as they have pushed me towards seeing anew myself and my family, communities, histories, and cultures. I have also walked this path as I have become a mom, and the co-alignment of these journeys has meant a focus on my role as a parent in recognizing and intervening with becoming/being xwelítem as it influences my daughter. I specifically center the space of intergenerational parent-child relationships and intimate family experiences as a deep influence on developing white settler subjectivities, and therefore also a relational space of profound transformative potential. I end with a call for settlers to offer our gifts towards the wellbeing of the land and Indigenous peoples through cycles of reciprocity as a basis for ethical relationships. Transforming white settler subjectivities is situated within the broader vision of participating in co-resistance, reparations and restitution, of bringing about justice and harmony, which inherently involves supporting the self-determination and resurgence of Indigenous peoples. / Graduate

La reconstruction et la résurrection moléculaire de protéines ancestrales est au coeur de cette thèse. Alors que les données moléculaires fossiles sont quasi inexistantes, il est possible d'estimer quelles étaient les séquences ancestrales les plus probables le long d'un arbre phylogénétique décrivant les relations de parentés entre séquences actuelles. Avoir accès à ces séquences ancestrales permet alors de tester de nombreuses hypothèses biologiques, de la fonction des protéines ancestrales à l'adaptation des organismes à leur environnement. Cependant, ces inférences probabilistes de séquences ancestrales sont dépendantes de modèles de substitution fournissant les probabilités de changements entre acides aminés. Ces dernières années ont vu le développement de nouveaux modèles de substitutions d'acides aminés, permettant de mieux prendre en compte les phénomènes biologiques agissant sur l'évolution des séquences protéiques. Classiquement, les modèles supposent que le processus évolutif est à la fois le même pour tous les sites d'un alignement protéique et qu'il est resté constant au cours du temps lors de l'évolution des lignées. On parle alors de modèle homogène en temps et en sites. Les modèles récents, dits hétérogènes, ont alors permis de lever ces contraintes en permettant aux sites et/ou aux lignées d'évoluer selon différents processus. Durant cette thèse, de nouveaux modèles hétérogènes en temps et sites ont été développés en Maximum de Vraisemblance. Il a notamment été montré qu'ils permettent d'améliorer considérablement l'ajustement aux données et donc de mieux prendre en compte les phénomènes régissant l'évolution des séquences protéiques afin d'estimer de meilleurs séquences ancestrales. A l'aide de ces modèles et de reconstruction ou résurrection de protéines ancestrales en laboratoire, il a été montré que l'adaptation à la température est un déterminant majeur de la variation des taux évolutifs entre lignées d'Archées. De même, en appliquant ces modèles hétérogènes le long de l'arbre universel du vivant, il a été possible de mieux comprendre la nature du signal évolutif informant de manière non-parcimonieuse un ancêtre universel vivant à plus basse température que ses deux descendants, à savoir les ancêtres bactériens et archéens. Enfin, il a été montré que l'utilisation de tels modèles pouvait permettre d'améliorer la fonctionnalité des protéines ancestrales ressuscitées en laboratoire, ouvrant la voie à une meilleure compréhension des mécanismes évolutifs agissant sur les séquences biologiques / The molecular reconstruction and resurrection of ancestral proteins is the major issue tackled in this thesis manuscript. While fossil molecular data are almost nonexistent, phylogenetic methods allow to estimate what were the most likely ancestral protein sequences along a phylogenetic tree describing the relationships between extant sequences. With these ancestral sequences, several biological hypotheses can be tested, from the evolution of protein function to the inference of ancient environments in which the ancestors were adatapted. These probabilistic estimations of ancestral sequences depend on substitution models giving the different probabilities of substitution between all pairs of amino acids. Classicaly, substitution models assume in a simplistic way that the evolutionary process remains homogeneous (constant) among sites of the multiple sequence alignment or between lineages. During the last decade, several methodological improvements were realised, with the description of substitution models allowing to account for the heterogeneity of the process among sites and in time. During my thesis, I developed new heterogeneous substitution models in Maximum Likelihood that were proved to better fit the data than any other homogeneous or heterogeneous models. I also demonstrated their better performance regarding the accuracy of ancestral sequence reconstruction. With the use of these models to reconstruct or resurrect ancestral proteins, my coworkers and I showed the adapation to temperature is a major determinant of evolutionary rates in Archaea. Furthermore, we also deciphed the nature of the phylogenetic signal informing substitution models to infer a non-parsimonious scenario for the adaptation to temperature during early Life on Earth, with a non-hyperthermophilic last universal common ancestor living at lower temperatures than its two descendants. Finally, we showed that the use of heterogeneous models allow to improve the functionality of resurrected proteins, opening the way to a better understanding of evolutionary mechanisms acting on biological sequences

My doctoral thesis examines the broad question of whether appropriately designed institutions and policies can address the short- and long-term consequences of determinants of human capital which are "immutable'' by nature or are perceived as such. I consider three different types of immutable determinants of human capital: male versus female biology; colonization; and traditional norms of gender roles. In Chapter 1, I examine whether, and how, change in political regime type affects excess male infant mortality. Analyzing data on more than 3 million live births from sub-Saharan African countries, I exploit within-mother variation in political regime type to find that excess male infant mortality significantly decreases following a transition to democracy. I identify competitiveness of executive recruitment, constraints on the chief executive, and political participation as the features of democracy that matter most. Examining causal mechanisms, I find that democracy fosters the provision of health inputs, including maternal education, tetanus immunization, breastfeeding, and normal birth weight, all of which have stronger health benefits for boys than for girls, despite being found to be ex-ante "gender-neutral'' in my setting. In Chapter 2, I examine how colonial reproductive laws interact with market incentives to shape long-term fertility behavior in Africa. Exploiting the arbitrary division of ancestral ethnic homelands and the resulting discontinuity in institutions across the British-French colonial borders, I find that women in former British areas are more likely to delay sexual debut and marriage, and have fewer children. However, these effects disappear in areas close to sea, where market access and the opportunity cost of childbearing appear to be high irrespective of the colonizer identity. This heterogeneous impact of colonial origins extends to measures of local economic development and household welfare. Examining causal mechanisms, I argue that the fertility effect of colonial origins is directly linked to colonial population policies and reproductive laws and their impact on the use of modern methods of birth control. I find little evidence that the fertility effect of British colonization operates through education or income. While British colonization is linked to higher female education levels, this occurs mainly close to the sea while the fertility effects do not. Again, while income levels differ, the fertility gap between British and French colonies opened prior to 1980, while the income gap opened-up after 1990. This chapter highlights the heterogeneous nature of the colonial origins of comparative fertility behavior and economic development, and implies that economic incentives may overcome historical determinism. In Chapter 3, I examine the interplay between legal origins and pre-colonial cultural norms of gender roles in determining female economic empowerment in sub-Saharan Africa. Taking advantage of the arbitrary division of ancestral ethnic homelands across countries with different legal origins, I directly compare women among the same ethnic group living in civil law countries and common law countries. I find that women in common law countries are significantly more educated, are more likely to work in the professional sector, and are less likely to marry at young age. However, these effects are either absent or significantly lower in settings where ancestral cultural norms do not promote women's rights and empowerment. In particular, I find little effect in bride price societies, patrilocal societies, and societies where women were not involved in agriculture in the past.

According to the prevailing doctrine, brain size has mainly increased throughout the evolution of mammals and reductions in brain size were rare. On the other hand, energetic costs of developing and maintaining big brain are high, so brain size reduction should occur every time when the respective selective pressure is present. Modern phylogenetic methods make it possible to test the presence of evolutionary trend and to infer the ancestral values of the trait in question based on knowledge of phylogeny and trait values for recent species. However, this approach has been rarely applied to study brain evolution so far. In this thesis, I focus on bats (Chiroptera). Bats are a suitable group for demonstrating the importance of brain size reductions. Considering their energetically demanding mode of locomotion, they are likely to have been under selection pressure for brain reduction. Furthermore, there is a large amount of data on body and brain mass of recent species available. Finally, phylogenetic relationships among bats are relatively well resolved. My present study is based on body masses and brain masses of 334 recent bat species (Baron et al., 1996) and on a phylogeny obtained by adjusting existing bat supertree (Jones et al., 2002) according to recent molecular studies. Analysing the data for...