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Le transport est un maillon indispensable de la production porcine, néanmoins considéré comme l’étape la plus stressante. Cette thèse avait pour objectifs d’identifier les facteurs de stress à l’origine des réactions physiologiques et comportementales des porcs d’abattage pendant le transport, ainsi que de développer des moyens de réduire ces réactions de stress. 
 
 Les travaux ont tout d’abord permis de préciser l’effet de facteurs liés à l’environnement du camion. Il a été montré que le déchargement des porcs était facilité en utilisant une rampe de pente inférieure ou égale à 21o, en l’absence de marche en bas de la rampe et lorsque l’angle d’entrée à la rampe était inférieur ou égal à 30o. Les résultats ont aussi permis de souligner que la longueur de la rampe pouvait négativement affecter la perception de la rampe par l’animal. Il a ensuite été montré que les animaux souffraient de l’exposition au froid lors de transports dans les conditions climatiques hivernales canadiennes et ce, d’autant plus que les transports étaient longs (18 h). L’exposition au froid avait rendu les animaux moins enclins à s’allonger au sol dans le camion (sol trop froid) et avait causé une augmentation du métabolisme (lutte contre le froid) ainsi qu’un état de soif plus important.
 
 Cette thèse a également permis de montrer que des facteurs liés à l’expérience et à la manipulation de l’animal contribuaient au stress du transport. Nous avons observé qu’un exercice quotidien contribuait à lui seul à faciliter la manipulation des porcs et à réduire leur réponse cardiaque, alors qu’une exposition préalable à une rampe n’avait pas eu d’effet bénéfique sur leur réponse pendant le chargement. Enfin, les résultats de la présente étude soulignent l’importance de la durée de la période de repos sur la capacité d’adaptation au stress en mettant en évidence que si les porcs ne pouvaient pas suffisamment se reposer après un exercice, alors la récupération suite à une nouvelle exposition à l’exercice était négativement affectée.
 
 Cette thèse souligne que des améliorations liées à la configuration du véhicule et à la manipulation des animaux sont à apporter afin d’améliorer le bien-être des porcs d’abattage pendant le transport.
 / Transportation is necessary, but has been reported as the most stressful step of swine production. This thesis aimed at identifying stressors contributing to physiological and behavioural stress responses of market-weight pigs during transport, and to develop means of reducing those stress reactions.
 
 This thesis demonstrated the effect of stressors associated with vehicle design. It was found that unloading pigs was easier when a ramp with a slope equal to or lower than 21o, no step at the bottom of the ramp, or an angle of entrance equal to or lower than 30o was used. Results also highlighted that ramp length could be detrimental to the way the animal perceived the ramp. Results also showed that under Canadian climatic conditions, long transports (18 h) in cold weather appear to be more detrimental to pig’s welfare. Exposure to cold temperature made pigs reluctant to rest on cold floors and caused an increase in metabolism (cold coping mechanism) and thirst.
 
 This thesis also demonstrated that factors associated with animal handling and previous experience could contribute to the stress of transport. It was found that daily exercise, by itself, improved the ease of handling and reduced cardiovascular response, while it appeared that a previous exposure to a ramp had no beneficial effects. Results also highlighted the importance of rest duration on the capacity of adaptation to stress, by demonstrating that when pigs are not initially given enough rest to recover from exercise, the recovery from a subsequent exposure to the same exercise is negatively affected.
 
 Overall, this thesis suggests that some improvements in truck design and animal handling should be made in order to improve the welfare of market-weight pigs during transport.


Yes / In this paper, we consider the phenomenon of “pedagogical violence” — infliction of physical, social, emotional, or psychological pains, or threat of such pains that is either the means for or non-accidental by-products of education used on a systematic basis. Pedagogical violence is often used for promoting certain desired learning in students. Alternatively, it can emerge as a violent reaction in students and teachers to particular educational settings directed against other students or teachers. In this paper, we review some of the debates and controversial issues around pedagogical violence, and we use a variety of illustrative examples to explore in more detail what pedagogical violence means in particular contexts. We argue that pedagogical violence is a natural consequence of alienated instrumental education. We will look at teachers’ desire to avoid physical and psychosocial pedagogical violence. We specifically consider diverse forms of psychosocial pedagogical violence and its issues such as: summative assessment, epistemological pedagogical violence, students’ ambivalence around pedagogical violence, rehabilitating/avoiding pedagogical violence through a carnival. We finish with a reflection about what can be done to minimize pedagogical violence. Our analysis heavily relies on the Bakhtinian theoretical framework of critical ontological dialogism.

Coherence describes the validity of the internal rules that drive the behaviors of a virtual environment (VE) in presenting a credible scenario. A VR system with a high level of coherence could lead to strong plausibility illusion, which is a key component of the sense of presence. There are few existing studies centered around coherence, and they tend to put the user in a passive role when experiencing the VE without emphasizing on their active participation in the interaction. This dissertation makes up this gap by connecting the concept of coherence with fundamental 3D user interface design that focuses on the algorithms that map the user's actions to the VE's behaviors. Specifically, we inspect the design of coherent interactions for two complicated tasks, namely travel and object manipulation. For travel, we propose a family of redirected walking techniques called "narrative driven cell-based redirection", which lets the user traverse a VE that's much larger than the physical space without breaking the coherence of the scenario. For object manipulation, we propose the novel concept of physics coherence to capture whether an interface conforms to the rules of physics and design several novel techniques that try to balance between physics coherence and usability. Together, we provide some useful tools for designing coherent interactions and discuss how coherence affects user experience in VR interaction. / Doctor of Philosophy / To create a virtual reality (VR) experience that feels plausible, it’s important to consider the validity of the internal rules that drive the behaviors of the virtual environment (VE), which we call “coherence” of a VR system. We discuss how to support coherence in two types of fundamental VR interaction. The first one is travel, which concerns moving the viewpoint around following the user’s intention. For this task, we propose a family of novel interaction techniques called “narrative driven cell-based redirection”, which lets the user traverse a VE that’s much larger than the physical space without breaking the coherence of the scenario. The second one is object manipulation, which is about controlling a virtual object using hand input. For this task, we propose the novel concept of physics coherence to capture whether the interaction conforms to the rules of physics and design several novel techniques that try to balance between physics coherence and controllability. Together, we provide some useful tools for designing coherent interactions and discuss how coherence affects user experience in VR interaction.

The following study focuses on the design and validation of an underactuated robotic gripper built for the Tactical Hazardous Operations Robot (THOR). THOR is a humanoid robot designed for use in the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) and the Shipboard Autonomous Fire Fighting Robot (SAFFiR) project, both of which pertain to completing tasks associated with disaster response. The gripper was designed to accomplish a list of specific tasks outlined by the DRC and SAFFiR project. Underactuation was utilized in the design of the gripper to keep its complexity low while acquiring the level of dexterity needed to complete the required tasks. The final gripper contains two actuators, two underactuated fingers and a fixed finger resulting in four total degrees of freedom (DOF). The gripper weighs 0.68 kg and is capable of producing up to 38 N and 62 N on its proximal and distal phalanges, respectively. The gripper was put through a series of tests to validate its performance pertaining to the specific list of tasks it was designed to complete. The results of these tests show the gripper is in fact capable of completing all the necessary actions but does so within some limitations. / Master of Science

In this thesis, we explore some of the effects of virtual environment displays, specifically the head-mounted display (HMD) and the Cave Automatic Virtual Environment (CAVE), on 3D interaction tasks involving selection and manipulation. The motivation for this thesis comes from the lack of previous work that has studied the effects of differences between the HMD and the CAVE on 3D interaction tasks. We conducted three user studies to determine how the differences between these two displays affect selection and manipulation in a 3D environment. Our first study demonstrates that 3D selection and manipulation tasks can be affected by the display type. Our second user study shows that task performance can suffer when a selection and manipulation technique is migrated to a display for which it is not intended. The third user study we conducted suggests that we can modify a selection and manipulation technique and improve its usability in the display to which it is migrated. We conclude with a set of guidelines to ease the migration of selection and manipulation techniques from the HMD to the CAVE while trying to maintain usability. / Master of Science

Ionic polymer materials are a class of electroactive polymers that have been used in recent applications that take advantage of their large bending deflection. Although these materials have been around since the 1960s, it has only been in the last decade that their electromechanical coupling has been discovered. Because their life as a transducer has been relatively short, the underlying mechanisms for their mechanical motion have not yet been fully characterized. Modeling has been performed with ionic polymers, but there is no existing model, to date, that explains all the physical phenomena associated them. The work presented in this document will contribute to the characterization of these materials. To better understand the dehydration effect of ionic polymers operating in an open air environment, research was performed to help characterize this effect. Through the use of frequency response analysis, trends were established showing how the material's response characteristics varied with time, as the polymer dehydrated. These tests were also run at different humidity levels to assess the impact environmental conditions had on the response. It was shown that lower humidity levels cause the system parameters to shift at a higher rate. The two configurations tested were clamped-free and clamped-clamped, in an effort to bound the performance of the actuators for engineering applications. The clamped-clamped condition also facilitated applying tension to the polymers for evaluation of the dehydrating effects. Several comparisons to beam theory were made throughout the analysis, using it as a baseline condition illustrator. Though qualitative results were obtained with the polymers, there was much discrepancy in quantitative measures. This was to be expected though, because ionic polymers are composite actuators that exhibit nonlinear behavior, while uniform beams are linear. Environmental testing was not all that was done, however. Control techniques were applied to improve the closed-loop performance of the actuators. Using proportional-integral control, it was demonstrated that ionic polymers are capable of tracking reference inputs better than it was previously thought. This result will validate future experimentation with ionic polymers for micro-manipulation applications. The simplicity of integral control also eliminated the need for cumbersome model derivations and control system designs, reducing the time necessary to implement and test an actuator. Through the use of this control algorithm, the closed-loop bandwidth was also characterized for the cantilever and clamped-clamped polymers. / Master of Science

No / In archaeological prospection, computer processing is essential for all stages of data manipulation. This article investigates the contributions which informatics has made in the past and looks at its potential for the future. It is shown how the workflow of satellite imagery, aerial photography and geophysical prospection can be broken down into measurements, acquisition, processing, visualisation and interpretation. Based on these categories, the advantages of digital data manipulations are explored with individual examples. It is shown that informatics can greatly assist with the final archaeological analysis of the measurements but that human experience and assessments are crucial for a meaningful interpretation.