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Type d'Item : Item , The Regulation of SLPI and its Impact on Metastasis and the Ovarian Tumor Microenvironment in Ovarian Cancer(Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2026-10-05) Orfali, Hélène; Vanderhyden, Barbara C.Understanding the factors that drive epithelial ovarian cancer progression is needed to design effective targeted therapies, especially knowing that it is the deadliest gynecological malignancy. SLPI is a protease inhibitor with anti-inflammatory properties and is highly expressed in ovarian cancers; however, its role in these cancers is unclear. This study found that Slpi expression was upregulated by MEK pathway signaling in mouse ovarian cancer cells. The effect of Slpi on ovarian cancer metastasis, survival, and the tumor microenvironment was also investigated. In suspension cultures, Slpi knockout cells formed smaller, more abundant aggregates than their Slpi-expressing controls, which correlated with increased metastases in vivo. Following intrabursal injections of Slpi-overexpressing and control cells, Slpi-overexpressing tumors exhibited reduced survival with fewer metastases, more macrophages, eosinophils, and dendritic cells. This research revealed that SLPI increases cancer aggressiveness by creating an immunosuppressive TME and promoting aggregation of metastatic cells.Type d'Item : Item , Characterizing Psychomotor Performance Effects of Cognitive Fatigue(Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2026-10-05) Peters, Kathleen; Carlsen, Anthony N.Cognitive fatigue (CF) is a state of perceived exhaustion arising from sustained mental effort that is both commonly experienced and consequential. CF negatively affects a broad range of cognitive functions, including working memory, decision making, and attention. It can also impair psychomotor performance, such as the ability to generate timely and accurate goal-directed actions, commonly indexed using reaction time (RT). CF-related psychomotor impairments, including slowed RT, may contribute to the risk of accidents or errors across a range of activities and occupations, including athletics, transportation, construction, and healthcare. Despite this, the mechanisms underlying CF-related psychomotor performance deficits remain poorly understood, and there is limited evidence regarding how these impairments might be mitigated. This thesis addressed these gaps by systematically investigating the effects of CF on multiple psychomotor processes contributing to RT performance and evaluating a potential intervention to attenuate CF-related deficits. Across four experiments using behavioural and neurophysiological approaches, it was found that stimulus perception, response inhibition, and motor preparation were largely preserved under CF, with the latter showing evidence of compensatory activity. In contrast, response selection was found to be selectively vulnerable to CF, with the degree of disruption depending on the overlap in cognitive demands with recent fatiguing mental work. Taken together, findings suggest that response initiation could play a central role in CF-related RT slowing and may present a key target for future investigation. Finally, a fifth experiment provided promising preliminary evidence supporting further investigation of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation as a non-invasive countermeasure for CF-related psychomotor deficits. Overall, this work advances our understanding of the mechanisms underlying CF-related psychomotor performance impairment by characterizing the effects of CF across multiple stages of psychomotor processing. It also provides preliminary support for tVNS as a potential countermeasure for these deficits. These findings may have particularly relevant implications for safety-critical environments, where even small delays in responding could increase risk.Type d'Item : Item , Neural Posterior Estimation via Hierarchical Bayesian Distillation(Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2026-10-02) Negarandeh, Sina; Kantere, VerenaSolving inverse problems for spectral data is fundamentally hindered by data scarcity, ill-posedness, and the strict requirement for accurate uncertainty quantification (UQ). Addressing these challenges in the context of X-ray diffraction (XRD), an essential technique for materials discovery and structural health monitoring, we propose an amortized neural posterior estimation framework. Our approach distills a computationally expensive, physics-informed Bayesian teacher into a highly efficient conditional normalizing flow (CNF) student. By enforcing crystallographic constraints within our base generative model, we construct a representative synthetic training corpus to optimize the CNF, effectively bypassing the bottleneck of limited real-world data. We extensively validate the neural posterior's fidelity against the Bayesian teacher using posterior predictive checks and Wasserstein distances. Finally, we demonstrate the practical utility of this approach on a real-world structural damage detection task. Evaluated in a leave-one-group-out cross-validation (LOGOCV) setup, our amortized posteriors maintain the predictive classification performance and UQ calibration of the Bayesian baseline while accelerating inference by orders of magnitude.Type d'Item : Item , Neither 'Direct Realist' nor 'Representationalist': Thomas Aquinas and Species Intelligibilis as Principle for Metaphysical and Intellective Acts(Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2026-10-01) Nicholson, Elisabeth June; Côté, AntoineMany prevailing philosophical iinterpretations of Aquinas's account of human cognition follow what this thesis calls the "Standard Model," wherein species intelligibilis is abstracted or derived through agent intellect, received or "deposited" in possible intellect, retained there, and subsequently instrumentalized in concept formation, judgment, reasoning, and further intellectual operations. Despite significant differences between "Direct Realist" and "Representationalist" interpreters, both frequently retain this explanatory architecture. This MA project challenges that Standard Model by arguing that it reflects what Therese Scarpelli Cory calls a "fundamental misconstrual" of the role of species intelligibilis. Building on Cory's "Formal Constituent View," the thesis restores species intelligibilis to the metaphysical order of form and formal principle: that by which possible intellect is actualized and from which intellectual operations proceed, rather than a produced "third thing" subsequently put to use. Species intelligibilis remains genuinely similitudo, or likeness, but likeness belongs to a formal, metaphysical order rather than functioning as an additional cognitive instrument. The thesis then extends this metaphysical approach by highlighting recent works by Gloria Frost, Martin Kostelecky, and Bernard Lonergan and examining Aquinas's account through metaphysical terms such as act and potency, reception and activity, development, operation, object, and end. Although these accounts differ over the ordering and termini of intellective operations, taken together they support an alternative in which species intelligibilis remains the formal principle of an internally differentiated act whose operations are specified by their respective objects and ends. The result challenges the production-deposit-retention model itself and argues that species intelligibilis is the principle from which intellectual operations proceed, not a derived product deposited in intellect and instrumentalized within them.Type d'Item : Item , Chilean Art Music During the Cold War (1970-1990): Political Commitment, Exile and Democratizing Practices in Musics(Université d'Ottawa | University of Ottawa, 2026-10-01) Rodriguez Mayen, Sebastian; Moore, Christopher LeeThis thesis examines the work of Chilean composers during the turbulent period between 1970 and 1990, spanning the presidency of Salvador Allende and the subsequent coup d’état and dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. The works produced during these years by Luis Advis (1935–2004), Gustavo Becerra-Schmidt (1925–2010), Celso Garrido-Lecca (1926–2025), and Juan Orrego-Salas (1919–2019) bear witness to Chile’s rapidly shifting political and cultural landscape, which forced many artists into exile or silence under the dictatorship. Some of these composers later collaborated with folk music ensembles to express solidarity during their exile, whether imposed or voluntarily embraced. Through selected case studies, this thesis argues that the musical output of these composers constitutes a cultural response to broader geopolitical forces shaping both highbrow and popular culture, particularly the power dynamics of the Global Cold War. By analyzing their lives and works, the study demonstrates how political developments in the Global North influenced cultural production in the Global South, while also highlighting the varied forms of resistance — both overt and covert — and the resilience exhibited by composers and musicians in the Global South. These dynamics extended beyond exile to include the imposition and adaptation of dominant musical styles, practices of cultural diplomacy between host and home countries, and negotiations of indigeneity in artistic expression, all of which affected the composers examined in this study. Accordingly, this thesis considers not only the musical characteristics of these works but also the historical, political, and cultural conditions that shaped their creation. In doing so, it presents these composers and their compositions as historically situated witnesses to their time and place.