La description dans la construction du thème du "mal" dans l'oeuvre de Franck Thilliez

Le sujet de ce travail découle de l’intérêt suscité par la découverte de l’oeuvre romanesque de Franck Thilliez, auteur de romans noirs, devenu célèbre en France avec son roman La chambre des morts qui, d’autre part a été également son premier roman adapté au cinéma. Le choix de ces deux romans (Le syndrome E et Gataca) pour en faire l’analyse dans ce travail est justifié par le traitement de la violence et du mal qui, comme un diptyque, les abordent (“cette envie de traquer le Mal, le vrai Mal, jusqu’à se retrouver dos au mur, épuisé, démoli.” (Thilliez, 2010: 360)) de deux points de vue différents . En outre, le fait de réunir des caractéristiques du cinéma américain des années 40-50, que l’auteur lui-même, avoue être à l’origine de sa vocation d’écrivain de romans noirs: un héros avec une carrure physique imposante, mais un peu instable psychologiquement; l’héroïne qui n’est pas du genre séducteur mais qui bouleverse le mode de vie du héros.Departamento de Filología Francesa y AlemanaGrado en Lenguas Modernas y sus Literatura

Love at First Sight? A User Experience Study of Self-Sovereign Identity Wallets

Today’s systems for digital identity management exhibit critical security, efficiency, and privacy issues. A new paradigm, called Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI), addresses these shortcomings by equipping users with mobile wallets and empowering them to manage their digital identities. Various companies and governments back this paradigm and promote its development and diffusion. User experience often plays a subordinate role in these efforts, even though it is crucial for user satisfaction and adoption. We thus conduct a comprehensive user experience study of four prominent SSI wallets using a mixed-method approach that involves moderated and remote interviews and the User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ). We find that the examined wallets already provide a decent level of user experience, yet further improvements need to be done. In particular, the examined wallets do not make their novelty and benefits sufficiently apparent to users. Our analysis contributes to user experience research and offers guidance for SSI practitioners

Teaching self-sovereign identity

For service providers, secure and reliable identification of users is essential to provide its services. From a user perspective, traditional identifiers are currently solved by centralized entities who have the capacity to control not only the creation of the identifier, but also the withdrawal. Moreover, in most cases more personal information is being provided than needs to be demonstrated. A blockchain-based Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) provides a secure and reliable identification method for service providers, gives the user self-control of the identifier, and enables a way to provide just the essential information that is needed to get the service. This paper aims to make two practical documents; the first one being an introductory practice to get started with this topic and the second one that consists of developing a simple SSI login system for web services offered to university students.Para los proveedores de servicios, la identificación segura y confiable de los usuarios es fundamental para prestar sus servicios. Desde la perspectiva del usuario, los identificadores tradicionales actualmente son proporcionados por entidades centralizadas que tienen la capacidad de controlar, no solo la creación del identificador, sino también la retirada. Además, en la mayoría de los casos se proporciona más información personal de la que se necesita demostrar. Una Auto-Identidad Soberana basada en blockchain proporciona un método de identificación seguro y fiable para los proveedores de servicios, le da al usuario el autocontrol del identificador y permite una forma de proporcionar sólo la información esencial que se necesita para obtener el servicio. Este trabajo tiene como objetivo realizar dos documentos prácticos, siendo el primero una práctica introductoria para iniciarse en este tema y el segundo que consiste en desarrollar un sistema de inicio de sesión de Auto-Identidad Soberana simple para servicios web ofrecidos a estudiantes universitarios.Per als proveïdors de serveis, la identificació segura i fiable dels usuaris és fonamental per prestar els seus serveis. Des de la perspectiva de l'usuari, els identificadors tradicionals són proporcionats actualment per entitats centralitzades que tenen la capacitat de controlar, no només la creació de l'identificador, sinó també la retirada. A més, en la majoria dels casos es proporciona més informació personal de la que cal demostrar. Una identitat autosobirana basada en blockchain proporciona un mètode d'identificació segur i fiable per als proveïdors de serveis, dóna a l'usuari l'autocontrol de l'identificador i permet una manera de proporcionar només la informació essencial que es necessita per obtenir el servei. Aquest treball té com a objectiu fer dos documents pràctics, sent el primer una pràctica introductòria per iniciar-se en aquest tema i el segon que consisteix a desenvolupar un sistema d'inici de sessió d'identitat autosobirana simple per a serveis web oferts a estudiants universitaris

Dynamic cluster-scaling in DNA

It is shown that the nucleotide sequences in DNA molecules have cluster-scaling properties (discovered for the first time in turbulent processes: Sreenivasan and Bershadskii, 2006, J. Stat. Phys., 125, 1141-1153.). These properties are relevant to both types of nucleotide pair-bases interactions: hydrogen bonds and stacking interactions. It is shown that taking into account the cluster-scaling properties can help to improve heterogeneous models of the DNA dynamics. Two human genes: BRCA2 and NRXN1, have been considered as examples

Calibrating evanescent-wave penetration depths for biological TIRF microscopy

Roughly half of a cells proteins are located at or near the plasma membrane. In this restricted space the cell senses its environment, signals to its neighbors and ex-changes cargo through exo- and endocytotic mechanisms. Ligands bind to receptors, ions flow across channel pores, and transmitters and metabolites are transported against con-centration gradients. Receptors, ion channels, pumps and transporters are the molecular substrates of these biological processes and they constitute important targets for drug discovery. Total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy suppresses background from cell deeper layers and provides contrast for selectively imaging dynamic processes near the basal membrane of live-cells. The optical sectioning of total internal reflection fluorescence is based on the excitation confinement of the evanescent wave generated at the glass-cell interface. How deep the excitation light actually penetrates the sample is difficult to know, making the quantitative interpretation of total internal reflection fluorescence data problematic. Nevertheless, many applications like super-resolution microscopy, colocalization, fluorescence recovery after photobleaching, near-membrane fluorescence recovery after photobleaching, uncaging or photo-activation-switching, as well as single-particle tracking require the quantitative interpretation of evanescent-wave excited images. Here, we review existing techniques for characterizing evanescent fields and we provide a roadmap for comparing total internal reflection fluorescence data across images, experiments, and laboratories.Comment: 18 text pages, 7 figures and one supplemental figur

Skin models for cutaneous melioidosis reveal Burkholderia infection dynamics at wound's edge with inflammasome activation, keratinocyte extrusion and epidermal detachment.

Funder: Research Centre of Excellence, Mechanobiology InstituteFunder: National Research FoundationFunder: Cambridge-NUS Global Alliance FundABSTRACTMelioidosis is a serious infectious disease endemic in Southeast Asia, Northern Australia and has been increasingly reported in other tropical and subtropical regions in the world. Percutaneous inoculation through cuts and wounds on the skin is one of the major modes of natural transmission. Despite cuts in skin being a major route of entry, very little is known about how the causative bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei initiates an infection at the skin and the disease manifestation at the skin known as cutaneous melioidosis. One key issue is the lack of suitable and relevant infection models. Employing an in vitro 2D keratinocyte cell culture, a 3D skin equivalent fibroblast-keratinocyte co-culture and ex vivo organ culture from human skin, we developed infection models utilizing surrogate model organism Burkholderia thailandensis to investigate Burkholderia-skin interactions. Collectively, these models show that the bacterial infection was largely limited at the wound's edge. Infection impedes wound closure, triggers inflammasome activation and cellular extrusion in the keratinocytes as a potential way to control bacterial infectious load at the skin. However, extensive infection over time could result in the epidermal layer being sloughed off, potentially contributing to formation of skin lesions

The chaperone protein clusterin may serve as a cerebrospinal fluid biomarker for chronic spinal cord disorders in the dog

Chronic spinal cord dysfunction occurs in dogs as a consequence of diverse aetiologies, including long-standing spinal cord compression and insidious neurodegenerative conditions. One such neurodegenerative condition is canine degenerative myelopathy (DM), which clinically is a challenge to differentiate from other chronic spinal cord conditions. Although the clinical diagnosis of DM can be strengthened by the identification of the Sod1 mutations that are observed in affected dogs, genetic analysis alone is insufficient to provide a definitive diagnosis. There is a requirement to identify biomarkers that can differentiate conditions with a similar clinical presentation, thus facilitating patient diagnostic and management strategies. A comparison of the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) protein gel electrophoresis profile between idiopathic epilepsy (IE) and DM identified a protein band that was more prominent in DM. This band was subsequently found to contain a multifunctional protein clusterin (apolipoprotein J) that is protective against endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress-mediated apoptosis, oxidative stress, and also serves as an extracellular chaperone influencing protein aggregation. Western blot analysis of CSF clusterin confirmed elevated levels in DM compared to IE (p < 0.05). Analysis of spinal cord tissue from DM and control material found that clusterin expression was evident in neurons and that the clusterin mRNA levels from tissue extracts were elevated in DM compared to the control. The plasma clusterin levels was comparable between these groups. However, a comparison of clusterin CSF levels in a number of neurological conditions found that clusterin was elevated in both DM and chronic intervertebral disc disease (cIVDD) but not in meningoencephalitis and IE. These findings indicate that clusterin may potentially serve as a marker for chronic spinal cord disease in the dog; however, additional markers are required to differentiate DM from a concurrent condition such as cIVDD

Cluster-scaling, chaotic order and coherence in DNA

Different numerical mappings of the DNA sequences have been studied using a new cluster-scaling method and the well known spectral methods. It is shown, in particular, that the nucleotide sequences in DNA molecules have robust cluster-scaling properties. These properties are relevant to both types of nucleotide pair-bases interactions: hydrogen bonds and stacking interactions. It is shown that taking into account the cluster-scaling properties can help to improve heterogeneous models of the DNA dynamics. It is also shown that a chaotic (deterministic) order, rather than a stochastic randomness, controls the energy minima positions of the stacking interactions in the DNA sequences on large scales. The chaotic order results in a large-scale chaotic coherence between the two complimentary DNA-duplex's sequences. A competition between this broad-band chaotic coherence and the resonance coherence produced by genetic code has been briefly discussed. The Arabidopsis plant genome (which is a model plant for genome analysis) and two human genes: BRCA2 and NRXN1, have been considered as examples.Comment: extended. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1008.135

PhenoHM: human–mouse comparative phenome–genome server

PhenoHM is a human–mouse comparative phenome–genome server that facilitates cross-species identification of genes associated with orthologous phenotypes (http://phenome.cchmc.org; full open access, login not required). Combining and extrapolating the knowledge about the roles of individual gene functions in the determination of phenotype across multiple organisms improves our understanding of gene function in normal and perturbed states and offers the opportunity to complement biologically the rapidly expanding strategies in comparative genomics. The Mammalian Phenotype Ontology (MPO), a structured vocabulary of phenotype terms that leverages observations encompassing the consequences of mouse gene knockout studies, is a principal component of mouse phenotype knowledge source. On the other hand, the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) is a composite collection of various human-centered biomedical terminologies. In the present study, we mapped terms reciprocally from the MPO to human disease concepts such as clinical findings from the UMLS and clinical phenotypes from the Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man knowledgebase. By cross-mapping mouse–human phenotype terms, extracting implicated genes and extrapolating phenotype-gene associations between species PhenoHM provides a resource that enables rapid identification of genes that trigger similar outcomes in human and mouse and facilitates identification of potentially novel disease causal genes. The PhenoHM server can be accessed freely at http://phenome.cchmc.org