Alien Registration- Sirois, Armande (Fort Kent, Aroostook County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/24678/thumbnail.jp

Alien Registration- Nadeau, Armande (Jackman, Somerset County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/6881/thumbnail.jp

Southern Mother, Lethal Fetus; Or, How Birth Control Makes a Modernist out of Flannery O’Connor

This essay argues that the presence of birth control in a narrative interrupts generic conventions by conditioning modernist subjectivities. The symbolic possibilities of birth control carry the promise and threat of rupture. In the case of Flannery O'Connor's short story “A Stroke of Good Fortune” (1955), these possibilities disrupt both a character's identity and what we might call the identity of an O'Connor text. Critics generally read the story as a failed attempt to portray the Catholic plea against, as O'Connor put it, the “rejection of life at the source.” Recognizing the story's contraceptive disruptions allows us to see it as a modernist text rather than a narrative failure. Reading the story in this light situates modernist aesthetics within larger cultural debates about reproductive rights and civil liberties at the same time that it reveals a surprising statement about contraception. This is not to say that the story rejects contraception as a practice, as might be expected from the pen of the devoutly Catholic O'Connor. Rather, the story derides the claim that birth control is a panacea. “A Stroke” shows that birth control can be used to create oppressive, even Gothic, situations if women do not wield the control denoted by the name

Modernism, Monsters, and Margaret Sanger

This article first appeared in Modern Fiction Studies, Volume 59, no. 2, 2013, pp. 440–460.This essay examines the fiction and nonfiction in the Birth Control Review (BCR), a magazine Margaret Sanger edited between 1917 and 1929, to reveal a critique of aesthetic autonomy at the intersection of modernism and feminist politics. In contrast to the aesthetic autonomy espoused by Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, the narratives in BCR depict autonomy as a ghastly punishment rather than a goal to be achieved. Such a reading offers a framework for understanding why the dominant rhetoric of the American birth control movement shifted—within only a decade—from feminist revolution to patriarchal eugenics

A Century of Reading Time: From Modernist Novels to Contemporary Comics

Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century (1999-2012) is a neo-Victorian comic book series that forcefully engages questions about history and the passage of time. This essay uses League to demonstrate how comics replicate, and even amplify, the tension between clock time and psychological time that so often appears in modernist works, thereby revealing the comic book form as an addition to the panoply of modernist techniques that interrupt the linear progression of clock time with time as felt by the individual. Simultaneously, this reading suggests that clock time – usually thought to be the objective, public dimension of time – is actually quite subjective

Writing

Is there a difference between writing by men and that produced by women? What does that difference look like? What about writing by non-binary individuals? Aimee Armande Wilson surveys critical responses to these questions (including ones from Gloria Anzaldúa, Judith Butler, Hélène Cixous, Elaine Showalter, and Alice Walker) before moving into a discussion of the most important factor affecting writing in the twenty-first century, the internet. More specifically, Wilson considers electronic writing, blogs, and social media using the theories of Anne Balsamo, Donna Haraway, Katherine Hayles, and Sherry Turkle. Although the intensely personal, confessional style that characterizes most blogs and social media posts is practically synonymous with many people’s understanding of “women’s writing” (for right or wrong), blogs and social media posts are nevertheless designed to be public, and often with political intent. These genres therefore necessitate new answers to old questions about privacy, power, style, and gender

Electrical characterization and modeling of benthic microbial fuel cells for energy harvesting

National audienceMicrobial fuel cell (MFC) is a promising energy harvester for supplying sensors in seafloors where solar, thermal and vibration sources are inadequate. Extensive efforts focus improvement of MFC biological and electrochemical capabilities while the electrical perspectives are poorly developed in literature. In order to promote MFC as energy scavenger, this paper explains the methods used to electrically characterize the specific MFC for seafloor conditions and the way to model its steady state operation close to the maximum power point. The method is applied to a compost-fed MCF delivering 5.7µW at 0.14V optimal output voltage. This work is the first step to efficiently apprehend the elaboration of an electrical harvesting interface

Mise en évidence du système de communication "Quorum Sensing" impliquant les AHLs chez des bactéries marines isolées de la Méditerranée

The biofouling control on immersed inert surfaces or in moist atmosphere is a necessity in the marine sector for both economic and environmental reasons. Microbial biofilm formation, the initial step of biofouling development, is intrinsically linked to the communication system “Quorum sensing” (QS). In some Gram negative bacteria, QS is based on the perception of small diffusible signaling molecules called Acyl Homoserine Lactones (AHLs). The inhibition of bacterial QS is part of the different antifouling strategies currently developed. This present work focused on the detection of AHLs molecules involved in this communication system in bacteria isolated from Toulon harbor and the study of modulation of some phenotypes, including biofilm formation, by these molecules as well as the development of a preliminary anti-QS assay. Three marine bacteria isolated from Toulon harbor (TC8, TC14 and TC15), belonging to the Pseudoalteromonas genus, known to synthesize many active molecules, have been tested for their ability to produce AHLs. Only Pseudoalteromonas sp. TC15 produced the C12-HSL. P. ulvae TC14 a violacein-producing and biofilm-forming bacteria, did not secrete any AHLs. Few marine bacteria are used as an anti-QS screening tool, especially by interfering with AHLs with the goal of studying the consequences on biofilm formation. In order to evaluate the possibility to use TC14 with this purpose, exogenous AHLs were tested on the violacein production, the biofilm formation and the motility of TC14. Some AHLs were able to regulate violacein production and biofilm formation suggesting the presence of a functional AHLs receptor in TC14. Preliminary QS inhibition assays were performed with commercial molecules and synthetic analogues. The commercial 3-oxo-C6-HSL as well as esculetin and p-benzoquinone, known to interfere with bacterial QS, were able to inhibit QS and biofilm formation at a non-toxic concentration. Overall, this study suggests that the marine strain P. ulvae TC14 may be used as a tool for the detection of anti-QS molecules in conditions closed to the marine environment. These molecules may subsequently be tested on the biofilm formation of marine bacteria. The long term objective is to find a way to limit biofilm formation, using non-toxic molecules for the environment.Le contrôle du biofouling sur des surfaces inertes immergées ou en atmosphère humide est une nécessité dans le secteur marin, tant pour des raisons économiques qu’environnementales. La formation de biofilm microbien, étape préalable à la formation du biofouling, est souvent intrinsèquement liée chez les bactéries au système de communication “Quorum Sensing” (QS). Chez certaines bactéries Gram négatif, le QS est basé sur la perception de petites molécules diffusibles appelées N- Acyl Homosérine Lactones (AHLs). L’une des stratégies antifouling en voie de développement de nos jours repose sur l’inhibition du QS bactérien. L’objectif de cette thèse est d’utiliser certaines bactéries marines afin d’identifier des molécules anti-QS capables de perturber la formation de biofilm. Ce travail a donc porté sur la mise en évidence de molécules AHLs impliquées dans le QS chez certaines bactéries marines isolées de la rade de Toulon, l’étude de la modulation de certains phénotypes dont la formation du biofilm, par ces molécules et, la mise en place d’un test préliminaire d’inhibition du QS. Parmi les trois bactéries isolées de la rade de Toulon (TC8, TC14 et TC15) du genre Pseudoalteromonas, connues pour produire de nombreuses molécules actives, et testées pour leur capacité à sécréter des AHLs, seule Pseudoalteromonas sp. TC15 a produit la C12-HSL. P. ulvae TC14, capable de produire un biofilm conséquent et de la violacéine, ne produit aucune AHL. Afin d’évaluer la possibilité d’utiliser une bactérie marine comme outil de criblage anti-QS, interférant avec les AHLs et les conséquences sur son biofilm, des AHLs exogènes ont été testées sur la production de violacéine, la formation de biofilm et la mobilité de TC14. Certaines AHLs ont montré qu’elles pouvaient réguler la production de violacéine et la formation de biofilm chez TC14, suggérant l’existence d’un récepteur AHLs fonctionnel. Des tests préliminaires d’inhibition du QS ont été effectués avec des molécules commerciales et des analogues synthétiques. La 3-oxo-C6-HSL commerciale, ainsi que l’esculétine et la p- benzoquinone, connues pour interférer avec le QS bactérien, ont été capables d’inhiber la production de violacéine ainsi que la formation de biofilm de TC14 à des concentrations n’affectant pas sa croissance. Cette étude suggère donc que P. ulvae TC14 pourrait être utilisée comme un outil de recherche de molécules anti-QS en conditions proches de celles trouvées dans l’environnement marin, et ce dans le but d’être ultérieurement testées sur la formation de biofilm. L’objectif à plus long terme reste de trouver un moyen de limiter la formation du biofilm en utilisant des molécules non toxiques pour l’environnement