Medieval English Roodscreens, with special reference to Devon

Roodscreens dividing church chancels and naves, topped with the image of Christ on the cross and often decorated with images of saints, were universal pieces of furnishing in English parish churches between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. This thesis centres on such screens in Devon, while seeking to place them in the context of their history in England as a whole. It discusses their origins, the period of their flowering in the later middle ages, and their fate at the Reformation, which swept away their lofts and iconography but kept their basic structures. While the heart of the thesis lies in the period from 1300 to 1570, consideration is also given to their subsequent fate between about 1570 and about 1870, when many disappeared due to changing fashions in church layout and furnishing. It concludes by showing how modern conservation, since 1870, has preserved most of those that remained as well as studying and restoring them. The thesis uses all the available primary and secondary sources for Devon, and major comparative ones for the rest of England. It discusses and criticises the evidence of churchwardens’ accounts, wills, the writings of the Protestant reformers of the mid-sixteenth century, royal and episcopal visitation articles, injunctions and orders for the period during and after the Reformation, antiquarian researches of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Church faculty records, and conservation reports made on screens in recent decades, as well as the major modern secondary works on the subject beginning with that of A. W. N. Pugin in 1851. Attention has also been given to the screens that survive, and to how they were constructed and decorated. The research shows that considerable sums were spent during the later middle ages on the construction, decoration, and maintenance of screens in all churches, from cathedrals and monasteries to parish churches. Parish communities in particular saw them as status symbols, raised money for their manufacture, and tried to match the best examples in nearby churches. Screens throw light on church layout, since they emphasised the division of the church into two areas, and on the organisation and understanding of worship, which they were designed both to seclude from and to reveal to the congregation. The iconography of screens provides valuable information about the cults of saints in late-medieval parishes. Screens became an issue during the Reformation, which did away with the iconography of screens but usually tolerated their survival, thereby retaining a visual object important to parishioners and the traditional division of the church that the screens embodied. Although some screens may have been removed in the sixteenth century, the greatest period of destruction was probably in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when screens clashed with the wish of Church leaders and people to have open church interiors with uninterrupted vistas, and in the mid to late nineteenth century, the period of church restoration when ecclesiological principles were at their most influential. The thesis concludes with a gazetteer of all the screens in Devon churches that survive or are known to have existed on the basis of historical and antiquarian records

Road detection and vehicles tracking by vision for ACC

This article deals with a process designed first to extract the lane of vehicle by on-board monocular vision. This detection process is based upon a recursive updating of a statistical model of the lane obtained by a training phase. Once the lane has been located, a reconstruction algorithm computes the vehicle location on its lane and the 3D shape of the road. Thereafter, we are focus at the detection, location and tracking of front vehicles equipped with specific visual markers in order to achieve an accurate determination of the location and speed of these vehicles. Merging these various informations allows to point out the most dangerous obstacle. Each of these three processes is detailed significant examples are provide.Cet article présente, dans un premier temps, un procédé permettant de détecter la voie de circulation d'un véhicule par vision monoculaire embarquée. Ce processus de détection est basé sur une mise à jour récursive d'un modèle statistique de la voie obtenu par une phase d'apprentissage. Après avoir localisé la voie, un algorithme de reconstruction détermine la position du véhicule dans sa voie de circulation et le profil 3D de la route. Par la suite, nous nous intéressons à la détection, la localisation et surtout le suivi des véhicules situés à l'avant et équipés de marques visuelles afin de déterminer avec précision la position et la vitesse relative de ces véhicules. La combinaison de ces différentes informations permet de déterminer le véhicule le plus dangereux. La description détaillée de chacune des étapes de notre algorithme est suivie d'exemples significatifs

Generation of drug metabolite antigenicity in the intestinal mucosa

Both nitroreductase and transglutaminase activities have been assayed in the 10 000 x g supernatant fluids of rat intestine homogenates after Triton X-100 treatment. Incubation of 14C-nitrofurantoin in the intestine extract yielded protein-bound 14C-labeled products. Injection into rabbits of the conjugated protein similarly prepared with unlabeled nitrofurantoin elicited formation of antibodies against nitrofurantoin. These results suggest that intestinal metabolism and conjugation to protein of orally administered drugs may serve as a probable mechanism of drug allergy, and this may be accomplished by enzymatic coupling of relatively stable drug metabolites to protein carriers.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/26077/1/0000153.pd

Alcohol exposure during late gestation: Multiple developmental outcomes in sheep

Alcohol consumption during pregnancy remains common in many countries. Exposure to even low amounts of alcohol (i.e. ethanol) in pregnancy can lead to the heterogeneous fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD), while heavy alcohol consumption can result in the fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). FAS is characterized by cerebral dysfunction, growth restriction and craniofacial malformations. However, the effects of lower doses of alcohol during pregnancy, such as those that lead to FASD, are less well understood. In this article, we discuss the findings of recent studies performed in our laboratories on the effects of fetal alcohol exposure using sheep, in which we investigated the effects of late gestational alcohol exposure on the developing brain, arteries, kidneys, heart and lungs. Our studies indicate that alcohol exposure in late gestation can (1) affect cerebral white matter development and increase the risk of hemorrhage in the fetal brain, (2) cause left ventricular hypertrophy with evidence of altered cardiomyocyte maturation, (3) lead to a decrease in nephron number in the kidney, (4) cause altered arterial wall stiffness and endothelial and smooth muscle function and (5) result in altered surfactant protein mRNA expression, surfactant phospholipid composition and pro-inflammatory cytokine mRNA expression in the lung. These findings suggest that fetal alcohol exposure in late gestation can affect multiple organs, potentially increasing the risk of disease and organ dysfunction in later life

Liquid-Diet with Alcohol Alters Maternal, Fetal and Placental Weights and the Expression of Molecules Involved in Integrin Signaling in the Fetal Cerebral Cortex

Maternal alcohol consumption during pregnancy causes wide range of behavioral and structural deficits in children, commonly known as Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS). Children with FAS may suffer behavioral deficits in the absence of obvious malformations. In rodents, the exposure to alcohol during gestation changes brain structures and weights of offspring. The mechanism of FAS is not completely understood. In the present study, an established rat (Long-Evans) model of FAS was used. The litter size and the weights of mothers, fetuses and placentas were examined on gestation days 18 or 20. On gestation day 18, the effects of chronic alcohol on the expression levels of integrin receptor subunits, phospholipase-Cγ and N-cadherin were examined in the fetal cerebral cortices. Presence of alcohol in the liquid-diet reduced the consumption and decreased weights of mothers and fetuses but increased the placental weights. Expression levels of β1 and α3 integrin subunits and phospholipase-Cγ2 were significantly altered in the fetal cerebral cortices of mothers on alcohol containing diet. Results show that alcohol consumption during pregnancy even with protein, mineral and vitamin enriched diet may affect maternal and fetal health, and alter integrin receptor signaling pathways in the fetal cerebral cortex disturbing the development of fetal brains

Etude de la retrodiffusion de la lumiere dans les milieux disperses : application a l'etude de la coalescence des emulsions huile-eau

SIGLECNRS T 56780 / INIST-CNRS - Institut de l'Information Scientifique et TechniqueFRFranc

Etude de la prévision de la digestibilité des fourrages par une méthode enzymatique

International audienc

Anthony Aufrere, Newton, Chester, [Cheshire], to James Edward Smith, Great Marlborough Street, London

Extract from "Letters upon Italy, chiefly concerning the present state of medicine and natural history [...]", by W Jansen, physician of Düsseldorf, [Germany], sent by Aufrere following a comment in Smith's "Tour upon the Continent" that he had not seen the book written by Prof Michael Rosa to invalidate the Harverian system. The extract relates Rosa's theory of the circulatory system, in which the arteries of men and large beasts "contain only a small quantity of blood but are filled with a spirit or spiritous essence"