(Breve) historia del margen en Julio Ramón Ribeyro

Widely known, the reasons for the marginalization of the Peruvian writer Julio Ramón Ribeyro (1929-1994) by the canon of the Latin American boom, can be summarized in three statements: a preference for the short story at the expense of the novel, a classic aesthetic with French roots, and a profile as a discreet writer. In this respect, the relationship between the said relative marginality of the author and marginality as a writing topic itself is usually considered within a state of reductive causality that does not fully exploit the diverse stakes of the concept of margin. The present article aims to analyze the way in which the mentioned author reverses his own marginalization process to turn it into an advantage by means of questioning the “zonalities” that governed the Hispanic literary field during the 1960s and 1970s.Las razones de la marginación del peruano Julio Ramón Ribeyro (1929-1994) por parte del canon del boom latinoamericano son ampliamente conocidas: una preferencia por el cuento en detrimento de la novela, una estética clásica de raigambre francesa y un perfil de escritor discreto. A este respecto, se suele considerar la relación entre esta marginalidad relativa del autor y la marginalidad como tema de escritura dentro de una causalidad reductora que no explota plenamente las implicancias del concepto de margen. Nuestro artículo propone analizar cómo Ribeyro revierte el proceso de su marginación histórica hasta convertirla en una ventaja mediante el cuestionamiento de las zonalidades que rigieron el campo literario hispánico de los años 1960 y 1970

Electrochromic window with lithium conductive polymer electrolyte

An electrochromic window was built using WO3 as electrochromic material and V2O5 as counterelectrode. Both were deposited onto ITO-coated glass panes by vacuum evaporation and were amorphous to x-ray diffraction. The electrolyte was a lithium-conducting polymer consisting of a poly(ethylene oxide)-lithium salt complex. The electrochemical characterization of electrodes was realized by cyclic voltammetry, coulometric titration, and impedance spectroscopy, which allowed the determination of the chemical diffusion coefficients of lithium into WO3 and V2O5. Potentiostatic cycling of the complete transmissive cell yields to a transmission variation from 41 to 13% at 633 nm with a response time of 10s at room temperature

The Value of Extended Reality Techniques to Improve Remote Collaborative Maintenance Operations: A User Study

In the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) sector, data extracted from building information modelling (BIM) can be used to create a digital twin (DT). The algorithms of a BIM-based DT can facilitate the retrieval of information, which can then be used to improve building operation and maintenance procedures. However, with the increased complexity and automation of the building, maintenance operations are likely to become more complex and may require expert intervention. Collaboration and interaction between the operator and the expert may be limited as the latter may not be on site or within the company. Recently, extended reality (XR) technologies have proven to be effective in improving collaboration during maintenance operations,through data display and shared interactions. This paper presents a new collaborative solution using these technologies to enhance collaboration during remote maintenance operations. The proposed approach consists of a mixed reality (MR) set-up for the operator, a virtual reality (VR) set-up for the remote expert and a shared Digital Model of a heat exchanger. The MR set-up is used for tracking and displaying specific information, provided by the VR module. A user study was carried out to compare the efficiency of our solution with a standard audio-video collaboration. Our approach demonstrated substantial enhancements in collaborative inspection, resulting in a significative reduction in both the overall completion time of the inspection and the frequency of errors committed by the operators

Can Energy Savings from Operations Promoting Energy Efficient Behaviors in Office Buildings be Accounted for?

International audienceWhen looking for solutions to mitigate the growth of energy consumption in the commercial buildings sector, research works often focus on the energy performance of buildings. Indeed, many studies established how large the technical improvement potential was in this sector. But cost-effective energy savings can also be achieved in a complementary way by an improved energy management promoting energy efficient behaviors, because energy consumptions depend on both energy performance of buildings and equipments, and end-users behaviors. Past experiences tend to show that if awareness operations were widely disseminated, a significant amount of energy savings could be realized. It is likely that more and more organizations engage such operations. Unfortunately, their real impacts remain rather unknown and uncertain, mainly because they are not perceived as a serious option. Consequently they are implemented in very heterogeneous ways. Thus, their results may vary a lot too. This paper first reminds success factors analyzed in previous works, before presenting monitoring guidelines to ensure that energy savings can be accounted for. This methodological approach could be an entry to consider the inclusion of behavioral actions in schemes accounting for energy savings, such as white certificates. The option to include awareness operations in an energy management service appears to create good conditions ensuring the quality of the operations and therefore an accounting system reliable enough for certified energy savings. Admitting this new kind of energy service in white certificates schemes would on the one side provide a clear recognition of behavioral actions, and on the other side promote quality standards ensuring more homogeneity and effectiveness among this kind of operation

Compatibility of the French white certificate program to fulfil the objective of energy savings claimed by the Energy Service Directive

International audienceThe Commission has proposed a Directive on the promotion of end-use efficiency and energy services (ESD) to enhance the cost-effective and efficient end-use of energy in Member States. According to the Directive, the Member States shall adopt and aim to achieve an overall national indicative energy savings target of 9% (or beyond) in 2016. This target is to be reached by way of energy services and other energy efficiency measures. The French National Energy Efficiency Action Plan to comply with the ESD includes a White Certificates scheme (or FWC) as one of the important measures to fulfil the target. As the accountings of energy savings in the FWC scheme and in the ESD are different (e.g. lifetime-cumulated and discounted kWh for FWC and annual kWh for ESD), an analysis of the compliance of both methodologies and a comparison of the assessed savings are necessary. In this paper, we evaluate the compliance with the ESD requirements of two different end-use actions (insulation, heating boiler) included in the FWC scheme. This is done through the concrete case of certificates filed by EDF. The main objective of this evaluation is to assess the contribution of the savings of these FWC actions to the target of the ESD. Finally, general conclusions are drawn about the use of a White Certificates scheme as a monitoring and evaluation tool for the ESD purpose

Adaptive Motor Imagery: A Multimodal Study of Immobilization-Induced Brain Plasticity.

The consequences of losing the ability to move a limb are traumatic. One approach that examines the impact of pathological limb nonuse on the brain involves temporary immobilization of a healthy limb. Here, we investigated immobilization-induced plasticity in the motor imagery (MI) circuitry during hand immobilization. We assessed these changes with a multimodal paradigm, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure neural activation, magnetoencephalography (MEG) to track neuronal oscillatory dynamics, and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to assess corticospinal excitability. fMRI results show a significant decrease in neural activation for MI of the constrained hand, localized to sensorimotor areas contralateral to the immobilized hand. MEG results show a significant decrease in beta desynchronization and faster resynchronization in sensorimotor areas contralateral to the immobilized hand. TMS results show a significant increase in resting motor threshold in motor cortex contralateral to the constrained hand, suggesting a decrease in corticospinal excitability in the projections to the constrained hand. These results demonstrate a direct and rapid effect of immobilization on MI processes of the constrained hand, suggesting that limb nonuse may not only affect motor execution, as evidenced by previous studies, but also MI. These findings have important implications for the effectiveness of therapeutic approaches that use MI as a rehabilitation tool to ameliorate the negative effects of limb nonuse

Using VLBI to Probe the Orion-KL Outflow on AU Scales

We present the first contemporaneous 43GHz and 86GHz VLBI images of the v=1 J=2-1 and J=1-0 SiO masers in the Orion-KL nebula. Both maser species exhibit the same general morphology of earlier J=1-0 maser images which appear to trace the edges of a bi-polar conical outflow. Surprisingly, the J=2-1 masers form further from the central protostar than the J=1-0 masers, a fact not readily explained by current SiO maser pumping models. The average magnitude of offsets between corresponding regions of the two masing transitions is approximately 14% of the total radial extent of the SiO maser emission. This offset indicates that each transition must trace different physical conditions.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figure

Evidence for a Geometrically Thick Self-Gravitating Accretion Disk in NGC 3079

We have mapped, for the first time, the full velocity extent of the water maser emission in NGC 3079. The largely north-south distribution of emission, aligned with a kpc-scale molecular disk, and the segregation of blue- and red-shifted emission on the sky are suggestive of a nearly edge-on molecular disk on pc-scales. Positions and line-of-sight velocities of blue- and red-shifted maser emission are consistent with a central mass of ~2 x 10^6 Msun enclosed within a radius of ~0.4 pc. The corresponding mean mass density of 10^6.8 Msun pc^-3 is suggestive of a central black hole, which is consistent with the detection of hard X-ray excess (20-100 keV) and an Fe Kalpha line from the nucleus. Because the rotation curve traced by the maser emission is flat, the mass of the pc-scale disk is significant with respect to the central mass. Since the velocity dispersion of the maser features does not decrease with radius and constitutes a large fraction of the orbital velocity, the disk is probably thick and flared. The rotation curve and the physical conditions necessary to support maser emission imply a Toomre Q-parameter that is << 1. Thus, the disk is most likely clumpy, and we argue that it is probably forming stars. Overall, the accretion disk in NGC 3079 stands in contrast to the compact, thin, warped, differentially rotating disk in the archetypal maser galaxy NGC 4258 (abridged).Comment: 41 pages, 13 figures, to appear in the 2005 January 10 issue of the Astrophysical Journal. High resolution versions of the figures and of the paper are available at http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~pkondratko/publications/NGC3079

Glutamatergic correlates of gamma-band oscillatory activity during cognition: a concurrent ER-MRS and EEG study

Frequency specific synchronisation of neuronal firing within the gamma-band (30-70 Hz) appears to be a fundamental correlate of both basic sensory and higher cognitive processing. In-vitro studies suggest that the neurochemical basis of gamma-band oscillatory activity is based on interactions between excitatory (i.e. glutamate) and inhibitory (i.e. GABA) neurotransmitter concentrations. However, the nature of the relationship between excitatory neurotransmitter concentration and changes in gamma band activity in humans remains undetermined. Here, we examine the links between dynamic glutamate concentration and the formation of functional gamma-band oscillatory networks. Using concurrently acquired event-related magnetic resonance spectroscopy and electroencephalography, during a repetition-priming paradigm, we demonstrate an interaction between stimulus type (object vs. abstract pictures) and repetition in evoked gamma-band oscillatory activity, and find that glutamate levels within the lateral occipital cortex, differ in response to these distinct stimulus categories. Importantly, we show that dynamic glutamate levels are related to the amplitude of stimulus evoked gamma-band (but not to beta, alpha or theta or ERP) activity. These results highlight the specific connection between excitatory neurotransmitter concentration and amplitude of oscillatory response, providing a novel insight into the relationship between the neurochemical and neurophysiological processes underlying cognition