Missionnaires orientalistes et orientalistes tamouls : lectures et relectures du Tiruvācakam

L’article porte sur le texte shivaïte tamoul du Tiruvācakam et en examine différentes relectures dans la première partie du XXe siècle. Ce sont des missionnaires protestants, G. U. Pope et H. Schomerus qui ont livré les premières traductions du texte en anglais et allemand. Ces traductions s’accompagnent d’évaluations normatives, valorisant certains aspects du texte de Māṇikkavācakar (p. ex. le rapport personnel à la divinité) et critiquant d’autres (p. ex. le polythéisme). Dans le même contexte temporel apparaissent d’autres lectures, émanant des élites tamoules (en particulier, Nallasvāmi Piḷḷai et Maraimalai Aḍigal). Celles-ci sont formulées en interaction avec les publications des missionnaires et visent avant tout à défendre l’héritage religieux shivaïte tamoul dans un contexte où se recompose un hindouisme sanskritisé et calqué sur l’Advaita-vedānta. Ces interprétations insistent sur le caractère panindien de la religion du Tiruvācakam, ou au contraire en soulignent la particularité dravidienne. C’est dans ce contexte qu’apparaissent de nouvelles lectures, d’auteurs tamouls et européens, qui mettent l’accent sur l’universalité de l’expérience, qualifiée de mystique, relatée par le texte.The contribution examines different readings of the Tamil shaivite text of the Tiruvācakam in the first part of the 20th Century. Missionary protestants, G. U. Pope and H. Schomerus, are responsible for the first translations of this text in English and German. Those translations were loaded with normative evaluations, valorizing certain aspects of Māṇikkavācakar’s text (e.g. the personal relation to the deity) while dismissing others (e.g. polytheism). In interaction with the missionaries’ publications, Tamil elites (in particular, Nallasvāmi Piḷḷai and Maraimalai Aḍigal) developed a special interest for this text, considered as a central component of a Tamil shaiva heritage, in a context in which a sanskritized and Advaita-vedānta based Hinduism was being recomposed. Those readings insist on the pan-Indian relevance of the Tiruvācakam, or on the contrary underline its Dravidian specificity. It is in this context that new interpretations will be formulated, from Tamil and European authors alike, with an accent on the universality of the so-called “mystic experience”

Zones marginales des études postcoloniales : nouvelles approches et comparaisons entre les mondes indien et russo-soviétique

1. De la donne institutionnelle au défi méthodologique Alors que son idée remonte à plusieurs années, le colloque qui a donné lieu à la présente publication a été profilé pour marquer la réunion, au sein de la Faculté des lettres de l’Université de Lausanne, des sections des langues et civilisations slaves et des langues et civilisations orientales. Cette mutualisation a eu pour résultat la création d’une nouvelle section de langues et civilisations slaves et de l’Asie du Sud. Forte de deux p..

"Do Not Protect Us, Train Us."-Swiss Healthcare Students' Attitudes Toward Caring for Terminally Ill Patients

Positive attitudes and a sense of competence toward end-of-life care are the key to adequately support terminally ill patients. This qualitative study aims to explore healthcare students' attitudes toward caring for terminally ill patients. Eleven students from the University of Applied Health Sciences in Switzerland participated in focus groups. Attitudes were overall positive. Most participants felt that supporting dying patients was a way to achieve professional fulfillment. However, most students felt not competent in palliative care and lacking experience. They wanted to receive better training, more specifically in good practices and appropriate behaviors. Our study fills a knowledge gap regarding the opinions and pedagogical needs of healthcare students, and highlights the importance of experiencing end-of-life care during the educational process. We recommend early exposure to terminally ill patients and appropriate attitudes toward death and dying as part of the bachelor's curriculum, accompanied by benevolent guidance from teachers and health professionals

Continuous Symmetry Breaking in a Two-dimensional Rydberg Array

Spontaneous symmetry breaking underlies much of our classification of phases of matter and their associated transitions. The nature of the underlying symmetry being broken determines many of the qualitative properties of the phase; this is illustrated by the case of discrete versus continuous symmetry breaking. Indeed, in contrast to the discrete case, the breaking of a continuous symmetry leads to the emergence of gapless Goldstone modes controlling, for instance, the thermodynamic stability of the ordered phase. Here, we realize a two-dimensional dipolar XY model -- which exhibits a continuous spin-rotational symmetry -- utilizing a programmable Rydberg quantum simulator. We demonstrate the adiabatic preparation of correlated low-temperature states of both the XY ferromagnet and the XY antiferromagnet. In the ferromagnetic case, we characterize the presence of long-range XY order, a feature prohibited in the absence of long-range dipolar interaction. Our exploration of the many-body physics of XY interactions complements recent works utilizing the Rydberg-blockade mechanism to realize Ising-type interactions exhibiting discrete spin rotation symmetry.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figures in main text, 9 figures in supplemental method

The porin and the permeating antibiotic: A selective diffusion barrier in gram-negative bacteria

Gram-negative bacteria are responsible for a large proportion of antibiotic resistant bacterial diseases. These bacteria have a complex cell envelope that comprises an outer membrane and an inner membrane that delimit the periplasm. The outer membrane contains various protein channels, called porins, which are involved in the influx of various compounds, including several classes of antibiotics. Bacterial adaptation to reduce influx through porins is an increasing problem worldwide that contributes, together with efflux systems, to the emergence and dissemination of antibiotic resistance. An exciting challenge is to decipher the genetic and molecular basis of membrane impermeability as a bacterial resistance mechanism. This Review outlines the bacterial response towards antibiotic stress on altered membrane permeability and discusses recent advances in molecular approaches that are improving our knowledge of the physico-chemical parameters that govern the translocation of antibiotics through porin channel

Identification and Evolution of Drug Efflux Pump in Clinical Enterobacter aerogenes Strains Isolated in 1995 and 2003

BACKGROUND: The high mortality impact of infectious diseases will increase due to accelerated evolution of antibiotic resistance in important human pathogens. Development of antibiotic resistance is a evolutionary process inducing the erosion of the effectiveness of our arsenal of antibiotics. Resistance is not necessarily limited to a single class of antibacterial agents but may affect many unrelated compounds; this is termed 'multidrug resistance' (MDR). The major mechanism of MDR is the active expulsion of drugs by bacterial pumps; the treatment of gram negative bacterial infections is compromised due to resistance mechanisms including the expression of efflux pumps that actively expel various usual antibiotics (beta-lactams, quinolones, ...). METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Enterobacter aerogenes has emerged among Enterobacteriaceae associated hospital infections during the last twenty years due to its faculty of adaptation to antibiotic stresses. Clinical isolates of E. aerogenes belonging to two strain collections isolated in 1995 and 2003 respectively, were screened to assess the involvement of efflux pumps in antibiotic resistance. Drug susceptibility assays were performed on all bacterial isolates and an efflux pump inhibitor (PAbetaN) previously characterized allowed to decipher the role of efflux in the resistance. Accumulation of labelled chloramphenicol was monitored in the presence of an energy poison to determine the involvement of active efflux on the antibiotic intracellular concentrations. The presence of the PAbetaN-susceptible efflux system was also identified in resistant E. aerogenes strains. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: For the first time a noticeable increase in clinical isolates containing an efflux mechanism susceptible to pump inhibitor is report within an 8 year period. After the emergence of extended spectrum beta-lactamases in E. aerogenes and the recent characterisation of porin mutations in clinical isolates, this study describing an increase in inhibitor-susceptible efflux throws light on a new step in the evolution of mechanism in E. aerogenes

Genetic variation in the Solanaceae fruit bearing species lulo and tree tomato revealed by Conserved Ortholog (COSII) markers

The Lulo or naranjilla (Solanum quitoense Lam.) and the tree tomato or tamarillo (Solanum betaceum Cav. Sendt.) are both Andean tropical fruit species with high nutritional value and the potential for becoming premium products in local and export markets. Herein, we present a report on the genetic characterization of 62 accessions of lulos (n = 32) and tree tomatoes (n = 30) through the use of PCR-based markers developed from single-copy conserved orthologous genes (COSII) in other Solanaceae (Asterid) species. We successfully PCR amplified a set of these markers for lulos (34 out of 46 initially tested) and tree tomatoes (26 out of 41) for molecular studies. Six polymorphic COSII markers were found in lulo with a total of 47 alleles and five polymorphic markers in tree tomato with a total of 39 alleles in the two populations. Further genetic analyses indicated a high population structure (with FST > 0.90), which may be a result of low migration between populations, adaptation to various niches and the number of markers evaluated. We propose COSII markers as sound tools for molecular studies, conservation and the breeding of these two fruit species