The Four Sinners: The Relationship Between Humanity and Its Creator - A Verse-by-Verse Devotional Reflection on Psalm 107

The book of Psalms is an essential means of worship to the Christian. Commanded to be sung and studied, God consistently uses the psalms to communicate with His people. His conviction, creativity, and faithful love are emphasized through the writing of each psalmist. This paper studies the varying types of psalms, the manner in which they are constructed, and the required response of the worshiper to the psalms. Psalm 107, known as Let the Redeemed of the Lord Say So if found to be titled, is a song of communal response and repentance. one sees that this title implies the lyrics of what can be realized as a modern-day chorus. The psalm is split into six sections, the second through fifth being of similar nature and structure, each describing a manner of sin and ending with a chorus declaring ‘Let them thank the LORD for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of man!’. The magnificent aspect to these repetitive lyrics is worthy of study as they display the opposing relationship of human sinful instinct and the grace of God

Contrôle moléculaire du développement neuro-vasculaire / Molecular control of neuro-vascular development

Recherche Pages web : https://www.college-de-france.fr/site/en-cirb/brunet.htm. Neuronal and vascular development require a refined spatio-temporal orchestration to guide axons and vascular plexus through the organism, align vessels with nerves, and allow appropriate functional connections to establish between the two systems. Indeed, accurate neuro-vascular crosstalk is of tremendous importance as it regulates many vital aspects of body homeostasis such as neuronal activity and plasticity, ..

Effets de pairs et consommation intertemporelle

Dans la théorie économique standard, on suppose que les préférences des individus sont indépendantes de leur environnement social. Cependant, cette hypothèse de base semble en partie irréaliste, car l’utilité individuelle peut être affectée par une variété d’interactions sociales. Les effets de pairs sont une forme bien connue d’interaction sociale qui se définissent comme l’influence du comportement ou des caractéristiques des individus d’un groupe de référence sur les préférences et les décisions d’un individu de ce même groupe. L’objectif de la présente étude est d’estimer les effets de pairs sur la croissance du niveau de consommation des ménages. Il est pertinent de se pencher sur cette question puisque les effets de pairs peuvent engendrer un multiplicateur social. Si les effets de pairs ne sont pas pris en compte dans la prévision des politiques sur la consommation agrégée, les impacts attendus peuvent être différents des impacts réels. Dans ce mémoire, les effets de pairs sur la croissance du niveau de consommation des ménages ont été estimés à l’aide des données panel recueillies via l’enquête longitudinale annuelle (2008-2013) du UK DATA Service. Cette base de données permet l’observation du nombre de voitures dans le ménage, un bien durable et hautement visible. Étant donné que nous ne possédons pas d’informations sur les réseaux sociaux des ménages, nous posons comme hypothèse que ceux-ci interagissent en groupes. Nous créons les groupes de référence grâce aux caractéristiques exogènes des ménages. D’abord, un modèle linéaire est estimé par moindres carrés ordinaires. Ce modèle est simple à estimer, mais il est peu approprié, car il ne nous permet pas de distinguer un véritable effet de pairs de simples effets corrélés communs pour tous les ménages du groupe. Ensuite, nous estimons notre modèle grâce à la méthode des moindres carrés en deux étapes qui résout le problème de variables explicatives endogènes. De plus, nous présentons un modèle avec effets fixes de groupe pour tenir compte des effets corrélés. Enfin, un modèle en déviation par rapport à la moyenne est estimé par la méthode des variables instrumentales. Ce dernier modèle est le plus approprié, car il permet l’obtention d’estimateurs asymptotiquement efficaces. Les résultats obtenus des effets de pairs endogènes se sont avérés quelque peu inattendus. Lorsqu’ils sont significatifs, les paramètres associés à ces effets sont négatifs. Un tel résultat est expliqué par un comportement d’anticonformité entre pairs

La nouvelle Commission québécoise des relations du travail (1988)

Après avoir résumé les motifs allégués par le ministre du Travail du Québec au soutien du projet de loi 30 et des objectifs qu'il y visait, les auteurs analysent les changements institutionnels apportes par cette loi, précisent le rôle et le mandat de la Commission et étudient en détail son fonctionnement et ses pouvoirs.In this article the authors first summarize the reasons put forward by the Quebec Minister of Labour to justify Bill 30 and what the amendments to the Labour Code are intended to accomplish. They then analyse the changes brought about by the new law in the decision-making bodies: they discuss those bodies which will be abolished and the transfer of jurisdiction to other tribunals including the new Labour Relations Board which will be created. The authors next evaluate the role and mandate of the new Board and they draw a distinction between those areas where the Board alone will have jurisdiction and those where its role will be concurrent with another body. There is particular emphasis on unfair labour practice complaints since the Board will have exclusive jurisdiction over a whole new range of such complaints. The major part of the article consists of a detailed study of the functions and powers of the new Board. Here the authors begin by reviewing how the Board becomes seized of a matter: who has standing to file applications and be heard, what are the time limits and what procedural requirements must be met. Once seized of the matter but prior to the hearing, the Board is called upon to perform two distinct functions: investigation and mediation. In this context, the authors attempt to answer these questions: Who will act on the Board's behalf to investigate the facts and what are the precise powers of the investigator and who will act on the Board's behalf to mediate between the parties and at what point is such mediation likely to occur?The hearing itself is then considered as well as the particular problem of who can act as a decision maker. Also discussed is the legality of the provision of the new law whereby a hearing does not have to be held and can be dispensed with by the expedient of allowing each party the opportunity to make representations without the possibility of cross-examining the opposite party. The new law allows the Board to examine matters «according to the mode of proof it deems appropriate» and the precise meaning of this phrase is discussed. The Board's remedial powers come under close scrutiny in the article, especially the power to order injunctive-type relief in the form of cease and desist orders. It is pointed out that the Board may refuse to intervene in certain cases and that it may take cognizance of an undertaking to conform to the Code instead of rendering a decision. Since the Board must give written reasons for any decision which terminates a matter, consideration is given to how the expressions «reasons» and «terminates a matter» are likely to be interpreted. The Board has the power to revoke and review its own decision and the circumstances giving rise to such a procedure are examined. Finally, the authors look at the manner in which the Board's decisions become enforceable. By way of conclusion, the authors list the additional areas in which the Board will have the power to intervene and consider the consequence of such increased intervention by the Board. They also indicate how they believe employers and unions will have to adjust and change some long-standing practices. The article ends with a warning of the problems that could arise if Bill 30 is not implemented and applied with good judgment and insight

A low Complexity Wireless Gigabit Ethernet IFoF 60 GHz H/W Platform and Issues

6 pagesInternational audienceThis paper proposes a complete IFoF system architecture derived from simplified IEEE802.15.3c PHY layer proposal to successfully ensure near 1 Gbps on the air interface. The system architecture utilizes low complexity baseband processing modules. The byte/frame synchronization technique is designed to provide a high value of preamble detection probability and a very small value of the false detection probability. Conventional Reed-Solomon RS (255, 239) coding is used for Channel Forward Error Correction (FEC). Good communication link quality and Bit Error Rate (BER) results at 875 Mbps are achieved with directional antennas

Listeners Exploit Syntactic Structure On-Line to Restrict Their Lexical Search to a Subclass of Verbs

Many experiments have shown that listeners actively build expectations about up-coming words, rather than simply waiting for information to accumulate. The online construction of a syntactic structure is one of the cues that listeners may use to construct strong expectations about the possible words they will be exposed to. For example, speakers of verb-final languages use pre-verbal arguments to predict on-line the kind of arguments that are likely to occur next (e.g., Kamide, 2008, for a review). Although in SVO languages information about a verb's arguments typically follows the verb, some languages use pre-verbal object pronouns, potentially allowing listeners to build on-line expectations about the nature of the upcoming verb. For instance, if a pre-verbal direct object pronoun is heard, then the following verb has to be able to enter a transitive structure, thus excluding intransitive verbs. To test this, we used French, in which object pronouns have to appear pre-verbally, to investigate whether listeners use this cue to predict the occurrence of a transitive verb. In a word detection task, we measured the number of false alarms to sentences that contained a transitive verb whose first syllable was homophonous to the target monosyllabic verb (e.g., target “dort” /dɔʁ/ to sleep and false alarm verb “dorlote” /dɔʁlɔt/ to cuddle). The crucial comparison involved two sentence types, one without a pre-verbal object clitic, for which an intransitive verb was temporarily a plausible option (e.g., “Il dorlote” / He cuddles) and the other with a pre-verbal object clitic, that made the appearance of an intransitive verb impossible (“Il le dorlote” / He cuddles it). Results showed a lower rate of false alarms for sentences with a pre-verbal object pronoun (3%) compared to locally ambiguous sentences (about 20%). Participants rapidly incorporate information about a verb's argument structure to constrain lexical access to verbs that match the expected subcategorization frame

Vascular Mural Cells Promote Noradrenergic Differentiation of Embryonic Sympathetic Neurons

The sympathetic nervous system controls smooth muscle tone and heart rate in the cardiovascular system. Postganglionic sympathetic neurons (SNs) develop in close proximity to the dorsal aorta (DA) and innervate visceral smooth muscle targets. Here, we use the zebrafish embryo to ask whether the DA is required for SN development. We show that noradrenergic (NA) differentiation of SN precursors temporally coincides with vascular mural cell (VMC) recruitment to the DA and vascular maturation. Blocking vascular maturation inhibits VMC recruitment and blocks NA differentiation of SN precursors. Inhibition of platelet-derived growth factor receptor (PDGFR) signaling prevents VMC differentiation and also blocks NA differentiation of SN precursors. NA differentiation is normal in cloche mutants that are devoid of endothelial cells but have VMCs. Thus, PDGFR-mediated mural cell recruitment mediates neurovascular interactions between the aorta and sympathetic precursors and promotes their noradrenergic differentiation

The fate of the duplicated androgen receptor in fishes: a late neofunctionalization event?

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Based on the observation of an increased number of paralogous genes in teleost fishes compared with other vertebrates and on the conserved synteny between duplicated copies, it has been shown that a whole genome duplication (WGD) occurred during the evolution of Actinopterygian fish. Comparative phylogenetic dating of this duplication event suggests that it occurred early on, specifically in teleosts. It has been proposed that this event might have facilitated the evolutionary radiation and the phenotypic diversification of the teleost fish, notably by allowing the sub- or neo-functionalization of many duplicated genes.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this paper, we studied in a wide range of Actinopterygians the duplication and fate of the androgen receptor (AR, NR3C4), a nuclear receptor known to play a key role in sex-determination in vertebrates. The pattern of AR gene duplication is consistent with an early WGD event: it has been duplicated into two genes AR-A and AR-B after the split of the Acipenseriformes from the lineage leading to teleost fish but before the divergence of Osteoglossiformes. Genomic and syntenic analyses in addition to lack of PCR amplification show that one of the duplicated copies, AR-B, was lost in several basal Clupeocephala such as Cypriniformes (including the model species zebrafish), Siluriformes, Characiformes and Salmoniformes. Interestingly, we also found that, in basal teleost fish (Osteoglossiformes and Anguilliformes), the two copies remain very similar, whereas, specifically in Percomorphs, one of the copies, AR-B, has accumulated substitutions in both the ligand binding domain (LBD) and the DNA binding domain (DBD).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The comparison of the mutations present in these divergent AR-B with those known in human to be implicated in complete, partial or mild androgen insensitivity syndrome suggests that the existence of two distinct AR duplicates may be correlated to specific functional differences that may be connected to the well-known plasticity of sex determination in fish. This suggests that three specific events have shaped the present diversity of ARs in Actinopterygians: (i) early WGD, (ii) parallel loss of one duplicate in several lineages and (iii) putative neofunctionalization of the same duplicate in percomorphs, which occurred a long time after the WGD.</p

Validation of the French Version of the Child Post-Traumatic Stress Reaction Index: Psychometric Properties in French Speaking School-Aged Children

Background: Although the reliable and valid Child Post-Traumatic Stress Reaction Index (CPTS-RI) is a widely used measure of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in children, it has not been validated in French-speaking populations. The present study aims to assess the psychometric properties of the CPTS-RI in three samples of French-speaking school-children. Methods: Data was obtained from three samples. Sample 1 was composed of 106 children (mean (SD) age = 11.7(0.7), 50% females) victims of an industrial disaster. Sample 2 was composed of 50 children (mean (SD) age = 10.8(2.6), 44% females) who had received an orthopaedic surgical procedure after an accident. Sample 3 was composed of 106 children (mean (SD) age = 11.7(2.2), 44% females) admitted to an emergency department after a road traffic accident. We tested internal consistency using Cronbach's alpha. We examined test-retest reliability using intraclass correlation coefficient. In order to assess the convergent validity of the French version of the CPTS-RI and the Clinician Administered PTS Scale-Child and Adolescent (CAPS-CA), spearman-correlation coefficient was computed. To verify the validity of the cut-off scores, a ROC curve was constructed which evaluated the sensitivity and specificity of each score compared to the diagnosis with the CAPS-CA. We also used principal components analysis with varimax rotation to study the structure of the French version of the CPTS-RI. Results: Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.87 for the French version of the CPTS-RI. Two-week test-retest intraclass correlation coefficient (n = 30) was 0.67. The French version of the CPTS-RI was well correlated with the CAPS-CA (r = 0.76, p24 for the CPTS-RI, the sensitivity and specificities were 100% and 62.6%, respectively. The French version of the CPTS-RI demonstrated a three-factor structure. Conclusions: The CPTS-RI is reliable and valid in French-speaking children