Newspapers of the French Left in Provence and Bas-Languedoc during the First World War.

The purpose of this dissertation is to offer a contribution to the historical debate concerning the nature and extent of 'union sacrée' in France during the First World War. Two non-military mass-circulation daily newspapers oriented to the political left (gauché) are consulted in their entirety between 15 June 1914 and 31 December 1918: 'Le Petit Provencal' of Marseille and 'Le Petit Meridional' of Montpellier. These newspapers offered a published voice for 'gauchiste' groups in Provence and Bas-Languedoc, including Radicals, socialists, trade unions, and even occasionally anarchists. 'Le Petit Provencal' can be defined as socialist, one of only two such large-circulation daily newspapers in France before the war (the other was in Lille; 'L'Humanité' of Paris was a small-circulation 'journal d'opinion'), and 'Le Petit Meridional', Radical, although opening its pages to views of socialists and trade unions. Both of these newspapers served a region distinctive in France for its long 'rouge' political tradition, and its separatist sentiments. In addition to these sources, considerable primary material is adduced from police, military, and other archives to show how censorship and morale issues influenced these newspapers and the region they served during this period. This study indicates that while these newspapers did join in a 'truce' ('la tréve') in early August, they did not truly reflect a 'union sacrée' after the first few weeks of war. In addition, this work shows that the press was not nearly as universally sensationalistic and wildly inaccurate as has been assumed: much of the 'eyewash' (bourrage de crâne) was effectively eliminated after the first few weeks of war, and nearly all issues important to understanding the conflict in France were presented to readers at some point. Censorship was predictably strong, but not invincible, and the material it did allow published is often surprisingly candid and accurate. Material presented in this thesis concerning the nature and influence of 'union sacrée' generally support conclusions reached by modern French historians Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Jean-Jacques Becker in their studies of trench newspapers and civilian war morale reports

Functional Foods in Relation to Health and Disease (New Probiotic Cheddar Cheese).

End of Project ReportGrowing public awareness of diet-related health benefits has fuelled the demand for probiotic foods. These foods contain probiotic bacteria which are described as live microbial supplements that improve the intestinal microbial balance and are intended for maintenance of health and/or the prevention of disease. Probiotic bacteria for human use must be proven to be safe and beneficial, and should preferably be of human origin as evidence suggests that these bacteria are species specific and perform best in the species from which they were isolated. They must also retain both viability and efficacy in a particular food product throughout its shelf-life, and following consumption. Above all however, probiotic food products must be proved effective in controlled validated clinical trials. Dairy foods, including in particular, fermented milks and yogurt are among the best accepted food carriers for probiotic cultures. The aim of this study was to develop new probiotic foods, particularly, the production of high quality Cheddar cheese containing high levels of probiotic bacteria.Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marin

Enhancement of Stochastic Resonance in distributed systems due to a selective coupling

Recent massive numerical simulations have shown that the response of a "stochastic resonator" is enhanced as a consequence of spatial coupling. Similar results have been analytically obtained in a reaction-diffusion model, using "nonequilibrium potential" techniques. We now consider a field-dependent diffusivity and show that the "selectivity" of the coupling is more efficient for achieving stochastic-resonance enhancement than its overall value in the constant-diffusivity case.Comment: 10 pgs (RevTex), 4 figures, submitted to Phys.Rev.Let

Solvent extraction studies of coprocessing flowsheets: Results from Campaign 6 of the Solvent Extraction Test Facility (SETF)

A series of five solvent extraction tests were made in the Solvent Extraction Test Facility (SETF) during Campaign 6. Each test used a coprocessing flowsheet that included coextraction-coscrubbing of the heavy metals followed by partial partitioning of the uranium and plutonium into separate uranium and uranium-plutonium products. The separation of the uranium and plutonium was aided by the addition of HNO{sub 2} to the organic backscrub stream. Two of these tests compared the performance of the traditional Purex solvent, tri-n-butyl phosphate (TBP), with a potential replacement, tri-2-ethylhexyl phosphate (TEHP). The remaining three tests were made with a chemically-degraded TBP solvent to compare the effectiveness of two solvent cleanup methods - treatment with silica gel or scrubbing with sodium carbonate and water

Solvent extraction studies of coprocessing flowsheets: results from Campaign 5 of the Solvent Extraction Test Facility (SETF)

In Campaign 5, fast breeder reactor (FBR) fuel [average burnup {similar_to}2.6 TJ/kg ({similar_to}30,000 MWd/t)] was processed for the first time. Operations in a single extraction cycle with 30% TBP-NPH were satisfactory with low heavy-metal losses (< 0.02%) and high decontamination factors (DFs > 1000) for all fission products except {sup 95}Zr, which exhibited moderate DFs (180 and 750, respectively, in two runs). The use of a split scrub stream (0.5 M and 3 M HNO{sub 3}) vs a single scrub stream (3 M HNO{sub 3}) resulted in the higher DF. An extractant backscrubbing stream was not needed to produce partially partitioned uranium-plutonium products containing 30 to 35% plutonium when processing the core FBR fuel (22% Pu). The necessary enrichment factor ({similar_to}1.5) was attained by maintaining the temperature at 25 to 30{sup 0}C in partial partitioning and adjusting the relative flow rates of the aqueous and organic phases. The plutonium recovery in the two runs ({similar_to}400 g) was purified by anion exchange and converted to PuO{sub 2} for fuel refabrication studies. 8 references, 7 figures, 6 tables

A taste of the deep-sea: The roles of gustatory and tactile searching behaviour in the grenadier fish <i>Coryphaenoides armatus</i>

The deep-sea grenadier fishes (Coryphaenoides spp.) are among the dominant predators and scavengers in the ocean basins that cover much of Earth's surface. Baited camera experiments were used to study the behaviour of these fishes. Despite the apparent advantages of rapidly consuming food, grenadiers attracted to bait spend a large proportion of their time in prolonged periods of non-feeding activity. Video analysis revealed that fish often adopted a head-down swimming attitude (mean of 21.3 degrees between the fish and seafloor), with swimming velocity negatively related to attitude. The fish also swam around and along vertical and horizontal structures of the lander with their head immediately adjacent to the structure. We initially hypothesised that this behaviour was associated with the use of the short chin barbel in foraging. Barbel histology showed numerous taste buds in the skin, and a barbel nerve with about 20,000 axons in adult fish. A tracing experiment in one undamaged animal revealed the termination fields of the barbel neurons in the trigeminal and rhombencephalic regions, indicating both a mechanoreceptory and a gustatory role for the barbel. Our conclusion was that olfactory foraging becomes ineffective at close ranges and is followed by a search phase using tactile and gustatory sensing by the barbel. The development of this sensory method probably co-evolved alongside behavioural changes in swimming mechanics to allow postural stability at low swimming speeds

Stochastic Resonance in Nonpotential Systems

We propose a method to analytically show the possibility for the appearance of a maximum in the signal-to-noise ratio in nonpotential systems. We apply our results to the FitzHugh-Nagumo model under a periodic external forcing, showing that the model exhibits stochastic resonance. The procedure that we follow is based on the reduction to a one-dimensional dynamics in the adiabatic limit, and in the topology of the phase space of the systems under study. Its application to other nonpotential systems is also discussed.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Transcendence over Diversity: black women in the academy

Universities, like many major public institutions have embraced the notion of ‘diversity’ virtually uncritically- it is seen as a moral ‘good in itself’. But what happens to those who come to represent ‘diversity’- the black and minority ethnic groups targeted to increase the institutions thirst for global markets and aversion to accusations of institutional racism? Drawing on existing literature which analyses the process of marginalization in higher education, this paper explores the individual costs to black and female academic staff regardless of the discourse on diversity. However despite the exclusion of staff, black and minority ethnic women are also entering higher education in relatively large numbers as students. Such ‘grassroots’ educational urgency transcends the dominant discourse on diversity and challenges presumptions inherent in top down initiatives such as ‘widening participation’. Such a collective movement from the bottom up shows the importance of understanding black female agency when unpacking the complex dynamics of gendered and racialised exclusion. Black women’s desire for education and learning makes possible a reclaiming of higher education from creeping instrumentalism and reinstates it as a radical site of resistance and refutation