Saints and lovers: myths of the avant-garde in Michel Georges-Michel's Les Montparnos

This article examines Michel Georges-Michel’s 1924 novel Les Montparnos as a study of the myths circulating around the Montparnasse avant-garde of the 1920s, and their function in relation to art. Key amongst these myths is the idea of art as a religion, according to which avant-garde artists are conceived as secular saints and martyrs. While this notion of artist as saint is strongly present in early-twentieth-century biographies of Van Gogh, Georges-Michel explicitly relates his fictionalized version of Modigliani’s life not to such recent models but rather to the Renaissance masters, and especially to Raphael, a link which is explained in terms of the post-war ‘retour à l’ordre’ in French artistic culture. The novel’s references to Raphael as archetypal painter-lover are also related to its construction of a myth of the artist as virile and sexually prolific, and to its identification of creative and sexual impulses

A Rank-Based Nonparametric Method for Mapping Quantitative Trait Loci in Outbred Half-Sib Pedigrees: Application to Milk Production in a Granddaughter Design

We describe the development of a multipoint nonparametric quantitative trait loci mapping method based on the Wilcoxon rank-sum test applicable to outbred half-sib pedigrees. The method has been evaluated on a simulated dataset and its efficiency compared with interval mapping by using regression. It was shown that the rank-based approach is slightly inferior to regression when the residual variance is homoscedastic normal; however, in three out of four other scenarios envisaged, i.e., residual variance heteroscedastic normal, homoscedastic skewed, and homoscedastic positively kurtosed, the latter outperforms the former one. Both methods were applied to a real data set analyzing the effect of bovine chromosome 6 on milk yield and composition by using a 125-cM map comprising 15 microsatellites and a granddaughter design counting 1158 Holstein-Friesian sires

Terres, comptoirs et silos : des systèmes de production aux politiques alimentaires

Des économistes, des agronomes et des géographes ont mené ensemble une réflexion sur les concepts et les méthodes d'analyse concernant l'autosuffisance, les stratégies et les politiques alimentaires. Ils ont confronté leurs points de vue et leurs hypothèses de travail dans une perspective comparative. Les contraintes du milieu naturel, les systèmes agraires, les politiques agricoles et alimentaires, les stratégies des acteurs locaux, le concept de filière, les circuits de commercialisation des produits vivriers, une proposition de modélisation des rapports entre les sociétés et leur environnement ont été abordés à partir d'études de cas pris sur des terrains africains, asiatiques et latino-américains

Haplotype diversity of the myostatin gene among beef cattle breeds

A total of 678 individuals from 28 European bovine breeds were both phenotyped and analysed at the myostatin locus by the Single Strand Conformation Polymorphism (SSCP) method. Seven new mutations were identified which contribute to the high polymorphism (1 SNP every 100 bp) present in this small gene; twenty haplotypes were described and a genotyping method was set up using the Oligonucleotide Ligation Assay (OLA) method. Some haplotypes appeared to be exclusive to a particular breed; this was the case for 5 in the Charolaise (involving mutation Q204X) and 7 in the Maine-Anjou (involving mutation E226X). The relationships between the different haplotypes were studied, thus allowing to test the earlier hypothesis on the origin of muscular hypertrophy in Europe: muscular hypertrophy (namely nt821(del11)) was mainly spread in different waves from northern Europe milk purpose populations in most breeds; however, other mutations (mostly disruptive) arose in a single breed, were highly selected and have since scarcely evolved to other populations

Volatile Constituents And Antimicrobial Activity Of Lavandula Stoechas L. Oil From Tunisia

International audienceAn oil obtained from the dried leaves of Lavandula stoechas L. in 0.77% yield was analyzed by capillary GC and GUMS. Fenchone (68.2%) and camphor (11.2%) were the main components of the 28 identified molecules. This oil has been tested for antimicrobial activity against six bacteria, and two fungi. The results showed that this oil was active against all of the tested strains; Staphylococcus aureus was the more sensitive strain

A Class of Topological Actions

We review definitions of generalized parallel transports in terms of Cheeger-Simons differential characters. Integration formulae are given in terms of Deligne-Beilinson cohomology classes. These representations of parallel transport can be extended to situations involving distributions as is appropriate in the context of quantized fields.Comment: 41 pages, no figure

The ALPS project release 1.3: open source software for strongly correlated systems

We present release 1.3 of the ALPS (Algorithms and Libraries for Physics Simulations) project, an international open source software project to develop libraries and application programs for the simulation of strongly correlated quantum lattice models such as quantum magnets, lattice bosons, and strongly correlated fermion systems. Development is centered on common XML and binary data formats, on libraries to simplify and speed up code development, and on full-featured simulation programs. The programs enable non-experts to start carrying out numerical simulations by providing basic implementations of the important algorithms for quantum lattice models: classical and quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) using non-local updates, extended ensemble simulations, exact and full diagonalization (ED), as well as the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG). Changes in the new release include a DMRG program for interacting models, support for translation symmetries in the diagonalization programs, the ability to define custom measurement operators, and support for inhomogeneous systems, such as lattice models with traps. The software is available from our web server at http://alps.comp-phys.org/

Metal-insulator transition in the one-dimensional SU(N) Hubbard model

We investigate the metal-insulator transition of the one-dimensional SU(N) Hubbard model for repulsive interaction. Using the bosonization approach a Mott transition in the charge sector at half-filling (k_F=\pi/Na_0) is conjectured for N > 2. Expressions for the charge and spin velocities as well as for the Luttinger liquid parameters and some correlation functions are given. The theoretical predictions are compared with numerical results obtained with an improved zero-temperature quantum Monte Carlo approach. The method used is a generalized Green's function Monte Carlo scheme in which the stochastic time evolution is partially integrated out. Very accurate results for the gaps, velocities, and Luttinger liquid parameters as a function of the Coulomb interaction U are given for the cases N=3 and N=4. Our results strongly support the existence of a Mott-Hubbard transition at a {\it non-zero} value of the Coulomb interaction. We find $U_c \sim 2.2$ for N=3 and $U_c \sim 2.8$ for N=4.Comment: 22 pages, 9 Fig

Clinical Manifestations and Case Management of Ebola Haemorrhagic Fever caused by a newly identified virus strain, Bundibugyo, Uganda, 2007-2008

A confirmed Ebola haemorrhagic fever (EHF) outbreak in Bundibugyo, Uganda, November 2007-February 2008, was caused by a putative new species (Bundibugyo ebolavirus). It included 93 putative cases, 56 laboratory-confirmed cases, and 37 deaths (CFR = 25%). Study objectives are to describe clinical manifestations and case management for 26 hospitalised laboratory-confirmed EHF patients. Clinical findings are congruous with previously reported EHF infections. The most frequently experienced symptoms were non-bloody diarrhoea (81%), severe headache (81%), and asthenia (77%). Seven patients reported or were observed with haemorrhagic symptoms, six of whom died. Ebola care remains difficult due to the resource-poor setting of outbreaks and the infection-control procedures required. However, quality data collection is essential to evaluate case definitions and therapeutic interventions, and needs improvement in future epidemics. Organizations usually involved in EHF case management have a particular responsibility in this respect