Le « Grand Siècle » dans le cinéma français contemporain. Déconstruction ou continuation d’un mythe ?

Depuis le milieu des années 1980, nous observons dans le cinéma français un renouveau de l’intérêt suscité par le XVIIe siècle. L’analyse de ce phénomène entreprise dans le présent article intègre le fait que, depuis ses débuts, le septième art a influencé de manière décisive « l’image » de cette époque. En partant de deux films particulièrement innovants, Tous les matins du monde (1991) d’Alain Corneau et Fragments sur la grâce (2006) de Vincent Dieutre, la contribution étudie comment le film historique des dernières décennies réinterprète le « Grand Siècle » qui n’y incarne plus la grandeur nationale, mais un temps de crise, marqué par la confrontation de forces antagonistes comme par exemple le conflit entre la monarchie absolue et le jansénisme. L’étude du nouveau film historique montre ainsi que, même si l’image du XVIIe siècle a aujourd’hui radicalement changé par rapport au XIXe siècle, sa fonction de « lieu de mémoire » fondamental pour la société française reste inchangée.Seit Mitte der 1980er Jahre lässt sich im französischen Kino ein erneuertes Interesse am 17. Jahrhundert feststellen. Die in diesem Artikel vorgenommene Analyse dieses Phänomens trägt der Tatsache Rechnung, dass das neue Medium Film seit seinen Anfängen in entscheidender Weise zum „Bild“ dieser Epoche beigetragen hat. Am Beispiel zweier besonders innovativer Filme, Tous les matins du monde (1991) von Alain Corneau und Fragments sur la grâce (2006) von Vincent Dieutre, wird die Umdeutung des „Grand siècle“ im Historienfilm der letzten Jahrzehnte herausgearbeitet, der dieses nicht mehr als Inbegriff nationaler Größe betrachtet, sondern als eine Zeit der Krisen und der Konfrontation gegensätzlicher Kräfte, wie sie sich etwa im Konflikt zwischen absoluter Monarchie und Jansenismus zeigt. Die Untersuchung des neuen Historienfilms zeigt damit, dass sich zwar das Bild des 17. Jh. gegenüber dem 19. Jh. radikal verändert hat, dass seine Funktion als eines zentralen „lieu de mémoire“ für die französische Gesellschaft aber unverändert geblieben ist.Since the mid-1980s, French cinema has developed a renewed interest in the 17th century. The analysis of this phenomenon advanced in this paper takes into account that the new medium movie has, since its inception, shaped the “picture” of this period. Two particularly innovative films, Alain Corneau’s Tous les matins du monde (1991) and Fragments sur la grâce (2006) by Vincent Dieutre, exemplify the reevaluation of the “Grand siècle” in the new period movie, which looks at this era no longer as the incarnation of national grandeur but a time of crisis and confrontation between opposing forces, such as the tension between absolute monarchy and Jansenism. At the same time, the examination of the new French period movie can demonstrate that the image of the 17th century has undergone a radical change since the 19th century, but that it has remained constant in its function as a central “lieu de mémoire” for French society

Predominant and Substoichiometric Isomers of the Plastid Genome Coexist within Juniperus Plants and Have Shifted Multiple Times during Cupressophyte Evolution

Most land plant plastomes contain two copies of a large inverted repeat (IR) that promote high-frequency homologous recombination to generate isomeric genomic forms. Among conifer plastomes, this canonical IR is highly reduced in Pinaceae and completely lost from cupressophytes. However, both lineages have acquired short, novel IRs, some of which also exhibit recombinational activity to generate genomic structural diversity. This diversity has been shown to exist between, and occasionally within, cupressophyte species, but it is not known whether multiple genomic forms coexist within individual plants. To examine the recombinational potential of the novel cupressophyte IRs within individuals and between species, we sequenced the plastomes of four closely related species of Juniperus. The four plastomes have identical gene content and genome organization except for a large 36 kb inversion between approximately 250 bp IR containing trnQ-UUG. Southern blotting showed that different isomeric versions of the plastome predominate among individual junipers, whereas polymerase chain reaction and high-throughput read-pair mapping revealed the substoichiometric presence of the alternative isomeric form within each individual plant. Furthermore, our comparative genomic studies demonstrate that the predominant and substoichiometric arrangements of this IR have changed several times in other cupressophytes as well. These results provide compelling evidence for substoichiometric shifting of plastomic forms during cupressophyte evolution and suggest that substoichiometric shifting activity in plastid genomes may be adaptive

Predominant and Substoichiometric Isomers of the Plastid Genome Coexist within Juniperus Plants and Have Shifted Multiple Times during Cupressophyte Evolution

Abstract Most land plant plastomes contain two copies of a large inverted repeat (IR) that promote high-frequency homologous recombination to generate isomeric genomic forms. Among conifer plastomes, this canonical IR is highly reduced in Pinaceae and completely lost from cupressophytes. However, both lineages have acquired short, novel IRs, some of which also exhibit recombinational activity to generate genomic structural diversity. This diversity has been shown to exist between, and occasionally within, cupressophyte species, but it is not known whether multiple genomic forms coexist within individual plants. To examine the recombinational potential of the novel cupressophyte IRs within individuals and between species, we sequenced the plastomes of four closely related species of Juniperus. The four plastomes have identical gene content and genome organization except for a large 36 kb inversion between approximately 250 bp IR containing trnQ-UUG. Southern blotting showed that different isomeric versions of the plastome predominate among individual junipers, whereas polymerase chain reaction and high-throughput read-pair mapping revealed the substoichiometric presence of the alternative isomeric form within each individual plant. Furthermore, our comparative genomic studies demonstrate that the predominant and substoichiometric arrangements of this IR have changed several times in other cupressophytes as well. These results provide compelling evidence for substoichiometric shifting of plastomic forms during cupressophyte evolution and suggest that substoichiometric shifting activity in plastid genomes may be adaptive

TSLP-activated dendritic cells induce human T follicular helper cell differentiation through OX40-ligand.

T follicular helper cells (Tfh) are important regulators of humoral responses. Human Tfh polarization pathways have been thus far associated with Th1 and Th17 polarization pathways. How human Tfh cells differentiate in Th2-skewed environments is unknown. We show that thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP)-activated dendritic cells (DCs) promote human Tfh differentiation from naive CD4 T cells. We identified a novel population, distinct from Th2 cells, expressing IL-21 and TNF, suggestive of inflammatory cells. TSLP-induced T cells expressed CXCR5, CXCL13, ICOS, PD1, BCL6, BTLA, and SAP, among other Tfh markers. Functionally, TSLP-DC-polarized T cells induced IgE secretion by memory B cells, and this depended on IL-4Rα. TSLP-activated DCs stimulated circulating memory Tfh cells to produce IL-21 and CXCL13. Mechanistically, TSLP-induced Tfh differentiation depended on OX40-ligand, but not on ICOS-ligand. Our results delineate a pathway of human Tfh differentiation in Th2 environments

Targeting tumorigenesis: development and use of mTOR inhibitors in cancer therapy

The mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) is an intracellular serine/threonine protein kinase positioned at a central point in a variety of cellular signaling cascades. The established involvement of mTOR activity in the cellular processes that contribute to the development and progression of cancer has identified mTOR as a major link in tumorigenesis. Consequently, inhibitors of mTOR, including temsirolimus, everolimus, and ridaforolimus (formerly deforolimus) have been developed and assessed for their safety and efficacy in patients with cancer. Temsirolimus is an intravenously administered agent approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) for the treatment of advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Everolimus is an oral agent that has recently obtained US FDA and EMEA approval for the treatment of advanced RCC after failure of treatment with sunitinib or sorafenib. Ridaforolimus is not yet approved for any indication. The use of mTOR inhibitors, either alone or in combination with other anticancer agents, has the potential to provide anticancer activity in numerous tumor types. Cancer types in which these agents are under evaluation include neuroendocrine tumors, breast cancer, leukemia, lymphoma, hepatocellular carcinoma, gastric cancer, pancreatic cancer, sarcoma, endometrial cancer, and non-small-cell lung cancer. The results of ongoing clinical trials with mTOR inhibitors, as single agents and in combination regimens, will better define their activity in cancer

25th annual computational neuroscience meeting: CNS-2016

The same neuron may play different functional roles in the neural circuits to which it belongs. For example, neurons in the Tritonia pedal ganglia may participate in variable phases of the swim motor rhythms [1]. While such neuronal functional variability is likely to play a major role the delivery of the functionality of neural systems, it is difficult to study it in most nervous systems. We work on the pyloric rhythm network of the crustacean stomatogastric ganglion (STG) [2]. Typically network models of the STG treat neurons of the same functional type as a single model neuron (e.g. PD neurons), assuming the same conductance parameters for these neurons and implying their synchronous firing [3, 4]. However, simultaneous recording of PD neurons shows differences between the timings of spikes of these neurons. This may indicate functional variability of these neurons. Here we modelled separately the two PD neurons of the STG in a multi-neuron model of the pyloric network. Our neuron models comply with known correlations between conductance parameters of ionic currents. Our results reproduce the experimental finding of increasing spike time distance between spikes originating from the two model PD neurons during their synchronised burst phase. The PD neuron with the larger calcium conductance generates its spikes before the other PD neuron. Larger potassium conductance values in the follower neuron imply longer delays between spikes, see Fig. 17.Neuromodulators change the conductance parameters of neurons and maintain the ratios of these parameters [5]. Our results show that such changes may shift the individual contribution of two PD neurons to the PD-phase of the pyloric rhythm altering their functionality within this rhythm. Our work paves the way towards an accessible experimental and computational framework for the analysis of the mechanisms and impact of functional variability of neurons within the neural circuits to which they belong

AirClim: an efficient tool for climate evaluation of aircraft technology

Climate change is a challenge to society and to cope with requires assessment tools which are suitable to evaluate new technology options with respect to their impact on global climate. Here we present AirClim, a model which comprises a linearisation of atmospheric processes from the emission to radiative forcing, resulting in an estimate in near surface temperature change, which is presumed to be a reasonable indicator for climate change. The model is designed to be applicable to aircraft technology, i.e. the climate agents CO2, H2O, CH4 and O3 (latter two resulting from NOx-emissions) and contrails are taken into account. AirClim combines a number of precalculated atmospheric data with aircraft emission data to obtain the temporal evolution of atmospheric concentration changes, radiative forcing and temperature changes. These precalculated data are derived from 25 steady-state simulations for the year 2050 with the climate-chemistry model E39/C, prescribing normalised emissions of nitrogen oxides and water vapour at various atmospheric regions. The results show that strongest climate impacts (year 2100) from ozone changes occur for emissions in the tropical upper troposphere (60 mW/m2; 80 mK for 1 TgN/year emitted) and from methane changes from emissions in the middle tropical troposphere (−2.7% change in methane lifetime; –30 mK per TgN/year). For short-lived species (e.g. ozone, water vapour, methane) individual perturbation lifetimes are derived depending on the region of emission. A comparison of this linearisation approach with results from a comprehensive climate-chemistry model shows reasonable agreement with respect to concentration changes, radiative forcing, and temperature changes. For example, the total impact of a supersonic fleet on radiative forcing (mainly water vapour) is reproduced within 10%. A wide range of application is demonstrated

Lagrangian transport of water vapor and cloud water in the ECHAM4 GCM and its impact on the cold bias

The Lagrangian advection scheme ATTILA has been applied for the transport of water vapor and cloud water in the general circulation model (GCM) ECHAM4.L39(DLR) (E39) instead of the operational semi-Lagrangian transport scheme (SLT). ATTILA is a purely Lagrangian scheme that is numerically non-diffusive, while the operational semi-Lagrangian scheme exhibits a considerable numerical diffusion in the presence of sharp gradients. The model version E39/SLT significantly overestimates the water vapor mixing ratio in the extratropical lowermost stratosphere (wet bias) by a factor of 3–5 compared to HALOE observations. Compared to E39/SLT, E39/ATTILA shows substantially reduced water vapor mixing ratios in the extratropical lowermost stratosphere up to 70%, and a steeper meridional water vapor gradient in the subtropics which is in better agreement with observations. Furthermore, the temperature distribution as simulated with E39/SLT is characterized by a pronounced cold temperature bias in the extratropical lowermost stratosphere (cold bias) and in the polar stratosphere above 50 hPa in winter (cold pole). The improvements concerning the water vapor distribution in E39/ATTILA lead to a substantial reduction of the simulated cold bias by approximately 5–7 K which also results in a better representation of the modeled tropopause, especially in the extratropics. Sensitivity studies indicate that the warming of the extratropical lowermost stratosphere in E39/ATTILA is directly related to the reduced wet bias resulting in a less infrared radiative cooling. Additionally, the cold pole problem is also slightly reduced in E39/ATTILA by approximately 2–5 K

Do supersonic aircraft avoid contrails?

The impact of a potential future fleet of supersonic aircraft on contrail coverage and contrail radiative forcing is investigated by means of simulations with the general circulation model ECHAM4.L39(DLR) including a contrail parameterization. The model simulations consider air traffic inventories of a subsonic fleet and of a combined fleet of sub- and supersonic aircraft for the years 2025 and 2050, respectively. In case of the combined fleet, part of the subsonic fleet is replaced by supersonic aircraft. Supersonic aircraft fly at higher cruise levels (18 to 20 km) than subsonic aircraft (10 to 12 km). The different ambient meteorological conditions in terms of temperature and humidity affect the formation of contrails. At subsonic cruise levels, the combined air traffic scenario reveals a reduction in contrail cover in northern extratropics, especially over the North Atlantic and Pacific. At supersonic flight levels, contrail formation is mainly restricted to tropical regions. The northern extratropical stratosphere is only in winter cold enough for the formation of contrails. Total contrail coverage is only marginally affected by the shift in flight altitude. The model simulations indicate a global annual mean contrail cover of 0.372% for the subsonic and 0.366% for the combined fleet in 2050, respectively. The simulated contrail radiative forcing is most closely correlated to the total contrail cover, although contrails in the tropical lower stratosphere are found to be optically thinner than contrails in the extratropical upper troposphere. The global annual mean contrail radiative forcing in 2050 (2025) amounts to 24.7 mW m−2 (9.4 mW m−2) for the subsonic fleet and 24.2 mW m−2 (9.3 mW m−2) for the combined fleet. A reduced supersonic cruise speed (Mach 1.6 instead of Mach 2.0) leads to a downward shift in contrail cover, but does not affect global mean total contrail cover and contrail radiative forcing. Hence the partial substitution of subsonic air traffic leads to a shift of contrail occurrence from mid to low latitudes, but the resulting change in contrail-induced climate impact is almost negligible