Yasmina Khadra’s The Attack: A “Redemptive Narrative”

This article studies how Yasmina Khadra’s The Attack brings innovative narrative twists to the terrorist novel genre to challenge contemporary, western-based approaches to the issue of fundamentalism. It claims that the narrative’s humanist stance is the result of his long repressed feelings when he served in the Algerian army, during the period of the interior war of the 1990s. Amidst the tormented environment of that decade, silence was imposed on Khadra’s literary and humanist expression. But when he quitted the army, his repressed experience with political violence and terror found an outlet in fiction in the form of a redemptive narrative, which demarcates from some conventions of the ‘terrorist novel’, and provides new perspectives on the complex issue of fundamentalism

Optimization of regeneration and transformation parameters in tomato and improvement of its salinity and drought tolerance

As part of our efforts to improve tomato tolerance to abiotic stress, we have undertaken this study to introduce two candidate genes encoding: a sodium antiporter and a vacuolar pyrophosphatase, previously shown to enhance drought and salt tolerance in transgenic Arabidopsis plants. First, we evaluated the potential of primary leaves from three to four week-old in vitro-grown tomato seedlings as alternative explants to cotyledons for tomato transformation. Our results demonstrated that primaryleaves are three times more efficient then cotyledons in terms of regeneration percentage, productivity, and transformation frequencies independently of the medium and genetic construct used. Second,primary leaves were used to introduce the genes of interest using Agrobacterium-mediated transformation. Many transgenic tomato plants were easily recovered. The presence of the transgenes and their expression were confirmed by PCR and RT-PCR analysis. The transformation frequencies for primary leaf explants ranged from 4 to 10% depending on the genetic construct used. The time requiredfrom inoculation of primary leaves with Agrobacterium cells to transfer of transgenic tomato plants to soil was only 2 months compared to 3 to 4 months using standard tomato transformation protocols. The transgenic tomato plants obtained in the current study were more tolerant to salinity and drought stress than their wild-type counterparts

L'INFORMATION BREVET AU SERVICE DE L'INDUSTRIE PÉTROLIÈRE : CAS DE CONCEPTION ET D'OPTIMISATION DES TRÉPANS PAR INGÉNIERIE INVERSEE

Le but de cet article est de montrer les résultats d'une étude réalisée initialement pour le compte d'une Entreprise Publique Algérienne ENSP (Direction Fabrication / ex-ALDIM), spécialisée dans la fabrication des outils de forage, afin d'évaluer les opportunités d'innovation offertes par l'utilisation du reverse engineering assisté par l'information brevet dans l'industrie pétrolière. Cette recherche appliquée, basée principalement sur l'information utile et actionnable, est couronnée par la mise en place d'un processus dynamique et évolutif de fabrication des outils de forage qui s'appuie sur un processus d'apprentissage continu par la pratique. Nous mettrons en perspective le processus cognitif permettant la capitalisation des connaissances lors du processus technique du reverse engineering ainsi que la contribution de l'information brevet dans le suivi des é...The aim of this paper is to show the results of a study originally conducted for an Algerian State-Owned Company ENSP (Manufacturing Branch / formerly ALDIM) specialized in drill bits manufacturing. We show innovation opportunities offered by the use of reverse engineering assisted by patent information in the oil industry. This applied research, mainly based on the useful and actionable information, is crowned by the implementation of a dynamic and evolving process of drilling tools production and based on a continuous process of practical learning. We outline the cognitive processes for knowledge capitalization during the technical process of reverse engineering and the contribution of patent information in a technology development survey, identifying promising valuable technologies in the field of drill bits design and manufacturing. We conclude with tangible results by exposing performance obtained by a drill bit manufactured by ENSP (formerly ALDIM) according to the process described in this paper, while drilling an oil well in the region of Hassi Berkine (Algeria)

L'INFORMATION BREVET AU SERVICE DE L'INDUSTRIE PÉTROLIÈRE : CAS DE CONCEPTION ET D'OPTIMISATION DES TRÉPANS PAR INGÉNIERIE INVERSEE

Le but de cet article est de montrer les résultats d'une étude réalisée initialement pour le compte d'une Entreprise Publique Algérienne ENSP (Direction Fabrication / ex-ALDIM), spécialisée dans la fabrication des outils de forage, afin d'évaluer les opportunités d'innovation offertes par l'utilisation du reverse engineering assisté par l'information brevet dans l'industrie pétrolière. Cette recherche appliquée, basée principalement sur l'information utile et actionnable, est couronnée par la mise en place d'un processus dynamique et évolutif de fabrication des outils de forage qui s'appuie sur un processus d'apprentissage continu par la pratique. Nous mettrons en perspective le processus cognitif permettant la capitalisation des connaissances lors du processus technique du reverse engineering ainsi que la contribution de l'information brevet dans le suivi des é...The aim of this paper is to show the results of a study originally conducted for an Algerian State-Owned Company ENSP (Manufacturing Branch / formerly ALDIM) specialized in drill bits manufacturing. We show innovation opportunities offered by the use of reverse engineering assisted by patent information in the oil industry. This applied research, mainly based on the useful and actionable information, is crowned by the implementation of a dynamic and evolving process of drilling tools production and based on a continuous process of practical learning. We outline the cognitive processes for knowledge capitalization during the technical process of reverse engineering and the contribution of patent information in a technology development survey, identifying promising valuable technologies in the field of drill bits design and manufacturing. We conclude with tangible results by exposing performance obtained by a drill bit manufactured by ENSP (formerly ALDIM) according to the process described in this paper, while drilling an oil well in the region of Hassi Berkine (Algeria)

Controlling proteolytic degradation of the methionine enriched MB-1Trp protein

Protein design is currently used for the creation of new proteins with desirable traits, which include a superior nutritional value. One of the challenges of protein design in this area is to achieve the production of stable native-like proteins that resist the proteolytic pressure of the organism used for its production (the bioreactor). We report here the identification of a specific peptide bond sensitive to E. coli proteolysis in the designer protein MB-1Trp. In an attempt to reduce proteolysis, we have created a MB-1TrpHis gene library in which the two amino acids surrounding the peptide bond, N44 and L45, were randomized using degenerated oligonucleotides. The initial characterization of MB-1TrpHis N44E/L45V and MB-1TrpHis N44E/L45M, 2 variants of the library that were more resistant than the parent protein, was performed in order to investigate the nature of the mutants' resistance. Our results suggest that the mutants behaved like MB-1Trp regarding folding and thermal stability, and that proteolytic resistance is due to the elimination of the protease recognition site

Evolution of Plant-Made Pharmaceuticals

The science and policy of pharmaceuticals produced and/or delivered by plants has evolved over the past twenty-one years from a backyard remedy to regulated, purified products. After seemingly frozen at Phase I human clinical trials with six orally delivered plant-made vaccines not progressing past this stage over seven years, plant-made pharmaceuticals have made a breakthrough with several purified plant-based products advancing to Phase II trials and beyond. Though fraught with the usual difficulties of pharmaceutical development, pharmaceuticals made by plants have achieved pertinent milestones albeit slowly compared to other pharmaceutical production systems and are now at the cusp of reaching the consumer. Though the current economic climate begs for cautious investment as opposed to trail blazing, it is perhaps a good time to look to the future of plant-made pharmaceutical technology to assist in planning for future developments in order not to slow this technology’s momentum. To encourage continued progress, we highlight the advances made so far by this technology, particularly the change in paradigms, comparing developmental timelines, and summarizing the current status and future possibilities of plant-made pharmaceuticals

Expression of wheat Na+/H+ antiporter TNHXS1 and H+- pyrophosphatase TVP1 genes in tobacco from a bicistronic transcriptional unit improves salt tolerance

19 pages, 75 references.Abiotic stress tolerance of plants is a very complex trait and involves multiple physiological and biochemical processes. Thus, the improvement of plant stress tolerance should involve pyramiding of multiple genes. In the present study, we report the construction and application of a bicistronic system, involving the internal ribosome entry site (IRES) sequence from the 5′UTR of the heat-shock protein of tobacco gene NtHSF-1, to the improvement of salt tolerance in transgenic tobacco plants. Two genes from wheat encoding two important vacuolar ion transporters, Na+/H+ antiporter (TNHXS1) and H+-pyrophosphatase (TVP1), were linked via IRES to generate the bicistronic construct TNHXS1-IRES-TVP1. Molecular analysis of transgenic tobacco plants revealed the correct integration of the TNHXS1-IRES-TVP1construct into tobacco genome and the production of the full-length bicistronic mRNA from the 35S promoter. Ion transport analyses with tonoplast vesicles isolated from transgenic lines confirmed that single-transgenic lines TVP1cl19 and TNHXS1cl7 had greater H+-PPiase and Na+/H+ antiport activity, respectively, than the WT. Interestingly, the co-expression of TVP1 and TNHXS1 increased both Na+/H+ antiport and H+-PPiase activities and induced the H+ pumping activity of the endogenous V-ATPase. Transgenic tobacco plants expressing TNHXS1-IRES-TVP1 showed a better performance than either of the single gene-transformed lines and the wild type plants when subjected to salt treatment. In addition, the TNHXS1-IRES-TVP1 transgenic plants accumulated less Na+ and more K+ in their leaf tissue than did the wild type and the single gene-transformed lines. These results demonstrate that IRES system, described herein, can co-ordinate the expression of two important abiotic stress-tolerance genes and that this expression system is a valuable tool for obtaining transgenic plants with improved salt tolerance.Peer reviewe

Heuristics to maximize system availability on parallel machine scheduling problem

International audienceThis paper deals with a scheduling problem on Identical Parallel Machines where machines are subject to potentially costly failures. Failures can be avoided by an appropriate Preventive Maintenance (PM) planning. The preemption of production jobs is not allowed. The PM activities must be carried out by taking into consideration the production constraints. We assume that PM activities are performed after each job and they restore the machines to “as good as new” conditions. The objective is to find the best assignment of jobs on machines maximizing the system availability. We have proposed heuristics to deal with the problem. Experimental results are conducted to test the efficiency of our heuristics throughout 380 test problem instances