Ruses, finesses, bons tours

The Cent nouvelles nouvelles of Philippe de Vigneulles represent a narrative world in which crimes and misdemeanors play an important structuring role. The question as to whether these fictional actions correspond to actual legal transgressions in the real world of Metz in the XVIth century cannot be answered simply and unequivocally. Because of the conventions of “carnivalesque” literature according to which Vigneulles wrote his tales, actions that would normally be defined as crimes are tolerated and at times even valorized in the comical situations that he creates. Compared to the violent and punitive legal situation evoked in La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles and his Gedenkbuch or Journal, the idea of legality presented in his collection of tales is quite flexible, in accord with the conventions of narrative traditions that preceded Philippe’s work, including genres as varied as the exemplum, the fabliau, and earlier tale collections. Nevertheless, from numerous claims made in the work itself, it seems ironically as though many of these tales were in fact based on actual events that Philippe witnessed in his native city, or on stories that he heard from his contemporaries. The hybridity of this particular version of the Renaissance nouvelle hence combines testimonial accounts with fictive versions of real events, producing an ambivalent world that complicates the task of reading and interpreting these stories.Les Cent nouvelles nouvelles de Philippe de Vigneulles représentent un monde narratif dans lequel les crimes et les délits jouent un rôle structural très important. On ne peut pas répondre simplement et de manière univoque à la question de la correspondance entre ces actions fictives et des transgressions réelles dans le monde de Metz au XVIe siècle. À cause des conventions « carnavalesques » selon lesquelles Vigneulles a écrit ses nouvelles, des actes que l’on définirait normalement comme des crimes sont tolérés et même valorisés dans les situations comiques que l’auteur crée. Comparée à la situation légale punitive et violente évoquée dans La Chronique de Philippe de Vigneulles et son Gedenkbuch ou Journal, l’idée de la légalité présentée dans son recueil de nouvelles est très flexible, et s’accorde avec les conventions des traditions narratives qui ont précédé l’œuvre de Philippe, et qui incluent des genres aussi divers que l’exemplum, le fabliau, et les recueils antérieurs de nouvelles. Pourtant, à partir d’affirmations nombreuses dans ce recueil, il semble ironiquement que beaucoup de ces nouvelles soient basées sur des événements dont Philippe a été le témoin dans sa ville natale, ou sur des récits que ses contemporains lui ont racontés. L’hybridité de cette version particulière de la nouvelle de la Renaissance combine donc des récits testimoniaux avec des versions fictives d’événements réels, produisant ainsi un monde ambivalent qui complique la lecture et l’interprétation de ces nouvelles

L’écriture polymorphe de la masculinité chez Rabelais

L’écriture polymorphe de la masculinité dans les œuvres de Rabelais prend au moins deux formes : d’abord, des apostrophes énoncées par un personnage masculin qui interpelle d’autres hommes par le biais d’insultes affectueuses écrites dans un registre comique, afin d’apaiser les anxiétés du locuteur au sujet de son genre ; ensuite, des improvisations verbales basées sur l’idée ou l’image des parties génitales du corps masculin telles qu’elles se manifestent par des signes extérieurs, comme la barbe et la braguette, supposés être lus et reconnus par les personnes extérieures des deux sexes. L’écriture de Rabelais sur la masculinité est donc discursive et intersubjective, et elle situe l’« être » des sujets masculins au sein des incessants déplacements sémantiques qui caractérisent son œuvre.The polymorphous writing of masculinity in Rabelais’s works assumes at least two forms: first, apostrophes enunciated by a masculine subject who calls out to other men through affectionate insults written in a comic register, in order to allay the anxieties that the speaking subject has concerning his gender; and secondly, verbal improvisations based on the idea or image of the male body’s private parts as they are made manifest in external signs, such as the beard and the codpiece, meant to be read and recognized by others of both sexes. Rabelais’s writing of masculinity is hence discursive and intersubjective, and situates the “being” of masculine subjects within the incessant mode of semantic displacement that is characteristic of his works

A TDR-pressure cell design for measuring the soil water retention curve

The final version of this article is available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01671987This paper presents a new type of pressure cell associated with a zigzag-shaped time domain reflectometry (TDR) probe for determining the soil-water retention (θ(ψ)) curve of disturbed thin soil samples. The pressure cell, designed for pressures ranging between 0 and −500 kPa, consisted of a zigzag copper rod (150-mm long, 2 mm in diameter) vertically installed in a clear plastic cylinder (60-mm high, 50 mm in internal diameter) with six vertical copper rods (60-mm long, 2 mm in diameter) arranged around the inner wall of the plastic cylinder. The cylinder was closed at the base with a nylon cloth and placed on a porous ceramic disc. The inner rod and the six-rod grille of the cell were connected respectively to the inner and outer conductors of a coaxial cable. The results showed that the correlation between the apparent dielectric constant measured with a standard three-rod TDR probe and the zigzag-shaped TDR probe, both immersed in five different non-conductive fluids, was excellent (R2 = 0.99). On the other hand, the volumetric water content measured with the TDR probe of the pressure cell filled up with sand, 2-mm sieved loam and clay-loam soils was highly correlated to the corresponding values calculated from the gravimetric water content and the soil bulk density (R2 = 0.97; RMSE = 2.32 × 10−2). The parameters of the θ(ψ) curves measured for these three different soils with the TDR-pressure cell were within the range of values found in the literature. The cell was also used to study the θ(ψ) changes of a 2–4-mm sample of loam soil aggregates after a slow and a fast-wetting process. While negligible changes in both the soil structure and θ(ψ) were observed following slow wetting, fast wetting resulted in disintegration of aggregates and drastic changes in the shape of the θ(ψ) curve.This research was supported by the Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología of Spain (grants AGL2004-07763-C02-02 and AGL2007-66320-CO2-02/AGR) and the European Union (FEDER funds).Peer reviewe

ANÁLISIS DE LA MEJORA DE LA CALIDAD DE LOS PROCESOS DEL HOTEL IBEROSTAR BELLA COSTA

At present, the institutions dedicated to tourism and especially hotels are oriented to develop strategies to boost business competitiveness, offer alternatives for actions that allow clients to function efficiently in new scenarios. The objective of the research was to analyze the improvement of the processes of the Hotel Iberostar Bella Costa, based on quality management tools. The techniques and tools used are: bibliographic review, bibliometric study, brainstorming, Pareto diagram, cause-effect, evaluation of cost items by extension of the accounting system or estimation, as the case may be. As a result, it is obtained that the macro indicator most affected is efficiency and it is determined that the causes that cause its deficient management are: costs for lost customers, losses and replacements, quality management, repairs and replacement of accessories, to which the improvement team proposes corrective measures.En la actualidad las instituciones dedicadas al turismo y en especial los hoteles están orientadas a desarrollar estrategias para impulsar la competitividad empresarial, ofrecer alternativas de acciones que les permitan a los clientes desenvolverse eficientemente en los nuevos escenarios. El objetivo de la investigación fue analizar la mejora de los procesos del Hotel Iberostar Bella Costa, a partir de herramientas de la gestión de la calidad. Las técnicas y herramientas empleadas son: revisión bibliográfica, estudio bibliométrico, tormenta de ideas, diagrama Pareto, causa-efecto, evaluación de partidas de costos por extensión del sistema contable o estimación, según el caso. Como resultado se obtiene que el macro indicador más afectado es la eficiencia y se determina que las causas que provocan su deficiente gestión son: los costos por clientes perdidos, pérdidas y reposiciones, administración de la calidad, reparaciones y sustituciones de accesorios, a las cuales el equipo de mejora propone medidas correctivas

Overview of the TCV tokamak experimental programme

The tokamak a configuration variable (TCV) continues to leverage its unique shaping capabilities, flexible heating systems and modern control system to address critical issues in preparation for ITER and a fusion power plant. For the 2019-20 campaign its configurational flexibility has been enhanced with the installation of removable divertor gas baffles, its diagnostic capabilities with an extensive set of upgrades and its heating systems with new dual frequency gyrotrons. The gas baffles reduce coupling between the divertor and the main chamber and allow for detailed investigations on the role of fuelling in general and, together with upgraded boundary diagnostics, test divertor and edge models in particular. The increased heating capabilities broaden the operational regime to include T (e)/T (i) similar to 1 and have stimulated refocussing studies from L-mode to H-mode across a range of research topics. ITER baseline parameters were reached in type-I ELMy H-modes and alternative regimes with \u27small\u27 (or no) ELMs explored. Most prominently, negative triangularity was investigated in detail and confirmed as an attractive scenario with H-mode level core confinement but an L-mode edge. Emphasis was also placed on control, where an increased number of observers, actuators and control solutions became available and are now integrated into a generic control framework as will be needed in future devices. The quantity and quality of results of the 2019-20 TCV campaign are a testament to its successful integration within the European research effort alongside a vibrant domestic programme and international collaborations

Velocity-space sensitivity of the time-of-flight neutron spectrometer at JET

The velocity-space sensitivities of fast-ion diagnostics are often described by so-called weight functions. Recently, we formulated weight functions showing the velocity-space sensitivity of the often dominant beam-target part of neutron energy spectra. These weight functions for neutron emission spectrometry (NES) are independent of the particular NES diagnostic. Here we apply these NES weight functions to the time-of-flight spectrometer TOFOR at JET. By taking the instrumental response function of TOFOR into account, we calculate time-of-flight NES weight functions that enable us to directly determine the velocity-space sensitivity of a given part of a measured time-of-flight spectrum from TOFOR

The role of ETG modes in JET-ILW pedestals with varying levels of power and fuelling

We present the results of GENE gyrokinetic calculations based on a series of JET-ITER-like-wall (ILW) type I ELMy H-mode discharges operating with similar experimental inputs but at different levels of power and gas fuelling. We show that turbulence due to electron-temperature-gradient (ETGs) modes produces a significant amount of heat flux in four JET-ILW discharges, and, when combined with neoclassical simulations, is able to reproduce the experimental heat flux for the two low gas pulses. The simulations plausibly reproduce the high-gas heat fluxes as well, although power balance analysis is complicated by short ELM cycles. By independently varying the normalised temperature gradients (omega(T)(e)) and normalised density gradients (omega(ne )) around their experimental values, we demonstrate that it is the ratio of these two quantities eta(e) = omega(Te)/omega(ne) that determines the location of the peak in the ETG growth rate and heat flux spectra. The heat flux increases rapidly as eta(e) increases above the experimental point, suggesting that ETGs limit the temperature gradient in these pulses. When quantities are normalised using the minor radius, only increases in omega(Te) produce appreciable increases in the ETG growth rates, as well as the largest increases in turbulent heat flux which follow scalings similar to that of critical balance theory. However, when the heat flux is normalised to the electron gyro-Bohm heat flux using the temperature gradient scale length L-Te, it follows a linear trend in correspondence with previous work by different authors

Spectroscopic camera analysis of the roles of molecularly assisted reaction chains during detachment in JET L-mode plasmas

The roles of the molecularly assisted ionization (MAI), recombination (MAR) and dissociation (MAD) reaction chains with respect to the purely atomic ionization and recombination processes were studied experimentally during detachment in low-confinement mode (L-mode) plasmas in JET with the help of experimentally inferred divertor plasma and neutral conditions, extracted previously from filtered camera observations of deuterium Balmer emission, and the reaction coefficients provided by the ADAS, AMJUEL and H2VIBR atomic and molecular databases. The direct contribution of MAI and MAR in the outer divertor particle balance was found to be inferior to the electron-atom ionization (EAI) and electron-ion recombination (EIR). Near the outer strike point, a strong atom source due to the D+2-driven MAD was, however, observed to correlate with the onset of detachment at outer strike point temperatures of Te,osp = 0.9-2.0 eV via increased plasma-neutral interactions before the increasing dominance of EIR at Te,osp < 0.9 eV, followed by increasing degree of detachment. The analysis was supported by predictions from EDGE2D-EIRENE simulations which were in qualitative agreement with the experimental observations

Shattered pellet injection experiments at JET in support of the ITER disruption mitigation system design

A series of experiments have been executed at JET to assess the efficacy of the newly installed shattered pellet injection (SPI) system in mitigating the effects of disruptions. Issues, important for the ITER disruption mitigation system, such as thermal load mitigation, avoidance of runaway electron (RE) formation, radiation asymmetries during thermal quench mitigation, electromagnetic load control and RE energy dissipation have been addressed over a large parameter range. The efficiency of the mitigation has been examined for the various SPI injection strategies. The paper summarises the results from these JET SPI experiments and discusses their implications for the ITER disruption mitigation scheme