Voix impénétrables et tissage des voix dans "Ghostwritten" de David Mitchell (1999)

Les Cahiers du CEIMA, n°8, décembre 2012, "Voix défendues"National audienceHélène Machinal décrit avec minutie l’architecture narrative d’un roman urbain de David Mitchell qui juxtapose neuf voix et neuf séquences d’unehistoire « mondialisée » dont les ingrédients essentiels sont des fantômes et une intelligence artificielle chargée de surveiller le monde de manière secrète, sans que le lecteur sache, à la fin, si tout ceci a été affabulation ou réalité, la « voix originelle » restant indéterminée. L’accès « défendu » à la clé narrative déstabilise ainsi l’imaginaire identitaire du lecteur lui-même, dans la tradition du roman fantastique, qui fut aussi celle du théâtre baroque

USING NATURALLY OCCURRING RADON 222 AS A TRACER TO QUANTIFY GROUNDWATER FLUXES TO STREAMS

Naturally occurring radon in groundwater was used to test radon mixing models. Two different mixing models were used to quantify groundwater fluxes to streams; an analytical solution and a finite difference method. Two different bodies of waters were used in this study. The first location was Johnson Creek located in Grant-Kohrs Ranch in Deer Lodge, Montana. This is a small creek where lots of sampling points were taken. The stretch of Johnson Creek where radon samples were collected was about 0.34 km long with a flowrate between 0.01 m3/s and 0.017 m3/s. The second location was Merced River located in Yosemite Valley (Yosemite National Park) in the state of California. This is a much larger river compared to Johnson Creek, and also had fewer sampling points. The reach looked at in this study is from Happy Isles to Pohono Bridge, a 17.3 km distance with a flowrate that ranges between 0.20 m3/s and ~120 m3/s at Happy Isles depending on the time of the year. To test the models, both bodies of water were known to have groundwater gains meaning that back calculations for gas exchange values could be derived. The finite difference method was found to have errors that are still undetermined. The average gas exchange values for radon in the analytical model tested were between 154.6 day-1 to 195.6 day-1 for Johnson Creek and 2.7 day-1 to 3.5 day-1 for Merced River. Johnson Creek’s gas exchange values for radon compare well to published sites. Merced River gas exchange values for radon are low in comparison to past studies on gas exchange; this could be due to the long reach with few sampling points

Introduction : Posthumains en séries

Posthumains en séries poursuit une réflexion critique qui a connu une accélération depuis le début du xxie siècle sur le posthumain et sur la redéfinition de l’identité humaine que ce concept problématise. Les articles réunis ici croisent les approches de spécialistes des cultures américaine et britannique, de comparatistes et de spécialistes de cinéma et d’arts visuels. La recherche sur le posthumain, en France, reste très ancrée dans le champ de la philosophie, avec les ouvrages de Dominiqu..

“some kind of thing it aint us but yet its in us”: David Mitchell, Russell Hoban, and metafiction after the millennium

This article appraises the debt that David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas owes to the novels of Russell Hoban, including, but not limited to, Riddley Walker. After clearly mapping a history of Hoban’s philosophical perspectives and Mitchell’s inter-textual genre-impersonation practice, the article assesses the degree to which Mitchell’s metatextual methods indicate a nostalgia for by-gone radical aesthetics rather than reaching for new modes of its own. The article not only proposes several new backdrops against which Mitchell’s novel can be read but also conducts the first in-depth appraisal of Mitchell’s formal linguistic replication of Riddley Walker

The inhibition of inflammatory molecule expression on 3T3-L1 adipocytes by berberine is not mediated by leptin signaling

In our previous study, we have shown that berberine has both anti-adipogenic and anti-inflammatory effects on 3T3-L1 adipocytes, and the anti-adipogenic effect is due to the down-regulation of adipogenic enzymes and transcription factors. Here we focused more on anti-inflammatory effect of berberine using real time RT-PCR and found it changes expressions of adipokines. We hypothesized that anti-adipogenicity of berberine mediates anti-inflammtory effect and explored leptin as a candidate mediator of this signaling. We studied this hypothesis by western blot analysis, but our results showed that berberine has no effect on the phosphorylations of STAT-3 and ERK which have important roles on leptin signaling. These results led us to conclude that the anti-inflammatory effect of berberine is not mediated by the inhibition of leptin signal transduction. Moreover, we have found that berberine down-regulates NF-κB signaling, one of the inflammation-related signaling pathway, through western blot analysis. Taken together, the anti-inflammatory effect of berberine is not mediated by leptin, and berberine induces anti-inflammatory effect independent of leptin signaling

“You have to keep track of your changes”: The Version Variants and Publishing History of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas

In 2003, David Mitchell’s editorial contact at the US branch of Random House moved from the publisher, leaving the American edition of Cloud Atlas (2004) without an editor for approximately three months. Meanwhile, the UK edition of the manuscript was undergoing a series of editorial changes and rewrites that were never synchronised back into the US edition of the text. When the process was resumed at Random House under the editorial guidance of David Ebershoff, changes from New York were likewise not imported back into the UK edition. In the section entitled ‘An Orison of Sonmi~451’ these desynchronised rewritings are nearly total at the level of linguistic expression between UK and US paperbacks/electronic editions and there are a range of sub-episodes that only feature in one or other of the published editions. Within the constraints of copyright on contemporary fiction, this article sets out this textual variance and visually plots the re-ordering and re-writing of the Sonmi section of the novel across versions. Further to this, I also signal here a number of reasons why critics might need to consider the production processes of contemporary fiction in order to deal with the multiple and different editions of this text and other contemporary novels

Gender Dimorphism in Skeletal Muscle Leptin Receptors, Serum Leptin and Insulin Sensitivity

To determine if there is a gender dimorphism in the expression of leptin receptors (OB-R170, OB-R128 and OB-R98) and the protein suppressor of cytokine signaling 3 (SOCS3) in human skeletal muscle, the protein expression of OB-R, perilipin A, SOCS3 and alpha-tubulin was assessed by Western blot in muscle biopsies obtained from the m. vastus lateralis in thirty-four men (age = 27.1±6.8 yr) and thirty-three women (age = 26.7±6.7 yr). Basal serum insulin concentration and HOMA were similar in both genders. Serum leptin concentration was 3.4 times higher in women compared to men (P<0.05) and this difference remained significant after accounting for the differences in percentage of body fat or soluble leptin receptor. OB-R protein was 41% (OB-R170, P<0.05) and 163% (OB-R128, P<0.05) greater in women than men. There was no relationship between OB-R expression and the serum concentrations of leptin or 17β-estradiol. In men, muscle OB-R128 protein was inversely related to serum free testosterone. In women, OB-R98 and OB-R128 were inversely related to total serum testosterone concentration, and OB-R128 to serum free testosterone concentration. SOCS3 protein expression was similar in men and women and was not related to OB-R. In women, there was an inverse relationship between the logarithm of free testosterone and SCOS3 protein content in skeletal muscle (r = −0.46, P<0.05). In summary, there is a gender dimorphism in skeletal muscle leptin receptors expression, which can be partly explained by the influence of testosterone. SOCS3 expression in skeletal muscle is not up-regulated in women, despite very high serum leptin concentrations compared to men. The circulating form of the leptin receptor can not be used as a surrogate measure of the amount of leptin receptors expressed in skeletal muscles

Du monstre considéré comme une œuvre d’art : continuité et renouveau de la figuration du monstre dans The Fall et Hannibal

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