From Object of Poverty to National Treasure: The Ambiguous Place of Catholic Convents in Quebec and the Rhetoric of Heritage

Convents and Catholic religious institutions undeniably constitute an important component of Quebec's religious heritage. Yet, popular and official interest in and concern over the preservation of these buildings seems to have grown exponentially in the last decade. Arguments over the demolition and reuse of properties of religious communities of women reveal the wide-ranging attitudes of concerned citizens, members of sisterhoods and the clergy, heritage advocates, and government. The ways religious heritage has been defined and packaged (for tourist consumption, to bolster national narratives) reflect not only gender asymmetries within the attribution and appreciation of religious heritage but also ambivalence toward the role of the Church in Quebec history. Résumé Les couvents et autres établissements religieux catholiques constituent indéniablement une composante importante du patrimoine religieux du Québec. Au cours de la dernière décennie, les intérêts populaires et officiels à préserver ces bâtiments et les préoccupations à cet égard ont augmenté de façon exponentielle. Les discussions sur la démolition ou l'attribution de nouvelles vocations aux édifices des communautés religieuses de femmes révèlent la grande diversité des attitudes des citoyens, des membres de communautés de femmes et du clergé, des défenseurs du patrimoine ainsi que du gouvernement. La façon dont le patrimoine religieux a été défini et présenté (pour consommation touristique, pour justifier le discours nationaliste) reflète non seulement des asymétries en fonction de l'appartenance à un sexe dans l'attribution et l'appréciation de ce patrimoine, mais aussi une ambivalence envers le rôle joué par l'Église dans l'histoire du Québec

A Side-Channel Attack Against the Secret Permutation on an Embedded McEliece Cryptosystem

International audience—In this paper, based on a thorough analysis of the state of the art, we point out a missing solution for embedded devices to secure the syndrome computation. We show that this weakness can open the door to a side-channel attack targeting the secret permutation. Indeed, brute-force attack iterations are dramatically decreased when the secret permutation is recovered. We demonstrate the feasibility of this attack against the McEliece cryptosystem implemented on an ARM Cortex-M3 microprocessor using Goppa codes. We explain how to recover the secret permutation on a toy example. Finally, we propose a promising countermeasure, which can be implemented in embedded devices to prevent this attack

Live single cell functional phenotyping in droplet nano-liter reactors

While single cell heterogeneity is present in all biological systems, most studies cannot address it due to technical limitations. Here we describe a nano-liter droplet microfluidic-based approach for stimulation and monitoring of surfaceand secreted markers of live single immune dendritic cells (DCs) as well as monitoring the live T cell/DC interaction. This nano-liter in vivo simulating microenvironment allows delivering various stimuli reagents to each cell and appropriate gas exchanges which are necessary to ensure functionality and viability of encapsulated cells. Labeling bioassay and microsphere sensors were integrated into nano-liter reaction volume of the droplet to monitor live single cell surface markers and secretion analysis in the time-dependent fashion. Thus live cell stimulation, secretion and surface monitoring can be obtained simultaneously in distinct microenvironment, which previously was possible using complicated and multi-step in vitro and in vivo live-cell microscopy, together with immunological studies of the outcome secretion of cellular function

Manic Temporality

Time-consciousness has long been a focus of research in phenomenology and phenomenological psychology. We advance and extend this tradition of research by focusing on the character of temporal experience under conditions of mania. Symptom scales and diagnostic criteria for mania are peppered with temporally inflected language: increased rate of speech, racing thoughts, flight of ideas, hyperactivity. But what is the underlying structure of temporal experience in manic episodes? We tackle this question using a strategically hybrid approach. We recover and reconstruct three hypotheses regarding manic temporality that were advanced and modelled by two pioneers of clinical phenomenology: Eugène Minkowski (1885-1972) and Ludwig Binswanger (1881-1966). We then test, critique, and refine these hypotheses using heterophenomenological methods in an interview-based study of persons with a history of bipolar and a current diagnosis of acute mania. Our conclusions support a central hypothesis due to Minkowski and Binswanger, viz., that disturbance in the formal structure of temporal experience is a core feature of mania. We argue that a suitably refined variant of Binswanger’s model of disturbance in manic protention helps to explain a striking pattern of impaired insight and impaired reasoning in manic episodes

Endomannosidase undergoes phosphorylation in the Golgi apparatus

Glucose residues from N-linked oligosaccharides are removed by glucosidases I and II in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) or by the alternate endomannosidase pathway in the Golgi apparatus. Our morphological analysis demonstrates that recombinant rat endomannosidase exhibited a cis- and medial-Golgi localization alike the endogenous enzyme and its ER to Golgi transport is COP II mediated. Recombinant endomannosidase undergoes a posttranslational modification, which is not related to N-or O-glycosylation. A shift in molecular mass of recombinant endomannosidase was observed upon phosphatase digestion but not for ER-retained CHO cell endomannosidase. Furthermore, immunoprecipitation of 35S- and 33P-labeled endomannosidase expressed in CHO-K1 cells suggests that recombinant endomannosidase undergoes phosphorylation. Substitution of the single cytoplasmic threonine residue of rat endomannosidase by either an alanine or valine residue resulted in the same posttranslational modification alike the wild-type enzyme. The subcellular localization and the in vivo activity of the mutant endomannosidase were not affected. Thus, endomannosidase phosphorylation is occurring in luminal sequences. Modification was prevented when endomannosidase was synthesized using reticulocyte lysates in the presence of canine microsomes. Treatment of cells with brefeldin A blocked the posttranslational modification of endomannosidase, suggesting that phosphorylation is occurring in the Golgi apparatus, the residence of endomannosidas

Understanding city dynamics: using geolocated social media in a problem-based activity as an investigative tool to enhance student learning

Research that tackles the pedagogical use of geolocated social media as an investigative tool for understanding cities in Geography and Urban Studies higher education programs has not been fully exploited. This study contributes by addressing the transferability of these sources as a research medium for enhancing student knowledge of urban phenomena. A collaborative problem-based learning activity was conducted in a third-year compulsory Urban Studies module of the Fundamentals in Architecture Degree at the University of Alicante. Two groups – Spanish (25 students) and English (34 students) language, participated in the activity. Foursquare and Twitter datasets were used as sources of information, and scaffolding in QGIS software, data analysis, and visualization tools were provided. Pre- and post- activity questionnaires as well as the work submitted by students gave an indication of the extent to which the activity was useful for achieving the set objective. Recurring approaches adopted by students and their “how-to” make sense of social media information enabled them to align spatiotemporal and social phenomena to the use and perception of city spaces. Students developed critical thinking and interpretative skills that are key transversal competencies for understanding the huge volume of data available in today’s digitalized world.This research was cofounded by the Vice-rectorate of Research and Knowledge Transfer of the University of Alicante, Spain (GRE18-19) and the Conselleria de Innovación, Universidades, Ciencia y Sociedad Digital. Generalitat Valenciana, Spain (GV/2021/177)

Exploring Conceptual Metaphor Types in Financial Markets Reporting: Mainstream vs. Social Media

This study contributes to English for Specific Purposes (ESP) pedagogy by providing an updated examination of conceptual metaphor types (CMTs) employed in financial markets reporting. The investigation delves into the prevalence of CMTs in both social media and mainstream media contexts. Robust patterns were identified to distinguish CMT usage between mainstream and social media by leveraging big-scale data analysis, encompassing 38.6 million documents from The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Twitter and Reddit. The data collection spans fifteen months during the COVID-19 pandemic (January 2020–March 2021), marked by socioeconomic upheaval and coinciding with a surge in retail investors using low or no-cost mobile financial trading applications. Examining the proportion of CMTs reveals that war/combat, markets animate, markets inanimate, and health metaphor types have strong associations with both social and mainstream media. The gambling CMT is predominantly linked to social media. In terms of metaphor density, the results indicate a higher concentration in social media compared to mainstream media. Texts sourced from social media, characterized by greater conciseness, emerge as a potential communication barrier. The findings underscore the importance of incorporating authentic texts from social media into specialized language courses, thus enhancing language learning experiences in the domain of financial markets reporting

Randomisation of Pulse Phases for Unambiguous and Robust Quantum Sensing

We develop theoretically and demonstrate experimentally a universal dynamical decoupling method for robust quantum sensing with unambiguous signal identification. Our method uses randomisation of control pulses to suppress simultaneously two types of errors in the measured spectra that would otherwise lead to false signal identification. These are spurious responses due to finite-width $\pi$ pulses, as well as signal distortion caused by $\pi$ pulse imperfections. For the cases of nanoscale nuclear spin sensing and AC magnetometry, we benchmark the performance of the protocol with a single nitrogen vacancy centre in diamond against widely used non-randomised pulse sequences. Our method is general and can be combined with existing multipulse quantum sensing sequences to enhance their performance