That Gentil Text Kan I Wel Understonde : Textual Authority in Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath’s Prologue

It has become a critical commonplace to note that Chaucer created the character of the Wife of Bath out of an anti-feminist textual tradition that condemns just the kind of strong-voiced proto-feminist woman that she is. The anti-feminist tradition is deeply embedded in the western cultural framework. Established and perpetuated by a male clergy, it was an integral part of the institutionalized religious structure that controlled education, literacy, and thus access to texts of all kinds. The tradition assumed that woman—viewed as a collective entity—was portrayed as either a moral ideal or a wicked sinner, with little possibility for nuances of human personality or individual expression. This tradition was so pervasive in its scope and breadth that it played a major role not only in determining how men viewed women, but also in determining how women—even rebellious women—viewed themselves. The dual focus of this study is first to examine the articulation of Alison of Bath\u27s character as it relates to the anti-feminist tradition and second to explore why Chaucer might have created a character such as Alison. It is the contention of this study that even though Alison can be viewed as a social type and a creation based on other anti-feminist literary texts, the presence of a character who is victimized by the textual tradition she attempts to refute makes a powerful statement that produces important questions about the validity of that tradition. On the surface, the character of Alison appears to be created in opposition to authoritative texts because she speaks out so powerfully and directly against the idea of an absolute authority based on the sacred textual tradition. The problem is that in so doing Alison fulfills the stereotypical notions of the manipulative woman, thus upholding the misogynist traditions she seeks to control. Alison\u27s use of textual language demonstrates her lowly status in relation to male textual tradition. Furthermore, the contradictions in Alison\u27s character seem to point to the conclusion that Chaucer perceives the woman as an inferior being. Even the female-ness of Alison\u27s character, Chaucer\u27s apparent rendering of a feminine rhetoric, is based on a male textual tradition, that of the manipulative woman in secular literature and popular sermons. Still, because Chaucer is not an author whose intent can be determined with ease, it becomes virtually impossible to perceive Alison simply as a regurgitation of the misogynist tradition. The idea that there is an absolute truth in the gender-based moral hierarchy manifested in authoritative texts is a premise that Chaucer questions. Alison\u27s placement in The Canterbury Tales thus demonstrates Chaucer\u27s awareness that the truth in textual authority is not absolute. The arguments given to the Wife of Bath also make her audience aware that there are many facets of the textual tradition that go against the grain of the church patriarchy and its value system. Having examined Chaucer\u27s creation of Alison\u27s character, I close the thesis by discussing the textual forces that govern the interaction with Chaucer\u27s literary work, in this case, the particularities of late-twentieth-century gender-related language. While the extent of Chaucer\u27s feminist sympathies may never be fully known, an examination of responses to The Wife of Bath\u27s Prologue brings us closer to an understanding of how literary critics use language and how it affects our understanding of a text. Critics\u27 interactions with Chaucer\u27s tale are revealed for their own highly personal and frequently gender-motivated agendas. Much in the same way that the Wife of Bath\u27s character questions and exposes the personal motivations of those who use power to maintain control, literary criticism offers the reader a chance to examine critical contexts and the traditions of authoritative language for their personal motivations

Contributing to Children’s Early Comprehension of Emotions: A Picture Book Approach

Previous studies have suggested that children’s emotion comprehension begins todevelop in the early stages of childhood and has been linked to prosocial behaviours, displays of empathy, and better interpersonal relationships, to name a few. However, children’s levels of emotion comprehension do not develop at the same rhythm, due to both environmental and biological factors. There are a few interventions that can help children in their development of emotion understanding, but these interventions are not readily accessible (e.g., due to cost, availability, duration). For example, the School Matters in Lifeskills Education Program (SMILE) is a theoretically based program aimed at improving children’s emotion comprehension. Unfortunately, since, for instance, it requires rigorous training to be administered, it is not accessible to all. To address some of the issues with previous programs, the current study examined the use of shared book reading and the effectiveness of picture books created on current theories and models of children’s emotion comprehension. Eighteen preschoolers were divided into an experimental and a control group. Over the course of multiple exposures to the experimental treatment, results revealed a significant gain for the experimental group compared to the control group. These results are promising by showing that a simple shared book reading approach can contribute to the development of emotion comprehension without requiring special training or expertise

On the Generalization of the C-Bound to Structured Output Ensemble Methods

This paper generalizes an important result from the PAC-Bayesian literature for binary classification to the case of ensemble methods for structured outputs. We prove a generic version of the \Cbound, an upper bound over the risk of models expressed as a weighted majority vote that is based on the first and second statistical moments of the vote's margin. This bound may advantageously $(i)$ be applied on more complex outputs such as multiclass labels and multilabel, and $(ii)$ allow to consider margin relaxations. These results open the way to develop new ensemble methods for structured output prediction with PAC-Bayesian guarantees

Pour une anthropologie politique de la mer

International audienceThis paper presents an innovative collaborative approach, devoted to strengthening and institutionalization of political anthropology applied to the sea. He first shows what political sciences have to say concerning our understanding of sea management, established to ensure their "sustainability". It then presents the cooperative research structure ApoliMer (political Anthropology of the sea), which address this issue by proposing to grasp the management of coastal and marine "socioecosystems" as a demonstrator of contemporary transformations of politics. Ultimately, it suggests the added value of a stronger link between the human and social sciences and natural sciences, to produce a critical analysis of the categories of thought and action attached to the "systemic management" of the environment.Cet article présente une démarche de recherche collaborative et innovante, consacrée au renforcement et à l'institutionnalisation d'une anthropologie politique de la mer étroitement articulée aux sciences de la nature. Il dit d'abord ce que les sciences sociales du politique ont à apporter à la compréhension de la « gouvernance » de la mer, établie en vue de sa « gestion durable ». Il présente ensuite la structure coopérative de recherche ApoliMer (Anthropologie politique de la mer), qui traite cette question en proposant de faire de la gestion des « socio-écosystèmes » marins et côtiers un démonstrateur des transformations contemporaines du politique. In fine, il laisse entrevoir la plus-value d'une articulation, entre les sciences humaines et sociales et les sciences de la nature pour produire une analyse critique des catégories de pensée et d’action attachées à la «gestion systémique» de l’environnement

La sévérité de l’agression sexuelle en enfance et les séquelles sexuelles à l’âge adulte : rôle de l’âge de la victime lors de la première agression

Les conséquences sexuelles à l’âge adulte suite à une agression sexuelle à l’enfance (ASE) sont non négligeables et peuvent être associées à la sévérité de l’ASE. Les analyses du présent projet ont été effectuées auprès d’un échantillon de convenance composé de personnes ayant subi une ASE ou non. Dans l’optique de mieux comprendre les répercussions d’un tel geste, le présent projet vérifiera si l’ajout de l’âge lors de la première ASE au sein d’une variable latente de sévérité de l’ASE déjà composée de trois indicateurs dans certaines études recensées (fréquence des agressions, lien avec l’agresseur, type d’actes perpétrés) est pertinent pour opérationaliser ce concept. Ensuite, l’objectif principal du projet vise à documenter les liens entre l’âge de l’enfant lors d’une première ASE, les autres facteurs de sévérité de l’ASE (fréquence des agressions, lien avec l’agresseur, type d’actes perpétrés) et les séquelles sexuelles ultérieures, soit la satisfaction sexuelle et les dysfonctions sexuelles. Pour ce faire, un modèle médiationnel sera testé à l’aide d’une analyse d’équations structurelles. Ce modèle contient comme variable prédictrice un concept latent de sévérité de l’ASE qui s’intéresse aux quatre facteurs de sévérité précédemment mentionnés, comme variables médiatrices la compulsion et l’évitement sexuel, puis comme variables prédites la satisfaction et les dysfonctions sexuelles, en contrôlant pour l’effet du genre. Les résultats révèlent que l’âge lors de la première ASE s’intègre bien à la variable latente de sévérité de l’ASE composée de trois indicateurs dans certaines études recensées (fréquence des agressions, lien avec l’agresseur, type d’actes perpétrés) et que cette variable latente est associée indirectement à une faible satisfaction sexuelle et une fréquence moins élevée de dysfonctions sexuelles via une augmentation de la compulsion sexuelle. Les résultats mettent en évidence un lien entre la sévérité de l’ASE et les répercussions sexuelles observées à l’âge adulte (faible satisfaction sexuelle) principalement en raison d’une augmentation de la compulsion sexuelle chez les victimes. Les implications cliniques de ces résultats soutiennent l’importance d’évaluer le contexte dans lequel l’enfant a vécu une ASE ainsi que le fonctionnement sexuel des victimes à l’âge adulte

Cognitive fatigue assessment in operational settings: a review and UAS implications

Recent technological improvements allow UAS (Unmanned Aircraft System) operators to carry out increasingly long missions. Shift work was introduced during long-endurance missions to reduce the risk of fatigue. However, despite these short work periods and the creation of a fatigue risk management system (FRMS), the occurrence of intense and monotonous phases remains a factor of cognitive fatigue. This fatigue can have an impact on vigilance, attention, and operator performance, leading to reduce mission safety. This paper aims at presenting different ways to characterize the cognitive fatigue of UAS operators. The use of machine learning to estimate cognitive fatigue based on physiological measures is also presented as a promising venue to mitigate these issues

A neuroergonomic approach to performance estimation in a psychomotor vigilance task

Introduction: Passive brain-computer interfaces (pBCI; tools that enable an implicit mental state estimation) have gained attention in a wide range of applications, including performance and vigilance monitoring in high-risk work settings (Lotte & Roy, 2019). Vigilance can be defined as the ability to maintain sustained attention to a stimulus for an extended period of time (Al-Shargie et al., 2019), and is influenced by the time of day and fatigue (Lim and Dinges, 2008). A vigilance decrement impacts performance over time (called time-on-task -TOT) during tedious monitoring tasks, resulting in slower reaction times or increased errors (Pattyn et al., 2008). This effect is experienced in all kinds of activities such as in aeronautics where pilots can experience a performance drop during the flight (Wiggins, 2011). Hence, vigilance and performance estimation is a crucial step towards the implementation of safer work settings. Machine learning applied to physiological measures, such as cerebral activity (via electroencephalogram -EEG- recordings), is a promising way to estimate performance. EEG’s spectral activity is impacted by fluctuations in vigilance (Matousek & Petersén, 1983) and the power in both theta and alpha bands can be considered as robust biomarkers of mental fatigue (Tran et al., 2020). Numerous studies have attempted to estimate performance during a vigilance task based on EEG measures (Tian et al. 2018), or electrocardiographic (ECG) measures (e.g., heart rate -HR-, and its variability -HRV; Chua et al., 2012). To our knowledge, performance estimation during monotonous tasks has not reached a high accuracy, and pBCI pipelines could be improved. Hence, the objective of this study is to employ a comprehensive neuroergonomic approach to vigilance and performance characterization for a typical vigilance task: the Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT; Dinges & Powell, 1985) encompassing statistical analyses, as well as EEG-based performance classification using pre-stimulus signal. Methods: Ten volunteers (3 females; Mage=25, sd=3; ethical number from Univ. Toulouse: 2021-342) performed a 10-minute PVT (i.e., 90 stimuli) from a task battery. They had to complete a fatigue questionnaire (Karolinska Sleepiness Scale; Åkerstedt & Gillberg, 1990) and their response time (RT) was measured. In addition, EEG and ECG activities were recorded using an ActiCHamp system (63+1 electrodes). Data were processed in two ways: i) TOT analysis: data were split into ten 1-minute windows; and ii) Performance analysis: response-based epoching (-2:0s for EEG; -10:0s for ECG), only the 30 best and 30 worst trials were kept (labeled according to RT), and also used for performance classification. Considering statistical analyses, one-way repeated measures ANOVAs and paired samples t-tests (Student and Wilcoxon), were performed separately on each dataset. To perform TOT analysis on RT, the signal was cut into 10 periods of 9 simultaneous stimuli and the reciprocal RT (mean 1/RT) was calculated on each period. EEG data were filtered (1-40 Hz) and ocular artifacts were automatically removed (SOBI method). The theta, alpha, and beta power were extracted for three electrode clusters (frontal, central, posterior). The Task Load Index (TLI: thetaFz/alphaPz) and the engagement ratio (beta/[theta+alpha]; average on all electrodes) were also calculated. ECG data were filtered (1-40 Hz) and normalized using a 1-minute eyes-open resting state period. HR and HRV (as SDNN) were then extracted. For EEG-based estimation, a dimensionality reduction method based on Laplacian was applied (Xu et al., 2021), and a minimum distance to mean with geodesic filtering classifier (FgMDM) was trained and tested using a 10-fold cross-validation procedure. Results: There was no significant difference in subjective fatigue (regardless of PVT order in battery). There was a significant linear downward trend on reciprocal RT (p<.05; other contrasts n.s.; Fig.1.A). There was a significant effect of TOT on alpha power at frontal (p<.05, ηp²=.26) and posterior (p<.05, ηp²=.27) sites, as well as on the engagement ratio (p<.05, ηp²=.31; Fig.1.B). TOT also significantly impacted HR (p<.001, ηp²=.31; Fig.1.C) and HRV (p<.05, ηp²=.27). Regarding performance (best/worst trials), alpha power was significantly lower for the best than worst trials at frontal (p<.01, rB=-.93), and posterior (p<.01, rB=-.89) sites, while the TLI was higher for the best trials (p<.05, d=.87). In terms of performance classification, the FgMDM classifier achieved a mean accuracy of 58.2% without dimensionality reduction. By selecting the number of dimensions that gives the best accuracy for each subject, the mean accuracy with dimensionality reduction was 70.5% (mean number of dimensions = 27.3, Fig.2.A). By comparison, the principal component analysis (PCA) achieved a mean accuracy of 71.1% (mean number of dimensions = 23). Discussion: The results showed that the neuroergonomic approach employed in this study enabled us to assess physiological modulations due to vigilance fluctuations, such as alpha power and engagement ratio decreased over time. However, the HR drop observed in the first minutes may be due to the initial presentation novelty (Kelsey et al., 1999). Also, analyses of the best and worst trials showed that vigilance decreased during the bad trials. However, some results were not as strong as those obtained in the literature. This may be due to either the short task duration (10 minutes) compared to the several sessions performed over several hours or days in the literature, or because our participants were not sleep deprived. Besides, these analyses were performed on a small number of participants (n=10). Regarding performance estimation, the classification accuracy was low for several reasons. Firstly, there is little difference in terms of vigilance during the 10-minute PVT task, even though we have chosen the 30 best and worst trials. Secondly, the number of training samples is quite limited (i.e., 60 per subject). In this case, dimensionality reduction becomes essential as shown by the results. Both dimensionality reduction methods (non-supervised) significantly improve accuracy while reducing the computation time. Moreover, on average the Laplacian-based method performs better in lower dimensions than PCA (Fig.2.B). In summary, this study shows that even with a short task and a normal level of fatigue, it is possible to observe an impact of a monotonous task on behavioral and physiological measures at the group level. Yet, it remains difficult to implement an accurate performance estimation pipeline using a single short session at the individual level

A multidisciplinary approach to the spatial dimension in ecosystem-based fisheries management

This study considers how to reconcile different spatial scales to find the best common denominator to be used as an ecosystem-based management unit. For this, two fishery production zones differing ecologically, economically, legally and institutionally were investigated. The first case study is located within French territorial waters, in a MPA created in 2007- the Parc Naturel Marin d'Iroise (PNMI). The second case study, the Bay of Biscay, covers both territorial waters and the French exclusive economic zone. The paper adopts a multidisciplinary approach. Relevant questions concern how marine space is shared between exploited species and fishing fleets, especially the spatial mobility strategies they employ. An assessment of the institutional system established for the PNMI contributes to the discussion of changes in coastal space use. It is obvious that the area in need of protection, defined on the basis of essential fish habitats, does not solely concern the fisheries located within the coastal zone. Experiments conducted by scientists and professionals in the Bay of Biscay provide other key points for the discussion in terms of what institutional frameworks to promote