Quand la Bible s’ouvre à la lecture sémiotique

C’est au moment de la parution de Du sens que l’exégèse biblique et la sémiotique greimassienne se sont rencontrées. Après le choc initial et le dépassement des difficultés provoquées par le changement radical d’épistémologie, les disciplines ont su profiter l’une de l’autre. Au cours des années 1970, les études bibliques se sont tournées vers des approches synchroniques. D’autre part, la lecture de la Bible a contribué au développement de la sémiotique greimassienne : affinement de l’analyse des rapports entre sujets et développement de l’étude de la figurativité en direction de la mise en discours conçue comme productrice de signification.It is when the work Du sens was published that the biblical exegesis and Greimas’ semiotic came together. Beyond an initial shock and after having overcome difficulties stemmed from a radical change of epistemology, those disciplines learned to gain from each other. In the seventies, the biblical studies reached a turning point : they shifted towards synchronic approaches. They profited particularly from the Greimas’ semiotic. On the other hand, perusing of the Bible contributed to the semiotic : a refining of the analysis of relations between the subjects and a development of the theory of the figurativity

Impact of Wind Direction, Wind Speed, and Particle Characteristics on the Collection Efficiency of the Double Fence Intercomparison Reference

The accurate measurement of snowfall is important in various fields of study such as climate variability, transportation, and water resources. A major concern is that snowfall measurements are difficult and can result in significant errors. For example, collection efficiency of most gauge–shield configurations generally decreases with increasing wind speed. In addition, much scatter is observed for a given wind speed, which is thought to be caused by the type of snowflake. Furthermore, the collection efficiency depends strongly on the reference used to correct the data, which is often the Double Fence Intercomparison Reference (DFIR) recommended by the World Meteorological Organization. The goal of this study is to assess the impact of weather conditions on the collection efficiency of the DFIR. Note that the DFIR is defined as a manual gauge placed in a double fence. In this study, however, only the double fence is being investigated while still being called DFIR. To address this issue, a detailed analysis of the flow field in the vicinity of the DFIR is conducted using computational fluid dynamics. Particle trajectories are obtained to compute the collection efficiency associated with different precipitation types for varying wind speed. The results show that the precipitation reaching the center of the DFIR can exceed 100% of the actual precipitation, and it depends on the snowflake type, wind speed, and direction. Overall, this study contributes to a better understanding of the sources of uncertainty associated with the use of the DFIR as a reference gauge to measure snowfall

Le travail des deux conjoints: Effet sur la progression de carrière du cadre

Les auteurs étudient l'effet du mariage à une personne qui travaille à l'extérieur sur la progression de carrière de l'individu dans l'entreprise.More and more couples are working full-time in Canada giving rise to the dual career phenomenon. On the other hand, more and more social scientists are doing research on careers from different points of view including the one adopted in this study; that is, the organizational point of view. Since working couples, and especially dual-career couples, are more numerous, it seems appropriate to study their potential effects on organizational life. We know almost nothing about the impact on an organization of having members of dual career couples, in terms of performance, job satisfaction, absenteism, turnover, etc. Rapoport and Rapoport (1978) noted the absence of the employer's point of view in research on working couples. There are a few exceptions. Rosen et al (1975), Berger and Wright (1977) and Le Louarn and DeCotiis (1982) have studied the effect of a dual-career status on several personnel decisions within organizations. The results of the empirical studies suggest that being a member of a dual-career couple could be a hindrance when it cornes to making important decisions like hiring, promoting, relocating, etc. In those cases, employers belonging to a dual-career couple are perceived as a greater risk for an organization than a member of a single career family. It is feared that if the spouse does not like the new place, or finds another job somewhere else, the couple (including the newly hired or transferred employee) will leave the organization (Holmstrom, 1972).Following these three studies, one can ask whether some of thèse decisions have an impact on the career progression of the manager when he or she is a member of a working couple. Mooney (1981) and Pfeffer and Ross (1982) have already shown the negative effect on salary of being married to somebody who works. The purpose of this study is to pursue this Une of research by studying the impact of a working couple status on managers' career progression using three different definitions of this construct. It is hypothesized that: (1) the more a spouse works outside home, the less is the manager's salary, hierarchical level and number of promotions obtained when the effect of certain variables is controlled; (2) the effect of the working spouse on these three variables will be different according to the manager's sex and whether he or she works in the public or private sector. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire sent to managers from Quebec as part of a larger study conducted by the last two authors. The data from the public sector corne from ail segments of the governmental bureaucracy. Those from the private sector corne from a chain of retail food stores. Data were collected at two different periods of time in 1982 and represent ail the hierarchical levels of the organization. The total sample size is 2324 (1817 from the public and 507 from the private sector). The results show that the salary level of the respondents is negatively related to the working spouse status. That is, when the effects of age, education, spoken language (English or French), sex, civil status (married or not), sector (public or private), hierarchical level, number of promotions, number of employers, length of service and global performance are controlled, the manager who is married to a working spouse has significantly lower salary that the one who is married to somebody who does not work outside the house. Having a working spouse, however, has no significant effect on the manager's hierarchical level on his or her number of promotions. When the sample is divided into two parts, the results of the multiple regression shows that the negative effect on salary is only true in the public sector and for the men only. Different explanations for these results results are presented and suggestions are made for future research on the effect of dual-career couples on organizational life

Discordance between testosterone measurement methods in castrated prostate cancer patients

Failure to suppress testosterone below 0.7 nM in castrated prostate cancer patients is associated with poor clinical outcomes. Testosterone levels in castrated patients are therefore routinely measured. Although mass spectrometry is the gold standard used to measure testosterone, most hospitals use an immunoassay method. In this study, we sought to evaluate the accuracy of an immunoassay method to measure castrate testosterone levels, with mass spectrometry as the reference standard. We retrospectively evaluated a cohort of 435 serum samples retrieved from castrated prostate cancer patients from April to September 2017. No follow-up of clinical outcomes was performed. Serum testosterone levels were measured in the same sample using liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry and electrochemiluminescent immunoassay methods. The mean testosterone levels were significantly higher with immunoassay than with mass spectrometry (0.672 ± 0.359 vs 0.461 ± 0.541 nM; P 0.7 nM was significantly higher with immunoassay (22.1%) than with mass spectrometry (13.1%; P 0.7 nM by immunoassay can result in an inaccurately identified castration status. Suboptimal testosterone levels in castrated patients should be confirmed by either mass spectrometry or an immunoassay method validated at low testosterone levels and interpreted with caution before any changes are made to treatment management