: Seeing, Believing - and Hearing

URL : http://umr6576.cesr.univ-tours.fr/publications/theta8/fichiers/pdf/hillman.pdfInternational audienceA study of the variable relation of seeing, believing and narrating in the representation of miracles in medieval and Elizabethan drama, including comparison with the French mysteries and L'histoire tragique de la Pucelle de Domrémy by Fronton Du Duc.Etude de la relation variable entre la vue, la croyance et le récit dans la représentation du miraculeux dans les théâtres médieval et élisabéthain, avec une discussion comparative des mystères français et de L'histoire tragique de la Pucelle de Domrémy par Fronton Du Duc

The phase coherence of light from extragalactic sources - direct evidence against first order Planck scale fluctuations in time and space

We present a method of directly testing whether time continues to have its usual meaning on scales of <= t_P = sqrt(hbar G/c^5) ~ 5.4E-44 s, the Planck time. According to quantum gravity, the time t of an event cannot be determined more accurately than a standard deviation of the form sigma_t/t = a_o (t_P/t)^a, where a_o and a are positive constants ~1; likewise distances are subject to an ultimate uncertainty c \sigma_t, where c is the speed of light. As a consequence, the period and wavelength of light cannot be specified precisely; rather, they are independently subject to the same intrinsic limitations in our knowledge of time and space, so that even the most monochromatic plane wave must in reality be a superposition of waves with varying omega and {\bf k}, each having a different phase velcocity omega/k. For the entire accessible range of the electromagnetic spectrum this effect is extremely small, but can cumulatively lead to a complete loss of phase information if the emitted radiation propagated a sufficiently large distance. Since, at optical frequencies, the phase coherence of light from a distant point source is a necessary condition for the presence of diffraction patterns when the source is viewed through a telescope, such observations offer by far the most sensitive and uncontroversial test. We show that the HST detection of Airy rings from the active galaxy PKS1413+135, located at a distance of 1.2 Gpc, secures the exclusion of all first order (a=1) quantum gravity fluctuations with an amplitude a_o > 0.003. The same result may be used to deduce that the speed of light in vacuo is exact to a few parts in 10^32.Comment: Title change. One reference added. Final version accepted by ApJ

Everyman and the Energies of Stasis

International audienceStudies the dramaturgical effect of the central eponymous figure in the mediéval drama Everyman in terms of the tension between allegory and characterisation.Etudie le personnage central éponyme dans la pièce médiévale Everyman du point de vue de la tension entre son statut de personnage et sa fonction allégorique

La Pucelle sur la scène littéraire et politique : le trajet Pont-à-Mousson – Londres

Cet article précise l’idée de l’auteur, déjà présentée en ébauche dans Shakespeare, Marlowe and the Politics of France (2002), que la première tragédie française sur le sujet de Jeanne d’Arc, composée par le jésuite Fronton Du Duc à l’université de Pont-à-Mousson au printemps 1580, montée en septembre de cette année, a pu influer sur la représentation de « Joan de Pucelle » dans la première partie d’Henry vi. Certains parallèles (et même divergences) textuels confortent l’hypothèse d’un lien direct entre les deux pièces. Mais admettre qu’un dramaturge anglais a connu la pièce lorraine, publiée seulement en 1581 dans une édition dont seulement deux exemplaires existent toujours, impose l’obligation de se pencher sur les moyens de contact possibles. On peut au moins démontrer qu’un Anglais au courant de la politique anglaise actuelle, tel que Shakespeare ou Marlowe (ce dernier probablement mêlé personnellement dans des affaires politiques), aurait eu des raisons très particulières pour s’intéresser à Pont-à-Mousson. C’est un aperçu qui élargit notre sens de Shakespeare en particulier, et de ses anglais contemporains, comme « toujours déjà » impliqués dans l’Europe, à laquelle ils revenaient au niveau de l’imaginaire, tout en insistant sur leur distance, leur étrangeté, leur opposition.La Pucelle on the Literary and Political Stage: Taking the Show on the Road from Pont-à-Mousson to London  This article develops the author’s idea, previously outlined in Shakespeare, Marlowe and the Politics of France (2002), that the first French tragedy on the subject of Joan of Arc, written by the Jesuit Fronton Du Duc at Pont-à-Mousson in the spring of 1580 and staged in September of that year, may have influenced the representation of “Joan de Pucelle” in 1 Henry vi. Certain parallels (and indeed divergences) support the theory of a direct link between the two plays. Yet to posit Shakespeare’s familiarity with the tragedy from Lorraine, published only in a single edition (1581), of which only two copies are extant, requires considering the possible routes by which it might have come to an English dramatist’s attention. It is at least possible to demonstrate that an Englishman attuned to current politics, as Shakespeare and Marlowe certainly were (the latter probably being personally involved in political affairs), would have had very particular reasons for interesting himself in Pont-à-Mousson. Such a realization broadens our sense of Shakespeare and his English contemporaries as “always already” implicated in Continental Europe, to which they continually turned imaginatively, even as they insisted on their distance, their national difference, their opposition

Entre Shakespeare et Montaigne : quelques nouveaux tours d’escrime

En général, les nombreux critiques qui se sont penchés sur l’influence de Montaigne sur Shakespeare ont basé des correspondances intellectuelles plus ou moins vastes sur des échos plus ou moins menus. Ils ont été peu concernés par la dynamique d’interprétation qui aurait pu être déclenchée chez les spectateurs contemporains qui entendaient ces échos. Cette communication cherche à récupérer une telle dynamique en appliquant à l’expérience théâtrale la notion, fondée sur la théorie de l’intertextualité, qu’une anomalie dans la « grammaire » d’un texte peut signaler la présence plus ou moins « déroutante » d’un intertexte. Ainsi dans quelques cas particuliers le texte théâtral de Shakespeare se révèle comme engagé dans un jeu avec celui de Montaigne, jeu qui produit des significations insoupçonnées tout en mettant en relief à la fois la dette et l’originalité du dramaturge anglais.Most of the numerous critics who have considered the influence of Montaigne on Shakespeare have approached the subject by establishing general intellectual affinities on the basis of specific verbal parallels. They have been little concerned with the interpretative dynamic that might have been set in motion for those members of contemporary audiences who also heard such echoes. This paper attempts to reconstruct such a dynamic by applying to the dramatic experience the notion, current in intertextual theory, that a deviation from the "grammar" of a text may point to the more or less disruptive presence of an intertext. In this light, Shakespeare’s text sometimes reveals itself as engaged in a virtual fencing-match with that of Montaigne, a process that generates unexpected meanings and highlights both the indebtedness and the originality of the English playwright

Heritabilities and correlations between carcass and live animal traits in sheep

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1963 H54Master of Scienc

An unappreciated role for RNA surveillance

BACKGROUND: Nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) is a eukaryotic mRNA surveillance mechanism that detects and degrades mRNAs with premature termination codons (PTC(+ )mRNAs). In mammals, a termination codon is recognized as premature if it lies more than about 50 nucleotides upstream of the final intron position. More than a third of reliably inferred alternative splicing events in humans have been shown to result in PTC(+ )mRNA isoforms. As the mechanistic details of NMD have only recently been elucidated, we hypothesized that many PTC(+ )isoforms may have been cloned, characterized and deposited in the public databases, even though they would be targeted for degradation in vivo. RESULTS: We analyzed the human alternative protein isoforms described in the SWISS-PROT database and found that 144 (5.8% of 2,483) isoform sequences amenable to analysis, from 107 (7.9% of 1,363) SWISS-PROT entries, derive from PTC(+ )mRNA. CONCLUSIONS: For several of the PTC(+ )isoforms we identified, existing experimental evidence can be reinterpreted and is consistent with the action of NMD to degrade the transcripts. Several genes with mRNA isoforms that we identified as PTC(+ )- calpain-10, the CDC-like kinases (CLKs) and LARD - show how previous experimental results may be understood in light of NMD

Optical and vibrational properties of low-symmetry two-dimensional materials under compressive strain

Due to their remarkable mechanical and electronic properties, twodimensional materials have been the subject of avid interest over the last decade and a half. The successful exfoliation of graphene in 2004 was a watershed moment, prompting search for new monolayered materials that could be used in the next-generation of electronic devices. While many of graphene’s admirable traits—record-setting tensile strength, massless dirac fermions, among others—are a result of its highly symmetric “honeycomb” crystal structure, a new class of monolayered materials with low-symmetry structures has recently been gaining interest. Due to their uniquely anisotropic electronic and thermal properties, low-symmetry materials such as ReS₂ and phosphorene are promising candidate materials for thermoelectric and optoelectronic devices capable of leveraging their anisotropy. In this work, we examine the effect of pressure on monolayer ReS₂ and few-layer phosphorene to determine their suitability for strain-tuned and flexible electronic devicesMaterials Science and Engineerin

The physiological stress response to anaerobic exercise is altered following sodium bicarbonate supplementation

Sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) is a nutritional aid that is proposed to enhance performance by reducing the state of exercise induced acidosis, however research is currently equivocal. Despite this, most research still focuses on its effects upon performance, and not whether the reduced acidosis impacts upon any other factors related to exercise. There is some research to suggest that such a reduction in [H+] can attenuate a number of physiological stress pathways such as stress hormones (1, 4), heat shock protein 72 (HSP72) and oxidative stress (3), suggesting a potential role in exercise recovery. However there are some limitations with this previous research as work intensities were not controlled for, hence making comparisons between treatments difficult. Also limited markers of stress were measured despite the physiological stress response being multi-faceted. The aim of this study was to examine whether the ingestion of NaHCO3 would influence the expression of several markers of stress measured simultaneously, following a work controlled anaerobic exercise