INAUT, a Controlled Language for the French Coast Pilot Books Instructions nautiques

We describe INAUT, a controlled natural language dedicated to collaborative update of a knowledge base on maritime navigation and to automatic generation of coast pilot books (Instructions nautiques) of the French National Hydrographic and Oceanographic Service SHOM. INAUT is based on French language and abundantly uses georeferenced entities. After describing the structure of the overall system, giving details on the language and on its generation, and discussing the three major applications of INAUT (document production, interaction with ENCs and collaborative updates of the knowledge base), we conclude with future extensions and open problems.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication at Fourth Workshop on Controlled Natural Language (CNL 2014), 20-22 August 2014, Galway, Irelan

Le tombeau et l’arabesque : usages féministes de l’ekphrasis chez Angela Carter

C’est sous l’angle de l’opposition entre les « genres », au sens de « genre artistique » comme au sens anglo-saxon de gender, qu’Angela Carter, écrivaine féministe et engagée, a travaillé dans ses romans la relation problématique de l’image et du récit. Dans Laocoon, son ouvrage fondateur sur la peinture et la poésie, Lessing pose les bases d’une telle conception des rapports entre les arts du temps et les arts de l’espace, soumettant l’image féminine à l’éloquence, masculine. L’esthétique de..

“This Tableau Vivant… Might be Better Termed a Nature Morte”: Theatricality in Angela Carter’s Fireworks

Dans Fireworks, son premier recueil de nouvelles, Angela Carter recourt à la superposition de deux modèles esthétiques, l’un pictural, l’autre théâtral pour créer des “effets d’irréalité”. Nature morte et tableau vivant se mêlent dans ses récits théâtraux, où personnages et objets se voient attribuer une forte valeur symbolique, approchant celle des acteurs et des accessoires sur scène. L’auteure joue également sur l’intertextualité et sur la dépersonnalisation propre à toute représentation théâtrale pour créer les conditions d’une distanciation comparable à celle que préconisait Brecht. D’une part, ses personnages symboliques dont le corps, tel celui des acteurs, devient un ensemble de signes à déchiffrer dénoncent la dépersonnalisation qu’exerce, selon elle, toute société sur l’individu. D’autre part, ils lui premettent de susciter une relation d’antagonisme entre les instances psychiques du lecteur. Pendants narratifs du théâtre épique, les nouvelles de Fireworks le placent en effet dans une position paradoxale, où des voix narratives auxquelles il ne peut accorder crédit viennent le happer dans le récit, demandant sa participation active, exigeant qu’il endosse le rôle d’un narrataire omniprésent au statut problématique. Il se trouve ainsi conduit à interpréter le texte, tel un acteur dont le débit et l’intonation modifieraient le sens

Evolutionary Advantage Conferred by an Eukaryote-to-Eukaryote Gene Transfer Event in Wine Yeasts

Although an increasing number of horizontal gene transfers have been reported in eukaryotes, experimental evidence for their adaptive value is lacking. Here, we report the recent transfer of a 158-kb genomic region between Torulaspora microellipsoides and Saccharomyces cerevisiae wine yeasts or closely related strains. This genomic region has undergone several rearrangements in S. cerevisiae strains, including gene loss and gene conversion between two tandemly duplicated FOT genes encoding oligopeptide transporters. We show that FOT genes confer a strong competitive advantage during grape must fermentation by increasing the number and diversity of oligopeptides that yeast can utilize as a source of nitrogen, thereby improving biomass formation, fermentation efficiency, and cell viability. Thus, the acquisition of FOT genes has favored yeast adaptation to the nitrogen-limited wine fermentation environment. This finding indicates that anthropic environments offer substantial ecological opportunity for evolutionary diversification through gene exchange between distant yeast species

Lire l'hétérogénéité romanesque

Lire l’hétérogénéité romanesque, troisième volume de la collection « Approches interdisciplinaires de la lecture », rassemble les communications présentées dans le cadre du séminaire AIL tenu à Reims en 2007-2008. La catégorie de l’hétérogène, comme celle de l’autre, objet du séminaire de l’an passé, traverse toutes les disciplines. De la simple différence d’éléments composant un tout selon une unification que certains qualifieront de dialectique, à la dissemblance plus accusée mettant en péril la belle unité du tout ainsi formé, se laisse déjà entrevoir l’ambivalence de l’hétérogénéité. La première partie de ce volume s’attache à en étudier les effets dans le cadre spécial de « L’expérience de lecture romanesque ». La seconde, « Lire la peinture par le roman ou le roman par la peinture ? », s’intéresse aux problèmes posés par l’association entre écriture romanesque et expression picturale. Complémentarité ? Coprésence dérangeante ? Deux formes encore de l'hétérogénéité

Effectiveness of a targeted exercise intervention in reversing older peoples mild balance dysfunction: A randomised controlled trail

Background: Previous research has mainly targeted older people with high risk of falling. The effectiveness of exercise interventions in older people with mild levels of balance dysfunction remains unexplored. Objective: This study evaluated the effectiveness of a home balance and strength exercise intervention in older people systematically screened as having mild balance dysfunction. Design: This was a community-based, randomized controlled trial with assessors blinded to group allocation. Participants: Study participants were older people who reported concerns about their balance but remained community ambulant (n=225). After a comprehensive balance assessment, those classified as having mild balance dysfunction (n=165) were randomized into the trial. Intervention: Participants in the intervention group (n=83) received a 6-month physical therapist–prescribed balance and strength home exercise program, based on the Otago Exercise Program and the Visual Health Information Balance and Vestibular Exercise Kit. Participants in the control group (n=82) continued with their usual activities. Outcome Measures: Laboratory and clinical measures of balance, mobility, and strength were assessed at baseline and at a 6-month reassessment.Results: After 6 months, the intervention group (n=59) significantly improved relative to the control group (n=62) for: the Functional Reach Test (mean difference=2.95 cm, 95% confidence interval [CI]=1.75 to 4.15), the Step Test (2.10 steps/15 seconds, 95% CI=1.17 to 3.02), hip abductor strength (0.02, 95% CI=0.01 to 0.03), and gait step width (2.17 cm, 95% CI=1.23 to 3.11). There were nonsignificant trends for improvement on most other measures. Fourteen participants in the intervention group (23.7%) achieved balance performance within the normative range following the exercise program, compared with 3 participants (4.8%) in the control group. Limitations: Loss to follow-up (26.6%) was slightly higher than in some similar studies but was unlikely to have biased the results. Conclusions: A physical therapist–prescribed home exercise program targeting balance and strength was effective in improving a number of balance and related outcomes in older people with mild balance impairment

Structure and Function of the First Full-Length Murein Peptide Ligase (Mpl) Cell Wall Recycling Protein

Bacterial cell walls contain peptidoglycan, an essential polymer made by enzymes in the Mur pathway. These proteins are specific to bacteria, which make them targets for drug discovery. MurC, MurD, MurE and MurF catalyze the synthesis of the peptidoglycan precursor UDP-N-acetylmuramoyl-L-alanyl-γ-D-glutamyl-meso-diaminopimelyl-D-alanyl-D-alanine by the sequential addition of amino acids onto UDP-N-acetylmuramic acid (UDP-MurNAc). MurC-F enzymes have been extensively studied by biochemistry and X-ray crystallography. In Gram-negative bacteria, ∼30–60% of the bacterial cell wall is recycled during each generation. Part of this recycling process involves the murein peptide ligase (Mpl), which attaches the breakdown product, the tripeptide L-alanyl-γ-D-glutamyl-meso-diaminopimelate, to UDP-MurNAc. We present the crystal structure at 1.65 Å resolution of a full-length Mpl from the permafrost bacterium Psychrobacter arcticus 273-4 (PaMpl). Although the Mpl structure has similarities to Mur enzymes, it has unique sequence and structure features that are likely related to its role in cell wall recycling, a function that differentiates it from the MurC-F enzymes. We have analyzed the sequence-structure relationships that are unique to Mpl proteins and compared them to MurC-F ligases. We have also characterized the biochemical properties of this enzyme (optimal temperature, pH and magnesium binding profiles and kinetic parameters). Although the structure does not contain any bound substrates, we have identified ∼30 residues that are likely to be important for recognition of the tripeptide and UDP-MurNAc substrates, as well as features that are unique to Psychrobacter Mpl proteins. These results provide the basis for future mutational studies for more extensive function characterization of the Mpl sequence-structure relationships

SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and COVID-19 disease severity are associated with genetic variants affecting gene expression in a variety of tissues

Variability in SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and COVID-19 disease severity between individuals is partly due to genetic factors. Here, we identify 4 genomic loci with suggestive associations for SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and 19 for COVID-19 disease severity. Four of these 23 loci likely have an ethnicity-specific component. Genome-wide association study (GWAS) signals in 11 loci colocalize with expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) associated with the expression of 20 genes in 62 tissues/cell types (range: 1:43 tissues/gene), including lung, brain, heart, muscle, and skin as well as the digestive system and immune system. We perform genetic fine mapping to compute 99% credible SNP sets, which identify 10 GWAS loci that have eight or fewer SNPs in the credible set, including three loci with one single likely causal SNP. Our study suggests that the diverse symptoms and disease severity of COVID-19 observed between individuals is associated with variants across the genome, affecting gene expression levels in a wide variety of tissue types

A first update on mapping the human genetic architecture of COVID-19

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