Academic literature on the topic 'Inc Samuel French'

A review of Barbara Wright's translation of Eleuthéria, Samuel Beckett's first full-length play in French, written in 1947. The posthumous publication history of Beckett's original text by Les Editions de Minuit (Paris), the first translation by Michael Brodsky into English, published by Foxrock Inc. (New York) and Wright's translation is briefly sketched. The two English translations are compared and Wright's is found not only superior but also eminently actable.

“K29.” One day it will be me (oh please let it be so). When I’m K29, it will mean that my book is on the shelf of a library which has a collection large enough to employ the Cutter-Sanborn Three Figure Author Table so that it might translate “Kelly” to code. K29 grates a little, sure—I’d prefer the visually softer, assonantal, sonorous J88 for Joy, or the zippiness of Laâbi’s L111—but that’s just a personal preference. K29, J88, L111: divested of their link to authors’ surnames, it can be argued that Cutter-Sanborn numbers have a particular relationship to the practice of “scanning” as a mode of reading. These numbers are available to two types of scanning (in fact, they are perhaps available only to scanning and not “reading”). On a superficial level, they promote the scan which is purely pragmatic: the brief glimpse or glance, a looking which does not know or care what the number represents. Or they may be subject to the analytical scan which is an act of scrutiny, or interrogation. That is to say, while the Cutter-Sanborn number is open to decipherment, it is constitutionally affective (“sonorous”, “zippy”) and effective (as a library tool) for everyone, even those disinterested in its deeper codified meaning. This essay considers what a superficial scan of the Cutter-Sanborn number could signify for all who encounter it, and offers an idiosyncratic account of the possibilities of deeper, scrutinising signification, in particular its ramifications for the author it contracts. The author number is the heart of the book number, and the Cutter-Sanborn number is a particular type—indeed a paradigm—of the author number. It is used especially by libraries employing Dewey Decimal Classification (Lehnus 76). The book number is designed to sub-arrange books which share the same classification number, and is thus formed by those letters and figures which follow the classification number. Abdellatif Laâbi’s L’arbre de fer fleurit, for example, is represented by the call number 848.9964 L111 E 1 at the University of Sydney Library: 848.9964 is a subdivision within the Dewey class of 848 for French miscellaneous writings; L111 E 1 is the book number, broadly conceived. Accordingly, the overall call number structure is worldly, then parochial. Book numbers thus create and express the singularity of books within an institution which, through classification, create and range a community of books. Book numbers are assigned on the basis of the library’s extant collection: new acquisitions are inserted around those numbers already bestowed. Lisa Zhao writes “We have to accept the shelflist (sic.) we have” (116), and thus numbers may vary for the same books at different libraries. Book numbers, it may be seen, are designations of philosophical, textual, and bibliographic consequence. The Cutter-Sanborn number is derived from a table that numerates letter combinations in order to maintain an alphabetical arrangement on the shelves. Charles Cutter printed the first of several versions of his author number scheme in 1880; Kate Emery Sanborn later revised it to produce the Table’s most popular edition (Lehnus 18, 37-42). The Cutter-Sanborn number’s familiar contemporary form is a first initial followed by two, three, or more digits. No matter what a patron knows about the Cutter-Sanborn number, it will be impossible to miss the number’s recurring formal feature of lopsidedness. The mnemonic initial is consistently overpowered by a splatter of integers. Numbers appear as the furthered refinement. The single letter becomes almost incidental—a blunted, rudimentary, and superseded signifier—against a run of figures which seem more attenuating, demanding, or sophisticated. The Cutter-Sanborn number seems to suggest that the numbers enhance the letters, but it is an enhancement which denies the patron easy intelligibility. It substitutes a number for a name it still hints at with a first initial, and the precision of this former device creates a designation that looks like a measure of the book. This conception is facilitated by the everyday scanning eye undertaking a traversing kind of interpretation, not a probing one. Why should the critic probe any deeper than this: why disturb the Cutter-Sanborn number beyond remarking on its simple utility and its affective scientism? Because of the Cutter-Sanborn number’s own pretensions. Conceived by Charles Cutter, the Cutter number was instrumental in the book number’s task of ensuring that “every volume has its own mark, shared with no other volume, its proper name, by which it is absolutely identified” (quoted in Lehnus, 9). The discourse surrounding the genesis of Cutter numbers was thus one of radical individuality. In spite of not being easily legible, the Cutter number hoped to be a kind of translation: Melvil Dewey, for instance, claimed that author numbers “are significant like our class numbers, and translate themselves into the name” (quoted in Lehnus, 27). The Cutter number is historically implicated by its optimistic aspirations of absolute identification, translation, and comprehensibility. This optimism has served it well—a Library Journal editorial blithely suggested that a new innovation “may be the best idea since Cutter numbers” (Berry III, 96)—but it has also obscured investigation of the way in which the Cutter-Sanborn number functions by presupposing its own adequacy. ‘Cuttered’, the author mark holds that said author may be satisfactorily equated with their name, which may be satisfactorily equated with a number. The author has their proper name converted for and contributed to another “proper name” (Cutter’s exact words), that of the volume. This latter proper name is claimed to be superior: “more exact,” suggests Dewey, “than a full written title, as it specifies the identical copy” (Dewey, 296). It is a proper name, then, which is motivated by a blinkered allegiance to the limitable unit and presence of the book. Jacques Derrida, in explaining the replacement of the proper name of a particular author with the designation “Sarl”—an acronym of Société à responsabilité limitée (Society with Limited Responsibility), bestowed so as to acknowledge all the named and unnamed signatures bearing upon the article under question—declares “I hope that the bearers of proper names will not be wounded by this technical or scientific device” (36). I would like to suggest that this is a sentiment that may also be applicable for book authors whose names have been “translated” into Cutter numbers, albeit that the library is more insouciant in expressing any repentance for its actions. The Cutter number format accounts for the book in particular standardising ways, which authors’ names have connotative apparatus (biography, contingency, etymology) to prevent. Derrida recognises his renaming may affront the author, but does not try in any way to mitigate this indignity. He does no more than express the hope that if he did in fact wound the author, that this wasn’t the case. The corollary of this position is that any injury is worthwhile, or has been compensated for elsewhere. The author number’s result is nothing less than an expression of confidence in the viability of transacting a human proper name. A “transaction” concludes something: that something would be concluded was inevitable from the moment that Cutter’s words “by which [the volume] is absolutely identified” established the book number’s precept of satisfaction. The Cutter-Sanborn number concludes a care for human susceptibility: the wound Derrida excises is an ego celebrated in paragraph one and now (I wish to say fully) relinquished. In these very particular book number places—on the shelf-marker, on the spine, and on the sticker—a reduced human authority is proposed. The Cutter-Sanborn number is a text with the express purpose to create an author who has limited ability to claim, and limited ability to connote. In the Cutter-Sanborn number, the book’s author is only just present. They may be able to be traced, but I would like to suggest that in the Cutter number the author is presented without spoil (that is, presented without the rot or reward attendant upon the contingencies and connotations of a human proper name). Consider, furthermore, the genesis of individual Cutter-Sanborn numbers themselves. Any Cutter-Sanborn number has Cutter and Sanborn as ur-authors, but individual authors—working in libraries everywhere—have no means of claiming the number they allocate as their own. The Cutter-Sanborn number simultaneously proposes reduced individual authority and enacts reduced individual authority. The Cutter-Sanborn number is thus available for use by critical textual practices sincerely and self-reflexively, both as an alternative authorial designation (traceable, connotative but standardising, international but relative), and as a model in the task of re-imagining authorship. There is, however, a complicating factor. The Cutter-Sanborn number has proven bibliographically mobile. Its form of an initial followed by digits has been adapted to denote not only authors but titles, topics, subjects, place names, and even publication dates. For example, in the call number of a book entitled Power Sales Presentations: Complete Sales Dialogues for Each Critical Step of the Sales Cycle, a Cutter number P74 stands for the topic “Presentations” (O’Neill). The Cutter-Sanborn number format assimilates book features, it is slippery. In these assorted adaptations, the Cutter-Sanborn number manifests bibliographic features indiscriminately. However incomprehensible the number may appear at each individual occurrence, as a fabrication it does indeed always broadcast various measures of the book. The author’s proper name is thus potentially reduced to just one factor among many: other factors may be given equal leverage. (It is only now that the full consequence of the Cutter-Sanborn number’s sophistication is becoming evident: for devotees of these factors, in particular the author, its totalising representation veers towards sophistry.) A single initial followed by a splatter of integers, which could refer to any bibliographic thing? The Cutter-Sanborn number is an agitator: imprecise in its target, but utterly confident in the genius of its own designative force. The Cutter-Sanborn number does not encourage the scanning, probing eye to look closely, but upon investigation one can discern its paradoxical attempt to challenge author authority while trying to cement its own. Subject to two different types of scanning eye, the Cutter-Sanborn number and its wider contextual environment of the book number destabilise and reconfigure ideas of authorship, simultaneously reducing and promoting it. These doubly scannable codes—these eminent library figures—have implications for the reading of books themselves. In textualising and deprioritising the author, in varying according to location, and in mitigating the grand narratives of classification, the book number has a stake in postmodern expression. And so this essay has been cautionary: it is wary of claiming or promoting book number literacy because of these very evidences of decentralisation. But this relativity is not a problem, as the book number is a thing so saturated in code that a degree of unintelligibility is in fact integral to its message. Unintelligibility need not be white noise. The book number is available to be read impressionistically—that is, available to be read in a manner somewhere between the two paradigmatic scanning cases of those indifferent and those intrigued. A fiction book from a scholarly archive stamped and stickered 853.91 C168 J8 T 1—the example is Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller—is a different text to the version marked F-CAL from a local library. The first example’s complex denotation and brute extent does not so well accommodate the accessible and leisured reading suggested by the second. Calvino from the local is on my time, and its direct address—F-CAL, Fiction: Calvino—is integral in facilitating this. This observation reveals that book number analysis cannot be trusted for any reason, other than that of the Cutter-Sanborn number’s refusal to coalesce adequately across libraries and submit to investigation. Book number analysis is suspect too because, in explaining parts of the book number’s code, analysis pollutes the same experience’s affective value. The loss is significant, as innocence or ignorance is not easily regained. It is ironic that this essay—itself a measured study—must in the final analysis refuse the polarity of the two modes of scan initially posited as exemplary for encountering book numbers (the unaffected glance; the probing need to intuit and ramify), in order to reinstitute and advocate a mode of experience that the book number, within its stipulated self, excludes: susceptibility, a mere responsiveness to presence. References Berry III, John N. “Certification: Is It Worth the Price?” Editorial. Library Journal 15 Feb. 2001: 96. Cutter-Sanborn Three-Figure Author Table: Swanson-Swift Revision, 1969. Chicopee, Ma: H. R. Huntting, 1969. Derrida, Jacques. “Limited Inc a b c…” Trans. Samuel Weber. Glyph 2 (1977). Rpt. in Limited Inc. By Derrida. Evanston, Il: Northwestern UP, 1988. Dewey, Melvil. “Eclectic Book-Numbers.” Library Journal 11 (1886): 296-301. Laâbi, Abdellatif. L’arbre de fer fleurit: Poémes (1972). Paris: Oswald, 1974. Lehnus, Donald J. Book Numbers: History, Principles, and Application. Chicago: ALA, 1980. O’Neill, Edward T. “Cuttering for the Library of Congress Classification.” Annual Review of OCLC Research 1994 1 Jul. 2005. http://digitalarchive.oclc.org/da/ViewObject.jsp? fileid=0000002650:000000058648&reqid=701>. Zhao, Lisa. “Save Space for ‘Newcomers’ – Analyzing Problems in Book Number Assignment under the LCC System.” Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 38.1 (2004): 105-19. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Kelly, Michelle. "Eminent Library Figures: A Reader." M/C Journal 8.4 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0508/07-kelly.php>. APA Style Kelly, M. (Aug. 2005) "Eminent Library Figures: A Reader," M/C Journal, 8(4). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0508/07-kelly.php>.

Introduction Resilience is, as a concept and as a discourse, a cultural resource that has experienced a growing importance over the last two decades, especially in the field of psychology. In September 2013, the most important database for scientific productions in psychology (www.psycinfo.org) contained more than 14,000 references concerning resilience. In French-speaking countries, for example, each new book by Boris Cyrulnik, the famous neuropsychiatrist who imported the notion of resilience into the psychological field, sells like hotcakes, with total sales of several million copies (see Marquis). Generally considered as the individual’s tendency to cope with stress and adversity, resilience is not only a successful but also a much-debated concept. Is every human potentially resilient, as Masten puts it, or should this notion only apply, in a Darwinian perspective, to the strongest of us? Should resilience be understood as a process in which culture and environment play important roles, as Ungar shows, or as an individual ability? Should we make a distinction between resilient and non-resilient? Does resilience automatically imply having been deeply traumatised, as Cyrulnik puts it? The main reason why these debates have taken such an important place in psychology is that using the concept of resilience is likely to take on, except for its scientific use, a normative or an evaluative dimension. To avoid this shortcoming, most recent works on resilience clearly insist upon the fact that being resilient is not a character trait or an indicator of the power of a person's will (Rutter). It is a multidimensional ecological process. However, nowadays resilience has become a common sense notion, a cultural resource mobilised by the layman or by self-help (SH) books. Accordingly, “resilience” will not be considered here as a scientific concept but rather as a common sense category. Drawing on an analysis of the success of such books, this article intends to show why a description of the common sense uses of this cultural resource is of prime importance when it comes to understanding some salient characteristics of liberal-individualistic societies, especially by comparison with traditional societies. In fact the success of the discursive category of resilience tells something about ourselves, as people living in societies where personal autonomy is highly valued. Therefore, the description of these common sense uses will show how the “resilience” category also constitutes a resource to evaluate both oneself and others as well as an tool to measure one’s own will or the others’, which is exactly what most psychologists try to avoid doing in their theorisation of resilience. Confidence and Breach in Everyday Life Risk management is part of human life. Actually, we spend most of our time minimising the risks we are running when engaging with the world. This attitude is neither a rational action nor a conscious one. It is, in fact, quite the reverse. In everyday life, we simply trust the world. As Luhmann says, confidence is a sine qua non condition of our existence. Our everyday life turns into a close-meshed fabric that makes us feel secure as it ensures consistency over time. This security enables us to avoid the issue of the relevance of our expectations or of the success of our acts. The common sense attitude we are describing here refers to what the American pragmatists call the “practice regime”, in which our main concern is to make sure that life goes on. But a breach might arise (in the form of a more or less tragic event, a change in one’s routine, a vague unease, etc.). What used to be obvious (and above all unquestioned) now becomes uncertain. Such a breach may seriously lead us to question our involvement with a world that has suddenly become strange, threatening, or complete nonsense. The Reading of Self-Help Books: Mobilising Resilience as a Cultural Reaction to Breaches It may be interesting to observe what people do, in the moments when disquiet has invaded their existence, in order to overcome misfortune, both at a symbolic and operative level. My hypothesis is that our attitude towards misfortune is in line with a specific cultural context. Like Illouz, I understand culture as the way we make sense of who we are through actions shaped by values, key images and scenarios, ideals, and habits of thought; through the stories we use to frame our own and others’ experience; through the accounts we use to explain our own and others’ failures and successes; through what we feel entitled to; through the moral categories we use to hierarchize our social world. (8) In other words: in order to allow life to come back to normal after a breach, people resort to the resources their own culture makes available to them. Nowadays resilience has become one such cultural resource that we use to construct our attitude towards misfortune. The question put here is not whether people are really resilient or not, but why this category experiences such traction in liberal-individualistic societies. Therefore, I have made a sociological study of a well-know social phenomenon: in particular, the reading of SH books, in which the discursive tropes of trauma and resilience are indeed very present. Sociologists too often refer to SH books as having hypothetical effects, or consequences. However, unlike what one might find in a literature review, I haven’t tried to make the success of these books a sign or a cause of the decline of society or of the individual, or of a more reflexive society with happier citizens. As numerous authors shown (including Barker and Petley), it is extremely difficult to assess the impact of cultural resources (for example cinema, books, and all forms of media) on individuals and a fortiori on groups of human through scientific procedures. Needless to say, these books have a bad reputation in academic circles, and this negative reputation is maintained because we actually know very little about how they are used by their readers. To overcome this shortcoming, I have tried to provide an answer to the apparently naïve question as to how reading SH literature can make sense to people who praise the virtues of these books, and the claim that they “have changed their life”, readily resorting to the tropes of resilience and trauma. To put it another way, I tried to understand how readers could know “how to go about” these books and have the expertise “to perform these texts” (Alexander) so they can bring them a degree of help, relief and satisfaction. With this objective in mind, I have explored an empirical field of about a hundred SH books, conducted 50 in-depth conversations with readers of SH books, and examined around 300 letters to three well-known authors of such texts. So why do people that read SH books containing such specific content have no trouble finding a meaning, as well as a symbolic and operative effectiveness, in them? My hypothesis is that these books make use of what Wittgenstein calls a “language game”. A “language game” is constituted by a set of (common sense) words and concepts that we mobilise when confronted with specific situations. In contemporary societies, people experiencing a breach in the fabric of their life will probably summon up a particular “language game” influenced by a psychological vision of the world to express and explain what has happened, what the consequences of this breach are, and what possibilities there are to get out of this situation. “Resilience” is one of the most prominent notions of this “language game”. It is not only to be found in the SH books, but also in the discourse of the readers of such books. What does this particular “language game” look like? What role does resilience play in it ? Two characteristics can be observed. First, this “language game” seems to give an extremely important signal of "interiority", an entity that pervades SH readers’ discourse. More precisely SH readers experience (and explain) that they are being inhabited by a “true self” that is the guardian of the “truth” about themselves, but is also the source of an unsuspected power of action. In a supposedly democratic anthropology, people making use of this “language game” consider that all human beings have such interiority, and can therefore harness the hidden resources it contains. In such narratives the pursuit of and engagement with this “true self” are endowed with important qualities. In short, these actions are considered to be the solution to most of our problems. The second characteristic, leading from the first, is that when faced with misfortune, be it big or small, the readers of SH books place great value on "working on the self”. Generally speaking, only efficient action in dealing with our problems finds favour in their eyes. To be precise, in such people’s discourses, having been traumatized is endowed with the power of revealing who we really are and what we are really capable of. Furthermore, such people come to believe that having suffered makes you a survivor, from now on entitled to become a reference for other people on their road to their “true self”. Let us look at a letter to a famous French-speaking SH book author: I want to thank you for your book “Being Genuine: Stop Being Nice, Start Being Real”, which allowed me to identify two problems that stop me from being who I really am: my lack of self-esteem and of self-confidence. Your book was a revelation to me. At the age of 39, I have at last understood how the 26 years spent with my parents created an attitude of submission and passivity in myself, which caused my lack of self-esteem and self-confidence. I have now decided to tackle these problems and to begin a therapy, in order to get rid of all these limiting issues. I feel that it will offer me a rebirth. Thank you so much. (my translation) This letter illustrates clearly how the “language game” is mobilised. It is used first to translate (or to put words on) a vague unease that relies on interiority (“who I really am”, “lack of self-esteem”, “in myself”, etc.) and secondly to create possibilities action to deal with the unease that has now been defined (“tackle the problem”, “begin a therapy”, “get rid of”, etc.). To sum it up, there is no doubt that, contrary to the stance often observed in the scientific literature on resilience, in the SH readers’ eyes, resilience is first a personal capacity, and even more precisely a question of will, and only second a process depending on contextual elements. The Discourse around Sorcery in Azande’s Society as a Point of Comparison I would like now to give an indication of the way reading such books and drawing on this “language game” constitute a practical attitude towards everyday risks, and how this is particularly adapted to our liberal-individualistic culture, in which the question of personal autonomy and individual responsibility is of unprecedented importance (Ehrenberg): in such cultural contexts each individual is expected to be the entrepreneur of his own life. To make this point clearer, I will briefly sketch a comparison with another practical attitude that has been well-documented in anthropological work: the “language game” of sorcery, which is practiced in many traditional societies but also in some parts of the western societies (Favret-Saada). The first anthropologist to have gone beyond the issue of the reality of magic was Evans-Pritchard. During the first half of the 20th century, he studied the use of sorcery in a tribe of South Sudan: the Azande. Evans-Pritchard thought that such a phenomenon could only be understood if the social institutions making a form of magical thinking plausible were taken into account. On the basis of his fieldwork, he considered the types of situations in which the Azande resorted to magic. His answer was that magic (which is notably present in accusations of sorcery) only intervenes in difficult times and more precisely when two things coincide. The first is the fact that an event (even a totally explicable one) arises, the second is the fact that it happens to the person in question, at that precise moment. For example the Azande understand that it was lightning that made the tree fall down, but they wondered why lightning struck in that place, at that time, above the head of that person in particular. For them, such phenomenon could not remain unexplained. They understood what caused their misfortune, but they needed to find a reason for it all the same. When faced with adversity, the Azande will always wonder: "who is holding a grudge against me”, and “who has got reasons to cast a spell on me?" The discourse around sorcery is what Winch later called an "attitude towards contingencies", which he defines as the “way of dealing (symbolically) with misfortunes and their disruptive effect on a man’s relations with his fellows, with ways in which life can go on despite such disruptions” (321). In this sense, reading SH books and mobilizing the category of resilience both have a similar function, just as praying does: this practice and the corresponding “language game” also testify of an attitude towards contingencies. As is the case with magical practices, both are socially instituted systems of interpretations that enable the people in question to find some meaning to misfortune and to go on living after it (in this matter, Masten’s consideration of resilience as “ordinary magic” is interesting). Nevertheless, the ways these two attitudes towards contingencies enable people to make sense and to set up possible actions are very different. The two systems of accountability are not alike. The Azande’s attitude is fundamentally projective (the responsibility or blame for a misfortune is shifted to somebody else, most of the time to a sorcerer). On the other hand, the attitude of the readers of SH books is introspective: the question that is socially valued is not “who is holding a grudge against me?”, but “what can I do to get out of it?”. In SH readers’ eyes, this is the very question to be answered in order to be considered as a resilient person. The sorcery system makes it possible to consider that the responsibility for the misfortune and the responsibility for the end of it go to the same entity: the sorcerer. In the SH readers’ attitude towards contingencies, these two responsibilities are uncoupled: while “another” is often held responsible for the misfortune, the person that experienced the misfortune is always considered responsible for getting over it: they are supposed to pick themselves up and improve themselves. Likewise, the projective attitude (which is characteristic of the discussions on sorcery) is highly discredited in the “language game” of resilience used by the SH readers. It is considered as the sign of a fake resilience. This is obvious from the distrust that is present in their discourse towards the character of the "victim", as well as towards the figure of the “complaint”, as the following excerpts from interviews with readers clearly show:Woman, 64 years old: People reading SH books are people who want to feel good, find their place in the world and solve the problems arising from their past. They are people who try to get over victimisation and to responsibilise themselves. Woman, 35 years old: I find it a good thing that more and more people read SH books. But a lot of other people continue to consider themselves as the genuine victims of their parents or of their education, and they need a lot of time to get through it. As for me, I believe that we have what we need in ourselves: we choose what we want, and we have what we want. Man, 40 years old: We need to get out of the vicious circle that makes us consider that “the others” are always responsible for our problems. For example: “Oh if I am unemployed, it is because society does not provide me with a job”. Well, maybe, but the good question is “why don’t you have a job while other people do?” It is useless to accuse society. The question is: “which actions do you take to get a job? (my translation for the three quotes) This “language game”, which so enhances both interiority as the resource of meaning and power, and efficient work on one’s own self, allows us to consider others or the environment as responsible for our own misfortune. Yet, it certainly doesn’t allow us to wait passively for things to improve on their own. In the common sense use of resilience, improvement must be caused in a proactive way by exploring our inner resources. In the end, this “language game” is indeed what people try to put into practice when they read SH books: these books build up their conviction that, whatever the situation they find themselves in (and whoever is responsible for it), they can always do something to it, they can always make use of this event to improve themselves. SH books and the “language game”, which resilience is a part of, enable the readers to consider all their problems as finding a solution in a more efficient practice of their interiority. Conclusion: The Evaluative Dimension of Resilience The “language game” of SH books is not only employed by readers as a means to make problems manageable. It is also experienced as a powerful resource for assessing oneself and others. The main finding of this article is the hiatus that exists between the scientific interpretations of resilience as an analytic (thus not normative) resource and the way this notion is mobilized in the common sense by laypeople in their everyday lives order to evaluate responsibilities. It is exactly as if people could not help asking the question: “if this person is not resilient and can’t cope with adversity, isn’t it, at least partly, their own fault?” The reason of this hiatus is that resilience is used in a cultural context where autonomy has taken an unprecedented importance. The key message of SH books, which is endorsed by most readers, is that happiness, well-being and resilience are a matter of personal choice. Behind the democratic proposition of SH books: “everybody has the ability to manage, everybody might be resilient,” lurks a much more meritocratic attitude: namely, “if you cannot come to terms with a problem, it is because you don’t really want to”. In the world of SH books, people who do not “put on a brave face”, or who do not work at being consistent with themselves, who content themselves with the secondary benefits of a life that does not really suit them, who expect solutions to drop down from heaven, – in a word people who do not show what SH readers consider as a genuinely resilient behaviour – only have themselves to blame. This phrase (“only have themselves to blame”), has negative connotations in French-speaking sociological discourses, but is not attached to such negativity in the mind of SH readers that get the most out of such books. “Blaming oneself as the only one responsible”, not for what happened but for what we do/don’t do to get through it, is exactly what the “language game” mobilising resilience and its emphasis on interiority and efficient activity allow. This is what readers are seeking when reading SH books. Indeed, people seeking a solution to their problems would ask: what is the use of reading books saying there is nothing to do to improve our situation? Thus, when using the “language game” of resilience, the SH book readers willingly accept the consequence that their problems have now been brought out into the open: the consequence being that people should take the responsibility for the fact that their problems persist (due to their own failure to act) or disappear (due to their actions). This theory of the consequence of one’s actions is today criticised by sociologists, notably French-speaking ones. References Alexander, Jeffrey. “Cultural Pragmatics: Social Performance between Ritual and Strategy.” Sociological Theory 22 (2004): 527–573. Barker, Martin, and Julian Petley, eds. Ill Effects: The Media/Violence Debate: London: Routledge, 2001. Cyrulnik, Boris. Parler d’Amour au Bord du Gouffre. Paris: Odile Jacob, 2004. Ehrenberg, Alain. La Société du Malaise. Paris: Odile Jacob, 2010. Evans-Pritchard, Edward E. Sorcellerie, Oracles et Magie chez les Azandé. Paris: Gallimard, 1972. Favret-Saada, Jeanne. Les Mots, la Mort, les Sorts. La Sorcellerie dans le Bocage. Paris: Gallimard, 1977. Hazleden, Rebecca. “Promises of Peace and Passion: Enthusing the Readers of Self-Help.” M/C Journal 12.2 (2009). 1 Aug. 2013 ‹http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/viewArticle/124>. Illouz, Eva. Saving the Modern Soul: Therapy, Emotions, and the Culture of Self-Help. Berkeley: U of California P, 2008. Luhmann Niklas. La Confiance: Un Mécanisme de Réduction de la Complexité Sociale. Paris: Economica, 2006. Marquis, Nicolas. “Se Remettre en Jeu quand Rien ne va Plus: Une Réflexion Sociologique sur la Catégorie de la Résilience. ” Recherches Sociologiques et Anthropologiques 40.1 (2009): 93–110. Masten Ann S., “Ordinary Magic: Resilience Processes in Development.” American Psychologist 56.3 (2001): 227–238. McGee Micki. Self-Help, Inc.: Makeover Culture in American Life. New York: Oxford UP, 2005. Rutter, Michael. “Resilience Reconsidered: Conceptual Considerations, Empirical Findings, and Policy Implications.” Handbook of Early Childhood Intervention. Eds. Jack P. Shonkoff and Samuel J. Meisels. New York: Cambridge UP, 2000. 651–682. Ungar, Michael. “Resilience across Cultures.” British Journal of Social Work 38.2 (2008): 218–235. Winch, Peter. “Understanding a Primitive Society.” American Philosophical Quarterly 1 (1964): 307–324. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Recherches Philosophiques. Paris: Gallimard, 2005.

This study compares the lexical development of a sample of 29 simultaneous French-Portuguese bilingual children between the ages of 24 and 36 months living in France with the lexical development of a sample of 288 monolingual French children. The data show that bilingual children do not show a lexical developmental delay compared to their monolingual French peers. Moreover, the word class distribution of productive vocabulary is the same between the French monolinguals and bilinguals in French. Finally, we tested the lexical selectivity by calculating the phonetic complexity of the target words. We found a strong correlation between the phonetic complexity of target words and vocabulary size in both languages for bilinguals. This strong correlation mirrors that found for monolingual peers.

This study investigates the production of subject and object restrictive relatives in child heritage Romanian in contact with French. The main goal is to evaluate the effect of schooling in the societal language, over a longer period of time, on the acquisition of these complex syntactic structures. Thirty-two child Romanian heritage speakers (ages 5–15), divided into two groups who – at testing time – had been in a French school for 1 to 3 years and for 5 to 8 years, respectively, completed an elicited production task. Their responses were compared to those of 32 age-matched monolingual Romanian children and 20 Romanian adults living in the homeland. The results indicated overall progress after onset of schooling. Child heritage speakers who had been in a French school for a longer period of time produced more relative clauses than the younger ones and the number of errors decreased with age. They went through the same qualitative stages as age-matched monolinguals but at a slower pace, with object relatives being more problematic than subject relatives. This vulnerability was reflected in a preference for less computationally costly but target-like structures and in the relatively prolonged use of non-target-like structures whose elimination from the grammar requires inspection of a higher amount of input.

Sociolinguistics and dialectology share the same interest in the spoken language and the same method: the use of surveys. They both collect their primary data and organise them into corpora, but they differ in the way their results are presented. Based on the Sociolinguistic Survey in Orléans (ESLO), this chapter explores two hitherto neglected factors that may impinge on survey and transcription methodologies: the characteristics of the interviewers and their relationship with the interviewees according to the type of situation; and the profiles of the transcribers and their relationship to the standard French. We conclude that both features constitute parameters of variation, to which the ESLO corpus provides access.

AbstractThis chapter analyzes literary advice culture from a transnational-comparative perspective. It sheds light on the reception of the American poetics of creative writing in contemporary France by examining the specific case of Outils du roman: Avec Malt Olbren sur les pistes et exercices du creative writing à l’américaine (2016, Tools of the Novel. Exploring American Creative Writing with Malt Olbren) by the experimental prose-writer François Bon. This text represents a broader dynamic in which French authors of literary advice resort to a repertoire of American writing techniques in an attempt to revive French literature. To conceptualize this process of transfer, I use Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of “minor literature.” This notion conveys how literary advice in France must constantly position itself vis-à-vis its American counterpart, but also how it appropriates and transforms this same body of ideas and techniques. More generally, this chapter makes a case for an increased consideration of supranational transfers in the domain of literary advice when studying processes of local literary change.

AbstractThis chapter explores the concepts of discursive and non-discursive ethos, as well as the notion of authorial stance (posture) as defined by Jerôme Meizoz (2007; 2011) in order to analyze the figure of the “ready-made-writer” in French manuals and writing guides at the beginning of the twenty-first century. “Authorial stance,” “ethos,” and “persona” are all terms that take stock of the way in which authors declare themselves writers in the literary field. For Meizoz, posture begins at the moment of publication, that is, at the moment of the official recognition of the author. A close reading of some recent French writing manuals, however, reveals the outline of an implicit portrait of the author budding into a legitimate artist and credible writer, and contains indications on how to carve out a space of creation for oneself. The identities presented by the manuals are shaped by literary models and invested by a collective imaginary. They conform to culturally accepted archetypes, because “becoming a writer, and doing the work of a writer are part of the same phantasm” (Ducas 2002). Learning the craft of writing thus also entails acquiring a corporeal dramaturgy or an “auctorial scenography” (Diaz 2009) which is a prerequisite for creation. This can be achieved by going through various authorial stances, from “visionary” to “apprentice” and “manager of one’s own small enterprise.”

This research, which focuses on a comparison between early modern France and Italy, deals with datio in solutum, i.e. the transfer of goods in settlement of a monetary debt. After illustrating its essential features, the text presents the legal interpretations of datio in solutum, analyses its legislative regulation and addresses the well-documented case of the Duchy of Milan. The research shows that the differences between France and Italy reveal two different political attitudes towards debts and obligations: the French one, more inclined to protect the creditor, and the Italian one, more disposed to assist the debtor, but at the same time more careful to soften this imbalance through the imposition of a long series of procedural rules.

AbstractThis chapter examines languages as a third point of entanglement that has both spatial and temporal ramifications while at the same time being sites where domination is both sustained and disrupted. It starts by describing the linguistic reality of the islands in the seventeenth century discussing how the plurilingualism that existed caused challenges for the narratives, which had to abide to contemporary aesthetics. The analysis show that travelers engaged with languages as praxes and were forced into conceiving languages as processual constantly changing in relation to other languages, existing languages as well as languages in the making. Focusing principally on Breton’s dictionary, it demonstrates how travelogues testify to the inherent creativity in language crossings. The second section looks at the inclusion of direct speech in travelogues as framed within codes of representation that dramatized Indigenous and enslaved peoples, staging them for particular purposes and following rhetorical conventions. The final section challenges these formal forms of representation looking at scenes of exchanges in everyday life asking how this expression of control over other peoples’ expression also turned into sites where others would “talk back.” Throughout the chapter, Glissant’s thoughts on the role of language in the shaping of French Caribbean Baroque as well as Sarduy’s reading of Baroque language will be made operative together with theories around hetero- and translingualism.

AbstractClimate objectives, as well as the recent objectives of energy sobriety and security in response to crises, have underpinned a call for the urgent development of nuclear generation capacity. At the same time, recent events have highlighted fragilities in nuclear infrastructures, both in their operation and in their design and construction. This chapter focuses on the French case to examine the conditions under which the nuclear industry can provide an appropriate response to climate change, as well as the risks and vulnerabilities associated with a nuclear revival. In particular, we analyze the two regimes at the heart of this revival: the extension and the acceleration regimes. We show that the interplay between nuclear power and climate change calls into question the social and temporal scales at which risks need to be defined and governed.

Calcareous deposits in some locations are an ongoing problem in water-lubricated propeller shaft applications causing accelerated bearing wear. Literature has shown deposit formation is correlated to Impressed Current Cathodic Protection (ICCP) system operations, but as ICCP is an essential system for corrosion control of marine vessels, alternative solutions must be found to eliminate the issue. Testing at Thordon Bearings Inc. included 5 metals – CuSn12 bronze (CC483K equivalent), PN-91 bronze (C90500 equivalent), Inconel 625®, 316L SS and Duplex 2205 and two applied voltage settings representing protected conditions (-850 mV SCE) and over-protected conditions with hydrogen evolution (-1150 mV SCE) in artificial seawater. It also included a subset of samples with PN-91 liners, coating on the C35E mild steel rod, an applied voltage of -850 mV SCE, run in 3 types of water; artificial seawater, softer fresh water and hard fresh water. Testing resulted in the following outcomes: 1. Calcareous deposits formed on all metal surfaces of uncoated samples tested in artificial seawater at both applied voltages (-850 mV and -1150 mV SCE), at relatively indistinguishable quantities, though deposits appeared less strongly adhered to Inconel 625®. 2. Deposits consisted mainly of aragonite (calcium carbonate) in all liner materials, but slight differences were noted for each liner type. Bronze liner deposits also included minor amounts of copper and calcite. Stainless steel liners showed calcium carbonate (likely aragonite) and lesser amounts of ha lite sodium and magnesium, presumably as halite (sodium chloride) and brucite (magnesium hydroxide). Inconel 625® liners in particular showed a significant increase in brucite and halite, leading to a weaker more porous structure which could explain field observations noting improved resistance to problematic calcareous deposit growth. 3. Overall deposit formation was approximately 3x higher on uncoated samples tested in over-protected conditions vs protected conditions, however, liner deposits were approximately 2x lower on the same samples. It is unknown why the deposits were lower on the over-protected samples, but it is theorized that it may be due to selective deposition in the presence of multiple meta ls (an untested theory). 4. Testing of a coated sample in artificial seawater at -850 mV SCE yielded less than 1.5x liner deposits (in grams) after 4 weeks of testing as compared to uncoated seawater liner deposits after 2 weeks of testing. The deposition rate was slower for coated samples, as expected. The composition of deposits appeared unchanged compared to uncoated samples tested. 5. Testing of a coated sample in hard fresh water at -850 mV SCE showed a significant quantity of precipitated particles suspended in the water, deposited on tank walls and covered the entire submerged area of the test specimen. The quantity of liner deposits from the hard water sample was less than the coated seawater sample. 6. Testing of a coated sample in softer fresh water at -850 mV SCE showed a reduction of deposits as compared to uncoated seawater samples and no deposits were noted on tank surfaces. 7. The prominent factors affecting calcareous deposit formation from testing and research publications were determined to be applied voltage, mineral content of the water/salinity, temperature, pH, time and liner material selection (i.e., Inconel 625® or equivalent). The most easily manipulated factors that could be used to provide a solution are applied voltage, mineral content of the water and liner material selection; multiple mitigation efforts are presented.

Abstract. Additive manufacturing of concrete structures is a novel and emerging technology. Freecontouring in civil engineering, which allows for entirely new designs, is a significant advantage. Inthe future, lower construction costs are expected with increased construction speeds and decreasingrequired materials and workers. However, architects and civil engineers rely on a certain quality ofexecution to fulfil construction standards. Although several techniques and approaches demonstratethe advantages, quality control during printing is highly challenging and rarely applied. Due to thecontinuous mixing process commonly used in 3D concrete printing, it is impossible to exclude varia-tions in the dry mixture or water content, and a test sample cannot be taken as a representative samplefor the whole structure. Although mortar properties vary only locally, a defect in one layer duringprinting could affect the entire integrity of the whole structure . Therefore, real-time process monitor-ing is required to record and document the printing process.At the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM) a new test rig for the additive man-ufacturing of concrete is built. The primary purpose is measuring and monitoring the properties of amortar during the printing process.The following study investigates an approach for calculating yield stress and plastic viscosity based onexperimentally recorded pressure data. The calculations assume that fresh mortar behaves as a Bing-ham fluid and that the Buckingham-Reiner-equation is applicable. A test setup consisting of rigid pipeswith integrated pressure sensors at different positions is utilized.Monitoring the printing process with different sensors is crucial for the quality control of an ongoingprocess.

The building sector is expanding daily on a global scale with several environmental problems. The implementation of sustainable methods in the sector is also becoming more relevant at the same time. Concrete is one of the most abundantly used building material, which is made up of fine and coarse aggregate held in place by cement paste. In the present study, soil is used as fine aggregate. Cement, soil and coarse aggregate are used in the proportion 1:0.85:3.60 to prepare the earth concrete. The study focuses on investigating the properties of the earth concrete in its fresh and hardened states. Workability, pulse velocity, and compressive strength are assessed to determine the performance of earth concrete. The effect of dosage of superplasticizer on the properties on earth concrete at fresh and hardened states is also studied. The findings shows that earth concrete is capable of achieving various relevant materialistic properties comparable to that of ordinary concrete and could replace normal concrete in certain applications.

A new analytical method was established, allowing the characterization of von Willebrand Factor (vWF) degradation fragments from minute amounts of plasma without the need for immunopurification of vWF. Ten ul of citrated plasma in 20 ul of 0.1 M Tris-HCl, pH 7.8, 0.1 M NaCl, 10 mM EDTA buffer were treated with S. aureus V-8 protease for 15 min to 3 h at 22°C. Following addition of 1 mM DFP, the cleaved fragments were separated by SDS-polyacrylamide or SDS-agarose gel electrophoresis and identified by 125 I-labeled polyclonal or monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) to vWF andautoradiography. Quantification of each fragmentwas estimated by counting radioactivity in slices of the dry gel. In normal plasma, S. aureus V-8 protease produced two dimeric fragments of vWF, with identical electrophoretic and antigeniccharacteristics to those produced from highly purified vWF, ie a C-terminal fragment of 220 kd (Spll) and a series of N-terminal fragments (Spill) with a major species of Mr 320 kd (SpIIIa) and two minor ones of 265 kd (SpIIIb) and 215 kd (SpIIIc). The method was applied to further characterize the molecular abnormalities of vWF in 15 patient plasmas with variant (type II) von Willebrand disease (vWD). In all cases with type IIA, IIB, IIC and IID tested, fragment Spll had the same mobility as in normal plasma. In 7 patients with type IIA, the amount and distribution ofthe three Spill species were clearly abnormal, with a marked decrease or absence of SpIIIa and an increase of SpIIIb and SpIIIc. Results slightly varied between patients but were consistent within one family. In 4 patients with type IIC, the band SpIIIb was lacking. In 2 patients with type IIB and 2 patients with type IID, there was no significant modification of Spill. In all cases the pattern of Spill was similar whether using polyclonal antibodies to vWF or MAbs to Spill.The pattern of normal or abnormal Spill remainedthe same in fresh or frozen plasma and was not modified by the presence of 5 mM EDTA at the timeof blood collection. Furthermore, the abnormaldistribution of Spill in type IIA or IIC vWD wasalready present after the shortest digestion time(15 min) indicating that the fragment Spill was produced from an abnormal vWF during the primary digestion with S. aureus V-8 protease. In conclusion, the molecular abnormality of vWF in type IIA and IIC vWD appears to reside in Spill, the N-terminal portion of the subunit (residues 1 to 1,365).

The pandemic had a devastating effect on tourism, even though it subsided during the summer months. The sector is economically important in many countries. Purpose: The research analyses the economic and financial dynamics of tour operators over the last decade in three European countries where tourism is widespread: Italy, France, and Spain. Research Methods: The financial statements of a sample of 4,044 tour operators (1043 Italian, 2340 French, 661 Spanish) for the ten years 2012-2021 were analysed, illustrating the average trend of Return on Equity (Roe) and Financial Leverage. The data were subjected to statistical processing. Anova and, where necessary, Tukey-Kramer methods were used for the comparison between countries. Results: Roe followed a similar trend in the three nations that were most affected by the pandemic. The financial situation was more erratic but equally similar. Implications: This study implements the modest economic literature on these companies. Quantitative research shows significant gains only in some periods and in some countries. Public policies should be attentive to the tourism-enhancing sector by building packages.

Purpose – research on R&D projects implemented at universities shows that many researchers feel that the requirements set on R&D project definition in the process of calls for projects brake the innovativeness and the freedom of research. Thus, the objective of the paper is to propose a soft, fuzzy set based method of R&D project definition, which would allow to evaluate projects in the stage of project calls, but at the same time would not act contrary to the research ideas of the most ingenious and innovative researchers. Research methodology – the proposal is based on the results of over 70 structured interviews with R&D project managers from Polish and French universities. The respondents expressed their critical opinion about the required definition of R&D projects in the application stage of most calls, suggested which elements should be improved and in which way. Most of them criticised the required detail level of projects description and emphasized the uncertainty present in their research. Then we propose to model this uncertainty by means of fuzzy sets. Findings – the result of the research presented in the paper is a new way of R&D project definition, based on the fuzzy theory, adjustable to each R&D project type. The new method of project definition will express the actual uncertainty and innovative potential of each R&D project and thus allow a selection of R&D projects which would maximise their contribution to the university and science development. Research limitations – the proposed approach needs to be validated and verified on the basis of a big sample of a real world R&D project, with the participation of a representative sample of researchers. Another limitation is a highly probable resistance against such an approach among the researchers and research funding institutions, as it requires a deep analysis of the planned research and its context. Practical implications – it is proposed that the method will be used by research funding institutions in project calls. This will increase the efficiency of financial resources spent on research, in terms of value-added per one dollar invested in the research. Originality/Value – the proposed method is the first approach to project definition based on fuzzy numbers and one of very few existing approaches to project definition taking uncertainty into account

Solar-powered water desalination is one of the promising approaches for addressing fresh water scarcity in the Middle-East, North Africa, and areas of similar climate around the world. Humidification-dehumidification (HDH) is a scalable, commercially-viable technology that primarily utilizes thermal energy in order to extract fresh water from a high salinity water source. Because of inherent variability and uncertainty in solar energy availability due to daily and seasonal cycles, solar-powered HDH desalination systems may benefit from installing thermal energy storage (TES). TES can allow higher utilization of the installed system components and thus reduce the overall lifecycle cost of fresh water production. This work presents a configuration for a HDH desalination system augmented by TES. The system is optimized using Genetic Algorithms (GA) for minimum total annual cost (TAC) per unit volume of produced potable water while satisfying a preset potable water demand. The optimum results for the same location and cost function are compared with results from a previous system which does not have TES. The comparison shows a considerable reduction in potable water production cost when TES is utilized in addition to the benefit of smaller variation in water production across the day.

In a country like France, electricity consumption devoted to domestic lighting represents nearly a fifth of the total energy consumption of a building. The use of electric lighting is influenced by several factors such as the building’s structural characteristics, the activities of its occupants, the lighting equipments, and the level of natural light. Designers do take into account, in their energy models, the influence of occupants on the building’s overall energy consumption. However, these models still have some drawbacks regarding the comprehension of real “occupants’ energy behaviors” which play an important role in the discrepancies between predicted and real energy consumptions. The behavioral factors behind occupants’ usage trends of energy are still not thoroughly explored. Therefore, it is assumed that a better comprehension of these behaviors and consumption mechanisms could lead to the identification of technical solutions and energy saving potentials, thus resulting in a more robust building design. The present paper aims to provide an insight into domestic lighting usages. The main objective is to explore the key factors (socio-demographic, economic, technical and behavioral) responsible for the disparities in lighting consumption between one household and another. For this purpose, an experiment is performed concurrently to the proposal of a lighting usage model. A micro level investigation protocol is elaborated and used to conduct in-depth studies on the usage patterns of electric lighting. The survey is conducted on a sample of 8 French households. The methodology for constructing the experimental protocol, its deployment, as well as the results obtained and their analysis are presented in this paper. The need for further qualitative and quantitative studies to better understand the usage trends of electric lighting is discussed.

Authors followed 6 cases of congenital afibrinogenae- mia (CA) by offsprings of two apparently unrelated families from the same village. The sex ratio was4.m/3.f. CA is a rare autosomal recessive disease. Controlling 76 family members authors detected 11 cases of moderate and 2 cases of severe hypofibrinogeneemia.Among them-without any bleeding tendency-the mother of one case and both parents of two siblings with CA*The lack of fibrinogen was confirmed biochemically and immunologically too. The only symptom ofthe Illness are the severe posttraumatic bleeding. They appear as epistax- is, bleeding of the gums, or anyother bleeding aiter minor or severe injuries*Intraarticular bleeding, as in haemophilia rarely occurs inCA. One of our patients had profuse haematurias, causedby renal calculi. The only therapy is the substitution with transfusions of fresh blood, plasma, or fibrinogen concentrates*The rise of posttransfusional lllnisses grows with the number of transfusions*Stomatological or surgical interventions could be performed only after correction of the dotting abnormalitySo, one of our patients was submitted to splenectomyfor spontaneous rupture at 12 years and to nephrectomy for severe pyelo-caliceal cal- culosis with 19.He recovered fully after both interventions but died at 21 years after a bicycle accidenti The five other patients deceased at the age of 5«resp. 10 months and at 6-lo-resp 12 years. In 3 cases there was a subdural hammorrhage, once an intracranial blee- dingCnon autopsiated)and once a severe intraabdoml- nal haemorrhage after an accidental traumatism of the abdominal wall. The care of the CA cases is mostly a pediatric proble. The frequency of the pottraumatic bleeding decrease with the growth*The schoolchildren are paying more attention to avoid injuries

The task of vehicle-type product design has never been trivial. The paper shows the concept of a work in progress, a research work by a multidisciplinary team, ready to use the available and most modern automation equipment right where it is needed – down at the earth in this case. The project shall allow for autonomous 0-24 presence of specially designed device – a robot taking care of corn fields, eliminating weeds and performing other usually manual functions keeping the shape of the field and ground at level and in extent freed of limitations that can exist in case of a human labor. It is in the same time bringing some fresh interests to agriculture as such, and may even bring some part of people back to this business, rather than escaping to other nowadays more popular fields for some.

The article examines the formation of the image of Ukraine by the French media during the Orange Revolution. The main factors influencing the tone of publications and difficulties in creating a positive external image of Ukraine in the French media are identified. The article is aimed at the analysis of scientific research on the influence of the French media on the formation of the image of Ukraine and its role in international socio-political processes. The study analyzes the materials of French journalists in the media, written during the events in 2004. The main factors influencing the formation of positive features of the Ukrainian state are identified. The main changes in perceptions of Ukraine in the French media are systematized. The influence of the media on the formation of the image and security of the state is determined. The main peaks of interest in Ukraine from foreign mass media are analyzed. Stereotypes and myths in the image of Ukraine that should be destroyed have been identified. The article also analyzes the role of the Orange Revolution in forming a positive image of Ukraine for foreign recipients. It is also investigated what factors influence the information space of the state and its role in image formation. Examples of Russian influence on the French media in order to undermine Ukraine’s image at the international level are given. Articles, radio and TV materials are offered as an example of interest and attention to the events of 2004. At the same time, the need to control the information that enters the information space outside Ukraine has been demonstrated. However, the positive effects of the image on the support of Ukraine by foreign partners have been identified.

Seeking to explore the nature of European far-right online ecosystems, this research report examines the outlinking activity of identified pro-far-right users among the followers of the official Twitter accounts of two prominent far-right European political parties, Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and France’s Rassemblement National (RN). Employing a three-layered analysis, the report explores not just the top-level domains outlinked to by its sample of AfD and RN Twitter followers but combines this with analysis of the technical specifications of the content types outlinked to and treatment of the socio-political nature of the content arrived at by clicking on the most tweeted URLs. This results in the provision of a more thorough and cohesive view of this online ecosystem than contained in other similar studies.

This project includes two main parts: Development of a “Selective Wavelength Imaging Sensor” and an “Adaptive Classifiery System” for adaptive imaging and sorting of agricultural products respectively. Three different technologies were investigated for building a selectable wavelength imaging sensor: diffraction gratings, tunable filters and linear variable filters. Each technology was analyzed and evaluated as the basis for implementing the adaptive sensor. Acousto optic tunable filters were found to be most suitable for the selective wavelength imaging sensor. Consequently, a selectable wavelength imaging sensor was constructed and tested using the selected technology. The sensor was tested and algorithms for multispectral image acquisition were developed. A high speed inspection system for fresh-market carrots was built and tested. It was shown that a combination of efficient parallel processing of a DSP and a PC based host CPU in conjunction with a hierarchical classification system, yielded an inspection system capable of handling 2 carrots per second with a classification accuracy of more than 90%. The adaptive sorting technique was extensively investigated and conclusively demonstrated to reduce misclassification rates in comparison to conventional non-adaptive sorting. The adaptive classifier algorithm was modeled and reduced to a series of modules that can be added to any existing produce sorting machine. A simulation of the entire process was created in Matlab using a graphical user interface technique to promote the accessibility of the difficult theoretical subjects. Typical Grade classifiers based on k-Nearest Neighbor techniques and linear discriminants were implemented. The sample histogram, estimating the cumulative distribution function (CDF), was chosen as a characterizing feature of prototype populations, whereby the Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistic was employed as a population classifier. Simulations were run on artificial data with two-dimensions, four populations and three classes. A quantitative analysis of the adaptive classifier's dependence on population separation, training set size, and stack length determined optimal values for the different parameters involved. The technique was also applied to a real produce sorting problem, e.g. an automatic machine for sorting dates by machine vision in an Israeli date packinghouse. Extensive simulations were run on actual sorting data of dates collected over a 4 month period. In all cases, the results showed a clear reduction in classification error by using the adaptive technique versus non-adaptive sorting.

This paper evaluates the economic impact of Bpifrance’s financial programmes to support SMEs’ Research, Development and Innovation (RDI), called individual aid for innovation (IA). It focuses on the analysis of subsidies and zero-interest loans granted to SMEs over three years old during the period 2005-2018 in order to foster their RDI activity (R&D expenses and spending related to the development of innovative products, processes or services) and economic growth (turnover, employment). We use a difference-in-differences methodology combined with a propensity score matching procedure to compare supported SMEs with non-supported SMEs with same initial characteristics. This counterfactual analysis is based on a unique dataset containing both financial and non-financial information about millions of French companies. Up to 12,000 SMEs supported over the 2005-2016 period have thus been analysed, making this study the first to estimate the effect of Bpifrance’s individual aid for innovation on such a scale and using such detailed information.

The main objective of this project was to initiate a breeding program to produce cold-tolerant and salinity-tolerant synthetic breeds of tilapia, from a base population consisting of a four-species hybrid population created under an earlier BARD project. A secondary objective was to estimate genetic parameters for the traits growth rate under fresh- and salt-water and for cold tolerance. A third objective was to place quantitative trait loci that affect these traits of interest (e.g., growth rate in fresh-water, salt-water and cold tolerance) on the growing linkage map of primarily microsatellite loci. We have encountered fertility problems that were apparently the result of the complex genetic structure of this base population. The failure in producing the first generation of the breeding program has forced us to stop the intended breeding program. Thus, upon approval of BARD office, this objective was dropped and during the last year we have focused on the secondary objective of the original project during the third year of the project, but failed to perform the intended analysis to estimate genetic parameters for the traits of interest. We have succeeded, however, to strengthen the earlier identification of a QTL for cold tolerance by analyzing further segregating families. The results support the existence of a QTL for cold tolerance on linkage group 15, corresponding to UNH linkage group 23. The results also indicate a QTL for the same trait on linkage group 12, corresponding to UNH linkage group 4.

Rapid detection of pathogens and hazardous elements in fresh fruits and vegetables after harvest requires the use of advanced sensor technology at each step in the farm-to-consumer or farm-to-processing sequence. Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and the complementary Raman spectroscopy, an advanced optical technique based on light scattering will be investigated for rapid and on-site assessment of produce safety. Paving the way toward the development of this innovative methodology, specific original objectives were to (1) identify and distinguish different serotypes of Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella typhimurium, and Bacillus cereus by FTIR and Raman spectroscopy, (2) develop spectroscopic fingerprint patterns and detection methodology for fungi such as Aspergillus, Rhizopus, Fusarium, and Penicillium (3) to validate a universal spectroscopic procedure to detect foodborne pathogens and non-pathogens in food systems. The original objectives proposed were very ambitious hence modifications were necessary to fit with the funding. Elaborate experiments were conducted for sensitivity, additionally, testing a wide range of pathogens (more than selected list proposed) was also necessary to demonstrate the robustness of the instruments, most crucially, algorithms for differentiating a specific organism of interest in mixed cultures was conceptualized and validated, and finally neural network and chemometric models were tested on a variety of applications. Food systems tested were apple juice and buffer systems. Pathogens tested include Enterococcus faecium, Salmonella enteritidis, Salmonella typhimurium, Bacillus cereus, Yersinia enterocolitis, Shigella boydii, Staphylococus aureus, Serratiamarcescens, Pseudomonas vulgaris, Vibrio cholerae, Hafniaalvei, Enterobacter cloacae, Enterobacter aerogenes, E. coli (O103, O55, O121, O30 and O26), Aspergillus niger (NRRL 326) and Fusarium verticilliodes (NRRL 13586), Saccharomyces cerevisiae (ATCC 24859), Lactobacillus casei (ATCC 11443), Erwinia carotovora pv. carotovora and Clavibacter michiganense. Sensitivity of the FTIR detection was 103CFU/ml and a clear differentiation was obtained between the different organisms both at the species as well as at the strain level for the tested pathogens. A very crucial step in the direction of analyzing mixed cultures was taken. The vector based algorithm was able to identify a target pathogen of interest in a mixture of up to three organisms. Efforts will be made to extend this to 10-12 key pathogens. The experience gained was very helpful in laying the foundations for extracting the true fingerprint of a specific pathogen irrespective of the background substrate. This is very crucial especially when experimenting with solid samples as well as complex food matrices. Spectroscopic techniques, especially FTIR and Raman methods are being pursued by agencies such as DARPA and Department of Defense to combat homeland security. Through the BARD US-3296-02 feasibility grant, the foundations for detection, sample handling, and the needed algorithms and models were developed. Successive efforts will be made in transferring the methodology to fruit surfaces and to other complex food matrices which can be accomplished with creative sampling methods and experimentation. Even a marginal success in this direction will result in a very significant breakthrough because FTIR and Raman methods, in spite of their limitations are still one of most rapid and nondestructive methods available. Continued interest and efforts in improving the components as well as the refinement of the procedures is bound to result in a significant breakthrough in sensor technology for food safety and biosecurity.

Abstract The debate about whether to reduce import barriers on fresh produce in order to decrease the cost of living and increase welfare or to continue protecting the local agricultural sector by imposing import duties on fresh vegetables and fruits has been part of the Israeli and the US political dialog. The alternative of building a strong local brand that will direct patriotic feelings to support of the agricultural sector has been previously discussed in the literature as a non-tax barrier to global competition. The motivation of consumers to pay more for local fresh fruits and vegetables are better quality, environmental concerns, altruism, and ethnocentrism. Local patriotic feelings are expected to be stronger among national-religious consumers and weaker among secular left wing voters. This project empirically analyzes consumers’ attitude toward local agricultural production, perceptions of the contribution of the agricultural sector to society and how these perceptions interact with patriotic beliefs and socio-political variables perhaps producing an ethnocentric preference for fruits and vegetables. This patriotic feeling may be contrasted with feelings toward rival (or even politically opposing) countries competing in the same markets. Thus geo-political landscape may help shape the consumer’s preferences and willingness to purchase particular products. Our empirical analysis is based on two surveys, one conducted among Israeli shoppers and one conducted among US households. We find strong influences of nationalism, patriotism and ethnocentrism on demand for produce in both samples. In the case of Israel this manifests itself as a significant discount demanded for countries in conflict with Israel (e.g., Syria or Palestine), with the discount demanded being related to the strength of the conflict. Moreover, the effect is larger for those who are either more religious, or those who identify with right leaning political parties. The results from the US are strikingly similar. For some countries the perception of conflict is dependent on political views (e.g., Mexico), while for others there is a more agreement (e.g., Russia). Despite a substantially different religious and political landscape, both right leaning political views and religiosity play strong roles in demand for foreign produce.

The most prominent measure to moderate the escalation of electricity prices during 2022 has been the gas cap implemented exceptionally in Spain and Portugal. We present here the most accurate, rigorous and updated estimate of the effects of this measure on the regulated electricity tariff, known as the "Precio de Venta del Pequeño Consumidor (PVPC), which directly replicates the wholesale market price. To do so, we update the data we presented in September until the end of December 2022, comparing the real evolution of this tariff with a statistical model that draws the same line but in an alternative world in which the gas cap is not applied. After six months, the electricity bill at the regulated tariff in Spain is 32% cheaper than it would be in a world without the Iberian exceptionality: according to our estimate, the resulting saving for the whole of 2022 was around €209 per consumer. Moreover, inflation in 2022 would have been 0.3 points higher without a gas cap: 8.7%, instead of the 8.4% observed. In other words: half of Spain's better situation compared to the Eurozone can be attributed to this measure. On the negative side, the higher consumption of gas for electricity generation continues and the lower price of Spanish electricity, which would have facilitated the increase in exports to France with the consequent risk of subsidization in favor of French consumers at the expense of Spanish consumers.

Bulk quantitative mineralogy of regolith is a useful indicator of lithological precursor (protolith), degree of weathering, and soil properties affecting various potential landuse decisions. To date, no national-scale maps of regolith mineralogy are available in Australia. Catchment outlet sediments collected over 80% of the continent as part of the National Geochemical Survey of Australia (NGSA) afford a unique opportunity to rapidly and cost-effectively determine regolith mineralogy using the archived sample material. This report releases mineralogical data and metadata obtained as part of a feasibility study in a selected pilot area for such a national regolith mineralogy database and atlas. The area chosen for this study is within the Darling-Curnamona-Delamerian (DCD) region of southeastern Australia. The DCD region was selected as a ‘deep-dive’ data acquisition and analysis by the Exploration for the Future (2020-2024) federal government initiative managed at Geoscience Australia. One hundred NGSA sites from the DCD region were prepared for X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis, which consisted of qualitative mineral identification of the bulk samples (i.e., ‘major’ minerals), qualitative clay mineral identification of the <2 µm grain-size fraction, and quantitative analysis of both ‘major’ and clay minerals of the bulk sample. The identified mineral phases were quartz, plagioclase, K-feldspar, calcite, dolomite, gypsum, halite, hematite, goethite, rutile, zeolite, amphibole, talc, kaolinite, illite (including muscovite and biotite), palygorskite (including interstratified illite-smectite and vermiculite), smectite (including interstratified illite-smectite), vermiculite, and chlorite. Poorly diffracting material (PDM) was also quantified and reported as ‘amorphous’. Mineral identification relied on the EVA® software, whilst quantification was performed using Siroquant®. Resulting mineral abundances are reported with a Chi-squared goodness-of-fit between the actual diffractogram and a modelled diffractogram for each sample, as well as an estimated standard error (esd) measurement of uncertainty for each mineral phase quantified. Sensitivity down to 0.1 wt% (weight percent) was achieved, with any mineral detection below that threshold reported as ‘trace’. Although detailed interpretation of the mineralogical data is outside the remit of the present data release, preliminary observations of mineral abundance patterns suggest a strong link to geology, including proximity to fresh bedrock, weathering during sediment transport, and robust relationships between mineralogy and geochemistry. The mineralogical data generated by this study are presented in Appendix A of this report and are downloadable as a .csv file. Mineral abundance or presence/absence maps are shown in Appendices B and C to document regional mineralogical patterns.

Campylobacter spp. are the most common bacterial cause of foodborne illness in the UK, with chicken considered to be the most important vehicle for this organism. The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) agreed with industry to reduce Campylobacter spp. contamination in raw chicken and issued a target to reduce the prevalence of the most contaminated chickens (those with more than 1000 cfu per g chicken neck skin) to below 10 % at the end of the slaughter process, initially by 2016. To help monitor progress, a series of UK-wide surveys were undertaken to determine the levels of Campylobacter spp. on whole UK-produced, fresh chicken at retail sale in the UK. The data obtained for the first four years was reported in FSA projects FS241044 (2014/15) and FS102121 (2015 to 2018). The FSA has indicated that the retail proxy target for the percentage of highly contaminated raw whole retail chickens should be less than 7% and while continued monitoring has demonstrated a sustained decline for chickens from major retailer stores, chicken on sale in other stores have yet to meet this target. This report presents results from testing chickens from non-major retailer stores (only) in a fifth survey year from 2018 to 2019. In line with previous practise, samples were collected from stores distributed throughout the UK (in proportion to the population size of each country). Testing was performed by two laboratories - a Public Health England (PHE) laboratory or the Agri-Food & Biosciences Institute (AFBI), Belfast. Enumeration of Campylobacter spp. was performed using the ISO 10272-2 standard enumeration method applied with a detection limit of 10 colony forming units (cfu) per gram (g) of neck skin. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) to selected antimicrobials in accordance with those advised in the EU harmonised monitoring protocol was predicted from genome sequence data in Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli isolates The percentage (10.8%) of fresh, whole chicken at retail sale in stores of smaller chains (for example, Iceland, McColl’s, Budgens, Nisa, Costcutter, One Stop), independents and butchers (collectively referred to as non-major retailer stores in this report) in the UK that are highly contaminated (at more than 1000 cfu per g) with Campylobacter spp. has decreased since the previous survey year but is still higher than that found in samples from major retailers. 8 whole fresh raw chickens from non-major retailer stores were collected from August 2018 to July 2019 (n = 1009). Campylobacter spp. were detected in 55.8% of the chicken skin samples obtained from non-major retailer shops, and 10.8% of the samples had counts above 1000 cfu per g chicken skin. Comparison among production plant approval codes showed significant differences of the percentages of chicken samples with more than 1000 cfu per g, ranging from 0% to 28.1%. The percentage of samples with more than 1000 cfu of Campylobacter spp. per g was significantly higher in the period May, June and July than in the period November to April. The percentage of highly contaminated samples was significantly higher for samples taken from larger compared to smaller chickens. There was no statistical difference in the percentage of highly contaminated samples between those obtained from chicken reared with access to range (for example, free-range and organic birds) and those reared under standard regime (for example, no access to range) but the small sample size for organic and to a lesser extent free-range chickens, may have limited the ability to detect important differences should they exist. Campylobacter species was determined for isolates from 93.4% of the positive samples. C. jejuni was isolated from the majority (72.6%) of samples while C. coli was identified in 22.1% of samples. A combination of both species was found in 5.3% of samples. C. coli was more frequently isolated from samples obtained from chicken reared with access to range in comparison to those reared as standard birds. C. jejuni was less prevalent during the summer months of June, July and August compared to the remaining months of the year. Resistance to ciprofloxacin (fluoroquinolone), erythromycin (macrolide), tetracycline, (tetracyclines), gentamicin and streptomycin (aminoglycosides) was predicted from WGS data by the detection of known antimicrobial resistance determinants. Resistance to ciprofloxacin was detected in 185 (51.7%) isolates of C. jejuni and 49 (42.1%) isolates of C. coli; while 220 (61.1%) isolates of C. jejuni and 73 (62.9%) isolates of C. coli isolates were resistant to tetracycline. Three C. coli (2.6%) but none of the C. jejuni isolates harboured 23S mutations predicting reduced susceptibility to erythromycin. Multidrug resistance (MDR), defined as harbouring genetic determinants for resistance to at least three unrelated antimicrobial classes, was found in 10 (8.6%) C. coli isolates but not in any C. jejuni isolates. Co-resistance to ciprofloxacin and erythromycin was predicted in 1.7% of C. coli isolates. 9 Overall, the percentages of isolates with genetic AMR determinants found in this study were similar to those reported in the previous survey year (August 2016 to July 2017) where testing was based on phenotypic break-point testing. Multi-drug resistance was similar to that found in the previous survey years. It is recommended that trends in AMR in Campylobacter spp. isolates from retail chickens continue to be monitored to realise any increasing resistance of concern, particulary to erythromycin (macrolide). Considering that the percentage of fresh, whole chicken from non-major retailer stores in the UK that are highly contaminated (at more than 1000 cfu per g) with Campylobacter spp. continues to be above that in samples from major retailers more action including consideration of interventions such as improved biosecurity and slaughterhouse measures is needed to achieve better control of Campylobacter spp. for this section of the industry. The FSA has indicated that the retail proxy target for the percentage of highly contaminated retail chickens should be less than 7% and while continued monitoring has demonstrated a sustained decline for chickens from major retailer stores, chicken on sale in other stores have yet to meet this target.