22 research outputs found
CREATION ET PROCREATION DANS LE ROMAN LAIT NOIR D’ELIF SHAFAK
No full textBlack Milk, is the title of a book by Elif Shafak, the Turkish writer, and it deals with the complexity of female identity and the difficulty encountered in reconciling different aspects of this identity. The writer expresses these identities in an allegorical way, manifested in the chorus of inner voices of midget women representing the different aspects of this identity. They introduce themselves alternately into the life of the narrator, assailing her in order to orientate her towards the determined role of Woman. The theme mainly focuses on the “incompatibility” between motherhood and literary creation. The problematic of the topic Creation and Procreation in Lait noir / Black Milk is the analysis motherhood as divided between reality, since the narrator is torn between being a housewife assuming her responsibility as a mother and wife and choosing literary creation. Isn\u27t procreation also creation? This paper will analyze the narrator\u27s inner conflict between the reality of being a mother and the other identities that help the emancipation of women. Which allegory has she used to express her doubts and her indecision? What is the influence of the patriarchal society on the narrator\u27s dilemma? The author was able to convey her message through the polyphony of the narrative voices. Finally, the tackled theme is universal in time and space and the questioning goes on to come to an intermediate solution in order to conciliate motherhood and creative work
Life Prediction of a Turbine Engine Blade to Disk Attachment Under Coupled Thermo-Mechanical Fatigue
No full textLife prediction of turbine engines is crucial part of the management and sustainment plan to aircraft jet engine. Fretting is one of the primary phenomena that leads to damage or failure of blade-disk attachments. Fretting is often the root cause of nucleation of cracks at attachment of structural components at or in the vicinity of the contact surfaces. It occurs when the blade and disk are pressed together in contact and experience a small oscillating relative displacement due to variations in engine speed and vibratory loading. It is a significant driver of fatigue damage and failure risk of disk blade attachments. Fretting is a complex phenomenon that depends on geometry, loading conditions, residual stresses, and surface roughness, among other factors. These complexities also go beyond the physics of material interactions and into the computational domain. This is an ongoing effort, and the Author has been working on computationally modeling the fretting fatigue phenomenon and damage in blade-disk attachment. The model has been evolving in the past few years, and it has been addressing various fretting conditions. The present effort includes the thermal effect and temperature fluctuation during engine operation, and it models the effects of blade to disk attachment’s thermal conditions and its influence on fretting fatigue damage. It further extends the earlier model to include a coupled fatigue damage model. It allows modeling higher speeds and longer durability associated with blade disk attachments. Finally, to demonstrate its capabilities and taking advantage of experimental validation model, the most recent numerical simulations will be presented.</jats:p
Brain response to one?s own name in acute stage coma patients: electroencephalographic detection of cognitive event-related potentials
No full textInternational audienceObjective: Patients who have suffered severe brain injuries can show a progressive recovery, from the acute coma to a chronic condition of disorders of consciousness. Event-related potentials (ERPs), like the P3 component, have been successfully used as markers of auditory processing in patients with disorders of consciousness. However, the relevance of the P3 component in acute coma patients remains to be defined. Methods: Using two bedside electroencephalographic recordings 7 days apart (D1 and D8), we acquired in 26 coma patients (traumatic brain injury or anoxia) ERPs to the patient?s own name (versus unfamiliar other first names) after either an excerpt of the patient?s preferred music (music condition, 4 blocks) or a noise (control condition, 4 blocks) presented in an alternating order. Neurological outcome at 3 months was acquired using the Coma Recovery Scale-Revised. Results: In healthy volunteers (n=14), an individual P3 component was systematically observed around 500 msec. In comatose patients, the sensory, earlier, cerebral responses (P1/N1/P2) to the name stimuli was frequently observed. The cognitive P3 response to patient?s own name was observed more often at D8. The link between the detection of these ERPs and a positive prognosis for the patients remains uncertain. Conclusions: Some severely brain-damaged patients in the acute stage of coma are capable of cognitive processing of salient auditory stimuli despite the absence of overt behavioral signs of awareness
Hepatitis B virus DNA in serum of 'anti-HBc only'-positive healthy Lebanese blood donors: significance and possible implications
No full textTransmission of HBV infection through transfusion of HBsAg-negative blood has been documented. It is evident that low levels of HBV-DNA remain detectable in serum and liver tissue of some patients who clear HbsAg, and that the detection rate is highest in individuals who are 'anti-HBc positive alone'. This study was designed to assess the frequency and clinical significance of 'anti-HBc alone' in Lebanese blood donors. A total of 5511 blood donor samples from three major hospitals representing most regions of the country were tested for anti-HBc, amongst other screening tests. Samples positive for 'anti-HBc alone' were then tested for HBV-DNA and any positive for HBV-DNA were then genotyped and investigated for hepatitis B viral load. The study showed that 203 (3.7percent) of randomly selected Lebanese blood donors were confirmed as 'anti-HBc alone'. Of these, 11 (5.4percent) were HBV-DNA positive as detected by nested PCR. All samples had HBV-DNA levels below 400 copies-ml and all were genotype D. It can be concluded that HBV was present, although the circulating amount of virus was below the detectable limit for the assay used. Therefore, routine screening for anti-HBc may be required in Lebanese blood donation centres as an additional preventive measure for controlling transmission of HBV via blood transfusion. © 2007 The Hospital Infection Society.ACKERMAN Z, 1994, J HEPATOL, V20, P398, DOI 10.1016-S0168-8278(94)80015-4; ALTER MJ, 1994, GASTROENTEROL CLIN N, V23, P437; Berger A, 2001, J CLIN VIROL, V20, P23, DOI 10.1016-S1386-6532(00)00151-7; Berger A, 2000, INTERVIROLOGY, V43, P71, DOI 10.1159-000025026; Brechot C, 2001, HEPATOLOGY, V34, P194, DOI 10.1053-jhep.2001.25172; CHAN HLY, 1999, CLIN LIVER DIS, V3, P291, DOI 10.1016-S1089-3261(05)70069-6; Conjeevaram H, 2001, HEPATOLOGY, V34, P204, DOI 10.1053-jhep.2001.25225; Grob P, 2000, J MED VIROL, V62, P450, DOI 10.1002-1096-9071(200012)62:4450::AID-JMV93.0.CO;2-Y; Hofer M, 1998, EUR J CLIN MICROBIOL, V17, P6, DOI 10.1007-BF01584356; HOOFNAGLE JH, 1978, NEW ENGL J MED, V298, P1379, DOI 10.1056-NEJM197806222982502; Hu KQ, 2002, J VIRAL HEPATITIS, V9, P243, DOI 10.1046-j.1365-2893.2002.00344.x; Lee WM, 1997, NEW ENGL J MED, V337, P1733, DOI 10.1056-NEJM199712113372406; Lindh M, 1997, J INFECT DIS, V175, P1285; NALPAS B, 1985, J HEPATOL, V1, P89, DOI 10.1016-S0168-8278(85)80758-3; NAMAN RE, 1996, LEBAN MED J, V44, P4; Owiredu WKBA, 2001, J MED VIROL, V64, P441, DOI 10.1002-jmv.1070; Ramia S, 2003, ANN TROP MED PARASIT, V97, P187, DOI 10.1179-000349803235001363; Ramia S, 2005, EPIDEMIOL INFECT, V133, P695, DOI 10.1017-S0950268805003948; Saito T, 1999, J MED VIROL, V58, P325, DOI 10.1002-(SICI)1096-9071(199908)58:4325::AID-JMV23.0.CO;2-L; Sharara AI, 2004, EUR J CLIN MICROBIOL, V23, P861, DOI 10.1007-s10096-004-1222-5; TANAKA Y, 1990, LIVER, V10, P6; Weber B, 2001, J MED VIROL, V64, P312, DOI 10.1002-jmv.1052; Weinberger KM, 2000, J GEN VIROL, V81, P1165; WEINBERGER KM, 1997, VIRAL HEPATITIS LIVE, P13812141
Covert self-processing in patients with a disorder of consciousness
No full textInternational audienc
Covert self-processing in patients with a disorder of consciousness
No full textInternational audienc
Self-processing in coma, unresponsive wakefulness syndrome and minimally conscious state
No full textIntroductionBehavioral and cerebral dissociation has been now clearly established in some patients with acquired disorders of consciousness (DoC). Altogether, these studies mainly focused on the preservation of high-level cognitive markers in prolonged DoC, but did not specifically investigate lower but key-cognitive functions to consciousness emergence, such as the ability to take a first-person perspective, notably at the acute stage of coma. We made the hypothesis that the preservation of self-recognition (i) is independent of the behavioral impairment of consciousness, and (ii) can reflect the ability to recover consciousness.MethodsHence, using bedside Electroencephalography (EEG) recordings, we acquired, in a large cohort of 129 severely brain damaged patients, the brain response to the passive listening of the subject’s own name (SON) and unfamiliar other first names (OFN). One hundred and twelve of them (mean age ± SD = 46 ± 18.3 years, sex ratio M/F: 71/41) could be analyzed for the detection of an individual and significant discriminative P3 event-related brain response to the SON as compared to OFN (‘SON effect’, primary endpoint assessed by temporal clustering permutation tests).ResultsPatients were either coma (n = 38), unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (UWS, n = 30) or minimally conscious state (MCS, n = 44), according to the revised version of the Coma Recovery Scale (CRS-R). Overall, 33 DoC patients (29%) evoked a ‘SON effect’. This electrophysiological index was similar between coma (29%), MCS (23%) and UWS (34%) patients (p = 0.61). MCS patients at the time of enrolment were more likely to emerged from MCS (EMCS) at 6 months than coma and UWS patients (p = 0.013 for comparison between groups). Among the 72 survivors’ patients with event-related responses recorded within 3 months after brain injury, 75% of the 16 patients with a SON effect were EMCS at 6 months, while 59% of the 56 patients without a SON effect evolved to this favorable behavioral outcome.DiscussionAbout 30% of severely brain-damaged patients suffering from DoC are capable to process salient self-referential auditory stimuli, even in case of absence of behavioral detection of self-conscious processing. We suggest that self-recognition covert brain ability could be an index of consciousness recovery, and thus could help to predict good outcome
Covert self-processing in patients with a disorder of consciousness
No full textInternational audienc
Covert self-processing in patients with a disorder of consciousness
No full textInternational audienc
Covert self-processing in patients with a disorder of consciousness
No full textInternational audienc
