1,643 research outputs found
Collectivity, distributivity, and the interpretation of numerical expressions in child and adult language
No full textSentences containing plural numerical expressions (e.g., two boys) can give rise to two interpretations (collective and distributive), arising from the fact that their representation admits of a part-whole structure. We present the results of a series of experiments designed to explore children’s understanding of this distinction and its implications for the acquisition of linguistic expressions with number words. We show that preschoolers access both interpretations, indicating that they have the requisite linguistic and conceptual machinery to generate the corresponding representations. Furthermore, they can shift their interpretation in response to structural and lexical manipulations. However, they are not fully adult-like: unlike adults, they are drawn to the distributive interpretation, and are not yet fully aware of the lexical semantics of each and together, which should favor one or another interpretation. This research bridges a gap between a well-established body of work in cognitive psychology on the acquisition of number words and more recent work investigating children’s knowledge of the syntactic and semantic properties of sentences featuring numerical expressions.Peer reviewe
Entretiens avec Julien Gaillard
No full textEntretiens avec Julien Gaillard, locuteur du patois de Valjouffrey, en vue d'explicitation de vocabulaire, syntaxe et prononciation
All together now: disentangling semantics and pragmatics with together in child and adult language
No full textThe way in which an event is packaged linguistically can be informative about the number of participants in the event and the nature of their participation. At times, however, a sentence is ambiguous, and pragmatic information weighs in to favor one interpretation over another. Whereas adults may readily know how to pick up on such cues to meaning, children – who are generally naïve to such pragmatic nuances – may diverge and access a broader range of interpretations, or one disfavored by adults. A number of cases come to us from a now well established body of research on scalar implicatures and scopal ambiguity. Here, we complement this previous work with a previously uninvestigated example of the semantic-pragmatic divide in language development arising from the interpretation of sentences with pluralities and together. Sentences such as Two boys lifted a block (together) allow for either a Collective or a Distributive interpretation (one pushing event vs. two spatio temporally coordinated events). We show experimentally that children allow both interpretations in sentences with together, whereas adults rule out the Distributive interpretation without further contextual motivation. However, children appear to be guided by their semantics in the readings they access, since they do not allow readings that are semantically barred. We argue that they are unaware of the pragmatic information adults have at their fingertips, such as the conversational implicatures arising from the presence of a modifier, the probability of its occurrence being used to signal a particular interpretation among a set of alternatives, and knowledge of the possible lexical alternatives.This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Language Acquisition on 02 July 2015, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10489223.2015.1067319.Peer reviewe
La mise au point et l'évaluation d'un panel gènes dont les niveaux d'expression permettront de suivre le statut immunitaire de patients
No full textLe sepsis est une des principales causes de mortalité chez les patients gravement malades admis en service de réanimation. Il a récemment été reconnu par l’Organisation Mondiale de la Santé (OMS) comme un problème majeur de santé publique. Le sepsis est défini comme une dysfonction d’organe(s) menaçant le pronostic vital et causée par une réponse inappropriée de l’hôte à une infection. La pathogenèse immunitaire chez le patient septique est à multiples facettes et hétérogène, les patients pouvant souffrir d’un orage cytokinique et/ou d’une immunosuppression induite par le sepsis. De nouveaux agents immuno-modulateurs ont récemment été explorés pour rétablir la réponse immunitaire à l’homéostasie et améliorer le devenir des patients. Néanmoins, les immunothérapies doivent être guidées par un outil permettant de stratifier les patients en fonction de leur statut immunitaire. L’objectif de ce projet était de concevoir un nouvel outil de profilage immunitaire (Immune Profiling Panel, IPP) basé sur le système FilmArray® pour stratifier les patients en fonction de leur statut immunitaire. Nous avons sélectionné des biomarqueurs transcriptomiques susceptibles de cibler et capturer la modulation génétique des voies de régulation immunitaire, des marqueurs de surface des cellules immunitaires ainsi que des cytokines. L’outil IPP a été évalué au niveau technique, biologique et clinique. L’objectif principal de l’évaluation technique a été de tester la capacité de l’outil à semi-quantifier l’ARN de marqueurs immunitaire en sang total. Nos études d’évaluation technique comprenaient la répétabilité des résultats, l’expression linéaire des marqueurs avec différentes concentrations d’ARN, l’équivalence avec d’autres plateformes de transcriptomique et la capacité de différencier les groupes sains et patients. L’évaluation technique a guidé la sélection des marqueurs qui ont été finalement intégrés dans l’outil IPP pour l’évaluation biologique et clinique. L’évaluation biologique visait à évaluer la capacité des marqueurs à capturer la réponse immunitaire à l’aide de modèles biologiques bien établis mimant la réponse immunitaire au sepsis. Le panel a été testé dans le modèle in vivo d’endotoxémie humaine, avant et après la stimulation par LPS, et les résultats ont été comparés à la stimulation ex vivo par LPS de sang total. Par la suite, nous avons exploré l’utilisation de l’outil IPP comme outil de lecture pour un essai immuno-fonctionnel effectué sur le sang total de patients en choc septique et de volontaires sains. L’outil IPP a pu capturer les réponses immunitaires précoces et tardives dans différents modèles biologiques à l’aide de divers stimulus. Pour l’évaluation clinique, l’outil IPP a été testé dans deux cohortes cliniques de patients gravement malades soignés en unité de réanimation. Un ‘pipeline’ d’analyses statistiques a été effectué pour sélectionner une signature de gènes qui ensuite ont été utilisés pour construire et optimiser plusieurs modèles multi-variables pour prédire l’aggravation chez le patient au jour 14. Les patients ont ensuite été stratifiés à l’aide de modèles multi-variables optimisés, et le modèle le plus discriminant a été choisi en fonction des performances les plus élevées et de la stratification correcte des patients. La signature génétique finale a permis de prédire une aggravation avant le jour 14 de chez 86% des cas des patients à l’aide d’échantillons prélevés au jour 3-4. Tous ces résultats mettent en évidence les utilisations potentielles de l’immune profiling panel pour stratifier les patients gravement malades en fonction de leur état immunitaire.Sepsis is a leading cause of mortality among critically-ill patients in the intensive care unit. It 2017, sepsis was recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a global health burden. Sepsis is defined as a life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection. The immune pathogenesis of sepsis is multi-faceted and heterogeneous, where patients could suffer from a cytokine storm and/or. sepsis-induced immunoparalysis. Novel immune modulatory agents were recently explored to restore the immune response to homeostasis and improve patient outcomes. Nonetheless, immunotherapies need to be guided by a tool that could stratify patients according to their immune status. The objective of this project was to design a novel immune profiling panel (IPP) based on the FilmArray® system to stratify patients according to their immune status. We selected transcriptomic biomarkers that could target and capture gene modulation of immune regulatory pathways, surface markers on immune cells as well as cytokines. The IPP tool was evaluated based on three main assessments: technical, biological and clinical. The technical assessment mainly aimed to test the tool’s ability to semi-quantify mRNA of immune markers from whole blood. Our technical assessment studies included repeatability of results, the linear expression of markers with different RNA inputs, equivalence to other transcriptomic platforms and the ability to differentiate between the healthy and patient groups. The technical assessment guided the selection of the final markers that were integrated in the IPP tool for the biological and clinical assessments. The biological assessment aimed to assess the ability of the markers to capture the immune response using well-established biological models that mimic sepsis immune response. The panel was tested in the human in vivo endotoxemia model before and after LPS challenge and the results were compared to the ex vivo LPS stimulation of whole blood. Afterwards, we explored the use of the IPP tool as a read-out for an immune functional assay performed on whole blood from septic shock patients and healthy volunteers as controls. The IPP tool was able to capture both the early and late immune responses in different biological models using various stimulus. In the clinical assessment, the refined IPP tool was tested retrospectively in two clinical cohorts of critically-ill patients managed in the intensive care unit. A statistical analysis workflow was performed to select a signature of genes that were used to build and optimize several multivariable models that could predict worsening status at day 14. Patients were then stratified using the optimized multivariable models, and the best discriminating model was selected according to the highest performances and the correct stratification of patients. The final gene signature was able to predict 86% of patients that encountered a worsening event at day14 using samples from day 3-4 from ICU admission. All these findings highlight the potential uses of the immune profiling panel to stratify critically ill patients according to their immune status
Which account of wh-/quantifier interaction should everyone adopt? A new take on a classic developmental puzzle
No full textQuantifiers are expressions that denote number and quantity. When quantifiers interact with each other or with other logical expressions in a sentence, the resulting interpretation may be ambiguous. In this paper, we focus on young chilren’s understanding of the interaction of the universal quantifiers every and each with wh-expressions (who, which) in questionsPeer reviewe
Human endogenous retroviruses and host immune response following inflammatory aggression
No full textSuite à une agression inflammatoire, telle que le choc septique, des brulures graves ou un traumatisme sévère, le système immunitaire répond par une modulation massive du transcriptome dans le sang. On propose d’explorer un autre répertoire que l’expression des gènes et de s’intéresser aux éléments répétés du génome, peu étudiés dans ces contextes, et plus particulièrement aux rétrovirus endogènes humains (HERV). Ils représentent plus de 8% du génome chez l’Homme. Certains sont exprimés dans des situations similaires à l’agression inflammatoire (cancer, maladies auto-immunes) et ont un impact sur la réponse immunitaire.Dans ce travail, nous cherchons à décrire et comprendre la contribution des HERV, au sein de la réponse immunitaire de l’hôte à l’agression inflammatoire. Pour cela, nous avons développé des méthodes et outils spécifiquement dédiés à la description du HERVome, au niveau génomique et transcriptomique. Nous montrons que les HERV sont exprimés dans le sang, modulés chez les patients, et que certains pourraient jouer un rôle sur l’expression de gènes de la réponse immunitaire situés à proximité. Nous évaluons également le polymorphisme de présence des HERV dans le génome de plus de deux mille individus répartis dans les populations humaines. On met en évidence que le polymorphisme HERV est globalement important, qu’il est lié à la population d’appartenance et que certains loci sont absents dans la majorité des génomes étudiés. Finalement, par différentes approches, nous identifions des associations entre gènes de la réponse immunitaire et HERV, suggérant que ces éléments peuvent jouer un rôle important dans la réponse de l’hôte à l’agression inflammatoireFollowing inflammatory injury, like a septic shock, severe burn or important trauma, the immune system responds by a massive modulation of its transcriptome in the blood. We propose to explore another repertoire than gene expression and to focus on repeated elements, especially on HERVs. They represent more than 8% of the human genome. HERVs are expressed in similar settings (cancer or auto-immune diseases) and impact immune response. In this project, we describe and aim to better understand the HERV contribution in host immune response, following inflammatory aggression. To bring elements of response, we developed specifically dedicated tools to describe the HERVome, either at genomic or transcriptomic level. We show HERVs are expressed in blood in these settings, modulated in patients and could play a role on nearby gene expression. We also evaluate the polymorphism of presence of HERV loci on more than two thousands individuals, grouped into human populations. We show an important HERV polymorphism, that it is population-specific, and that some loci are absent in the majority of the analyzed genomes.Finally, with different approaches, we identify associations between immune-response genes and HERVs, suggesting these elements can play a role in host immune response following inflammatory aggression
Molecular antimicrobial susceptibility testing in sepsis.
No full textRapidly detecting and identifying pathogens is crucial for appropriate antimicrobial therapy in patients with sepsis. Conventional diagnostic methods have been a great asset to medicine, though they are time consuming and labor intensive. This work will enable healthcare professionals to understand the bacterial community better and enhance their diagnostic capacity by using novel molecular methods that make obtaining quicker, more precise results possible. The authors discuss and critically assess the merits and drawbacks of molecular testing and the added value of these tests, including the shift turnaround time, the implication for clinicians' decisions, gaps in knowledge, future research directions and novel insights or innovations. The field of antimicrobial molecular testing has seen several novel insights and innovations to improve the diagnosis and management of infectious diseases
Toponymes de Valjouffrey
No full textDessins des montagnes visibles de la vallée de Valjouffrey et annotation des toponymes selon leur appelation ancienne
Léviathan: A Forgotten Nouvelle by Julien Green
No full textJulien Green's nouvelle Leviathan (1926)1 tends to merit only a few passing
references in critical works on the author. This is regrettable because this early
work in a literary output spanning the years 1920 to 1995 (at least!) can be seen to
orchestrate in embryonic form many of the themes and preoccupations which
have become permanent features of Green's landscape. It may even be considered
a microcosm of his work as a whole
Julien Green's journals and autobiographic writings
No full textJulien Green (1900-1998) was the famous novelist of the 20th century. He was dealing with spiritual and moral dilemmas in his novels, which were among others due to his life experience with several faiths. He was also the author of an extensive diary and autobiographical works. He was keeping diary from young age and covers almost the entire 20th century. His aim was not to describe events, rather to let his thoughts, observations and dilemmas took shape. This work aims to explore that angle of Green's work and reveal its character. It will thematically examine specific centers of interest through this work, focusing on the relationship that exists between the diaries and autobiographical prose, whether by consensus or differences in the content, but also in the form of works. The final goal is to transcribe a specific form of statements about himself, which Julien Green created. Keywords autobiography, introspection, christianity, history, intimac
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