This paper illustrates the ways in which Kezilahabi’s 1985 dissertation makes its own daring contribution to the field of aesthetic criticism through the proposition of a new critical approach to African literature. Kezilahabi’s starting point for the elaboration this new critical approach is the realization of a prevailing tendency among literary critics to read African literature against formal and aesthetic paradigms deeply rooted in the Western literary and philosophical traditions. Opposed to the adoption of interpretative frames that do not acknowledge the philosophical implications involved in literary analysis, Kezilahabi affirms the importance of approaching literary production from within the artistic and philosophical tradition it stems from. Inspired by hermeneutic philosophy, especially in its “ontological turn” embodied by the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, Kezilahabi’s focus is on literary interpretation as an ontological enterprise aimed at “situating” literature within a horizon of understanding where its proper universe of references can be disclosed.

The financial market anomaly can be characterized as the event when observed stock returns differentiate from those expected by concrete pricing model. Many anomalies have been detected so far, and some of them vanished, while other persisted, after they had been published by academics and researchers. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the potential presence of selected types of anomalies in the financial markets and to provide relevant empirical evidence. The theoretical section will supply the reader with the descriptions of several types of financial market anomalies and the results of past studies documenting the existence of these anomalies, with possible reasons justifying the presence of this phenomenon. The analytical section will focus on the few selected anomalies and test whether they are still present in the selected financial markets.

Användningen av digitala konferensverktyg (DKV) har ökat under pandemin Covid-19 ochanvändare har rapporterat att de upplever kommunikationen mer ansträngande än öga-mot-öga. En utmaning i DKV är att det inte går att rikta uppmärksamhet mot specifika samtalsdeltagare för att det inte går att skapa ögonkontakt vilket försvårar turtagning eftersom det är på så vis turen fördelas mellan samtalsdeltagare. Tidigare forskning visar att turtagning stöds av icke-verbala signaler och främst ögonkontakt och att stöd för turtagning i DKV kan designas utifrån att en ögonscanner som läser av var samtalsdeltagare tittar implementeras. Studien syftar till att undersöka hur olika designval vid design av DKV kan användas för att förbättra användaresupplevelser av turtagning vid samtal mellan flera parter i DKV. För att undersöka nya sätt att designa DKV har en designorienterad studie genomförts där designförslag formats baserade på ögonkontakt och dessa har utvärderats tillsammans med användare. Studiens resultat påvisar att turtagning kan stödjas i flerpartssamtal i DKV genom att addera rörliga visuella element som visar vem som talar nu och vem denne etablerar ögonkontakt med för att lämna över turen. Tre designförslag presenteras för hur detta kan göras. / The use of Digital conference tools (DKV) has increased because of the pandemic Covid-19 and DKV users has reported that the communication is more exhausting than communication face-to-face. A challenge in DKV is the inability to direct attention towards specific conversational participants because of absence of eye contact which makes turn-taking difficult since that is how the turn is allocated between conversational participants. Related work shows that turn-taking is supported by non-verbal signals, primarily eye-contact, and that turntaking can be supported by implementing an eyescanner that interpret where conversational participants direct their gaze. The aim of the study is to investigate how different design choices when designing DKV can be used to improve users’ experiences of turn-taking in multi-party conversations in DKV. In order to explore new ways of designing DKV design research has been used to empirically evaluate suggestions for design based on eyecontact. The result of the study shows that turn-taking can be supported in multi-party conversations in DKV by adding moving visual elements that shows who is the current speaker and who this person is establishing eye contact with to allocate the turn. Three suggestions for design are presented for how this could be done.

[pt] O trabalho busca investigar a dimensão emocional do negacionismo científico através do caso do movimento terraplanista – grupo de pessoas que acredita na teoria de que o planeta Terra na verdade é um disco plano, e o modelo heliocêntrico é uma conspiração de organizações científicas e governamentais – e as imbricações deste com o populismo de direita estadunidense. Utilizando-se de uma abordagem afetiva inspirada pelos trabalhos de Sara Ahmed e Ty Solomon, o trabalho pretende observar como a crença em conspirações como a da Terra Plana possui uma dimensão emocional, que opera em linhas cruzadas aos afetos que circulam ao redor do populismo de direita contemporâneo, especialmente aquele liderado por Donald Trump nos Estados Unidos. Assim, o trabalho observa as imbricações entre o negacionismo científico e o populismo de direita, e as relações discursivas e emocionais entre ambos os grupos, de forma a levantar um debate sobre o caráter inerentemente político da ciência, sobre as formas pelas quais a verdade é manipulada no cenário político atual, e sobre como as emoções são cruciais para entender a aderência de sujeitos a qualquer movimento ou discurso político. / [en] This work seeks to investigate the emotional dimension of science denial through the case of the Flat Earth movement – a group of people who believe in a theory where the planet Earth is actually a flat disk, and the heliocentric model is a conspiracy orchestrated by scientific and governmental organizations – and the imbrications of this movement with American right-wing populism. By taking an affective approach inspired by the works of Sara Ahmed and Ty Solomon, the dissertation seeks to observe how the belief in conspiracies like Flat Earth has an emotional dimension to it, which crosses the same emotional paths as those of the affects that circulate around contemporary right-wing populism, especially the branch of it spearheaded by Donald Trump in the United States. Therefore, the work observes the interweaving between science denial and right-wing populism, and the discursive and emotional relations that these groups share, as to raise questions and discussions about the inherently political character of science, about the ways in which truth is manipulated in our current political spaces, and about how emotions are crucial to understand subjects adherence to any political movement or discourse.

No description available.

Experiments in high energy density (HED) plasma physics have become more accessible with the increasing availability of high-intensity pulsed lasers. Extending the experiment parameters to include magnetized HED plasmas requires a field source that can generate fields of order 100 tesla. This dissertation discusses the design and implementation of a pulsed field driver with a designed maximum of 2.2 MA from a 160 kJ capacitor bank. Faraday rotation measurement of 63 T for a 1.0 MA discharge supported Biot-Savart estimates for a single-turn coil with a 1 cm bore. After modification, the field driver generated up to 15 T to magnetize supernova-like spherical blast waves driven by the Texas Petawatt Laser. The presence of the high field suppressed blast wave expansion, and had the additional effect of revealing a cylindrical plasma along the laser axis. / text

De nos jours la culbute est la technique de virage crawl unanimement employée par les nageurs de compétition. Elle se décompose en cinq phases principales : l’approche, le retournement, le contact avec le mur (composé du placement et de la poussée), la phase sous-marine (composée de la glisse et de la coulée) et la reprise de nage. Dans le cadre d’une première collaboration entre le Laboratoire de Mécanique Physique de Bordeaux et le service recherche de la Fédération Française de Natation, cette étude s’est appuyée sur un protocole complet d’analyse sous-marine 3D qui a permis d’évaluer l’ensemble des paramètres cinématiques et dynamiques de la performance. Une double analyse comparative a montré que le niveau d’expertise et le genre ont un effet sur la performance au virage. Les nageuses de niveaux différents se différencient entre-elles par des vitesses en approche et en fin de poussée plus élevées pour les expertes qui adoptent une position plus profilée tout au long du contact. À haut niveau, les nageurs se différencient des nageuses au début du retournement par une vitesse plus élevée puis lors de la poussée où ils produisent un pic de force horizontale plus élevé et obtiennent un gain de vitesse en conséquence.L’utilisation de la méthode Lasso a permis d’établir deux modèles experts de la performance au virage. Chez les nageuses expertes, le modèle a révélé l’importance de l’impulsion latérale pendant le placement, paramètre nouveau qui pourrait être représentatif de la vrille exécutée. Chez les nageurs experts, les meilleurs virages sont réalisés par anticipation du retournement. Le mur est impacté dans une position corporelle peu fléchie ce qui favorise une extension rapide mais crée peu de vitesse. Le trajet parcouru par les meilleurs est court et optimisé. Cette étude illustre l’intérêt d’une analyse 3D du virage culbute crawl : en dynamique d’une part, l’utilisation d’une plateforme de force 3D permettant de distinguer les phases de placement et de poussée et probablement aussi le mouvement de vrille ; en cinématique d’autre part, avec l’importance de la trajectoire parcourue sur la performance au virage des nageurs experts. Par delà cette étude du virage, la conception, la réalisation et l’utilisation de nouveaux outils dédiés à l’analyse du mouvement en natation permet aujourd’hui de proposer au sportif une aide à la performance en phase avec ses objectifs. De part un enrichissement de la connaissance des différentes techniques utilisées par les experts et les non-experts, cette étude devrait également permettre d’améliorer l’enseignement des virages de haut-niveau. / Nowadays the tumble turn is the turn technique embraced by all freestyle competitive swimmers. It consists of five main phases: the approach, the rotation, the wall contact (with braking and push-off sub phases), the underwater phase (with glide and underwater propulsion sub phases), and the resumption of swimming.Within the first collaboration between the Laboratoire de Mécanique Physique of Bordeaux and the research department of the Fédération Française de Natation, this study relied on a comprehensive protocol for 3D underwater analysis that allowed assessing all kinematic and dynamic variables of performance.A double comparative analysis showed that both the level of expertise and the gender have effects on the turn performance. Female swimmers of various levels differ by higher approach and push-off speeds for the experts who are more streamlined throughout the contact. At a high level, male swimmers differ from female swimmers first by higher speed at the beginning of the rotation and also by producing more horizontal force at the push-off peak, directly resulting in a higher speed.The use of the Lasso method made it possible to establish two models for the expert turn performance. For female swimmers, the model revealed the role of lateral momentum during the braking phase, a new parameter that could be representative of the twist executed. For male swimmers, the best turns are swum when the rotation is anticipated. The wall is reached with a slightly flexed posture that results in a fast extension but also creates a slow speed. The best swimmers’ trajectories are short and optimized.This study showed the importance of a 3D analysis of the crawl tumble turn: on one hand the dynamic analysis, with the use of a 3D force platform that makes easier the distinction between the braking and the push-off phases, and probably also gives insights into the twist movement; on the other hand the kinematic analysis, with the importance of the length of the swum path on the turn performance.Beyond this study of the turn, the design, the implementation and the use of new tools devoted to motion analysis in swimming can now offer athletes assistance in line with their objectives. By increasing the knowledge of different techniques used by experts and non-experts swimmers, this study should also improve the teaching of high-performance turns.

A perennial challenge in efforts to deal with environmental issues is the question of how to simplify. As such, where and when one simplifies is often a source of conflict, but perversely also paramount to finding a solution. This thesis focuses on one long-standing environmental issue, the whaling debate. Specifically, it performs a strategically sited microethnography of Faroese whaling, grindadráp, exploring linkages between actions on local and international scales. This thesis aims to contribute to environmental sociological efforts to analyse and resolve complex socio-environmental problems. The five papers that together constitute this thesis collectively provide a description of grindadráp from the local scale of the bays where pilot whales are killed to the international forums where whaling as a whole remains an issue at the heart of an on-going, deadlocked conflict. Primarily based on three months’ fieldwork in the Faroe Islands, this thesis combines observation, interviews, media and other literature. The theoretical lenses employed are that of the ‘ontological turn’ and the ‘theory of sociocultural viability’ (cultural theory). The former utilised as a tool for ethnographic practice with the latter used to analyse how different perspectives on reality manifest throughout the whaling conflict. This thesis demonstrates that grindadráp has changed through time as a result of the interactions between actors with different views on the matter at hand. However, in contrast to the global whaling debate, this interaction has been mostly constructive, with appropriate changes in practice ensuring grindadráp’s continued popularity within the Faroe Islands. Furthermore, its continuation will likely depend on grindadráp’s continued ability to balance different perspectives. This thesis thus echoes environmental sociological calls for improved dialogue in the framing and resolution of environmental disputes, suggesting that cultural theory provides a tool that balances relativism and pragmatism in dealing with complex environmental problems.

Le ribozyme VS de Neurospora catalyse des réactions de clivage et de ligation d’un lien phosphodiester spécifique essentielles à son cycle de réplication. Il est formé de six régions hélicales (I à VI), qui se divisent en deux domaines, soit le substrat (SLI) et le domaine catalytique (tiges II à VI). Ce dernier comprend deux jonctions à trois voies qui permettent de reconnaître le substrat en tige-boucle de façon spécifique. Ce mode de reconnaissance unique pourrait être exploité pour cibler des ARN repliés pour diverses applications. Bien que le ribozyme VS ait été caractérisé biochimiquement de façon exhaustive, aucune structure à haute résolution du ribozyme complet n’a encore été publiée, ce qui limite la compréhension des mécanismes inhérents à son fonctionnement. Précédemment, une approche de divide-and-conquer a été initiée afin d’étudier la structure des sous-domaines importants du ribozyme VS par spectroscopie de résonance magnétique nucléaire (RMN) mais doit être complétée. Dans le cadre de cette thèse, les structures de la boucle A730 et des jonctions III-IV-V et II-III-VI ont été déterminées par spectroscopie RMN hétéronucléaire. De plus, une approche de spectroscopie RMN a été développée pour la localisation des ions divalents, tandis que diverses approches de marquage isotopique ont été implémentées pour l’étude d’ARN de plus grandes tailles. Les structures RMN de la boucle A730 et des deux jonctions à trois voies révèlent que ces sous-domaines sont bien définis, qu’ils sont formés de plusieurs éléments structuraux récurrents (U-turn, S-turn, triplets de bases et empilement coaxial) et qu’ils contiennent plusieurs sites de liaison de métaux. En outre, un modèle du site actif du ribozyme VS a été construit sur la base des similarités identifiées entre les sites actifs des ribozymes VS et hairpin. Dans l’ensemble, ces études contribuent de façon significative à la compréhension de l’architecture globale du ribozyme VS. De plus, elles permettront de construire un modèle à haute résolution du ribozyme VS tout en favorisant de futures études d’ingénierie. / The Neurospora VS ribozyme catalyzes the cleavage and the ligation of a specific phosphodiester bond, which is essential for its replication cycle. It is formed of six helical regions (I to VI) that are divided in two domains: the substrate (SLI) and the catalytic domain (stems II-VI). The latter contains two three-way junctions that allow recognition of the stem-loop substrate in a specific manner. This unique mode of substrate recognition could be exploited to target folded RNAs for diverse applications. Even though the VS ribozyme has been extensively characterized biochemically, no high-resolution structure of the complete ribozyme has been published yet and this limits our mechanistic understanding. A divide-and-conquer approach was previously initiated to study the structure of the important subdomains of the VS ribozyme by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), but this approach needs to be completed. In this thesis, the structures of the A730 loop, the III-IV-V junction and the II-III-VI junction were determined by heteronuclear NMR spectroscopy. Moreover, a unique NMR approach was developed for localizing divalent metal ions, whereas several isotope-labeling strategies were implemented to facilitate the study or large RNA molecules. The NMR structures of the A730 loop and the two three-way junctions reveal that these subdomains are well defined, that they are formed by several recurrent structural elements (U-turn and S-turn motifs, base triples and coaxial stacking) and that they contain several metal-binding sites. Interestingly, structural similarities were identified between the VS and hairpin ribozymes, which allowed the modeling of the VS ribozyme active site. In summary, these studies significantly contribute to a better understanding of the global architecture of the VS ribozyme. In addition, they will allow the construction of a high-resolution model of the complete VS ribozyme and facilitate future engineering studies.

Title: Methodology of telemark skiing Aim of the study: The aim of this thesis is to create educational, methodological and motivational film, which will include design of metodology of telemark skiing. Methods: In developing this thesis, we used a combination of methods of critical analysis of documents and the author's own empirical experience with telemark skiing with the method of comparison of selected knowledge, methods and participating and uninvolved observation and cinematographic film processing method. The work is a synthesis of theoretical research and dynamic field work. Results: According to this thesis was created teaching methodology and motivational DVD that in addition to the metodology also out lines the historical aspects and current concepts of telemark skiing. The text of the thesis in theoretical part complements the DVD detailed information from the history and information about telemark equipment. Methodology of teaching in the text corresponds to the contents of the DVD. Keywords: telemark, methodology, turn, step, stance, free heel