Roundabout Path Research Articles

Le zoo des absents by Baqué, Joël

Reviewed by: Le zoo des absents by Baqué, Joël Warren Motte Baqué, Joël. Le zoo des absents. P.O.L, 2022. ISBN 978-2-8180-5429-1. Pp. 192. René Cormet, an accountant who has recently retired from the “Salaisons Occitanes” in Béziers, finds himself at loose ends. He is a very ordinary man, except insofar as his diet is concerned, for he eats neither meat nor fish. Not out of conviction, but simply because he cannot digest the former and he is allergic to the latter. By virtue of what he habitually buys in the supermarket (or rather, what he does not buy), and through an extraordinary concatenation of circumstances, René stumbles into the world of animal rights. He is initiated therein by a young woman named Stella, a resolute antispecist who feels that the conception of animals as inferior to humans and thus exploitable for human benefit must be countered, and ultimately overthrown. Hoping that Stella will not discover that he spent his entire career working for an industrial charcutier, René makes his way into this new milieu with interest and considerable bemusement. The fauna that he encounters therein is diverse indeed: vegetarians and vegans, moral philosophers and ethicists, committed militants from groups like “L214 Éthique & animaux,” “RWAS (Reducing Wild Animal Suffering)”, and “268 Libération animale.” The ideals and action program of those people are likewise various, and the organizations they represent are often in situations of mutual (and internal) conflict. René contemplates that dynamic from a position on the margin, consoling himself by reading La Fontaine, and by cultivating the only garden he possesses, a bonsai pine tree which provides him with “présence discrète non dépourvue de personnalité” (10). Taking things as they come, and remaining open to new practices and possibilities, René follows a roundabout path of experience that takes him well beyond what he might have imagined. He moves to Switzerland in order to serve the newly established Fondation Ménalon, whose opulence is assured by the generosity of a Californian tech giant. In the verdant, bucolic Valais, René is introduced to NextMind, “une société qui travaillait sur un ordinateur neuromorphique et s’apprêtait à réaliser un processeur entièrement biologique” (167). In his new incarnation as “René Cormet.6,” the first human quadragram, he will lead tours through the “Zoo des Absents,” peopled with quadragrams of predator species rendered extinct by virtue of their own predatory nature. The events of René’s new life are fickle enough to beggar the imagination of anyone, let alone an individual who had previously lived as uneventfully as he did. One wonders on occasion if Joël Baqué is not equally surprised at the way things unfold in his novel. It is hard to discern a narrative teleology here, apart from the fact that things progress, haltingly, toward a state of dystopia. Purporting to deal with ideas in one of its aspects at least, Le zoo des absents cannot be called a novel of ideas. Yet if one is willing, like René, to be swept along in a current of improbability, this book will provide pleasures of a different order. [End Page 203] Warren Motte University of Colorado Boulder Copyright © 2022 American Association of Teachers of French

Killing Races and Witches

Since the concept of race is scientifically nonreferential, it is tempting to think that we can simply eliminate it right away from our lexicon, from our statistical categories, from our lives. But those of us who are eliminativists about race in the long run need to take a more roundabout path in killing off this concept. Through the painstaking work of teaching our students that race, though biologically nonreferential, remains part of various systems of oppression, and engaging in open dialogue and political organization in order to make racial categories economically and politically irrelevant, the concept of race must die a slow and painful death.

Growth model for fractal scale-free networks generated by a random walk

The diversity of networked systems with fractal structures suggests that knowing the underlying mechanism that generates the fractality is necessary for building a model of the development of complex networks. In the present paper, we propose a growth model of a network generated by a random walk and show that the evolving graph forms a fractal structure with various properties including the scale-free property, if the graph which provides a space where a random walk occurs by itself is formed by the random walk. The proposed model is regulated by two parameters pv and pe, which define the probability of either a roundabout path via a new vertex or a shortcut being formed by the random walk, respectively. The power-law exponent γ describing the vertex degree distribution is determined by the ratio pe∕pv and is related to an internal factor FI via the relation γ=1∕FI+1, where FI is a parameter that describes the local structure generated by the random walk. A sufficiently small pv provides the small-world property to the model network. The small-world property is usually considered to be incompatible with the fractal scaling property Mc∼lcdc, where Mc is the average number of vertices which can be reached from a randomly chosen vertex in at most lc steps. However, we demonstrate that fractality can be reconciled with the small-world property by introducing a size-dependent fractal cluster dimension dc.

Orbital Energy-Based Reaction Analysis of SN2 Reactions

An orbital energy-based reaction analysis theory is presented as an extension of the orbital-based conceptual density functional theory. In the orbital energy-based theory, the orbitals contributing to reactions are interpreted to be valence orbitals giving the largest orbital energy variation from reactants to products. Reactions are taken to be electron transfer-driven when they provide small variations for the gaps between the contributing occupied and unoccupied orbital energies on the intrinsic reaction coordinates in the initial processes. The orbital energy-based theory is then applied to the calculations of several S N2 reactions. Using a reaction path search method, the Cl− + CH3I → ClCH3 + I− reaction, for which another reaction path called “roundabout path” is proposed, is found to have a precursor process similar to the roundabout path just before this SN2 reaction process. The orbital energy-based theory indicates that this precursor process is obviously driven by structural change, while the successor SN2 reaction proceeds through electron transfer between the contributing orbitals. Comparing the calculated results of the SN2 reactions in gas phase and in aqueous solution shows that the contributing orbitals significantly depend on solvent effects and these orbitals can be correctly determined by this theory.

Mirjam Pressler: Many, Many Peepholes

Mirjam Pressler:Many, Many Peepholes Carolin Farbmacher (bio) In describing our need for books, Mirjam Pressler has often been quoted as saying, Without books, the world remains narrowed; the possibilities for what is imaginable and thus also do-able, are limited. We need many books, many, many different books. Many little peepholes in the wall that stands between us and the ofttimes inexplicable world. ... And naturally they should not be only the ones that everyone wants to look through. That would be an irresponsible reduction of our perspectives of the world. (Pressler in Gelberg, Werkstattbuch 71) As an author and a translator, Pressler herself has created many such peepholes of highest literary quality that expand perspective and worldview. What’s more, with her kind of peepholes she stands up for the rights of the weak and disadvantaged, for religious tolerance, and against fascism, both in the past and the present. Pressler is a champion for intercultural understanding through literature. With her nomination for the shortlist of the Hans Christian Andersen Award, we have someone who excellently fulfills the IBBY mission of promoting intercultural understanding through children’s books. A Roundabout Path to Literature Pressler has described her path to literature as an accidental one. She was born in Darmstadt, Germany, in 1940, as the illegitimate child of a Jewish mother. The girl grew up in the care of non-Jewish foster parents who belonged to the lower social class, as well as in an orphanage, thus able to survive the Holocaust. Pressler grew up in intellectually narrow confines, often experiencing corporal punishment and a sense of ostracism and insecurity. Although reading was considered a waste of time, it became a secret sanctuary in her childhood. Later, Pressler studied painting and languages in Frankfurt am Main and Munich; she also spent one year living in a kibbutz in Israel. Upon returning to her native country, she married and had three daughters, whom, after her divorce, she raised alone. One of the variety of jobs she took was running her own jeans shop. When the landlord cancelled her shop’s rental contract, she decided, at the age of thirty-nine, to supplement her income from a part-time office job by writing her first young adult novel. Within the next two years, she had published five further novels. Pressler’s career as a translator began in 1983, in an equally unusual manner. On a whim after a party, she decided to translate a book from Dutch, even though she did not know the language. Hence, she could only complete the project with a dictionary and a grammar book. Since then, she has written over fifty books for children and young adults—including picture books, early readers—as well as books for adults, and she has also translated more than two hundred other works. Her anti-authoritarian novels have become part of the modern classics of German children’s and young adult literature. Often the themes and plots of her books are connected in some way with her own biography, making the stories “taste of real-life experience,” as her publisher, Hans-Joachim Gelberg has put it (Budeus-Budde: Wenn Geschichten nach Erlebtem schmecken 5). In many other countries, it is also possible to look through her peepholes: Her debut novel, Bitterschokolade [Bitter Chocolate], for example, has been translated into eighteen other languages. Mirjam Pressler is not only a tireless writer but [End Page 26] she also spends many days of the year on the road, giving author readings and meeting with her young readers. In her home city of Landshut, near Munich, she is the patron of the Landshut Youth Book Prize, which is awarded annually by the local young adult reading club. Giving a Voice to the Weak At the center of Mirjam Pressler’s books is the topic of childhood and adolescence. In her works, she does not describe a protective, idyllic picture-book world of growing up. Her books deal with the difficult side of living—with damaged childhoods, with children and young people who suffer and long only for a little happiness. Her protagonists include, for example, the overweight Eva in Bitterschokolade; the handicapped Thomas, who like his...

Productivity Improvement by Using Time and Motion Study Techniques in Lotus High Tech Company

The purpose of this research is to improve productivity in Lotus High Tech Company (LHTC). This research used time and motion study techniques to improve the production process at LHTC. The research objectives towards accomplishing this study is to identify problems in the current method and improve it in terms of production time, number of process and production layout by proposing a new method to the manufacturing product. The current method in the manufacturing of garment in the production line involved some unnecessary steps, where the materials and components take a very long and roundabout path on their journey to the workstation, which adversely affect productivity. The proposed method eliminates these steps, which reduces production time, number of processes, and the overall increase in productivity is about 72.6%.

Developing stem cells — the hard way

In a development that epitomizes the often roundabout path of progress in molecular biology, American researchers have employed a largely abandoned method — one that would be illegal in Canada — to turn human skin cells into embryonic stem cells. That method is somatic cell nuclear transfer,

Analysis of Dynamic Through Movement on Roundabout / Analýza Dynamického Průjezdu Okružní Křižovatkou

Abstract Dynamic roundabout vehicle path is according to U.S. standards one of the parameters used to prove the validity of roundabout design. Under Czech law is roundabout design verification based on possibility of roundabout design vehicle path. But the question is whether the only a verification is enough especially if traffic is increasing [1]. The article is devoted to the analysis of dynamic roundabout vehicle path. Article dealt with the speed of through movement on roundabout, depending on the radius of the characteristic roundabouts points. In situ measurements were made on selected single-lane, four-leg roundabout. The aim of this work is to evaluate selected roundabout in terms of the dynamics vehicle path and then find out how much corresponds theoretical dynamic vehicle path to the real one.

Carla AbouZahr: A Roundabout Path to Health Statistics.

Carla AbouZahr: A Roundabout Path to Health Statistics.

“With footsteps marking roundabout paths”: Jewish poetry on Crimea

Published within two years of each other in the early 1920s, the Hebrew poet Shaul Tshernikhovski’s sonnet sequence “Crimea” and the Yiddish poet Perets Markish’s sonnet sequence “Chatyr‐Dag” are important studies in the image and significance of wandering in contemporary Jewish literature. Crimea holds a powerful interest for these two poets as a locus of discussion about land and territory, about the connection (or lack thereof) of Jews to a landscape that is in a sense “beyond the Pale,” both familiar and exotic, and a place of personal escape or refuge in these poets’ own biographies. Moreover, their conscious engagement with the great Eastern European literary landmarks of Crimea –Alexander Pushkin’s “The Fountain of Bakhchisaray” and Adam Mickiewicz’s “Crimean Sonnets” – makes these important texts for understanding Jewish cultural movement in the early twentieth century.

Applicability of grid-net detection system for landfill leachate and diesel fuel release in the subsurface

The grid-net system estimating the electrical conductivity changes was evaluated as a potential detection system for the leakage of diesel fuel and landfill leachate. Aspects of electrical conductivity changes were varied upon the type of contaminant. The electrical conductivity in the homogeneous mixtures of soil and landfill leachate linearly increased with the ionic concentration of pore fluid, which became more significant at higher volumetric water contents. However, the electrical conductivity in soil/diesel fuel mixture decreased with diesel fuel content and it was more significant at lower water contents. The electrode spacing should be determined by considering the type of contaminant to enhance the electrode sensitivity especially when two-electrode sensors are to be used. The electrode sensitivity for landfill leachate was constantly maintained regardless of the electrode spacings while that for the diesel fuel significantly increased at smaller electrode spacings. This is possibly due to the fact that the insulating barrier effect of the diesel fuel in non-aqueous phase was less predominant at large electrode spacing because electrical current can form the round-about paths over the volume with relatively small diesel fuel content. The model test results showed that the grid-net detection system can be used to monitor the leakage from waste landfill and underground storage tank sites. However, for a successful application of the detection system in the field, data under various field conditions should be accumulated.

Can the Wild Tiger Survive?

HARBIN, HEILONGJIANG PROVINCE, CHINA-- China is pushing to reintroduce wild tigers, but critics say its breeding centers offer the tiger only a more roundabout path to extinction.

The Perils of Prosperity

The Perils of Prosperity João Carlos Espada (bio) Alexis de Tocqueville found that the “predominant taste” in America was “the love of well-being” or “the passion for physical well-being.” Although “all do not feel it in the same manner . . . it is felt by all. The effort to satisfy even the least wants of the body and to provide the little conveniences of life is uppermost in every mind” (II, 128). One of the dangers that Tocqueville saw in the predominance of this passion is conveyed by the title of Chapter 16 of the second book of Volume II of Democracy in America: “How Excessive Care for Worldly Welfare May Impair That Welfare.” In other words, Tocqueville thought that “if men were ever to content themselves with material objects, it is probable that they would lose by degrees the art of producing them” (II, 148). The reasoning underlying this statement is relatively simple; some observers would say it fits the present condition of our Western liberal democracies like a glove. Material prosperity is the product, and sometimes the unintended consequence, of a work ethic, freely adopted by individuals, families, and other civil institutions, that leads people to seek deferred (as opposed to instant) gratification. As prosperity increases, however, people tend to lose sight of the spiritual, mainly religious, dimension that has given meaning to deferred gratification. They then tend to adopt a logic of instant gratification. In doing this they will gradually kill “the goose that lays the golden [End Page 135] eggs”—that is, the work ethic that produced their prosperity in the first place. Is it possible for democratic nations to escape this “fatal circle”? Like Burke before him, and partly like Weber after him, Tocqueville thought that religion provided the ultimate support for an ethic of deferred gratification in a free society. Yet he was aware that religion faces erosion in an age of skepticism. And he strongly opposed any sort of state enforcement of religion: “As to state religions, I have always held that if they be sometimes of momentary service to the interests of political power, they always sooner or later become fatal to the church” (II, 147). Thus it seems that Tocqueville was facing the challenge of squaring the circle: How can one restore deferred gratification if it is mainly based on religion, which is in decline, and if governments are not supposed to try to enforce religion? Tocqueville answers that “governments must apply themselves to restore to men that love of the future with which religion and the state of society no longer inspire them” by showing that “great success stands at the utmost range of long desires, and that there is nothing lasting but what is obtained by toil” (II, 151). This lesson, however, must be taught practically and unobtrusively. Above all, governments must avoid “sudden and undeserved promotion” based on favoritism, which would foster the very logic of instant gratification that they are supposed to discourage. Governments must make sure that “all promotion will be seen as the reward of effort” (II, 151) so that the ambitious will have to plan well ahead before they reach their goal. If “philosophers and those in power” show that deferred gratification is still the key to long-term prosperity, they will encourage people to care about the future and that of their offspring, or, in other words, to raise their sights. In doing so, people would be “gradually and unconsciously brought nearer to religious convictions.” And this, Tocqueville suggests, seems to be “the only means we still possess for bringing mankind back, by a long and roundabout path, to a state of faith” (II, 151). One could say that Tocqueville’s answer is a synthesis of the ideas of John Locke, Adam Smith, and Edmund Burke. With the latter, Tocqueville emphasizes the role of religion in preserving human dignity, and he fears that a purely commercial society will lower men’s sights. But he simultaneously thinks that what Smith would call a system of natural liberty (or what Locke would call a system aimed at securing the natural rights to life, liberty, and property) encourages people to better their material condition through...

Country boy to scientist

This account is focused upon the early part of my career in order to illuminate the logistics and the culture of our science in the period 1936 to 1949. A roundabout path took me from a farm in Pennsylvania to a PhD under George Burr at Minnesota in 1939. In studying the photosynthetic competence of chlorophyll formed by the green alga Chlorella in darkness, I stumbled upon the phenomenon of photoinhibition. In a two-year postdoctorate at the Smithsonian Institution, I worked under E.D. McAlister. Our major accomplishment was in making simultaneous recordings of fluorescence and CO2 uptake during the induction period. Variations in photosynthetic behavior of Chlorella led to a study of culture conditions and a recognition of the changing conditions which occur in batch cultures. A continuous culture apparatus (turbidostat) was developed as a means of attaining steady-state growth and production of uniform experimental material. I exploited the device in work at my first (and only) position at The University of Texas in 1941 and subsequent years. Study of the CO2/O2 gas exchange ratio led to the recognition of the important role of nitrate in the photosynthetic metabolism of algae. The account ends with the 1949 American Association for the Advancement of Science symposium.

Medieval riddarasögur in adaptation from the French: Flóres saga ok Blankiflúr and Parcevals saga

Medieval riddarasogur in adaptation from the French: Fldres saga ok Blankiflur and Parcevals saga Firstiy I must mention that I came to the present topic by a rather roundabout path. I had been working on aspects of Chretien's Yvain that had proved an enigma to m e and decided to examine these same aspects in the other medieval versions of this story that derived directiy or indirecdy from Chretien to see h o w they were worked out there. In the course of this investigation I was disappointed as much as anything with the Icelandic hens saga. Subsequendy it did not altogether come as a surprise to learn of an article entitled 'Yvain-hens saga: translation or travesty?'1 I chose Fldres saga ok Blankiflur and Parcevals saga, two very different types of story, to see for m y own satisfaction whether or not these adaptations were more convincing than hens saga, or whether all three were cast in the same mould, because I am aware that assessment of the riddarasogur generaUy has been largely negative.2 One accepts, of course, that one can expect the riddarasOgur to reduce thensources considerably, especially when it comes to soliloquy, dialogue, descriptive passages - for example, of nature, the trappings of courdy society such as food, clothing, precious stones, furnishings - either because such detail did not appeal to the translator, or because he felt it would not appeal to his audience or whether his own vocabulary was inadequate to cope. And on the question of vocabulary, it is indeed the case that explanations of foreign words are not uncommon, while some words are not known outside a given saga. Also, critics have been diligent in showing where some phrase in the original has been misunderstood, or the translator has, in skipping over something, broken the continuity of his story. O n e expects also the relative lack of comment on the translator's part, the typical saga 'objectivity'. All these things will apply, of course, to the two sagas I am looking at here. At the same time it must be said that clearly both saga writers, for all their extensive alterations, keep remarkably close to their sources over long periods with at times quite literal translation. The ultimate question is, however, to what extent the adaptations can stand in their own right and on their own terms, or to what 1 By Remy Schosmann, in Les Sagas de Chevaliers (Riddarasogur). Actes de la Ve Conference Internationale sur les Sagas (Toulon. Juillet 1982), ed. Regis Boyer, Paris, 1985, 193-203. 2 See, for instance, Marianne Kalinke, Norse Romance (Riddarasogur), in Old NorseIcelandic Literature. A Critical Guide, ed. Carol J. Clover and John Lindow, Islandica 45, Ithaca and London, 1985, 316. Also, with specific reference to Parcevals saga, Paul Bibire, From riddarasaga to lygisaga: the Norse response to romance, in Les Sagas de Chevaliers, 64. 24 /. Campbell extent they remain hastily conceived and carelessly executed shortened versions of popular themes. It goes without saying, of course, that I can talk of these works only in the form in which they occur in editions that are available to me.1 I am mindful of Marianne KaUnke's warning, firsdy that 'our assessment of the thirteenth-century translations rests on the testimony of manuscripts that are geographically and chronologicaUy at some remove from their original composition'2 and, secondly, that 'the scholar who would devote himself to the riddarasogur but does not have ready access to the manuscripts is handicapped.'3 She lists the two works I have undertaken to talk about here among those that are 'not yet available in editions that meet contemporary standards."4 The French Flore et Blancheflor5 is a love story through and through, and hardly what one might think of as a roman de chevalerie, except perhaps inasmuch as Flore is knighted towards the end of the story by the Babylonian king. Fldres saga ok Blankiflur, particularly through the drastic alterations it makes to the closing stages, becomes something of what w e imagine a saga of knights to be, albeit with, as Geraldine Barnes has demonstrated, strong echoes of the Norse legends of saints, the author exploiting the not...

Embodied Truth: The Ring and the Book Reconsidered

Anyone reviewing the critical literature surrounding Robert Browning's The Ring and the Book is likely to be led at some point to ask why, given what critics assume to be Browning's goals for the poem, he seems to have taken such a peculiar, clotted, and roundabout path to their realization. If the poem is designed to convince us, say, of Pompilia's innocence, why has the poet built in so many elements that distract us not just from a conviction of such innocence but even from any steady concern with seeing it established? Why, if the poem's climax comes with the Pope's monologue, do the two books which follow do so much to complicate our sense of having arrived at the truth? When questions like these are raised at all, they are usually raised by critics who believe the answers must necessarily reflect negatively on Browning, that their needing to be raised at all calls into question not the critics' assumptions about what the poet was trying to do but the success of the work itself.

The Outlook for Thailand

T HAILAND IS a nation running on its own timetable. In contrast to the pre-World War II era, however, Thailand is no longer isolated. In one of several ways in which they can be compared with the Japanese, the Thais in recent years have easily adapted to new ways while keeping their old traditions. But inevitable exposure to the outside world, especially through an American connection never fully accepted by either side, has contributed to the dilemma confronting Thailand today. That dilemma can be simply stated. If Thailand continues with rapid political and economic modernization, it runs the risk of rending the social fabric that has held the nation together for centuries. But if, on the other hand, Thailand relies on this outdated and inevitably oppressive social order for national survival, it runs the risk of breaking apart and falling prey to the disciplined Communist order gnawing at its extremities. The situation is a little like Spain, in an Asian setting. Change in Thailand could hardly be held back after the successful, palace-backed student rebellion of October 1973, any more than it could be in Spain after the death of Franco. But the police and military power in Thailand, as in Spain, remains in the hands of feudal elements created by the ancien rigime. These elements reasserted themselves in Thailand in the military coup of October 1976. They established a government that does not appear to go all the way back to former military dictatorships, however, and that claims to have put Thailand on a more roundabout but surer path toward liberalization than the one chosen by its democratically-elected predecessor. Thailand's ability--or inability-to maintain its balance internally and externally will determine whether it ultimately conforms to some Western expectations and behaves like a domino. There is no good

The Mechanism of the Reinforcement of Rubber by Pigments

Abstract Dispersed pigment reinforces by increasing the tear resistance. Flocculated pigment hardens rubber and reinforces by increasing the resistance to cutting. It may also increase the tear resistance, but not to as great an extent as if the pigment were well wet. The mechanism of the reinforcement by increasing tear resistance is that the pigment particles act as obstacles that cause the tear to proceed in a longer path going around the particles. Due to the round-about path, the component of the force in the direction of the tear may be small. Accordingly, it is possible in the case of a fine pigment to increase the tear resistance even though the rubber-pigment bond is much weaker than the rubber itself. The hardness of a stock containing flocculated pigment is due to the rigidity of the structure assumed by the flocculated pigment. During the early moments of hot vulcanisation, rubber is semifluid and the degree of dispersion may be largely determined during this period; some of the pigments becoming dispersed and some becoming flocculated. Flocculated pigment and large particles introduce uneven stresses during the straining of rubber that lower the reinforcement below what might be expected.