Universite De Lausanne Research Articles

Urine collection techniques in non-toilet trained children: Switzerland's paediatric office practices in 2022.

Urine collection techniques in non-toilet trained children: Switzerland's paediatric office practices in 2022.

The advantages and downsides of online focus groups for conducting research on addictive online behaviours.

As the coronavirus disease (COVID)-19 pandemic prompted new ways of doing research, Englund et al. [1] highlight the benefits and challenges that online experiments bring to the scientific investigation of addictive behaviours. Likewise, this commentary further reflects on how online focus groups may constitute particularly sound opportunities for studying addictive online behaviours. Over the past decade, addiction research has been marked by increasing interest in examining the potentially harmful effects of excessive involvement in new forms of online activities (e.g. video gaming, cybersexual activities, social networking and streaming of TV series) [2-4]. There have been growing calls to conduct qualitative research to better understand maladaptive involvement in online behaviours [5-9]. Qualitative research is indeed needed to avoid perpetuating a ‘confirmatory approach’ that consists in focusing merely on the similarities between online addictive disorders and substance use disorders [5-7]. Such research is about exploring the unique characteristics pertaining to these emerging and possible disorders, thereby ensuring an appropriate understanding of their genuine phenomenological nature. Given its well-established proficiency at delivering rich qualitative insights into phenomena [10-12], the focus group method can be a valuable data collection strategy for this purpose, which, in our opinion, can be strategically implemented in a remote context. Specifically, online focus groups imply that, instead of gathering participants around a table with a focus group moderator and co-moderator as in a traditional in-person discussion session, everyone meets online on video-conferencing platforms, several of which (e.g. Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Webex) are still widely used for professional purposes in the post-COVID era. As in a typical face-to-face setting, participants are invited to share their thoughts and opinions on a number of topics. The advantages of performing online over in-person focus groups overlap with those of online experiments depicted by Englund et al. [1]. Specifically, they involve three main areas of benefit: money savings, time savings and increased research accessibility. Conducting online focus groups is indeed cost-effective. Because participants are asked to simply login on the video-conferencing platforms, common barriers associated with transportation and accessibility are removed, thereby resulting in notable cost savings on facility rental, travel fees and food and beverage for participants. Free from such logistical and budgetary constraints, online focus group studies can be implemented in a more flexible and efficient manner, and therefore, completed under more optimal time periods [13]. The time saved may allow researchers to relocate their energy to maximize the added value of the study. The lack of geographical limitations to recruit online focus groups can also greatly facilitate the process of involving niche audiences, such as those generally targeted by addiction research. A more specific benefit of online focus groups lays in the way the moderator and co-moderator can take advantage of various built-in functions in the online platform to optimize data gathering. Relevant examples include the easier audio/video recording of the group discussion, which is directly manageable through the interface; the possibility of using two screens or a split screen to take notes without disrupting the simultaneous observation of participants; and the availability of time-tracking monitors that could allow the moderator to check each participant's speaking time and number of times he or she entered the debate [13]. Of particular interest is the opportunity for the moderator and co-moderator to communicate through private chat during the online group discussion. The co-moderator, who is in charge of carefully observing participants' nonverbal reactions, can, therefore, directly assist the moderator in managing the group discussion most efficiently by sharing with him or her relevant live observations about participants, which is generally not feasible in a traditional face-to-face context. Finally, the potential anonymity of online focus groups allowed by the technical possibility for participants to turn their video off is another significant advantage, because it can make them feel more comfortable and more willing to take part in discussions on topics as sensitive as problematic online behaviours. Despite these merits, performing online focus groups has two notable downsides. As in online experiments [1], one disadvantage of conducting research remotely is that the participants' environment (e.g. home, office) may not be distraction-free, which can discourage engaged discussion among focus group members. A second disadvantage is that participants' body language (i.e. gestures, eye contact) is inevitably less easy to observe in an online context than in a face-to-face one [13, 14]. Open access funding provided by Universite de Lausanne. None. Maèva Flayelle: Conceptualization. Damien Brevers: Conceptualization. Joël Billieux: Conceptualization; supervision.

Managing argatroban in heparin-induced thrombocytopenia: Aretrospective analysis of 729 treatment days in 32 patients with confirmed heparin-induced thrombocytopenia.

Managing argatroban in heparin-induced thrombocytopenia: Aretrospective analysis of 729 treatment days in 32 patients with confirmed heparin-induced thrombocytopenia.

Profile of Joachim Frank, Richard Henderson, and Jacques Dubochet, 2017 Nobel Laureates in Chemistry

In 2017, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to three key pioneers in the birth and development of cryoelectron microscopy (cryo-EM): Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank, and Richard Henderson. As a starting graduate student in England, moving from physics to biology and the study of macromolecular structure, I had the fortune of attending one of the early conferences in the, at the time, embryonic field of cryo-EM. It was 1990, and Jacques Dubochet (Fig. 1), whom I met at the conference, and coworkers (1) had provided the scientific community a few years before with a simple, highly practical way to “vitrify” solutions of biological samples that they used, for example, to visualize intact viral particles (2). Dubochet’s charming recounting of the early days in his own words can be found in a recent perspective (3). By then, there was already access to commercially available cryoholders to use standard transmission electron microscopes for the study of frozen-hydrated samples. Thus, major practical bottlenecks had already been overcome, but the cryo-EM community could still be counted on one’s fingers. That year of 1990 saw the publication of the long-time-coming atomic model of bacteriorhodopsin using electron crystallography (not quite vitrified, discussed below) by Henderson et al. (4) (Fig. 2). This publication was the needed demonstration that electrons could provide this kind of detailed structural description of radiation-sensitive biological samples. That paper became a true inspiration for me and for a whole generation of cryo-EM practitioners. Fig. 1. Jacques Dubochet. Image courtesy of Felix Imhof (photographer), © Universite de Lausanne (UNIL). Fig. 2. Richard Henderson. Image courtesy of Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology. While there was a very long history of the electron microscope’s use to visualize both cellular ultrastructure and molecular architecture, few were aware, at the time, of the capabilities of the technique to … [↵][1]1Email: enogales{at}lbl.gov. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

New Year Editorial 2015

Curt Wentrup was educated at the University of Copenhagen (Cand. Scient. 1966 with K. A. Jensen; D.Sc. 1976) and the Australian National University (Ph.D. 1969 with W. D. Crow). After post-doctoral periods with Hans Dahn (Lausanne), W. M. Jones (Gainesville, FL) and Maitland Jones, Jr (Princeton, NJ), he held academic positions at the Universite de Lausanne, Switzerland, and a professorship at the Universitat Marburg, Germany, before returning to Australia in 1985 as Professor and Chair of Organic Chemistry and Head of the Organic Chemistry Section at the University of Queensland, where he is now Emeritus Professor. Since 2008, he has been the editor-in-chief of the Australian Journal of Chemistry, and he is the immediate-past chair of the National Committee for Chemistry. He has published over 350 research papers, reviews, and books on reactive intermediates and unusual molecules. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, and a recipient of the Centenary Medal of the Australian Commonwealth (2003), the David Craig Medal of the Academy of Science as well as the A. J. Birch Medal of the RACI (2014). He collaborates strongly with research groups in Europe and was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Universite de Pau, France, in 2014.

Five decades of invasion genetics.

Five decades of invasion genetics.

New Year Editorial 2014

Curt Wentrup was educated at the University of Copenhagen (Cand. Scient. 1966; D.Sc. 1976) and the Australian National University (Ph.D. 1969). After post-doctoral periods with Hans Dahn (Lausanne), W. M. Jones (Gainesville, FL), and Maitland Jones, Jr (Princeton), he held an assistant professorship at the Universite de Lausanne, Switzerland, and a professorship at the Universitat Marburg, Germany, before returning to Australia in 1985 as Professor and chair of organic chemistry and head of the organic chemistry section at the University of Queensland, where he is now Emeritus Professor. Since 2008, he has been the editor-in-chief of the Australian Journal of Chemistry, and since 2009 chair (now immediate-past chair) of the National Committee for Chemistry of the Australian Academy of Science. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and has published over 300 research papers. His interests are in the fields of both experimental and computational chemistry of reactive intermediates and unusual molecules using photochemistry, flash vacuum thermolysis, andmicrowave-induced chemical reactions; in particular, chemistry of nitrenes, carbenes, nitrile ylides, and nitrile imines, pericyclic rearrangements of cyanates, isocyanates, thioand isothiocyanates, and nitrile oxides and sulfides, and the chemistry of extended cumulenes. He collaborates extensively with groups in Australia and Europe, and frequently holds visiting professorships in Europe.

New Year Editorial 2013

Curt Wentrup was educated at the University of Copenhagen (Cand. Scient. 1966; D.Sc. 1976) and the Australian National University (Ph.D. 1969). After post-doctoral periods with Hans Dahn (Lausanne), W. M. Jones (Gainesville, FL), and Maitland Jones, Jr (Princeton), he held an assistant professorship at the Universite de Lausanne, Switzerland, and a professorship at the Universitat Marburg, Germany, before returning to Australia in 1985 as Professor and chair of organic chemistry and head of the organic chemistry section at the University of Queensland, where he is now Emeritus Professor. Since 2008 he is editor-in-chief of the Australian Journal of Chemistry, and since 2009 chair of the National Committee for Chemistry of the Australian Academy of Science. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and has published over 300 research papers. His interests are in the fields of both experimental and computational chemistry of reactive intermediates and unusual molecules using photochemistry, flash vacuum thermolysis, and microwave-induced chemical reactions, in particular chemistry of nitrenes, carbenes, nitrile ylides and nitrile imines, pericyclic rearrangements of cyanates, isocyanates, thioand isothiocyanates, and nitrile oxides and sulfides, and the chemistry of extended cumulenes. He collaborates extensively with groups in Australia and Europe and frequently holds visiting professorships in Europe.

Economy is not sacrificed in ultramarathon runners

to the editor: It was recently ([8][1]) stated that several factors might explain that ultramarathon performance would rely to a higher fraction of Vo2max (F) sustained at the expense of running energy cost (Cr) compared with shorter distances. So the “sacrificed” economy would be lower in

EARLY DETECTION OF PSYCHOSIS IN GENERAL PRACTICE

Philipe Conus, Martin Lambert, Sue M Cotton, Charles Bonsack, Patrick D. McGorry, Benno G. Schimmelmann Treatment and early Intervention in Psychosis Program (TIPP), Departement Universitaire de Psychiatrie Adulte, Universite de Lausanne Lausanne Switzerland; Orygen Youth Health and Research Centre, Centre for Youth Mental Health, University of Melbourne Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; Psychosis Early Detection and Intervention Centre (PEDIC), Centre for Psychosocial Medicine, Department for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf Hamnburg Germany; Childand Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Bern Bern Switzerland

Paving the way for synthetic biology‐based bioremediation in Europe

Paving the way for synthetic biology‐based bioremediation in Europe

The Australian Journal of Chemistry - Its New Publishing Concept

Curt Wentrup was born in Denmark and educated at the University of Copenhagen (Cand. Scient. 1966 with Prof. K. A. Jensen; DSc 1976), and the Australian National University, Canberra (PhD 1969 with Prof. W. D. Crow). After postdoctoral work with Prof. H. Dahn at the Universite de Lausanne, Switzerland, and a junior faculty position at the same institution, he was appointed professor of organic chemistry at the Universit t Marburg (1976-85) before taking up the Chair of Organic Chemistry at The University of Queensland in 1985. In 2008 he was appointed Emeritus Professor at The University of Queensland. He is a Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute, was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2000, and received the Centenary Medal of the Australian Commonwealth in 2001. He serves or has served on the editorial or advisory boards of a number of journals and has been the organizer or co-organizer of numerous national and international conferences and symposia, including the well-known Heron Island Conferences on Reactive Intermediates and Unusual Molecules. He collaborates extensively with groups in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Singapore, and Switzerland. His research interests are in the field of reactive intermediates, particularly nitrenes, carbenes, zwitterions, and ylides (R-: N:, R(2)C:, and R-CN(+)-X-) and cumulenes (ketenes, ketenimines, and iminopropadienonesRN=C=C=C=O). This research employs flash vacuum thermolysis (FVT), photochemistry, matrix isolation, and in recent years has included microwave-induced thermal chemistry as an alternative to FVT. This technique offers much potential for the application of reactive intermediates in organic synthesis.

Transatlantic voices: interpretations of Native North American literatures

Introduction (Elvira Pulitano, Universite de Lausanne) I. Theoretical Crossings 1. 'They Have Stories, Don't They?': Some Doubts Regarding an Overused Theorem (Hartwig Isernhagen, Universitat Basel) 2. Plotting History: The Function of History in Native North American Literature (Bernadette Rigal-Cellard, Universite Michel de Montaigne-Bordeaux III) 3. Transculturality and Transdifference: The Case of Native America (Helmbrecht Breinig, Universitat Erlangen-Nurnberg) II. From the Early Fiction to Recent Directions: Native-European Transactions 4. American Indian Novels of the 1930s: John Joseph Mathews's Sundown and D'Arcy McNickle's The Surrounded (Gaetano Prampolini, Universita di Firenze) 5. Transatlantic Crossings: New Directions in the Contemporary Native American Novel (Brigitte Georgi-Findlay, Technische Universitat Dresden) III. Trauma, Memory, and Narratives of Healing: Native American Women Writers in a Transnational Context 6. Of Time and Trauma: The Possibilities for Narrative in Paula Gunn Allen's The Woman Who Owned the Shadows (Deborah L. Madsen, Universite de Geneve) 7. 'keep wide awake in the eyes': Seeing Eyes in Wendy Rose's Poetry (Kathryn Napier Gray, University of Plymouth, UK) 8. Anamnesiac Mappings: National Histories and Transnational Healing in Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead (Rebecca Tillett, University of East Anglia, Norwich) IV. Comparative Mythologies, Transatlantic Journeys: Native American Re-inventions of Europe 9. Vizenor's Trickster Theft: Pretexts and Paratexts of Darkness in Saint Louis's Bearheart (Paul Beekman Taylor, Universite de Geneve) 10. 'June walked over it like water and came home': Cross-cultural Symbolism in Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine and Tracks (Mark Shackleton, University of Helsinki) 11. Encounters Across Time and Space: The Sacred, the Profane, and the Political in Linda Hogan's Power (Yonka Krasteva, Velikotarnovski Universitet (University of Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria)) 12. Double Translation: James Welch's The Heartsong of Charging Elk (Ulla Haselstein, Freie Universitat, Berlin) 13. Clown, Indians, and Poodles: Spectacular Others in Louis Owens's I Hear the Train (Simone Pellerin, Universite Paul Valery-Montpellier III) 14. Oklahoma International: Jim Barnes, Poetry, and the Sites Of Imagination (A. Robert Lee, Nihon University, Tokyo (formerly of the University of Kent, Canterbury))

Le berger et son troupeau. Prieurs et curés d'Ayent en conflit (diocèse de Sion, 15 ème siècle) (review)

Le berger et son troupeau. Prieurs et cures d'Ayent en conflit (diocese de Sion, 15^sup eme^ siecle). By Lionel Dorthe. [Cahiers lausannois d'histoire medievale, vol. 40.] (Lausanne: Universite de Lausanne. 2007. Pp. 363 ; 20 maps and illustrations. euro24,00 paperback.) The title of this work is borrowed from the Parable of the Good Shepherd (John 10:1). It is evoked by the of Ayent in the 1483 trial opposing him to the local prior, accused of stealing ewes that were in fact likened to the parishioners. To fully understand this antagonism, one must go back in time. The Saint Roman Church in Ayent is already mentioned in Pope Pascal II's buE in February 1107 favoring the Benedictine Abbey of Ainay (Province of Lyons). However, the priory will be mentioned only in 1288, the Ayent parish in 1289, and the local in 1295. The close overlap of these mentions allowed the set-up of a Benedictine priory as well as a new parish toward the middle of the thirteenth century. At that time, the priest was in reality the prior's vicar. The prior himself did not reside at all times and assumed many other clerical duties, at the Roman Curia in particular. The first commendatory prior (1370) was also prior of Saint Peter of Clages. This situation became quite frequent and obliged him to delegate his parochial obligations to a vicar, either monk or secular priest. The coexistence of the Benedictine prior and of the vicar, who was in fact the parish priest, led to serious conflicts and trials in the fifteenth century. In 1452, the first of these procedures was introduced by the priest Pierre Ardi against the prior Henri de Cabanis about the bequest of a parishioner that the latter had appropriated to himself. In 1453, a sentence was rendered to the prejudice of the prior, who then appealed to the archbishop of Tarentaise.Another sentence was handed down by Bishop Henri Asperlin in 1454, which allotted the incomes of the Saint Antoine altar and the administration of the sacraments to the priest.The hostilities, however, did not cease. A new sentence was pronounced in 1457 by the above-mentioned bishop, confirming the previous one and giving all the offerings (oblationes) to the priest. To the detriment of the prior, the Pierre Ardi was allotted the largest part of the parish's profits. In 1475, a new priest, Laurent Aprini, was nominated by the prior Henri de Cabanis. The new turned out to be the most tenacious adversary of the successor of Henri de Cabanis, the prior Vincent Benedict!. Not surprisingly, the latter questioned the sentence of 1457. …

Dynamin in fission and fusion

The same GTPase that tears membranes apart is needed to put them back together, based on results from Christopher Peters, Andreas Mayer, and colleagues (Universite de Lausanne, Switzerland). The dual regulation may ensure that only one of the two competing processes goes on at any one time. Figure Without dynamin, yeast vacuoles have both fission and fusion failures. The Swiss group finds that yeast cells lacking the dynamin homologue Vps1p resemble both fission and fusion mutants. The effects were seen in the morphology of the vacuoles, where Vps1p was localized. Some cells had a single enlarged vacuole, whereas others had many small vacuolar fragments. The two phenotypes were seen because Vps1p functions in both pathways. As expected given dynamin's known fission activity, vacuole fragmentation in response to salt stress was disrupted in the mutant. But vacuole fusion reactions also required Vps1p, which was found to interact with the Vam3p t-SNARE. Vps1p recruited the t-SNARE into large membrane complexes containing multiple copies of both proteins. This organization favors fragmentation, since dynamin polymers are the fission-active form. At the same time, fusion was inhibited until Vps1p was released from the vacuole membrane, suggesting that the Vps1p-bound t-SNARE is inactive. The release of Vps1p was controlled by the t-SNARE and its ATPase chaperone, NSF. How NSF is regulated to support or limit fission remains to be addressed. The linking of dynamin with the fusion machinery may prevent repeated futile cycles of fission and fusion. “Intuitively, [this counter-regulation] makes sense,” says Mayer. “When a vesicle is pinched off, SNAREs must be incorporated to make it fusogenic for future reactions. So why are they not active while pinching is going on?” Silencing the t-SNAREs at the site of fission by dynamin's intervention is one way to solve this problem. As vps1 mutants were deficient in vacuole fusion, dynamin must also somehow promote fusion, perhaps by organizing cooperative t-SNARE complexes. Dynamin release from the vacuole might also induce necessary conformational changes in the t-SNARE. Reference: Peters, C., et al. 2004. Cell. 119:667–678. [PubMed]

On the non-thermal high energy radiation of galaxy clusters

Institute de Physique Theorique, Universite de Lausanne, BSP 1015 Lausanne, SwitzerlandReceived / AcceptedAbstract. The origin of the nonthermal EUV and hard X-ray emission “excess” reported from some galaxyclusters has been intensively debated over last several years. The most favored models which refer this excessto relativistic electrons upscattering the 2.7 K CMBR generally requires very low magnetic field, significantlybelow the estimates derived from the Faraday Rotation Measurements, unless one invokes rather nonstandardassumptions concerning the energy and pitch angle distributions of nonthermal electrons. In this paper we suggesta new model assuming that the “nonthermal” excess is due to synchrotron radiation of ultrarelativistic (multi-TeV) electrons of “photonic” origin. These electrons are continuously introduced throughout the entire intraclustermedium by very high energy (hypothetical) γ-rays through interactions with the diffuse extragalactic radiationfields. We present numerical calculations for the Coma cluster, and briefly discuss implications of the model forother galaxy clusters both in the X- and γ-ray energy domains.Key words. X-rays: galaxies: clusters – Galaxies: clusters: individual: Coma – Gamma rays: theory

Trente ans avec le diable: Une nouvelle chasse aux sorciers sur la Riviera lémanique (1477–1484) , and: Françoise sauvée des flammes? Une Valaisanne accusée de sorcellerie au XV e siècle , and: L’enfer sur terre: Sorcellerie à Dommartin (1498) (review)

Trente ans avec le diable: Une nouvelle chasse aux sorciers sur la Riviera 16manique (1477-1484). By Eva Maier. [Cahiers lausannois d'histoire medievale, Volume 17.] (Lausanne: Section d'histoire, Faculte des Lettres, Universite de Lausanne. 1996. Pp. 461. Frs. 40.-.) FranFoise sauvee des flammes? Une Valaisanne accusee de sorcellerie au XV siecle. By Sandrine Strobino. [Cahiers lausannois d'histoire medievale, Volume 18.] (Lausanne: Section d'histoire, Faculte des Lettres, Universite de Lausanne. 1996. Pp. 327. Frs. 30-.) L'enfer sur terre: Sorcellerie t4 Dommartin (1498). By Laurence Pfister. [Cahiers lausannois d'histoire medievale, Volume 20.] (Lausanne: Section d'histoire, Faculte des Lettres, Universite de Lausanne. 1997. Pp. 325.) Scholars of witchcraft have long recognized that the earliest true witchhunts in Europe took place during the fifteenth century, mainly in lands around the western Alps. Recently, a cadre of scholars at the Universite de Lausanne has undertaken a series of studies examining the surviving early trial records from that region. The three books under consideration here represent some of the fruits of these labors. Each provides a detailed account of a trial or cluster of trials, followed by extensive Latin editions and facing-page French translations of the trial records used. In general, the authors have endeavored to situate these individual cases within their particular (often highly complex) social, legal, and political contexts, and (perhaps to a lesser extent) to link them to the larger questions of the rise of witch-hunting in late medieval and early modern Europe. Eva Maier's Trente ans avec le diable is in some sense a sequel to Martine Ostorero's earlier study Folatrer avec les demons (CLHM, Vol. 15). Ostorero focused on the earliest surviving records of a major outbreak of witch-hunting in the diocese of Lausanne, occurring in Vevey in 1448. Maier explores a second outbreak along Lac Leman from 1477 until 1484. She connects these trials back to the earlier persecutions at Vevey, and the three decades between 1448 and 1477 comprise her trente ans avec le diable. Between 1477 and 1484, a dozen trials took place, of which she focuses on four particularly well documented ones. First, she outlines the evidence and events of the trials in great detail, devoting a chapter to each one. She then analyzes the trials together in terms of what they reveal about magic, demonology, and persecution in western Switzerland in the later fifteenth century. A similar approach is employed in each of the books covered here, and it has the advantage of allowing a detailed exploration of individual sources. A consequence, however, is that Maier's initial chapters are almost exclusively exposition rather than analysis. The later chapters, which do focus on comparative analysis, are then necessarily full of reiterations of information mentioned, but not fully explored, earlier. Still, putting such points of presentation aside, there is no question that both the exposition and later analysis are very competently done. Maier makes several major points. First, she stresses the importance of a standing inquisition directed by the Dominicans in Lausanne, in place by 1448 and operating for the remainder of the century. According to Maier, the existence of this permanent institution was the most critical single factor behind most of the witch-hunts in this region. This is not to say, however, that other factors were not involved. Maier suggests complex webs of familial and other social relationships underlying the trials at a local level. She also suggests several times that social and economic disruptions caused by war in the mid-1470's contributed to the particular wave of persecution beginning in 1477. Unfortunately, in her effort to give an overview of all aspects of the trials, she does not explore these areas in as much detail as they perhaps deserve, and her broader points tend to be assertions (altogether reasonable and persuasive ones, I should note) rather than fully developed arguments. …

Stravinsky and C.-F. Ramuz: A Primitive Classicism

Aside from a taste for fine paper and simple wines, there were few obvious links between Stravinsky and his Swiss literary collaborator and friend, Charles-Ferdinand Ramuz. Stravinsky was extroverted, socially adept, and direct; Ramuz was introverted, dour, and self-effacing. But from the moment they met there was an immediate empathy. Ramuz mythologized it in his famous Souvenirs sur Igor Stravinsky. Stravinsky's testament is found in the extended catalogue of works in which he invited Ramuz's collaboration.1 The close interaction between composer and poet resulted not only in an inventory of greater and lesser works, but also in a mutually evolving aesthetic. Transcending ethnic differences, Ramuz and Stravinsky enshrined both the elemental and the classic within the same aesthetic. If, at the end of his Swiss exile, Stravinsky rejected Ramuz's provincial limitations, the more literal classicism that he evolved in the twenties still owed much to the discipline and freedom from convention they had developed together. The new classicism was defined, in part, in the transposition of traditions of art into new forms. Stravinsky learned that process in the transposition of the elemental materials of folk music or peasant imagery into art.2 Furthermore, the cornerstone work of Stravinsky's new classicism is universally acknowledged as L'Histoire du soldat, the single result of the Ramuz-Stravinsky collaborations in which the writer participated fully in the determination of the work. The gentle Vaudois countryside with its cast of peasants provided the setting for most of Ramuz's fiction, but not his birth and childhood. He was born in Lausanne, on 24 September 1878, the son of a merchant. Though a burgher by birth, Ramuz was a peasant by ancestry and inclination. In the vineyards that had been tended by his mother's people for generations, on the soil that his paternal grandparents had worked, Ramuz found the sole concrete truths that he could nurture into art, and through which he envisioned the birth of a primitive classicism. Ramuz was well into adulthood before he could accept that the sensations he experienced in the Vaudois countryside were a more vital education than the strictures he dutifully accepted at the Gymnasium and Universite de Lausanne. His formal education was classical and doctrinaire. He so capably mastered composition in perfect alexandrines that he persuaded his family to allow him a career in the precarious field of literature. But the classical postures he had acquired were inadequate when the irregular rhythms of Vaudois peasant life naturally suggested a freer poetical form. As early as December 1901 Ramuz found himself questioning the necessity of rigorous discipline: What does it matter if the numerical symmetry of the syllables is always faithful, the rhymes always return, even if it is contrary to preconceived theories and my lively taste for the regular? . . . After all, all interior harmony (the word is ridiculous) being perceptible to anyone, why forbid any research out of fear of the vulgar and uncouth simply under the pretext of rules of prosody and definitive rhythm (Ramuz 1943: 63)?3 The simple recognition that a freer poetic style brought authenticity to his subject matter was not enough to free Ramuz from the metres that had become ingrained in his poetic voice. Remarkably self-aware, even during his apprenticeship, Ramuz recognized that part of his creative struggle would grow from the dichotomy within: the academic versus the elemental. On 28 April 1905 he entered in his diary: I would like to achieve pure sensation: to paint complex things with very simple words; not to describe, but to evoke, and sometimes even to go so far as to break syntax and grammar. I do not try it yet, because of the remnants of my education, but I lean that way (ibid.: 15O).4 Ten years later, through the example of a painter and in collaboration with a composer, Ramuz resolved the dichotomy within. …

Bimolecular elimination reactions: stereochemistry and the scope of conformational analysis

Abstract