Un aspect peu connu de la francophonie canadienne de l'Ouest: le français hexagonal

L'un des aspects les moins connus de l'histoire de la francophonie de l'Ouest canadien est sa complexité, due en grande partie au fait qu'elle découle de trois souches distinctes: premièrement les Mitchifs, descendants des premiers coureurs des bois, suivis un siècle plus tard des colons venant soit directement du Bas-Canada soit des états américains où les Canadiens s'étaient déjà établis (les états de la Nouvelle-Angleterre et certains états du Midwest), troisièmement, la présence relativement importante, dans certaines communautés rurales, de colons francophones venus de France, de Belgique et de Suisse. Ces colons sont arrivés dans l'Ouest à partir des années 1880 et ont continué de s'y installer jusqu'aux années 1930. Ces agriculteurs, éleveurs ou simples ouvriers, ont fondé plusieurs communautés où ils étaient fortement majoritaires; ailleurs, ils se sont installés dans des communautés francophones en nombre suffisant pour représenter une influence certaine et durable sur le vernaculaire local. Dans cette étude, nous nous arrêterons brièvement à l'histoire de quelques-uns de ces villages et passerons en revue les études linguistiques peu nombreuses qui se sont intéressées à ce phénomène unique au Canada.One of the little known aspects of the history of "la francophonie" in Western Canada is its inherent complexity, due largely to the fact that it is based on three distinct sources: first, the Mitchifs, descendants of the early "coureurs des bois", followed nearly a century later by colonists coming either directly from Lower Canada or from the American states where the French-Canadians had already settled (the New England states and the Midwest), and third, the relatively important presence, in a number of rural communities, of colonists from France, Belgium and Switzerland. These French-speaking colonists began arriving in the West from the 1880s on and continued doing so until the 1930s. These immigrants were mostly farmers, stockbreeders or blue collar workers and they founded a number of communities where they constituted an important majority or they settled in already established French-speaking villages in sufficient num-bers to exert a noticeable and durable influence on the local vernacular speech. In this study, we briefly review the history of a number of these communities and describe the few linguistic descriptions that have been made of this unique phenomenon in Canada

The contemporary landscape of fuel poverty research

A key aim of this special issue has been to showcase the breadth of approaches to fuel poverty research emanating from a growing international community of fuel poverty researchers and in doing so, to promote awareness of the range of disciplinary areas influencing contemporary fuel poverty research. Overcoming established disciplinary and methodological siloes represents a considerable challenge for the future of the field and may be key to offering those in policy and practice the clarity and comprehensive insights that they need to fully understand and respond effectively to the problem

Stuck at home in a cold home: the implications of Covid-19 for the fuel poor

Policies to address the impact of Covid-19 on low income energy consumers have rightly focussed on energy bills, particularly in the context of home confinement and increased energy consumption. In the longer term, however, we need policies to improve home energy standards. The evidence shows that higher standards reduce the risk of getting a respiratory illness, improve the health of those already with a respiratory illness, improve the ability of our immune systems to fight off illness and reduce the use of health services

The fate of organic matter in mangrove sediments subject to variable environmental conditions (French Guiana).

International audienceDuring the four last years, a National research Programme for Coastal Environment (PNEC) was partly devoted to the littoral of French Guiana. Several field trips allowed to sample twinned sedimentary cores from both the mangroves and the unvegetated sediments, and various vascular plants specific to these swamps. An elemental, pyrolytic and optical study of total sedimentary organic matter (OM), completed with stable isotope and molecular analyses, was carried out on these sets of samples and coupled with a study of pore waters (physico-chemical properties and dissolved organic content) collected in the mean time, during contrasted seasons. The development and age of mangrove marshes and forests was assessed by parallel studies performed by ecologists

Early diagenesis of carbohydrates and lignin in mangrove sediments subject to variable redox conditions (French Guiana).

A comparative study of lignin and neutral carbohydrate compositions, combined with C, N and δ13C analyses, was carried out on sedimentary cores, and on various vascular plant species collected in mangrove swamps of French Guiana. The main purpose of this study was to assess the diagenesis of carbohydrates and lignin in brackish to hypersaline fine-grained mangrove sediments characterized by great changes in redox conditions. Distribution of carbohydrates in sediments reflects both the lability of these compounds and their efficient recycling. They are subject to selective degradation, cellulosic glucose and xylose appearing to be the two most labile neutral sugars. In contrast a relative increase in arabinose, rhamnose, fucose and hemicellulosic glucose between plants and sediments, suggests that they may be more refractory and/or that they also derive from microbial synthesis. The total carbon from lignin-derived phenols is higher in sediments than in mangrove plants as a consequence of their rather refractory character. Nevertheless, evidence of lignin decomposition was found to be independent of local environmental conditions. The various redox processes that occur in mangrove sediments depend on plant species, stages in forest development and season. Different redox conditions induce different mechanisms for the decomposition of lignin and thus induce changes in phenol distributions. At depth, in most mangroves, an increase in (Ad/Al)v ratios and in deoxy sugars (fucose and rhamnose) content was significantly correlated with increased proportions of oxidized allochthonous organic debris deriving from the Amazonian detrital discharge, thus suggesting a specific source effect rather than a diagenesis induced change. Therefore, this study illustrates that both lignin and cellulose, derived from vascular plant debris, can be degraded in waterlogged mangrove sediments, and that their distribution depends on environmental conditions

Bounds for Tur\'anians of modified Bessel functions

Motivated by some applications in applied mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics and engineering sciences, new tight Tur\'an type inequalities for modified Bessel functions of the first and second kind are deduced. These inequalities provide sharp lower and upper bounds for the Tur\'anian of modified Bessel functions of the first and second kind, and in most cases the relative errors of the bounds tend to zero as the argument tends to infinity. The chief tools in our proofs are some ideas of Gronwall [19] on ordinary differential equations, an integral representation of Ismail [28,29] for the quotient of modified Bessel functions of the second kind and some results of Hartman and Watson [24,26,59]. As applications of the main results some sharp Tur\'an type inequalities are presented for the product of modified Bessel functions of the first and second kind and it is shown that this product is strictly geometrically concave.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figure

Spatially-resolved electronic and vibronic properties of single diamondoid molecules

Diamondoids are a unique form of carbon nanostructure best described as hydrogen-terminated diamond molecules. Their diamond-cage structures and tetrahedral sp3 hybrid bonding create new possibilities for tuning electronic band gaps, optical properties, thermal transport, and mechanical strength at the nanoscale. The recently-discovered higher diamondoids (each containing more than three diamond cells) have thus generated much excitement in regards to their potential versatility as nanoscale devices. Despite this excitement, however, very little is known about the properties of isolated diamondoids on metal surfaces, a very relevant system for molecular electronics. Here we report the first molecular scale study of individual tetramantane diamondoids on Au(111) using scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy. We find that both the diamondoid electronic structure and electron-vibrational coupling exhibit unique spatial distributions characterized by pronounced line nodes across the molecular surfaces. Ab-initio pseudopotential density functional calculations reveal that the observed dominant electronic and vibronic properties of diamondoids are determined by surface hydrogen terminations, a feature having important implications for designing diamondoid-based molecular devices.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures. to appear in Nature Material

4-Pregnen-21-ol-3,20-dione-21-(4-bromobenzenesulfonate) (NSC 88915) and related novel steroid derivatives as tyrosyl-DNA phosphodiesterase (Tdp1) inhibitors

Tyrosyl-DNA phosphodiesterase 1 (Tdp1) is an enzyme that catalyzes the hydrolysis of 3'-phosphotyrosyl bonds. Such linkages form in vivo when topoisomerase I (Top1) processes DNA. For this reason, Tdp1 has been implicated in the repair of irreversible Top1-DNA covalent complexes. Tdp1 inhibitors have been regarded as potential therapeutics in combination with Top1 inhibitors, such as the camptothecin derivatives, topotecan and irinotecan, which are used to treat human cancers. Using a novel high-throughput screening assay, we have identified the C21-substituted progesterone derivative, NSC 88915 (1), as a potential Tdp1 inhibitor. Secondary screening and cross-reactivity studies with related DNA processing enzymes confirmed that compound 1 possesses specific Tdp1 inhibitory activity. Deconstruction of compound 1 into discrete functional groups reveals that both components are required for inhibition of Tdp1 activity. Moreover, the synthesis of analogues of compound 1 has provided insight into the structural requirements for the inhibition of Tdp1. Surface plasmon resonance shows that compound 1 binds to Tdp1, whereas an inactive analogue fails to interact with the enzyme. Based on molecular docking and mechanistic studies, we propose that these compounds are competitive inhibitors, which mimics the oligonucleotide-peptide Tdp1 substrate. These steroid derivatives represent a novel chemotype and provide a new scaffold for developing small molecule inhibitors of Tdp1