Discourses of Linguistic dominance: A Historical Consideration of French Language Ideology

The paper offers a historical perspective on the linguistic and cultural imperialism embedded in the struggle to maintain French as a leading international language. France was the nation-state where the ideology of national language was first clearly formulated and directly extended to overseas colonies. This shows the close relationship between linguistic nationalism and imperialism. It was believed that French was the language of universal human reason and had the power to civilize people who spoke it. This myth of the "clarté française" and the "mission civilisatrice" had a strong influence on various kinds of metalinguistic discourses that created the taken-for-granted representation of French as dominant language. It is the essential strategy of language dominance to establish the hierarchy of languages as if it were natural order of things. When French was obliged to yield the status of international language to English, there emerged the ideology of "Francophonie" which tried to defend its privilege against the monopoly of English, but the same ideology is also directed against minorities' claims for their own linguistic human right. It could be said that these discourses form a recursive prototype of language dominance whose variations are to be found in other shapes almost all over the world.     

Comparison of support leg kinetics between side-step and cross-step cutting techniques

The purpose of this study was to investigate differences in the support leg joint moment and moment power between side-step (SS) and cross-step (CS) cutting techniques with a prescribed 90° cutting angle. Ground reaction forces (1,000 Hz) and three-dimensional kinematics (250 Hz) of SS and CS cutting techniques were collected from 20 male college athletes. Normalised peak knee extension moment was larger in the SS technique than in the CS technique (0.40 ± 0.10 in SS; 0.26 ± 0.08 in CS). In the SS technique, the knee extensors ( ? 0.10 ± 0.06 in SS; ? 0.02 ± 0.04 in CS) and ankle plantarflexors ( ? 0.12 ± 0.05 in SS; ? 0.07 ± 0.03 in CS) did significantly more negative work (normalised). The direction change angle (40.5 ± 8.7° in SS; 33.0 ± 6.8° in CS) and the decrease in horizontal velocity of the centre of mass ( ? 0.63 ± 0.23 m/s in SS; ? 0.31 ± 0.23 m/s in CS) were significantly larger in the SS technique. These results suggest that the SS technique is an effective means of changing running direction at the expense of velocity of the centre of mass and that the CS technique is better for minimising the reduction in horizontal velocity of the centre of mass.     

A microfluidic device for on-chip agarose microbead generation with ultralow reagent consumption

Water-in-oil microdroplets offer microreactors for compartmentalized biochemical reactions with high throughput. Recently, the combination with a sol-gel switch ability, using agarose-in-oil microdroplets, has increased the range of possible applications, allowing for example the capture of amplicons in the gel phase for the preservation of monoclonality during a PCR reaction. Here, we report a new method for generating such agarose-in-oil microdroplets on a microfluidic device, with minimized inlet dead volume, on-chip cooling, and in situ monitoring of biochemical reactions within the gelified microbeads. We used a flow-focusing microchannel network and successfully generated agarose microdroplets at room temperature using the “push-pull” method. This method consists in pushing the oil continuous phase only, while suction is applied to the device outlet. The agarose phase present at the inlet is thus aspirated in the device, and segmented in microdroplets. The cooling system consists of two copper wires embedded in the microfluidic device. The transition from agarose microdroplets to microbeads provides additional stability and facilitated manipulation. We demonstrate the potential of this method by performing on-chip a temperature-triggered DNA isothermal amplification in agarose microbeads. Our device thus provides a new way to generate microbeads with high throughput and no dead volume for biochemical applications.     

Multiscale fabrication of a transparent circulation type blood vessel simulator

We proposed and fabricated multiscale transparent arteriole and capillary vessel models with circular cross sections of 10-500 μm using photolithography. The circularities of the fabricated 10, 50, and 500 μm diameter microchannels were 84.0%, 61.5%, and 82.3%, respectively. Next, we connected these different models to realize a circulation type blood vessel model simulating arteriole networks. We proposed a novel connection method using an intermediate connector made of wax, which we used to connect these models to make a circulation model. In flow experiments, the fabricated models showed no leakage and circulation models with seamless connections were achieved.     

Effects of work-matched supramaximal intermittent vs. submaximal constant-workload warm-up on all-out effort power output at the end of 2 minutes of maximal cycling

We tested the hypothesis that work-matched supramaximal intermittent warm-up improves final-sprint power output to a greater degree than submaximal constant-intensity warm-up during the last 30?s of a 120-s supramaximal exercise simulating the final sprint during sports events lasting approximately 2?min. Ten male middle-distance runners performed a 120-s supramaximal cycling exercise consisting of 90?s of constant-workload cycling at a workload corresponding to 110% maximal oxygen uptake (VO_2max) followed by 30?s of maximal-effort cycling. This exercise was preceded by 1) no warm-up (Control), 2) a constant-workload cycling warm-up at a workload of 60%VO_2max for 6?min and 40?s, or 3) a supramaximal intermittent cycling warm-up for 6?min and 40?s consisting of 5 sets of 65?s of cycling at a workload of 46%VO_2max?+?15?s of supramaximal cycling at a workload of 120%VO_2max. By design, total work was matched between the two warm-up conditions. Supramaximal intermittent and submaximal constant-workload warm-ups similarly increased 5-s peak (590?±?191 vs. 604?±?215W, P?=?0.41) and 30-s mean (495?±?137 vs. 503?±?154W, P?=?0.48) power output during the final 30-s maximal-effort cycling as compared to the no warm-up condition (5-s peak: 471?±?165W; 30-s mean: 398?±?117W). VO₂ during the 120-s supramaximal cycling was similarly increased by the two warm-ups as compared to no-warm up (P?≤?0.05). These findings show that work-matched supramaximal intermittent and submaximal constant-workload warm-ups improve final sprint (～30?s) performance to similar extents during the late stage of a 120-s supramaximal exercise bout.     

Bile canaliculi formation by aligning rat primary hepatocytes in a microfluidic device

In this study, we propose a microfluidic cell culture device mimicking the microscopic structure in liver tissue called hepatic cords. The cell culture area of the device was designed to align hepatocytes in two lines in a similar way to hepatic cords. Thanks to the structural design together with a cell seeding procedure, rat primary hepatocytes were successfully aligned in two lines and cultured under perfusion condition. It is shown that aligned hepatocytes gradually self-organize and form bile canaliculi along the hepatic cord-like structure. The present technique to culture hepatocytes with functional bile canaliculi could be used as an alternative to animal testing in the field of drug discovery and toxicological studies, and also be beneficial to tissue engineering applications.     

Discourses of Linguistic dominance: A Historical Consideration of French Language Ideology

The paper offers a historical perspective on the linguistic and cultural imperialism embedded in the struggle to maintain French as a leading international language. France was the nation-state where the ideology of national language was first clearly formulated and directly extended to overseas colonies. This shows the close relationship between linguistic nationalism and imperialism. It was believed that French was the language of universal human reason and had the power to civilize people who spoke it. This myth of the "clarté française" and the "mission civilisatrice" had a strong influence on various kinds of metalinguistic discourses that created the taken-for-granted representation of French as dominant language. It is the essential strategy of language dominance to establish the hierarchy of languages as if it were natural order of things. When French was obliged to yield the status of international language to English, there emerged the ideology of "Francophonie" which tried to defend its privilege against the monopoly of English, but the same ideology is also directed against minorities' claims for their own linguistic human right. It could be said that these discourses form a recursive prototype of language dominance whose variations are to be found in other shapes almost all over the world.     

The preparatory state of ground reaction forces in defending against a dribbler in a basketball 1-on-1 dribble subphase

We previously demonstrated the relationship between sidestepping performance and the preparatory state of ground reaction forces (GRFs). The present study investigated the effect of the preparatory state of GRFs on defensive performance in 1-on-1 subphase of basketball. Ten basketball players participated in 1-on-1 dribble game of basketball. The outcomes (penetrating and guarding) and the preparatory state of GRFs (non-weighted and weighted states, i.e. vertical GRFs below and above 120% of body weight, respectively) were assessed by separating the phases. In the non-weighted state and the weighted state to determine the outcome, the probability of successful guarding was 78.8% and 29.6%, respectively. The non-weighted state prevented delay of the defensive step in the determination phase. Both the non-weighted and weighted states, immediately before the determination phase, were likely to change to the weighted state in the determination phase; during this time, the defender's preparatory state would be destabilised, presumably by the dribbler's movement. These results revealed that the preparatory GRFs before the defensive step help to explain the outcome of the 1-on-1 subphase, and suggest a better way to prevent delaying initiation of the defensive step and thereby to guard more effectively against a dribbler.     

An electroactive microwell array for trapping and lysing single-bacterial cells

Interest in single-cell analysis has increased because it allows to understand cell metabolism and characterize disease states, cellular adaptation to environmental changes, cell cycles, etc. Here, the authors propose a device to electrically trap and lyse single-bacterial cells in an array format for high-throughput single-cell analysis. The applied electric field is highly deformed and concentrated toward the inside of the microwell structures patterned on the planar electrode. This configuration effectively generates dielectrophoretic force to attract a single cell per well. The microwell has a comparable size to the target bacterial cell making it possible to trap single cells by physically excluding additional cells. Inducing highly concentrated electric potential on the cell membrane can also effectively lyse the trapped single-bacterial cells. The feasibility of the authors' approach was demonstrated by trapping and lysing Escherichia coli cells at the single-cell level. The present microwell array can be used as a basic tool for individual bacterial cell analysis.