Science & Mathematics

Ce rapport analyse les effets concrets du versement de l’Allocation pour Demandeurs d’Asile (Ada) via une carte de paiement ne permettant ni le retrait d’espèces ni les paiements en ligne. À partir d’entretiens menés auprès d’une cinquantaine de demandeur·es d’asile et de professionnel·les de l’accompagnement, il décrit la façon dont la carte Ada engendre des contraintes au quotidien pour ses titulaires. Privés de liquidités et de moyens de paiement ordinaires, ces derniers rencontrent de nombreuses difficultés pour accéder aux biens et services les moins coûteux : marchés de plein vent, épiceries solidaires, commerce informel, achats de seconde main ou offres promotionnelles en ligne. L’impossibilité de payer en espèces ou sur internet limite l’accès à des circuits d’approvisionnement particulièrement mobilisés lorsque les ressources sont faibles. Elle complique également la prise en charge de dépenses ordinaires de faible montant (laverie, boulangerie, cautions, frais scolaires), centrales dans la vie quotidienne. Le rapport montre que les usager·es développent des stratégies d’adaptation visant à obtenir de l’argent liquide : recours à des proches ou à des tiers inconnus, paiement des achats d’autrui en échange d’espèces, solutions marchandes plus ou moins formalisées, etc. Ces pratiques, loin d’être marginales, constituent des arrangements ordinaires produits par l’impossibilité d’accéder directement à son allocation. Elles s’accompagnent fréquemment de pertes financières, de commissions obtenues en raison de rapports de force défavorables, exposant les titulaires de la carte à des formes de prélèvements monétaires informels. L’extorsion monétaire dont ils font l’objet est un effet prévisible des restrictions techniques du dispositif, variable selon l’isolement social, les ressources relationnelles et la connaissance des pratiques locales. Au-delà des contraintes matérielles, le rapport met en lumière les effets sociaux et symboliques de la carte Ada : difficultés à « faire comme tout le monde », dépendance accrue à l’entourage, expériences de mise à l’écart lors des paiements et réduction des marges de manœuvre. En conclusion, le rapport associe la carte Ada d’autres dispositifs d’aide fléchée, à l’instar des food stamps étatsuniens. Comme d’autres instruments, la carte Ada repose sur une logique de disciplinarisation des usages de l’aide, visant à orienter et limiter les dépenses jugées légitimes. Toutefois, loin de garantir une meilleure protection ou une gestion plus efficace des budgets, ce type de dispositif engendre des effets contre-productifs lorsque les montants alloués sont faibles et les situations de vie fortement contraintes. En restreignant les formes d’accès à l’argent plutôt qu’en élargissant les capacités de choix, la carte Ada renforce la vulnérabilité de ses titulaires.

La tremblante atypique a été découverte suite à l'intensification du dépistage des encéphalopathies spongiformes transmissibles des petits ruminants. Les premiers éléments disponibles suggéraient que cette forme pourrait ne pas être d'origine infectieuse, à la différence de la forme classique de tremblante. Cette nouvelle forme a soulevé des questions sur sa dangerosité pour l'homme et l'animal et ses conséquences sur l'efficacité des programmes de lutte contre la tremblante. L'objectif global de la thèse, était de décrire la situation épidémiologique de la maladie chez les ovins et d'en explorer les facteurs de risque. Nous avons entrepris une étude descriptive des résultats de la surveillance de la tremblante en France et en Europe, une exploration des facteurs de risque liés aux pratiques d'élevage et à la génétique ainsi qu'une étude de l'agrégation des cas sur le plan géographique et dans les troupeaux atteints. Dans la plupart des cas, nous avons comparé nos résultats à ceux obtenus pour la tremblante classique. Ces études ont montré que la tremblante atypique avait une prévalence assez homogène entre les différentes sous-populations comparées de l'ordre de six cas pour dix mille animaux testés, ce qui contrastait avec les résultats pour la tremblante classique, nettement plus variables. Les facteurs de risque génétique étaient marqués et aucun facteur de risque évoquant une origine infectieuse de la maladie n'a été identifié. De plus, la prévalenve de la tremblante atypique n'est pas différente dans les troupeaux atteints et dans la population générale et les cas n'avaient pas tendance à s'agréger. Ces résultats confortent l'idée que la tremblante atypique est peu ou pas contagieuse, ce qui est compatible avec une origine non infectieuse.

We introduce REmap-eu.app, a web-based data-mining visualization tool of the spatial and temporal variability of wind resources. It uses the latest open-access dataset of the daily wind capacity factor in 28 European countries between 1979 and 2019 and proposes several user-configurable visualizations of the temporal and spatial variations of the wind power capacity factor. The platform allows for a deep analysis of the distribution, the crosscountry correlation, and the drivers of low wind power events. It offers an easy-to-use interface that makes it suitable for the needs of researchers and stakeholders. The tool is expected to be useful in identifying areas of high wind potential and possible challenges that may impact the large-scale deployment of wind turbines in Europe. Particular importance is given to the visualization of low wind power events and to the potential of cross-border cooperations in mitigating the variability of wind in the context of increasing reliance on weather-sensitive renewable energy sources.

Aircraft equipment health monitoring system plays a promising role for airlines operation cost reduction, as it can be exploited to perform predictive maintenance. In this vein, a hierarchical sequential decision making model is proposed to plan predictive maintenance. It combines linear optimization for routing assignment and MDP planning to handle maintenance actions based on the stochastic evolution of health indicators. This entangled model should reduce planning time while ensuring a cost-efficient policy.

In this paper we illustrate the principles and building methodology of the E-Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Verbs in Science (DicSci), paying special attention to the methodology being developed for its compilation which is based on the application of collocational networks and the adaptation of Corpus Pattern Analysis (Hanks 2004, forthcoming) to specialised language environments. DicSci focuses on showing specialised usage patterns commonly associated with certain verbs used in specialised contexts by means of collocational networks (Williams 1998). The different steps to create the dictionary, its present state and plans for its completion and future are explained.

This field survey was designed to assess the environmental metal contamination status of Ria de Aveiro (Portugal). To achieve that goal, the concentrations of Cd, Hg, Cu and Zn in the sediments and water were assessed and hepatic metallothionein (MT) determined. The relationships between MT and environmental metal concentrations and hydrological factors were examined. Results revealed a wide distribution of metals both in water and sediments throughout the lagoon, mainly at Rio Novo do Principe (RIO) and Laranjo (LAR), at concentrations that may affect biota. MT concentrations were higher at the sites with high metal content (RIO and LAR). A significant positive correlation was found between MT and Cd in the sediments as well as with MT and Hg and Cu in the water. Moreover, a negative correlation between MT and salinity was found. Thus, the current data support MT use as a biomarker of metal exposure emphasizing the importance of hydrological parameters in its concentrations. Results suggest the continued monitoring of this lagoon system.

Although silicon is a widespread constituent in dental materials, its possible influence on teeth formation and repair remains largely unexplored. Here we have studied the effect of two silicic acid-releasing nanomaterials, silica and bioglass, on a living model of pulp consisting of dental pulp stem cells seeded in dense type I collagen hydrogels. Silica nanoparticles and released silicic acid had little effect on cell viability and mineralization efficiency but impacted metabolic activity, delayed matrix remodeling and led to heterogeneous cell distribution. Bioglass improved cell metabolic activity and led to a homogenous dispersion of cells and mineral deposits within the hydrogel. These results suggest that the presence of calcium ions in bioglass is not only favorable to cell proliferation but can also counter-balance the negative effects of silicon. Both chemical and biological processes should therefore be considered when investigating the effect of silicon-containing materials on dental tissues.

Cyclo-oxygenase 2 (COX-2) is implicated in the regulation of aromatase transcription in malignant breast tissue and has been considered as a potential target for tissue specific aromatase suppression. We initiated a randomised controlled pre-surgical study of celecoxib versus no treatment in women with primary breast cancer to determine the effects of COX-2 inhibition on markers of biological response. Postmenopausal women (50–80 years of age) with stage I or II, primary breast cancer, were randomised 2:1 to receive 400 mg/day celecoxib or no treatment for 14 days prior to surgery. A core biopsy was obtained pre- and post-treatment. Paired baseline and endpoint biopsies were analysed for Ki67, apoptosis, COX-2, CD31, estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PgR). Comparisons between the treatment groups were conducted using the Mann–Whitney test with a two-sided 5% significance. Of the 25 patients treated, 23 had evaluable data and 19 (83%) were ER positive. Overall the geometric mean change in Ki67, the primary end point, relative to baseline in the celecoxib arm was −16.6% ( = 0.056). The change in the no-treatment group was −8.1% ( = 0.24). There was no statistically significant difference in the change between the two groups. Celecoxib did not significantly affect apoptosis, COX-2, ER or PgR expression. There is only modest evidence for a biological effect of celecoxib in primary breast cancer. However, the trend towards a reduction in Ki67 in ER-positive breast cancer warrants further investigations in a larger cohort of patients.

Facing the escalating threat of global wildfires, numerous computer vision techniques using remote sensing data have been applied in this area. However, the selection of deep learning methods for wildfire prediction remains uncertain due to the lack of comparative analysis in a quantitative and explainable manner, crucial for improving prevention measures and refining models. This study aims to thoroughly compare the performance, efficiency, and explainability of four prevalent deep learning architectures: Autoencoder, ResNet, UNet, and Transformer-based Swin-UNet. Employing a real-world dataset that includes nearly a decade of remote sensing data from California, U.S., these models predict the spread of wildfires for the following day. Through detailed quantitative comparison analysis, we discovered that Transformer-based Swin-UNet and UNet generally outperform Autoencoder and ResNet, particularly due to the advanced attention mechanisms in Transformerbased Swin-UNet and the efficient use of skip connections in both UNet and Transformer-based SwinUNet, which contribute to superior predictive accuracy and model interpretability. Then we applied XAI techniques on all four models, this not only enhances the clarity and trustworthiness of models but also promotes focused improvements in wildfire prediction capabilities. The XAI analysis reveals that UNet and Transformer-based Swin-UNet are able to focus on critical features such as ’Previous Fire Mask’, ’Drought’, and ’Vegetation’ more effectively than the other two models, while also maintaining balanced attention to the remaining features, leading to their superior performance. The insights from our thorough comparative analysis offer substantial implications for future model design and also provide guidance for model selection in different scenarios. The source code for this project is publicly available as open source at https://github.com/Yng314/xai_for_wildfire.

We consider a recently introduced dynamic programming scheme to compute parsimonious evolutionary scenarios for gene adjacencies. We extend this scheme to sample evolutionary scenarios from the whole solution space under the Boltzmann distribution. We apply our algorithms to a dataset of mammalian gene trees and adjacencies, and observe a significant reduction of the number of syntenic inconsistencies observed in the resulting ancestral gene adjacencies.

During the course of a study aimed at isolating transcripts specifically or preferentially expressed in the inner ear, we identified a novel gene, encoding a fibrocyte-derived protein, that we named Fdp. Fdp is predicted to be a secreted 128-amino acid protein, which is highly homologous to the melanoma-inhibiting activity/cartilage-derived retinoic acid-sensitive protein (MIA/CD-RAP), a cartilage-specific protein also expressed in several tumors. Fdp and MIA/CD-RAP thus define a new family of proteins. Fdp is expressed from embryonic day 10.5 in the mesenchyme surrounding the otic epithelium. During development, these cells progressively aggregate, condense, and differentiate into cartilaginous cells forming the otic capsule, which no longer expresses Fdp, and into fibrocytes surrounding the epithelia, which strongly express Fdp. In order to address the function of Fdp, we developed an in vitro antisense oligonucleotide approach using microdissected periotic mesenchyme micromass cultures, and showed that Fdp antisense oligonucleotide treatment results in a significant reduction in chondrogenesis. Our results demonstrate that Fdp plays a role in the initiation of periotic mesenchyme chondrogenesis. Accordingly, Fdp and its human ortholog FDP, which map to chromosome 2 and band 20p11, respectively, could be candidate genes for forms of deafness associated with malformations of the otic capsule.

Natural fibres based composites are increasingly used mainly because of their low density and positive life cycle assessment. Nevertheless an improvement of their mechanical properties is required. A better control of i) the fibre/matrix interface and ii) the intra-fibrillar interface within the fibre bundles (composed of cellulose micro-fibrils, hemicelluloses, lignins, pectins and lipophilic extractives) has to be established. The aim of this study is to investigate the influence of different flax treatments (among them water, alcohol, surfactant, alkaline treatments) known to remove selectively flax fibre components, and their effect on flax fabrics properties and on interfacial behaviour of flax/epoxy biocomposites. Components removal was evaluated by chemical composition and FTIR. Mechanical tests and SEM observations were used to study the composite interface. A defibrillation phenomenon within the fibre bundles was responsible for a significant decrease of the biocomposite transverse strength whereas the porosity was reduced for all the treatments used.