Watershed regulation and local action: analysis of the Senegal River watershed management by a regional organisation and public participation

International audienceSeveral social scientists have dealt with the usefulness of a participative approach in development plans. The call for sustainable development has increased the focus on this type of approach in a very classical way, which is the case for the creation of new water tanks. Most of these scientists have also pinpointed the major difficulties and failures faced during the execution of this new approach in developing countries. This study is a concrete example which underlines the lack of this type of approach as far as water management in the Senegal River is concerned, mainly in relation to watershed. We base our study on the analysis and criticism of the regional organization OMVS (Organization for the Development of the Senegal River) which is in charge of water management in the Senegal River. The results of the study can, therefore, be summed up as follows: (i) An on-site direct observation, individual interviews, group discussion and information analysis point out the lack of participation of local people in water management in the Senegal River and, in general, the harmful socio-economic impacts resulting from it. (ii) The reasons for this lack of participative approach are mainly due to the model set up by the OMVS in terms of water management in the Senegal River, a model that has excluded or tackled in a very light way the issue of public participation in decision-making through out its juridical and regulation instruments. (iii) Elements of consideration on some measures, which could possibly improve the level of participation of local people in river water management

Sécheresse et Guerre Civile en Afrique Sub-Saharienne

D'après le Groupe d'experts Intergouvernemental sur l'Evolution du Climat (GIEC), les changements climatiques vont engendrer un accroissement du nombre d'évènements climatiques atypiques à travers le monde, tels les sécheresses et les inondations. Ces anomalies climatiques pourraient avoir des conséquences désastreuses pour les pays ayant des problèmes d'accès à l'eau potable ou dont l'économie dépend de l'agriculture locale. Des études récentes affirment même que la sécheresse est une des causes des guerres civiles. Le cas le plus emblématique est le Darfour. Il fait consensus sur le fait que la sécheresse a été l'un des facteurs de la guerre civile, même si le conflit avait aussi une composante ethnique. Dans notre étude, on montre que le lien entre précipitations, températures et guerre civile obtenu dans la littérature peut être dû à des chocs planétaires non liés à des variations climatiques. Le problème provient du fait qu'il n'est pas possible de distinguer les effets des variations climatiques annuelles des autres phénomènes planétaires tels que des changements politiques de grande échelle comme la fin de la guerre froide ou des variations macroéconomiques globales comme la crise financière. Lorsqu'on tient compte de ce type de facteurs, les variations de précipitation et de température ont un effet beaucoup plus faible et non significatif sur le risque de guerre civile. L'utilisation de l'indice de Palmer, une mesure locale de la sécheresse qui décrit l'impact du manque d'eau sur les conflits sociaux d'une façon plus satisfaisante que les mesures de précipitation et de température, permet de montrer que l'effet de la sécheresse sur le risque de guerre civile est faible mais positif

Convergence in a sequential two stages decision making process

We analyze a sequential decision making process, in which at each step the decision is made in two stages. In the first stage a partially optimal action is chosen, which allows the decision maker to learn how to improve it under the new environment. We show how inertia (cost of changing) may lead the process to converge to a routine where no further changes are made. We illustrate our scheme with some economic models

Integral Field Spectroscopy of the Central Regions of 3C 120: Evidence of a Past Merging Event

IFS combined with HST WFPC imaging were used to characterize the central regions of the Seyfert 1 radio galaxy 3C 120. We carried out the analysis of the data, deriving intensity maps of different emission lines and the continua at different wavelengths from the observed spectra. Applying a 2D modeling to the HST images we decoupled the nucleus and the host galaxy, and analyzed the host morphology. The host is a highly distorted bulge dominated galaxy, rich in substructures. We developed a new technique to model the IFS data extending the 2D modeling. Using this technique we separated the Seyfert nucleus and the host galaxy spectra, and derived a residual data cube with spectral and spatial information of the different structures in 3C 120. Three continuum-dominated structures (named A, B, and C) and other three extended emission line regions (EELRs, named E1, E2 and E3) are found in 3C 120 which does not follow the general behavior of a bulge dominated galaxy. We also found shells in the central kpc that may be remnants of a past merging event in this galaxy. The origin of E1 is most probably due to the interaction of the radio-jet of 3C 120 with the intergalactic medium. Structures A, B, and the shell at the southeast of the nucleus seem to correspond to a larger morphological clumpy structure that may be a tidal tail, consequence of the past merging event. We found a bright EELR (E2) in the innermost part of this tidal tail, nearby the nucleus, which shows a high ionization level. The kinematics of the E2 region and its connection to the tidal tail suggest that the tail has channeled gas from the outer regions to the center.Comment: 55 pages, 18 figures and 5 tables Accepted by AP

Targeting the Stress-Induced Protein NUPR1 to Treat Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma

Cancer cells activate stress-response mechanisms to adapt themselves to a variety of stressful conditions. Among these protective mechanisms, those controlled by the stress-induced nuclear protein 1 (NUPR1 ) belong to the most conserved ones. NUPR1 is an 82-residue-long, monomeric, basic and intrinsically disordered protein (IDP), which was found to be invariably overexpressed in some, if not all, cancer tissues. Remarkably, we and others have previously showed that genetic inactivation of the Nupr1 gene antagonizes the growth of pancreatic cancer as well as several other tumors. With the use of a multidisciplinary strategy by combining biophysical, biochemical, bioinformatic, and biological approaches, a trifluoperazine-derived compound, named ZZW-115, has been identified as an inhibitor of the NUPR1 functions. The anticancer activity of the ZZW-115 was first validated on a large panel of cancer cells. Furthermore, ZZW-115 produced a dose-dependent tumor regression of the tumor size in xenografted mice. Mechanistically, we have demonstrated that NUPR1 binds to several importins. Because ZZW-115 binds NUPR1 through the region around the amino acid Thr68, which is located into the nuclear location signal (NLS) region of the protein, we demonstrated that treatment with ZZW-115 inhibits completely the translocation of NUPR1 from the cytoplasm to the nucleus by competing with importins

Discovery of a faint optical jet in 3C 120

We report the detection of an optical jet in the nearby Seyfert 1 radio galaxy 3C 120. The optical jet coincides with the well-known radio jet and emits continuum radiation (B,V',I) with a radio-to-optical spectral index of 0.65. There are no clear optical counterparts to the radio knots, although the optical condensation A of the galaxy, which includes the bright 4" radio knot, is found to be 12 % polarized with the electric field vectors perpendicular to the jet. These findings indicate that 3C 120 contains the 6th known extragalactic optical synchrotron jet, quite similar in its properties to the jet of PKS 0521-36. The outer parts of the jet is the faintest known optical jet and was discovered as the result of a dedicated effort to detect it. It is therefore possible that more optical jets can be discovered in systematic searches by combining deep imaging in the optical or near-IR with careful galaxy subtraction methods