La política lingüística de la UE

Aquest article pretén donar compte de l'actual política lingüística que està duent a terme la Unió Europea mitjançant les seves institucions, principalment a través de la Comissió Europea. L'article descriu totes les iniciatives que afavoreixen en major o menor grau les llengües regionals o minoritàries. L'última part de l'article se centra en les perspectives de futur dels programes de la UE des del 2007 fins al 2013. Així, es presenten les principals accions i línies de finançament que, tot i estar pendents de ser aprovades definitivament pel Consell i pel Parlament europeus, és probable que aviat formin part de la nova generació de programes d'aprenentatge al llarg de la vida.This paper aims to give an account of the linguistic policy currently being carried out by the European Union through its institutions, mainly the European Commission. It describes all of the initiatives that favour regional or minority languages to a greater or lesser extent. The final part of the paper focuses on the future prospects of the EU programmes from 2007 until 2013. Thus, it presents the main programmes and lines of financing, which, despite pending final approval by the European Council and Parliament, are likely to form part of the 7th Framework Programme.Este artículo pretende dar cuenta de la actual política lingüística que está llevando a cabo la Unión Europea (UE) a través de sus instituciones, principalmente a través de la Comisión Europea. El artículo describe todas las iniciativas que en mayor o menor grado favorecen las lenguas regionales o minoritarias. La última parte del artículo se centra en las perspectivas de futuro de los programas de la UE desde 2007 hasta 2013. De acuerdo con esto, se presentan los principales programas y líneas de financiación que, aunque estén pendientes de ser aprobados definitivamente por el Consejo y por el Parlamento europeos, es probable que pronto formen parte del VII Programa Marco.

Usages linguistiques en Catalogne, dans la Communauté valencienne et aux Îles Baléares

L’évolution du catalan dans les trois régions de l’Espagne où cette langue a un statut co-officiel – la Catalogne, la Communauté valencienne et les Îles Baléares –, est analysée en se basant sur les résultats d’enquêtes sociolinguistiques de ces dernières décennies. La situation singulière de cette langue permet de s’interroger sur sa place parmi les langues minoritaires. À travers le territoire étudié, la vitalité du catalan semble plutôt forte, avec une transmission qui se poursuit de génération en génération et une pratique dans toutes les sphères sociales. Il s’agit d’une langue standardisée, disposant d’une large production écrite, semblable à celle d’une langue majoritaire. Cependant, certaines disparités se creusent entre les régions et pourraient nuire à sa vitalité : dans la Communauté valencienne, le choix d’une dénomination distinctive, le « valencien », isole le territoire et sa promotion linguistique ; la situation pourrait évoluer vers une substitution linguistique du catalan par le castillan comme langue majoritaire dans cette région comme dans les Îles Baléares. Une dénomination unique permettrait de consolider les liens entre les régions et ainsi de renforcer la position du catalan en tant que langue majoritaire. Pour lutter contre la substitution linguistique, il convient de réfléchir à la mise en place de stratégies mettant en avant les intérêts professionnels, sociaux et culturels du catalan dans ces régions, de sorte que les nouveaux arrivants se dirigent vers le catalan comme langue de communication.The evolution of Catalan language in three Spanish regions where it has a co-official status – Catalonia, the Valencian Community and the Balearic Islands – is analyzed according to the results of sociolinguistic surveys carried out in recent decades. The unusual character of this language situation raises questions about its belonging to the minority languages group. All through its territory of use, the vitality of Catalan seems rather strong, with an ongoing transmission from generation to generation and language use in all social spheres. It is a standardized language which presents an extensive written production, comparable to that of a majority language. However, disparities are becoming more and more apparent between regions and may affect its vitality: the Valencian Community’s choice to use a distinctive name, “Valencian”, isolates the territory and its language promotion; the situation could develop into the linguistic substitution of Catalan by Castilian as the majority language in this region, just like in the Balearic Islands. A unique name would consolidate the links between the regions, thus strengthening the position of Catalan as a majority language. To fight against linguistic substitution, the implementation of strategies should be considered, to put forward the professional, social and cultural interests of Catalan in these regions, so that newcomers look up to Catalan as the language of communication

Recombinant Zika NS1 protein secreted from Vero cells is efficient for inducing production of immune serum against NS1 dimer

International audienceZika virus (ZIKV) is a mosquito-borne flavivirus that recently emerged in the South Pacific, Americas, and Caribbean islands, where the larger epidemics were documented. ZIKV infection in humans is responsible for neurological disorders and microcephaly. Flavivirus NS1 is a non-structural glycoprotein that is expressed on the cell surface and secreted as a hexameric lipoprotein particle. Intracellular NS1 exists as a dimer that is required for viral replication, whereas the secreted NS1 hexamer interacts with host factors, leading to pathophysiological conditions. In an effort to dispose of specific anti-ZIKV NS1 immune serum, Vero cells were transduced with a lentiviral vector containing the NS1 gene from an epidemic strain of ZIKV. We showed that stably transduced Vero/ZIKV NS1 cell clone was efficient in the secretion of recombinant NS1 oligomer. Immunization of adult rat with purified extracellular NS1 developed anti-ZIKV antibodies that specifically react with the NS1 dimer produced in human cells infected with African and Asian strains of ZIKV. The rat antibody against ZIKV NS1 dimer is a reliable biological tool that enables the immunological detection of secreted NS1 from host-cells infected with ZIKV

Automatic quantification of epicardial fat volume on non-enhanced cardiac CT scans using a multi-atlas segmentation approach

Purpose: There is increasing evidence that epicardial fat (i.e., adipose tissue contained within the pericardium) plays an important role in the development of cardiovascular disease. Obtaining the epicardial fat volume from routinely performed non-enhanced cardiac CT scans is therefore of clinical interest. The purpose of this work is to investigate the feasibility of automatic pericardium segmentation and subsequent quantification of epicardial fat on non-enhanced cardiac CT scans. Methods: Imaging data of 98 randomly selected subjects belonging to a larger cohort of subjects who underwent a cardiac CT scan at our medical center were retrieved. The data were acquired on two different scanners. Automatic multi-atlas based method for segmenting the pericardium and calculating the epicardial fat volume has been developed. The performance of the method was assessed by (1) comparing the automatically segmented pericardium to a manually annotated reference standard, (2) comparin Results: Automatic segmentation of the pericardium was achieved with a Dice similarity index of 89.1 +/- 2.6% with respect to Observer 1 and 89.2 +/- 1.9% with respect to Observer 2. The correlation between the automatic method and the manual observers with respect to the epicardial fat volume computed as the Pearson's correlation coefficient (R) was 0.91 (P < 0.001) for both observers. The inter-observer study resulted in a Dice similarity index of 89.0 +/- 2.4% for segmenting the pericardium a Conclusions: The authors developed a fully automatic method that is capable of segmenting the pericardium and quantifying epicardial fat on non-enhanced cardiac CT scans. The authors demonstrated the feasibility of using this method to replace manual annotations by showing that the automatic method performs as good as manual annotation on a large dataset. (C) 2013 American Association of Physicists in Medicine

Efficiency and productivity of Greek banks in the EMU era

We provide a characterization of the Greek banking system's efficiency and productivity under the new environment that the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) participation implies. We consider cost and profit efficiency as well as productivity change of commercial banks using the nonparametric Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and the Total Factor Productivity (TFP) Malmquist Index. The period under study is 1998-2003 covering Greece's entry into the euro area in 2001 and the run-up to it. Moreover, enhanced competition along with lower inflation and interest rates has further motivated financial innovation and Off-Balance Sheet (OBS) business. Our findings suggest that cost efficiency has risen by 4.3% over the 6 years under study. Moreover, Greek banks seem to enjoy relatively high profit efficiency (on average 75%) showing an increase by 93% over 1998-2003. Similarly, productivity seems to have risen by 15% and this was mainly driven by the improvements in the performance of best-practice institutions. Our results do not show any role for OBS activities in Greek banks' efficiency. Finally, while the impact of profitability and size on efficiency and productivity yields mixed results, our empirical findings seem to corroborate previous studies in that controlling for risk preferences is important in determining bank efficiency

Identifier et catégoriser les langues minoritaires en Europe

Les récents développements politiques et juridiques en France tendant vers une ratification de la Charte européenne des langues régionales ou minoritaires montrent que la thématique des langues minoritaires, bien qu'elle ne soit pas toujours au premier plan, ne perd jamais de son actualité. Le présent ouvrage résulte d'une recherche pluridisciplinaire menée dans le cadre du Groupe de Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur les Langues Minoritaires en Europe (GRILME) et du programme Langues minoritaires et marges linguistiques en Europe, soutenu par le Conseil régional d'Aquitaine. Associant des juristes et des linguistes, tant universitaires que praticiens, ce Groupe de travail a organisé de nombreux séminaires et journées d'études autour d'un but commun : identifier et catégoriser les langues minoritaires en Europe occidentale. C'est à partir de ces rencontres, riches et variées, que le présent ouvrage a été conçu. Cette étude fait apparaître une situation contrastée. Si la tendance à la protection des langues minoritaires est désormais généralisée en Europe occidentale, sous l'impulsion notamment du Conseil de l'Europe, la façon dont elles sont appréhendées et protégées varie grandement d'un espace à l'autre, d'une région à l'autre, en fonction de ('Histoire et de la structuration politique