Vaudevant – Église paroissiale

L’étude de l’église de Vaudevant en Vivarais a été l’occasion de monter un stage d’archéologie du bâti destiné aux étudiants de l’université Lyon 2. Le premier objectif de ce stage était l’approche globale d’un édifice rural et l’apprentissage des outils du relevé comme support indispensable à la lecture archéologique, qu’il s’agisse de l’analyse des techniques de construction ou bien de l’évolution du bâtiment. En effet, malgré les travaux de restauration qui masquent en grande partie les jo..

The Effects of Cognitive and Emotional Empathy on the Perception and Prejudice towards Migrants: An Exploratory Study

Improving intergroup attitudes and relationships have been largely studied. Empathy appears to play a mediational role between perspective taking and prejudices or attitudes towards out-groups (Baston et al., 1997; Finlay & Stephan, 2000; Vescio et al., 2003). The aim of this exploratory study is to examine how cognitive and emotional components of empathy (Jolliffe & & Farrington, 2006) were linked to the perception of immigrant targets who behave depending on the four acculturation strategies (integration, assimilation, separation and marginalization) as defined by Berry (1997). Participants first filled in a French version of the Basic Empathic Scale. Second, they read and evaluated one of the four acculurative migrant profiles (Maisonneuve & Testé; 2007) and third they filled in the blatant and subtle prejudices questionnaire (Pettigrew & Meertens, 1995). The results replicated preference for integration before assimilation and marginalization. Separated profiles were less appreciated than the three others. More interestingly, an interaction effect between conservation and emotional empathy suggests that the more people declare themselves high on the emotional component of empathy, the more they appreciate the target that conserves his culture. On subtle prejudice, no interaction effect was found. But, on blatant prejudice, interaction effects were obtained between acculturative strategies and the two components of empathy. For example, concerning participants who read the scenario of separation, the higher they declared themselves on emotional component of empathy, the less they declare blatant prejudice. More surprisingly, for participants who were in the “assimilation” condition, the higher they declared themselves on cognitive component of empathy, the higher they scored on blatant prejudice. Theoretical contributions of this study are discussed as the importance to distinguish the effects of emotional and cognitive components of empathy on perception of migrants and prejudices, depending on the migrants’ acculturative strategies. Finally, implications of these results are proposed

Fully Unleashing the Power of Paying Multiplexing Only Once in Stochastic Network Calculus

The stochastic network calculus (SNC) holds promise as a versatile and uniform framework to calculate probabilistic performance bounds in networks of queues. A great challenge to accurate bounds and efficient calculations are stochastic dependencies between flows due to resource sharing inside the network. However, by carefully utilizing the basic SNC concepts in the network analysis the necessity of taking these dependencies into account can be minimized. To that end, we fully unleash the power of the pay multiplexing only once principle (PMOO, known from the deterministic network calculus) in the SNC analysis. We choose an analytic combinatorics presentation of the results in order to ease complex calculations. In tree-reducible networks, a subclass of general feedforward networks, we obtain a perfect analysis in terms of avoiding the need to take internal flow dependencies into account. In a comprehensive numerical evaluation, we demonstrate how this unleashed PMOO analysis can reduce the known gap between simulations and SNC calculations significantly, and how it favourably compares to state-of-the art SNC calculations in terms of accuracy and computational effort. Motivated by these promising results, we also consider general feedforward networks, when some flow dependencies have to be taken into account. To that end, the unleashed PMOO analysis is extended to the partially dependent case and a case study of a canonical example topology, known as the diamond network, is provided, again displaying favourable results over the state of the art

Mitochondrial dysfunction - the beginning of the end in Alzheimer's disease? Separate and synergistic modes of tau and amyloid-β toxicity

The pathology of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by amyloid plaques (aggregates of amyloid-β (Aβ)) and neurofibrillary tangles (aggregates of tau) and is accompanied by mitochondrial dysfunction, but the mechanisms underlying this dysfunction are poorly understood. In this review, we discuss the critical role of mitochondria and the close inter-relationship of this organelle with the two main pathological features in the pathogenic process underlying AD. Moreover, we summarize evidence from AD post-mortem brain as well as cellular and animal AD models showing that Aβ and tau protein trigger mitochondrial dysfunction through a number of pathways, such as impairment of oxidative phosphorylation, elevation of reactive oxygen species production, alteration of mitochondrial dynamics, and interaction with mitochondrial proteins. A vicious cycle as well as several vicious circles within the cycle, each accelerating the other, can be drawn, emphasizing the synergistic deterioration of mitochondria by tau and Aβ

Exploration of the global antioxidant capacity of the stratum corneum by cyclic voltammetry

Cyclic voltammetry is proposed as a new method for evaluating the antioxidant capacity of skin based on the reducing properties of low molecular weight antioxidants (LMWA). Experiments were performed simply by recording the anodic current at 0.9 V/SCE of a platinum microelectrode placed directly on the epidermis surface without any gel or water. This method ensured a direct, rapid (less than 1 min), reliable (accuracy 12%) and non-invasive measurement of the global antioxidant capacity of the stratum corneum with a high spatiotemporal resolution. At the same time, the pH of the skin surface was determined by recording the cathodic current at 0 V/SCE. Based on an exploratory study involving nine volunteer subjects, the evolution of the amperometric response of the microelectrode with time revealed a periodic modification of the redox properties

Students' career exploration:A meta-analysis

Career exploration refers to the exploration of the environment and the self with the aim of gathering career-related information. On the basis of Lent and Brown's (2013) model of career self-management (CSM), the current meta-analysis examined the antecedents and outcomes of career exploration among college students (K = 109, N = 34,969 students). We found support for the applicability of the CSM model to the context of students' career exploration. Specifically, positive associations were found for the association of the three core person-cognitive variables self-efficacy for career exploration and decision-making (rc = 0.52), outcome expectations (rc = 0.31), and career-exploratory goals (rc = 0.42) with career exploration. Results of path analyses suggest that the effects of both self-efficacy and outcome expectations on career exploration are mediated by career-exploratory goals. Further, in line with the CSM model, career exploration was positively related to career-related support (rc = 0.33) and negatively related to barriers (rc = −0.15). Moreover, career exploration was associated with important career-related outcomes, such as career decidedness (rc = 0.22), and perceived employability (rc = 0.35). Exploratory moderator analyses revealed that some relationships are influenced by sample (i.e., age, gender, cultural background) and measurement (e.g., publication date) characteristics. The findings of this meta-analysis highlight several implications for the further development of the CSM model, future research on students' career exploration, and career development practice

Atmospheric Deposition on Swiss Long-Term Forest Ecosystem Research (LWF) Plots

Atmospheric deposition of the major elements was estimated from throughfall and bulk deposition measurements on 13 plots of the Swiss Long-Term Forest Ecosystem Research (LWF) between 1995 and 2001. Independent estimates of the wet and dry deposition of nitrogen (N) and sulfur (S) on these same plots were gained from combined simplified models. The highest deposition fluxes were measured at Novaggio (Southern Switzerland), exposed to heavy air pollution originating from the Po Plain, with throughfall fluxes averaging 29 kg ha−1 a−1 for N and 15 kg ha−1 a−1 for S. Low deposition fluxes were measured on the plots above 1800 m, with throughfall fluxes lower than 4.5 kg ha−1 a−1 for N and lower than 3 kg ha−1 a−1 for S. The wet deposition of N and S derived from bulk deposition was close to the modeled wet deposition, but the dry deposition derived from throughfall was significantly lower than the modeled dry deposition for both compounds. However, both the throughfall method and the model yielded total deposition estimates of N which exceeded the critical loads calculated on the basis of long-term mass balance considerations. These estimates were within or above the range of empirical critical loads except above 1800

Le bleuet sauvage au Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean : comment mieux le produire ?

Le rendement en fruits du bleuet nain (Vaccinium angustifolium et Vaccinium myrtilloides) est variable puisqu'il dépend de plusieurs facteurs, dont certains peuvent être influencés par les pratiques agricoles effectuées par les producteurs. L'objectif principal de cette recherche est donc d'expérimenter l'impact des principales pratiques sur le rendement en fruits du bleuet et d'autres variables connexes comme le nombre et la hauteur des tiges, l’état nutritionnel de la plante ainsi que la présence des maladies et des plantes indésirables. Les pratiques testées dans le cadre de ce projet sont i) le type de fauche (mécanique ou thermique), ii) l'utilisation de fongicide (avec ou sans) et iii) l'apport d'engrais (minéral, organique ou sans engrais). Cette étude s'est déroulée à la bleuetière d’enseignement et de recherche (BER) localisée à Normandin, Québec, Canada. Deux sites de quatre blocs divisés en douze combinaisons spécifiques de traitements comprenant les trois facteurs étudiés ont été disposés selon un dispositif de recherche en tiroir à 96 parcelles ou unités expérimentales. Aucune des pratiques à l’étude a affecté significativement la présence des plantes indésirables. Le brûlage n'a pas entraîné de gain de rendement, ni d'amélioration cohérentes des autres paramètres évalués. L’application de fongicide a entraîné un gain de rendement en fruits de 212 kg ha-1, une diminution de près de 1% du taux de maladies foliaires et une augmentation du nombre de tiges par unité de surface lorsqu'ils sont combinés avec un engrais minéral. La fertilisation minérale a également réduit la présence des maladies, amélioré l’état nutritionnel de la plante et engendré un gain de rendement de 853 kg ha-1. Enfin, la fertilisation organique a accru les rendements de 691 kg ha-1, tout en améliorant plusieurs traits tels que la hauteur des tiges et la teneur des feuilles et des fruits en nutriments. Les applications de fongicide et d'engrais ont également augmenté la quantité de nutriments exportés par les fruits à la suite des récoltes. De ce fait, il serait pertinent d’axer les prochains suivis sur les nutriments foliaires et du sol pour assurer la durabilité des systèmes de production