Pl@ntWood: A computer-assisted identification tool for 110 species of Amazon trees based on wood anatomy

World interest in conservation of tropical forests has increased due to elevated rates of deforestation and climate change issues. Tropical forests are threatened by extensive agriculture and timber trade among other factors; thus, sustainable management and conservation of tropical tree species require reliable and user accessible identification tools. Although wood anatomical features provide a considerable amount of information, only a handful of experts are able to use it for plant species identification. Here, we propose an interactive tool, based on vector graphics, illustrating 96 states of 22 wood anatomical characters from 110 Amazonian tree species belonging to 34 families. Pl@ntWood is a graphical identification tool based on the IDAO (Identification des plantes Assistée par Ordinateur) system, a multimedia approach to plant identification. This system allows non-specialists to identify plants in a user-friendly interface while stimulating self-training in wood anatomy of tropical species. (Texte intégral

Evaluation of the impact of a Herd Health and Production Management programme in organic dairy cattle farms: a process evaluation approach

Animal health planning activities are not always providing a satisfactory positive impact on herd health and welfare. Moreover, evaluating the impact of advisory programmes is complex due to multiple interacting elements that influence its outcome. Therefore, measuring solely health outcomes is not sufficient: the whole process of the implementation and use of such programmes should be evaluated. In order to evaluate the impact of an intervention with a Herd Health and Production Management (HHPM) programme a process evaluation framework was designed and used. The intervention involved 20 organic dairy cattle farmers and their advisors, in both France and Sweden. In both countries 20 organic dairy farms were selected as control herds. The evaluation of the HHPM programme was based on: (a) the compliance to the programme; (b) the programme’s functions influencing herd health management practices and stimulating dialogue between farmers and advisors; (c) its effectiveness in terms of improving herd health compared with control farms. Complete compliance to the programme was fulfilled by 21 out of 40 farmers–advisors. Results from a questionnaire showed that the programme functioned as intended (e.g. by allowing early identification of herd health problems), stimulated change in farmers’ herd health management practices and farmer–advisor dialogue. Even though the majority of the users perceived that the programme contributed to herd health improvements, no significant differences in health outcomes were found when compared with control farms 12 months after the start of the intervention. The programme allowed creating an environment promoting the exchange of information between farmers and advisors, necessary to define pertinent advice in a farm-specific situation. Future research should aim at improving methods for the evaluation of the effect of advisory programmes, by identifying early indicators for effective advice and developing methods to evaluate the quality of advisory situations without interfering with them

Presse, sportifs, lecteurs : du schème explicatif à l’assignation identitaire

Le discours médiatique sur le sport est souvent un discours sur les sportifs, qui sont par essence des éléments centraux du texte journalistique, au sens où la narration repose, entre autres éléments, sur des acteurs, des rôles et des fonctions, i.e. des interactions typiques entre acteurs. Si on le trouve de manière évidente dans les comptes rendus de compétitions ou les articles de cadrage anticipatif, le sportif est également omniprésent dans les ensembles rédactionnels : portraits, ragots..

Privacy in data service composition

In modern information systems different information features, about the same individual, are often collected and managed by autonomous data collection services that may have different privacy policies. Answering many end-users’ legitimate queries requires the integration of data from multiple such services. However, data integration is often hindered by the lack of a trusted entity, often called a mediator, with which the services can share their data and delegate the enforcement of their privacy policies. In this paper, we propose a flexible privacy-preserving data integration approach for answering data integration queries without the need for a trusted mediator. In our approach, services are allowed to enforce their privacy policies locally. The mediator is considered to be untrusted, and only has access to encrypted information to allow it to link data subjects across the different services. Services, by virtue of a new privacy requirement, dubbed k-Protection, limiting privacy leaks, cannot infer information about the data held by each other. End-users, in turn, have access to privacy-sanitized data only. We evaluated our approach using an example and a real dataset from the healthcare application domain. The results are promising from both the privacy preservation and the performance perspectives

Integrated dataset of anatomical, morphological, and architectural traits for plant species in Madagascar

In this work, we present a dataset, which provides information on the structural diversity of some endemic tropical species in Madagascar. The data were from CIRAD xylotheque (since 1937), and were also collected during various fieldworks (since 1964). The field notes and photographs were provided by French botanists; particularly by Francis Hallé. The dataset covers 250 plant species with anatomical, morphological, and architectural traits indexed from digitized wood slides and fieldwork documents. The digitized wood slides were constituted by the transverse, tangential, and radial sections with three optical magnifications. The main specific anatomical traits can be found within the digitized area. Information on morphological and architectural traits were indexed from digitized field drawings including notes and photographs). (Résumé d'auteur

001 Predictive Value of Post Treatment Platelet Reactivity for Occurrence of Post-discharge Bleeding After Non ST Elevation Acute Coronary Syndrome

AimsWe assessed prospectively the association between occurrence of post-discharge non–CABG-related TIMI major and minor bleedings and post treatment platelet reactivity in patients with Non ST Elevation Acute Coronary Syndrome (NSTE ACS).Methods and Results597 consecutive patients admitted with NSTE ACS were prospectively included. Between hospital discharge and one month follow-up, we observed 16 (2.7%) non–CABG-related TIMI hemorrhagic complications including 5 (0.84%) major and 11 (1.8%) minor bleeds. Patients with bleeding had significantly lower post treatment values of ADP-induced aggregation (43±14% versus. 56±19%, P=0.002) and platelet reactivity index VASP (43±14% versus 54±23%; P=0.04) and a trend for lower values of arachidonic acid-induced aggregation (2.4±5.4 versus 13±21; P=0.27). After stratification by quartiles based on post treatment ADP-induced platelet aggregation, we identified patients in the first quartile as hyper-responders with very low post treatment platelet reactivity, below <40%. The risk of TIMI major and minor bleeding was significantly higher in the first quartile of hyper-responders than in the others quartiles: 10 (6.6%) versus 6 (1.4%), p=0.001.ConclusionOur results suggest that assessment of post treatment platelet reactivity might be used to detect hyper responders to antiplatelet therapy with higher risk of non-CABG related bleedings and tailor antiplatelet therapy according to both ischemic and bleeding risk

Weight gain at 3 months of antiretroviral therapy is strongly associated with survival: evidence from two developing countries

BACKGROUND: In developing countries, access to laboratory tests remains limited, and the use of simple tools such as weight to monitor HIV-infected patients treated with antiretroviral therapy should be evaluated. METHODS: Cohort study of 2451 Cambodian and 2618 Kenyan adults who initiated antiretroviral therapy between 2001 and 2007. The prognostic value of weight gain at 3 months of antiretroviral therapy on 3-6 months mortality, and at 6 months on 6-12 months mortality, was investigated using Poisson regression. RESULTS: Mortality rates [95% confidence interval (CI)] between 3 and 6 months of antiretroviral therapy were 9.9 (7.6-12.7) and 13.5 (11.0-16.7) per 100 person-years in Cambodia and Kenya, respectively. At 3 months, among patients with initial body mass index less than or equal to 18.5 kg/m (43% of the study population), mortality rate ratios (95% CI) were 6.3 (3.0-13.1) and 3.4 (1.4-8.3) for those with weight gain less than or equal to 5 and 5-10%, respectively, compared with those with weight gain of more than 10%. At 6 months, weight gain was also predictive of subsequent mortality: mortality rate ratio (95% CI) was 7.3 (4.0-13.3) for those with weight gain less than or equal to 5% compared with those with weight gain of more than 10%. CONCLUSION: Weight gain at 3 months is strongly associated with survival. Poor compliance or undiagnosed opportunistic infections should be investigated in patients with initial body mass index less than or equal to 18.5 and achieving weight gain less than or equal to 10%

Thermal insulation of YSZ and erbia-doped yttria-stabilised zirconia EB-PVD thermal barrier coating systems after CMAS attack

The impact of small deposits of calcium–magnesium–aluminium silicates (CMAS) on the top of thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) made of yttria-stabilised zirconia (YSZ) produced via electron-beam physical vapour deposition (EB-PVD) is shown to play a role in the microstructural and chemical stability of the coatings; hence, it also affects the thermal insulation potential of TBCs. Therefore, the present work investigates the degradation potential of minor CMAS deposits (from 0.25 to 5 mg·cm−2) annealed at 1250 °C for 1 h on a novel Er2O3-Y2O3 co-stabilised ZrO2 (ErYSZ) EB-PVD TBC, which is compared to the standard YSZ coating. Due to the higher reactivity of ErYSZ coatings with CMAS, its penetration is limited in comparison with the standard YSZ coatings, hence resulting in a better thermal insulation of the former after ageing