La prévention des problèmes sociaux : réalité québécoise

Les modèles de prévention actuels et leurs stratégies d'action contribuent-ils à une diminution importante et durable des problèmes sociaux? La réponse à cette question suppose qu'on examine la représentation des problèmes sociaux, les cibles et les contextes de prévention, la dimension de précocité de l'action ainsi que les stratégies privilégiées. Les développements théoriques actuels permettent d'acquérir une vision liant la résolution de problèmes individuels et celle de problèmes sociaux. Les auteurs dégagent enfin une première esquisse de la prévention sociale. La conjoncture actuelle nous laisse croire à une évolution intéressante de ce secteur dans la prochaine décennie

Robust spatial frameworks for leveraging research on sustainable crop intensification

Meeting demand for food, fiber, feed, and fuel in a world with 9.7 billion people by 2050 without negative environmental impact is the greatest scientific challenge facing humanity. We hypothesize that this challenge can only be met with current and emerging technologies if guided by proactive use of a broad array of relevant data and geospatial scaling approaches to ensure local to global relevance for setting research priorities and implementing agricultural systems responsive to real-time status of weather, soils, crops, and markets. Despite increasing availability of field-scale agricultural data, robust spatial frameworks are lacking to convert these data into actionable knowledge. This commentary article highlights this knowledge gap and calls attention to the need for developing robust spatial frameworks that allow appropriate scaling to larger spatial domains by discussing a recently developed example of a data-driven strategy for estimating yield gaps of agricultural systems. To fully leverage research on sustainable intensification of cropping systems and inform policy development at different scales, we call for new approaches combining the strengths of top-down and bottom-up approaches which will require coordinated efforts between field scientists, crop modelers, and geospatial researchers at an unprecedented level

Survey of molecular methods for the typing of wine yeast strains

A survey of the genetic polymorphisms produced by distinct methods was performed in 23 commercial winery yeast strains. The microsatellite typing, using 6 different loci, an optimized interdelta sequence analysis and RFLP of mitochondrial DNA generated by the enzyme Hinf I had the same discriminatory power: among the 23 commercial yeast strains, 21 distinct patterns were obtained. Karyotype analysis originated 22 patterns, thereby allowing the discrimination of one of the three strains that were not distinguished by the other methods. Due to the equivalence of the results obtained in this survey, any of the methods can be applied at the industrial scale.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - POCTI/BIO/38106/2001 (Eixo 2, Medida 2.3, QCAIII - FEDER).Instituto de Cooperação Científica e Tecnológica Internacional (ICCTI) - grant nº 657 C2.Comunidade Europeia (UE) - contract number QLK4-CT-2001-51873

Gelungene Versöhnung - unsichere Zukunft? Zur Raison d'être der deutsch-französischen Beziehungen in der neuen Europäischen Union

"Die Frage nach der Notwendigkeit und Legitimität der deutsch-französischen Sonderbeziehung im Europa der 25 stellt sich nach der Ablehnung der Europäischen Verfassung in Frankreich und den Niederlanden sowie dem vorläufigen Scheitern der EU-Finanzverhandlungen umso dringlicher. Mit der Rolle und Perzeption der deutsch-französischen Zusammenarbeit in der erweiterten Europäischen Union setzte sich im Juni ein internationales Kolloquium mit dem Titel 'Gelungene Versöhnung – unsichere Zukunft?' in Erinnerung an Joseph Rovan auseinander, dessen Tagungsergebnisse das Dossier dokumentiert. Neben Beiträgen zur Bewertung der aktuellen Krise und den Herausforderungen an Deutschland und Frankreich, analysieren (weitere Beiträge) den Blick der anderen Mitgliedstaaten auf das 'couple'." (Autorenreferat

How Modelers Model: the Overlooked Social and Human Dimensions in Model Intercomparison Studies

There is a growing realization that the complexity of model ensemble studies depends not only on the models used but also on the experience and approach used by modelers to calibrate and validate results, which remain a source of uncertainty. Here, we applied a multi-criteria decision-making method to investigate the rationale applied by modelers in a model ensemble study where 12 process-based different biogeochemical model types were compared across five successive calibration stages. The modelers shared a common level of agreement about the importance of the variables used to initialize their models for calibration. However, we found inconsistency among modelers when judging the importance of input variables across different calibration stages. The level of subjective weighting attributed by modelers to calibration data decreased sequentially as the extent and number of variables provided increased. In this context, the perceived importance attributed to variables such as the fertilization rate, irrigation regime, soil texture, pH, and initial levels of soil organic carbon and nitrogen stocks was statistically different when classified according to model types. The importance attributed to input variables such as experimental duration, gross primary production, and net ecosystem exchange varied significantly according to the length of the modeler’s experience. We argue that the gradual access to input data across the five calibration stages negatively influenced the consistency of the interpretations made by the modelers, with cognitive bias in “trial-and-error” calibration routines. Our study highlights that overlooking human and social attributes is critical in the outcomes of modeling and model intercomparison studies. While complexity of the processes captured in the model algorithms and parameterization is important, we contend that (1) the modeler’s assumptions on the extent to which parameters should be altered and (2) modeler perceptions of the importance of model parameters are just as critical in obtaining a quality model calibration as numerical or analytical details.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

The nucleoid-associated proteins H-NS and FIS modulate the DNA supercoiling response of the pel genes, the major virulence factors in the plant pathogen bacterium Dickeya dadantii

Dickeya dadantii is a pathogen infecting a wide range of plant species. Soft rot, the visible symptom, is mainly due to the production of pectate lyases (Pels) that can destroy the plant cell walls. Previously we found that the pel gene expression is modulated by H-NS and FIS, two nucleoid-associated proteins (NAPs) modulating the DNA topology. Here, we show that relaxation of the DNA in growing D. dadantii cells decreases the expression of pel genes. Deletion of fis aggravates, whereas that of hns alleviates the negative impact of DNA relaxation on pel expression. We further show that H-NS and FIS directly bind the pelE promoter and that the response of D. dadantii pel genes to stresses that induce DNA relaxation is modulated, although to different extents, by H-NS and FIS. We infer that FIS acts as a repressor buffering the negative impact of DNA relaxation on pel gene transcription, whereas H-NS fine-tunes the response of virulence genes precluding their expression under suboptimal conditions of supercoiling. This novel dependence of H-NS effect on DNA topology expands our understanding of the role of NAPs in regulating the global bacterial gene expression and bacterial pathogenicity

Enhancing studies of the connectome in autism using the autism brain imaging data exchange II

The second iteration of the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (ABIDE II) aims to enhance the scope of brain connectomics research in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Consistent with the initial ABIDE effort (ABIDE I), that released 1112 datasets in 2012, this new multisite open-data resource is an aggregate of resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and corresponding structural MRI and phenotypic datasets. ABIDE II includes datasets from an additional 487 individuals with ASD and 557 controls previously collected across 16 international institutions. The combination of ABIDE I and ABIDE II provides investigators with 2156 unique cross-sectional datasets allowing selection of samples for discovery and/or replication. This sample size can also facilitate the identification of neurobiological subgroups, as well as preliminary examinations of sex differences in ASD. Additionally, ABIDE II includes a range of psychiatric variables to inform our understanding of the neural correlates of co-occurring psychopathology; 284 diffusion imaging datasets are also included. It is anticipated that these enhancements will contribute to unraveling key sources of ASD heterogeneity

Psicología social y moral de COVID-19 en 69 países

La pandemia de COVID-19 ha afectado a todos los ámbitos de la vida humana, incluido el tejido económico y social de las sociedades. Una de las estrategias centrales para gestionar la salud pública a lo largo de la pandemia ha sido el envío de mensajes persuasivos y el cambio de comportamiento colectivo. Para ayudar a los estudiosos a comprender mejor la psicología social y moral que subyace al comportamiento en materia de salud pública, presentamos un conjunto de datos compuesto por 51.404 individuos de 69 países. Este conjunto de datos se recopiló para el proyecto de la Colaboración Internacional en Psicología Social y Moral de COVID-19 (ICSMP COVID-19). Esta encuesta de ciencias sociales invitó a participantes de todo el mundo a completar una serie de medidas morales y psicológicas y actitudes de salud pública sobre COVID-19 durante una fase temprana de la pandemia de COVID-19 (entre abril y junio de 2020). La encuesta incluía siete grandes categorías de preguntas: Creencias sobre COVID-19 y conductas de cumplimiento; identidad y actitudes sociales; ideología; salud y bienestar; creencias morales y motivación; rasgos de personalidad; y variables demográficas. Presentamos los datos brutos y depurados, junto con todos los materiales de la encuesta, las visualizaciones de los datos y las evaluaciones psicométricas de las variables clave.The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all domains of human life, including the economic and social fabric of societies. One of the central strategies for managing public health throughout the pandemic has been through persuasive messaging and collective behaviour change. To help scholars better understand the social and moral psychology behind public health behaviour, we present a dataset comprising of 51,404 individuals from 69 countries. This dataset was collected for the International Collaboration on Social & Moral Psychology of COVID-19 project (ICSMP COVID-19). This social science survey invited participants around the world to complete a series of moral and psychological measures and public health attitudes about COVID-19 during an early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic (between April and June 2020). The survey included seven broad categories of questions: COVID-19 beliefs and compliance behaviours; identity and social attitudes; ideology; health and well-being; moral beliefs and motivation; personality traits; and demographic variables. We report both raw and cleaned data, along with all survey materials, data visualisations, and psychometric evaluations of key variables