La diplomatie américaine et le Hamas dans le cadre du processus de paix israélo-palestinien : gestion de crise ou crise de gestion?

Le conflit israélo-palestinien continue de faire couler beaucoup d'encre dans la discipline des relations internationales et beaucoup de sang au Proche-Orient. Dans le monde arabo-musulman, il est le prétexte de tous les radicalismes, de tous les extrémismes. Nous avons choisi d'aborder ce sujet sous l'angle d'un acteur particulier, le Mouvement de la Résistance Islamique, mieux connu sous le sigle de Hamas, dans un cadre bien précis, le processus de paix israélo-palestinien sous l'égide des États-Unis d'Amérique. Ce mouvement islamiste palestinien, mis en orbite par les Frères musulmans à partir de 1987, s'est vite fait de se tailler une place de choix sur la scène politique palestinienne, jusqu'à en devenir l'acteur le plus important. Dès sa création, il revendique un radicalisme sans concessions à l'endroit de l'État d'Israël dont il conteste la réalité, jurant de chasser les juifs hors du territoire de la Palestine, la terre sacrée de l'islam et de ses fils. Les accords de paix israélo-palestiniens négociés secrètement à Oslo et signés en grande pompe à Washington le 13 septembre 1993 par les leaders palestinien Yasser Arafat, chef de l'OLP et israélien Itzhak Rabin, Premier ministre en présence du président américain William Jefferson Clinton, avaient justement pour objectif de mettre un terme à des décennies de lutte existentielle entre les deux peuples, en favorisant selon un calendrier précis l'émergence d'un État palestinien, tout en régularisant la situation sécuritaire d'Israël. Le Hamas a rejeté de façon catégorique le protocole d'Oslo, taxé de reddition de la part des négociateurs palestiniens, déclarant continuer le combat nationaliste jusqu'à la destruction totale de l'État juif. En choisissant la dialectique des armes comme mode d'expression politique, le mouvement islamiste s'inscrit dans une logique de défi vis-à-vis du parrain américain et de la communauté internationale dont il conteste la médiation. Le radicalisme des islamistes, l'intransigeance de l'État d'Israël, une gestion de crise bien particulière des États-Unis d'Amérique auront sérieusement perturbé l'instrumentalisation des accords de paix. Les islamistes, contre toute attente, ont décidé au début des années 2000 de rejoindre l'Autorité palestinienne, structure qu'ils avaient régulièrement combattue pour être un produit des accords d'Oslo. Une première victoire aux élections municipales en 2004, un raz-de-marée électoral aux législatives deux ans plus tard, les propulsant à la tête de l'Autorité palestinienne, ont considérablement modifié leur position envers le processus de paix et Israël. Le mouvement islamiste a largement revu sa stratégie d'origine, adoptant une nouvelle posture moins radicale, plus réaliste, ouvrant une fenêtre d'opportunité pour la résolution du conflit israélo-palestinien par des moyens pacifiques, sur la base de la légalité internationale. L'acteur américain, à tort ou à raison, a choisi d'ignorer l'ouverture, conditionnant une éventuelle collaboration à l'observance stricte de ses diktats, notamment l'abandon total de la violence et la reconnaissance explicite de l'État d'Israël. Aujourd'hui, les territoires palestiniens sont divisés, le conflit israélo-palestinien étant très loin d'être résolu. Au cours de cette étude, nous mettrons en exergue les radicalismes, les intransigeances, les blocages qui ont laminé les fondements du processus de paix, sans omettre les préjugés, stéréotypes et jeux politiques qui l'ont complètement décrédibilisé, ce qui a empêché l'avènement d'une ère de paix entre Palestiniens et Israéliens. Le dossier israélo-palestinien connaîtra-t-il de solution définitive sans une évolution des mentalités?\ud ______________________________________________________________________________ \ud MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : autorité palestinienne islamisme, radicalisme, islamo-nationalisme, conflit israélo-palestinien, processus de paix, Hamas, Israël, Palestine, politique américaine au Proche-Orient

Simulation of mitochondrial metabolism using multi-agents system

Metabolic pathways describe chains of enzymatic reactions. Their modelling is a key point to understand living systems. An enzymatic reaction is an interaction between one or several metabolites (substrates) and an enzyme (simple protein or enzymatic complex build of several subunits). In our Mitochondria in Silico Project, MitoScop, we study the metabolism of the mitochondria, an intra-cellular organelle. Many ordinary differential equation models are available in the literature. They well fit experimental results on flux values inside the metabolic pathways, but many parameters are di$\pm$cult to transcribe with such models: localization of enzymes, rules about the reactions scheduler, etc Moreover, a model of a significant part of mitochondrial metabolism could become very complex and contain more than 50 equations. In this context, the multi-agents systems appear as an alternative to model the metabolic pathways. Firstly, we have looked after membrane design. The mitochondria is a particular case because the inner mitochondrial space, ie matricial space, is delimited by two membranes: the inner and the outer one. In addition to matricial enzymes, other enzymes are located inside the membranes or in the inter-membrane space. Analysis of mitochondrial metabolism must take into account this kind of architecture

Transfusion practices in postpartum hemorrhage: a population-based study.: Transfusion in Postpartum Haemorrhage

International audienceOBJECTIVE: To describe transfusion practices and anemia in women with postpartum hemorrhage (PPH), according to the clinical context. DESIGN: Population-based cohort study. SETTING: A total of 106 French maternity units (146 781 deliveries, December 2004 to November 2006). POPULATION: All women with PPH (n = 9365). METHODS: Description of the rate of red blood cell (RBC) transfusion in PPH overall and compared with transfusion guidelines. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Transfusion practices and postpartum anemia by mode of delivery and cause of PPH in women given RBCs within 12 h after PPH. RESULTS: A total of 701 women received RBCs (0.48 ± 0.04% of all women and 7.5 ± 0.5% of women with PPH). Half the women with clinical PPH and hemoglobin lower than 7.0 g/dL received no RBCs. In the group with clinical PPH and transfusion within 12 h (n = 426), operative vaginal delivery was associated with a larger maximal hemoglobin drop, more frequent administration of fresh-frozen plasma (FFP) and pro-hemostatic agents [odds ratio (OR) 3.54, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.12-11.18], transfusion of larger volumes of RBCs and FFP, a higher rate of massive RBCs transfusion (OR 5.22, 95% CI 2.12-12.82), and more frequent use of conservative surgery (OR 3.2, 95% CI 1.34-7.76), compared with spontaneous vaginal delivery. CONCLUSIONS: The RBC transfusion for PPH was not given in a large proportion of women with very low hemoglobin levels despite guidelines to the contrary. Operative vaginal delivery is characterized by higher blood loss and more transfusions than spontaneous vaginal delivery

The structural amphiphilicity of cellulose nanocrystals characterized from their cohesion parameters

Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs), usually considered as isotropically polar nanoparticles, are sheet-like crystalline assemblies of cellulose chains. Here, we link the anisotropy of the CNC structure to an amphiphilic behavior in suspension. The Hansen solubility parameters (HSP: δD; δP; δH) of woodbased H2SO4-hydrolyzed CNCs were measured from sedimentation tests in a wide set of 59 solvents and binary mixtures. Two sets of cohesion parameters corresponding to a polar surface (18.1; 20.4; 15.3) ± (0.5; 0.5; 0.4) MPa1/2 and to a mildly non-polar one (17.4; 4.8; 6.5) ± (0.3; 0.5; 0.6) MPa1/2 were determined, with respective solubility radii of 7.8 and 2.1MPa1/2. The polar sphere is thought to correspond to the (110)&(110) surfaces of cellulose Iβ nanocrystals, while the smaller non-polar sphere is coherent with the exposure of (200) surfaces. The HSP graph provides new insights on the amphiphilic nature of CNCs and a mapping of their chemical affnity for solvents and polymer matrices

Experimental determination of CO2 solubility in brines at high temperatures and high pressures and induced corrosion of materials in geothermal equipment

International audienc

Bainville-sur-Madon – Terre Vaine, carrière COGESUD (tranche 2)

Identifiant de l'opération archéologique : 137211 Date de l'opération : 2008 (EX) Cette opération de diagnostic archéologique fait suite à la première tranche de 5 ha sondée en 2005 par M.-P. Koenig. Aucun vestige archéologique n'a été mis au jour sur les 7 ha expertisés lors de cette seconde phase. L'absence de vestiges n'est pas surprenante au vu de l'érosion totale de la formation superficielle. De nouvelles anomalies circulaires et curvilignes, identiques à celles observées en photographi..

Delineating policies: governing spaces with no coextensive institutions:metropolitan areas and disadvantaged communities in the United States

Many policies are spatially targeted: they attempt to foster or incent policy actions in areas meeting specific criteria. The identification and delineation of the spatial reality of interest is a major challenge to spatially targeted policies. In many cases, this spatial reality has an ambiguous meaning and no coterminous governing institution, leading to the need for institutional collaboration around policies. This project investigates the discrepancy occurring when the functional space relevant for polices and the institutional space of government produced by historical processes do not share the same extent. The research examines two spatial realities of importance for public policies in the United States: metropolitan areas and disadvantaged communities. Because they are the main social unit of urban life, metropolitan areasâsuch as the San Francisco Bay Areaâare the target of housing or economic development policies. Disadvantaged communities are targeted by programs intending to mitigate inequalities between communities. In both cases, specialists and laymen alike have a sense of what these spatial realities are, but charting a robust, actionable definition is problematic. The three articles of this doctoral project form a coherent path to scrutinize and resolve the spatial reality / institutional space disjunction. The first, *Identifying the space of urban life*, investigates spatial practices of individuals and how, collectively, they cast a unit of urban life, the metropolitan area. The second paper, *On point: designing robust spatial targeting for public policies*, analyzes how these practices can be integrated in a robust policy targeting, taking the example of disadvantaged communities in California. The third paper, *The place and scale of consent* takes a bottom-up approach to show how individuals perceive and express preferences for resolving that discrepancy. I show that neither of the currently used definitions for metropolitan areas and disadvantaged communities is robust because they use a strict threshold on a continuous metric that is not exhibiting clear breakpoints. Furthermore, definitions are not geographically consistent. A single definition does not capture the same reality of a metropolitan area in a coastal region or in the rural west, or of a disadvantaged community in a large urban region or in a rural county. Therefore, these definitions fail to provide a dependable policy target. Moreover, I show that local preferences for policy collaboration to resolve the discrepancy vary geographically, further undermining the relevance of a one-size-fits-all definition. I recommend that definitions of spatial targets for policies use a continuous scale instead of a discrete, binary one. These definitions should also be adapted to the geographical context they are applied in. Randomized vignette experiments can be used to understand residents' preferences

The apparent structural hydrophobicity of cellulose nanocrystals

The Teas graph of wood-based sulfuric acid-hydrolyzed cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) was plotted based on sedimentation tests in a set of 25 common solvents. Comparisons with those of sucrose and dextran, taken as equivalents for cellobiose (cellulose repeating unit) and amorphous cellulose, respectively, highlighted the amphiphilic nature of CNCs. In the absence of any chemical arguments, the hydrophobic behavior displayed is thought to be caused by the exposition of (200) lattice planes at the CNC surface. This apparent structural hydrophobicity may be exploited to achieve the dispersion of CNCs in some mildly-non polar matrices such as poly(ethylene glycol) and poly(lactic acid). The Teas graph is a useful tool to predict the dispersibility potential of CNCs and to select a proper solvent for nanocomposite preparatio

Quality care in vesico-vaginal obstetric fistula: case series report from the regional hospital of Maroua-Cameroon

The World Health Organization (WHO) proposes a successful closure rate for first repair of vesico-vaginal obstetric fistula to be at 85% in each facility, with the continence achievement among the closed cases at 90 %. We are reporting the vesico-vaginal obstetric fistula outcome at the provincial hospital of Maroua-Cameroon from 2005 to August 2007. Among the overall 32 patients with vesico-vaginal fistula operated, 25 patients were at their first operation. The complete closure of vesico-vaginal fistula (VVF) was 23/25 (92%) and among the 23 patients with complete closure 17(74%) had good continence. When we consider only the 25 patients who were at their first operation, the overall closure of VVF was 23/25 (92%) and among them 17/23 (74%) were continent. Large lesion, bladder neck lesions, vaginal adherence and rigid margin are associated with failure/incontinence. These factors must be taken into consideration when preparing patients for surgery or when assigning them to a surgeon within the surgical team