CANOPUS : la CANOpée du camPUSRapport de synthèse de la première phase du projet (2015-2018)

Le projet CANOPUS, association des mots CANOpée et camPUS, a été lancé en 2015 à l'initiative de Bruno CHARLIER, maître de conférences en géographie, chercheur au laboratoire PASSAGES UMR CNRS-UPPA 5319. Ce projet a été développé avec le soutien logistique et financier de la Direction du Patrimoine de l'UPPA représentée par M. Capelle (correspondant CANOPUS au sein de la Direction du Patrimoine). L'équipe CANOPUS se compose aujourd'hui de 3 enseignants-chercheurs et 1 ingénieure d'étude de l'équipe de recherche PASSAGES :- Bruno CHARLIER (MCF en Géographie et Aménagement – UMR PASSAGES)- Hélène DOUENCE (MCF en Géographie et Aménagement – UMR PASSAGES)- Thao TRAN (MCF en Géographie et Aménagement – UMR PASSAGES)- Delphine MONTAGNE (IE UMR PASSAGES)La végétation arborée du campus palois de l'UPPA comprend près de 1 000 arbres. Jusqu'à la création de la base de données géographiques CANOPUS, l'UPPA ne savait rien de ces arbres. Leur nombre, la variété des essences, l'âge des sujets, leur état sanitaire étaient totalement inconnus. Pourtant, en se promenant sur le campus palois, la présence des arbres ne peut échapper au regard. Ils sont visibles à l'extérieur mais aussi de l'intérieur des bâtiments. Si leur gestion a un coût et qu'elle doit répondre à des objectifs sécuritaires, les arbres fournissent aussi d'importantes aménités environnementales mesurables et quantifiables.Quand on sait que la plupart des arbres du campus ont poussé en temps que les bâtiments universitaires, il est difficile de penser que l'on puisse gérer les uns sans gérer les autres. Car les deux peuvent être considérés comme des parties intrinsèquement liées de ce qui fait le Patrimoine (avec un grand P) de l'Université. Les enjeux du projet CANOPUS peuvent être envisagés à plusieurs niveaux :- Faire évoluer la gestion actuelle "au coup par coup" des arbres du campus vers un plan de gestion global et intégré de la végétation arborée dans son ensemble permettant d'assurer son suivi sanitaire, son renouvellement tout en tenant compte des impératifs de mise en sécurité du domaine universitaire.- L'idée est d'engager une démarche de gestion patrimoniale et faire que, dans les années futures, le campus palois conserve ses qualités environnementales et paysagères qui en font aussi son attrait.- Favoriser une reconnaissance de la valeur intrinsèque des espaces non bâtis de l'UPPA comme composante essentielle de ce qui fait le campus de l'université- Favoriser une reconnaissance de la valeur patrimoniale de la végétation arborée, du rôle qu'elle joue et qu'elle peut jouer en termes d'aménités environnementales mais aussi de services écologiques et d'agrément pour l'université et la ville.- Faire émerger et conforter l'idée que le campus de l'UPPA puisse constituer un laboratoire à ciel ouvert support de projets pédagogiques et scientifiquesDe 2015 à 2017, la réalisation de la première phase du projet CANOPUS (inventaire des arbres) s'est appuyée sur les compétences arboricoles de Gwenaëlle DUMONT étudiante en Master Géographie, Aménagement, Environnement (GAED) parcours Développement, Aménagement, Sociétés, Territoire (DAST) avec le renfort de Thomas COSTE étudiant en Licence de Géographie et Aménagement.Une partie de ce rapport a été rédigé sur la base du contenu des deux mémoires de Master rédigés par Gwenaëlle DUMONT. Il fait la synthèse de la phase 1 du projet CANOPUS. Ce rapport est composé de 3 parties dans lesquelles sont présentés :1. la base de données et le système d'information géographique (SIG) créée dans le cadre du projet CANOPUS2. les principaux résultats du traitement des données de l'inventaire quantitatif et qualitatif des arbres du campuspalois de l'UPPA3. une liste de 9 propositions pour faire évoluer la gestion actuelle des arbres et des espaces verts du campu

Novel insights in the interpretation of the faecal egg count reduction test to monitor anthelmintic efficacy

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Which placebo to cure depression? A thought-provoking network meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Antidepressants are often considered to be mere placebos despite the fact that meta-analyses are able to rank them. It follows that it should also be possible to rank different placebos, which are all made of sucrose. To explore this issue, which is rather more epistemological than clinical, we designed an unusual meta-analysis to investigate whether the effects of placebo in one situation are different from the effects of placebo in another situation. METHODS: Published and unpublished studies were searched for by three reviewers on Medline, the Cochrane Library, Embase, clinicaltrials.gov, Current Controlled Trial, in bibliographies, and by mailing key organizations. The following studies in first-line treatment for major depressive disorder were considered to construct an “evidence network”: 1) randomized controlled trials (RCTs) versus placebo on fluoxetine, venlafaxine and 2) fluoxetine versus venlafaxine head-to-head RCTs. Two network meta-analyses were run to indirectly compare response and remission rates among three different placebos: 1) fluoxetine placebo, 2) venlafaxine placebo, and 3) venlafaxine/fluoxetine placebo (that is, placebo compared to both venlafaxine and fluoxetine). Publication biases were assessed using funnel plots and statistically tested. RESULTS: The three placebos were not significantly different in terms of response or remission. The antidepressant agents were significantly more efficacious than the placebos, and venlafaxine was more efficacious than fluoxetine. The funnel plots, however, showed a major publication bias. CONCLUSION: The presence of significant levels of publication bias indicates that we cannot even be certain of the conclusion that sucrose equals sucrose in trials of major depressive disorder. This result should remind clinicians to step back to take a more objective view when interpreting a scientific result. It is of crucial importance for their practice, far more so than ranking antidepressant efficacy

Novel Insights in the Fecal Egg Count Reduction Test for Monitoring Drug Efficacy against Soil-Transmitted Helminths in Large-Scale Treatment Programs

The reduction in number of eggs excreted in stools after drug administration is a primary parameter to monitor the efficacy of drugs against parasitic worms. Guidelines on how to perform such a fecal egg count reduction test (FECRT) are provided by the World Health Organization. However, it remains unclear to which extent these guidelines are cost-effective. We, therefore, performed a simulation study in which the FECRT was performed under varying conditions to determine the critical values for sample size, the detection limit of the fecal egg count (FEC) method, mean baseline FEC, and variation of FEC across host population that allow for conclusive FECRT results. The results revealed that a reliable monitoring system demands a sample size of 200 subjects and that in some cases FECRT results may be thwarted by low mean baseline FEC. For this sample size, the detection of the FEC method or the variation of FEC across the host population did not affect the FECRT results. Our findings underscore that the current guidelines are not cost-effective, demanding too much financial and technical resources. We, therefore, propose novel guidelines to support future monitoring programs

Scheduling UWB Ranging and Backbone Communications in a Pure Wireless Indoor Positioning System

International audienceIn this paper, we present and evaluate an ultra-wideband (UWB) indoor processing architecture that allows the performing of simultaneous localizations of mobile tags. This architecture relies on a network of low-power fixed anchors that provide forward-ranging measurements to a localization engine responsible for performing trilateration. The communications within this network are orchestrated by UWB-TSCH, an adaptation to the ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless technology of the time-slotted channel-hopping (TSCH) mode of IEEE 802.15.4. As a result of global synchronization, the architecture allows deterministic channel access and low power consumption. Moreover, it makes it possible to communicate concurrently over multiple frequency channels or using orthogonal preamble codes. To schedule communications in such a network, we designed a dedicated centralized scheduler inspired from the traffic aware scheduling algorithm (TASA). By organizing the anchors in multiple cells, the scheduler is able to perform simultaneous localizations and transmissions as long as the corresponding anchors are sufficiently far away to not interfere with each other. In our indoor positioning system (IPS), this is combined with dynamic registration of mobile tags to anchors, easing mobility, as no rescheduling is required. This approach makes our ultra-wideband (UWB) indoor positioning system (IPS) more scalable and reduces deployment costs since it does not require separate networks to perform ranging measurements and to forward them to the localization engine. We further improved our scheduling algorithm with support for multiple sinks and in-network data aggregation. We show, through simulations over large networks containing hundreds of cells, that high positioning rates can be achieved. Notably, we were able to fully schedule a 400-cell/400-tag network in less than 11 s in the worst case, and to create compact schedules which were up to 11 times shorter than otherwise with the use of aggregation, while also bounding queue sizes on anchors to support realistic use situations

Modulation of Cox-1, 5-, 12- and 15-Lox by popular herbal remedies used in southern Italy against psoriasis and other skin diseases.

Acanthus mollis (Acanthaceae), Achillea ligustica, Artemisia arborescens and Inula viscosa (Asteraceae) are used in Southern Italy against psoriasis and other skin diseases that occur with an imbalanced production of eicosanoids. We here assessed their in vitro effects upon 5-, 12-, 15-LOX and COX-1 enzymes as well as NFκB activation in intact cells as their possible therapeutic targets. All methanol crude extracts inhibited both 5-LOX and COX-1 activities under 200 µg/mL, without significant effects on the 12-LOX pathway or any relevant in vitro free radical scavenging activity. NFκB activation was prevented by all extracts but A. mollis. Interestingly, A. ligustica, A. arborescens and A. mollis increased the biosynthesis of 15(S)-HETE, an anti-inflammatory eicosanoid. A. ligustica (IC50 =49.5 µg/mL) was superior to Silybum marianum (IC50 =147.8 µg/mL), which we used as antipsoriatic herbal medicine of reference. Its n-hexane, dichloromethane and ethyl acetate fractions had also inhibitory effects on the LTB4 biosynthesis (IC50 s=9.6, 20.3 and 68 µg/mL, respectively) evidencing that the apolar extracts of A. ligustica are promising active herbal ingredients for future phytotherapeutical products targeting psoriasis