Spatial integration in European cross-border metropolitan regions: A comparative approach

This article analyses the process of spatial integration in ten European cross-border metropolitan regions. On the basis of three indicators, relating to flows of cross-border commuters, gross domestic product and the housing market, it suggests that spatial integration can be viewed as a process of convergence between distinct territories, resulting from the intensification of interaction between social, political and economic actors. Our results allow, firstly, confirmation of the hypothesis that the greater the economic disparities, the greater the level of interactions measured by cross-border commuting. Our work also shows that strong economic interactions have an impact on the cross-border integration of communities, measured by the proportion of residents based on the other side of the border. Finally, this article leads to three models of cross-border integration being proposed: by specialisation, by polarisation and by osmosis.cross-border; metropilitan regions; spatial integration; commuters; gross domestic product; housing market; Europe

Charcoal analysis of lime kiln remains in Southern France : an original process of mediaeval and modern traditional lime burning

In Southern France, little has been known concerning the techniques used for lime burning. Recent archaeological research (excavations and surveys) provides evidence of a new lime burning process using a little sole to shaft and high stokehole. These lime kiln elements have been recognized in sites such as Saint-Blaise-de-Bauzon (XIIIth century, Bollène, Vaucluse), earthenware factory Favier (XVIIth century, Montpellier, Hérault) and the Homme Mort Valley (XVIIth century, Peynier, Bouches-du-Rhône). These new archaeological data allow the re-evaluation of the development of this activity and associated firewood management. Several kilns have been excavated in the Lower Provence (France), especially in the high Arc Valley area, aiming at a better understanding of the links between kiln construction and architecture and fire control. A sampling protocol of charcoal has been defined, experimented and improved during excavation work. The careful excavation and sampling of the charcoal layers is followed by microtopography of the kiln in order to identify the morphology / pattern of the fireplace. Fine sieving (0,2 mm mesh) allows the recovery of even the smallest charred biological remains (twigs, spines, leafs) and the reconstruction of the technical process of supplying the fire with wood. Charcoal analysis has taken in account diverse factors. After the anatomical identification of the species, all the specimens have been calibrated; statistical results thus obtained testify to the use of kindling wood (from scrub vegetation). The bark is often preserved allowing us to identify the cutting season. Further charred botanical remains (leaves and spines) were studied in Montpellier (Institut de Botanique) and point to the use of a taper at the bottom of fireplace to light the fire, at the very begining of the burning. This process is well suited for a lime burning kiln provided with a high stokehole. This new conception of lime production leads to the re-interpretation of the results from old excavations all over the Northern-Western Mediterranean basin, especially in Tunisia and central Italy.Les techniques de fabrication de la chaux sont assez méconnues dans le Midi de la France. Des recherches récentes (fouilles archéologiques et prospections) ont mis en évidence l'existence d'un procédé de cuisson au moyen d'une petite voûte à cheminée et gueule haute. Cette disposition des éléments du four à chaux est désormais connue sur plusieurs sites de productions de chaux à Saint-Blaise-de-Bauzon (XIIIe siècle, Bollène, Vaucluse, France), à la faïencerie Favier (XVIIe siècle, Montpellier, Hérault, France) ou dans le vallon de l'Homme Mort (XVIIe siècle, Peynier, Bouches-du-Rhône, France). Elle vient renouveler la vision acquise par l'archéologie sur cet artisanat et implique une gestion du feu spécifique. Plusieurs fours ont été fouillés en basse Provence (France), notamment dans le secteur de la haute Vallée de l'Arc, afin de comprendre les liens qui existent entre la disposition des éléments techniques du four et la gestion de la cuisson. Un protocole de prélèvements anthracologiques a été élaboré et affiné au fil des opérations archéologiques. Après un décapage minutieux de la couche de charbons, un relevé microtopographique est réalisé pour saisir la morphologie des restes du foyer, puis les charbons sont prélevés à la manière des places de charbonnières. Un tamisage très fin est ensuite effectué, permettant de récolter les végétaux carbonisés les plus petits (brindilles, épines, feuilles) et de reconstruire la chaîne opératoire technique de l'alimentation en combustible du feu par les chaufourniers. L'analyse anthracologique a tenu compte de plusieurs paramètres. Outre la caractérisation des espèces, les charbons de bois ont été calibrés afin d'établir une étude statistique pour montrer l'utilisation de fagots de broussailles. La saison d'abattage a été déterminée grâce à la conservation fréquente de l'écorce. L'analyse anthracologique a été complétée par une identification botanique réalisée à l'Université de Montpellier II sur les feuilles et épines carbonisées, mettant en évidence l'utilisation d'une mèche à la base du foyer servant à allumer le feu au début de la cuisson, procédé tout à fait adapté à la cuisson de la chaux avec gueule haute. Cette nouvelle approche de l'artisanat de la chaux permet de réinterpréter les résultats de fouilles de ce type d'installations découvertes plus anciennement dans le Sud de la France, mais aussi dans d'autres régions du pourtour de la Méditerranée, comme en Tunisie ou en Italie centrale

Les outils pour acquérir et transformer la matière ligneuse dans les chaînes opératoires techniques des artisanats forestiers en Provence et Haut-Dauphiné au Moyen Âge

International audienceThe interweaving of historical (charters and notarial sources, literary sources, iconography), archaeological and ethnoarchaeological data focuses on three major questions : how are tools made partially from wood made to work this same material, how can they be identified and recognized in technical processes, and what are the technical gestures used . The results underline the great variability in the way of using the same Tools in different stages of different technical processes. Technical innovation and intensive change in craft production during the late Middle Ages is also discussed.Le croisement des données historiques (actes de la ratique, littérature savante, iconographie), archéologiques et thnoarchéologiques s'organise autour de trois questions principales : celle de la fabrication même des outils qui sont façonnés pro parte dans la matière qu'ils ont vocation à travailler, le bois ; celle de l'identification des outils et de leur mise en oeuvre dans les chaînes opératoires techniques liées à l'acquisition et à la transformation de la matière ligneuse et enfin celle des gestes techniques. Les résultats soulignent une grande polyvalence des outils qui interviennent à des stades précis d'opérations de chaînes différentes. La question de l'innovation technique et de l'" industrialisation " au Bas Moyen Âge est abordée

Internal friction investigation of phase transformation in nearly stoichiometric LaMnO3+δ

Rhombohedral LaMnO3+δ powders, prepared by two different soft chemistry routes (co-precipitation and hydrothermal synthesis), are sintered at 1400 °C for 2 h in air. Measurements of internal friction Q−1(T) and shear modulus G(T), at low frequencies from −180 to 700 °C under vacuum, evidence three structural transitions of nearly stoichiometric orthorhombic LaMnO3+δ. The first one, at 250 or 290 °C, depending on the processing followed, is associated to either a Jahn–Teller structural transition or a phase transformation from orthorhombic to pseudo-cubic. The second one at 610 or 630 °C is related to a phase transformation from pseudo-cubic or orthorhombic to rhombohedral. Below the Neel temperature, around −170 °C, a relaxation peak could be associated, for samples prepared according to both processing routes, to the motion of Weiss domains

Continuous measurement of nitrate concentration in a highly event-responsive agricultural catchment in south-west of France: is the gain of information useful?

A nitrate sensor has been set up to measure every 10 min the nitrate signal in a stream draining a small agricultural catchment dominated by fertilized crops during a 2-year study period (2006–2008) in the south-west of France. An in situ sampling protocol using automatic sampler to monitor flood events have been used to assume a point-to-point calibration of the sensor values. The nitrate concentration exhibits nonsystematic concentration and dilution effects during flood events. We demonstrate that the calibrated nitrate sensor signal gathered from the outlet is considered to be a continuous signal using the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem. The objectives of this study are to quantify the errors generated by a typical infrequent sampling protocol and to design appropriate sampling strategy according to the sampling objectives. Nitrate concentration signal and flow data are numerically sampled to simulate common sampling frequencies. The total fluxes calculated from the simulated samples are compared with the reference value computed on the continuous signal. Uncertainties are increasing as sampling intervals increase; the method that is not using continuous discharge to compute nitrate fluxes bring larger uncertainty. The dispersion and bias computed for each sampling interval are used to evaluate the uncertainty during each hydrological period. High underestimation is made during flood periods when high-concentration period is overlooked. On the contrary, high sampling frequencies (from 3 h to 1 day) lead to a systematic overestimation (bias around 3%): highest concentrations are overweighted by the interpolation of the concentration in such case. The in situ sampling protocol generates less than 1% of load estimation error and sample highest concentration peaks. We consider useful such newly emerging field technologies to assess short-term variations of water quality parameters, to minimize the number of samples to be analysed and to assess the quality state of the stream at any time

Reconstructing Plant Architecture from 3D Laser scanner data

International audienceAutomatic acquisition of plant phenotypes constitutes a major bottleneck in the construction of quantitative models of plant development. This issue needs to be addressed to build accurate models of plant, useful for instance in agronomic and forestry applications. In this work, we present a method for reconstructing plant architecture from laser scanner data. A dedicated evaluation procedure based on a detailed comparison between expert and automatic reconstruction was developed to quantify accurately the quality of the reconstruction method

Plasticity of gene expression according to salinity in the testis of broodstock and F1 black-chinned tilapia, Sarotherodon melanotheron heudelotii

The black-chinned tilapia Sarotherodon melanotheron heudelotii Ruppell 1852 (Teleostei, Cichlidae) displays remarkable acclimation capacities. When exposed to drastic changes of salinity, which can be the case in its natural habitat, it develops quick physiological responses and keeps reproducing. The present study focused on the physiological impact of salinity on male reproductive capacities, using gene expression as a proxy of acclimation process. Two series of experimental fish were investigated: the first one was composed of fish maintained in freshwater for several generations and newly acclimated to salinities of 35 and 70, whereas the second one consisted of the descendants of the latter born and were raised under their native salinity. Expression patterns of 43 candidate genes previously identified from the testes of wild males was investigated in the three salinities and two generations. Twenty of them showed significant expression differences between salinities, and their predicted function revealed that most of them are involved in the osmotic tolerance of sperm cells and/or in the maintenance of sperm motility. A high level of expression variation was evidenced, especially for fish maintained in freshwater. In spite of this, gene expression patterns allowed the differentiation between fish raised in freshwater and those maintained in hypersaline water in both generations. Altogether, the results presented here suggest that this high variability of expression is likely to ensure the reproductive success of this species under varying salinities

InGaN/GaN core/shell nanowires for visible to ultraviolet range photodetection

International audienceWe report on the fabrication and characterization of single nitride nanowire visible-to-ultraviolet p-n photodetec-tors. Nitride nanowires containing 30 InGaN/GaN radial quantum wells with 18% indium fraction were grown by catalyst-free metal-organic vapour phase epitaxy. Single nanowires were contacted using optical lithography. As expected for a radial p-n junction, the current-voltage (I-V) curves of single wire detectors show a rectifying behavior in the dark and a photocurrent under illumination. The detectors present a response in the visible to UV spectral range starting from 2.8 eV. The peak responsivity is 0.17 A/W at 3.36 eV. The on-off switching time under square light pulses is found to be below 0.1 sec

Deciphering mango tree asynchronisms using Markov tree and probabilistic graphical models

ISBN 978-951-651-408-9International audienceTree development is often characterised by complex dependencies between daughter growth units (GUs) deriving from a given mother GU, the so-called sister GUs. These dependencies directly affect the reproductive and vegetative phenological patterns that are at the origin of asynchronisms between adjacent GUs, eventually leading to within-canopy patchiness. These phenomena are rather common on tropical fruit-trees. We introduce new parsimonious statistical models to identify such dependencies. The proposed approach is illustrated on mango tree, a tropical species with a particularly complex timing of development. We focus especially on differences on fates and dates of burst between the daughter GUs issued from a same mother GU

Plasmodium vivax-like genome sequences shed new insights into Plasmodium vivax biology and evolution

Although Plasmodium vivax is responsible for the majority of malaria infections outside Africa, little is known about its evolution and pathway to humans. Its closest genetic relative, P. vivax-like, was discovered in African great apes and is hypothesized to have given rise to P. vivax in humans. To unravel the evolutionary history and adaptation of P. vivax to different host environments, we generated using long- and short-read sequence technologies 2 new P. vivax-like reference genomes and 9 additional P. vivax-like genotypes. Analyses show that the genomes of P. vivax and P. vivax-like are highly similar and colinear within the core regions. Phylogenetic analyses clearly show that P. vivax-like parasites form a genetically distinct clade from P. vivax. Concerning the relative divergence dating, we show that the evolution of P. vivax in humans did not occur at the same time as the other agents of human malaria, thus suggesting that the transfer of Plasmodium parasites to humans happened several times independently over the history of the Homo genus. We further identify several key genes that exhibit signatures of positive selection exclusively in the human P. vivax parasites. Two of these genes have been identified to also be under positive selection in the other main human malaria agent, P. falciparum, thus suggesting their key role in the evolution of the ability of these parasites to infect humans or their anthropophilic vectors. Finally, we demonstrate that some gene families important for red blood cell (RBC) invasion (a key step of the life cycle of these parasites) have undergone lineage-specific evolution in the human parasite (e.g., reticulocyte-binding proteins [RBPs])