Protection et préservation du milieu marin : « Les apports des Conventions Régionales sur les mers aux dispositions de la Convention des Nations Unies sur le droit de la mer »

La Convention des Nations Unies sur le droit de la mer consacre une partie des ses dispositions à la protection et à la préservation du milieu marin (partie XII). Dans son article 192, les Etats ont « l'obligation de protéger et de préserver le milieu marin » et dans son article 193, les Etats ont « le droit souverain d'exploiter leurs ressources naturelles selon leur politique en matière d'environnement et conformément à leur obligation de protéger et de préserver le milieu marin ». Elle engage formellement les Etats dans leurs responsabilités pour cette protection (article 235). Les Conventions Régionales sur les mers, pour la plupart d’entres elles, reprennent ces dispositions mais sont plus sélectives dans certains domaines de protection et de préservation du milieu marin. L’analyse des conventions signées par la France permet de relever ces particularismes. Les Conventions Régionales sur les mers prolongent les engagements pris par les Etats dans le cadre de la Convention sur le droit de la mer. Elles créent un cadre géopolitique de coopération technique et scientifique. Elles sont une réponse aux recommandations du chapitre 17 de l’Agenda 21 de Rio. Elles permettent d’adopter des mesures spécifiques régionales par les protocoles et annexes, mettant en oeuvre des programmes et des plans d’action régionaux de protection de la mer. En encourageant les Etats à créer des réseaux d’aires marines et côtières protégées pour la protection de la biodiversité marine, elles créent aussi des outils d’évaluation technique et scientifique. Mais ces Conventions régionales ont encore des insuffisances. L’échelle de travail n’est pas basée sur celle des 64 grands écosystèmes marins ou des écorégions marines, et il y a peu d’approche sous régionale. Elles traitent rarement de stratégies de gestion des ressources naturelles exploitables et ne traitent pas davantage des enjeux de protection, ou des risques et des responsabilités avec une approche intersectorielle. La gestion intégrée des zones côtières est insuffisamment prise en compte sauf pour Convention de Barcelone qui mériterait d’être une référence dans ce domaine. De même la gestion du milieu marin basée sur l’écosystème n’est pas prise en compte alors qu’elle devrait être le fondement des politiques environnementales régionales sur les mers. Les conventions régionales ne prennent pas non plus de mesures de planification spatiale maritime régionale. L’évaluation de l’état du milieu marin est insuffisante (sauf pour OSPAR). La question du changement climatique est rarement intégrée. Il en est de même pour la question de l’acidification des océans qui devient un problème majeur. Il conviendrait que l’évaluation des applications et des progrès réalisés par les Etats dans leur engagement régional soit externalisée. Dans la mesure où il n’y a pas de sanctions envisagées en cas de non application par les Etats des dispositions des Conventions régionales, des outils de stimulation et de communication seraient pertinents pour faire progresser l’application de ces Conventions

Religious Minorities and Struggle for Recognition

Religious minorities are increasingly present in the public sphere. Often pointed out as a problem, we argue here that the establishment of these minorities in Western societies is happening through struggles for recognition. Communities or individuals belonging to different minorities are seeking recognition from the society in which they are living. In Section 1, we present, briefly, our perspective, which differs from the analyses generally presented in the sociology of religion in that it adopts a bottom-up perspective. In Section 2, we present and discuss articles dealing with case studies in the cities of Barcelona, Geneva, and Montreal. In Section 3, we discuss two articles that present a process of individualization of claims for recognition. Finally, we present an article that discusses the case of an unrecognized minority in the Turkish school system

Personalized Posture and Fall Classification with Shallow Gated Recurrent Units

Link to final publication : https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8787455International audienceActivities of Daily Living (ADL) classification is a key part of assisted living systems as it can be used to assess a person autonomy. We present in this paper an activity classification pipeline using Gated Recurrent Units (GRU) and inertial sequences. We aim to take advantage of the feature extraction properties of neural networks to free ourselves from defining rules or manually choosing features. We also investigate the advantages of resampling input sequences and personalizing GRU models to improve the performances. We evaluate our models on two datasets: a dataset containing five common postures: sitting, lying, standing, walking and transfer and a dataset named MobiAct V2 providing ADL and falls. Results show that the proposed approach could benefit eHealth services and particularly activity monitoring

Proposition d'une boîte à outils générique pour la facilitation du développement d'applications cartographiques multiplateformes

Alors que la cartographie en ligne fait désormais partie du quotidien d'un nombre grandissant de personnes, le développement des ACM (Applications Cartographiques Multiplateformes) reste à ce jour une tâche complexe pour les géomaticiens. L'abondance et la l'hétérogénéité des outils disponibles à cet effet alourdit considérablement le démarrage d'un nouveau projet et peut entraîner des choix hâtifs, parfois néfastes pour la qualité des ACM. Dans le but d'éliminer ce problème, cet essai met en place une évaluation de différents outils et propose, à la manière d'une boîte à outils générique, la meilleure combinaison répondant aux besoins des géomaticiens d'aujourd'hui

Recruitment of Mad2 to the Kinetochore Requires the Rod/Zw10 Complex

SummaryCompromising the activity of the spindle checkpoint permits mitotic exit in the presence of unattached kinetochores and, consequently, greatly increases the rate of aneuploidy in the daughter cells [1–3]. The metazoan checkpoint mechanism is more complex than in yeast in that it requires additional proteins and activities besides the classical Mads and Bubs. Among these are Rod, Zw10, and Zwilch, components of a 700 Kdal complex (Rod/Zw10) [4–6] that is required for recruitment of dynein/dynactin to kinetochores [7, 8] but whose role in the checkpoint is poorly understood. The dynamics of Rod and Mad2, examined in different organisms, show intriguing similarities as well as apparent differences [7, 9] . Here we simultaneously follow GFP-Mad2 and RFP-Rod and find they are in fact closely associated throughout early mitosis. They accumulate simultaneously on kinetochores and are shed together along microtubule fibers after attachment. Their behavior and position within attached kinetochores is distinct from that of BubR1; Mad2 and Rod colocalize to the outermost kinetochore region (the corona), whereas BubR1 is slightly more interior. Moreover, Mad2, but not BubR1, Bub1, Bub3, or Mps1, requires Rod/Zw10 for its accumulation on unattached kinetochores. Rod/Zw10 thus contributes to checkpoint activation by promoting Mad2 recruitment and to checkpoint inactivation by recruiting dynein/dynactin that subsequently removes Mad2 from attached kinetochores

Solutan echinoderms from the Lower Ordovician of the Montagne Noire (France): new data and palaeobiogeographic implications

Solutans are relatively common members of echinoderm assemblages in the Saint-Chinian Formation (upper Tremadocian) of the Montagne Noire (France). The revision of all available material confirms that most specimens can be assigned to Minervaecystis vidali, which is here reconstructed for the first time. The occurrence of Plasiacystis mobilis is evidenced based on a single, well-preserved dististele. The interpretation of the small-sized individual as a putative dendrocystitid is rejected: it corresponds to a juvenile specimen of M. vidali. Early Ordovician solutans from the Montagne Noire partly fill the gap between Laurentian midâlate Cambrian syringocrinids and Avalonian-Gondwanan EarlyâMiddle Ordovician taxa

Meiotic spindle stability depends on MAPK-interacting and spindle-stabilizing protein (MISS), a new MAPK substrate

Vertebrate oocytes arrest in the second metaphase of meiosis (metaphase II [MII]) by an activity called cytostatic factor (CSF), with aligned chromosomes and stable spindles. Segregation of chromosomes occurs after fertilization. The Mos/…/MAPK (mitogen-activated protein kinases) pathway mediates this MII arrest. Using a two-hybrid screen, we identified a new MAPK partner from a mouse oocyte cDNA library. This protein is unstable during the first meiotic division and accumulates only in MII, where it localizes to the spindle. It is a substrate of the Mos/…/MAPK pathway. The depletion of endogenous RNA coding for this protein by three different means (antisense RNA, double-stranded [ds] RNA, or morpholino oligonucleotides) induces severe spindle defects specific to MII oocytes. Overexpressing the protein from an RNA not targeted by the morpholino rescues spindle destabilization. However, dsRNA has no effect on the first two mitotic divisions. We therefore have discovered a new MAPK substrate involved in maintaining spindle integrity during the CSF arrest of mouse oocytes, called MISS (for MAP kinase–interacting and spindle-stabilizing protein)

Bench testing of a new hyperbaric chamber ventilator at different atmospheric pressures

Purpose: Providing mechanical ventilation is challenging at supra-atmospheric pressure. The higher gas density increases resistance, reducing the flow delivered by the ventilator. A new hyperbaric ventilator (Siaretron IPER 1000) is said to compensate for these effects automatically. The aim of this bench test study was to validate the compensation, define its limits and provide details on the ventilator's output at varied atmospheric pressures. Methods: Experiments were conducted inside a multiplace hyperbaric chamber at 1, 2.2, 2.8 and 4 atmospheres absolute (ATA), with the ventilator connected to a test lung. Transducers were recalibrated at each ATA level. Various ventilator settings were tested in volume and pressure control modes. Measured tidal volumes were compared with theoretical predictions based on gas laws. Results: Results confirmed the ventilator's ability to provide compensation, but also identified its limits. The compensation range could be predicted and depended on the maximal flow attainable, decreasing linearly with increasing atmospheric pressure. With settings inside the range, tidal volumes approximated set values (mean error 10±5%). With settings outside the range, the volume was limited to the predicted maximal value calculated from maximal flow. A practical guide for clinicians is provided. Conclusion: The IPER 1000 ventilator attempted to deliver stable tidal volume by adjusting the opening of the inspiratory valve in proportion to atmospheric pressure. Adequate compensation was observed, albeit only within a predictable range, which can be reliably predicted for each setting and ATA level combination. Setting a tidal volume outside this range can result in an unwanted decrease in minute ventilatio