Dynamiques des Entreprises Agroalimentaires (EAA) du Languedoc-Roussillon : évolutions 1998-2003. Programme de recherche PSDR 2001-2006 financé par l'Inra et la Région Languedoc-Roussillon

It was the title chosen in January 2004 for the 12 pages of the "Agreste" restitution of the primary results obtained through this second investigation, to the partners and interviewed firms, which was intended to question the evolutions of the regional agro-food sphere over 5 years (1998-2003). Let us recall that the survey of 1998 was implemented just after the 1992-1995 crisis, and therefore reflected a certain optimism. The situation is far from being similar in 2003, whereas a new crisis has been hitting the global economy since 2001 and, consequently, the consumer has become more cautious. The principal lessons of this investigation appear to be of three orders: 1. Reduction in the number of establishments and firms. Many establishments disappeared (404 out of the 1.384 listed in 1998), but one should also note many creations (194), confirming a real dynamism of the regional agro-food sector. The sales progression, with total sales now reaching nearly 8 billion d'euros, even if it is not very high, implies a concentration of the offer, which is hardly surprising in times of crisis. The good news, under these conditions, is the total resistance of the total employment still reaching around 25.000 full time equivalents. 2. The driving effect on the regional agriculture is very important (nearly 50% of raw agricultural goods purchases come from the area), and 70% of the interviewed chief executives declare to primarily buy from regional producers and suppliers. The added value created by these companies, which is upstream induced, as much in agriculture as in industrial supplies or as in services, is undoubtedly, except perhaps for the public works and construction sectors, the most important among the regional industries. 3. More and more regional companies are becoming "subcontractors", without real decision-making power concerning their future. This relative `forfeiture' of their independence is initially due to a governance which flees the area: the repurchases of regional companies of average size by larger national or international firms often result in the suppression of any human and decisional structure but for production in the region. The increasing dependence on the discount distribution circuits, the companies `privately owned brands' substitution by `low prices' and `buyers own brands' products, proceed from the same weakening of the regional `governance'. On the basis of the principle that the current markets are saturated and the prices of the `standard' current products can only continue to drop, it thus remains the most difficult to achieve: finding new markets and/or finding new products or services. With the current stagnation coming to an end (at least if one believes in these last months economic indicators), an agro-food dynamic and durable revival in Languedoc Roussillon can, according to our understanding, only come from the reinforcement of three strategic orientations in the near future: to innovate more, to better defend its private brands and to export more. The articles presented in this 'research journal' explore these orientations, put forward managing implications resulting from the observed results and propose some directions for future research. ...French Abstract : Tel fut le titre choisi en janvier 2004 pour le 12 pages de restitution "Agreste", auprès des partenaires et entreprises, des premiers résultats obtenus par cette deuxième enquête destinée à sonder l'évolution sur 5 ans (1998-2003) de la sphère agroalimentaire régionale. Rappelons que l'enquête de 1998 se situait en 'sortie' de la crise de 1992-1995 et reflétait un certain optimisme. Il n'en est pas de même en 2003, alors qu'une nouvelle crise rend l'économie globale plutôt atone depuis 2001, et, par voie de conséquence, le consommateur plus frileux. Les principales leçons de l'enquête nous semblent être de trois ordres : 1. Diminution du nombre d'établissements et d'entreprises. Beaucoup d'établissements ont disparu (404 sur les 1 384 recensés en 1998), mais on constate aussi de nombreuses créations (194), confirmant un réel dynamisme de l'agroalimentaire régional. La progression du CA à près de 8 milliards d'euros, même si elle n'est pas très forte, implique un phénomène de concentration de l'offre, qui n'est guère surprenant en temps de crise. La bonne nouvelle, dans ces conditions, c'est le maintien global de l'emploi dans ces entreprises autour de 25 000 équivalents temps plein. 2. L'effet d'entraînement sur l'agriculture régionale est très important (près de 50% des achats de matières premières agricoles proviennent de la région) et 70% des chefs d'entreprise déclarent s'approvisionner auprès de producteurs et fournisseurs régionaux. La valeur ajoutée créée par les entreprises, et celle qui est induite en amont, tant dans l'agriculture que dans l'agro-industrie ou les services est sans doute, à l'exception peut-être du secteur des travaux publics et de la construction, la plus importante de l'industrie régionale. 3. Toujours plus d'entreprises régionales deviennent des " sous-traitants ", sans réel pouvoir de décision concernant leur devenir. Cette relative 'déchéance' de leur libre arbitre tient d'abord à une gouvernance qui fuit la région : les rachats d'entreprises régionales de taille moyenne par des firmes de plus grande taille se traduit souvent par la suppression de toute structure humaine et décisionnelle autre que de production en région. La dépendance croissante envers les circuits de discount, la substitution des 'marques propres' des entreprises par des produits 'premiers prix' et 'sous marque de distributeur', procède du même affaiblissement de la gouvernance régionale. Partant de ce principe que les marchés actuels sont saturés et que les prix des produits 'standards' actuels ne peuvent que continuer de baisser, il reste donc le plus difficile à accomplir : trouver de nouveaux débouchés et/ou trouver de nouveaux produits ou services. A l'aube d'une sortie de l'actuel marasme (du moins si l'on en croit les indicateurs économiques de ces derniers mois), une relance durable de la dynamique agroalimentaire du Languedoc Roussillon ne peut donc, à notre sens, provenir que du renforcement de trois orientations stratégiques porteuses d'avenir : innover plus, mieux défendre ses marques et exporter plus. Les articles présentés dans ce cahier de recherche explorent ces orientations, mettent en exergue les implications managériales issues des résultats observés et présentent les pistes de recherche future.CORPORATE STRATEGY; INNOVATION; SME; FOOD INDUSTRY; BRAND; FINANCING; GROWTH; PERFORMANCE; QUALITY; TERROIR; GOVERNANCE; WINE PROCESSING INDUSTRY; NICT; LANGUEDOC ROUSSILLON

Cooperative performance measurement proposal (a test with the cooperfic© tool for wine cooperatives in Languedoc-Roussillon)

Purpose: French wine cooperatives show differences of corporate objectives, but also common ones with private wine merchants, as they face a common economic environment. The traditional controlling and financial models do not seem adequate to measure ‘sustainable social economy’ performances advocated by the cooperatives’ philosophy. The main difficulty is that their specific corporate governance introduces competition between short term maximum payments to their grape suppliers-patrons and long term investment potentials. How, therefore, facing this “cooperative dilemma”, should they balance these conflicting objectives, and which performance measurement specificities should wine cooperatives adopt? Design/methodology: In order to try and answer this question, the design of an adapted data base appears to be necessary. It should take into account the apparent antinomy of the cooperatives’ short term and long term objectives, in the context of an economically sustainable development. An original economic and financial measurement model is proposed, and we test it with COOPERFIC?, a decision-aid tool for wine cooperatives, based upon a specially constructed data base in Languedoc-Roussillon. Findings: The exploratory results obtained from the test of an original performance measurement model on an ad hoc sample of wine cooperatives lead to new insights into cooperative performance and to some useful guidelines in terms of cooperative governance. Results show how the conflict between their short term and long term performances could be balanced, in order for this specific type of firm to reach its economic and social objectives Practical implications: A conjoint short and long term economic indicators approach illustrates the necessary balance in the cooperative governance, and constitutes a performance measurement model answering some of these wine cooperatives’ Board and management questions ...French Abstract : Propos: Les caves coopératives françaises font apparaître des points de divergence, mais aussi de convergence avec les négociants en vin, en matière d’objectifs d’entreprise, dans la mesure où elles font face au même environnement économique. Toutefois, les modèles traditionnels financiers et de contrôle de gestion ne semblent pas adaptés à la mesure des performances d’une économie sociale durable, dont les valeurs sont portées par la philosophie coopérative. La principale difficulté réside dans le fait que leur mode de gouvernance spécifique entraîne un conflit permanent entre la rémunération maximale à court terme des vignerons coopérateurs et les capacités d’investissement à long terme. Aussi, face à ce « dilemme coopératif », comment les entreprises coopératives viticoles doivent-elles concilier ces objectifs conflictuels et quels types de mesures de performance spécifiques devraient-elles adopter ? Design/méthodologie: Afin d’arriver à répondre à cette double question, la conception d’une base de données spécifique apparaît nécessaire. Elle se doit de prendre en compte l’apparente antinomie des objectifs à court terme et à long terme des coopératives, dans le cadre d’un développement économique durable. Un modèle de mesure de performance économique et financière est ici proposé et testé à l’aide de l’outil d’aide à la décision COOPERFIC?, spécifique aux caves coopératives du Languedoc-Roussillon. Résultats: Les résultats exploratoires provenant du test d’un modèle original de mesure de la performance sur un échantillon ad hoc de caves coopératives conduit à de nouvelles perspectives en matière de performance coopérative, ainsi qu’à des conseils utiles ayant trait à la gouvernance. Ces résultats montrent la façon dont le conflit entre performances à court terme et à long terme pourrait être maîtrisé en vue d’atteindre les objectifs économiques et sociaux de ce type particulier d’entreprise. Implications managériales: Une approche conjointe des indicateurs économiques à court et long terme illustre le nécessaire équilibre à trouver en matière de gouvernance coopérative et constitue un modèle de mesure de la performance répondant à un certain nombre de questions relatives au conseil d’administration et au management général des coopératives.WINE COOPERATIVES; GOVERNANCE; PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT; INDICATORS; LANGUEDOC ROUSSILLON; FRANCE

Clinical and microbiological efficacy of micafungin on Geosmithia argillacea infection in a cystic fibrosis patient

Cystic fibrosis are at risk of colonization by a number of fungi, including Geosmithiaargillacea which appears to be an emerging pathogen in these patients. This pathogen has been recently reported as a cause of invasive/systemic mycosis in immunocompromized patients such as colonized patients who are immunosuppressed for lung transplantation. In this context, we report here a case of clinical and microbiological efficacy of micafungin in a French cystic fibrosis patient chronically colonized with G. argillacea. O.D., a female F508Del-CFTR homozygous patient was diagnosed at birth with cystic fibrosis in January 1996. She was found chronically colonised with multi-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) from 1997 to 2011, and with Aspergillus fumigatus from 2001 to 2006. She was treated alternatively with oral voriconazole and itraconazole from 2004 to 2008, and with posaconazole since february 2008. Geosmithia argillacea was first diagnosed in May 2007, and chronic colonisation was persistent from this date to August 2010 with 23/28 fungus positive sputum samples, in spite of posaconazole therapy. For an isolate obtained in October 2008, minimal inhibitory/effective concentrations (MIC/MEC, mg/ml) determined using the Eucast method were 2.0, 2.0, 16.0, 2,0, 0.25 and 0.015 for amphotericin B, itraconazole, voriconazole, posaconazole, caspofungin and micafungin, respectively. The FEV1 predicted value was 73% at the time of first fungus isolation and was decreased to 47% in October 2009. She then was given caspofungin for 21 days ((70 mg/day, later reduced to 50 mg) which resulted in clinical improvement (FEV1 = 64% in January 2010) without eradication of G. argillacea. In June 2010, treatment with micafungin (75 mg, 21days) was realized owing to deterioration of the respiratory function (FEV1 = 56%),without clinical improvement ( FEV1 = 47% in August 2010). O.D. was then treated from September, 23 to November 3, 2010 with micafungin (100mg bid for 21 days and 100mg/day for the following 21 days) which resulted in clinical and microbiological improvement. FEV1 predicted ranged 67-68% in October and December 2010, and February and May 2011, and from the end of treatment to December 2010, 5/6 sputum samples were found negative for G. argillacea. The positive sample contained fungus of the same genotype as previous isolates. The present case is to our knowledge the first description of G. argillacea eradication in a chronically colonized cystic fibrosis patient. Similar to previous studies, G. argillacea colonization was detected in the presence of chronic MRSA after A. fumigatus eradication. Since no change in bacterial colonization was observed before, during, and after G. argillacea colonization, the present case is consistent with a pathogenic role of the fungus in cystic fibrosis patients. In vitro antifungal susceptibility assays suggested that echinocandins are most effective agents against this fungus with a lowest MEC for micafungin (7 isolates studied, MEC range: 0.015-0.03), although eradication could only be obtained with high dose micafungin for a long time (6 weeks)

Search for Higgs bosons decaying to tautau pairs in ppbar collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV

We present a search for the production of neutral Higgs bosons decaying into tautau pairs in ppbar collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV. The data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.4 fb-1, were collected by the D0 experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. We set upper limits at the 95% C.L. on the product of production cross section and branching ratio for a scalar resonance decaying into tautau pairs, and we then interpret these limits as limits on the production of Higgs bosons in the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) and as constraints in the MSSM parameter space.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, submitted to PL

Measurement of the photon+b+b-jet production differential cross section in ppˉp\bar{p} collisions at \sqrt{s}=1.96~\TeV

We present measurements of the differential cross section dsigma/dpT_gamma for the inclusive production of a photon in association with a b-quark jet for photons with rapidities |y_gamma|< 1.0 and 30<pT_gamma <300 GeV, as well as for photons with 1.5<|y_gamma|< 2.5 and 30< pT_gamma <200 GeV, where pT_gamma is the photon transverse momentum. The b-quark jets are required to have pT>15 GeV and rapidity |y_jet| < 1.5. The results are based on data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 8.7 fb^-1, recorded with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron $p\bar{p}$ Collider at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV. The measured cross sections are compared with next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculations using different sets of parton distribution functions as well as to predictions based on the kT-factorization QCD approach, and those from the Sherpa and Pythia Monte Carlo event generators.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Phys. Lett.

Limits on anomalous trilinear gauge boson couplings from WW, WZ and Wgamma production in pp-bar collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV

We present final searches of the anomalous gammaWW and ZWW trilinear gauge boson couplings from WW and WZ production using lepton plus dijet final states and a combination with results from Wgamma, WW, and WZ production with leptonic final states. The analyzed data correspond to up to 8.6/fb of integrated luminosity collected by the D0 detector in pp-bar collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV. We set the most stringent limits at a hadron collider to date assuming two different relations between the anomalous coupling parameters Delta\kappa_\gamma, lambda, and Delta g_1^Z for a cutoff energy scale Lambda=2 TeV. The combined 68% C.L. limits are -0.057<Delta\kappa_\gamma<0.154, -0.015<lambda<0.028, and -0.008<Delta g_1^Z<0.054 for the LEP parameterization, and -0.007<Delta\kappa<0.081 and -0.017<lambda<0.028 for the equal couplings parameterization. We also present the most stringent limits of the W boson magnetic dipole and electric quadrupole moments.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, submitted to PL

Measurement of three-jet differential cross sections d sigma-3jet / d M-3jet in p anti-p collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV

We present the first measurement of the inclusive three-jet differential cross section as a function of the invariant mass of the three jets with the largest transverse momenta in an event in p anti-p collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV. The measurement is made in different rapidity regions and for different jet transverse momentum requirements and is based on a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 0.7 fb^{-1} collected with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. The results are used to test the three-jet matrix elements in perturbative QCD calculations at next-to-leading order in the strong coupling constant. The data allow discrimination between parametrizations of the parton distribution functions of the proton.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Phys. Lett. B, corrected chi2 values for NNPD

Search for pair production of the scalar top quark in muon+tau final states

We present a search for the pair production of scalar top quarks ($\tilde{t}_{1}$), the lightest supersymmetric partners of the top quarks, in $p\bar{p}$ collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV, using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of {7.3 $fb^{-1}$} collected with the \dzero experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. Each scalar top quark is assumed to decay into a $b$ quark, a charged lepton, and a scalar neutrino ($\tilde{\nu}$). We investigate final states arising from $\tilde{t}_{1} \bar{\tilde{t}_{1}} \rightarrow b\bar{b}\mu\tau \tilde{\nu} \tilde{\nu}$ and $\tilde{t}_{1} \bar{\tilde{t}_{1}} \rightarrow b\bar{b}\tau\tau \tilde{\nu} \tilde{\nu}$. With no significant excess of events observed above the background expected from the standard model, we set exclusion limits on this production process in the ($m_{\tilde{t}_{1}}$,$m_{\tilde{\nu}}$) plane.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Lett.

Measurements of inclusive W+jets production rates as a function of jet transverse momentum in ppbar collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV

This Letter describes measurements of inclusive W (--> e nu) + n jet cross sections (n = 1-4), presented as total inclusive cross sections and differentially in the nth jet transverse momentum. The measurements are made using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.2 fb-1 collected by the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider, and achieve considerably smaller uncertainties on W +jets production cross sections than previous measurements. The measurements are compared to next-to-leading order perturbative QCD (pQCD) calculations in the n =1-3 jet multiplicity bins and to leading order pQCD calculations in the 4-jet bin. The measurements are generally in agreement with pQCD predictions, although certain regions of phase space are identified where the calculations could be improved