162 research outputs found
Caractérisation des sables et morphologie du fond du lac du barrage hydroélectrique de Taabo (CÎte d\'Ivoire)
Une analyse sédimentologique et minéralogique réalisée sur un cycle hydrologique entre octobre 2004 et août 2005 a permis d\'évaluer les charges solides en suspension et de caractériser les sédiments du lac du barrage de Taabo.
La concentration moyenne en matiÚres en suspension (12 mg.L-1) et la turbidité moyenne (20 NTU) montrent que les eaux du lac sont relativement peu chargées. Ces charges en suspension sont composées d\'une fraction inorganique et d\'une fraction organique.
Les sables qui composent les sĂ©diments de ce lac sont majoritairement moyens Ă grossiers et mĂ©diocrement classĂ©s avec une moyenne granulomĂ©trique de 451,48 μm et un indice de classement moyen de 1,13. Les vases et les sables fins occupent les zones profondes du lac et les zones envahies par les vĂ©gĂ©taux aquatiques. Les sables moyens sont localisĂ©s aux voisinages des berges tandis que les sables grossiers sont situĂ©s aux voisinages des Ăźles et de la digue. Le cortĂšge minĂ©ralogique des sĂ©diments est caractĂ©risĂ© de minĂ©raux lourds (l\'amphibole, la tourmaline, le diopside et l\'Ă©pidote) et de minĂ©raux lĂ©gers (le quartz et les feldspaths). Par ailleurs, cette Ă©tude a permis de rĂ©aliser la premiĂšre carte bathymĂ©trique du lac de Taabo 26 ans aprĂšs sa mise en eau.A sedimentological and mineralogical study carried out on a hydrological cycle from October 2004 to August 2005 has permitted to assess the solid suspended matters and to characterize the sediments of the Taabo dam lake. The average of suspended matters concentration (12 mg.L -1) and the average of turbidity (20 NTU) reveal that the lake is relatively little loaded with suspended matters. These suspended matters are compound of an inorganic fraction and an organic fraction. Sands size in the sediments of this lake are from middle to coarse and badly classified. The grain size average is 451,48 μm; the standard deviation average is 1,13. Muds and fine sands are found in the deeper zones of the lake and also in
the zones invaded by the aquatic plants. Middle sands are located near banks while coarse sands are located aside the islands and the dam. The minerals found in the sediments are characterized by heavy minerals (the amphibole, tourmaline, diopside and epidote) and light minerals (quartz and feldspars). Elsewhere, this study has permitted to carry out the first bathymetric Map of this lake 26 years after its setting in water. Keywords: keywordBarrage, lac, granulométrie, minéralogie, bathymétrie, Taabo./Dam, lake, grain size, mineralogy, bathymetry, Taabo.Sciences & Nature Vol. 4 (1) 2007: pp. 93-10
Reduced-bias estimator of the Conditional Tail Expectation of heavy-tailed distributions
International audienceSeveral risk measures have been proposed in the literature. In this paper, we focus on the estimation of the Conditional Tail Expectation (CTE). Its asymptotic normality has been first established in the literature under the classical assumption that the second moment of the loss variable is finite, this condition being very restrictive in practical applications. Such a result has been extended by Necir {\it et al.} (2010) in the case of infinite second moment. In this framework, we propose a reduced-bias estimator of the CTE. We illustrate the efficiency of our approach on a small simulation study and a real data analysis
Exchange of Best Practices Within the European Union:Surgery Standardization of Abdominal Organ Retrieval
AbstractConsidering the growing organ demand worldwide, it is crucial to optimize organ retrieval and training of surgeons to reduce the risk of injury during the procedure and increase the quality of organs to be transplanted. In the Netherlands, a national complete trajectory from training of surgeons in procurement surgery to the quality assessment of the procured organs was implemented in 2010. This mandatory trajectory comprises training and certification modules: E-learning, training on the job, and a practical session. Thanks to the ACCORD (Achieving Comprehensive Coordination in Organ Donation) Joint Action coordinated by Spain and co-funded under the European Commission Health Programme, 3 twinning activities (led by France) were set to exchange best practices between countries. The Dutch trajectory is being adapted and implemented in Hungary as one of these twinning activities. The E-learning platform was modified, tested by a panel of Hungarian and UK surgeons, and was awarded in July 2013 by the European Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education of the European Union of Medical Specialists. As a pilot phase for future national training, 6 Hungarian surgeons from Semmelweis University are being trained; E-learning platform was fulfilled, and practical sessions, training-on-the-job activities, and evaluations of technical skills are ongoing. The first national practical session was recently organized in Budapest, and the new series of nationwide selected candidates completed the E-learning platform before the practical. There is great potential for sharing best practices and for direct transfer of expertise at the European level, and especially to export this standardized training in organ retrieval to other European countries and even broader. The final goal was to not only provide a national training to all countries lacking such a program but also to improve the quality and safety criteria of organs to be transplanted
Composition and Distribution of Mosquito Vectors in a Peri-Urban Community Surrounding an Institution of Learning in Lafia Metropolis, Nasarawa State, Central Nigeria
Vector surveillance is very key in solving mosquito-borne health problems in Nigeria. To this end, the composition and distribution of mosquito vectors in a peri-urban community surrounding an institution of learning in Lafia metropolis, Nasarawa State, Central Nigeria was carried out between December 2016 and June 2017. The Prokopack Aspirator was used to collect indoor resting mosquitoes between 6:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. from 30 randomly selected houses. Mosquitoes collected were knocked down and transferred into a well labelled petri-dish and taken to the laboratory for processing. A total of 664 mosquitoes were collected which spread across Culex quinquefasciatus 572 (86.14%), Anopheles gambiae 88 (13.25%) and Aedes aegypti 4 (0.60%). The abundance of mosquitoes in relation to seasons, species, sex, abdominal conditions as well as transmission indices across seasons significantly varied (P 0.05). The inhabitants of the area should ensure that all drainages flow through so as to reduce mosquito breeding grounds. Also, members of the community should always protect themselves by sleeping under insecticide treated bed nets
Resilience from the ground up: how are local resilience perceptions and global frameworks aligned?
Numerous resilience measurement frameworks for climate programmes have emerged over the past decade to operationalise the concept and aggregate results within and between programmes. Proxies of resilience, including subjective measures using perception data, have been proposed to measure resilience, but there is limited evidence on their validity and use for policy and practice. This article draws on research on the Decentralising Climate Funds project of the Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Extremes and Disasters programme, which supports communities in Mali and Senegal to improve climate resilience through locally controlled adaptation funds. It explores attributes of resilience from this bottomâup perspective to assess its predictors and alignment with food security, as a proxy of wellâbeing. We find different patterns when comparing resilience and the wellâbeing proxy, illustrating that the interplay between the two is still unclear. Results also point to the importance of contextualising resilience, raising implications for aggregating results
Immune Reconstitution During the First Year of Antiretroviral Therapy of HIV-1-Infected Adults in Rural Burkina Faso
There are no data on the outcome of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in HIV-infected adults in rural Burkina Faso. We therefore assessed CD4+ T-cell counts and HIV-1 plasma viral load (VL), the proportion of naive T-cells (co-expressing CCR7 and CD45RA) and T-cell activation (expression of CD95 or CD38) in 61 previously untreated adult patients from Nouna, Burkina Faso, at baseline and 2 weeks, 1, 3, 6, 9 and 12 months after starting therapy. Median CD4+ T-cell counts increased from 174 (10th-90th percentile: 33-314) cells/”l at baseline to 300 (114- 505) cells/”l after 3 months and 360 (169-562) cells/”l after 12 months of HAART. Median VL decreased from 5.8 (4.6- 6.6) log10 copies/ml at baseline to 1.6 (1.6-2.3) log10 copies/ml after 12 months. Early CD4+ T-cell recovery was accompanied by a reduction of the expression levels of CD95 and CD38 on T-cells. Out of 42 patients with complete virological follow-up under HAART, 19 (45%) achieved concordant good immunological (gain of â„100 CD4+ T-cells/”l above baseline) and virological (undetectable VL) responses after 12 months of treatment (intention-to-treat analysis). Neither a decreased expression of the T-cell activation markers CD38 and CD95, nor an increase in the percentage of naive T-cells reliably predicted good virological treatment responses in patients with good CD4+ T-cell reconstitution. Repeated measurement of CD4+ T-cell counts during HAART remains the most important parameter for immunologic monitoring. Substitution of repeated VL testing by determination of T-cell activation levels (e.g., CD38 expression on CD8+ T-cells) should be applied with caution
A critical review of smaller state diplomacy
In The Peloponnesian War, Thucydides (1972: 402) highlights the effects of the general, overall
weakness of smaller states vis-Ă -vis larger, more powerful ones in a key passage, where the
Athenians remind the Melians that:
â⊠since you know as well as we do that, as the world goes, right is only in question
between equals in power. Meanwhile, the strong do what they can and the weak suffer
what they must.â
Concerns about the vulnerability of small, weak, isolated states have echoed throughout history:
from Thucydides, through the review by Machiavelli (1985) of the risks of inviting great powers
to intervene in domestic affairs, through 20th century US-led contemporary political science
(Vital, 1971; Handel, 1990) and Commonwealth led scholarship (Commonwealth Secretariat,
1985). In the context of 20th century âBalkanizationâ, the small state could also prove unstable,
even hostile and uncooperative, a situation tempting enough to invite the intrusion of more
powerful neighbours: a combination, according to Brzezinski (1997: 123-124) of a power
vacuum and a corollary power suction2: in the outcome, if the small state is âabsorbedâ, it would
be its fault, and its destiny, in the grand scheme of things. In an excellent review of small states
in the context of the global politics of development, Payne (2004: 623, 634) concludes that
âvulnerabilities rather than opportunities are the most striking consequence of smallnessâ. It has
been recently claimed that, since they cannot defend or represent themselves adequately, small
states âlack real independence, which makes them suboptimal participants in the international
systemâ (Hagalin, 2005: 1).
There is however, a less notable and acknowledged but more extraordinary strand of
argumentation that considers âthe power of powerlessnessâ, and the ability of small states to
exploit their smaller size in a variety of ways in order to achieve their intended, even if unlikely,
policy outcomes. The pursuance of smaller state goals becomes paradoxically acceptable and
achievable precisely because such smaller states do not have the power to leverage disputants or
pursue their own agenda. A case in point concerns the smallest state of all, the Vatican, whose
powers are both unique and ambiguous, but certainly not insignificant (The Economist, 2007).
Smaller states have âpunched above their weightâ (e.g. Edis, 1991); and, intermittently, political scientists confront their âamazing intractabilityâ (e.g. Suhrke, 1973: 508). Henry Kissinger
(1982: 172) referred to this stance, with obvious contempt, as âthe tyranny of the weakâ3.
This paper seeks a safe passage through these two, equally reductionist, propositions. It
deliberately focuses first on a comparative case analysis of two, distinct âsmall state-big stateâ
contests drawn from the 1970s, seeking to infer and tease out the conditions that enable smaller
âLilliputianâ states (whether often or rarely) to beat their respective Goliaths. The discussion is
then taken forward to examine whether similar tactics can work in relation to contemporary
concerns with environmental vulnerability, with a focus on two other, small island states. Before
that, the semiotics of âthe small stateâ need to be explored, since they are suggestive of the
perceptions and expectations that are harboured by decision makers at home and abroad and
which tend towards the self-fulfilling prophecy.peer-reviewe
New national and regional bryophyte records, 52
Marchantia paleacea is a new species for the Umbria Region and is rare in central and southern Italy.
This record is in a Site of Community Importance (SCI) IT5220017 and a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) of the Natura 2000 EU-wide network due to the presence of the 7220* âPetrifying springs with tufa formation (Cratoneurion)â Annexe I priority habitat. The particular environment, with a gorge and waterfall, created a very special microclimate that allowed the establishment of interesting liverworts and mosses
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