Functional Bipartite Ranking: a Wavelet-Based Filtering Approach

It is the main goal of this article to address the bipartite ranking issue from the perspective of functional data analysis (FDA). Given a training set of independent realizations of a (possibly sampled) second-order random function with a (locally) smooth autocorrelation structure and to which a binary label is randomly assigned, the objective is to learn a scoring function s with optimal ROC curve. Based on linear/nonlinear wavelet-based approximations, it is shown how to select compact finite dimensional representations of the input curves adaptively, in order to build accurate ranking rules, using recent advances in the ranking problem for multivariate data with binary feedback. Beyond theoretical considerations, the performance of the learning methods for functional bipartite ranking proposed in this paper are illustrated by numerical experiments

Les cultures somatiques : usages du corps et diététique

[paper in French] The purpose of this article is to study the ways people understand the food advice from the French National Nutrition Health Program. It aims at highlighting the various conceptions of dietetic, and the related norms, from one social class to another. Analysis of the categories that the individuals are using to interpret health education (“not too fat, too sweetened, too salted”, etc.) emphasizes the structures and the framework of food. The study is based on the analysis of food messages towards children. It finds out how parents (from four socially distinct elementary schools) deal with those messages. This article presents two main results: the ratio weight/health/dietetic, and the comprehension of health education’s advice.dietetic, somatic cultures, health education

Agronomists and accounting. The beginnings of capitalist rationalisation on the farm (1800-1850)

At the dawn of the nineteenth century numerous debates took place on the development of capita-list agriculture and the ways of making as much profit as possible from farm land. Until now this subject has hardly been examined and is unique in that it pertains to the economic history of agriculture, the history of agronomy and the history of managerial thinking. This article aims to highlight the usage of double-entry accounting for agronomic experiments in the first half of the nineteenth century, as well as the significance of the results and the way these were debated. Our aim is to present the authors’ reasons and the role played by bookkeeping in the construction of economically rational knowledge and reasoning. Thus we will bring to light two mechanisms which are common to this accounting quantification drive: data tabulation and the inclusion of data in balance sheets, making it possible to compare inputs and outputs in production processes

An Empirical Comparison of Learning Algorithms for Nonparametric Scoring

The TreeRank algorithm was recently proposed as a scoring-based method based on recursive partitioning of the input space. This tree induction algorithm builds orderings by recursively optimizing the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve through a one-step optimization procedure called LeafRank. One of the aim of this paper is the indepth analysis of the empirical performance of the variants of TreeRank/LeafRank method. Numerical experiments based on both artificial and real data sets are provided. Further experiments using resampling and randomization, in the spirit of bagging and random forests are developed and we show how they increase both stability and accuracy in bipartite ranking. Moreover, an empirical comparison with other efficient scoring algorithms such as RankBoost and RankSVM is presented on UCI benchmark data sets

Que diriez-vous d’ « ordinateur » ?

« Cher monsieur,Que diriez-vous d’ordinateur ? c’est un mot correctement formé, qui se trouve même dans le Littré comme adjectif désignant Dieu qui met de l’ordre dans le monde. Un mot de ce genre a l’avantage de donner aisément un verbe ordiner, un nom d’action ordination. L’inconvénient est que ordination désigne une cérémonie religieuse ; mais les deux champs de signification (religion et comptabilité) sont si éloignés et la cérémonie d’ordination connue, je crois, de si peu de personnes que l’inconvénient est peut-être mineur. D’ailleurs, votre machine serait ordinateur (et non ordination) et ce mot est tout à fait sorti de l’usage théologique. » (lettre de J. Perret à la direction d’IBM France)Une coopération (gratuite) à noter entre université et entreprise, dès 1955.Et le mot français « ordinateur » n’a jamais été autant d’actualité, isnt’it 

Characterization of the genetic composition and establishment of a core collection for the INERA Robusta coffee (Coffea canephora) field genebank from the Democratic Republic of Congo

Cultivation of Robusta coffee is likely to gain importance because of its high disease resistance and climate envelope. Robusta coffee genetic resources conserved in field genebanks can play an important role to further improve its cupping quality and other agronomic traits, but such Coffea canephora collections are limited and still poorly characterized. In this study, we characterized the genetic composition of the historically important but until recently neglected INERA Coffee Collection in Yangambi (the Democratic Republic of Congo). We used GBS to discover genome-wide genetic diversity, created and validated a novel multiplex amplicon sequencing (HiPlex) screening assay to genetically screen 730 coffee shrubs of the Yangambi Coffee Collection, grouped clonal material and delineated 263 accessions with unique genetic fingerprints. Comparison to reference material of three genetic origins revealed that the majority of the Yangambi accessions were assigned a ‘Lula’ cultivar origin, four accessions were assigned to Congolese subgroup A and nine accessions were most closely related to local wild accessions. About one-quarter of the accessions was likely derived from hybridization between these groups, which could result from seed-based propagation of the collection, breeding efforts, or natural cross-pollination. Parental analyses discovered eight preferentially used accessions, which may correspond to historically selected founders, or direct descendants thereof, whose seed material was once widely used to establish coffee plantations. Finally, two core collections were proposed using the maximization strategy (CC-I; 100 accessions) and genetic distance method (CC-X; 10 accessions). Our study demonstrates a method for the genetic characterization of Robusta coffee collections in general and contributes to the re-evaluation and exploration of the Robusta coffee genetic resources in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in particular

Bioengineering horizon scan 2020.

Horizon scanning is intended to identify the opportunities and threats associated with technological, regulatory and social change. In 2017 some of the present authors conducted a horizon scan for bioengineering (Wintle et al., 2017). Here we report the results of a new horizon scan that is based on inputs from a larger and more international group of 38 participants. The final list of 20 issues includes topics spanning from the political (the regulation of genomic data, increased philanthropic funding and malicious uses of neurochemicals) to the environmental (crops for changing climates and agricultural gene drives). The early identification of such issues is relevant to researchers, policy-makers and the wider public