Perceptions of the usefulness of external support to immunization coverage in Chad: an analysis of the GAVI-Alliance cash-based support

Introduction: Chad is one of the countries supported by the GAVI-Alliance that remains with unsatisfactory vaccination coverage. This paper tries to  understand the main barriers to better coverage. Methods: These barriers were categorised as up or downstream against the health system building blocks as proposed by WHO and compared with barriers and activities identified by the country in its health system's strengthening grant proposal as approved by the GAVI Alliance in 2007. Data were collected using a modified Delphi system and by analysis of grant and annual report documents. Results: Most of the activities anticipated under the GAVI health system's strengthening proposal are activities targeting downstream barriers (the neglect of upstream issues is of major importance in a decentralised state like Chad) and aligned with, not complementary to, immunization services strengthening activities. Further, both set of cash grants are blind to important recommendations such as the need to address barriers at the level of leadership and governance and at the level of the financing system and also about initiatives to promote community demand of vaccination services. Conclusion: In Chad slow vaccination progress is aggravated by several contextual barriers: the size of the country, the low population density, the nomadic nature of a significant part of its peoples, the recent civil war, associated with civil unrest and political instability and its geographical localization. In this situation it would be important to sustain downstream operations (the major focus of the ISS grant) while taking a long term view of the needs of the health system. The GAVI effectively supports downstream operations, but neglects the long term view.Key words: Africa, Chad, global health initiatives, immunization, vaccination coverag

Large scale biomedical texts classification: a kNN and an ESA-based approaches

With the large and increasing volume of textual data, automated methods for identifying significant topics to classify textual documents have received a growing interest. While many efforts have been made in this direction, it still remains a real challenge. Moreover, the issue is even more complex as full texts are not always freely available. Then, using only partial information to annotate these documents is promising but remains a very ambitious issue. MethodsWe propose two classification methods: a k-nearest neighbours (kNN)-based approach and an explicit semantic analysis (ESA)-based approach. Although the kNN-based approach is widely used in text classification, it needs to be improved to perform well in this specific classification problem which deals with partial information. Compared to existing kNN-based methods, our method uses classical Machine Learning (ML) algorithms for ranking the labels. Additional features are also investigated in order to improve the classifiers' performance. In addition, the combination of several learning algorithms with various techniques for fixing the number of relevant topics is performed. On the other hand, ESA seems promising for this classification task as it yielded interesting results in related issues, such as semantic relatedness computation between texts and text classification. Unlike existing works, which use ESA for enriching the bag-of-words approach with additional knowledge-based features, our ESA-based method builds a standalone classifier. Furthermore, we investigate if the results of this method could be useful as a complementary feature of our kNN-based approach.ResultsExperimental evaluations performed on large standard annotated datasets, provided by the BioASQ organizers, show that the kNN-based method with the Random Forest learning algorithm achieves good performances compared with the current state-of-the-art methods, reaching a competitive f-measure of 0.55% while the ESA-based approach surprisingly yielded reserved results.ConclusionsWe have proposed simple classification methods suitable to annotate textual documents using only partial information. They are therefore adequate for large multi-label classification and particularly in the biomedical domain. Thus, our work contributes to the extraction of relevant information from unstructured documents in order to facilitate their automated processing. Consequently, it could be used for various purposes, including document indexing, information retrieval, etc.Comment: Journal of Biomedical Semantics, BioMed Central, 201

Siixu Umoru Fuutanken Xiisa

L’histoire d’El Hajj Oumar Tal de Fouta selon la tradition orale SoninkéeThe story of El Hajj Oumar Tal of Fouta, according to the Soninke oral traditio

Le rôle historique et actuel de la francophonie dans le règlement des conflits

Cette thèse porte sur le rôle historique et actuel de la Francophonie dans le règlement des conflits. L'objectif est d'étudier la contribution de l'Organisation internationale de la Francophonie dans les processus de résolution des conflits qui secouent l'espace francophone qui est devenu un théâtre de guerre civile et de guerre ethnico-religieuse, affaiblissant le développement économique et social de plusieurs pays, particulièrement ceux d'Afrique francophone. Devenu un acteur incontournable sur la scène internationale, l'Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, regroupant des ayant le français en partage, décide de contribuer activement à la résolution des conflits. Du point de vue méthodologique, cette thèse est basée sur une approche évolutive, centrée sur la particularité de l'approche francophone dans les processus de règlement des conflits en tenant compte de son historique et l'utilise au service de la paix et de la stabilité de ses Etats membres. Dans la première partie, la thèse met l'accent sur l'approche préventive de l'OIF dans les processus de maintien de la paix en exhortant ses Etats membres à promouvoir la culture de la paix et la gouvernance démocratique. Elle met en exergue la politique de prévention de cette organisation, qui repose sur la volonté de promouvoir l'Etat de droit, le respect des droits de l'homme, considérée comme la meilleure stratégie de maintien de la paix. Elle expose la stratégie adoptée la l'Organisation internationale de la Francophonie pour accompagner ses Etats membres dans la promotion de la démocratie, de la paix, de la bonne gouvernance qui sont des leviers importants pour assurer une gouvernance démocratique synonyme de stabilité d'un pays. Ce travail de recherche démontre la spécificité de l'approche francophone dans la résolution des conflits qui repose aussi sur le renforcement des institutions judiciaires visant à assurer la paix, la justice sociale, la sécurité et la lutte contre la corruption. Dans un second temps, la thèse fait porter l'analyse sur le rôle que l'Organisation internationale de la Francophonie joue dans les opérations de rétablissement et de la consolidation de la paix et démontre comment cette organisation est devenue un acteur tant sollicité sur la scène internationale grâce à son influence, à son capacité de mobilisation, ses stratégies de médiation et de facilitation ainsi que sa politique d'accompagnement pour faciliter la justice transitionnelle et favoriser l'effectivité de la justice pénale internationale visant à punir les auteurs de guerre.This thesis deals with the historical and current role of the Francophonie in the resolution of conflicts. The challenge is to study the contribution of the international organization of the Francophonie in the conflict resolution processes that shake the Francophone space, which has become a theater of civil war and ethnic-religious warfare, weakening economic development And social development of several countries, especially those of French-speaking Africa. Having become a key player on the international scene, the international organization of the French-speaking world, which includes all the French-speaking states, decides to contribute actively to resolving conflicts. From a methodological point of view, this thesis is based on an evolutionary approach, focusing on the particularity of the Francophone approach in peacekeeping operations. In the first part, it focuses on the preventive approach of the OIF taking into account the actions undertaken by this organization to avoid conflicts and strengthen the culture of peace and democratic governance. This section highlights the OIF's prevention policy, which is based on the desire to promote democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights, which is considered the best strategy for resolving conflicts. The thesis sets out the strategy adopted by the International Organization of la Francophonie to accompany states in promoting a culture of peace, respect for democracy, the rule of law and good governance, which are important levers for ensuring security And the stability of a country. It also describes the specificity of the Francophone approach to conflict resolution, which is based on the establishment of strong democratic institutions aimed at ensuring peace, social justice and the fight against corruption, which are Fight against insecurity and poverty. The thesis then focuses on the role played by the OIF in peacemaking and peacebuilding processes, and demonstrates how this organization has become a highly sought-after player on the international scene through its strategies Mediation and facilitation as well as its strong mobilization to facilitate transitional justice and punish the perpetrators of war crimes

Décentralisation et Enjeux Politiques. L'Exemple du Conflit Casamançais (Sénégal)

Au Sénégal, l'État est parvenu à imposer dans l'ensemble du territoire sa "capacité d'inclusion totale". Mais en Casamance, où les structures traditionnelles imprègnent fortement l'espace politique et culturel, l'État éprouve des difficultés considérables à faire prévaloir ses prérogatives. Cette imperméabilité de l'État aux structures ou aux cultures casamançaises pose en filigrane la problématique de l'intégration de cette région dans l'espace national. Cette problématique a été abordée pen..

Contribution à la dialectologie du soninké :Correspondances phonologiques entre le parler du Kíngíet le parler du Jàahúnú

Cet article s’intéresse à l’analyse dialectologique du soninké particulièrement entre deux parlers : le parler du Kíngí et celui du Jàahúnú, présentant des particularités dialectales évidentes.Ils appartiennent tous à la même division dialectale appelée traditionnellement le parler de l’est. En effet, la présente analyse a consisté à comparer systématiquement les correspondances phonologiques entre les deux parlers considérés afin de dégager les régularités et de proposer des hypothèses pouvant expliquer les conditionnements des différentes correspondances avec le prolongement d’une analyse diachronique entre les deux variétés. C’est ainsi qu’il apparaît que la correspondance la plus productive concerne le vocalisme. Les correspondances les plus marquantes sont : K. a-e : J. e-e, K. a-i : J. e-i, K. a-o : J. o-o, K. a-u : J. e-u, et K. a-u : J. o-u. Une seule régularité se dégage dans le domaine des correspondances consonantiques, notamment r : l. En ce qui concerne l’analyse portant sur les formes anciennes de deux parlers, il ressort que le parler du Kíngí maintiendrait plus de formes anciennes que celui du Jàahúnú.This article focuses on the dialectological analysis of the Soninke language, in particular between two dialects: the Kíngí and the Jàahúnú varieties, belonging to the same dialectal division traditionally called the Eastern dialect. This study consisted in systematically comparing the phonological correspondences between the two dialects considered in order to show the regularities and to propose hypotheses which could explain the conditioning of various correspondences with the extension to a diachronic analysis between the two varieties. Thus it appears that the most productive correspondence concerns vocalism. The main correspondences are: K. a-e : J. e-e, K. a-I : J. e-i, K. a-o : J. o-o, K. a-u : J. e-u, et K. a-u : J. o-u. As for the consonantal correspondences, only one regularity emerges, namely r : 1. With regard to the analysis of the ancient forms of two dialects, it appears that the Kíngí variety would retain more ancient forms than that of Jàahúnú.Статья посвящена диалектологическому анализу сонинке, а именно, двух говоров этого языка: кинги и джахуну, которые демонстрируют очевидные диалектные особенности.Оба эти говора принадлежат одной диалектной группе, которую традиционно называют восточным диалектом сонинке. Данный анализ имеет целью систематическое сравнение фонетических соответствий между двумя говорами с целью выявления регулярностей и выдвижения гипотез, позволяющих объяснить условия различий, с выходом на диахронический анализ. Наиболее продуктивное соответствие касается вокализма. Самые значимые соответствия следующие: кинги a-e : джахуну e-e, кинги a-i : джахуну e-i, кинги a-o : джахуну o-o, кинги a-u : джахуну e-u, кинги a-u : джахуну o-u. Единственное продуктивное соответствие в области консонантизма, обнаруживающееся между двумя говорами — r : l. В результате анализа делается вывод, что формы говора кинги более древние, чем формы говора джахуну

Predictive factors of success at the French National Ranking Examination (NRE) : a retrospective study of the student performance from a French medical school

Background The national ranking examination (NRE) marks the end of the second cycle (6th university year) of French medical studies and ranks students allowing them to choose their specialty and city of residency. We studied the potential predictive factors of success at the 2015 NRE by students attending a French School of Medicine. Methods From March 2016 to March 2017, a retrospective study of factors associated with the 2015 NRE success was conducted and enrolled 242 students who attended their sixth year at the school of medicine of Reims. Demographic and academic data collected by a home-made survey was studied using univariate and then multivariate analysis by generalized linear regression with a threshold of p <  0.05 deemed significant. Results The factors independently associated with a better ranking at the NRE were the motivation for the preparation of the NRE (gain of 3327 ± 527 places, p <  0.0001); to have participated in the NRE white test organized by la Revue du Praticien in November 2014 (gain of 869 ± 426 places, p <  0.04), to have participated in the NRE white test organized by la conférence Hippocrate in March 2015 (+ 613 places ±297, p <  0.04). The factors independently associated with poor NRE ranking were repeating the first year (loss of 1410 places ±286, p <  0.0001), repeating a year during university course (loss of 1092 places ±385, p <  0.005), attendance of hospital internships in 6th year (loss of 706 places ±298, p <  0.02). Conclusions The student motivation and their white tests completion were significantly associated with success at the NRE. Conversely, repeating a university year during their course and attendance of 6th year hospital internships were associated with a lower ranking

Alteration of post harvest diseases of mango Mangifera indica through production practices and climatic factors

Mango production in Senegal takes place over the two seasons of dry and humid conditions between April and November. The increasing demand for fresh mangoes has led to an increase in land areaallocated to that crop. Mango production suffers, however, from fruit rotting due to post-harvest diseases during ripening. These diseases reduce the fruit quality and cause severe losses. A surveywas carried out in 2004 to detect fungi involved in post-harvest rot of mangoes (cv. Kent) produced in the Niayes area of Senegal in relation with the production practices and the climatic conditions. Theresults showed that at first harvest during the dry season, a broader species range of fungi including Alternaria sp., Botryodiplodia theobromae, Dothiorella sp., Aspergillus niger and non-identified fungiwere responsible for mango rotting. The fruits harvested during the humid season, however, were more heavily infested but a smaller number of fungal agents were involved; Colletotrichum gloeosporioidesand secondarily Phoma mangiferae played the main role. The cultural practices played an important role on mango infection whereby orchard sanitation and particularly cleaning and pruning reduced theinfection rates. Orchards with no care, in contrast, yielded the most heavily infested mango samples. In addition, the harvest practice of inversion of fruits in soil for sap elimination increases contaminationwith pathogenic fungi