Dynamics of Nitrogen loads in surface water of an agricultural watershed by modelling approach, the Save, Southwest France.

Agriculture is known to have a great impact of nutrients enrichment on continental water resources. In south-West of France (Gascogne region), water resource are essentially surface water and shallow aquifer. Nitrogen dynamic in river is complex and highly variable throughout season and year, depending on hydrology, landuse, removal in stream. In this context, agricultural impacts on nitrogen concentration are a matter of concern for agricultural decision-maker. In order to introduce sustainable land use concepts in this hilly, clayey and agricultural shallow soil context, the hydrological simulation model SWAT2005 has been tested as a valuable tool to evaluate the consequences of such land use changes on water and nutrient balance components. This semi-distributed hydrological model coupled with agronomical model EPIC is able to simulate the impact of each agricultural landuse at the outlet of the Save catchment (1100 km2). Hydrological parameters model are calibrated based on 14-year historical record (1994–2008). Nitrogen losses have been measured during 2 years (2006-2008) at the outlet and are used to validate the model calibration. Agricultural data at communal scale coupled with Spot image analyses have been used to evaluate agricultural distribution and pressure in SWAT. The aim of this modelling exercise is to simulate nitrogen cycle in whole agricultural Hydrological Response Units (HRU), depending on plant growth and culture rotation, to simulate accurately nitrate load in river. The ability of SWAT to reproduce nitrogen transfert and transformation at this scale and in this agricultural context will be evaluated by a discussion of importance of each nitrogen cycle process in nitrogen losses. SWAT could be a useful tool to test agricultural scenario to improve the nitrogen management in river

Asymétrie sociale et asymétrie cognitive : étude de l’opérativité des catégories de sexe

L'objectif des expériences présentées dans cet article était d'étudier l'influence de la catégorisation de sexe sur la perception sociale. En reprenant le paradigme de Hurtig et Pichevin (1990) et en introduisant de nouvelles sources de variation, nous avons pu montrer que les sujets recourent plus fréquemment et plus tôt dans la description au label de sexe qu'à d'autres descripteurs, comme l'« âge » ou le « sourire », pour décrire des personnes représentées sur des photographies. En outre, le label de sexe est utilisé de manière différente selon le sexe de la personne-cible : les femmes sont plus rapidement et plus fréquemment décrites en référence à leur groupe de sexe que ne le sont les hommes. Par ailleurs, plus les conditions sont « féminines », plus le label de sexe est mentionné. Cette asymétrie cognitive serait le reflet de l'asymétrie sociale qui existe entre les deux groupes de sexe. Enfin, les hommes exerçant une profession atypique au regard des stéréotypes de sexe sont traités de manière équivalente aux femmes. Pour eux, il est fortement fait mention du label de sexe, contrairement aux hommes « ordinaires ».The aim of ibis research was to study the influence of gender categorization on social perception. Using the paradigm of Hurtig and Pichevin (1990) and introducing new sources of variation, we have shown that while describing images of people on photographs, subjects turned more frequentlv and more readily to gender than to other factors of description such as age, or .facial expression. Furthermore, the label gender was used differently according to the gender of the person on the picture, being quoted more .frequently and rapidly in the case of female than of male images. Moreover, the more feminine the image was, the more often the factor gender was expressed. Men whose professional occupations were not typically male were described in the same way than the women were. We can assert that this cognitive asymmetry is a reflection of the social asymmetry that exists between males and females in society at large

Qualitative and Semiquantitative Assessment of Exposure to Engineered Nanomaterials within the French EpiNano Program: Inter- and Intramethod Reliability Study

The relatively recent development of industries working with nanomaterials has created challenges for exposure assessment. In this article, we propose a relatively simple approach to assessing nanomaterial exposures for the purposes of epidemiological studies of workers in these industries. This method consists of an onsite industrial hygiene visit of facilities carried out individually and a description of workstations where nano-objects and their agglomerates and aggregates (NOAA) are present using a standardized tool, the Onsite technical logbook. To assess its reliability, we implemented this approach for assessing exposure to NOAA in workplaces at seven workstations which synthesize and functionalize carbon nanotubes. The prediction of exposure to NOAA using this method exhibited substantial agreement with that of the reference method, the latter being based on an onsite group visit, an expert’s report and exposure measurements (Cohen kappa = 0.70, sensitivity = 0.88, specificity = 0.92). Intramethod comparison of results for exposure prediction showed moderate agreement between the three evaluators (two program team evaluators and one external evaluator) (weighted Fleiss kappa = 0.60, P = 0.003). Interevaluator reliability of the semiquantitative exposure characterization results was excellent between the two evaluators from the program team (Spearman rho = 0.93, P = 0.03) and fair when these two evaluators’ results were compared with the external evaluator’s results. The project was undertaken within the framework of the French epidemiological surveillance program EpiNano. This study allowed a first reliability assessment of the EpiNano method. However, to further validate this method a comparison with robust quantitative exposure measurement data is necessary

A new subunit vaccine based on nucleoprotein nanoparticles confers partial clinical and virological protection in calves against bovine respiratory syncytial virus

Human and bovine respiratory syncytial viruses (HRSV and BRSV) are two closely related, worldwide prevalent viruses that are the leading cause of severe airway disease in children and calves, respectively. Efficacy of commercial bovine vaccines needs improvement and no human vaccine is licensed yet. We reported that nasal vaccination with the HRSV nucleoprotein produced as recombinant ringshaped nanoparticles (NSRS) protects mice against a viral challenge with HRSV. The aim of this work was to evaluate this new vaccine that uses a conserved viral antigen, in calves, natural hosts for BRSV. Calves, free of colostral or natural anti-BRSV antibodies, were vaccinated with NSRS either intramuscularly, or both intramuscularly and intranasally using MontanideTM ISA71 and IMS4132 as adjuvants and challenged with BRSV. All vaccinated calves developed anti-N antibodies in blood and nasal secretions and N-specific cellular immunity in local lymph nodes. Clinical monitoring post-challenge demonstrated moderate respiratory pathology with local lung tissue consolidations for the non vaccinated calves that were significantly reduced in the vaccinated calves. Vaccinated calves had lower viral loads than the nonvaccinated control calves. Thus NSRS vaccination in calves provided cross-protective immunity against BRSV infection without adverse inflammatory reaction