Automatic Text Simplification of News Articles in the Context of Public Broadcasting

This report summarizes the work carried out by the authors during the Twelfth Montreal Industrial Problem Solving Workshop, held at Universit\'e de Montr\'eal in August 2022. The team tackled a problem submitted by CBC/Radio-Canada on the theme of Automatic Text Simplification (ATS)

Loyalty in French retail banking among the 18-25 year olds

Much attention have been given to the customer loyalty concept in different industries to defineefficient strategies. This concept is further important in banking due to a highly interaction with customers but also to an important competition on this market. Young people are a target particularly important in this sector because they are considered as the most difficult target to retain. Consequently the researcher chose to measure how French banks can retain young consumers and especially between 18 and 25 years old. This study attempts to find young customer’s loyalty’s factors in banking in order to suggest a model for this concept. The author used qualitative and quantitative methods in order to meet the objectives and confirm/disconfirm her hypothesis. With her literature review, the researcher discovered the key models and concepts related to her research, which enabled her to establish her studies. French young people aged between 18 and 25 are the data collected. The author used Facebook to administrate her questionnaires as social networks are strongly present throughout young people life. The focus group was led with nine people who answered to the questionnaire. The researcher also carried out four interviews with bank managers. This research shows the young consumers do not feel really committed with their bank even if they are satisfied; they are willing to change their bank in the future when they will have specific needs related to their life changes. Consequently, the author can conclude that it is essential to follow and even anticipate these life changes in order to retain the young consumers. For that, the banks need to offer them a high service quality, with responsiveness, confidence and reliability, but also a strong competitiveness with attractive prices. These elements are indeed considered by the researcher as the most important factors in customer loyalty. It would be interesting to study in a future research the level of loyalty according to the age which young consumers was collected by the banks. Indeed, according to some managers interviewed, earlier the young consumers are collected stronger is their level of loyalty

Continuous discontinuation – The DDT Ban revisited

Although innovation is considered as creative destruction, policies oriented to the withdrawal of socio-technical assemblages, have not been specifically studied so far. The goal of this paper is to contribute to fill this gap and to provide some elements of analysis of these policies that we call ‘outnovation policies’ in sustainability transitions. As template,we use the case of the withdrawal of DDT, one of the major post World War II innovations, as an emblematic case of outnovation. So far, the literature on DDT represents DDT withdrawal as a major public decision that resulted from environmental damages related to its massive and pervasive use. DDT ban is represented as a victory of the environmental movements in a period of constitution of an environmental policy stream. The literature perfectly captures the process of problematization of DDT, once considered as a magic solution to eradicate crop pests and fight insect-borne diseases like malaria and which becomes an iconic poisonous product.Based on the analysis of its ban in three countries (USA, France and UK), this paper focused on the missing parts of the DDT ban narratives through the lens of the dynamics of the regime of regulation. The story of the DDT could then be re-written on very different grounds. The paper advocates that the DDT ban wasn’t a major turning point for the pesticide regulation. Onthe contrary and by many ways it has enhanced the legitimacy of the pesticide regulatory’ s actors to control pesticide hazards. On this basis, we discuss general questions related to outnovation, and point out the dialectic relations between external contestation and re-stabilisation of the incumbent regime. The key lesson for outnovation policy is that external contestation does not necessarily lead to a radically new regime. Rather, it may lead to major adaptations of the incumbent regime that are aimedat restabilization through integration of the critique and care of some of the externalities. Hence, outnovation policies should not be considered only as policies of radical change aiming at disruptive transitions, but also as finely tuned paradoxical processes of destabilization / restabilization of a given sociotechnical regime, which might be profoundly transformed in its composition and sustainable properties, but nevertheless still there

Continuous discontinuation: the DDT ban as a framework for the perpetuation of pesticides use

International audienceThe ban of DDT in the 1970s is widely remembered as a turning point in environmental regulation. Through a comparative analysis of the United States and France, this study explores how discontinuing a single chemical paradoxically contributed to stabilizing the broader socio-technical regime underpinning productivity-oriented agriculture, which still heavily relies on chemical inputs.Drawing on historical archives, policy documents, and scientific literature, the study introduces the concept of continuous discontinuation, arguing that rather than disrupting the pesticide regime, the DDT ban legitimized its persistence by institutionalizing selective removals. This process structured regulatory frameworks, reinforced risk assessment methods, and enabled agrochemical industries to adapt without fundamentally altering pesticide dependence. By highlighting the interplay between destabilization and stabilization mechanisms, this article challenges linear narratives of socio-technical change, showing that regulatory discontinuities can paradoxically serve as instruments of continuity. Ultimately, it sheds light on how governance of technological withdrawals shapes socio-technical resilience and the long-term trajectory of contested technologies

Continuous discontinuation – The DDT Ban revisited

Although innovation is considered as creative destruction, policies oriented to the withdrawal of socio-technical assemblages, have not been specifically studied so far. The goal of this paper is to contribute to fill this gap and to provide some elements of analysis of these policies that we call ‘outnovation policies’ in sustainability transitions. As template,we use the case of the withdrawal of DDT, one of the major post World War II innovations, as an emblematic case of outnovation. So far, the literature on DDT represents DDT withdrawal as a major public decision that resulted from environmental damages related to its massive and pervasive use. DDT ban is represented as a victory of the environmental movements in a period of constitution of an environmental policy stream. The literature perfectly captures the process of problematization of DDT, once considered as a magic solution to eradicate crop pests and fight insect-borne diseases like malaria and which becomes an iconic poisonous product.Based on the analysis of its ban in three countries (USA, France and UK), this paper focused on the missing parts of the DDT ban narratives through the lens of the dynamics of the regime of regulation. The story of the DDT could then be re-written on very different grounds. The paper advocates that the DDT ban wasn’t a major turning point for the pesticide regulation. Onthe contrary and by many ways it has enhanced the legitimacy of the pesticide regulatory’ s actors to control pesticide hazards. On this basis, we discuss general questions related to outnovation, and point out the dialectic relations between external contestation and re-stabilisation of the incumbent regime. The key lesson for outnovation policy is that external contestation does not necessarily lead to a radically new regime. Rather, it may lead to major adaptations of the incumbent regime that are aimedat restabilization through integration of the critique and care of some of the externalities. Hence, outnovation policies should not be considered only as policies of radical change aiming at disruptive transitions, but also as finely tuned paradoxical processes of destabilization / restabilization of a given sociotechnical regime, which might be profoundly transformed in its composition and sustainable properties, but nevertheless still there

Standard patient training versus Vik-Asthme chatbot-guided training: ‘AsthmaTrain’ – a protocol for a randomised controlled trial for patients with asthma

IntroductionTherapeutic education for patients with asthma has been shown to reduce asthma morbidity. The high availability of smart phones provides the opportunity to furnish patient training via specifically designed chatbot applications. The goal of this protocol is to perform a first pilot comparison of traditional face to face versus chatbot-guided patient therapeutic education programmes for patients with asthma.Methods and analysisEighty adult patients with a physician-confirmed diagnosis of asthma will be enrolled in a two-parallel-arm, randomised (1:1) controlled pilot trial. A single-Zelen consent procedure is deployed to first enrol all participants in the comparator arm, that is, the standard patient therapeutic education programme at the University Hospitals of Montpellier, France. This means of patient therapeutic education is based on reoccurring interviews and discussion with qualified nursing staff as per usual care. Following baseline data acquisition, randomisation will be performed. Those patients randomised to the comparator arm will not be informed of the second arm. Those patients randomised to the experimental arm will be proposed access to a specifically designed chatbot (Vik-Asthme) as the second tested means of patient training (refusals continue with standard training, though analysed as intention to treat). The primary outcome is change in the total Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire score at the end of follow-up (6 months). Secondary outcomes cover asthma control, spirometry, general health status, programme adherence and burden for medical staff, exacerbations and medical resource use (medications, consults, emergency visits, hospitalisation and intensive care).Ethics and disseminationThis study (‘AsthmaTrain’ protocol version 4–20220330) has been approved by the Committee for the Protection of Persons Ile-de-France VII on 28 March 2022 (reference number 21.03617.000059). Enrolment began on 24 May 2022. Results will be published in international peer-reviewed journals.Trial registration numberNCT05248126.</jats:sec

Standard patient training versus Vik-Asthme chatbot-guided training: ‘AsthmaTrain’ – a protocol for a randomised controlled trial for patients with asthma

International audienceIntroduction Therapeutic education for patients with asthma has been shown to reduce asthma morbidity. The high availability of smart phones provides the opportunity to furnish patient training via specifically designed chatbot applications. The goal of this protocol is to perform a first pilot comparison of traditional face to face versus chatbot-guided patient therapeutic education programmes for patients with asthma. Methods and analysis Eighty adult patients with a physician-confirmed diagnosis of asthma will be enrolled in a two-parallel-arm, randomised (1:1) controlled pilot trial. A single-Zelen consent procedure is deployed to first enrol all participants in the comparator arm, that is, the standard patient therapeutic education programme at the University Hospitals of Montpellier, France. This means of patient therapeutic education is based on reoccurring interviews and discussion with qualified nursing staff as per usual care. Following baseline data acquisition, randomisation will be performed. Those patients randomised to the comparator arm will not be informed of the second arm. Those patients randomised to the experimental arm will be proposed access to a specifically designed chatbot (Vik-Asthme) as the second tested means of patient training (refusals continue with standard training, though analysed as intention to treat). The primary outcome is change in the total Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire score at the end of follow-up (6 months). Secondary outcomes cover asthma control, spirometry, general health status, programme adherence and burden for medical staff, exacerbations and medical resource use (medications, consults, emergency visits, hospitalisation and intensive care). Ethics and dissemination This study (‘AsthmaTrain’ protocol version 4–20220330) has been approved by the Committee for the Protection of Persons Ile-de-France VII on 28 March 2022 (reference number 21.03617.000059). Enrolment began on 24 May 2022. Results will be published in international peer-reviewed journals. Trial registration number NCT05248126

Larger quality of life gains with asthma support app: a randomised controlled trial

International audienceStudy question Smartphone applications present an opportunity to offer timely and personalised care to asthma patients. Will a Chatbot-based application for asthma patients providing educational content and direct access to pulmonology staff improve quality of life, compared to standard therapeutic education? Methods This prospective randomised controlled trial (1:1) occurred from 2022/05/24–2023/10/27. Patients in the Chatbot group had access to a Chatbot-based, educational smartphone application incorporating Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) recommendations, and an algorithm validated by experts, including a member of the GINA scientific committee. By interacting with the Chatbot, patients could trigger a mechanism that directly alerted the pulmonology team when patient follow-up was required. The controls (Standard group) partook in standard therapeutic asthma education training. The primary outcome was change in Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (AQLQ) scores from baseline to 6 months. Results 48/69(69.57%) of patients (mean ( sd ) age: 48.43(16.38)) were female. 29/34(85.3%) in the Chatbot and 29/35(82.9%) in the Standard group had severe asthma (GINA 4–5). Baseline AQLQ, asthma control (ACQ5), and spirometry metrics did not differ between groups. After adjustment, multiple regression analysis indicated that improvements in AQLQ scores were greater in the Chatbot group than in the Standard group (Standardised beta=0.279, 95%CI: 0.004–0.555; p=0.047). Changes in ACQ5 and spirometry metrics did not differ between groups. Conclusions Use of the Chatbot-guided application for asthma education and support was associated with greater improvements in quality of life than Standard therapeutic education

Phase II Trial of Lenalidomide in HIV-Infected Patients with Previously Treated Kaposi's Sarcoma: Results of the ANRS 154 Lenakap Trial

International audienceLenalidomide, an oral immunomodulating agent, has shown promising activity in HIV-infected individuals with Kaposi's sarcoma (KS). This single-arm, multicenter, open-label, Gehan's two-stage phase II trial evaluated the efficacy and safety of lenalidomide in HIV-infected patients with progressive KS despite previous chemotherapy (NCT01282047, ANRS 154 Lenakap trial). The primary endpoint was the rate of partial response (PR) or complete response (CR) at week 24, evaluated by both the study investigators and the patients using the Physical Global Assessment (PGA). AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) criteria for KS treatment evaluation were used as a secondary endpoint. The data and safety monitoring board recommended that enrollments be halted on April 24, 2013, because of lack of responses. We enrolled 12 antiretroviral-treated HIV-infected men with progressive KS despite previous chemotherapy. Their HIV plasma viral load was <50 copies/ml and their median CD4 cell count 444/mm3. One patient stopped taking lenalidomide because of hives at week 1 and a second patient died at week 7. The remaining 10 patients were assessable at week 24, when none had PGA-defined CR or PR and one had ACTG-defined PR. There were no additional PGA responses at week 48, but an additional three patients had ACTG responses, for a total of four patients with ACTG PR at week 48 (40%; 95% confidence interval: 12.2–73.8). Fourteen grade 3–4 adverse events were considered at least possibly related to lenalidomide during a total of 101 cycles. Lenalidomide was well tolerated in antiretroviral experienced patients with progressive KS previously treated with chemotherapy. The ACTG-defined response rate at week 48 was 40%, while it was 0% using PGA criteria