Measuring educational inequalities:A method and an application to Albania

In this paper, we investigate whether educational inequalities stem rather from differences between families or within families. In a poor economy, schooling is costly for parents and education is likely to be unequally distributed among siblings. Drawing on discrete ordered choice models, we present a simple method to estimate the between and within components of both the explained and unexplained variances of education. For our empirical analysis, we use the LSMS survey conducted in 2002 in Albania. We explain about 40% of the total variance and find that inequalities in education are mainly due to differences between families. Differences within family are lower and far less easily explained.Education, intra-household inequality, random effects ordered Probit models, siblings

A model-free control strategy for an experimental greenhouse with an application to fault accommodation

Writing down mathematical models of agricultural greenhouses and regulating them via advanced controllers are challenging tasks since strong perturbations, like meteorological variations, have to be taken into account. This is why we are developing here a new model-free control approach and the corresponding intelligent controllers, where the need of a good model disappears. This setting, which has been introduced quite recently and is easy to implement, is already successful in many engineering domains. Tests on a concrete greenhouse and comparisons with Boolean controllers are reported. They not only demonstrate an excellent climate control, where the reference may be modified in a straightforward way, but also an efficient fault accommodation with respect to the actuators

Origin of waves in surface-tension-driven convection

International audienceWaves appear in a liquid layer with a free surface if a sufficiently high horizontal temperature gradient is imposed. These waves have been compared to the hydrothermal waves predicted by a linear stability analysis of a parallel flow. However, depending on the experimental configurations, significant differences with theory are found. We show that there exists another kind of wave that cannot be explained by previous analysis. Our aim is to investigate which is the mechanism leading to this instability. Differential interferometry is used to obtain quantitative information on the temperature field. Experimental evidence is presented suggesting that these waves are the result of a boundary layer instability: the roll near the hot wall begins to oscillate, and the perturbations are dragged and amplified downflow. This mechanism could explain discrepancies between theory and some experimental observations

La physiothérapie aux soins intensifs basée sur les données probantes

Dans le cadre du cours PHT-6123 : Travail d’intégrationIntroduction: Dans les unités de soins intensifs, les interventions en physiothérapie sont primordiales afin de diminuer les complications chez les patients et permettent la réduction des coûts associés. Objectifs: L'objectif est de mettre en évidence les données probantes récentes concernant la mobilisation précoce, les interventions en physiothérapie chez les patients sous ventilation mécanique, ainsi que les particularités et caractéristiques importantes à considérer en physiothérapie lors de la dialyse auprès des patients aux soins intensifs. Méthodologie : Recension des écrits à partir des bases de données: Medline, Embase, Cinahl et Pubmed. Résultats: Plusieurs études ont démontré que la mobilisation précoce est sécuritaire, faisable et bénéfique chez les patients en état critique. Des précautions doivent être prises en lien avec la condition de santé des patients et avec l'instrumentation mise en place. Les lignes directrices de mobilisation peuvent être appliquées. En plus de la mobilisation précoce, la physiothérapie respiratoire aide à prévenir les effets néfastes de la ventilation mécanique sur la fonction diaphragmatique et à prévenir la pneumonie acquise sous ventilation mécanique. Elle facilite le sevrage et aide à la détection des dysfonctions diaphragmatiques suite aux chirurgies cardiaques. La dialyse associée à la ventilation mécanique a un impact négatif sur le pronostic. La mobilisation précoce peut être appliquée avec précautions, auprès de patients étant sous dialyse. Conclusion: Il est difficile de parvenir à un consensus sur les interventions en physiothérapie à partir des données probantes actuelles, car elles sont limitées. Cependant la mobilisation précoce ressort comme étant une intervention à prioriser

Fano Resonances in Mid-Infrared Spectra of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

This work revisits the physics giving rise to the carbon nanotubes phonon bands in the mid- infrared. Our measurements of doped and undoped samples of single-walled carbon nanotubes in Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy show that the phonon bands exhibit an asymmetric lineshape and that their effective cross-section is enhanced upon doping. We relate these observations to electron-phonon coupling or, more specifically, to a Fano resonance phenomenon. We note that only the dopant-induced intraband continuum couples to the phonon modes and that defects induced in the sidewall increase the resonance probabilities.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures and 1 Supplementary Information File (in pdf

Advanced survival models for risk-factor analysis in scrapie

Because of the confounding effects of long incubation duration and flock management, accurate epidemiological studies of scrapie outbreaks are difficult to carry out. In this study, 641 Manech red-faced sheep from six scrapie-affected field flocks in Pyrénées Atlantiques, France, were monitored for clinical scrapie over a 6–9 year period. Over this period, 170 scrapie clinical cases were recorded and half of the culled animals were submitted for post-mortem transmissible spongiform encephalopathy diagnosis to assess their infectious status. Collected data were analysed using a ‘mixture cure model’ approach, which allowed for the discriminating effect of PrP genotype and flock origin on incidence and incubation period. Simulations were performed to evaluate the applicability of such a statistical model to the collected data. As expected, ARR heterozygote sheep were less at risk of becoming infected than ARQ/ARQ individuals and had a greater age at clinical onset. Conversely, when compared with ARQ/ARQ, the VRQ haplotype was associated with an increased infection risk, but not a shorter incubation period. Considering the flock effect, we observed that a high incidence rate was not associated with shorter incubation periods and that the incubation period could be significantly different in flocks harbouring similar infection risks. These results strongly support the conclusion that other parameters, such as the nature of the agent or flock management, could interfere with epidemiological dynamics of the infection in scrapie-affected flocks

Seizing the Opportunity: Towards a Historiography of Information Systems

Historical perspectives are only timidly entering the world of IS research compared to historical research in management or organisation studies. If major IS outlets have already published history-oriented papers, the number of historical papers - although increasing - remains low. We carried out a thematic analysis of all papers on History and IS published between 1972 and 2009 indexed on ABI and papers indexed in Google Scholar ™ for the same period. We used a typology developed by theorists Üsdiken and Kieser, who classify historical organisation research into supplementarist, integrationist and reorientationist approaches. We outline their links with the epistemological stances well known in IS research, positivism, interpretivism and critical research; we then focus on their differences and historiographical characteristics. We found that most IS History papers are supplementarist descriptive case studies with limited uses of History. This paper then suggests that IS research could benefit from adopting integrationist and reorientationist historical perspectives and we offer some examples to illustrate how that would contribute to enriching, extending and challenging existing theories

Supercritical Eckhaus Instability for Surface-Tension-Driven Hydrothermal Waves

International audienceWe study the nonlinear dynamics of hydrothermal waves produced by a surface-tension-driven convective flow in a long and thin annular channel heated from the side. Above onset, the supercritical traveling wave pattern undergoes a secondary instability: a supercritical Eckhaus instability. This leads to a small-wave-number phase-modulated nonlinear mode, and shows the first experimental evidence of a nonlinearly saturated phase instability mode for traveling wave patterns. At higher forcing level, this secondary pattern is subject to a tertiary instability. This mode is an amplitude mode characterized by traveling hole patterns, i.e., space-time defects that change the wave numbe