Start-ups, firm growth and the consolidation of the French biotech industry

Based on an original dataset, we analyze empirically the determinants of firm growth in the French biotech industry during two periods, 1996-1999 and 1999-2002. We have two main results. First, Gibrat's law is violated. The growth of annual turnover is influenced by teh initial size of the firm. The effect is non-linear, negative for small firms. Second, location has a significant impact on growth. We use different sets of dummies to characterize location and different measures of firm growth. As a whole, our results point at Marseilles (and its region) and Nanterre (but not Paris and Evry) as favorable places for the growth of firms between 1999 and 2002. For the 1996-1999, the favorable places are Strasbourg (and Alsace) and Rh“ne-Alpes (Lyon/Grenoble). Our analysis thus suggests that the changes in the (notably legal) environment of French biotech firms that took place in 1999 had a drastic effect of the comparative advantages of locations for biotech firms.BIOTECHNOLOGY; INDUSTRIAL CLUSTERING; FIRM GROWTH; FRANCE

Toward a High Performance Health System for the United States

Describes the features of the U.S. healthcare system and measures ten areas of performance, including access to appropriate care, quality care from the patient's perspective, affordability, and capacity for improvement. Provides recommendations

Organizing the U.S. Health Care Delivery System for High Performance

Analyzes the fragmentation of the healthcare delivery system and makes policy recommendations -- including payment reform, regulatory changes, and infrastructure -- for creating mechanisms to coordinate care across providers and settings

Premise Selection and External Provers for HOL4

Learning-assisted automated reasoning has recently gained popularity among the users of Isabelle/HOL, HOL Light, and Mizar. In this paper, we present an add-on to the HOL4 proof assistant and an adaptation of the HOLyHammer system that provides machine learning-based premise selection and automated reasoning also for HOL4. We efficiently record the HOL4 dependencies and extract features from the theorem statements, which form a basis for premise selection. HOLyHammer transforms the HOL4 statements in the various TPTP-ATP proof formats, which are then processed by the ATPs. We discuss the different evaluation settings: ATPs, accessible lemmas, and premise numbers. We measure the performance of HOLyHammer on the HOL4 standard library. The results are combined accordingly and compared with the HOL Light experiments, showing a comparably high quality of predictions. The system directly benefits HOL4 users by automatically finding proofs dependencies that can be reconstructed by Metis

Supersymmetric free-damped oscillators: Adaptive observer estimation of the Riccati parameter

A supersymmetric class of free damped oscillators with three parameters has been obtained in 1998 by Rosu and Reyes through the factorization of the Newton equation. The supplementary parameter is the integration constant of the general Riccati solution. The estimation of the latter parameter is performed here by employing the recent adaptive observer scheme of Besancon et al., but applied in a nonstandard form in which a time-varying quantity containing the unknown Riccati parameter is estimated first. Results of computer simulations are presented to illustrate the good feasibility of this approach for a case in which the estimation is not easily accomplished by other meansComment: 8 pages, 6 figure

Étude de l'évolution des acides aminés totaux dans deux filières de traitement d'eau potable

Cette étude présente un suivi de l'élimination des acides aminés totaux par les différentes étapes de traitement de deux usines canadiennes de Ville de Laval (Québec, Canada). L'influence des saisons sur l'efficacité de l'abattement ainsi que le devenir des acides aminés dans les réseaux de distribution de ces usines ont aussi été étudiés.D'une manière générale, l'étape de coagulation-floculation-décantation permet une élimination important d'acides aminés totaux (34-72%), l'effet de la filtration sur sable et anthracite est peu prononcé et varie avec les saisons, l'ozonation provoque une augmentation (20-100%) et la filtration sur charbon actif biologique (CAB) permet un abattement en eau tiède (25-34%), mais semble relarguer en eaux froides (35%). Finalement, la post-désinfection au chlore permet une élimination supplémentaire (47%) à cause de la réactivité de cet oxydant envers les acides aminés. La post-désinfection au bioxyde de chlore permet elle aussi d'abattre les teneurs en acides aminés (12-39%) et ce, malgré le fait que cet oxydant soit moins réactif envers les acides aminés. L'élimination des acides aminés totaux avant la chloration est préférable afin de limiter la formation de sous-produits de chloration.Low concentrations of free and combined amino acids are found at every stage of water treatment (LE CLOIREC and RENAUD, 1984; SCULLY et al., 1988; BERNE et al., 1994). A decrease in amino acid concentrations has been observed after settling (LE CLOIREC et al., 1983; LE CLOIREC and RENAUD, 1984), while ozonation has been shown to increase free amino acid concentrations. Biological activated carbon (BAC) filtration may also decrease the concentration of total amino acids (JADAS-HÉCART, 1989; BERNE, 1994). Total amino acids represent a small fraction of dissolved organic matter (1 to 3% of DOC), but account for an important part of the chlorine demand of treated water (JADAS-HÉCART, 1989; HUREIKI et al., 1994). Moreover, recent work by HUREIKI and GAUTHIER (1994) has suggested that some amino acids found in surface waters may represent a significant fraction of the precursors of some organohalogenated disinfection by- products (DBP). It is also possible that total amino acids amount to an important fraction of biodegradable organic carbon (BOC). These characteristics of amino acids suggest that removing them by treatment will improve water quality, both from a biological and a chemical (DBP) stability standpoint.The objectives of the research described in this paper were to:1. assess the seasonal variability of the removal of free and combined amino acids by different treatment processes in two Canadian water treatment plants located in the city of Laval (Québec, Canada); 2. monitor the fate of total amino acids in the distribution systems of these two plants with the objective of correlating total amino acids with biodegradable dissolved organic carbon (BDOC) and fixed bacterial density. Sampling was conducted in two water treatment plants. The Ste-Rose water treatment plant (100,000 m3/d) uses conventional treatment (dynamic settling and dual-media filtration on sand and anthracite) followed by ozonation, pH adjustment, and post-chlorination using either chlorine of chlorine dioxide. The second plant studied is the Chomedey water treatment plant (180,000 m3/d) in which the following processes are used: conventional treatment (dynamic settling and dual-media filtration on sand and anthracite) followed by ozonation, second stage filtration on biological activated carbon (BAC), pH adjustment, and post-chlorination using chlorine dioxide. Samples were collected in the two distribution systems according to the residence time of the water calculated by a hydraulic model. Samples were taken directly from small diameter (15 cm internal diameter) ductile iron pipes. Results of the monitoring of the treatment plants show a very strong decrease of total amino acids by coagulation-flocculation-settling (34-72%). First stage dual-media filtration may increase or decrease the concentrations of total amino acids present, depending on the time of the year. In all but one case ozonation increases the concentration of total amino acids (20-100%). To document the source of this increase, we verified the yields of hydrolysis of amino acids found in natural matrices under different hydrolysis conditions. The objective of this experiment was to verify if more drastic hydrolysis conditions would free some amino acids linked to more complex structures found in natural waters. If such were the case, this would explain why higher concentrations of total amino acids were obtained after ozonation. Results showed that the hydrolysis conditions used by BERNE (1994) are optimal for recovery of amino acids in the natural water studied (sand and anthracite filter effluent). Total amino acids were decreased by BAC filtration in warm water (24 to 34%) but increased in cold water (+35%). This could either be related to the slower kinetics of the hydrolysis of combined amino acids by the fixed biomass or by the form in which amino acids were present in the winter matrix. The expected effect of chlorination on total amino acids was observed with a decrease of 47% at the post-chlorination step. Some impact of chlorine dioxide was noted although it is believed that chlorine dioxide will not readily react with free and combined amino acids. This effect was more pronounced in cold water and could be related to the fact that chlorine dioxide in full-scale plants is produced in the presence of excess chlorine (less than 10%).The analysis of the composition of total amino acids present in the Mille-Îles River showed that the amino acids most commonly found were glycine, serine, alanine, leucine, lysine, aspartic acid and glutamic acid. We observed that the trends of major amino acids present followed the trends observed for total amino acids. This concordance of trends does not reflect the individual characteristics of each amino acid or the ability of a treatment process to remove or transform them. It most probably reflects the ability of each treatment process to remove or transform complex bound forms of amino acids. In the Ste-Rose distribution system (DS), we observed stable concentrations of total amino acids regardless of the residence time. In the case of the Chomedey distribution system, concentrations decreased slightly with residence time, suggesting a greater stability of amino acids in the DS fed by biologically treated water. In both cases, levels of amino acids were very low close to the detection limit. In the case of the Ste-Rose DS, these low levels were attributed to biological removal, whereas in the case of the Chomedey DS this was associated with post-chlorination.No direct correlation between biodegradable organic carbon (BDOC) and total amino acids was observed. This may reflect the fact that total amino acids represent a variable fraction of the total pool of biodegradable organic carbon depending on the source water composition and on the treatment process applied. In the case of the source water studied, total amino acids represented a major fraction of the biodegradable organic carbon pool: more than 42% in raw water and more than 45% in BAC filter effluent. These high proportions may partially be explained by the eutrophic state of our source water and by the method of BDOC measurement used.In conclusion, amino acids represent an important fraction of biodegradable organic carbon which can be removed most efficiently by optimized coagulation-flocculation and settling, biological treatment and chlorination. It is preferable to remove total amino acids before chlorination in order to limit the formation of undesirable DBPs

Laser driven launch vehicles for continuous access to space

The availability of megawatt laser systems in the next century will make laser launch systems from ground to orbit feasible and useful. Systems studies indicate launch capabilities of 1 ton payload per gigawatt laser power. Recent research in ground to orbit laser propulsion has emphasized laser supported detonation wave thrusters driven by repetitively pulsed infrared lasers. In this propulsion concept each laser repetition cycle consists of two pulses. A lower energy first pulse is used to vaporize a small amount of solid propellant and then after a brief expansion period, a second and higher energy laser pulse is used to drive a detonation wave through the expanded vapor. The results are reported of numerical studies comparing the detonation wave properties of various candidate propellants, and the simulation of thruster performance under realistic conditions. Experimental measurements designed to test the theoretical predictions are also presented. Measurements are discussed of radiance and opacity in absorption waves, and mass loss and momentum transfer. These data are interpreted in terms of specific impulse and energy conversion efficiency

A Roadmap to Health Insurance for All: Principles for Reform

Presents principles for health insurance reform and compares the potential of three approaches -- tax incentives for the individual insurance market; mixed private-public group insurance with shared financing responsibility; and public insurance

Sharing HOL4 and HOL Light proof knowledge

New proof assistant developments often involve concepts similar to already formalized ones. When proving their properties, a human can often take inspiration from the existing formalized proofs available in other provers or libraries. In this paper we propose and evaluate a number of methods, which strengthen proof automation by learning from proof libraries of different provers. Certain conjectures can be proved directly from the dependencies induced by similar proofs in the other library. Even if exact correspondences are not found, learning-reasoning systems can make use of the association between proved theorems and their characteristics to predict the relevant premises. Such external help can be further combined with internal advice. We evaluate the proposed knowledge-sharing methods by reproving the HOL Light and HOL4 standard libraries. The learning-reasoning system HOL(y)Hammer, whose single best strategy could automatically find proofs for 30% of the HOL Light problems, can prove 40% with the knowledge from HOL4

Submerged freeze gripper to manipulate Micro-objects.

International audienceManipulating microscopic objects with the necessary dexterity still remains a very challenging task. In this paper, we propose a freeze gripper able to manipulate micro-objects in an innovative way, i.e. in submerged surroundings. We first review the influences of dry and liquid media on contact forces and non contact forces. This comparative analyse clearly shows the interest of the liquid medium. A survey of different microhandling systems based on the use of ice is also given. Then submerged microgripper with frozen water as an active end-effector is porposed as a promising new approach for manipulating low thermal conductive micro-objects. A prototype using the Peltier effect has been numerically modeled and developed. It is described in the paper. Experimental results validate the cooling and warming of the freeze gripper. A generic micromanipulation task is the purpose of further work