Sensitivity analysis of a branching process evolving on a network with application in epidemiology

We perform an analytical sensitivity analysis for a model of a continuous-time branching process evolving on a fixed network. This allows us to determine the relative importance of the model parameters to the growth of the population on the network. We then apply our results to the early stages of an influenza-like epidemic spreading among a set of cities connected by air routes in the United States. We also consider vaccination and analyze the sensitivity of the total size of the epidemic with respect to the fraction of vaccinated people. Our analysis shows that the epidemic growth is more sensitive with respect to transmission rates within cities than travel rates between cities. More generally, we highlight the fact that branching processes offer a powerful stochastic modeling tool with analytical formulas for sensitivity which are easy to use in practice.Comment: 17 pages (30 with SI), Journal of Complex Networks, Feb 201

Trade integration and trade imbalances in the European Union: a network perspective

We study the ever more integrated and ever more unbalanced trade relationships between European countries. To better capture the complexity of economic networks, we propose two global measures that assess the trade integration and the trade imbalances of the European countries. These measures are the network (or indirect) counterparts to traditional (or direct) measures such as the trade-to-GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and trade deficit-to-GDP ratios. Our indirect tools account for the European intercountry trade structure and follow (i) a decomposition of the global trade flow into elementary flows that highlight the long-range dependencies between exporting and importing economies and (ii) the commute-time distance for trade integration, which measures the impact of a perturbation in the economy of a country on another country, possibly through intermediate partners by domino effect. Our application addresses the impact of the launch of the Euro. We find that the indirect imbalance measures better identify the countries ultimately bearing deficits and surpluses, by neutralizing the impact of trade transit countries, such as the Netherlands. Among others, we find that ultimate surpluses of Germany are quite concentrated in only three partners. We also show that for some countries, the direct and indirect measures of trade integration diverge, thereby revealing that these countries (e.g

Advances in understanding the regulation of apoptosis and mitosis by peroxisome-proliferator activated receptors in pre-clinical models: relevance for human health and disease

Peroxisome proliferator activated receptors (PPARs) are a family of related receptors implicated in a diverse array of biological processes. There are 3 main isotypes of PPARs known as PPARα, PPARβ and PPARγ and each is organized into domains associated with a function such as ligand binding, activation and DNA binding. PPARs are activated by ligands, which can be both endogenous such as fatty acids or their derivatives, or synthetic, such as peroxisome proliferators, hypolipidaemic drugs, anti-inflammatory or insulin-sensitizing drugs. Once activated, PPARs bind to DNA and regulate gene transcription. The different isotypes differ in their expression patterns, lending clues on their function. PPARα is expressed mainly in liver whereas PPARγ is expressed in fat and in some macrophages. Activation of PPARα in rodent liver is associated with peroxisome proliferation and with suppression of apoptosis and induction of cell proliferation. The mechanism by which activation of PPARα regulates apoptosis and proliferation is unclear but is likely to involve target gene transcription. Similarly, PPARγ is involved in the induction of cell growth arrest occurring during the differentiation process of fibroblasts to adipocytes. However, it has been implicated in the regulation of cell cycle and cell proliferation in colon cancer models. Less in known concerning PPARβ but it was identified as a downstream target gene for APC/β-catenin/T cell factor-4 tumor suppressor pathway, which is involved in the regulation of growth promoting genes such as c-myc and cyclin D1. Marked species and tissue differences in the expression of PPARs complicate the extrapolation of pre-clinical data to humans. For example, PPARα ligands such as the hypolipidaemic fibrates have been used extensively in the clinic over the past 20 years to treat cardiovascular disease and side effects of clinical fibrate use are rare, despite the observation that these compounds are rodent carcinogens. Similarly, adverse clinical responses have been seen with PPARγ ligands that were not predicted by pre-clinical models. Here, we consider the response to PPAR ligands seen in pre-clinical models of efficacy and safety in the context of human health and disease

Trade integration and trade imbalances in the European Union: a network perspective

peer reviewedWe study the ever more integrated and ever more unbalanced trade relationships between European countries. To better capture the complexity of economic networks, we propose two global measures that assess the trade integration and the trade imbalances of the European countries. These measures are the network (or indirect) counterparts to traditional (or direct) measures such as the trade-to-GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and trade deficit-to-GDP ratios. Our indirect tools account for the European inter-country trade structure and follow (i) a decomposition of the global trade flow into elementary flows that highlight the long-range dependencies between exporting and importing economies and (ii) the commute-time distance for trade integration,which measures the impact of a perturbation in the economy of a country on another country, possibly through intermediate partners by domino effect. Our application addresses the impact of the launch of the Euro. We find that the indirect imbalance measures better identify the countries ultimately bearing deficits and surpluses, by neutralizing the impact of trade transit countries, such as the Netherlands. Among others, we find that ultimate surpluses of Germany are quite concentrated in only three partners. We also show that for some countries, the direct and indirect measures of trade integration diverge, thereby revealing that these countries (e.g. Greece and Portugal) trade to a smaller extent with countries considered as central in the European Union network

Concevoir un assistant conversationnel de manière itérative et semi-supervisée avec le clustering interactif

National audienceThe design of a dataset needed to train a chatbot is most often the result of manual and tedious step. To guarantee the efficiency of the annotation, we propose the interactive clustering method, an active learning method based on constraints annotation. It’s an iterative approach, relying on a constrained clustering algorithm and using annotator knowledge to lead clustering. In this paper, we expose the process to design a chatbot with the interactive clustering method.La création d'un jeu de données nécessaire à la conception d'un assistant conversationnel résulte le plus souvent d'une étape manuelle et fastidieuse qui manque de techniques destinées à l'assister. Pour accélérer cette étape d'annotation, nous proposons une méthode de clustering interactif : il s'agit d'une approche itérative inspirée de l'apprentissage actif, reposant sur un algorithme de clustering et tirant parti d'une annotation de contraintes pour guider le regroupement des questions en une structure d'intentions. Dans cet article, nous exposons la méthodologie à mettre en oeuvre pour concevoir un assistant conversationnel opérationnel à l'aide du clustering interactif

Conception itérative et semi-supervisée d'assistants conversationnels par regroupement interactif des questions

National audienceThe design of a dataset needed to train a chatbot is most often the result of manual and tedious step. To guarantee the efficiency and objectivity of the annotation, we propose an active learning method based on constraints annotation. It’s an iterative approach, relying on a clustering algorithm to segment data and using annotator knowledge to lead clustering from unlabeled question to relevant intents structure. In this paper, we study the optimal modeling parameters to get an exploitable dataset with a minimum of annotations, and show that this approach allows to make a coherent structure for the training of a chatbot.La création d’un jeu de données pour l’entrainement d’un chatbot repose sur un a priori de connaissance du domaine. En conséquence, cette étape est le plus souvent manuelle, fastidieuse et soumise aux biais. Pour garantir l’efficacité et l’objectivité de l’annotation, nous proposons une méthodologie d’apprentissage actif par annotation de contraintes. Il s’agit d’une approche itérative, reposant sur un algorithme de clustering pour segmenter les données et tirant parti de la connaissance de l’annotateur pour guider le regroupement des questions en une structure d’intentions. Dans cet article, nous étudions les paramètres optimaux de modélisation pour réaliser une segmentation exploitable en un minimum d’annotations, et montrons que cette approche permet d’aboutir à une structure cohérente pour l’entrainement d’un assistant conversationnel

Vibrations induites par le frottement : sensibilité aux paramètres de contrôle

Le grincement est un bruit induit par le frottement dont la nature fugace est très souvent mise en avant expérimentalement. Cet article présente l'étude menée sur un modèle de principe, contenant deux masses en contact frottant et obtenu suite à l'évolution du modèle classique de stick-slip par une démarche de complexité croissante. Alors que l'étude temporelle menée sur ce modèle permet de mettre en évidence l'extrême sensibilité du grincement vis-à-vis des paramètres de contrôle, l'étude modale permet de comprendre l'origine de cette sensibilité grâce au concept d'instabilité modale

Fusions d\u27universités et la documentation (Les)

Ce rapport présente de premières conclusions des fusions d\u27universités réalisées à Aix-Marseille, à Bordeaux, en Lorraine et à Strasbourg sous différents aspects : préparation de la fusion, nouvelle organisation documentaire, évolution des services aux publics et de la politique documentaire, unification des systèmes d\u27information, immobilier documentaire. Il présente également l\u27état actuel au plan documentaire des autres fusions d\u27universités en cours

On the Evolution of Dust Mineralogy, From Protoplanetary Disks to Planetary Systems

Mineralogical studies of silicate features emitted by dust grains in protoplanetary disks and Solar System bodies can shed light on the progress of planet formation. The significant fraction of crystalline material in comets, chondritic meteorites and interplanetary dust particles indicates a modification of the almost completely amorphous ISM dust from which they formed. The production of crystalline silicates thus must happen in protoplanetary disks, where dust evolves to build planets and planetesimals. Different scenarios have been proposed, but it is still unclear how and when this happens. This paper presents dust grain mineralogy of a complete sample of protoplanetary disks in the young Serpens cluster. These results are compared to those in the young Taurus region and to sources that have retained their protoplanetary disks in the older Upper Scorpius and Eta Chamaeleontis stellar clusters, using the same analysis technique for all samples. This comparison allows an investigation of the grain mineralogy evolution with time for a total sample of 139 disks. The mean cluster age and disk fraction are used as indicators of the evolutionary stage of the different populations. Our results show that the disks in the different regions have similar distributions of mean grain sizes and crystallinity fractions (~10-20%) despite the spread in mean ages. Furthermore, there is no evidence of preferential grain sizes for any given disk geometry, nor for the mean cluster crystallinity fraction to increase with mean age in the 1-8 Myr range. The main implication is that a modest level of crystallinity is established in the disk surface early on (< 1 Myr), reaching a equilibrium that is independent of what may be happening in the disk midplane. These results are discussed in the context of planet formation, in comparison with mineralogical results from small bodies in our Solar System. [Abridged]Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

Mast Cell Degranulation Exacerbates Skin Rejection by Enhancing Neutrophil Recruitment

Recent evidences indicate an important role of tissue inflammatory responses by innate immune cells in allograft acceptance and survival. Here we investigated the role of mast cells (MC) in an acute male to female skin allograft rejection model using red MC and basophil (RMB) mice enabling conditional MC depletion. Kinetic analysis showed that MCs markedly accelerate skin rejection. They induced an early inflammatory response through degranulation and boosted local synthesis of KC, MIP-2, and TNF. This enhanced early neutrophil infiltration compared to a female-female graft-associated repair response. The uncontrolled neutrophil influx accelerated rejection as antibody-mediated depletion of neutrophils delayed skin rejection. Administration of cromolyn, a MC stabilizer and to a lesser extent ketotifen, a histamine type I receptor antagonist, and absence of MCPT4 chymase also delayed graft rejection. Together our data indicate that mediators contained in secretory granules of MC promote an inflammatory response with enhanced neutrophil infiltration that accelerate graft rejection