Descriptive complexity for pictures languages (extended abstract)

This paper deals with descriptive complexity of picture languages of any dimension by syntactical fragments of existential second-order logic. - We uniformly generalize to any dimension the characterization by Giammarresi et al. \cite{GRST96} of the class of \emph{recognizable} picture languages in existential monadic second-order logic. - We state several logical characterizations of the class of picture languages recognized in linear time on nondeterministic cellular automata of any dimension. They are the first machine-independent characterizations of complexity classes of cellular automata. Our characterizations are essentially deduced from normalization results we prove for first-order and existential second-order logics over pictures. They are obtained in a general and uniform framework that allows to extend them to other "regular" structures. Finally, we describe some hierarchy results that show the optimality of our logical characterizations and delineate their limits.Comment: 33 pages - Submited to Lics 201

Histoire et humanités numériques : nouveaux terrains de dialogue entre les archives et la recherche

Comme dans toute discipline au contact de nouvelles technologies, on assiste au sein des sciences historiques, et plus largement au sein des sciences humaines et sociales, à un questionnement sur l’adoption de nouvelles pratiques de recherche. Alors que les outils numériques offrent des perspectives d’analyse renouvelées – des méthodes quantitatives complexes aux bases de données multimédia en passant par la visualisation – ceux-ci modifient également les canaux de diffusion et de popularisation du patrimoine, quand ils ne deviennent pas eux-mêmes de nouveaux objets d’étude, à l’image du Web ou des médias sociaux. Sous le titre d’« humanités numériques » se rassemble depuis quelques années une communauté d’individus et d’institutions qui se préoccupent de ces transformations et s’approprient petit à petit un outillage numérique transdisciplinaire. Sur le terrain, loin d’une révolution annoncée avec grandiloquence, c’est par l’expérimentation et la collaboration, pas à pas, que ces nouvelles modalités se mettent en place

Definability by Horn formulas and linear time on cellular automata

International audienceWe establish an exact logical characterization of linear time complexity of cellular automata of dimension d, for any fixed d: a set of pictures of dimension d belongs to this complexity class iff it is definable in existential second-order logic restricted to monotonic Horn formulas with built-in successor function and d + 1 first-order variables. This logical characterization is optimal modulo an open problem in parallel complexity. Furthermore, its proof provides a systematic method for transforming an inductive formula defining some problem into a cellular automaton that computes it in linear time

Fine-scale population structure analysis in Armadillidium vulgare (Isopoda: Oniscidea) reveals strong female philopatry

In the last decades, dispersal studies have benefited from the use of molecular markers for detecting patterns differing between categories of individuals and have highlighted sex-biased dispersal in several species. To explain this phenomenon, several hypotheses implying mating systems, intrasexual competition or sex-related handicaps have been proposed. In this context, we investigated sex-biased dispersal in Armadillidium vulgare, a terrestrial isopod with a promiscuous mating system. As a proxy for effective dispersal, we performed a fine-scale investigation of the spatial genetic structure in males and females, using individuals originating from five sampling points located within 70 meters of each other. Based on microsatellite markers and spatial autocorrelation analyses, our results revealed that while males did not present a significant genetic structure at this geographic scale, females were significantly and genetically more similar to each other when they were collected in the same sampling point. As females invest more parental care than males in A. vulgare, but also because this species is promiscuous and males experience a high intrasexual competition, our results meet the predictions of most classical hypotheses for sex-biased dispersal. We suggest that widening dispersal studies to other isopods or crustaceans, differing in their ecology or mating system and displaying varying levels of parental care, might shed light on the processes underlying the evolution of sex-biased dispersal.Comment: 23 pages (including 2 figures and one table) and two supplementary files containing 5 pages with 3 tables S1 to S3 and one figure S1, Last two authors have contributed equally to this stud

Sensory contribution to vocal emotion deficit in patients with cerebellar stroke

In recent years, there has been increasing evidence of cerebellar involvement in emotion processing. Difficulties in the recognition of emotion from voices (i.e., emotional prosody) have been observed following cerebellar stroke. However, the interplay between sensory and higher-order cognitive dysfunction in these deficits, as well as possible hemispheric specialization for emotional prosody processing, has yet to be elucidated. We investigated the emotional prosody recognition performances of patients with right versus left cerebellar lesions, as well as of matched controls, entering the acoustic features of the stimuli in our statistical model. We also explored the cerebellar lesion-behavior relationship, using voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping. Results revealed impairment of vocal emotion recognition in both patient subgroups, particularly for neutral or negative prosody, with a higher number of misattributions in patients with right-hemispheric stroke. Voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping showed that some emotional misattributions correlated with lesions in the right Lobules VIIb and VIII and right Crus I and II. Furthermore, a significant proportion of the variance in this misattribution was explained by acoustic features such as pitch, loudness, and spectral aspects. These results point to bilateral posterior cerebellar involvement in both the sensory and cognitive processing of emotions

SAMCO: Society adaptation for coping with mountain risks in a global change context

International audienceThe SAMCO project is intended to contribute to the development of a proactive resilience framework enhancing the overall resilience of societies on the impacts of mountain risks

Model-based iterative reconstruction in pediatric chest CT: assessment of image quality in a prospective study of children with cystic fibrosis

Background: The potential effects of ionizing radiation are of particular concern in children. The model-based iterative reconstruction VEOTM is a technique commercialized to improve image quality and reduce noise compared with the filtered back-projection (FBP) method. Objective: To evaluate the potential of VEOTM on diagnostic image quality and dose reduction in pediatric chest CT examinations. Materials and methods: Twenty children (mean 11.4years) with cystic fibrosis underwent either a standard CT or a moderately reduced-dose CT plus a minimum-dose CT performed at 100kVp. Reduced-dose CT examinations consisted of two consecutive acquisitions: one moderately reduced-dose CT with increased noise index (NI = 70) and one minimum-dose CT at CTDIvol 0.14mGy. Standard CTs were reconstructed using the FBP method while low-dose CTs were reconstructed using FBP and VEO. Two senior radiologists evaluated diagnostic image quality independently by scoring anatomical structures using a four-point scale (1=excellent, 2=clear, 3=diminished, 4=non-diagnostic). Standard deviation (SD) and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) were also computed. Results: At moderately reduced doses, VEO images had significantly lower SD (P < 0.001) and higher SNR (P < 0.05) in comparison to filtered back-projection images. Further improvements were obtained at minimum-dose CT. The best diagnostic image quality was obtained with VEO at minimum-dose CT for the small structures (subpleural vessels and lung fissures) (P < 0.001). The potential for dose reduction was dependent on the diagnostic task because of the modification of the image texture produced by this reconstruction. Conclusions: At minimum-dose CT, VEO enables important dose reduction depending on the clinical indication and makes visible certain small structures that were not perceptible with filtered back-projectio

Agriculture familiale en France métropolitaine

L’agriculture familiale a été célébrée lors de l’année 2014 à l’appel des Nations Unies. Cette forme d’organisation de la production agricole se définit par l’imbrication de la cellule domestique et de l’unité de production. Dans le contexte français, les auteurs en proposent une définition essentiellement basée sur la proportion du travail salarié par rapport au travail fourni par les membres de la famille. Une analyse de la main-d’œuvre des exploitations, de la détention du capital et des conditions d’accès au foncier montre qu’en dépit des évolutions structurelles que connaît l’agriculture française, celle-ci reste principalement familiale. Si le travail salarié permanent se développe en valeur relative, mais est quasiment stable en nombre, la main-d’œuvre familiale reste majoritaire dans plus de 95 % des exploitations. Le mouvement de substitution du travail par du capital de production, qui reste pour l’essentiel aux mains des exploitants, n’est donc pas remis en cause.The year 2014 was declared year of Family farming by the United Nations. This form of organisation of agricultural production can be defined as an intertwining of the farming and family unit. In the French context, the authors propose a definition mainly based on the proportion of wage labour compared to family labour. An analysis of the farms’ workforce, capital ownership and land access conditions shows that, despite the structural evolutions of French agriculture, it remains mostly based on family farming. If paid labour progresses in relative value and is stable in terms of manpower, family labour remains predominant in 95% of French farms. The mechanism that sees the mostly farmer-owned production capital replacing labour is still at work

Intraoperative Ketorolac and Outcomes after Ovarian Cancer Surgery

The authors want to thank Laurence Beausaert and Monique Kasa-Vubu, coordinating nurses of gynaecological oncology, Magali Alsteen and Véronique Delhaye for the recording of the data and all the nurses from the operating theatre and the hospitalisation unit (U95) of the cliniques universitaire St Luc. We also want to thank the intensive care unit team for the care of our patients.Peer reviewe