CMMI – AN ANSWER TO THE SOFTWARE CRISIS?

International audienceAs regularly mentioned in the current "software crisis", the software must be developed while the system definition is not yet frozen. In 2001, EADS SPACE Transportation started a CMM approach to improve its software development process. But even if the projects became more deterministic, the software developments still remained depending on system evolutions, and continued to appear very costly. So it was decided to use the CMMI maturity model, adapted to our industrial domain and now applied by many companies. We really think that the CMMI approach allows to improve both the system and software engineering processes:-The CMMI management processes are mandatory to efficiently plan, control and manage complex projects.-The technical processes must contribute to well organize the project. The CMMI project has just begun, so the expected benefits and savings are not yet visible. In parallel, other improvements are also expected from the software R&D activities presented in the paper. The paper will present:-an overview of the "software crisis",-a presentation of SW-CMM and CMMI,-The main improvements achieved through the SW-CMM project and expected from the CMMI project,-The software R&D roadmap at EADS SPACE Transportation

Economie des smart grids : focus sur l'expérience allemande.

Energie; digital technology; electricity network;

CT scan evaluation of glenoid component fixation: a prospective study of 27 minimally cemented shoulder arthroplasties

BACKGROUND: Glenoid component failure is the most common complication of total shoulder arthroplasty. It can be correlated with failure of the component itself to resist wear and deformation, failure of fixation or failure of the glenoid bone. Anchor Peg Glenoid component (Depuy(®)) seems to have a higher bone fixation in biomechanical canine model: it is a all-polyethylene, concave component with one circumferentially fluted, central, interference-fit peg and three small cemented peripheral pegs. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We realized a prospective study of Anchor Peg total shoulder arthroplasty, included 27 patients suffering from primary arthrosis or arthritis, without rotator cuff tear. A clinical and radiographic evaluation was performed at 3 months, 1 and 2 years; a CT scan was made in postoperative and analyzed central peg’s bone integration 1 year later. RESULTS: Improvement of postoperative Constant score and radiographic good results were correlated with satisfactory subjective results reported by patients. We observed radiolucent lines under glenoid component in 3 cases. Twenty-six CT scans were available at 1 year: it showed complete bone integration around the central peg in 21 cases and partial peripheral bone integration in four cases. Only one patient had any tissue integration around the peg, probably because of his implantation near cortical bone of scapular spine. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION: Long-term result of arthroplasty is correlated with glenoid durable fixation to underlying bone: this study shows higher fixation of glenoid component with bone integration of central peg. However, these results will have to be confirmed in a later revision

Dependability of Aggregated Objects, a pervasive integrity checking architecture

International audienceRFID-enabled security solutions are becoming ubiquitous; for example in access control and tracking applications. Well known solutions typically use one tag per physical object architecture to track or control, and a central database of these objects. This architecture often requires a communication infrastructure between RFID readers and the database information system. Aggregated objects is a different approach presented in this paper, where a group of physical objects use a set of RFID tags to implement a self-contained security solution. This distributed approach offers original advantages, in particular autonomous operation without an infrastructure support, and enhanced security

Vers une pédagogie inclusive co-construite, partagée et co-animée ?

International audienceA l'université de Nantes, l'étude menée dans le cadre du schéma directeur du handicap, en 2016, a permis de mettre en lumière une évolution de la diversité des profils d'étudiants avec des troubles de toute nature et notamment, des troubles ou maladies dites à « perception invisible ». Est apparue également, une augmentation significative de 45 % du nombre de ces étudiants bénéficiant d'aménagements spécifiques, entre 2013 et 2016.On peut se féliciter de pouvoir accueillir un nombre croissant d'étudiants et de leur offrir un accès à l'enseignement supérieur. Toutefois, les modalités individuelles d'aménagement pour accompagner et compenser ces troubles génèrent une augmentation des prises en charge qui a un impact, non négligeable, sur les moyens de gestion affectés, sans répondre de manière satisfaisante aux besoins.Aujourd'hui, avec le dispositif ACCESS, il s'agit de créer les conditions favorables à une démarche d'inclusion. En repensant la conception des environnements d'enseignement-apprentissage, l'agencement des dispositifs (formation, accompagnement, évaluation, gestion de parcours individualisés) et les ressources mises à disposition, l'approche inclusive représente plusieurs avantages pour compenser et maîtriser les aménagements spécifiques et influer de façon positive sur la qualité des formations proposées et sur les apprentissages de tous les étudiants. De plus, par cette action ACCESS inter-services, interdisciplinaire et interprofessionnelle au sein de l'UN, dédiée à tendre vers une pédagogie inclusive, il s'agit de consolider les réponses aux enjeux liés au développement efficace de la formation à distance, de la formation tout au long de la vie, tout en intégrant les nouvelles perspectives et opportunités offertes par les usages des technologies de l'information et de la communication et ainsi, être en mesure d'accueillir des étudiants, quelle que soit leur situation

Reliability assessment of null allele detection: inconsistencies between and within different methods

Microsatellite loci are widely used in population genetic studies, but the presence of null alleles may lead to biased results. Here we assessed five methods that indirectly detect null alleles, and found large inconsistencies among them. Our analysis was based on 20 microsatellite loci genotyped in a natural population of Microtus oeconomus sampled during 8 years, together with 1200 simulated populations without null alleles, but experiencing bottlenecks of varying duration and intensity, and 120 simulated populations with known null alleles. In the natural population, 29% of positive results were consistent between the methods in pairwise comparisons, and in the simulated dataset this proportion was 14%. The positive results were also inconsistent between different years in the natural population. In the null-allele-free simulated dataset, the number of false positives increased with increased bottleneck intensity and duration. We also found a low concordance in null allele detection between the original simulated populations and their 20% random subsets. In the populations simulated to include null alleles, between 22% and 42% of true null alleles remained undetected, which highlighted that detection errors are not restricted to false positives. None of the evaluated methods clearly outperformed the others when both false positive and false negative rates were considered. Accepting only the positive results consistent between at least two methods should considerably reduce the false positive rate, but this approach may increase the false negative rate. Our study demonstrates the need for novel null allele detection methods that could be reliably applied to natural population

A fast and cost-effective approach to develop and map EST-SSR markers: oak as a case study

Background: Expressed Sequence Tags (ESTs) are a source of simple sequence repeats (SSRs) that can be used to develop molecular markers for genetic studies. The availability of ESTs for Quercus robur and Quercus petraea provided a unique opportunity to develop microsatellite markers to accelerate research aimed at studying adaptation of these long-lived species to their environment. As a first step toward the construction of a SSR-based linkage map of oak for quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping, we describe the mining and survey of EST-SSRs as well as a fast and cost-effective approach (bin mapping) to assign these markers to an approximate map position. We also compared the level of polymorphism between genomic and EST-derived SSRs and address the transferability of EST-SSRs in Castanea sativa (chestnut). Results: A catalogue of 103,000 Sanger ESTs was assembled into 28,024 unigenes from which 18.6% presented one or more SSR motifs. More than 42% of these SSRs corresponded to trinucleotides. Primer pairs were designed for 748 putative unigenes. Overall 37.7% (283) were found to amplify a single polymorphic locus in a reference fullsib pedigree of Quercus robur. The usefulness of these loci for establishing a genetic map was assessed using a bin mapping approach. Bin maps were constructed for the male and female parental tree for which framework linkage maps based on AFLP markers were available. The bin set consisting of 14 highly informative offspring selected based on the number and position of crossover sites. The female and male maps comprised 44 and 37 bins, with an average bin length of 16.5 cM and 20.99 cM, respectively. A total of 256 EST-SSRs were assigned to bins and their map position was further validated by linkage mapping. EST-SSRs were found to be less polymorphic than genomic SSRs, but their transferability rate to chestnut, a phylogenetically related species to oak, was higher. Conclusion: We have generated a bin map for oak comprising 256 EST-SSRs. This resource constitutes a first step toward the establishment of a gene-based map for this genus that will facilitate the dissection of QTLs affecting complex traits of ecological importance

Comparative genomics of Mycoplasma feriruminatoris, a fast-growing pathogen of wild Caprinae.

Mycoplasma feriruminatoris is a fast-growing Mycoplasma species isolated from wild Caprinae and first described in 2013. M. feriruminatoris isolates have been associated with arthritis, kerato conjunctivitis, pneumonia and septicemia, but were also recovered from apparently healthy animals. To better understand what defines this species, we performed a genomic survey on 14 strains collected from free-ranging or zoo-housed animals between 1987 and 2017, mostly in Europe. The average chromosome size of the M. feriruminatoris strains was 1,040±0,024 kbp, with 24 % G+C and 852±31 CDS. The core genome and pan-genome of the M. feriruminatoris species contained 628 and 1312 protein families, respectively. The M. feriruminatoris strains displayed a relatively closed pan-genome, with many features and putative virulence factors shared with species from the M. mycoides cluster, including the MIB-MIP Ig cleavage system, a repertoire of DUF285 surface proteins and a complete biosynthetic pathway for galactan. M. feriruminatoris genomes were found to be mostly syntenic, although repertoires of mobile genetic elements, including Mycoplasma Integrative and Conjugative Elements, insertion sequences, and a single plasmid varied. Phylogenetic- and gene content analyses confirmed that M. feriruminatoris was closer to the M. mycoides cluster than to the ruminant species M. yeatsii and M. putrefaciens. Ancestral genome reconstruction showed that the emergence of the M. feriruminatoris species was associated with the gain of 17 gene families, some of which encode defence enzymes and surface proteins, and the loss of 25 others, some of which are involved in sugar transport and metabolism. This comparative study suggests that the M. mycoides cluster could be extended to include M. feriruminatoris. We also find evidence that the specific organization and structure of the DnaA boxes around the oriC of M. feriruminatoris may contribute to drive the remarkable fast growth of this minimal bacterium

Dealing with paralogy in RADseq data: in silico detection and single nucleotide polymorphism validation in Robinia pseudoacacia L.

peer reviewedThe RADseq technology allows researchers to efficiently develop thousands of polymorphic loci across multiple individuals with little or no prior information on the genome. However, many questions remain about the biases inherent to this technology. Notably, sequence misalignments arising from paralogy may affect the development of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers and the estimation of genetic diversity. We evaluated the impact of putative paralog loci on genetic diversity estimation during the development of SNPs from a RADseq dataset for the nonmodel tree species Robinia pseudoacacia L. We sequenced nine genotypes and analyzed the frequency of putative paralogous RAD loci as a function of both the depth of coverage and the mismatch threshold allowed between loci. Putative paralogy was detected in a very variable number of loci, from 1% to more than 20%, with the depth of coverage having a major influence on the result. Putative paralogy artificially increased the observed degree of polymorphism and resulting estimates of diversity. The choice of the depth of coverage also affected diversity estimation and SNP validation: A low threshold decreased the chances of detecting minor alleles while a high threshold increased allelic dropout. SNP validation was better for the low threshold (4×) than for the high threshold (18×) we tested. Using the strategy developed here, we were able to validate more than 80% of the SNPs tested by means of individual genotyping, resulting in a readily usable set of 330 SNPs, suitable for use in population genetics applications