Congested traffic equilibria and degenerate anisotropic PDEs

Congested traffic problems on very dense networks lead, at the limit, to minimization problems posed on measures on curves as shown in Baillon and Carlier (Netw. Heterogenous Media 7: 219--241, 2012). Here, we go one step further by showing that these problems can be reformulated in terms of the minimization of an integral functional over a set of vector fields with prescribed divergence. We prove a Sobolev regularity result for their minimizers despite the fact that the Euler-Lagrange equation of the dual is highly degenerate and anisotropic. This somehow extends the analysis of Brasco et al. (J. Math. Pures Appl. 93: 652--671, 2010) to the anisotropic case

Tracking Subtle Stereotypes of Children with Trisomy 21: From Facial-Feature-Based to Implicit Stereotyping

Background: Stigmatization is one of the greatest obstacles to the successful integration of people with Trisomy 21 (T21 or Down syndrome), the most frequent genetic disorder associated with intellectual disability. Research on attitudes and stereotypes toward these people still focuses on explicit measures subjected to social-desirability biases, and neglects how variability in facial stigmata influences attitudes and stereotyping. Methodology/Principal Findings: The participants were 165 adults including 55 young adult students, 55 non-student adults, and 55 professional caregivers working with intellectually disabled persons. They were faced with implicit association tests (IAT), a well-known technique whereby response latency is used to capture the relative strength with which some groups of people—here photographed faces of typically developing children and children with T21—are automatically (without conscious awareness) associated with positive versus negative attributes in memory. Each participant also rated the same photographed faces (consciously accessible evaluations). We provide the first evidence that the positive bias typically found in explicit judgments of children with T21 is smaller for those whose facial features are highly characteristic of this disorder, compared to their counterparts with less distinctive features and to typically developing children. We also show that this bias can coexist with negative evaluations at the implicit level (with large effect sizes), even among professional caregivers

Evaluation of sleep, puberty and mental health in children with long-term melatonin treatment for chronic idiopathic childhood sleep onset insomnia

OBJECTIVES: To establish whether long-term use of melatonin influences pubertal development, sleep quality and mental health development in children as compared with the normal Dutch population of the same age. METHODS: This follow-up research study was conducted in children included in a previous melatonin dose-finding trial. Outcomes were measured using questionnaires (Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ) and Tanner Stages) adopted for Dutch children. Mean duration of therapy, persistence of effect, adverse events and (other) reasons leading to cessation of therapy were additional objectives of this study. RESULTS: Mean years of usage (n = 51) was 3.1 years (min 1.0 year, max 4.6 years), mean dose 2.69 mg (min 0.3 mg, max 10 mg). Mean SDQ score, mean CSHQ score and Tanner Stages standard deviation scores did not differ in a statistically significant way from published scores of the general Dutch population of the same age and sex. CONCLUSIONS: This follow-up study demonstrates that melatonin treatment in children can be sustained over a long period of time without substantial deviation of the development of children with respect to sleep quality, puberty development and mental health scores, as compared with the general Dutch population

Lecture Notes on Variational Mean Field Games

International audienc

A world-wide analysis of reduced sensitivity to DMI fungicides in the banana pathogen Pseudocercospora fijiensis.

BackgroundPseudocercospora fijiensis is the causal agent of the black leaf streak disease (BLSD) of banana. Bananas are important global export commodities and a major staple food. Their susceptibility to BLSD pushes disease management towards excessive fungicide use, largely relying on multisite inhibitors and sterol demethylation inhibitors (DMIs). These fungicides are ubiquitous in plant disease control, targeting the CYP51 enzyme. We examined sensitivity to DMIs in P. fijiensis field isolates collected from various major banana production zones in Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, the Philippines, Guadalupe, Martinique and Cameroon and determined the underlying genetic reasons for the observed phenotypes.ResultsWe observed a continuous range of sensitivity towards the DMI fungicides difenoconazole, epoxiconazole and propiconazole with clear cross-sensitivity. Sequence analyses of PfCYP51 in 266 isolates showed 28 independent amino acid substitutions, nine of which correlated with reduced sensitivity to DMIs. In addition to the mutations, we observed up to six insertions in the Pfcyp51 promoter. Such promoter insertions contain repeated elements with a palindromic core and correlate with the enhanced expression of Pfcyp51 and hence with reduced DMI sensitivity. Wild-type isolates from unsprayed bananas fields did not contain any promoter insertions.ConclusionThe presented data significantly contribute to understanding of the evolution and global distribution of DMI resistance mechanisms in P. fijiensis field populations and facilitate the prediction of different DMI efficacy. The overall reduced DMI sensitivity calls for the deployment of a wider range of solutions for sustainable control of this major banana disease. © 2021 The Authors. Pest Management Science published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry