From "Ew" to "Wow": the gateway bug to edible insect consumption

The world cannot support current food production techniques, especially animal proteins and their detrimental effect on long-term sustainability issues such as greenhouse gas emissions, water use, land use, and feed requirements. The United Nations (U.N.) finds the key answer lies in human consumption of edible insects. They are a sustainable, nutritious, and cost-effective food source already consumed across the globe. However, the question of how to encourage Westerners to eat insects as a sustainable long-term food source remains perplexing. While research in food science has examined edible insects from a sustainability, production, and health standpoint, it has neglected to examine customer psychology and business initiatives that can break the barrier to edible insect consumption. Dr. Legendre has done significant research in this area with hope that she can see more consumers embrace edible insect-based food. She will showcase three of her recent publications and explain how to make edible insects more appealing to Western consumers, particulars what collaborative efforts are necessary for edible insect food businesses to be considered "food.

Celebrity Endorsement, Message Framing, and Online Social Support: The Gateway Bug to Edible Insect Consumption

While world organizations stress the importance of edible insect consumption as a sustainable, nutritious, and vital initiative to population growth and future sustainability, there remains resistance in adoption. Based on the academic and managerial gaps, this study examines how the marketing techniques of social support, celebrity endorsement, and message framing serve as the gateway to tourists trying local edible insect foods, product advocacy, and increasing future purchase intention through a 2 (message framing: hedonic vs. utilitarian) x 2 (celebrity endorsement: present vs. absent) x 2 (social support: high vs. low) between-subjects experimental design. The findings show that celebrity endorsement presence, social support and message framing interact to significantly affects behavioral intentions. Results expand upon theoretical gaps and serve as a critical piece in enticing Westerners to adopt this crucial sustainability initiative for the changing times and greater good of humanity and the planet

Stratégies d’adaptation et réduction de la vulnérabilité

The reduction of flood vulnerability is often presented as an objective. However, the increase of buildings into flooded area highlights the ineffectiveness of global strategies of risk management and the trend often to neglect the changes in natural environments. Our societies are confronted with multiple challenges and tried to solve their problems in emergency with the social crises as legitimate priority. But, as demonstrated by the examples of Condrieu and Chalon-sur-Saône, mutations and social crises are often the time when the vulnerabilities are becoming apparent. The urban development of areas subject to flood risk was strongly conditioned by the response to socio-economic changes such as: (1) the rural depopulation, (2) the need to house the working classes, (3) the will to revitalize territories during socioeconomic crises (petroleum and chemical industry crises, agricultural crisis...). The causal relations between social crisis and « natural » crisis here comes from the separate management of social and environmental risks. Therefore, the strategies of adaptation in relation to environmental risks should be thought with the resolution of social crises, because of the risk of indefinitely repeating the cycle leading from social crises to environmental crises

Flood risk vulnerability assessment: hierarchization of the main factors at a regional scale

Recent studies have shown a high flood risk exposure in France. It represents and almost one fourth of the total population and a third of jobs. In this context, a global vulnerability assessment methodology is currently elaborated and evaluated in France to bring adequate tools for flood risk management. This study raises the question of the quantification, of the qualification and of the choice of these vulnerability indicators for a given territory. This work aims to propose a new methodology dedicated for classification, for hierarchization and selection of a set of six vulnerability indicators by the means of a statistical analysis including PCA and ANOVA analysis depending of their relative impacts and correlation with the estimated risk level on the territory of Chalon-sur-Saône

Flood risk vulnerability assessment: hierarchization of the main factors at a regional scale

Recent studies have shown a high flood risk exposure in France. It represents and almost one fourth of the total population and a third of jobs. In this context, a global vulnerability assessment methodology is currently elaborated and evaluated in France to bring adequate tools for flood risk management. This study raises the question of the quantification, of the qualification and of the choice of these vulnerability indicators for a given territory. This work aims to propose a new methodology dedicated for classification, for hierarchization and selection of a set of six vulnerability indicators by the means of a statistical analysis including PCA and ANOVA analysis depending of their relative impacts and correlation with the estimated risk level on the territory of Chalon-sur-Saône

CHARGE syndrome: a recurrent hotspot of mutations in CHD7 IVS25 analyzed by bioinformatic tools and minigene assays

CHARGE syndrome is a rare genetic disorder mainly due to de novo and private truncating mutations of CHD7 gene. Here we report an intriguing hot spot of intronic mutations (c.5405-7G > A, c.5405-13G > A, c.5405-17G > A and c.5405-18C > A) located in CHD7 IVS25. Combining computational in silico analysis, experimental branch-point determination and in vitro minigene assays, our study explains this mutation hot spot by a particular genomic context, including the weakness of the IVS25 natural acceptor-site and an unconventional lariat sequence localized outside the common 40 bp upstream the acceptor splice site. For each of the mutations reported here, bioinformatic tools indicated a newly created 3' splice site, of which the existence was confirmed using pSpliceExpress, an easy-to-use and reliable splicing reporter tool. Our study emphasizes the idea that combining these two complementary approaches could increase the efficiency of routine molecular diagnosis