Vers la gestion intégrée du fleuve Saint-Laurent : Les défis d’une action collective

Alternatives aux politiques publiques sectorielles et réglementaires de la protection de l’environnement, les expériences de gestion intégrée se sont rapidement multipliées depuis les années 1990. Ces lieux de concertation regroupent des acteurs diversifiés à qui l’on prête la capacité de définir un intérêt général. Cet article analyse les facteurs qui influencent la mise en oeuvre de la gestion intégrée et le fonctionnement des lieux de concertation sur le Saint-Laurent, soit les comités ZIP. À travers deux études de cas, menées à l’enseigne de la sociologie des organisations, nous examinons plus particulièrement les obstacles à une action collective pour protéger l’environnement.In the 1990’s, as an alternative to sectorial public policies and strict regulations to protect the environment, experimentations of integrated management have multiplied. Different types of stakeholders are asked to harmonize their interests over environmental issues. This article looks at different factors that influence the implementation and the functioning of consultation committees on the Saint Lawrence river – known as ZIP. Through a case study, using organizational sociology, we examined the obstacles that have to be surmounted in order to organize a collective action to protect and restore the Saint Lawrence river

Analyse organisationnelle de la gestion de l’eau par bassin versant au Québec : Ajustements et tensions

En décrétant que la « gestion intégrée de l’eau » serait l’un des piliers de la Politique nationale de l’eau, le gouvernement du Québec (2002) formalisait du même coup le recours à la participation de la société civile dans un nouveau mode de gouvernance de cette ressource vitale. Or, l’apparition de nouveaux espaces délibératifs obligeait les acteurs concernés par cette ressource à revoir leur implication et même à ajuster leurs interactions. En utilisant les concepts généraux de l’analyse des organisations pour l’étude de trois organismes de bassin versant, nous décrivons les ajustements et les tensions observés à l’intérieur même des nouveaux organismes de bassin versant, et plus largement à l’échelle des régions. Nous verrons qu’au cours des premières années d’existence de ces organismes, les enjeux procéduraux dominent la dynamique interne alors que, sur la scène régionale, le comportement stratégique des acteurs découle d’une tension entre deux visions du modèle : 1) des organismes qui soutiennent la règle publique ou 2) la prise en charge du bassin versant par la communauté.With the adoption of an integrated watershed management orientation in its national water policy, the Quebec Government (2002) confirmed the involvement of civic society in water governance. Therefore, the arrival of new deliberative approaches forces local actors to reorganize their interactions. Using the general concepts of organizational strategic analysis within three cases studies, we describe the adaptations and tensions observed inside watershed organisms and more broadly on the regional scene. We highlight the fact than in the first years of existence of these organisms, procedural issues outclass the intern dynamic, while, on the regional arena, local actors’ behaviours are influenced by two distinct conceptions of the model : (1) organisms that support public policy or (2) a community that directly takes care of water issues

Neutral B Meson Mixing and Heavy-light Decay Constants from Quenched Lattice QCD

We present high-statistics results for neutral $B$-meson mixing and heavy-light-meson leptonic decays in the quenched approximation from tadpole-improved clover actions at $\beta = 6.0$ and $\beta = 6.2$. We consider quantities such as $B_{B_{d(s)}}$, $f_{D_{d(s)}}$, $f_{B_{d(s)}}$ and the full $\Delta B=2$ matrix elements as well as the corresponding SU(3)-breaking ratios. These quantities are important for determining the CKM matrix element $|V_{td}|$.Comment: LATTICE98(heavyqk). Revised version. Typos in the second and third equations corrected. Very small changes to text. Results unchange

Personality Predicts Obedience in a Milgram Paradigm

Enquête sur les personnes qui ont désobéi (leur personnalité, leur vote politique, leur consommation de TV...) dans la retranscription de l'expérience de Milgram sur un plateau de télévision (émission TV "le jeu de la mort" diffusée sur France 2 en mars 2010)International audienceThis study investigates how obedience in a Milgram-like experiment is predicted by interindividual differences. Participants were 35 males and 31 females aged 26–54 from the general population who were contacted by phone 8 months after their participation in a study transposing Milgram's obedience paradigm to the context of a fake television game show. Interviews were presented as opinion polls with no stated ties to the earlier experiment. Personality was assessed by the Big Five Mini-Markers questionnaire (Saucier, 1994). Political orientation and social activism were also measured. Results confirmed hypotheses that Conscientiousness and Agreeableness would be associated with willingness to administer higher-intensity electric shocks to a victim. Political orientation and social activism were also related to obedience. Our results provide empirical evidence suggesting that individual differences in personality and political variables matter in the explanation of obedience to authority. Stanley Milgram carried out the " Eichmann experiment " to determine whether Nazi war criminals such as Adolf Eichmann, whose trial had begun a couple of months earlier in Jerusalem, could have committed the heinous acts of the Holocaust merely because of a misplaced obedience to authority (Milgram, 1974). The German philosopher Hanna Arendt, a reporter during the trial of Eichmann, coined the phrase " the banality of evil " to describe him, seeing behind the architect of the Holocaust a thoroughly normal person. Going further, Arendt also mentioned that Eichmann's attitude toward his family and friends was " not only normal but most desirable " (Arendt, 1977, p. 25). Whatever the accuracy and truth of such an analysis (see Cesarani, 2007, for an alternative view of Eichmann), the issue of individual dispositions related to obedience was also included in Milgram's thinking as he wrote, " I am certain that there is a complex personality basis to obedience and disobedience , but I know we have not found it " (Milgram, 1974, p. 205). Somewhat paradoxically, the social psychologist consensually credited for having accelerated the shift away from internal explanations of behavior toward environmental and situational factors considered personality as a relevant source of variation in obedient behavior (Benjamin & Simpson, 2009). In the present study, we shed a new light on how personality factors predicted obedience and rebellion in a Milgram-like study recently carried out in the context of a television game show (Beauvois, Courbet, & Oberlé, 2012). We hypothesize

Scalar condensate and light quark masses from overlap fermions

We have studied pseudoscalar correlation functions computed using the overlap operator. Within the accuracy of our calculation we find that the quark mass dependence agrees with the prediction of lowest-order Chiral Perturbation Theory (ChPT) for quark masses in the range of m ~ m_s/2-2m_s. We present the results of an analysis which assumes lowest-order ChPT to be valid to extract the low-energy constants Sigma and f_P, as well as the strange quark mass. Non-perturbative renormalization is implemented via a matching procedure with data obtained using Wilson fermions in the Schroedinger functional set-up. We find that the scalar condensate computed here agrees with the one obtained previously through a finite-size scaling analysis.Comment: Lattice2001(chiral), 6 pages, 5 PostScript figure

Delta S=2 and Delta I=3/2 Matrix Elements in Quenched QCD

We present preliminary results for B_K, B_7^{3/2} and B_8^{3/2} from two high-statistics lattice computations. These calculations are performed at beta=6.0 and 6.2 in the quenched approximation, using mean-field-improved Sheikholeslami-Wohlert fermionic actions.Comment: LATTICE98(matrixelement), minor clarification

Why do results conflict regarding the prognostic value of the methylation status in colon cancers? the role of the preservation method

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In colorectal carcinoma, extensive gene promoter hypermethylation is called the CpG island methylator phenotype (CIMP). Explaining why studies on CIMP and survival yield conflicting results is essential. Most experiments to measure DNA methylation rely on the sodium bisulfite conversion of unmethylated cytosines into uracils. No study has evaluated the performance of bisulfite conversion and methylation levels from matched cryo-preserved and Formalin-Fixed Paraffin Embedded (FFPE) samples using pyrosequencing.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Couples of matched cryo-preserved and FFPE samples from 40 colon adenocarcinomas were analyzed. Rates of bisulfite conversion and levels of methylation of <it>LINE-1, MLH1 </it>and <it>MGMT </it>markers were measured.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>For the reproducibility of bisulfite conversion, the mean of bisulfite-to-bisulfite standard deviation (SD) was 1.3%. The mean of run-to-run SD of PCR/pyrosequencing was 0.9%. Of the 40 DNA couples, only 67.5%, 55.0%, and 57.5% of FFPE DNA were interpretable for <it>LINE-1, MLH1</it>, and <it>MGMT </it>markers, respectively, after the first analysis. On frozen samples the proportion of well converted samples was 95.0%, 97.4% and 87.2% respectively. For DNA showing a total bisulfite conversion, 8 couples (27.6%) for <it>LINE-1</it>, 4 couples (15.4%) for <it>MLH1 </it>and 8 couples (25.8%) for <it>MGMT </it>displayed significant differences in methylation levels.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Frozen samples gave reproducible results for bisulfite conversion and reliable methylation levels. FFPE samples gave unsatisfactory and non reproducible bisulfite conversions leading to random results for methylation levels. The use of FFPE collections to assess DNA methylation by bisulfite methods must not be recommended. This can partly explain the conflicting results on the prognosis of CIMP colon cancers.</p