CREATION DE VALEUR : QUELS RISQUES POUR DES CENTRES DE PROFIT ? LE CAS AIR FRANCE

Avec l'ouverture du capital et la refonte des schémas de gestion, une réflexion s'est engagée pour introduire la création de valeur au sein des trois métiers d'Air France. Cependant, ce sont actuellement des centres de profit : au-delà de leur compte de résultat, il faut donc répartir les éléments bilantiels ; or, la seule construction de l'EVA, et de sa déclinaison pour des fins de gestion interne, est un risque majeur de crédibilité et de conflit.Air France ; Centre de profit ; Conflit ; Contrôle de gestion ; Création de Valeur ; Risque

The evolution of sperm morphometry in pheasants

Postcopulatory sexual selection is thought to be a potent evolutionary force driving the diversification of sperm shape and function across species. In birds, insemination and fertilisation are separated in time and sperm storage increases the duration of sperm female interaction and hence the opportunity for sperm competition and cryptic female choice. We performed a comparative study of 24 pheasant species (Phasianidae, Galliformes) to establish the relative importance of sperm competition and the duration of sperm storage for the evolution of sperm morphometry (i.e. size of different sperm traits). We found that sperm size traits were negatively associated with the duration of sperm storage but were independent of the risk of sperm competition estimated from relative testis mass. Our study emphasises the importance of female reproductive biology for the evolution of sperm morphometry particularly in sperm storing taxa

Modélisation et optimisation de la maintenance et de la surveillance des systèmes multi-composants - Applications à la maintenance et à la conception de véhicules industriels

This thesis research work focuses on the maintenance operations scheduling and the development of a design methodology for maintenance. The aim is to suggest a customized maintenance service offer for each vehicle and able to adapt to user constraints. In the transport industry, these constraints are defined by a limited number of maintenance opportunities and vehicle unplanned stops with significant financial consequences. This service offer should enable both to improve the vehicle uptime and to reduce the maintenance impact on operating costs. In this framework, the developed maintenance policy ensures, with a given risk probability, maintenance free operating periods for a multi-component system. During these periods, the system should be able to carry out all its assigned missions without maintenance actions and system fault. And the end of each period, the considered policy evaluates if a maintenance action is required to ensure maintenance-free and fault-free operation on the next period with a specified confidence level. When a maintenance action is mandatory, decision criteria considering the maintenance costs and the maintenance efficiency are used to select the operations to be performed. This form of dynamic clustering, called time-driven clustering, integrates both the component reliability models, the system structure and the available monitoring information. In our case, the monitoring information refers to the component state information and information on the component operating conditions. The process flexibility makes possible to make a maintenance decision in using different information levels for system components. The policy parameters, namely the period length and the confidence level value, are optimized based on the total maintenance cost. This cost, evaluated on a finite horizon, is composed of directs costs related to maintenance operations and indirect costs generated by system immobilizations. In order to reach a significant operating costs reduction, the maintenance policy optimization alone is not sufficient. It is essential to have a broader approach to involve the system and its maintenance since the conception. In this context, the developed design methodology suggests to prioritize the components impact on the operating costs. This prioritization is performed thanks to a defined importance factor. Then, multiple design options are evaluated by simulation in priority component. The selected options lead to reduce the operating costs. This work contains simulation results that illustrate the methods mentioned above. Moreover, a heavy vehicle sub-system is used as a test-case.Ces travaux de thèse traitent des problèmes de maintenance associés aux véhicules industriels. Ils se concentrent sur la planification des opérations de maintenance et sur le développement d'une méthodologie de conception pour la maintenance. Le but est de proposer une offre de maintenance personnalisée en fonction de chaque véhicule et capable de s'adapter aux contraintes des utilisateurs. Dans l'industrie du transport, ces contraintes se caractérisent par un nombre d'opportunités de maintenance limité et des immobilisations à fortes conséquences financières. Cette offre a vocation à garantir un niveau de disponibilité élevé tout en réduisant l'impact de la maintenance sur les coûts globaux d'exploitation. Dans ce cadre, la politique de maintenance développée vise à assurer, moyennant un certain risque, l'autonomie d'un système multi-composant sur des périodes d'opérations données. Pendant ces périodes, aucune opération de maintenance et aucune défaillance du système ne doivent venir perturber la réalisation des missions. A la fin de chaque période, la politique considérée évalue la nécessité d'une intervention de maintenance pour assurer la prochaine période avec un niveau de confiance spécifié. Lorsque la maintenance est jugée indispensable, des critères intégrant les coûts et l'efficacité de la maintenance sont introduits pour sélectionner les opérations à réaliser. Cette forme originale de regroupement dynamique s'appuie à la fois sur les modèles de fiabilité des composants, sur la structure fiabiliste du système et sur les informations de surveillance disponibles en ligne. Celles-ci se composent d'informations liées à l'état de santé des composants mais également à leurs conditions d'utilisation. La flexibilité du processus permet d'intégrer, dans la décision, des niveaux d'informations différents suivant les composants. Les paramètres de cette politique, à savoir la longueur de la période et le niveau de confiance, sont optimisés en fonction du coût total de maintenance. Ce coût, évalué sur un horizon fini, intègre les coûts directs associés aux opérations de maintenance et les coûts indirects engendrés par les immobilisations. Pour envisager une réduction significative des coûts d'exploitation du système, l'optimisation de la politique de maintenance seule ne suffit pas. Il est primordial de mener une réflexion plus large associant le système et sa maintenance dès la conception. Pour diriger cette réflexion, la méthodologie de conception proposée hiérarchise, à l'aide d'un facteur d'importance original, l'impact des composants sur les coûts d'exploitation. Différentes options de conceptions sont ensuite évaluées, par simulation, sur les composants jugés prioritaires. Les options retenues conduisent à réduire les coûts globaux d'exploitation. Des résultats de simulation permettent d'illustrer les méthodes développées. Une application sur un sous-système du véhicule industriel est également réalisée

Joint assignment of missions and maintenance operations for a fleet of deteriorating vehicles

International audienceThis article presents a comparison between two genetic algorithm-based methods to schedule the missions and the maintenance operations for a fleet of deteriorating vehicles. The first one directly integrates the fleet dimension to schedule the activities while the second one starts by assigning the missions to each vehicle and then defines the vehicle schedules independently. The objective is to see if the fleet-based method enables to reduce the global maintenance costs for the fleet and if it is always the case

Does recognized genetic management in supportive breeding prevent genetic changes in life-history traits?

International audienceSupportive breeding is one of the last resort conservation strategies to avoid species extinction. Management of captive populations is challenging because several harmful genetic processes need to be avoided. Several recommendations have been proposed to limit these deleterious effects, but empirical assessments of these strategies remain scarce. We investigated the outcome of a genetic management in a supportive breeding for the Houbara Bustard. At the phenotypic level, we found an increase over generations in the mean values of gamete production, body mass and courtship display rate. Using an animal model, we found that phenotypic changes reflected genetic changes as evidenced by an increase in breeding values for all traits. These changes resulted from selection acting on gamete production and to a lesser extent on courtship display. Selection decreased over years for female gametes, emphasizing the effort of managers to increase the contribution of poor breeders to offspring recruited in the captive breeding. Our results shed light on very fast genetic changes in an exemplary captive programme that follows worldwide used recommendations and emphasizes the need of more empirical evidence of the effects of genetic guidelines on the prevention of genetic changes in supportive breeding

Viral cystatin evolution and three-dimensional structure modelling: A case of directional selection acting on a viral protein involved in a host-parasitoid interaction

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In pathogens, certain genes encoding proteins that directly interact with host defences coevolve with their host and are subject to positive selection. In the lepidopteran host-wasp parasitoid system, one of the most original strategies developed by the wasps to defeat host defences is the injection of a symbiotic polydnavirus at the same time as the wasp eggs. The virus is essential for wasp parasitism success since viral gene expression alters the immune system and development of the host. As a wasp mutualist symbiont, the virus is expected to exhibit a reduction in genome complexity and evolve under wasp phyletic constraints. However, as a lepidopteran host pathogenic symbiont, the virus is likely undergoing strong selective pressures for the acquisition of new functions by gene acquisition or duplication. To understand the constraints imposed by this particular system on virus evolution, we studied a polydnavirus gene family encoding cyteine protease inhibitors of the cystatin superfamily.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We show that <it>cystatins </it>are the first bracovirus genes proven to be subject to strong positive selection within a host-parasitoid system. A generated three-dimensional model of <it>Cotesia congregata </it>bracovirus cystatin 1 provides a powerful framework to position positively selected residues and reveal that they are concentrated in the vicinity of actives sites which interact with cysteine proteases directly. In addition, phylogenetic analyses reveal two different <it>cystatin </it>forms which evolved under different selective constraints and are characterized by independent adaptive duplication events.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Positive selection acts to maintain <it>cystatin </it>gene duplications and induces directional divergence presumably to ensure the presence of efficient and adapted cystatin forms. Directional selection has acted on key cystatin active sites, suggesting that cystatins coevolve with their host target. We can strongly suggest that cystatins constitute major virulence factors, as was already proposed in previous functional studies.</p

Genetic diversity and relatedness amongst captive saker falcons (Falco cherrug) in the Green Balkans’ Wildlife Rehabilitation and Breeding Centre in Bulgaria

The globally endangered saker falcon (Falco cherrug) is currently being re-introduced in Bulgaria, where the falcons are bred in captivity and released through the hacking method. We relied on the birds’ pedigree when forming the breeding pairs from 2011. In 2021-2022, we had the opportunity to evaluate our captive population via DNA tests. We performed the first genetic assessment of the sakers in the WRBC through a genome evaluation of the most important founders (n = 12) and, in 2022, we executed a microsatellite analysis on 30 saker falcons from the programme. We compared the results with the known pedigree and history of the saker falcons. The genetic tests helped to assign relatedness to some birds with missing or incomplete pedigrees, indicating the test can complement that information and lead to better management of the captive group. One pair was separated as a precaution as it was indicated by one the tests that the two birds are more closely related than expected. The research could be beneficial to other raptor captive breeding programmes dealing with a similar group composition

Hygroregulation, a key ability for eusocial insects: Native Western European honeybees as a case study

Sociality has brought many advantages to various hymenoptera species, including their ability of regulating physical factors in their nest (e.g., temperature). Although less studied, humidity is known to be important for egg, larval and pupal development, and also for nectar concentration. Two subspecies of Apis mellifera of the M evolutionary lineage were used as models to test the ability of a superorganism (i.e. honeybee colony) to regulate the humidity in its nest (i.e. “hygroregulation hypothesis”) in four conservation centers: two in France (A. m. mellifera) and two in Portugal (A. m. iberiensis). We investigated the ability of both subspecies to regulate the humidity in hives daily, but also during the seasons for one complete year. Our data and statistical analysis demonstrated the capacity of the bees to regulate humidity in their hive, regardless of the day, season or subspecies. Furthermore, the study showed that humidity in beehives is stable even during winter, when brood is absent, and when temperature is known to be less stable in the beehives. These results suggest that humidity is important for honeybees at every life stage, maybe because of the ‘imprint’ of the evolutionary history of this hymenopteran lineage.This work was supported in part by the research project BEEHOPE funded by the European call for projects 2013-2014 BiodivERsA / FACCEJPI from research agencies of France (ANR-14- EBID-0001), Spain (PCIN-2014-090) and Portugal (BiodivERsA /0002/2014). I. Eouzan is financed by a doctoral grant from the Ministry of National Education, Higher Education and Research (France).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pre-but not post-meiotic senescence affects sperm quality and reproductive success in the North African houbara bustard

Age-dependent reduction in reproductive success can arise due to multiple factors including a deterioration of reproductive physiology. Senescing males have been shown to produce ejaculates with poor sperm quality, which impinges on male reproductive success. In addition to individual age, gamete age can also affect male reproductive success. Accordingly, variance in male reproductive success can be due to pre-meiotic (referring to individual age) and post-meiotic senescence (sperm age). Here, we tested whether male senescence and sperm cell aging have additive or interactive effects on male reproductive success in a bird with a promiscuous mating system, the North African houbara bustard. To assess the effect of pre-meiotic aging, we compared male reproductive success between two age classes (3-6- and 12–16-year-old). To infer the effect of post-meiotic aging, male ejaculates were collected at three-time intervals following a common initial collection (day 1, 5, and 10). Therefore, day 1 ejaculates are supposed to contain younger sperm than day 5 and 10 ejaculates. Following controlled artificial inseminations, reproductive success was assessed using three fitness-linked traits (hatching success, chick growth rate and survival). In addition to reproductive output, we also assessed whether pre- and post-meiotic aging affected a wide range of sperm and ejaculate traits. In agreement with previous reports, we found that males in the older age class produced less sperm with poorer motility compared to young individuals. However, contrary to the prediction, we found that ejaculates collected at day 5 and 10 tended to have better sperm traits such as motility and velocity. The results on sperm traits were generally mirrored in the effect on reproductive success since young males produced offspring that grew faster and had better survival during the first month of life, and eggs fertilized by sperm collected at day 5 had the highest hatching success. In any of the models, there was evidence for interactive effects of male and sperm age. Overall, these results confirm the role of pre-meiotic aging on male reproductive success. The lack of evidence for sperm aging could come from the experimental design but might also reflect the pattern of mating frequency in a species with a lek-based mating system

Immune-Mediated Change in the Expression of a Sexual Trait Predicts Offspring Survival in the Wild

BACKGROUND: The "good genes" theory of sexual selection postulates that females choose mates that will improve their offspring's fitness through the inheritance of paternal genes. In spite of the attention that this hypothesis has given rise to, the empirical evidence remains sparse, mostly because of the difficulties of controlling for the many environmental factors that may covary with both the paternal phenotype and offspring fitness. Here, we tested the hypothesis that offspring sired by males of a preferred phenotype should have better survival in an endangered bird, the houbara bustard (Chlamydotis undulata undulata). METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We tested if natural and experimentally-induced variation in courtship display (following an inflammatory challenge) predicts the survival of offspring. Chicks were produced by artificial insemination of females, ensuring that any effect on survival could only arise from the transfer of paternal genes. One hundred and twenty offspring were equipped with radio transmitters, and their survival monitored in the wild for a year. This allowed assessment of the potential benefits of paternal genes in a natural setting, where birds experience the whole range of environmental hazards. Although natural variation in sire courtship display did not predict offspring survival, sires that withstood the inflammatory insult and maintained their courtship activity sired offspring with the best survival upon release. CONCLUSIONS: This finding is relevant both to enlighten the debate on "good genes" sexual selection and the management of supportive breeding programs