Producing zucchini seeds for organic agriculture

This tool is a data sheet that can be used by French farmers who produce or want to produce zucchini seeds in organic conditions. It provides advices starting from the contract signing to the seed drying, going through the specificities of the crop, the sowing, irrigation, specific pests and their management, and the harvest

Producing cereal seeds for organic agriculture

This tool is a data sheet that can be used by French farmers who produce or want to produce cereal seeds in organic conditions. It provides advice starting from the contract signing to the seed drying, going through the specificities of the crop, the sowing, specific pests and their management, and the harvest

Forecasting Electricity Demand by Neural Networks and Definition of Inputs by Multi-Criteria Analysis

The planning of efficient policies based on forecasting electricity demand is essential to guarantee the continuity of energy supply for consumers. Some techniques for forecasting electricity demand have used specific procedures to define input variables, which can be particular to each case study. However, the definition of independent and casual variables is still an issue to be explored. There is a lack of models that could help the selection of independent variables, based on correlate criteria and level of importance integrated with artificial networks, which could directly impact the forecasting quality. This work presents a model that integrates a multi-criteria approach which provides the selection of relevant independent variables and artificial neural networks to forecast the electricity demand in countries. It provides to consider the particularities of each application. To demonstrate the applicability of the model a time series of electricity consumption from a southern region of Brazil was used. The dependent inputs used by the neural networks were selected using a traditional method called Wrapper. As a result of this application, with the multi-criteria ELECTRE I method was possible to recognize temperature and average evaporation as explanatory variables. When the variables selected by the multi-criteria approach were included in the predictive models, were observed more consistent results together with artificial neural networks, better than the traditional linear models. The Radial Basis Function Networks and Extreme Learning Machines stood out as potential techniques to be used integrated with a multi-criteria method to better perform the forecasting

The impact of Privacy concerns in the context of Big Data : A cross-cultural quantitative study of France and Bangladesh.

Background Big Data Analytics take place in almost every sector of new business world. Nowadays, banks are also adopting Big Data to handle the huge number of data that generate every day. Big Data helps banks to provide a fast, personalised service in a cost efficient way. On the other hand, Big Data has some privacy issues as it deals with a lot of data that can be decoded by third party. It is also the case in online banking as it is involved with personal and financial information. Privacy concerns also vary among different cultures. PurposeThe purpose of this cross-cultural study is to investigate online privacy concerns in the context of Big Data MethodologyA quantitative approach has been followed and data were collected through an online survey to understand the relations between variables. ConclusionThe findings indicate that the relationship between the privacy concern and its antecedents differ between France and Bangladesh. Though for both countries, the desire upon transparency showed a significant positive relationship with online privacy concerns. Additionally, for both countries a high privacy concern will not conduct to lower consumer trust and consumer engagement in online baking. The findings involving moderator variables were not significant at a

Anaemia and malaria in Yanomami communities with differing access to healthcare.

Inequitable access to healthcare has a profound impact on the health of marginalised groups that typically suffer an excess burden of infectious disease morbidity and mortality. The Yanomami are traditionally semi-nomadic people living in widely dispersed communities in Amazonian Venezuela and Brazil. Only communities living in the vicinity of a health post have relatively constant access to healthcare. To monitor the improvement in the development of Yanomami healthcare a cross-sectional survey of 183 individuals was conducted to investigate malaria and anaemia prevalence in communities with constant and intermittent access to healthcare. Demographic and clinical data were collected. Malaria was diagnosed by microscopy and haemoglobin concentration by HemoCue. Prevalence of malaria, anaemia, splenomegaly, fever and diarrhoea were all significantly higher in communities with intermittent access to healthcare (anaemia 80.8% vs. 53.6%, P<0.001; malaria 18.2% vs. 6.0%, P=0.013; splenomegaly 85.4% vs.12.5%, P<0.001; fever 50.5% vs. 28.6%, P=0.003; diarrhoea 30.3% vs.10.7% P=0.001). Haemoglobin level (10.0 g/dl vs. 11.5 g/dl) was significantly associated with access to healthcare when controlling for age, sex, malaria and splenomegaly (P=0.01). These findings indicate a heavy burden of anaemia in both areas and the need for interventions against anaemia and malaria, along with more frequent medical visits to remote areas

Post-Fukushima complementary safety assessment outcomes for French fuel cycle facilities

International audienceThe Complementary Safety Assessments (CSAs), requested in France by the Prime Minister in spring 2011 after the Fukushima-Daiichi accident have been performed by the nuclear licensees in 2011. The facilities have been divided into three categories, depending on their vulnerability to accidents like those at Fukushima and on the importance and the scale of the consequences of any accident affecting them. AREVA nuclear fuel facilities were part of the top priority facilities. The stresses that have to be considered for the CSAs are natural hazards (earthquake and flooding in particular) higher than what is required in the current design standards and the deterministic loss of power supply and cooling functions. The outcome of the studies carried out by the fuel cycle facilities licensees is that these facilities ensure a sufficient safety level. However, the IRSN analysis showed that it is necessary to implement a "hardened safety core" of robust material and organizational measures aiming, for extreme situations, toprevent a severe accident or limit its progression,limit massive discharges resulting from a non-controlled accident,enable the licensee to fulfill its crisis management duties. The "hardened safety cores" proposed by the fuel cycle facilities licensees have been assessed by IRSN. Even if complements are necessary, regarding the "hardened safety core" provisions and associated requirements, IRSN has estimated that the corresponding equipment and measures are about to enhance the ability of the facilities to withstand extreme hazards or supply losses. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd

Producing onion seeds for organic agriculture

This tool is a data sheet that can be used by French farmers who produce or want to produce onion seeds in organic conditions. It provides advice starting from the contract signing to the seed drying, going through the specificities of the crop, the sowing, irrigation, specific pests and their management, and the harvest