Méthode des moments de probabilité pondérés : application à la loi de Jenkinson

Cet article a pour but de présenter une méthode, relativement nouvelle, d'estimation des paramètres d'une distribution de probabilité : la méthode des moments de probabilité pondérés, introduite par Greenwood et al. (1979). La facilité de mise en oeuvre, la robustesse et l'efficacité de cette méthode ont retenu notre attention. Nous faisons une synthèse des études menées sur l'application de cette méthode à l'estimation des paramètres de la loi de Jenkinson (Generalized Extreme Value Distribution - GEV). (Résumé d'auteur

Manifestations de la sécheresse en Afrique de l'Ouest non sahélienne : cas de la Côte d'Ivoire, du Togo et du Bénin

La sécheresse qui sévit depuis une vingtaine d'années dans les régions sahéliennes d'Afrique de l'Ouest semble avoir des manifestations également plus au sud dans les pays riverains du golfe de Guinée. Une double analyse, ponctuelle et spatialisée, concernant les précipitations annuelles de la Côte d'Ivoire, du Togo et du Bénin permet de mettre ce fait en évidence. Les séries chronologiques d'indices pluviométriques confirment la chute brutale de la pluviométrie à la fin des années 60. La représentation cartographique des résultats montre le net glissement des courbes isohyètes vers le sud et permet de prendre en compte la dimension régionale du phénomène. (Résumé d'auteur

Découpage de l'espace en unités pédopaysagères.

Il s'agit d'un modèle pour rendre compte de l'organisation des sols et des contraintes du milieu rural en mutation

Whipple's disease diagnosed during biological treatment for joint disease

Objectives Increased susceptibility to infections is among the main safety concerns raised by biological agents. We describe five cases of Whipple\u27s disease diagnosed during treatment with biological agents. Methods We retrospectively identified five cases of Whipple\u27s disease diagnosed between 2003 and 2009 in patients treated with TNFα antagonists in five French hospitals. Results Five patients (four male; mean age: 50.4 years; range: 38–67) underwent biological therapy according to prior diagnoses of rheumatoid arthritis (n = 2), ankylosing spondylitis (n = 2), or spondyloarthropathy (n = 1). Biological therapy failed to control the disease, which responded to appropriate antibiotics for Whipple\u27s disease. Retrospectively, clinical symptoms before biological therapy were consistent with Whipple\u27s disease. All five patients had favorable outcomes (mean follow-up, 29 months [13–71]). Conclusions Biological therapy probably worsened preexisting Whipple\u27s disease, triggering the visceral disorders. Whipple\u27s disease must be ruled out in patients with joint disease, as patients with this spontaneously fatal condition should not receive immunosuppressive agents

Noncommutative Induced Gauge Theory

We consider an external gauge potential minimally coupled to a renormalisable scalar theory on 4-dimensional Moyal space and compute in position space the one-loop Yang-Mills-type effective theory generated from the integration over the scalar field. We find that the gauge invariant effective action involves, beyond the expected noncommutative version of the pure Yang-Mills action, additional terms that may be interpreted as the gauge theory counterpart of the harmonic oscillator term, which for the noncommutative $\phi^4$-theory on Moyal space ensures renormalisability. The expression of a possible candidate for a renormalisable action for a gauge theory defined on Moyal space is conjectured and discussed.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figure

Widespread hydroxylation of unstructured lysine-rich protein domains by JMJD6

The Jumonji domain-containing protein JMJD6 is a 2-oxoglutarate-dependent dioxygenase associated with a broad range of biological functions. Cellular studies have implicated the enzyme in chromatin biology, transcription, DNA repair, mRNA splicing, and cotranscriptional processing. Although not all studies agree, JMJD6 has been reported to catalyze both hydroxylation of lysine residues and demethylation of arginine residues. However, despite extensive study and indirect evidence for JMJD6 catalysis in many cellular processes, direct assignment of JMJD6 catalytic substrates has been limited. Examination of a reported site of proline hydroxylation within a lysine-rich region of the tandem bromodomain protein BRD4 led us to conclude that hydroxylation was in fact on lysine and catalyzed by JMJD6. This prompted a wider search for JMJD6-catalyzed protein modifications deploying mass spectrometric methods designed to improve the analysis of such lysine-rich regions. Using lysine derivatization with propionic anhydride to improve the analysis of tryptic peptides and nontryptic proteolysis, we report 150 sites of JMJD6-catalyzed lysine hydroxylation on 48 protein substrates, including 19 sites of hydroxylation on BRD4. Most hydroxylations were within lysine-rich regions that are predicted to be unstructured; in some, multiple modifications were observed on adjacent lysine residues. Almost all of the JMJD6 substrates defined in these studies have been associated with membraneless organelle formation. Given the reported roles of lysine-rich regions in subcellular partitioning by liquid-liquid phase separation, our findings raise the possibility that JMJD6 may play a role in regulating such processes in response to stresses, including hypoxia