Identifying urban resources to read socio-spatial inequalities

In recent years, academic research has renewed our understanding of the social processes, such as increased inequality, brought along by the intense urbanisation of societies both in the North and the South. This literature qualifies and characterizes the resources at stake in these processes: housing and associated services, employment, education, healthcare, intra-urban transport, mobility or on the contrary, immobility. These resources can be understood as urban resources – that is, not j..

Légitimations locales dans la construction de la nation mexicaine

L’histoire de deux communautés indiennes de l’isthme de Tehuantepec à travers l’application de la réforme agraire mexicaine permet de décomposer les mécanismes de construction de l’État-nation et de la communauté na­tionale. Dans cette ancienne colonie, la légitimation de l’État révolution­naire repose sur la captation des entités politiques locales, grâce à une politique intrusive de réforme agraire. Les éléments récupérés dans les dossiers de l’administration agraire mettent en évidence les ressorts de la légitimation du local : le champ politique s’y construit sur la capacité du pouvoir à redistribuer les ressources au sein de la collectivité. La comparai­son entre les deux communautés montre que c’est à partir de ce champ politique local qu’un ordre politique national a pu s’établir.The history of two Indian communities on the isthmus of Tehuantepec, as examined through the application of Mexican agrarian reform, allows the mechanisms involved in the construction of the nation-state and the national community to be analysed. In this former colony, the legitimisation of the revolutionary state rests on the harnessing of local political entities by means of an intrusive policy of agrarian reform. Material found in the files of the agrarian authorities clearly shows the motivations behind the legitimisation of the local: the political field constructs itself there on the capacity of the authorities to redistribute resources within the community. A comparison of the two communities reveals that this local political field was the basis for the establishment of a national political order

Pérez Siller Javier et Lassus Jean-Marie, Les Français au Mexique, XVIIIe-XXIe siècle

Ces deux volumes, qui totalisent près de 900 pages, témoignent de l’ambition d’un projet de longue haleine qui a mobilisé les travaux d’une équipe franco-mexicaine sur plus d’une décennie. Il fait suite à plusieurs volumes marquant les étapes de ce projet (1998, 2004, 2010 et 2014) également dirigés par Javier Pérez Siller dans une série intitulée México-Francia : memoria de una sensibilidad común, siglos XIX-XX. Ce projet d’envergure mise sur le long terme et l’accumulation d’enquêtes pour f..

La constitution de ressources urbaines dans les parcours de familles migrantes à Mexico

Cet article cherche à caractériser les ressources urbaines dans le contexte de Mexico. A travers six portraits de femmes arrivées dans la banlieue industrielle de Naucalpan, nous voulons montrer comment les familles migrantes font face à l’enjeu de l’installation en ville, de l’accès aux ressources et sa pérennisation, en s’appuyant sur la configuration métropolitaine. Les entretiens révèlent deux manières d’envisager l’environnement urbain, en tant que contrainte mais aussi par ses potentielles ressources, afin de développer sur le moyen et long terme un projet familial. En particulier, il s’agit d’organiser la garde des enfants, cruciale pour l’accès à l’emploi des femmes. La première stratégie, classique dans la littérature, est celle de l’ancrage, où des solidarités peuvent être reconstituées pour faire face aux situations de vulnérabilité, La seconde repose davantage sur le couple centralité-mobilité, dans une intelligence des agencements spatiaux urbains qui permettent l’accès aux ressources.This paper aims to characterize urban resources in the context of Mexico City. Through six portraits of six women which migrated to Naucalpan, an industrial suburb of Mexico city, we expect to show how migrant families face the challenge of settling in the metropolis and of building sustainable access to the main resources. The interviews reveal two ways of considering the urban environment, as a constraint and as a potential resource, in order to develop a midterm and long-term family project. More specifically, these women had to organize child care, crucial for their access to employment. The first strategy, classic in the literature, is the anchorage, where solidarity can be reconstituted to deal with situations of vulnerability, the second relies more on the couple centrality-mobility through an intelligence of the urban configuration that make resources available

En guise d’introduction

Ce deuxième numéro consacré aux ressources urbaines est l'occasion pour un certain nombre d'auteurs de poursuivre leur exploration de la notion, soit en approfondissant un point développé dans le numéro thématique, soit en changeant de point de vue – mais toujours en faisant la part belle à l'image photographique, comme illustration ou comme source. Rafael Soares Gonçalves précise ainsi le fonctionnement des sociétés d’approvisionnement d’eau dans une favela à Rio, relativement à l’accès à l..

Assessment of sedentary behaviors and transport-related activities by questionnaire: a validation study

ACTI-Cités consortiumInternational audienceBackground: Comprehensive assessment of sedentary behavior (SB) and physical activity (PA), including transport-related activities (TRA), is required to design innovative PA promotion strategies. There are few validated instruments that simultaneously assess the different components of human movement according to their context of practice (e.g. work, transport, leisure). We examined test-retest reliability and validity of the Sedentary, Transportation and Activity Questionnaire (STAQ), a newly developed questionnaire dedicated to assessing context-specific SB, TRA and PA. Methods: Ninety six subjects (51 women) kept a contextualized activity-logbook and wore a hip accelerometer (Actigraph GT3X + TM) for a 7-day or 14-day period, at the end of which they completed the STAQ. Activity-energy expenditure was measured in a subgroup of 45 subjects using the double labeled water (DLW) method. Test-retest reliability was assessed using intra-class-coefficients (ICC) in a subgroup of 32 subjects who filled the questionnaire twice one month apart. Accelerometry was annotated using the logbook to obtain total and context-specific objective estimates of SB. Spearman correlations, Bland-Altman plots and ICC were used to analyze validity with logbook, accelerometry and DLW data validity criteria. Results: Test-retest reliability was fair for total sitting time (ICC = 0.52), good to excellent for work sitting time (ICC = 0.71), transport-related walking (ICC = 0.61) and car use (ICC = 0.67), and leisure screen-related SB (ICC = 0.64-0.79), but poor for total sitting time during leisure and transport-related contexts. For validity, compared to accelerometry, significant correlations were found for STAQ estimates of total (r = 0.54) and context-specific sitting times with stronger correlations for work sitting time (r = 0.88), and screen times (TV/DVD viewing: r = 0.46; other screens: r = 0.42) than for transport (r = 0.35) or leisure-related sitting-times (r = 0.19). Compared to contextualized logbook, STAQ estimates of TRA was higher for car (r = 0.65) than for active transport (r = 0.41). The questionnaire generally overestimated work-and leisure-related SB and sitting times, while it underestimated total and transport-related sitting times.Conclusions : The STAQ showed acceptable reliability and a good ranking validity for assessment of context-specific SB and TRA. This instrument appears as a useful tool to study SB, TRA and PA in context in adults

Novel Insights into the Bovine Polled Phenotype and Horn Ontogenesis in Bovidae

Despite massive research efforts, the molecular etiology of bovine polledness and the developmental pathways involved in horn ontogenesis are still poorly understood. In a recent article, we provided evidence for the existence of at least two different alleles at the Polled locus and identified candidate mutations for each of them. None of these mutations was located in known coding or regulatory regions, thus adding to the complexity of understanding the molecular basis of polledness. We confirm previous results here and exhaustively identify the causative mutation for the Celtic allele (PC) and four candidate mutations for the Friesian allele (PF). We describe a previously unreported eyelash-and-eyelid phenotype associated with regular polledness, and present unique histological and gene expression data on bovine horn bud differentiation in fetuses affected by three different horn defect syndromes, as well as in wild-type controls. We propose the ectopic expression of a lincRNA in PC/p horn buds as a probable cause of horn bud agenesis. In addition, we provide evidence for an involvement of OLIG2, FOXL2 and RXFP2 in horn bud differentiation, and draw a first link between bovine, ovine and caprine Polled loci. Our results represent a first and important step in understanding the genetic pathways and key process involved in horn bud differentiation in Bovidae

Functional analysis of the Parkinson's disease associated genes, parkin and PINK1, in vitro

Parkinson's disease (PD) is the most common neurodegenerative movement disorder. Our understanding of the disease has been enhanced by the discovery of gene mutations in rare families with eariy-onset autosomal recessive juvenile parkinsonism (ARJP). The first gene to be identified was parkin and two further genes have been identified namely, DJ-1 and PINK1. The latter was discovered in our laboratory. The work of this thesis has aimed to increase our understanding of how these newly discovered genes play a role in neuronal survival and how disease-causing mutations result in neurodegenerarJon. Utilising gene transfer techniques and transient and stable cell culture expression systems, the function of parkin and PINK1 was investigated in human dopaminergic SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cell lines. The work of this thesis has confirmed and extended previous reports that parkin over-expression confers neuroprotection against a variety of cellular stresses implicated in PD. Moreover, this work has showed for the first time that endogenous parkin protein can localize to aggregates known as "aggresomes' following stress and that the formation of these parkin positive aggresomes can be dissociated from parkin's effect on neuronal survival. Furthermore, this work describes the first functional characterization of PINK1. It demonstrates that PINK1 localizes to the mitochondria in neuronal cells where it may play a neuroprotective role against cellular stress. Moreover, this effect is abrogated by disease causing mutations in PINK1. This work also reports on the characterisation of novel PINK1 antibodies and shows for the first time that PINK1 can localize to aggresomes and the mechanism is linked to mitochondrial recruitment. The work of this thesis sheds light on the increasing importance of the ubiquitin proteasome system and mitochondria in the pathogenesis of PD. Improved understanding of these cellular processes should lead to more effective treatments for this devastating disease