Une forêt exemplaire : le bois de Gabor (Tarn), ses avatars du XIIIe au XXIe siècle

The tiny ancient royal forest (30 ha) of Gabor, still intact since the 17 th century, has an extraordinary history. It belonged to the Counts of Toulouse since 1221, then became the property of the King in 1271 and in 1541 was subjected to the reformation. It was almost completely cleared for the purpose of growing woad, for which there was a flourishing market at the time. What remained of the forest was subjected to the coppicewith- reserves system but ruined by the officers in charge of tending to it. In 1666, Louis de Froidour notes that the oldest tree it contained was only 7 years old. Not wanting to use either the simple coppice or the high forest system on such a small surface area, he designed a long term plan for selecting standards, thus inventing the coppice-with-standards system. It was recorded in 1724 that his instructions were followed to the letter. The forest was sold as national property in 1796 and to this day has maintained many traces of its prestigious but little known past.Intacte depuis le XVIIe siècle sur la commune de Lavaur (Tarn), la toute petite (30 ha) ancienne forêt royale de Gabor a une histoire étonnante. Aux comtes de Toulouse depuis 1221, royale en 1271, elle fait l’objet d’une réformation en 1541. Elle a été presque totalement défrichée au profit de la culture du pastel, alors florissante. Le solde, cultivé en taillis sous baliveaux, est ruiné par les officiers chargés de sa garde. En 1666, Louis de Froidour y constate que l’arbre le plus âgé n’a que 7 ans. Ne voulant ni la cultiver en taillis simple ni faire une futaie sur une si petite surface, il conçoit un plan de balivage à long terme inventant là le taillissous- futaie. En 1724, il est constaté que ses prescriptions ont été parfaitement suivies. Vendue comme bien national en 1796, la forêt conserve toujours de nombreuses traces de son passé prestigieux mais inconnu

Application de l'étude de la matière organique à l'analyse de l'érosion : exemple du bassin versant du Moulin, dans les terres noires des Alpes-de-Haute-Provence (France) Determination of eroded geological formations using organic matter characterization (Moulin basin, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, France).

Laboratoire de géochimie organique, UMR 6531, bât. Géosciences, université d'Orléans, 45067 Orléans, France - Laboratoire intégré à l'ISTO UMR6113 - CNRS - Université d'OrléansCe travail s'appuie sur l'étude de la matière organique présente dans les sols, substratum géologique et particules fluviatiles, d'un bassin versant équipé par le Cemagref. L'analyse des palynofaciès confirme la contribution significative de matière organique fossile dans les cours d'eau actuels. La pyrolyse Rock-Eval permet de discriminer les formations géologiques alimentant, soit les charges de fond, soit les matières en suspension, et de préciser leur mode d'érosion. Ainsi, la matière organique, traditionnellement étudiée pour la reconstitution des environnements passés, autorise en outre la caractérisation des formations géologiques érodées et des processus érosifs les ayant affectées. The present study is based on the optical (palynofacies) and geochemical (pyrolyse Rock-Eval) characterization of the organic matter occurring both in bedrock, soils, river sediments (suspended matter and bedload) in a Draix Erosional Research Basin (Cemagref). Results confirm firstly the contribution of reworked organic matter in modern fluxes. Numerous previous studies have shown that organic matter analysis can be an accurate tool to provide information concerning past climates and past environments. Present results suggests that such analysis can also give information concerning the characterization of eroded bedrocks and of erosional processes such as river bank erosion and runoff

Impact of Home-Based Management of malaria combined with other community-based interventions: what do we learn from Rwanda?

Introduction: This study aimed to evaluate the impact of home-based management of malaria (HBM) strategy on time to treatment and reported presumed malaria morbidity in children aged less than 5 years in Rwanda. Methods: The study was carried out in two malaria-endemic rural districts, one where HBM was applied and the other serving as control. In each district, a sample of mothers was surveyed by questionnaire before (2004) and after (2007) implementation of HBM. Results: After implementation, we observed: i) an increase (P<0.001) in the number of febrile children treated within 24 hours of symptom onset in the experimental district (53.7% in 2007 vs 5% in 2004) compared with the control district (28% vs 7.7%); ii) a decrease in the reported number of febrile children in the experimental district (28.7% vs 44.9%, P<0.01) compared with the control district (45.7% vs 56.5%, P<0.05). Conclusion: HBM contributed to decrease time to treatment and reported presumed malaria morbidity.Pan African Medical Journal 2013; 14:5

Bayesian inverse problems with non-commuting operators

The Bayesian approach to ill-posed operator equations in Hilbert space recently gained attraction. In this context, and when the prior distribution is Gaussian, then two operators play a significant role, the one which governs the operator equation, and the one which describes the prior covariance. Typically it is assumed that these operators commute. Here we extend this analysis to non-commuting operators, replacing the commutativity assumption by a link condition. We discuss its relation to the commuting case, and we indicate that this allows to use interpolation type results to obtain tight bounds for the contraction of the posterior Gaussian distribution towards the data generating element.Comment: This is an update of the previously uploaded version, improving the readabilit

Des exemples de briques technologiques dans le cadre d'une application pour l'industrie du futur

International audienceLa quatrième révolution industrielle est à l'évidence bien en marche. Tous les jours nous en avons la démonstration au travers de nouveaux modes d'organisation autant marchands qu'industriels de la société. Nous sommes confrontés à des ruptures majeures aussi bien liées à l'évolution des technologies qu'à la mondialisation de l'économie avec l'émergence et la maturité de nouveaux acteurs : le défi de la transition énergétique, la révolution du numérique, la protection de notre planète, les convergences entre les sciences du vivant et des sciences dures… Cet article présente des applications implémentées dans le cadre de la mise en place de technologie " Internet of Things " par l'utilisation d'un réseau Profinet. Ces applications peuvent être utilisées sur l'ensemble des processus de l'entreprise dans le cadre de l'Industrie du Futur. Le standard OPC est apparu au milieu des années 90 pour faciliter les échanges entre le monde des automatismes et celui de la supervision basée sur PC. Les dernières spécifications d'OPC UA (Unified Architecture) sont aujourd'hui validées. Avec cette nouvelle version, la fondation OPC révolutionne son standard de communication entre équipements industriels. OPC UA rompt les liens qui le rendaient indissociable de Windows, pour se déployer sur tous types de plateformes

A Plant-Derived Morphinan as a Novel Lead Compound Active against Malaria Liver Stages

BACKGROUND: The global spread of multidrug–resistant malaria parasites has led to an urgent need for new chemotherapeutic agents. Drug discovery is primarily directed to the asexual blood stages, and few drugs that are effective against the obligatory liver stages, from which the pathogenic blood infection is initiated, have become available since primaquine was deployed in the 1950s. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Using bioassay-guided fractionation based on the parasite's hepatic stage, we have isolated a novel morphinan alkaloid, tazopsine, from a plant traditionally used against malaria in Madagascar. This compound and readily obtained semisynthetic derivatives were tested for inhibitory activity against liver stage development in vitro (P. falciparum and P. yoelii) and in vivo (P. yoelii). Tazopsine fully inhibited the development of P. yoelii (50% inhibitory concentration [IC(50)] 3.1 μM, therapeutic index [TI] 14) and P. falciparum (IC(50) 4.2 μM, TI 7) hepatic parasites in cultured primary hepatocytes, with inhibition being most pronounced during the early developmental stages. One derivative, N-cyclopentyl-tazopsine (NCP-tazopsine), with similar inhibitory activity was selected for its lower toxicity (IC(50) 3.3 μM, TI 46, and IC(50) 42.4 μM, TI 60, on P. yoelii and P. falciparum hepatic stages in vitro, respectively). Oral administration of NCP-tazopsine completely protected mice from a sporozoite challenge. Unlike the parent molecule, the derivative was uniquely active against Plasmodium hepatic stages. CONCLUSIONS: A readily obtained semisynthetic derivative of a plant-derived compound, tazopsine, has been shown to be specifically active against the liver stage, but inactive against the blood forms of the malaria parasite. This unique specificity in an antimalarial drug severely restricts the pressure for the selection of drug resistance to a parasite stage limited both in numbers and duration, thus allowing researchers to envisage the incorporation of a true causal prophylactic in malaria control programs