Des considérations sur la lexicographie et la linguistique au Gabon

Le Gabon est un pays à diversité linguistique. La constitution gabonaise reconnaît le français comme l'unique langue officielle. En outre, elle s'efforce de promouvoir et de protéger les langues nationales. La lexicographie, discipline de la production des dictionnaires, et la linguistique, l'étude scientifique du langage, ont toutes les deux un rôle à jouer dans la promotion et la protection des langues nationales. L'objectif de cet article est de montrer l'importance d'une collaboration entre lexicographes et linguistes pour un développement effectif des langues du Gabon. Pour rendre compte de la nécessité de cette collaboration entre les lexicographes et les linguistes au Gabon, cet article commence par la présentation de la situation linguistique du Gabon. Ensuite des aspects tels que les contributions des deux disciplines de la linguistique et de la lexicographie au développement des langues gabonaises, la collaboration entre les linguistes et les lexicographes et la question des unités lexicographiques gabonaises seront discutés. Mots-clés: lexicographie, linguistique, collaboration, lexicographes, linguistes, sciences interdisciplinaires, langues gabonaises, dictionnaire, langue, corpus, unités lexicographiques, développemen

The grandest of them all : the Lomagundi-Jatuli Event and Earth's oxygenation

Funding: K.K., A.L. and T.K. received funding from Estonian Science Agency Project PRG447 and Yu.D., A.R., D.R. and P.M. were supported by the state assignment of the Institute of Geology, Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences.The Paleoproterozoic Lomagundi–Jatuli Event (LJE) is generally considered the largest, in both amplitude and duration, positive carbonate C-isotope (δ13Ccarb) excursion in Earth history. Conventional thinking is that it represents a global perturbation of the carbon cycle between 2.3–2.1 Ga linked directly with, and in part causing, the postulated rise in atmospheric oxygen during the Great Oxidation Event. In addition to new high-resolution δ13Ccarb measurements from LJE-bearing successions of NW Russia, we compiled 14 943 δ13Ccarb values obtained from marine carbonate rocks 3.0–1.0 Ga in age and from selected Phanerozoic time intervals as a comparator of the LJE. Those data integrated with sedimentology show that, contra to consensus, the δ13Ccarb trend of the LJE is facies (i.e. palaeoenvironment) dependent. Throughout the LJE interval, the C-isotope composition of open and deeper marine settings maintained a mean δ13Ccarb value of +1.5 ± 2.4‰, comparable to those settings for most of Earth history. In contrast, the 13C-rich values that are the hallmark of the LJE are limited largely to nearshore-marine and coastal-evaporitic settings with mean δ13Ccarb values of +6.2 ± 2.0‰ and +8.1 ± 3.8‰, respectively. Our findings confirm that changes in δ13Ccarb are linked directly to facies changes and archive contemporaneous dissolved inorganic carbon pools having variable C-isotopic compositions in laterally adjacent depositional settings. The implications are that the LJE cannot be construed a priori as representative of the global carbon cycle or a planetary-scale disturbance to that cycle, nor as direct evidence for oxygenation of the ocean–atmosphere system. This requires rethinking models relying on those concepts and framing new ideas in the search for understanding the genesis of the grandest of all positive C-isotope excursions, its timing and its hypothesized linkage to oxygenation of the atmosphere.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Epidemiology of Concomitant Infection Due to Loa loa and Mansonella perstans in Gabon

Loa loa and Mansonella perstans are blood filarial parasites, endemic in the central and western African forest block, and transmitted by chrysops and culicoides flies, respectively. Loa loa is pathogenic and represents a major obstacle to the control of co-endemic filariae. Treatment of individuals with >8000 Loa loa microfilariae/ml can result in severe adverse reactions. M. perstans is prevalent in the tropics, with undefined clinical symptoms. We screened 4392 individuals for these infections in 212 Gabonese villages. The overall prevalence rates were 22.4% for Loa loa microfilariae, 10.2% for M. perstans, and 3.2% for mixed infection. These rates varied across the different ecosystems: forest, savannah, Lakeland, river (Ogouée), and equator. A correlation was found between the prevalence and intensity of microfilariae, while a negative relationship was found between clinical symptoms (pruritis, Calabar swelling) and the prevalence of Loa loa microfilaremia. This study confirms the spatial uniformity of the relationship between parasitological indices, and provides a map and baseline data for implementation of mass chemotherapy for these infections

Rift Valley Fever Virus Seroprevalence in Human Rural Populations of Gabon

Rift Valley fever (RVF) is a disease transmitted by a mosquito bite (Aedes). Humans can also be infected through direct contact with blood (aerosols) or tissues (placenta, stillborn) of infected animals. Although severe clinical cases can be observed, infection with RVF virus (RVFV) in humans in most cases causes a febrile illness without serious symptoms. In small ruminants RVFV mainly causes abortion and neonatal death. RVFV distribution has been poorly investigated in Central Africa. We conducted a large scale serological survey of RVF antibodies in rural populations in Gabon, involving 4,323 individuals from 212 randomly selected villages. The results showed an overall RVFV prevalence of 3.3%, with values of 2.9% in the forested zones, 2.2% in savannas and 8.3% in the lakes region. These findings strongly suggest for the first time the wide circulation of Rift valley fever virus in Gabon and the possible existence of a sylvan cycle of RVF virus in this country. The serological higher prevalence in the lake region suggests that this region is likely to have particular ecological conditions, especially mosquito vector species, favoring the circulation of this virus. In Gabon, human cases of RVF may occur but are either misdiagnosed or not reported

U-Pb single zircon grain dating of Present fluvial and Cenozoic aeolian sediments from Gabon: consequences on sediment provenance, reworking, and erosion processes on the equatorial West African margin

U-Pb ages obtained from detrital zircon from terrigenous sediments are used to determine the sources. Present fluvial sand-bars of the Ogooue river yield age spectra of detrital zircons in agreement with Archean and Early Proterozoic Sources found in the drainage. The large proportion of Late Proterozoic zircons cannot be derived from primary erosion of the watershed basement rocks, since there is no formation of that age in the area. This later group of zircons is in good agreement with reworking of the aeolian Paleogene Bateke Sands, by regressive erosion in the upper reaches of the Ogooue river, as they contain a majority of Late Proterozoic age zircons. The sources of Late Proterozoic zircons in the Bateke Sand are very distant, and transported and reworked - at least in part - by aeolian processes. Our results, together with the widely distributed Paleogene sediments over continental Africa, suggests that Paleogene was it time of subdued erosion of the cratonic areas and extensive reworking, transport and deposition within continental Africa. In contrast, our results from the Ogooue river indicate active present incision of the cratonic area, erosion of the previous continental sediments, and export of the river bed-load to the continental margin. This temporal evolution of erosion-transport-deposition is correlated with the drastic climate change that occurred during the Cenozoic, leading to a more efficient mechanical erosion, and it correlates with the increase of terrigenous flux to the margin, observed during the Neogene

Very low helminth infection in sheep grazed on pastures fertilised by sewage sludge or cattle slurry

Helminth infection acquired by lambs grazing on pastures fertilised either by urban sewage sludge or cattle slurry were studied in temperate Central Western France. The aim was to assess the risk of larval cestodoses in lambs after sewage application and of digestive tract nematode infection following the slurry application. Twenty-six sheep were allocated on two paddocks of 0.7 ha, one fertilised with sludge and the other with cattle slurry. The delay between application and actual grazing was 6 weeks; grazing on these paddocks extended from mid July to beginning of November 2002. The herbage biomass was slightly increased in the sludge paddock but it did not result in an increase of lamb live weight, compared with the slurry paddock. The lambs did not acquire cysticercosis or any other larval cestodoses in the sewage sludge group and only very limited infections with Cooperia spp. and Nematodirus spp. were observed in the slurry group. It was concluded that in our conditions the helminth risk was extremely low and was not a cause of restriction of the use of these biowastes

Physically based diagonal treatment of the self-energy of polar optical phonons. Performance assessment of III-V double-gate transistors

We propose a diagonal approximation for the self-energy that describes the interaction between electrons and polar optical phonons in the framework of nonequilibrium Green's function transport simulations. Our model is based on the definition of a scaling factor, which renormalizes the local electron-phonon coupling, to take into account the nonlocality of the interaction and provide the correct scattering rates. While previous studies relied on empirical values of this factor, we derive, from basic physical relationships, analytical expressions in the presence of the one- and two-dimensional confinement of phonons. We apply our model to the self-consistent simulation of double-gate p-type transistors made of technologically relevant III-V materials (InAs, InSb, and GaSb). Their performance is benchmarked, for different crystallographic orientations and strain constraints, against the corresponding Si and Ge devices. We find that the electron-polar optical phonon scattering plays a major role in degrading the performance of the III-V devices and typically results in a widening of the performance gap existing between III-V and Si or Ge devices in ballistic transport condition

Kinetic and therapeutic properties of macrocyclic lactone endectocides, doramectin and moxidectin, in N’Dama cattle (<em>Bos taurus</em>) in Gabon

The plasma kinetics and efficacy of doramectin and moxidectin were studied in N’Dama taurine cattle after subcutaneous administration at the recommended dose of 0.2 mg/kg. Absorption half-life values showed that the absorption of moxidectin (0.05 day) was significantly faster than that of doramectin (1.7 day). No significant differences were observed in maximum concentrations, but they were reached earlier with moxidectin (0.3 day) than with doramectin (4.8 days). Exposure, measured by the area under the curve, was higher for doramectin (458 ng.day/ml) than for moxidectin (159 ng.day/ml), whereas moxidectin seemed more remanent. Both molecules showed 100% efficacy between days 15 and 30 posttreatment. These results are similar to those observed in other taurine breeds. Doramectin and moxidectin can therefore be recommended to control gastrointestinal parasitoses in N’Dama in humid tropical regions