Development of 55 novel polymorphic microsatellite loci for the critically endangered L. (Actinopterygii: Perciformes: Percidae) and cross-species amplification in five other percids

International audienceBy combining biotin-enrichment protocol and next generation pyrosequencing, through 454 GS-FLX Titanium technology, 55 polymorphic microsatellites loci with perfect motif were isolated from the Rhone streber (), a critically endangered European fish species. Eight multiplex PCR kits were optimised in order to genotype a total of 58 polymorphic loci, including three previously published loci. The level of genetic diversity was assessed for 68 , 30 , 33 and four individuals. Amplification success was also assessed on and using single individuals. These markers will be useful to investigate the population structure of the highly fragmented Rhone streber. They represent a powerful tool for conservation issues and evolutionary approaches of this endemic species. Moreover, part of our markers demonstrated applicability to other percid species, allowing for potential applications to fisheries and aquaculture management

CRAFT: Concept Recursive Activation FacTorization for Explainability

Attribution methods, which employ heatmaps to identify the most influential regions of an image that impact model decisions, have gained widespread popularity as a type of explainability method. However, recent research has exposed the limited practical value of these methods, attributed in part to their narrow focus on the most prominent regions of an image -- revealing "where" the model looks, but failing to elucidate "what" the model sees in those areas. In this work, we try to fill in this gap with CRAFT -- a novel approach to identify both "what" and "where" by generating concept-based explanations. We introduce 3 new ingredients to the automatic concept extraction literature: (i) a recursive strategy to detect and decompose concepts across layers, (ii) a novel method for a more faithful estimation of concept importance using Sobol indices, and (iii) the use of implicit differentiation to unlock Concept Attribution Maps. We conduct both human and computer vision experiments to demonstrate the benefits of the proposed approach. We show that the proposed concept importance estimation technique is more faithful to the model than previous methods. When evaluating the usefulness of the method for human experimenters on a human-centered utility benchmark, we find that our approach significantly improves on two of the three test scenarios. Our code is freely available at github.com/deel-ai/Craft

Unlocking Feature Visualization for Deeper Networks with MAgnitude Constrained Optimization

Feature visualization has gained substantial popularity, particularly after the influential work by Olah et al. in 2017, which established it as a crucial tool for explainability. However, its widespread adoption has been limited due to a reliance on tricks to generate interpretable images, and corresponding challenges in scaling it to deeper neural networks. Here, we describe MACO, a simple approach to address these shortcomings. The main idea is to generate images by optimizing the phase spectrum while keeping the magnitude constant to ensure that generated explanations lie in the space of natural images. Our approach yields significantly better results (both qualitatively and quantitatively) and unlocks efficient and interpretable feature visualizations for large state-of-the-art neural networks. We also show that our approach exhibits an attribution mechanism allowing us to augment feature visualizations with spatial importance. We validate our method on a novel benchmark for comparing feature visualization methods, and release its visualizations for all classes of the ImageNet dataset on https://serre-lab.github.io/Lens/. Overall, our approach unlocks, for the first time, feature visualizations for large, state-of-the-art deep neural networks without resorting to any parametric prior image model

Altimetry for the future: Building on 25 years of progress

In 2018 we celebrated 25 years of development of radar altimetry, and the progress achieved by this methodology in the fields of global and coastal oceanography, hydrology, geodesy and cryospheric sciences. Many symbolic major events have celebrated these developments, e.g., in Venice, Italy, the 15th (2006) and 20th (2012) years of progress and more recently, in 2018, in Ponta Delgada, Portugal, 25 Years of Progress in Radar Altimetry. On this latter occasion it was decided to collect contributions of scientists, engineers and managers involved in the worldwide altimetry community to depict the state of altimetry and propose recommendations for the altimetry of the future. This paper summarizes contributions and recommendations that were collected and provides guidance for future mission design, research activities, and sustainable operational radar altimetry data exploitation. Recommendations provided are fundamental for optimizing further scientific and operational advances of oceanographic observations by altimetry, including requirements for spatial and temporal resolution of altimetric measurements, their accuracy and continuity. There are also new challenges and new openings mentioned in the paper that are particularly crucial for observations at higher latitudes, for coastal oceanography, for cryospheric studies and for hydrology. The paper starts with a general introduction followed by a section on Earth System Science including Ocean Dynamics, Sea Level, the Coastal Ocean, Hydrology, the Cryosphere and Polar Oceans and the ‘‘Green” Ocean, extending the frontier from biogeochemistry to marine ecology. Applications are described in a subsequent section, which covers Operational Oceanography, Weather, Hurricane Wave and Wind Forecasting, Climate projection. Instruments’ development and satellite missions’ evolutions are described in a fourth section. A fifth section covers the key observations that altimeters provide and their potential complements, from other Earth observation measurements to in situ data. Section 6 identifies the data and methods and provides some accuracy and resolution requirements for the wet tropospheric correction, the orbit and other geodetic requirements, the Mean Sea Surface, Geoid and Mean Dynamic Topography, Calibration and Validation, data accuracy, data access and handling (including the DUACS system). Section 7 brings a transversal view on scales, integration, artificial intelligence, and capacity building (education and training). Section 8 reviews the programmatic issues followed by a conclusion

Altimetry for the future: building on 25 years of progress

In 2018 we celebrated 25 years of development of radar altimetry, and the progress achieved by this methodology in the fields of global and coastal oceanography, hydrology, geodesy and cryospheric sciences. Many symbolic major events have celebrated these developments, e.g., in Venice, Italy, the 15th (2006) and 20th (2012) years of progress and more recently, in 2018, in Ponta Delgada, Portugal, 25 Years of Progress in Radar Altimetry. On this latter occasion it was decided to collect contributions of scientists, engineers and managers involved in the worldwide altimetry community to depict the state of altimetry and propose recommendations for the altimetry of the future. This paper summarizes contributions and recommendations that were collected and provides guidance for future mission design, research activities, and sustainable operational radar altimetry data exploitation. Recommendations provided are fundamental for optimizing further scientific and operational advances of oceanographic observations by altimetry, including requirements for spatial and temporal resolution of altimetric measurements, their accuracy and continuity. There are also new challenges and new openings mentioned in the paper that are particularly crucial for observations at higher latitudes, for coastal oceanography, for cryospheric studies and for hydrology. The paper starts with a general introduction followed by a section on Earth System Science including Ocean Dynamics, Sea Level, the Coastal Ocean, Hydrology, the Cryosphere and Polar Oceans and the “Green” Ocean, extending the frontier from biogeochemistry to marine ecology. Applications are described in a subsequent section, which covers Operational Oceanography, Weather, Hurricane Wave and Wind Forecasting, Climate projection. Instruments’ development and satellite missions’ evolutions are described in a fourth section. A fifth section covers the key observations that altimeters provide and their potential complements, from other Earth observation measurements to in situ data. Section 6 identifies the data and methods and provides some accuracy and resolution requirements for the wet tropospheric correction, the orbit and other geodetic requirements, the Mean Sea Surface, Geoid and Mean Dynamic Topography, Calibration and Validation, data accuracy, data access and handling (including the DUACS system). Section 7 brings a transversal view on scales, integration, artificial intelligence, and capacity building (education and training). Section 8 reviews the programmatic issues followed by a conclusion

Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation for Severe Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome associated with COVID-19: An Emulated Target Trial Analysis.

RATIONALE: Whether COVID patients may benefit from extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) compared with conventional invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) remains unknown. OBJECTIVES: To estimate the effect of ECMO on 90-Day mortality vs IMV only Methods: Among 4,244 critically ill adult patients with COVID-19 included in a multicenter cohort study, we emulated a target trial comparing the treatment strategies of initiating ECMO vs. no ECMO within 7 days of IMV in patients with severe acute respiratory distress syndrome (PaO2/FiO2 <80 or PaCO2 ≥60 mmHg). We controlled for confounding using a multivariable Cox model based on predefined variables. MAIN RESULTS: 1,235 patients met the full eligibility criteria for the emulated trial, among whom 164 patients initiated ECMO. The ECMO strategy had a higher survival probability at Day-7 from the onset of eligibility criteria (87% vs 83%, risk difference: 4%, 95% CI 0;9%) which decreased during follow-up (survival at Day-90: 63% vs 65%, risk difference: -2%, 95% CI -10;5%). However, ECMO was associated with higher survival when performed in high-volume ECMO centers or in regions where a specific ECMO network organization was set up to handle high demand, and when initiated within the first 4 days of MV and in profoundly hypoxemic patients. CONCLUSIONS: In an emulated trial based on a nationwide COVID-19 cohort, we found differential survival over time of an ECMO compared with a no-ECMO strategy. However, ECMO was consistently associated with better outcomes when performed in high-volume centers and in regions with ECMO capacities specifically organized to handle high demand. This article is open access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

Experimental validation of heat transport modeling in large solar thermal plant.

Solar thermal plants are often considered as a convenient and environmental-friendly way to supply heat to buildings or low temperature industrial processes. Some modelling techniques are required to assess the dynamic behaviour of solar thermal plants in order to control them correctly. This aspect is reinforced while large plants are considered. Indeed some atmospheric conditions as local clouds could have significant influence on the outlet temperature of the solar field. A common modelling approach to assess the heat transport in pipes is the one-dimensional finite volume method. However previous work shows limitations in the assessment of the temperatures and in the computational time require simulating large pipe networks. In this contribution, a previous alternative method developed and validated in a district heating network is used and extended to a solar thermal plant considering the thermal solar gain and the inertia of the pipes. The present contribution intends to experimentally validate this model on an existing solar plant facility available at the Plataforma Solar de Almeria in Spain

Effects of 17β-estradiol exposure in the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis

4 pages, 2 figures.-- PMID: 15178065 [PubMed].-- Printed version published in issue Aug-Dec 2004.-- Issue title: "Twelfth International Symposium on Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms" (Tampa Bay, FL, United States, May 9-13, 2003).Mussels Mytilus galloprovincialis were exposed to different concentrations of estradiol (20, 200, and 2000 ng/l) in a semi-static regime (1-day dosing intervals) for up to 7 days in an attempt to see how mussels dealt with exogenous estrogenic compounds. Sex hormone levels were determined in whole tissue. Free-estradiol was only significantly elevated at the highest exposure dose (up to 10-fold). Most of the estradiol was in the tissues as fatty acid esters (>78%), which sharply increased in a dose-dependent manner (from 4 ng/g in controls to 258 ng/g at the high exposure group). In contrast, neither free nor esterified testosterone levels showed significant differences between control and exposure groups. The results suggest the existence of mechanisms that allow mussels to maintain their hormonal status, and the important role that fatty acid esterification may play within those mechanisms. Synthesis and conjugation rates of estradiol were further investigated by measuring the activity of P450 aromatase, and palmitoyl-CoA:estradiol acyltransferase, in digestive gland microsomal fractions. Overall, the study contributes to the better knowledge of molluscan endocrinology, and defines new mechanisms of regulation of free steroid-levels in mussels.Predoctoral fellowship from the Spanish Government and partial support from EU Project BEEP (ENVK3-CT-2000-00025).Peer reviewe

Effects of endocrine disrupters on sex steroid synthesis and metabolism pathways in fish

10 pages, 5 figures, 1 table.-- PMID: 15698553 [PubMed].The interactions of estrogenic (nonylphenol, dicofol, atrazine), androgenic (organotins, phthalates, fenarimol) and anti-androgenic compounds (vinclozolin, diuron, p,p′-DDE) with key enzymatic activities involved in both synthesis and metabolism of sex hormones was investigated. Carp testicular microsomes incubated in the presence of androstenedione and different xenobiotics evidenced higher sensitivity of 5α-reductase activity than 17β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase activity towards those chemicals. Dicofol, organotins and phthalates were among the most effective inhibitors. In contrast, ovarian synthesis of maturation-inducing hormones (20α- and 20β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase activities) were enhanced by nonylphenol, dicofol, fenarimol and p,p′-DDE. Metabolic clearance pathways of hormones were also affected. Fenarimol, nonylphenol and triphenyltin inhibited the glucuronidation of testosterone and estradiol at concentrations as low as 10, 50 and 100 μM, respectively. Triphenyltin, tributyltin and nonylphenol were also inhibitors of estradiol sulfation with IC50 values of 17, 18 and 41 μM. Overall, the data indicates the interaction of selected chemicals with key enzymatic pathways involved in both synthesis and metabolism of sex hormones. This interference might be one of the underlying mechanisms for the reported hormonal disrupting properties of the tested compounds, and might finally affect physiological processes such as gamete growth and maturation.This study was supported by the Spanish National Plan for Research under Project Ref. REN2002-01709/HID.Peer reviewe

Assessment of stratification during horizontal two-phase flow of R-245fa: intermittent and annular flows

National audienc