Improving the Links Between Research and Road Safety Policy: the Case of France and England's Speed Management

AbstractRecent European and national administration reports identified contextual, cultural and structural obstacles which need to be overcome in order to achieve the levels of dialogue and collaboration between research and public policy: How does “evidence” speak to “policy-makers”? How should research results be used for a more evidence based policy-making? So our communication is a comparison in the use of scientific studies in speed management policy between France and the United Kingdom since the 1970s. This work shows that, over the period investigated, research utilisation in France was much more strategic, whilst in England it was primarily instrumental, which can be explained by reference to the place and the legitimacy of the organisations producing research in the two countries

CE-UV/VIS and CE-MS for monitoring organic impurities during the downstream processing of fermentative-produced lactic acid from second-generation renewable feedstocks

During the downstream process of bio-based bulk chemicals, organic impurities, mostly residues from the fermentation process, must be separated to obtain a pure and ready-to-market chemical. In this study, capillary electrophoresis was investigated for the non-targeting downstream process monitoring of organic impurities and simultaneous quantitative detection of lactic acid during the purification process of fermentatively produced lactic acid. The downstream process incorporated 11 separation units, ranging from filtration, adsorption and ion exchange to electrodialysis and distillation, and 15 different second-generation renewable feedstocks were processed into lactic acid. The identification of organic impurities was established through spiking and the utilization of an advanced capillary electrophoresis mass spectrometry syste

Toxoplasma gondii myosins B/C: one gene, two tails, two localizations, and a role in parasite division

In apicomplexan parasites, actin-disrupting drugs and the inhibitor of myosin heavy chain ATPase, 2,3-butanedione monoxime, have been shown to interfere with host cell invasion by inhibiting parasite gliding motility. We report here that the actomyosin system of Toxoplasma gondii also contributes to the process of cell division by ensuring accurate budding of daughter cells. T. gondii myosins B and C are encoded by alternatively spliced mRNAs and differ only in their COOH-terminal tails. MyoB and MyoC showed distinct subcellular localizations and dissimilar solubilities, which were conferred by their tails. MyoC is the first marker selectively concentrated at the anterior and posterior polar rings of the inner membrane complex, structures that play a key role in cell shape integrity during daughter cell biogenesis. When transiently expressed, MyoB, MyoC, as well as the common motor domain lacking the tail did not distribute evenly between daughter cells, suggesting some impairment in proper segregation. Stable overexpression of MyoB caused a significant defect in parasite cell division, leading to the formation of extensive residual bodies, a substantial delay in replication, and loss of acute virulence in mice. Altogether, these observations suggest that MyoB/C products play a role in proper daughter cell budding and separation

0312: Characterization of human valvular interstitial cells isolated from normal and fibrocalcified aortic valves

PurposeAortic Valve Stenosis (AVS) affects 2% to 6% of population over 65 years in industrialized countries. This atherosclerosis-like pathology involves Valve Interstitial Cell (VIC) proliferation and commitment to osteoblast- like cells. This prevalent cell type of aortic valve presents five identifiable phenotypes: embryonic progenitor endothelial/mesenchymal cells, progenitor, quiescent, activated and osteoblastic VICs. To study the pathophysiology of AVS, their in vitro cultures are frequently used. Our purpose is to characterize VICs isolated from normal and fibrocalcified human aortic valves and analyze their in vitro behavior.MethodsWe collected 5 normal and 5 fibrocalcified human aortic valves. VICs were isolated by collagenase digestion. Characterization is assessed at different passages (2 to 5) by immunofluorescence. Analyzed markers consist of progenitor cell markers (SSEA4, ABCG2, CD90, NG2 and OsteoBlast CaDHerin (OB-CDH)), fibroblast markers (vimentin and HSP47) and smooth muscle cell (SMC) marker (α-actin). By blue trypan and MTS, we compared the viability and proliferation of VICs in standard and starvation medium at 48 hours.ResultsIndependently of their origin, VICs express all progenitor cell markers. Fibroblasts markers are expressed twice more by pathological VICs and four times more for SMC marker. In standard medium, VICs viability is similar (96,7±2,4% vs 96,4±2,3% ; normal vs pathological ± SEM). Pathological VICs proliferate more than normal VICs (2,2±0,7 vs 1,6±0,4 ; OD/OD control). In starvation medium, viability is significantly reduced for pathological VICs (89,6±7,9% vs 76,5±5,3%) but still proliferate in opposition with normal VICs (1,7±0,6 vs 1,2±0,3).ConclusionAll VICs phenotypes are found in vitro with no culture selection but in different ratios according to their origin. These new data in VICs isolated from normal or pathological human aortic valves allow us to approve their use in vitro

MSV3d: database of human MisSense variants mapped to 3D protein structure

The elucidation of the complex relationships linking genotypic and phenotypic variations to protein structure is a major challenge in the post-genomic era. We present MSV3d (Database of human MisSense Variants mapped to 3D protein structure), a new database that contains detailed annotation of missense variants of all human proteins (20 199 proteins). The multi-level characterization includes details of the physico-chemical changes induced by amino acid modification, as well as information related to the conservation of the mutated residue and its position relative to functional features in the available or predicted 3D model. Major releases of the database are automatically generated and updated regularly in line with the dbSNP (database of Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) and SwissVar releases, by exploiting the extensive Décrypthon computational grid resources. The database (http://decrypthon.igbmc.fr/msv3d) is easily accessible through a simple web interface coupled to a powerful query engine and a standard web service. The content is completely or partially downloadable in XML or flat file formats

Demande de sécurité des véhicules et normes automobiles depuis les années 1960

This paper focuses on the emergence of road safety at the Community level as an important societal stake, answering the very urgent problem of number of deaths on the roads (which was particularly high at the beginning of the 1970s). This awareness is related to the introduction of public institutions on these issues at the national level as well as at the Community one.Nevertheless, transformations in terms of regulations are quite slow to appear. The European Commission has to invent new procedures for obtaining improvements on these fields.Since high profits have been evaluated in terms of penetration of vehicle safety innovations on European automobile markets (which implies a rise of competition for this industry), pressure in favour of a uniform regulation (in particular between Community and International standards) are stronger and R&D investments bigger (even if they remain much lower than in the United States). The main obstacle today is the lack of interest of European consumers for these technologies and the misuse of these safety tools on board of their vehicles.In terms of governance, these issues are now considered by a growing number of economic actors (it is interesting to show that first economic actors on these fields were car makers, then public institutions and lastly consumers associations). Working groups are evolving toward an integrated approach making various economic actors intervene in discussion forums much above the final decision is taken

Proposition d'un mécanisme d'observation dynamique de l'exécution d'applications Java distribuées

L'exécution efficace des applications distribuées irrégulières exige d'adopter des mécanismes qui assurent l'adaptation automatique de l'exécution aux évolutions du calcul et aux modifications de la disponibilité des ressources. Ces exigences demandent à la fois de connaître les relations dynamiques entre les objets et de disposer d'informations relatives à l'évolution de la charge des machines. Nous avons introduit un système d'observation permettant de fournir les informations nécessaires aux mécanismes de redistribution des objets de l'application. Le système d'observation proposé comporte deux mécanismes. Le premier est un mécanisme d'observation des relations dynamiques entre les objets durant l'exécution. Il fournit une connaissance du comportement des applications pendant leur exécution. Il permet de prédire les tendances des communications entre ces objets. Il est implanté par l'utilisation d'un post-compilateur. Le second est un mécanisme de mesure de la charge des machines. Il permet d'avoir une vue globale de la charge dynamique de chaque machine participant à une plate-forme d'exécution. Il permet ainsi de détecter un déséquilibre de cette charge. Il est entièrement conçu en code Java, ce qui lui assure un caractère général et une complète portabilité sur l'ensemble de la plate-forme. Il met en œuvre deux outils : un outil de mesure de charge et un outil de diffusion de cette dernière. Nous avons validé les deux mécanismes par différentes expériences. Les travaux réalisés entrent dans le cadre du projet ADAJ (Applications Distribuées Adaptatives en Java). Il a pour but de fournir des réponses aux problèmes de conception et d'exécution efficace des traitements répartis sur des réseaux. Il est développé dans un contexte de système à objet construit des environnements distribués Java/RMI et JavaParty.LILLE1-BU (590092102) / SudocSudocFranceF

Algorithmes distribués d'extraction de connaissances

Afin d'exploiter au mieux les ressources de traitement disponibles de type grille de calcul, pour la résolution de problèmes de data mining, il apparaît nécessaire de concevoir de nouveaux algorithmes spécialement adaptés à ce type d'architecture, et prenant en compte les spécifités d'exécution distribuée. Le projet DisDaMin (Distributed Data Mining) développé dans cette thèse, vise à proposer des solutions pour certains problèmes de data mining, tels que le problème de génération de règles d'association ou le problème de clustering (classification non supervisée). Pour le problème spécifique de génération de règles d'association, nous suggérons l'utilisation d'un partitionnement "intelligent" des données. Ce partitionnement intelligent peut être obtenu par clustering. Nous présentons donc un nouvel algorithme de clustering, appelé Clustering Distribué Progressif, qui exécute un clustering de manière progressive distribuée et efficace respectant les contraintes d'exécution sur grille de calculs. Les clusters de données issus de ce clustering sont par la suite utilisés pour des tâches de data mining. En particulier, les clusters sont utilisés, dans le travail présenté, pour aider à la résolution du problème de génération de règles d'association, afin d'en réduire la complexité de traitement. Nous introduisons un algorithme distribué pour le problème des règles d'association, appelée DICCoop (DIC Coopératif) et basé en partie sur l'utilisation du partitionnement "intelligent". Chacun des algorithmes présentés est suivi d'un résumé des expérimentations qui ont permis de les valider comme heuristiques de data mining. Enfin, une synthèse des concepts distribués exploités dans les deux méthodes présentées conclut la présentation.LILLE1-BU (590092102) / SudocSudocFranceF