La longue marche vers un compte satellite de l'économie sociale: un bilan à partir de l'expérience française.

International audienceAfter a brief historical background of social economy in France, the paper recalls the origin of the project of a social economy satelleite account. It shows that cooperatives, mutual societies, associations and foundations are invisible in the central framework of national accounts. In a second part, it focus on the Non Profit Institutions according to the UN Handbook and presents the methodology adapted to the French case and its main results. To conclude, new data sources and a complementary methodology on cooperatives and mutuals are required to implement the social economy satellite accountAprès une présentation sommaire de l'histoire de l'économie sociale en France, le papier retrace l'origine du projet de compte satellite de l'économie sociale et montre que les coopératives, mutuelles, associations et fondations sont invisibles dans le cadre central des comptes nationaux. Dans un second temps, il se focalise sur le compte satellite des Institutions Sans But Lucratif préconisé par un Manuel de l'ONU, dont il présente la méthodologie adaptée à la France et les principaux résultats. La conclusion insiste sur les sources nouvelles et la réflexion nécessaire pour terminer un compte de l'économie sociale

La longue marche vers un compte satellite de l'économie sociale

Après une présentation sommaire de l'histoire de l'économie sociale en France, le papier retrace l'origine du projet de compte satellite de l'économie sociale et montre que les coopératives, mutuelles, associations et fondations sont invisibles dans le cadre central des comptes nationaux. Dans un second temps, il se focalise sur le compte satellite des Institutions Sans But Lucratif préconisé par un Manuel de l'ONU, dont il présente la méthodologie adaptée à la France et les principaux résultats. La conclusion insiste sur les sources nouvelles et la réflexion nécessaire pour terminer un compte de l'économie sociale.économie sociale; compte satellite; institutions sans but lucratif; associations; coopératives; mutuelles; comptabilité nationale

Assistive robotic device: evaluation of intelligent algorithms

Assistive robotic devices can be used to help people with upper body disabilities gaining more autonomy in their daily life. Although basic motions such as positioning and orienting an assistive robot gripper in space allow performance of many tasks, it might be time consuming and tedious to perform more complex tasks. To overcome these difficulties, improvements can be implemented at different levels, such as mechanical design, control interfaces and intelligent control algorithms. In order to guide the design of solutions, it is important to assess the impact and potential of different innovations. This paper thus presents the evaluation of three intelligent algorithms aiming to improve the performance of the JACO robotic arm (Kinova Robotics). The evaluated algorithms are 'preset position', 'fluidity filter' and 'drinking mode'. The algorithm evaluation was performed with 14 motorized wheelchair's users and showed a statistically significant improvement of the robot's performance.Comment: 4 page

Effects of hypoxia on benthic macrofauna and bioturbation in the Estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada

The bottom water in the 4300 m deep Lower St. Lawrence Estuary (LSLE) is persistently hypoxic in contrast to the normoxic bottom waters in the Gulf of St. Lawrence (GSL). We photographed the seabed at 11 stations in the Estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence (EGSL) during the summers 2006 and 2007 and analysed the images to identify bioturbation traces (lebensspuren) and benthic macrofauna. The objective was to identify the environmental variables that influence the density and diversity of benthic macrofauna and bioturbation traces, and the differences that exist among regions with high, medium and low oxygen levels in the bottom water. The bottom water oxygen concentration is the variable that best explains the densities of total-traces as well as surface-traces. However, the density of these traces was higher in hypoxic regions than in well-oxygenated regions. The higher density of traces in the hypoxic region of the LSLE is mainly due to the activities of the surface deposit feeder Ophiura sp., which occurs in large numbers in this region. Possible explanations explored are stress behaviour of the organisms in response to hypoxia and different benthic macrofauna community structures between the hypoxic regions of the LSLE and the normoxic regions of the GSL. In the former, surface deposit feeders and low-oxygen tolerant species dominate over suspension feeders and low-oxygen intolerant species

Are Hotspots Always Hotspots? The Relationship between Diversity, Resource and Ecosystem Functions in the Arctic

The diversity-ecosystem function relationship is an important topic in ecology but has not received much attention in Arctic environments, and has rarely been tested for its stability in time. We studied the temporal variability of benthic ecosystem functioning at hotspots (sites with high benthic boundary fluxes) and coldspots (sites with lower fluxes) across two years in the Canadian Arctic. Benthic remineralisation function was measured as fluxes of oxygen, silicic acid, phosphate, nitrate and nitrite at the sediment-water interface. In addition we determined sediment pigment concentration and taxonomic and functional macrobenthic diversity. To separate temporal from spatial variability, we sampled the same nine sites from the Mackenzie Shelf to Baffin Bay during the same season (summer or fall) in 2008 and 2009. We observed that temporal variability of benthic remineralisation function at hotspots is higher than at coldspots and that taxonomic and functional macrobenthic diversity did not change significantly between years. Temporal variability of food availability (i.e., sediment surface pigment concentration) seemed higher at coldspot than at hotspot areas. Sediment chlorophyll a (Chl a) concentration, taxonomic richness, total abundance, water depth and abundance of the largest gallery-burrowing polychaete Lumbrineris tetraura together explained 42% of the total variation in fluxes. Food supply proxies (i.e., sediment Chl a and depth) split hot- from coldspot stations and explained variation on the axis of temporal variability, and macrofaunal community parameters explained variation mostly along the axis separating eastern from western sites with hot- or coldspot regimes. We conclude that variability in benthic remineralisation function, food supply and diversity will react to climate change on different time scales, and that their interactive effects may hide the detection of progressive change, particularly at hotspots. Time-series of benthic functions and its related parameters should be conducted at both hot- and coldspots to produce reliable predictive models

On the effects of the reunification on German researchers’ publication patterns

After developing independently following World War II, the research systems of East and West Germany reunited at the end of the Cold War, resulting in Westernization of East German Research institutions. Using data from the Web of Science over the 1980-2000 period, this paper analyses the effects of these political changes on the research activity of scholars from East and West Germany before and after the reunification. It shows that these groups differ in terms of levels of production, publication language, collaboration patterns and scientific impact and that, unsurprisingly, the scholarly output of the East became much more similar to that of the West after the reunification. At the level of individual researchers, analysis shows that East German researchers who had direct or indirect ties with the West prior to the 1990s were less affected by the reunification, or were perhaps quicker to adapt to this major change, than their colleagues who were more deeply rooted in the Eastern research system

Revealing the regime of shallow coral reefs at patch scale by continuous spatial modeling

International audienceReliably translating real-world spatial patterns of ecosystems is critical for understanding processes susceptible to reinforce resilience. However, the great majority of studies in spatial ecology use thematic maps to describe habitats and species in a binary scheme. By discretizing the transitional areas and neglecting the gradual replacement across a given space, the thematic approach may suffer from substantial limitations when interpreting patterns created by many continuous variables. Here, local and regional spectral proxies were used to design and spatially map at very fine scale a continuous index dedicated to one of the most complex seascapes, the coral reefscape. Through a groundbreaking merge of bottom-up and top-down approach, we demonstrate that three to seven-habitat continuous indices can be modeled by nine, six, four, and three spectral proxies, respectively, at 0.5 m spatial resolution using hand-and spaceborne measurements. We map the seven-habitat continuous index, spanning major Indo-Pacific coral reef habitats through the far red-green normalized difference ratio over the entire lagoon of a low (Tetiaroa atoll) and a high volcanic (Moorea) island in French Polynesia with 84 and 82% accuracy, respectively. Further examinations of the two resulting spatial models using a customized histoscape (density function of model values distributed on a concentric strip across the reef crest-coastline distance) show that Tetiaroa exhibits a greater variety of coral reef habitats than Moorea. By designing such easy-to-implement, transferrable spectral proxies of coral reef regime, this study initiates a framework for spatial ecologists tackling coral reef biodiversity, responses to stresses, perturbations and shifts. We discuss the limitations and contributions of our findings toward the study of worldwide coral reef resilience following stochastic environmental change

Short-term processing of ice algal- and phytoplankton-derived carbon by Arctic benthic communities revealed through isotope labelling experiments

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Computational investigation of weak-bonding interactions in substituted borane-ketone complexes

One of the largely unexplored areas of computational organic chemistry is the source of facial selectivity from prochiral ketones. Most of the available literature provides reaction pathways highlighting the lowest activation barrier, but this approach leaves the origin of the enantioselectivity unaddressed at the molecular level. Instead, the interactions that enable energetic differentiation in the transition states must be investigated for any useful information to be acquired for predictive purposes. The focus of this work is on the enantioselective CBS (Corey-Bakshi-Shibata) reduction as it has been extensively studied experimentally. This work aims, first, to evaluate the complexation of substituted boranes with a prochiral ketone, acetophenone, for better understanding the modes of complexation during a reduction reaction, and second, to assess the source of facial selectivity of the enantioselective reduction of a different ketone, t-butyl methyl ketone, with borane using an oxazaborolidine catalyst. A systematic investigation of weak-bonding interactions in the complexes and their transition states is carried out computationally using electronic structure theory. A quantitative relationship between the electron demand on boron and the complexation energy is established from electron density analyses providing a binding cut-off of 0.19 e·Å^–3. In the CBS reduction of t-butyl methyl ketone, the calculated enantiomeric excess is 99 % or greater in favour of the R-configured product by transition state theory. The source of facial selectivity is uncovered through changes in features of the geometries and the electron densities as the responsible complexes as well as their transition states for hydride transfer are compared