Top-down/bottom-up approach for developing sustainable development indicators for mining: Application to the Arlit uranium mines (Niger)

Minerals extraction is related to complex sustainable-development issues that are subject to international and local controversies. Debates and decisions need to be based on objective and comparative elements. Defining strong indicators for assessing impacts and performances of mining sites thus appears necessary to inform and support the decision-making process for stakeholders. In recent years, many indicator sets have been developed on an international level based on top-down approaches. But they commonly lack legitimacy for stakeholders and adequacy to specific site issues. They thus need to be complemented by the consultation of local actors concerned by such mining activity, in order to define indicators that are closer to the needs and contexts of the specific sites. This is the goal of the work reported in this paper, undertaken at the Arlit uranium mines in Niger. Our objective was to define indicators that are understood and accepted by all actors, as a basis for robust and transparent assessment of the impacts and performances of mining sites across the four sustainable development dimensions, and at local, regional and national scales.Deliberation; Evaluation; Indicators; Mining; Multi-criteria; Niger; Stakeholders; Stewardship; Sustainable development; Top-down/bottom-up; Uranium

AIC, Cp and estimators of loss for elliptically symmetric distributions

In this article, we develop a modern perspective on Akaike's Information Criterion and Mallows' Cp for model selection. Despite the diff erences in their respective motivation, they are equivalent in the special case of Gaussian linear regression. In this case they are also equivalent to a third criterion, an unbiased estimator of the quadratic prediction loss, derived from loss estimation theory. Our first contribution is to provide an explicit link between loss estimation and model selection through a new oracle inequality. We then show that the form of the unbiased estimator of the quadratic prediction loss under a Gaussian assumption still holds under a more general distributional assumption, the family of spherically symmetric distributions. One of the features of our results is that our criterion does not rely on the speci ficity of the distribution, but only on its spherical symmetry. Also this family of laws o ffers some dependence property between the observations, a case not often studied

Off-the-shelf CRM with Drupal: a case study of documenting decorated papers

We present a method of setting up a website using the Drupal CMS to publish CRM data. Our setup requires basic technical expertise by researchers who are then able to publish their records in both a human accessible way through HTML and a machine friendly format through RDFa. We begin by examining previous work on Drupal and the CRM and identifying useful patterns. We present the Drupal modules that are required by our setup and we explain why these are sustainable. We continue by giving guidelines for setting up Drupal to serve CRM data easily and we describe a specific installation for our case study which is related to decorated papers alongside our CRM mapping. We finish with highlighting the benefits of our method (i.e. speed and user-friendliness) and we refer to a number of issues which require further work (i.e. automatic validation, UI improvements and the provision for SPARQL endpoints)

Fitting a quart into a pint pot at the Sir John Soane’s Museum in London: A new library management and conservation survey tool for historic libraries

Reorganising a large number of books in a library with limited available space and important architectural constraints can prove to be a difficult task without a proper management tool. In 2011 the Sir John Soane’s Museum in London initiated a renovation project with the aim of restoring the house in which Soane lived, and kept his books, to the state it was in when he died. Work on the library began with a survey of the books and the shelving in order to assess their condition and to facilitate their reorganisation within the original shelving after the removal of more recent shelving. The project was entrusted to the staff of Ligatus Research Centre, who designed and tested a new tool for this specific purpose. This tool, which will be made freely available on the Ligatus website, can be used by any library or book collection having similar restrictions and objectives. In addition to presenting the new tool and the context of its creation and use in Sir John Soane’s Library, this paper defines the methodology for collecting data in an efficient way, which has improved in the course of the survey, and the production of the reports

Occupational exposure to cobalt : a population toxicokinetic modeling approach validated by field results challenges the Biological Exposure Index for urinary cobalt

International audienceThis study modeled the urinary toxicokinetics of cobalt exposure based on 507 urine samples from 16 workers, followed up for 1 week, and 108 related atmospheric cobalt measurements to determine an optimal urinary cobalt sampling strategy at work and a corresponding urinary exposure threshold (UET). These data have been used to calibrate a population toxicokinetic model, taking into account both the measurement uncertainty and intra- and interindividual variability. Using the calibrated model, urinary sampling sensitivity and specificity performance in detecting exposure above the 20 micro g/m3 threshold limit value - time-weighted average (TLV-TWA) has been applied to identify an optimal urine sampling time. The UET value is obtained by minimizing misclassification rates in workplace exposures below or above the TLV. Total atmospheric cobalt concentrations are in the 5-144 micro g/m3 range, and total urinary cobalt concentrations are 0.5-88 micro g/g creatinine. A two-compartment toxicokinetic model best described urinary elimination. Terminal elimination half-time from the central compartment is 10.0 hr (95% confidence interval [8.3-12.3]). The optimal urinary sampling time has been identified as 3 hr before the end of shift at the end of workweek. If we assume that misclassification errors are of equal cost, the UET associated with the TLV of 20 micro g/m3 is 5 micro g/L, which is lower than the ACGIH-recommended biological exposure index of 15 micro g/L

Kindia (Pavetteae, Rubiaceae), a new cliff-dwelling genus with chemically profiled colleter exudate from Mt Gangan, Republic of Guinea

A new genus Kindia (Pavetteae, Rubiaceae) is described with a single species, Kindia gangan, based on collections made in 2016 during botanical exploration of Mt Gangan, Kindia, Republic of Guinea in West Africa. The Mt Gangan area is known for its many endemic species including the only native non-neotropical Bromeliaceae Pitcairnia feliciana. Kindia is the fourth endemic vascular plant genus to be described from Guinea. Based on chloroplast sequence data, the genus is part of Clade II of tribe Pavetteae. In this clade, it is sister to Leptactina sensu lato (including Coleactina and Dictyandra). K. gangan is distinguished from Leptactina s.l. by the combination of the following characters: its epilithic habit; several-flowered axillary inflorescences; distinct calyx tube as long as the lobes; a infundibular-campanulate corolla tube with narrow proximal section widening abruptly to the broad distal section; presence of a dense hair band near base of the corolla tube; anthers and style deeply included, reaching about mid-height of the corolla tube; anthers lacking connective appendages and with sub-basal insertion; pollen type 1; pollen presenter (style head) winged and glabrous (smooth and usually hairy in Leptactina); orange colleters producing a vivid red exudate, which encircle the hypanthium, and occur inside the calyx and stipules. Kindia is a subshrub that appears restricted to bare, vertical rock faces of sandstone. Fruit dispersal and pollination by bats is postulated. Here, it is assessed as Endangered EN D1 using the 2012 IUCN standard. High resolution LC-MS/MS analysis revealed over 40 triterpenoid compounds in the colleter exudate, including those assigned to the cycloartane class. Triterpenoids are of interest for their diverse chemical structures, varied biological activities, and potential therapeutic value

Gibrat’s law, Zipf’s law and Cointegration

This paper examines the methods to detect the nature of the urban growth processes. It seems that cointegration testing enables to disentangle two versions of Gibrat’s law: a first one with growth shocks that are iid across time and cities (implying convergence of the city-size distribution towards Zipf’s law), and an alternative one with growth shocks that are only iid over time (implying conservation of the initial structure of the city size distribution)

Gibrat’s law, Zipf’s law and Cointegration

This paper examines the methods to detect the nature of the urban growth processes. It seems that cointegration testing enables to disentangle two versions of Gibrat’s law: a first one with growth shocks that are iid across time and cities (implying convergence of the city-size distribution towards Zipf’s law), and an alternative one with growth shocks that are only iid over time (implying conservation of the initial structure of the city size distribution)

Potential changes in forest composition could reduce impacts of climate change on boreal wildfires

There is general consensus that wildfires in boreal forests will increase throughout this century in response to more severe and frequent drought conditions induced by climate change. However, prediction models generally assume that the vegetation component will remain static over the next few decades. As deciduous species are less flammable than conifer species, it is reasonable to believe that a potential expansion of deciduous species in boreal forests, either occurring naturally or through landscape management, could offset some of the impacts of climate change on the occurrence of boreal wildfires. The objective of this study was to determine the potential of this offsetting effect through a simulation experiment conducted in eastern boreal North America. Predictions of future fire activity were made using multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) with fire behavior indices and ecological niche models as predictor variables so as to take into account the effects of changing climate and tree distribution on fire activity. A regional climate model (RCM) was used for predictions of future fire risk conditions. The experiment was conducted under two tree dispersal scenarios: the status quo scenario, in which the distribution of forest types does not differ from the present one, and the unlimited dispersal scenario, which allows forest types to expand their range to fully occupy their climatic niche. Our results show that future warming will create climate conditions that are more prone to fire occurrence. However, unlimited dispersal of southern restricted deciduous species could reduce the impact of climate change on future fire occurrence. Hence, the use of deciduous species could be a good option for an efficient strategic fire mitigation strategy aimed at reducing fire propagation in coniferous landscapes and increasing public safety in remote populated areas of eastern boreal Canada under climate change

Understanding user gestures for manipulating 3D objects from touchscreen inputs

International audienceMulti-touch interfaces have emerged with the widespread use of smartphones. Although a lot of people interact with 2D applications through touchscreens, interaction with 3D applications remains little explored. Most of 3D object manipulation techniques have been created by designers and users are generally put aside from the design creation process. We conducted a user study to better understand how non-technical users interact with a 3D object from touchscreen inputs. The experiment has been conducted while users manipulated a 3D cube with three points of view for rotations, scaling and translations (RST). Sixteen users participated and 432 gestures were analyzed. To classify data, we introduce a taxonomy for 3D manipulation gestures with touchscreens. Then, we identify a set of strategies employed by users to realize the proposed cube transformations. Our findings suggest that each participant uses several strategies with a predominant one. Finally, we propose some guidelines to help designers in the creation of more user friendly tools.Les interfaces multi-touch ont émergé avec l'augmentation de l'utilisation des smartphones. Bien que beaucoup de personne interagissent avec des applications 2D via des écrans tactiles, l'interaction avec des applications 3D reste peu explorée. La plupart des techniques de manipulation d'objets 3D ont été créé par des concepteurs et les utilisateurs sont généralement mis à l'écart du procédé de création. Nous avons conduit une étude utilisateur afin de mieux comprendre comment les utilisateurs novices interagissent avec un objet 3D depuis un écran tactiles. L'expérience a été réalisée sur la manipulation d'un cube 3D, selon trois points de vue et trois types de transformations (rotations, changements d'échelle et translations). Seize utilisateurs ont participé et 432 gestes ont été analysés. Afin de classifier les données, nous avons introduit une taxonomie pour les gestes de manipulation 3D réalisés sur écrans tactile. Ensuite, nous avons identifié un ensemble de stratégies employées par les utilisateurs pour réaliser les transformations proposées sur le cube. Nos résultats suggère que chaque participant a utilisé plusieurs stratégies avec une prédominante pour chaque type de transformation. Finalement, nous avons proposé des indications pour aider les designers dans la création d'outils plus adaptés aux utilisateurs