Clause structure, pro-drop and control in Wolof: an LFG/XLE perspective

This paper provides a formal description of the syntactic analysis of core constructions of Wolof clausal/verbal morphosyntax within the Lexical-Functional Grammar formalism. This includes the basic phrase structure, pro-drop, and control relations. The Wolof grammar is implemented in XLE and uses a cascade of finite-state transducers for morphological analysis and tokenization. This work is part of the ongoing process on building language resources and tools for Wolof, in particular a computational grammar.publishedVersio

New challenges for artificial metalloenzymes based on the Biotin-(Strept)avidin technology

Artificial metalloenzymes are designed to gather advantages of both homogeneous catalysts and enzymes. The biotin-(strept)avidin technology insures the incorporation of an active catalyst in a proteinic scaffold which provides a chiral environment. The combination of these two parts provides efficient artificial metalloenzymes applied in various asymmetric reactions such as hydrogenation, transfer hydrogenation, allylic alkylation, etc… In this work, the properties of (strept)avidin were used to explore new challenges for artificial metalloenzymes. Artificial hydrogenases were used as model reaction to demonstrate that artificial metalloenzymes can be more than a concept. With this goal in mind, the loading of the artificial hydogenase was reduced to 0.1% and the concentration of substrate increased to 60 mM with very small erosion of activity and selectivity. The scale of the reaction was increased 15 times without any impact on conversion and ee. Recycling of the artificial hydrogenase was investigated by immobilizing streptavidin using biotin sepharose. The resulting artificial metalloenzymes could be used twice without any loss of activity. Lyophilisation of the artificial hydrogenase allows a convenient storage of the artificial hydrogenase. The versatibilty of the biotin-streptavidin technology was exploited to create and optimize artificial allylic alkylases. The thermostability of streptavidin and its high tolerance towards organic solvents resulted good conversions and ee values up to 97%. The thermostability of streptavidin was further investigated as a potential rapid purification strategy towards screening heat-treated cell-free extracts. With the aim of selective modification of tyrosine-residues, the potential of the artificial allylic alkylases was extended towards the use of phenol as nucleophile. The reaction was optimized to operate under physiological conditions. Detailed investigations of the reaction suggested self-alyllation of the tyrosine residues of the artificial metalloenzyme. Artificial ligases were developed by incorporation of a biotinylated Hoveyda-Grubbs 2nd generation catalyst in (strept)avidin. The optimization of the artificial metalloenzyme gave good conversions for ring closing metathesis of diallyltosylamine under acidic pH and high salt concentration

Contemporary francophone west African social movements in the rise of neo pan-africanism: a case study of y en a marre in Senegal.

The emergence of the Y en a marre movement in 2011 has reshaped the face of social activism in Francophone sub-Saharan Africa. In less than a decade of its existence, Y’en a marre has become iconic in Senegalese civil society and beyond. Their effective opposition to the Wade regime between 2011 and 2012 reverberated beyond the Senegalese border through their slogan “touche pas à ma constitution” (Do not touch my constitution), a rallying cry that young people in Burkina Faso and the Democratic Republic of Congo later appropriated, thus giving the movement a Pan-African platform. The birth of Y’en a Marre and its confrontation methods (street protests, verbal attacks via radio, TV, concerts, rap sons to name a few) enabled several important interrogations that this project aims at exploring. What triggers the formation of social movements in contemporary Senegal and Francophone West Africa? How does Y’en a Marre’s blueprint fit in the general struggle for Pan-Africanism today? How are music and art used to create a transnational solidarity against bad governance and foreign influence in West African affairs? This dissertation explores how contemporary social movements in Francophone West Africa are re-appropriating Pan-African principles to fight for democracy and good governance as well as to curb foreign influence in African affairs. This dissertation argues that such movements use various innovative means including music, visual art, social media, and street protests to draw popular support and foment resistance to confront regimes that fail to safeguard basic democratic principles, such as fair and transparent elections. In doing so, social movements in Francophone West Africa help foster a new era in the development of Pan-Africanism called “Neo Pan-Africanism” in which social activist and popular movements become one of the key driving forces of Pan-Africanism as a transatlantic movement and ideology. The dissertation also contends that the Y’en a marre movement is spearheading a new type of transnational collaboration partly grounded in popular culture (especially hip-hop), advocacy training and sometimes litigation, to enable social movements in West Africa to fight against common issues that pertain to the safeguard of their national sovereignties

Facteurs associés à la satisfaction des parents au regard du programme de 1re ligne en orthophonie de la région de Québec

Les objectifs de cette étude étaient d'identifier les caractéristiques des parents et de l'enfant qui influencent la satisfaction des parents au regard du programme de lre ligne en orthophonie de la région du Québec. Une cohorte de 102 enfants âgés entre 18 et 36 mois a été constituée entre novembre 2005 et février 2006. La satisfaction générale des parents a été évaluée aux trois étapes du programme (à la séance d'information, à la séance de rencontres des parents et à la séance d'évaluation par l'orthophoniste du CLSC) à l'aide du Client Satisfaction Questionnaire. Des instruments validés ont été administrés afin d'évaluer les caractéristiques des parents et des enfants. La régression logistique multiple a permis d'estimer les rapports de cotes de satisfaction ajustés (RC) et leur intervalle de confiance à 95 % (IC). Les facteurs associés positivement à la satisfaction générale des parents au regard de la séance d'information étaient l'âge du parent répondant (RC=1,33 pour l'augmentation d'un an; IC: 1,12-1,58) et le fait d'avoir des antécédents de fausse-couche pour la mère (RC=9,63; IC : 1,96-47,43). Par contre, les parents dont les enfants avaient eu un problème de santé important à la naissance étaient moins satisfaits (RC=0,14; IC : 0,03-0,82). La satisfaction générale au regard des rencontres des parents était inversement associée au fait d'habiter une maison individuelle (RC =0,22; IC : 0,07-0,77), à la détresse psychologique du parent répondant (RC=0,92 pour l'augmentation d'une unité; IC : 0,85-0,99) et le fait que l'enfant cible soit l'aîné (RC=0,37; IC : 0,14-0,99). À la séance d'évaluation par l'orthophoniste du CLSC, les répondants étaient moins satisfaits si la mère de l'enfant cible avait consommé des médicaments prescrits durant la grossesse (RC=0,34; IC : 0,13-0,88), si l'enfant avait un problème d'attention (RC=0,90; IC : 0,83-0,98), si l'enfant avait été référé vers d'autres professionnels ou ressources (RC=0,29; IC : 0,10-0,81) et si l'enfant avait un bon développement cognitif (RC=0,93; IC : 0,88-0,98). Globalement, ces résultats suggèrent que les parents les moins satisfaits sont ceux dont l'enfant a d'autres problèmes de santé. Une attention particulière devrait être apportée afin que ces enfants soient référés rapidement vers une équipe multidisciplinaire

Assessing the geographic resolution of exhaustive tabulation for geolocating Internet hosts

peer reviewedGeolocation of Internet hosts relies mainly on exhaustive tabulation techniques. Those techniques consist in building a database, that keeps the mapping between IP blocks and a geographic location. Relying on a single location for a whole IP block requires using a coarse enough geographic resolution. As this geographic resolution is not made explicit in databases, we try in this paper to better understand it by comparing the location estimates of databases with a well-established active measurements-based geolocation technique. We show that the geographic resolution of geolocation databases is far coarser than the resolution provided by active measurements for individual IP addresses. Given the lack of information in databases about the expected location error within each IP block, one cannot havemuch confidence in the accuracy of their location estimates. Geolocation databases should either provide information about the expected accuracy of the location estimates within each block, or reveal information about how their location estimates have been built, unless databases have to be trusted blindly.FP6-FET ANA (FP6-IST- 27489

The synthesis and the reactivity of arene ruthenium oxalato complexes

This article outlines the reactions of the well known [RuCl(η6-p-cymene)]2(μ-η4-C2O4) and [RuCl(η6-p-cymene)(η2-dppm)][PF6] ruthenium complexes with C2O4(Me4N)2 in the mol ratios 1:1 and 2:1. While the 2:1 ratio reaction led to the sole and expected binuclear product {[Ru(η6-p-cymene)(η2-dppm)]2(μ-η2-C2O4)}[PF6]2, the reaction also afforded the unexpected mononuclear complex [RuCl(η2-C2O4)(η6-p-cymene)][Me4N]. This can also be obtained in improved yield by reacting [RuCl2(p-cymene)]2 with C2O4[Me4N]2 in a 1:1 mol ratio. Surprisingly, when [RuCl(η6-p-cymene)]2(μ-η4-C2O4) was reacted with an equimolar amount of the ligand dppm, the expected complex {[Ru(η6-p-cymene)]2(μ-η4-C2O4)(μ-dppm)}[PF6]2 was accompanied by [RuCl(η6-p-cymene)(η2-dppm)][PF6] in an inseparable solid mixture. KEY WORDS: Ruthenium, Arene, p-cymene, Mesitylene, Oxalate, bis-(Dipenylphosphino)methane  Bull. Chem. Soc. Ethiop. 2008, 22(2), 207-217

On the Frequency Dependency of Radio Channel's Delay Spread: Analyses and Findings From mmMAGIC Multi-frequency Channel Sounding

This paper analyzes the frequency dependency of the radio propagation channel's root mean square (rms) delay spread (DS), based on the multi-frequency measurement campaigns in the mmMAGIC project. The campaigns cover indoor, outdoor, and outdoor-to-indoor (O2I) scenarios and a wide frequency range from 2 to 86 GHz. Several requirements have been identified that define the parameters which need to be aligned in order to make a reasonable comparison among the different channel sounders employed for this study. A new modelling approach enabling the evaluation of the statistical significance of the model parameters from different measurements and the establishment of a unified model is proposed. After careful analysis, the conclusion is that any frequency trend of the DS is small considering its confidence intervals. There is statistically significant difference from the 3GPP New Radio (NR) model TR 38.901, except for the O2I scenario.Comment: This paper has been accepted to the 2018 12th European Conference on Antennas and Propagation (EuCAP), London, UK, April 201

Reduced complexity of decoding algorithm for Irregular LDPC Codes using Split Row Method” accepted

Abstract In this paper, we have proposed a novel method of decoding algorithm of irregular LDPC codes. A reduced complexity LDPC decoding method for regular LDPC code is extended to irregular LDPC codes. We present in this paper a full description of this method and its benefits for various row weight and length code word. The Split-Row method makes column processing parallelism easier to exploit and significantly simplifies row processors. Recently, irregular LDPC codes have received a lot of attention by many advanced standard, such as WiFi, WiMAX Mobile and digital video broadcasting (DVB-S2). Hence the idea to develop the "Split-Row Method" for irregular LDPC codes. In this context, we have performed an implementation on MATLAB of an irregular LDPC codes with different code word and code rate; simulation results over an additive white Gaussian channel show that the error performance of high row-weight codes with Split-Row decoding is within 0.3-0.5 dB of the Min-Sum algorithm. The study result shows that the "Split Row Method" is better for irregular code than regular LDPC codes

Mesure de l’efficacité technique des riziculteurs du bassin du fleuve Sénégal

Ce travail a pour objectif de mesurer l’efficacité technique des riziculteurs du bassin du fleuve Sénégal et d’analyser les déterminants de leur inefficacité. Les estimations ont montré que, s’il avait été efficace, le riziculteur moyen aurait pu accroître sa production actuelle de 30 % sans inputs additionnels, contre une marge de progrès potentielle de 86 % pour le riziculteur le moins performant. Les facteurs qui impactent significativement l’efficacité sont le lieu de résidence, le genre, la taille du ménage, le niveau d’instruction, l’ethnie, la distance entre la maison et la parcelle, et le nombre de parcelles cultivées.This article aims at investigating whether rice producers in Senegal have reached their maximal production regarding their available inputs and what are the determinants of their inefficiency. The estimations show that, if he were efficient, the mean producer would increase his actual output by 30% without further inputs while the less performant producer would record a potential margin of progress of 86%. The efficiency determinants are mainly the place of residence, the gender, the household size, the level of education, the ethnicity, the walking distance between the house and the plot and the number of plots farmed