Emergent technologies for inter-enterprises collaboration and business evaluation

International audienceConventional manufacturing systems are designed for intra-enterprise process management, and they hardly handle processes with tasks using extra-enterprise boundaries data. Besides, inter-enterprise collaboration and new IT enablers for industry 4.0 are becoming a highly topical issue to study, due to : (a) The emergence of new technologies mainly Internet of Things, big data processing and Cyber-Physical systems (b) The new customers' needs that face the SMEs. Many constraints and issues have to be taken into account before establishing Inter-enterprises collaboration, namely: The product information, the business processes and the heterogeneous data. Moreover, the exponential growth of data coming from all the enterprises causes several challenges regarding their exploitation. In this context, this study is interested in Big Data capabilities to help Small and Medium Enterprises to find out more lurking opportunities. We have focus on the combination between emergent IT technologies, mainly Big Data, and inter-interprises collaboration in order to provide an added value. The result of this study is a new approach, that could be adapted by SMEs, for new project evaluation within a network of enterprises

Assessing patterns of genetic admixture between sheep breeds: Case study in Algeria

International audienceIn developing countries, cross-breeding between local breeds and indigene or exotic breeds represents one of the main threats to the livestock diversity, leading to genetic dilution and loss of unique allelic combination underlying essential local adaptive traits. In this study, two Algerian sheep breeds, known to be highly admixed, were considered as a case study, to demonstrate how combination of different methodologies coupled with the use of specific softwares can be efficient to assess the spatial structuration of a hybrid zone, even in a case of extreme admixture. A fine sampling covering distribution areas of both breeds was implemented in order to study the admixture area and adjacent zones from a phenotypic (i.e., 19 quantitative traits were considered) and a genetic point of view (i.e., 21 microsatellites markers were used). Both approaches gave concordant patterns, highlighting areas with sheep most differentiated (or less admixed) for each breed. In detail, the region of Biskra appeared as the most preserved for the Ouled-Djellal breed and the northwest of Laghouat was identified as the most preserved area for the Rembi breed. The approach proposed in the study offers a low-cost solution to identify the most representative flocks of a breed, allowing the implementation of efficient conservation plans

Synthesis and analysis of SnO2/ZnO nanocomposites: Structural studies and optical investigations with Maxwell–Garnett model

SnO2 including different concentrations of ZnO has synthesized using spray pyrolysis technique for preparing on glass substrate at 350 °C. Effect of ZnO ratio has been researched to study optical and structural properties of SnO2. X-ray diffraction scheme indicates the presence of different peaks that attribute to a mixture of rutile SnO2 and hexagonal ZnO. The crystallite size of SnO2 decreases as ZnO ratio increases. The synthesized nanocomposites are characterized via field emission-scanning electron microscopy. The reflectance and transmittance in the wavelength range, 200–2500 nm have been measured. The direct band gaps vary from 3.04 to 3.78 eV to show contrary concept to Ubach's energy. The refractive index and extinction coefficient display vibrations due to ZnO ratio effect. Dielectric constants of SnO2 are deduced effectively in terms of ZnO ratio using Maxwell-Garnett ‘s effective medium theory, they are compared with experimental spectra. The optical properties can be interpreted correctly with Maxwell-Garnett theory of small underestimation, indicating that adaptation of optical properties can take place by varying the volume fraction. Our results present good agreement with experimental data. © 2019 Elsevier B.V

Polarimetric imaging of uterine cervix: a case study

International audienceWe present a preliminary investigation of macroscopic polarimetric imaging of uterine cervix. Orthogonal state contrast (OSC) images of healthy and anomalous cervices have been taken in vivo at 550 nm. Four ex vivo cervix samples have been studied in full Muller polarimetry, at 550 nm and 700 nm, and characterized in detail by standard pathology. One sample was totally healthy, another one carried CIN lesions at very early stage (CIN1) in its visible exocervical region, while for the other two samples more advanced (CIN3) lesions were present, together with visible glandular epithelium (ectropion). Significant birefringence has been observed in the healthy regions of all six samples, both in vivo and ex vivo. Standard treatments of the Mueller images of the ex vivo samples allowed to quantify both retardation and depolarization. Retardation reached 60 in healthy regions, and disappeared in the anomalous regions of the other three ex vivo samples. The depolarization power was largest in healthy regions, and lower in CINs and ectropion. Possible origins of the observed effects are briefly discusse

Performance evaluation and assessment of the corrosion inhibition mechanism of carbon steel in HCl medium by a new hydrazone compound: Insights from experimental, DFT and first-principles DFT simulations

In the present work, a new hydrazone compound, namely N'-[(Z)-(4-chlorophenyl)methylidene]-2-(5-methoxy-2-methyl-1H-indol-3-yl)acetohydrazide, noted HTH, was selected to protect carbon steel against corrosion in 1.0 mol/L HCl. Different chemical, electrochemical, and surface characterization techniques such as scanning electron microscope coupled with X-ray energy dispersion (SEM/EDX) were used to investigate the corrosion inhibition performance. Electrochemical data showed that the effectiveness of the inhibitor improved with increasing concentration, reaching 98% at the optimal concentration of 10-3 mol/L. The results of potentiodynamic polarization measurements showed that hydrazone acted as a mixed-type inhibitor. The EIS results showed an increase in polarization resistance accompanied by a noticeable decrease in Ceff,dl values. In the temperature range of 303 K-333 K, hydrazone protected carbon steel by 89%, showing high resistance to temperature effect. The analysis of the steel surface by SEM/EDX confirmed that the effectiveness of the hydrazone was attributed to the formation of a protective layer on the surface of the metal. Quantum chemical calculations revealed insights into the chemical reactivity of the tested hydrazone while first-principles density functional theory (DFT) and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation supported the experimental conclusions and showed outstanding adsorption ability of HTH on the Fe(110) surface. First-principles DFT simulations showed that the HTH molecule was more stable in a parallel adsorption mode

Genetic homogenization of indigenous sheep breeds in Northwest Africa

Northwest-African sheep represent an ideal case-study for assessing the potential impact of genetic homogenization as a threat to the future of traditional breeds that are adapted to local conditions. We studied ten Algerian and Moroccan breeds of sheep, including three transboundary breeds, distributed over a large part of the Maghreb region, which represents a geographically and historically coherent unit. Our analysis of the dataset that involved carrying out Genome-wide SNP genotyping, revealed a high level of homogenization (ADMIXTURE, NetView, fineSTRUCTURE and IBD segments analyses), in such a way that some breeds from different origins appeared genetically undistinguished: by grouping the eight most admixed populations, we obtained a mean global FST value of 0.0024. The sPCA analysis revealed that the major part of Morocco and the Northern part of Algeria were affected by the phenomenon, including most of the breeds considered. Unsupervised cross-breeding with the popular Ouled-Djellal breed was identified as a proximate cause of this homogenization. The issue of transboundary breeds was investigated, and the Hamra breed in particular was examined via ROH fragments analysis. Genetic diversity was considered in the light of historical archives and anthropological works. All of these elements taken together suggest that homogenization as a factor affecting the Maghrebin sheep stock, has been particularly significant over the last few decades, although this process probably started much earlier. In particular, we have identified the policies set by the French administration during the colonial period of the region's history as a causal factor that probably contributed significantly to this process. The genetic homogenization that we have observed calls into question the integrity of the farm animal genomic resources represented by these local breeds, whose conservation is of critical importance to the future of the livestock sector