Individual Responses to Business Tendency Surveys and the Forecasting of Manufacturing Production

We compare the performances of balances of opinion to those of indicators introduced by Mitchell, Smith and Weale for the one-quarter forecasting of the manufacturing production growth rate. These indicators take into account the heterogeneity of the response behaviours of the entrepreneurs taking part in the Business Tendency Survey. The responses which are the most tightly linked to the overall fluctuations of manufactured production contribute to the variability of these indicators to a larger extent than the responses of the other surveyed. The application of Mitchell, Smith and Weale to British and German data seems to suggest that these indicators perform better in short-term forecasting than the balances of opinion, but their application to Swedish and Portuguese data suggests not. In our study carried out using French data, their predictive performances turn out to be inferior or, at best, equivalent to those of the balances of opinion.Business Tendency Surveys, Quantification, Dis-Aggregate Indicators, Short-Term Forecasting

Outcomes among oropharyngeal and oral cavity cancer patients treated with postoperative volumetric modulated arctherapy

BackgroundPresently, there are few published reports on postoperative radiation therapy for oropharyngeal and oral cavity cancers treated with IMRT/VMAT technique. This study aimed to assess the oncological outcomes of this population treated with postoperative VMAT in our institution, with a focus on loco-regional patterns of failure.Material and methodsBetween 2011 and 2019, 167 patients were included (40% of oropharyngeal cancers, and 60% of oral cavity cancers). The median age was 60 years. There was 64.2% of stage IV cancers. All patients had both T and N surgery. 34% had a R1 margin, 42% had perineural invasion. 72% had a positive neck dissection and 42% extranodal extension (ENE). All patients were treated with VMAT with simultaneous integrated boost with three dose levels: 66Gy in case of R1 margin and/or ENE, 59.4-60Gy on the tumor bed, and 54Gy on the prophylactic areas. Concomittant cisplatin was administrated concomitantly when feasible in case of R1 and/or ENE.ResultsThe 1- and 2-year loco-regional control rates were 88.6% and 85.6% respectively. Higher tumor stage (T3/T4), the presence of PNI, and time from surgery >45 days were significant predictive factors of worse loco-regional control in multivariate analysis (p=0.02, p=0.04, and p=0.02). There were 17 local recurrences: 11 (64%) were considered as infield, 4 (24%) as marginal, and 2 (12%) as outfield. There were 9 regional recurrences only, 8 (89%) were considered as infield, and 1 (11%) as outfield. The 1- and 2-year disease-free survival (DFS) rates were 78.9% and 71.8% respectively. The 1- and 2-year overall survival (OS) rates were 88.6% and 80% respectively. Higher tumor stage (T3/T4) and the presence of ENE were the two prognostic factors significantly associated with worse DFS and OS in multivariate analysis.ConclusionOur outcomes for postoperative VMAT for oral cavity and oropharyngeal cancers are encouraging, with high rates of loco-regional control. However, the management of ENE still seems challenging

Averting biodiversity collapse in tropical forest protected areas

The rapid disruption of tropical forests probably imperils global biodiversity more than any other contemporary phenomenon¹⁻³. With deforestation advancing quickly, protected areas are increasingly becoming final refuges for threatened species and natural ecosystem processes. However, many protected areas in the tropics are themselves vulnerable to human encroachment and other environmental stresses⁴⁻⁹. As pressures mount, it is vital to know whether existing reserves can sustain their biodiversity. A critical constraint in addressing this question has been that data describing a broad array of biodiversity groups have been unavailable for a sufficiently large and representative sample of reserves. Here we present a uniquely comprehensive data set on changes over the past 20 to 30 years in 31 functional groups of species and 21 potential drivers of environmental change, for 60 protected areas stratified across the world’s major tropical regions. Our analysis reveals great variation in reserve ‘health’: about half of all reserves have been effective or performed passably, but the rest are experiencing an erosion of biodiversity that is often alarmingly widespread taxonomically and functionally. Habitat disruption, hunting and forest-product exploitation were the strongest predictors of declining reserve health. Crucially, environmental changes immediately outside reserves seemed nearly as important as those inside in determining their ecological fate, with changes inside reserves strongly mirroring those occurring around them. These findings suggest that tropical protected areas are often intimately linked ecologically to their surrounding habitats, and that a failure to stem broad-scale loss and degradation of such habitats could sharply increase the likelihood of serious biodiversity declines.Keywords: Ecology, Environmental scienc

Réponses individuelles aux enquêtes de conjoncture et prévision de la production manufacturière

Individuelle Antworten auf die Konjunkturerhebungen und Vorausschätzung der Produktion im verarbeitenden Gewerbe. Wir vergleichen die Performance der Meinungssalden und der Indikatoren, die Mitchell, Smith und Weale zur vierteljährlichen Vorausschätzung des Produktionszuwachses im verarbeitenden Gewerbe vorgeschlagen haben. Als Quellen dienen die Erhebung über die Konjunktur und die Perspektiven der Industrie und die vom INSEE veröffentlichten vierteljährlichen Volkswirtschaftlichen Gesamtrechnungen.Individual Responses to Business Tendency Surveys and the Forecasting of Manufacturing Production. We compare the performances of balances of opinion to those of indicators introduced by Mitchell, Smith and Weale for the one-quarter forecasting of the manufacturing production growth rate. The sources used are the Business Tendency Survey in industry and the quarterly accounts published by INSEE. The indicators relate to answers given by the production units questioned about their past and expected production Unlike the balances of opinion, the indicators proposed by Mitchell, Smith and Weale take into account the heterogeneity of the response behaviours of the entrepre- neurs taking part in the Business Tendency Survey. The responses of entrepreneurs which are the most tightly linked to the overall fl uctuations of manufactured production contribute to the variability of these indicators to a larger extent than the responses of the other surveyed. Does this specifi c feature of these indicators enable the latter to perform better in short-term forecasting than more classic indicators, such as the balance of opinion? The application of Mitchell, Smith and Weale to British and German data seems to suggest that this is the case, but their application to Swedish and Portuguese data suggests not. In our study carried out using French data, the predictive performances of the Mitchell, Smith and Weale indicators turn out to be inferior or, at best, equivalent to those of the balances of opinion, depending on the models used. This result seems robust due to both the large size of the French panel and the evaluation method used, the predictive qualities of the indicators being tested outside of their estimation period.Nous comparons les performances de soldes d'opinion et d'indicateurs proposés par Mitchell, Smith et Weale pour la prévision à un trimestre du taux de croissance de la production manufacturière. Les sources utilisées sont l'enquête sur la situation et les perspectives dans l'industrie et les comptes trimestriels publiés par l'Insee. Les indicateurs se réfèrent aux questions portant sur les productions passée et prévue des unités de production enquêtées. Contrairement aux soldes d'opinion, les indicateurs de Mitchell, Smith et Weale ont comme particularité de tenir compte de l'hétérogénéité des comportements de réponse des entrepreneurs à l'enquête de conjoncture. Les réponses des entrepreneurs qui sont les plus en phase avec le taux de croissance de la production manufacturière sont celles qui contribuent le plus à la variabilité de ces indicateurs. Il s'agit de vérifier si cette propriété se traduit par une capacité prédictive supérieure à celle d'indicateurs plus classiques, comme le solde d'opinion. Les applications de Mitchell, Smith et Weale sur des données britanniques et allemandes le suggèrent, mais pas leurs applications sur des données suédoises et portugaises. Dans cette étude effectuée sur des données françaises, les performances prédictives des indicateurs de Mitchell, Smith et Weale s'avèrent inférieures ou, au mieux, équivalentes à celles des soldes d'opinion, selon les modèles utilisés. Ce résultat paraît robuste en raison de la grande taille du panel de données françaises et de la méthode d'évaluation des indicateurs qui est retenue, les qualités prédictives de ces derniers étant testées en dehors de leur période d'estimation.Respuestas individuales a las encuestas de coyuntura y previsión de la producción manufacturera. Hemos comparado los resultados de saldos de opinión y los indicadores propuestos por Mitchell, Smith y Weale para la previsión a un trimestre de la tasa de crecimiento de la producción manufacturera. Las fuentes utilizadas son la encuesta sobre la situación y las perspectivas en la industria y las cuentas trimestrales publicadas por el Insee. Los indicadores se refi eren a las cuestiones relativas a la producción pasada y prevista de las unidades de producción encuestadas.Biau Olivier, Erkel-Rousse Hélène, Ferrari Nicolas. Réponses individuelles aux enquêtes de conjoncture et prévision de la production manufacturière. In: Economie et statistique, n°395-396, 2006. pp. 91-116

Optimal 1-Wasserstein distance for WGANs

International audienceThe mathematical forces at work behind Generative Adversarial Networks raise challenging theoretical issues. Motivated by the important question of characterizing the geometrical properties of the generated distributions, we provide a thorough analysis of Wasserstein GANs (WGANs) in both the finite sample and asymptotic regimes. We study the specific case where the latent space is univariate and derive results valid regardless of the dimension of the output space. We show in particular that for a fixed sample size, the optimal WGANs are closely linked with connected paths minimizing the sum of the squared Euclidean distances between the sample points. We also highlight the fact that WGANs are able to approach (for the 1-Wasserstein distance) the target distribution as the sample size tends to infinity, at a given convergence rate and provided the family of generative Lipschitz functions grows appropriately. We derive in passing new results on optimal transport theory in the semi-discrete setting

La prise de décision en cancérologie des voies aéro-digestives supérieures : enquête sur le mode de présentation des dossiers et sur la composition des réunions de concertations pluridisciplinaires

International audienc

Selecting tomato not only for their taste, viscosity and color potential but also for their ability to react and conserved their quality during the process

The quality of tomato based products greatly depends on their color and viscosity, which are influenced by the fruit capacity of modifying their properties according to the processing route. Loss of viscosity due to intrinsic pectin modifying enzymes (also called ‘fruit reactivity’) is known and used to produce either hot break (HB) purees, more viscous, or cold break (CB) ones, less viscous. Color reactivity, even if less documented, also exists as HB/CB purees differ. This fruit reactivity, although essential for quality purpose, remains almost neglected from breeders. In order to verify if reactivity could be considered as a heritable trait, we measured it through a “quick and dirty” laboratory scaled process and a systematic measurement of the loss of texture and color according to HB or CB process. The results indicated that fruits can be classified according to their capacity of being impacted by the process. For viscosity, some genotypes exhibited a strong capacity for producing highly viscous purees but also exhibited a strong fruit reactivity, indicating that their advantage may be quickly lost during the process if the first break step is not efficient enough, or in case or cold break processing. On other hand, some genotypes exhibited a very low reactivity to process. Reactivity was also greatly reduced by a low irrigation level. And finally, a parallel processing at laboratory or pilot scale indicated that the behavior of a 10‐fruits sample in microwaves was correlated to the quality observed in traditional scrapped surface tubular eating system. The color of purees was also influenced by the fruit reactivity, but the enzymatic basis for the color change seemed disconnected from the one controlling viscosity. Those results open the door for a more efficient screening of tomato varieties based not only on the fruit composition, but also on their ability to react to the process

Prognosis in Head and Neck Cancer: Importance of Nutritional and Biological Inflammatory Status

International audienceObjectives To determine the importance of nutritional status, social status, and inflammatory status in the prognosis of head and neck cancer. Study Design Single-center retrospective study of prospectively collected data. Setting Tertiary referral center. Methods Ninety-two consecutive patients newly diagnosed for cancer of the upper aerodigestive tract without metastases were assessed at time of diagnosis for several prognostic factors. Nutritional status was assessed by the nutritional risk index, social status by the EPICES score, and inflammatory status by the systemic inflammatory response index. The primary endpoint was overall survival. Results In multivariable analysis, the main prognostic factors were the TNM classification (hazard ratio [HR] = 3.34, P = .002, for stage T3-4), malnutrition as assessed by the nutritional risk index (HR = 3.64, P = .008, for severe malnutrition), and a systemic inflammatory response index score ≥1.6 (HR = 3.32, P = .02). Social deprivation was not a prognostic factor. Conclusion Prognosis in head and neck cancer is multifactorial; however, malnutrition and inflammation are important factors that are potentially reversible by early intervention

Will the presence of the patient at multidisciplinary meetings influence the decision in head and neck oncology management?

International audienceMultidisciplinary team meetings (MTM) are essential in the choice of a therapeutic strategy in head and neck cancer. In many centres patients attend MTMs and are examined by the team. The aim of this study was to assess the influence of the patient's presence on therapeutic decisions