Une géographie impliquée en faveur de la réforme territoriale : l'exemple du groupe des « 15 » en Normandie

International audienceThis text presents an experience conducted since 2011 by fifteen geographers from the three universities implanted in Normandy (Caen, Le Havre and Rouen) engaged in the regional public debate. Their aim is to support several territorial reforms: the union of the Norman regions, the promotion of a regional metropolitan network, the improving of regional democratic deliberation. This paper intends to offer a reflexive return on this initiative to highlight its objectives, its modalities of implementation, its social impact but also its political imperfections. Having received a greater audience than expected, this experience shows how territorial sciences can contribute to the implementation of a richer collective intelligence, in particular about the understandings of the goals pursued by those who are in charge of territorial reforms.Ce texte présente l’expérience menée depuis 2011 par quinze géographes des trois universités de Normandie (Caen, Le Havre et Rouen) engagés dans le débat public régional en faveur de plusieurs réformes structurelles des territoires de l’action publique. Cette implication s’est traduite par plusieurs prises de position : le soutien à la fusion des régions normandes, la promotion d’un réseau métropolitain régional, la participation active à la délibération démocratique régionale. Il s’agit de proposer un retour réflexif sur cette initiative afin d’en souligner les objectifs, les modalités de réalisation, l’impact social mais aussi les limites politiques. Recevant un écho social dépassant les ambitions initiales du collectif, cette expérience montre comment les sciences du territoire peuvent contribuer à une meilleure intelligence collective, en particulier à propos de la compréhension des enjeux poursuivis par ceux qui sont en charge de la réforme territoriale

Friday Night Lights (NBC et The 101 Network, 2006-2011) ou le réinvestissement du mythe de la small town

À partir de l’exemple de Friday Night Lights, cet article entend montrer comment la double adaptation d’un livre documentaire puis d’un film au format d’une série télévisée peut conduire à une amplification et à un approfondissement de la mise en scène tels que l’histoire particulière d’une petite communauté locale du Texas conduit à une relecture originale de quelques-uns des grands thèmes de la fiction télévisée contemporaine (la réalisation de soi, la cohésion sociale, la pression communautaire, etc.). Le réinvestissement du mythe géographique de la small town donne alors l’occasion aux créateurs de la série de proposer une représentation humaniste et nuancée de la vie collective, alternative aux visions désabusées ou nihilistes qui prolifèrent par ailleurs dans nombre de drama series diffusées sur les chaînes du câble aux États-Unis, sans pour autant renoncer à la vraisemblance des événements ou à la puissance des émotions.Taking Friday Night Lights for an example, this article aims to show how the adaptation of a documentary book, then a film in the format of a TV series can lead to an amplification and a deepening of the mise en scène such that the particular story of a small, local community in Texas leads to an original rereading of several important themes of contemporary TV fiction (self realization, social cohesion, peer pressure, etc.). The reinvestment of the geographical myth of the small town offers an occasion to the series’ creators to show a humanist and nuanced representation of collective life, as an alternative to cynical and nihilist visions that proliferate elsewhere in a number of drama series broadcasted on cable channels in the United States, without necessarily renouncing the plausibility of events and the power of emotions

Enabling technologies for decentralized interpersonal communication

In the recent years the Internet users have witnessed the emergence of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) technologies and applications. One class of P2P applications is comprised of applications that are targeted for interpersonal communication. The communication applications that utilize P2P technologies are referred to as decentralized interpersonal communication applications. Such applications are decentralized in a sense that they do not require assistance from centralized servers for setting up multimedia sessions between users. The invention of Distributed Hash Table (DHT) algorithms has been an important, but not an inclusive enabler for decentralized interpersonal communication. Even though the DHTs provide a basic foundation for decentralization, there are still a number of challenges without viable technological solutions. The main contribution of this thesis is to propose technological solutions to a subset of the existing challenges. In addition, this thesis also presents the preliminary work for the technological solutions. There are two parts in the preliminary work. In the first part, a set of DHT algorithms are evaluated from the viewpoint of decentralized interpersonal communication, and the second part gives a coherent presentation of the challenges that a decentralized interpersonal communication application is going to encounter in mobile networks. The technological solution proposals contain two architectures and two algorithms. The first architecture enables an interconnection between a decentralized and a centralized communication network, and the second architecture enables the decentralization of a set of legacy applications. The first algorithm is a load balancing algorithm that enables good scalability, and the second algorithm is a search algorithm that enables arbitrary searches. The algorithms can be used, for example, in DHT-based networks. Even though this thesis has focused on the decentralized interpersonal communication, some of the proposed technological solutions also have general applicability outside the scope of decentralized interpersonal communication

Analysis method for studying national visions of Europe in school textbooks

This methodological guideline was the tool used in the framework of the FP7 EuroBroadMap project in order to study Europe's representations in textbooks, inside and outside European Union. The first part presents the curriculum questionnaire, the second one the textbook analysis itself. This paper completes the textbook analysis (see EuroBroadMap working paper, textbook analysis).Ce guide méthodologique a été l'outil utilisé dans le cadre du projet de recherche européen EuroBroadMap afin d'étudier les représentations de l'Europe dans les manuels scolaires, tant à l'extérieur qu'à l'intérieur de l'Union européenne. La première partie présente le questionnaire relatif au programme scolaire, la seconde le questionnaire relatif à l'étude des manuels scolaires. Ce papier complète l'analyse des manuels scolaires (voir Eurobroadmap working paper, textbook analysis)

Mental maps of students - Volume 5

This eurobroadmap working paper, split in 5 different volumes, presents the synthesis of a large survey launched in 2009 on 9000 undergraduate students from 18 different countries. The volume 1 includes the executive summary, plus elements regarding the five different volumes (references, list of figures, etc). The second one presents the aims and the organisation of the survey. The third one deals with the scale of the feeling of belonging. The fourth one presents explanatory models about countries and cities attractiveness. The final volume presents Europe representations in both cartographic and lexical ways

Single-cell transcriptomics reveals shared immunosuppressive landscapes of mouse and human neuroblastoma

BACKGROUND High-risk neuroblastoma is a pediatric cancer with still a dismal prognosis, despite multimodal and intensive therapies. Tumor microenvironment represents a key component of the tumor ecosystem the complexity of which has to be accurately understood to define selective targeting opportunities, including immune-based therapies. METHODS We combined various approaches including single-cell transcriptomics to dissect the tumor microenvironment of both a transgenic mouse neuroblastoma model and a cohort of 10 biopsies from neuroblastoma patients, either at diagnosis or at relapse. Features of related cells were validated by multicolor flow cytometry and functional assays. RESULTS We show that the immune microenvironment of MYCN-driven mouse neuroblastoma is characterized by a low content of T cells, several phenotypes of macrophages and a population of cells expressing signatures of myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) that are molecularly distinct from the various macrophage subsets. We document two cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) subsets, one of which corresponding to CAF-S1, known to have immunosuppressive functions. Our data unravel a complex content in myeloid cells in patient tumors and further document a striking correspondence of the microenvironment populations between both mouse and human tumors. We show that mouse intratumor T cells exhibit increased expression of inhibitory receptors at the protein level. Consistently, T cells from patients are characterized by features of exhaustion, expressing inhibitory receptors and showing low expression of effector cytokines. We further functionally demonstrate that MDSCs isolated from mouse neuroblastoma have immunosuppressive properties, impairing the proliferation of T lymphocytes. CONCLUSIONS Our study demonstrates that neuroblastoma tumors have an immunocompromised microenvironment characterized by dysfunctional T cells and accumulation of immunosuppressive cells. Our work provides a new and precious data resource to better understand the neuroblastoma ecosystem and suggest novel therapeutic strategies, targeting both tumor cells and components of the microenvironment

Reversible transitions between noradrenergic and mesenchymal tumor identities define cell plasticity in neuroblastoma

Noradrenergic and mesenchymal identities have been characterized in neuroblastoma cell lines according to their epigenetic landscapes and core regulatory circuitries. However, their relationship and relative contribution in patient tumors remain poorly defined. We now document spontaneous and reversible plasticity between the two identities, associated with epigenetic reprogramming, in several neuroblastoma models. Interestingly, xenografts with cells from each identity eventually harbor a noradrenergic phenotype suggesting that the microenvironment provides a powerful pressure towards this phenotype. Accordingly, such a noradrenergic cell identity is systematically observed in single-cell RNA-seq of 18 tumor biopsies and 15 PDX models. Yet, a subpopulation of these noradrenergic tumor cells presents with mesenchymal features that are shared with plasticity models, indicating that the plasticity described in these models has relevance in neuroblastoma patients. This work therefore emphasizes that intrinsic plasticity properties of neuroblastoma cells are dependent upon external cues of the environment to drive cell identity

Le pouvoir régional à travers le cas normand

Brennetot Arnaud. Le pouvoir régional à travers le cas normand. In: Études Normandes, 59e année, n°1, 2010. Normandie 2010 : le débat régional. pp. 41-44

La décentralisation en France, Ambitions et limites d’un processus inachevé

International audienc

Les géographes et la justice spatiale : généalogie d'une relation compliquée

International audienceIn recent years, spatial justice has been the subject of renewed attention. This trend should not obscure important theoretical disagreements. Going back to the last fifty years, we realize that this concept covers very different interpretations according to the authors and the historical context. Such variety reflects how geographers who have considered this question have positioned themselves within the intellectual debate. This observation leads to questioning the normative and ideological dimension of the geographical discourse while showing that the pluralism of contemporary geography largely results from ethical commitments on the part of the specialists who do it.Depuis plusieurs années, la justice spatiale fait l'objet d'une attention renouvelée. Cette tendance ne doit pas masquer d'importants désaccords théoriques. En remontant aux cinquante dernières années, on s'aperçoit que cette notion recouvre des interprétations très différentes selon les auteurs et les époques. Une telle variété reflète la manière dont les géographes qui ont réfléchi à cette question se sont positionnés au sein du débat intellectuel. Ce constat amène à interroger la part normative et idéologique, longtemps refoulée, du discours géographique tout en permettant de montrer que le pluralisme de la géographie contemporaine résulte très largement des engagements éthiques des spécialistes qui la font