Is the French view of greenways avant-garde or déjà-vu?

“Greenway” has become trendy in the French planners’ vocabulary. Indeed, this term has many meanings, related to both the environmental and social characteristics of a territory. It carries many positive cultural values. There are not one but several types of greenways in according to specific area (urban, peri-urban, and rural) with different objectives (recreation, nature conservation, human well being). Nowadays, the French term for greenways is “trame verte”. This expression is a planning concept dealing mostly with private land. The objective of the paper is threefold. First, we shall look at the changes in the content of “greenways” in this international literature; second we shall examine what brought about the interest of “trame verte” in landscape planning and environmental management in France. Third, we shall propose a coarse assessment of the new French law on “trame verte”

Trames Vertes, vers un nouveau paradigme ?

En France, depuis la loi de 2009 dite Grenelle 1, les projets d’aménagement de trames vertes se multiplient. Ce phénomène est visible sous de multiples formes à différentes échelles territoriales, du national au local. Nous formulons alors la problématique suivante : les trames vertes : entre discours et matérialité, quelles réalités ? La thèse, mobilisant les concepts de la géographie, s’intéresse à l’articulation : du discours des aménageurs, des politiques mises en place, des formes de gestion existantes, de la matérialité des trames vertes et ses représentations sociales. Tout en s’inscrivant dans une démarche multiscalaire du national au communal, les recherches s’attachent à étudier la notion de trames vertes à l’échelle de l’intercommunalité en espace périurbain, à travers un site de référence : l’agglomération angevine.In France, since the 2009 so-called « Grenelle 1 » law, plans for the development of greenway projects (“trames vertes”) are increasing. This phenomenon is visible in many forms at different spatial scales, from national to local. We formulate the following research question: between discourses and materialities, what are the realities of “trames vertes”? The thesis, mobilizing concepts of geography, fo‑cuses on the juncture between the discourse of planners, the policies being implemented, the existing forms of management, the materiality of the greenway and social representations. While included in a multiscalar analysis from the national to the local level, this research endeavors to examine the greenway concept more accurately at the intercommunal scale in peri‑urban areas, through a reference site: Angers agglomeration

Perceptions and Implementations of Urban Green Infrastructures in France: Three Cases of Studies (Paris, Marseille, Strasbourg)

Green infrastructures have gradually become imperative in planning since the end of 1990s in Europe (Jongman et al, 2004). Numerous urban areas in France mobilize and reinterpret the notion according to stakes of their territory (Blanc, 2012). With the promulgation of Grenelle 1 and 2 Laws (in 2009 and 2010), today every local authorities have to integrate an ecological reflection on green infrastructures into its planning projects at metropolitan and local scales, called “trame verte”. To cover a plurality of contexts of cultural, social, geographical and ecosystematic levels, three cities were retained to understand how this reflection is set up: the municipalities of Paris, Marseille, and Strasbourg. Indeed, in Ile-de-France, a number of initiatives reflect the interest of the regional, departmental and municipal authorities for green infrastructures and biodiversity issues: the Seine St-Denis departmental observatory of biodiversity and natural habitats (City hall of Paris, on 2004), the creation of the regional agency Natureparif (2006), the regional strategy for biodiversity (2007), the Paris biodiversity plan (2011). Furthermore, the city of Marseille, influenced by the example of Barcelona metropolitan area and its anellaverda (green ring), plans the development of a green infrastructure on its municipal territory. It confided the study to the Planning Agency of Marseille Urban area (AGAM) which elaborates scenarios for connecting the residual non-constructed spaces, to endow the city of a green infrastructure addressing the environmental issues of sustainable development. Finally, the region Alsace was one of the first regions to integrate a reflection into these environmental policies on green infrastructure in France (in the late 1990s). The Strasbourg local planning in 1992 and the metropolitan plan in 2007 (SCOTER) mention the term “greenway” in their statutory documents. Currently, as part of the development of the urban local plan (PLU), Strasbourg urban community defines a network of greenways in an ecological perspective. Through the consideration of vegetable continuities in town, the notion of green infrastructures brings a revival in the current urban thinking. If scientists in ecological sciences were interested since a few years in this question to fight against biodiversity erosion, green infrastructures appear as a new field of investigation for human sciences. Multifunctionality associated with this notion of meshing offers new challenges as for practices and perceptions of inhabitants. How decision making can take into account and translate their expectations regarding scientific models proposed and political issues? Its diverse dimensions introduce inevitably new modalities of the public debate organization which remain to invent in most cases today. We have compared in each of the studied sites the three following spheres, often distinct from one another: political, scientific and inhabitants

Expression of phosphate transporters in optimized cell culture models for dental cells biomineralization

Phosphate is a key component of dental mineral composition. The physiological role of membrane proteins of dental cells is suspected to be crucial for mineralization mechanisms. Contrary to published data related to calcium, data on regulation of phosphate flux through membrane of mineralizing cells are scarce. To address this lack of data, we studied the expression of six membranous phosphate transporters in two dental cell lines: a rat odontoblastic cell line (M2H4) and a mouse ameloblastic cell line (ALC) for which we optimized the mineralizing culture conditions

Urban residents beliefs concerning green space benefits in four cities in France and Portugal

Understanding how urban residents rate the benefits associated with urban green spaces is crucial in developing appropriate urban green infrastructure strategies. This study explores residents’ beliefs concerning the benefits of urban green spaces and investigates whether similarities and differences can be highlighted in four different French and Portuguese urban areas (Paris, Angers, Lisbon and Porto) through a questionnaire survey (n = 1000) based on the best–worst scaling (BWS) method. The results demonstrated that urban green space benefits are not equally valued among cities, suggesting that there is simultaneously a consensus among the most and least valued benefits across cities, as well as local variations in city residents’ beliefs about some other benefits of urban green spaces. For example, the importance of urban green spaces for personal health and well-being and to facilitate contact with nature were noted by residents of all four urban areas; consensus also exists on the little support given to two microclimatic functions of green spaces, namely, air temperature reduction and noise reduction. On the other hand, some green space benefits, such as the promotion of biodiversity or the contribution to the city image, are differentially valued among the four cities. Overall, the study stresses the importance of developing local assessments of the beliefs surrounding the benefits of urban green spaces. Recognizing these multiple beliefs and communicating clearly about the benefits offered by green spaces may help to mitigate future conflicts between residents and urban planners and managers, and thus contribute to optimizing green infrastructure planning benefits.0119-47CC-D459 | Teresa Cristina Fernandes Ferreira MadureiraN/

The Phosphate Transporter PiT1 (Slc20a1) Revealed As a New Essential Gene for Mouse Liver Development

BACKGROUND: PiT1 (or SLC20a1) encodes a widely expressed plasma membrane protein functioning as a high-affinity Na(+)-phosphate (Pi) cotransporter. As such, PiT1 is often considered as a ubiquitous supplier of Pi for cellular needs regardless of the lack of experimental data. Although the importance of PiT1 in mineralizing processes have been demonstrated in vitro in osteoblasts, chondrocytes and vascular smooth muscle cells, in vivo evidence is missing. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: To determine the in vivo function of PiT1, we generated an allelic series of PiT1 mutations in mice by combination of wild-type, hypomorphic and null PiT1 alleles expressing from 100% to 0% of PiT1. In this report we show that complete deletion of PiT1 results in embryonic lethality at E12.5. PiT1-deficient embryos display severely hypoplastic fetal livers and subsequent reduced hematopoiesis resulting in embryonic death from anemia. We show that the anemia is not due to placental, yolk sac or vascular defects and that hematopoietic progenitors have no cell-autonomous defects in proliferation and differentiation. In contrast, mutant fetal livers display decreased proliferation and massive apoptosis. Animals carrying two copies of hypomorphic PiT1 alleles (resulting in 15% PiT1 expression comparing to wild-type animals) survive at birth but are growth-retarded and anemic. The combination of both hypomorphic and null alleles in heterozygous compounds results in late embryonic lethality (E14.5-E16.5) with phenotypic features intermediate between null and hypomorphic mice. In the three mouse lines generated we could not evidence defects in early skeleton formation. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: This work is the first to illustrate a specific in vivo role for PiT1 by uncovering it as being a critical gene for normal developmental liver growth

Slc20a2, Encoding the Phosphate Transporter PiT2, Is an Important Genetic Determinant of Bone Quality and Strength.

Osteoporosis is characterized by low bone mineral density (BMD) and fragility fracture and affects over 200 million people worldwide. Bone quality describes the material properties that contribute to strength independently of BMD, and its quantitative analysis is a major priority in osteoporosis research. Tissue mineralization is a fundamental process requiring calcium and phosphate transporters. Here we identify impaired bone quality and strength in Slc20a2-/- mice lacking the phosphate transporter SLC20A2. Juveniles had abnormal endochondral and intramembranous ossification, decreased mineral accrual, and short stature. Adults exhibited only small reductions in bone mass and mineralization but a profound impairment of bone strength. Bone quality was severely impaired in Slc20a2-/- mice: yield load (-2.3 SD), maximum load (-1.7 SD), and stiffness (-2.7 SD) were all below values predicted from their bone mineral content as determined in a cohort of 320 wild-type controls. These studies identify Slc20a2 as a physiological regulator of tissue mineralization and highlight its critical role in the determination of bone quality and strength. © 2019 The Authors. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research Published by Wiley Periodicals Inc

Azimuthal anisotropy of charged jet production in root s(NN)=2.76 TeV Pb-Pb collisions

We present measurements of the azimuthal dependence of charged jet production in central and semi-central root s(NN) = 2.76 TeV Pb-Pb collisions with respect to the second harmonic event plane, quantified as nu(ch)(2) (jet). Jet finding is performed employing the anti-k(T) algorithm with a resolution parameter R = 0.2 using charged tracks from the ALICE tracking system. The contribution of the azimuthal anisotropy of the underlying event is taken into account event-by-event. The remaining (statistical) region-to-region fluctuations are removed on an ensemble basis by unfolding the jet spectra for different event plane orientations independently. Significant non-zero nu(ch)(2) (jet) is observed in semi-central collisions (30-50% centrality) for 20 <p(T)(ch) (jet) <90 GeV/c. The azimuthal dependence of the charged jet production is similar to the dependence observed for jets comprising both charged and neutral fragments, and compatible with measurements of the nu(2) of single charged particles at high p(T). Good agreement between the data and predictions from JEWEL, an event generator simulating parton shower evolution in the presence of a dense QCD medium, is found in semi-central collisions. (C) 2015 CERN for the benefit of the ALICE Collaboration. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Peer reviewe

Forward-central two-particle correlations in p-Pb collisions at root s(NN)=5.02 TeV

Two-particle angular correlations between trigger particles in the forward pseudorapidity range (2.5 2GeV/c. (C) 2015 CERN for the benefit of the ALICE Collaboration. Published by Elsevier B. V.Peer reviewe