Fostering Bibliodiversity in Scholarly Communications: A Call for Action!

Diversity is an important characteristic of any healthy ecosystem, including scholarly communications. Diversity in services and platforms, funding mechanisms, and evaluation measures will allow the scholarly communication system to accommodate the different workflows, languages, publication outputs, and research topics that support the needs and epistemic pluralism of different research communities. In addition, diversity reduces the risk of vendor lock-in, which inevitably leads to monopoly, monoculture, and high prices. Bibliodiversity has been in steady decline for decades.1 Far from promoting diversity, the dominant “ecosystem” of scholarly publishing today increasingly resembles what Vandana Shiva (1993) has called the “monocultures of the mind”2, characterized by the homogenization of publication formats and outlets that are largely owned by a small number of multinational publishers who are far more interested in profit maximization than the health of the system. Yet, a diverse scholarly communications system is essential for addressing the complex challenges we face. As we transition to open access and open science, there is an opportunity to reverse this decline and foster greater diversity in scholarly communications; what the Jussieu Call refers to as bibliodiversity3. Bibliodiversity, by its nature, cannot be pursued through a single, unified approach, however it does require strong coordination in order to avoid a fragmented and siloed ecosystem. Building on the principles outlined in the Jussieu Call, this paper explores the current state of diversity in scholarly communications, and issues a call for action, specifying what each community can do individually and collectively to support greater bibliodiversity in a more intentional fashion

Combining Static and Dynamic Analysis for Vulnerability Detection

In this paper, we present a hybrid approach for buffer overflow detection in C code. The approach makes use of static and dynamic analysis of the application under investigation. The static part consists in calculating taint dependency sequences (TDS) between user controlled inputs and vulnerable statements. This process is akin to program slice of interest to calculate tainted data- and control-flow path which exhibits the dependence between tainted program inputs and vulnerable statements in the code. The dynamic part consists of executing the program along TDSs to trigger the vulnerability by generating suitable inputs. We use genetic algorithm to generate inputs. We propose a fitness function that approximates the program behavior (control flow) based on the frequencies of the statements along TDSs. This runtime aspect makes the approach faster and accurate. We provide experimental results on the Verisec benchmark to validate our approach.Comment: There are 15 pages with 1 figur

Some remarks on wheeled autonomous vehicles and the evolution of their control design

Recent investigations on the longitudinal and lateral control of wheeled autonomous vehicles are reported. Flatness-based techniques are first introduced via a simplified model. It depends on some physical parameters, like cornering stiffness coefficients of the tires, friction coefficient of the road, ..., which are notoriously difficult to identify. Then a model-free control strategy, which exploits the flat outputs, is proposed. Those outputs also depend on physical parameters which are poorly known, i.e., the vehicle mass and inertia and the position of the center of gravity. A totally model-free control law is therefore adopted. It employs natural output variables, namely the longitudinal velocity and the lateral deviation of the vehicle. This last method, which is easily understandable and implementable, ensures a robust trajectory tracking problem in both longitudinal and lateral dynamics. Several convincing computer simulations are displayed.Comment: 9th IFAC Symposium on Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles (Leipzig, Germany, 29.06.2016 - 01.07.2016

Libre accès

Article publié dans La 'société de l'information', glossaire critique, Commission nationale française pour l'UNESCO, La Documentation Française, Paris, 2005Traduction très libre de la notion anglo-saxonne d'" open access ", le terme " libre accès " désigne une série d'initiatives émergeant à partir des années 90 dans le monde académique, et visant à garantir que les résultats de la recherche scientifique soient accessibles à tous sans barrière économique, technologique ou légale

Les Angoysses douloureuses d’Hélisenne de Crenne : un antiroman sérieux

Il est un parti pris discutable : celui qui consiste à valoriser les principes du roman comique par rapport à ceux du roman sérieux. Comme l’a montré Mikhaïl Bakhtine, le genre romanesque est caractérisé, dans son ensemble, par les liens qui l’unissent à d’autres textes et par la mise en cause de leur fonctionnement thématique, stylistique et idéologique. Cela peut être vérifié au sujet des Angoysses douloureuses qui procedent d’amours d’Hélisenne de Crenne. Cette oeuvre atteste, en effet, l’existence d’une créativité romanesque proprement française à la Renaissance. Le paradoxe tient à ce qu’elle emprunte nombre de ses procédés d’écriture à des textes antérieurs. Sans explorer une voie parodique, elle se présente comme un antiroman sérieux. Tout en affichant son appartenance au genre sentimental, elle met ainsi à distance les traditions italienne et espagnole en même temps que la veine chevaleresque nationale. Elle tire profit du jeu d’influences entre les topiques qu’elle pastiche, mais explore également les incompatibilités entre ces hypotextes. Du coup, la formule narrative à laquelle elle parvient est tout à fait originale. À lire le texte, on voit ses attentes constamment trompées : tout pronostic générique est successivement confirmé, modifié et subverti et toute hypothèse interprétative infléchie, détournée et invalidée.A debatable bias trumpets the superiority of the comic to the serious novel. As Bakhtine has demonstrated, the novel as a genre is characterized by the elements which unite it to other texts. For him, the novel’s role is to call into question the thematic, stylistic and ideological functions of these elements. Bakhtine’s thesis can be confirmed through an analysis of Hélisenne de Crenne’s Angoysses douloureuses qui procedent d’amours. This work attests to the existence of a specifically novelistic creativity in France during the Renaissance. The paradoxical character of de Crenne’s novel emerges from the numerous literary techniques it derives from older texts. Without entering into parody, Angoysses douloureuses presents itself as a serious “anti-novel.” Openly exhibiting its adherence to the genre of the sentimental novel, it stands aloof from the Italian and Spanish traditions as well as from the conventions of French chivalry. Instead, creating a pastiche through “playing” with its influences and the topics they inspire, it explores the incompatibilities among its hypotexts. As a result, it achieves a narrative formula that is entirely original. In reading Angoysses douloureuses, expectations are constantly thwarted: predictions based on genre are successively confirmed, modified and subverted while interpretive hypotheses are shifted, diverted and invalidated

The Hatano-Sasa equality: transitions between steady states in a granular gas

An experimental study is presented, about transitions between Non-Equilibrium Steady States (NESS) in a dissipative medium. The core device is a small rotating blade that imposes cycles of increasing and decreasing forcings to a granular gas, shaken independently. The velocity of this blade is measured, subject to the transitions imposed by the periodic torque variation. The Hatano-Sasa equality, that generalises the second principle of thermodynamics to NESS, is verified with a high accuracy (a few $10^{-3}$), at different variation rates. Besides, it is observed that the fluctuating velocity at fixed forcing follows a generalised Gumbel distribution. A rough evaluation of the mean free path in the granular gas suggests that it might be a correlated system, at least partially

Technologies libres et société

Au peu d'utilisation des licences libres dans les domaines artistiques et scientifiques répond une prolifération de discours, où tente de se construire une communauté entre les collectifs d'utilisateurs. Pourtant, les enjeux économiques et sociaux des concepteurs de logiciels libres, des scientifiques et des artistes ne sont pas les mêmes. Mais ces communautés ont en commun un combat pour une société ouverte qui refuse l'appropriation privée de la circulation de l'information et promeut l'échange généralisé de signes et de richesses

Management control and performance in French-Korean joint ventures

South-Korea is one of the country in the world with the highest rate growth. To develop its economy, this country welcomes foreign direct investments (FDI) with free economics zones and free trade agreements. Further the Korean peninsula has a strategic location due to its short distance to China and Japan. As the result, a large amount of foreign companies invests there (about 40% of the annual FDI are new). International joint venture (IJV) is an entry mode largely used for a company to go abroad. Moreover, management control and performance have been considered by the scholar as two important factors to consider while doing an international joint venture. Thus, the present thesis aims to investigate the relationship between these two factors in joint ventures made between a Korean and a French company located in South-Korea. The research problem of the study is: “Does management control affect performance in French-Korean JVs located in South-Korea?”. In the theoretical part of the study, the concepts and approaches of management control and IJV performance are presented. The study of these two factors have been controverted due to environment study and the difference of approach. To answer the question, a quantitative research is conducted through a comparative case study. The sample of this study is composed of 4 French MNCs undertaking a JV with a Korean company in South-Korea. A face to face interview with a French manager of each case has been done to reply to a questionnaire of 33 questions. The empirical part of the study indicated that there is no evidence on the relationship between management control and performance. In the 4 case studied, the absence of control has been observed. Indeed, the result of success of the venture where the result of a great selection of the partner (similar company culture) and a clear agreement between the partner about the venture management.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

Mendelian randomization and its application to genome-wide association studies

Genetics aims is to study heredity: how traits are passed from one generation to the next and how genetic variations can lead to changes in phenotypes. Some phenotypes, called complex or quantitative traits, are under the control of both genetic and environmental factors. Examples of complex traits include quantitative phenotypes, such as height or cholesterol levels, as well as certain diseases, like diabetes or cardiovascular diseases. Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) are used to statistically test for the association between each genetic variant and a given phenotype. These studies confirmed that most complex traits are influenced by a large number of genetic variants, often exhibiting small effect sizes that can only be detected using large numbers of individuals. They also permitted the estimation of narrow-sense heritability, which is the proportion of phenotypic variation that can be attributed to these genetic variations. The results of such GWASs (association results for every genetic variant) are often made publicly available and they can be used to perform follow-up analyses, for example Mendelian randomization. Mendelian randomization aims at investigating causal relationships between complex traits and estimating the causal effect of one exposure on an outcome. This method mimicks randomized controlled trials and takes advantage of the fact that genetic variations are randomly distributed across the population. By using association results for genetic variants strongly associated with a given risk factor and measuring the effect of these variants on another trait or disease, Mendelian randomization can infer the existence and the strength of the causal relationship between them. Analyses helping to understand the genetics underlying complex traits and the relationships between them are key to precision medicine. Precision medicine is an approach that takes into account the genome sequence and the environmental exposures of each patient, to provide personalized prevention and treatment to each individual. During my thesis, I have been involved in several projects aiming at developing statistical methods that rely on Mendelian randomization. In the first part, I worked on a Bayesian GWAS approach (bGWAS). The goal of this approach is to increase statistical power to discover variants associated with a trait by leveraging data from correlated risk factors. The idea is to combine (1) the causal effects of the risk factors on the trait of interest (estimated using Mendelian randomization) with (2) the association results of genetic variants with these risk factors, in order to estimate the prior effect of each variant on the trait of interest. This approach has been used to study the genetics underlying lifespan, taking into account various potential risk factors, such as body mass index, cholesterol levels, and several diseases for example. In the second part, I worked on developing Mendelian randomization extensions (MRlap and LHC-MR) that aim at tackling some of the most common sources of bias. These extensions allow for more robust causal effect estimates, when some of the Mendelian randomization assumptions are violated, as well as for an extension of the scope of application of Mendelian randomization. -- La génétique est l’étude de la transmission de traits héréditaires au sein d’une population. Un défi majeur de la génétique moderne est cependant d’expliquer le mécanisme exact par lequel les variations génétiques peuvent, ou non, se traduire par des variations phénotypiques. Ce défi est d’autant plus important dans le cas des traits dits «complexes», qui sont affectés à la fois par des facteurs génétiques et par des facteurs environnementaux. C’est le cas par exemple de la taille adulte, du taux de cholestérol ou encore de certaines maladies, comme le diabète. Les études d’association pangénomique, en anglais genome-wide association studies (GWASs), permettent de tester si des variants génétiques sont statistiquement associés à un phénotype donné. Ces études ont confirmé que la plupart des traits complexes sont influencés par un très large nombre de variants génétiques, dont chacun a souvent un faible effet qui n’aurait pas été détecté sans l’accès à de larges jeux de données. Elles ont également permis d’estimer la part de la variation phénotypique expliquée par l’ensemble des variants (héritabilité au sens étroit). Les résultats de ces GWASs sont souvent publiés sous forme de statistiques synthétiques (pour chaque variant génétique) qui peuvent être utilisées pour réaliser des analyses additionnelles, notamment des analyses de randomisation mendélienne. Celles-ci permettent d’étudier les relations de cause à effet entre différents traits complexes et d’estimer l’effet de causalité d’un trait sur un autre. Les variations génétiques étant théoriquement réparties de façon aléatoire dans une population, la randomisation mendélienne est une alternative aux essais cliniques randomisés. En utilisant les résultats d’association de variants génétiques associés spécifiquement avec un facteur de risque et en mesurant leurs effets sur un autre trait, la randomisation mendélienne permet d’établir une relation de cause à effet entre deux traits. Ces études, permettant la compréhension des causes génétiques à l’origine des traits complexes ainsi que des relations de cause à effet pouvant exister entre ceux-ci, ouvrent la voie au développement de la médecine de précision, une approche prenant en compte toutes les informations concernant un individu (génétiques et environnementales) pour proposer à chacun un diagnostic et un traitement personnalisés. Durant mon doctorat, j’ai été impliquée dans différents projets visant à développer des approches techniques basées sur la randomisation mendélienne. Dans un premier temps, j’ai travaillé sur une méthode appelée GWAS bayésien (bGWAS). Cette méthode utilise des informations provenant de potentiel facteurs de risques identifiés a priori de façon à augmenter la puissance statistique de l’identification de variants génétiques associés à un trait d’intérêt. L’idée est de combiner (1) les effets de causalité des risques facteurs sur le trait d’intérêt (estimés en utilisant la randomisation mendélienne) et (2) les résultats d’association des variants génétiques avec ces facteurs de risque, pour estimer leur effet a priori sur le trait d’intérêt. Cette méthode a notamment été utilisée pour étudier les causes génétiques influençant l’espérance de vie, en prenant en compte plusieurs facteurs de risques tel que certaines maladies ou encore l’indice de masse corporel. Dans un second temps, j’ai travaillé sur des projets visant à proposer des extensions aux méthodes classiques de randomisation mendélienne (MRlap et LHC-MR) pour les rendre plus robustes à certaines sources de biais communément observées, avec pour but d’élargir les possibilités d’application de ces méthodes