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This article aims to bring empirical evidence to the debate on the redistributive effects of the sharing economy, using Airbnb as an example. Peer-to-peer short-term rental platforms provide every ...

Although thousands of biodiversity indicators have already been designed, scientists and decision-makers are still asking for new versions. Why are we still not satisfied? Our argument is that, if biodiversity indicators aim to improve the effectiveness of science-policy interfaces, it is essential to assess their actual contribution to biodiversity conservation. How? Through an analysis of current uses of indicators in the strategic interactions among a set of actors placed in a given field of biodiversity organized actions This paper presents our investigations into the use of French national and regional red lists of threatened species as a strategic resource for scientists and policy-makers. The manner the red lists are designed, discussed and used is essential so that they can be adapted to suit the way biodiversity is managed in France. The lists systematise information on threatened species in ways that allow users to strategically connect or disconnect knowledge and action, according to the needs of environmental operators in different situations. Their contribution to effective biodiversity actions lies in what we call their potential to act as ‘circuit breakers’ between science and policy. This research suggests new perspectives both for analysing environmental management situations including indicator design and for operators who want to design new indicators.

This paper reports the device design, fabrication and characterisation of 10 kV-class Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT). Manufactured devices have been packaged in single BJT, two paralleled BJTs and Darlington configurations. The static and switching characteristics of the resulting devices have been measured. The BJTs (2.4mm² active area) show a specific on-resistance as low as 198 mΩ·cm² at 100 A/cm² and room temperature for a βMax of 9.6, whereas the same active area Darlington beats the unipolar limit with a specific on-resistance of 102 mΩ·cm² at 200 A/cm² (β=11) for a βMax of 69. Double pulse tests reveal state of the art switching with very sharp dV/dt and di/dt. Turn-on is operated at less than 100 ns for an EON lower than 4mJ, whereas the turn-off takes longer times due to tail current resulting in EOFF of 17.2 mJ and 50 mJ for the single BJT and Darlington respectively when operated at high current density. Excellent parallelisation have been achieved.

Increased emergency medical services (EMS) response times and areas of low socioeconomic status are both associated with poorer outcomes for several time-sensitive medical conditions attended to by...

ObjectivesComputerised physician order entry (CPOE) systems facilitate the review of medication orders by pharmacists. Reports have emerged that show conception flaws or the misuse of CPOE systems generate prescribing errors. We aimed to characterise pharmacist interventions (PIs) triggered by prescribing errors identified as system-related errors (PISREs) in French hospitals.DesignThis was a cross-sectional observational study based on PIs prospectively documented in the Act-IP observatory database from January 2014 to December 2018.SettingPISREs from 319 French computerised healthcare facilities were analysed.ParticipantsAmong the 319 French hospitals, 232 (72.7%) performed SRE interventions, involving 652 (51%) pharmacists.ResultsAmong the 331 678 PIs recorded, 27 058 were qualified as due to SREs (8.2%). The main drug-related problems associated with PISREs were supratherapeutic (27.5%) and subtherapeutic dosage (17.2%), non-conformity with guidelines/contraindications (22.4%) and improper administration (17.9%). The PI prescriber acceptation rate was 78.9% for SREs vs 67.6% for other types of errors. The PISRE ratio was estimated relative to the total number of PIs. Concerning the certification status of CPOE systems, the PISRE ratio was 9.4% for non-certified systems vs 5.5% for certified systems (pConclusionComputer-related prescribing errors are common. The PI acceptance rate by prescribers was higher than that observed for PIs that were not CPOE related. This suggests that physicians consider the potential clinical consequences of SREs for patients to be more frequently serious than interventions unrelated to CPOE. CPOE medication review requires continual pharmacist diligence to catch these errors. The significantly lower PISRE ratio for certified software should prompt patient safety agencies to undertake studies to identify the safest software and discard software that is potentially dangerous.

International audience; This article presents an original multi-scale simulation approach, enabling to rigorously compute the far-field radiation from emerging halide perovskite light-emitting diodes integrating a metasurface active layer, and subsequently to evaluate its impact on the propagation channel characteristics at the scale of an indoor environment, both in terms of coverage and time dispersion. Our results show that the high versatility of the metasurface design parameters allows the outage probability to be divided up to a factor 2 without degrading the temporal dispersion of the optical channel in visible light communication scenarios.

Attentional control refers to the ability to maintain and implement a goal and goal-relevant information when facing distraction. So far, previous research has failed to substantiate strong evidence for a psychometric construct of attentional control. This has been argued to result from two methodological shortcomings: (a) the neglect of individual differences in speed-accuracy trade-offs when only speed or accuracy is used as dependent variable, and (b) the difficulty of isolating attentional control from measurement error. To overcome both issues, we combined hierarchical-Bayesian Wiener diffusion modeling with structural equation modeling. We re-analyzed the dataset from Rey-Mermet, Gade, and Oberauer (2018), which includes data from a large set of attentional-control tasks from young and older adults. Even when accounting for speed-accuracy trade-offs and removing measurement error, measures of attentional control failed to correlate with each other and to load on a latent variable. These results emphasize the necessity of rethinking attentional control.

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International audience; Despite the expressed desire for 'evidence based policy', especially in the environmental field, many policies seem to ignore available knowledge and to put aside scientific evidence. The science-policy interface, therefore, has abundant examples showing that knowledge production and decisionmaking processes should be analysed together. In this regard, we address the question of how biodiversity scientists could participate in social and political negotiation so that scientific biodiversity knowledge becomes evidence. We use the use of Bti for mosquito control in the Camargue, South of France, as an empirical case study to examine the place of biodiversity in the decision-making process and the role of scientists supporting biodiversity conservation. We demonstrate that to become evidence, scientific knowledge has to be widely adopted by stakeholders. In that context, biodiversity scientists have to keep demonstrating impacts on biodiversity to maintain the controversy opened. They also have to propose and eventually test alternative solutions. Combining actor-network theory and strategic analysis, our approach encourages social scientists to adopt casebased long-term field studies to contribute to reflections by biodiversity scientists as they struggle to make their work impact biodiversity policy.

We propose a face detection method for semi-automatic annotation of faces on pre-modern Japanese artworks to assist art historians identify objects in the art collection. Our method is based on R-CNN, such as Faster R-CNN and Cascade R-CNN, for object detection, and image patching for taking advantage of high resolution images. Our face detectors were first trained on the KaoKore dataset to demonstrate that existing object detection models with image patching can successfully learn faces in artworks. Our face detectors were then applied to the Kouhon dataset to assist art historians create a new facial expression dataset. Finally the impact of face detection on art history research was measured by the reduction of annotation time, and it was estimated to be $1/3$ in comparison to fully manualdiscussed as the reduction of annotation time to $1/3$ in comparison to fully manual annotation.

International audience; Businesses are increasingly called upon to contribute to efforts to protect biodiversity and natural capital. Our article presents the results of an action research conducted with a major company in the environmental sector that has been experimenting with innovative services dedicated to ecosystem management. We show the specific organizational and social challenges the company faced in upscaling this strategy due to its path dependency to its historical value creation model, and to the collective action issues that characterize biodiversity management. We introduce a new interdisciplinary theoretical framework for the development of what we refer to as “business models for ecosystem management services,” defined by the very central place they give to the achievement of measurable biodiversity performances. We then propose four such new business models designed through participatory methods that combine in a unique way a corporate value creation model with an ecological value cocreation model at the ecosystem level.

Working memory (WM) is a system for maintenance of and access to a limited number of goal-relevant representations in the service of higher cognition. Because of its limited capacity, WM requires interference-control processes, allowing us to avoid being distracted by irrelevant information. Recent research has proposed two interference-control processes, which are conceptually similar: (1) an active, item-wise removal process assumed to remove no-longer relevant information from WM, and (2) an inhibitory process assumed to suppress the activation of distractors against competing, goal-relevant representations. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which removal and inhibition are the same construct. Results showed acceptable to good reliabilities for nearly all measures. Similar to previous studies, a structural equation modeling approach identified a reliable latent variable of removal. However, also similar to some previous studies, no latent variable of inhibition could be established. This was the case even when the correlation matrix used to compute the latent variable of inhibition was disattenuated for imperfect reliability. Critically, the individual measures of inhibition were unrelated to the latent variable of removal. These results provide tentative support for the notion that removal is not an inhibitory process. This suggests that the removal process should be conceptualized as a process independent of inhibition, as proposed in computational WM models that implement removal as the “unbinding” of a WM item from the context in which it occurred.

Advanced nodes require tighter and tighter overlay control to secure products yield. Market like automotive one are even more demanding on “overlay reliability” till the extreme edge of wafers. High order models including Correction per Exposure capabilities are now introduced on the most critical immersion layers to put extra correction on the edge of wafers scanner fields. To ensure a correction model able to bring back these fields under overlay specification, the understanding of key process/equipment parameters to be put under control is needed. In this paper, choices done in term of overlay and Run to Run model will be discussed. On tools aspects, scanner table clean frequency impact and etch chambers variability will be addressed. In addition, etch recipe can modulate this etch chamber effect. The paper will conclude on the compromise to face in order to better correct and control overlay at the Edge of Wafer with the current Litho/Etch tools capabilities and R2R model strategy, at an acceptable cost (tool efficiency) and effort (rework, R2R complexity, …)

We present a light sheet fluorescence microscope dedicated to image “Organ-on-chip”-like biostructures in microfluidic chip. Based on a simple design, the setup is built around the chip and its environment to allow 3D imaging inside the chip in a microfluidic laboratory. The experimental setup, its optical characterization and first volumetric images are reported.

Updated information on the spatial distribution of mangrove forests is of high importance for management plans. Yet, access to mangrove distribution maps is limited, even-though remote sensing data is currently freely available and deep learning algorithms score high performances in automatic classification tasks. The methodologies developed in this paper are based on a deep convolutional neural network and have been tested on WorldView 2 and Sentinel-2 images. The obtained results are highly satisfactory and open perspectives for automatically mapping mangrove distribution over large areas.

Voltage Source Converters (VSCs) can offer various control strategies to enable realization of the vision of a “Global Grid With the increasing penetration of renewable energy sources, it is becoming more frequent for VSCs to be required to provide active and reactive power regulation. In this paper, a model of a grid-supporting VSC connected to a weak AC grid with low Short Circuit Capacity (SCC) and low inertia is presented. The impact of SCC and inertia is then illustrated by means of small-signal stability, $H_{2}$ norm and large-disturbance analysis.

International audience; The etching of semiconductors and metals by a photonic jet (PJ) generated with a shaped optical ber tip is studied. Etched marks with a diameter of 1 micron have been realized on silicon, stainless steel and titanium with a 35 kHz pulsed laser, emitting 100 ns pulses at 1064 nm. The selection criteria of the ber and its tip are discussed. We show that a 100/140 silica ber is a good compromise which takes into account the injection, the working distance and the energy coupled in the higherorder modes. The energy balance is performed on the basis of the known ablation threshold of the material. Finally, the dependence between the etching depth and the number of pulses is studied. Saturation is observed probably due to a redeposition of the etched material, showing that a higher pulse energy is required for deeper etchings.

The nature and the varying levels of the engagement of participants with a crisis management exercise still cannot be described properly by the usual evaluation tools of the users’ experiences nor does the application of the concept of flow help either.

Beyond what are characterized as Special Populations in U.S. FDA regulatory considerations is vulnerability of patient populations in a broader context of international guidance. Such a review suggests a rich appreciation for the diversity of patients. Vulnerable patients' status and the associated patient protections are of growing interest in the clinical research environment. To participate in the current developments and reflections, we selected 12 international & recognized core documents that are discussing human research protections and identify all references to them pertinent to Vulnerables. This allows the identification of 15 different categories of Vulnerability, that we group in five kinds of challenges. We then map significant regulatory and ethical interpretations and their implications toward applying what Vulnerability constitutes for the stakeholder ecosystem and its evolving direction as part of the overall protection for patients, defined as a "chain of protection." Different levels of understanding are proposed: Who are vulnerable (a 'macro'-mapping), what is Vulnerability (a 'meso'-mapping) leading to applications with practical questions (a 'micro'-mapping). We offer this analysis and mapping for practical benefit to a range of stakeholders with staffs whose functional responsibilities indirectly or directly essentially touch the broad spectrum of involvement with patients. The practical application is for multi-stakeholder consideration of patients-as-subjects in research, especially for Sites and Ethics Committees/IRBs, given the extended efforts of "patient-centricity"-the 'how's' and 'what's' of including patients in the clinical research process from discovery to RWE and its implications. Also considered is the value of education and training purposes on the true diversity of patients so that sensitivity to such matters from protocol development through informed consent and privacy protections are taken into account in the era of "new science," technological advances, and expansion of clinical research investigators, patient populations, and types of non-traditional research sites.

Resonant acoustic modes of ultrathin CdS and CdSe colloidal nanoplatelets (NPLs) with varying thicknesses were probed using low frequency Raman scattering. The spectra are dominated by an intense band ascribed to the thickness breathing mode of the 2D nanostructures. The measured Raman frequencies show strong deviations with respect to the values expected for simple bare plates, all the more so as the thickness is reduced. The deviation is shown to arise from the additional mass of the organic ligands that are bound to the free surfaces of the nanoplatelets. The calculated eigen frequencies of vibrating platelets weighed down by the mass of the organic ligands are in very good agreement with the observed experimental behaviours. This finding opens up a new possibility of nanomechanical sensing such as nanobalances.

Titanium parts are produced by the “Solvent on granules 3D-Printing” technique (SG-3DP). Angular Titanium Hydride powders are used. A special purpose table-top machine, designed and built in a previous development, is used to print green parts, which are subsequently debinded, dehydrided and sintered in a muffle furnace. Porous electrode plates are produced with and without hole grids. The parts exhibit good shape preservation, with open interconnected porosities between 55 and 59%. The microstructure is characterized by optical metallography and scanning electron microscopy. In addition, experimental watch cases have been successfully printed and sintered. The results show the feasibility of using hydride powder for 3D-Printing of complex parts with good shape preservation.

Hydropower remains a key renewable energy source in the pursuit of the decarbonization of the economy, although the relatively high potential impact of the hydro-morphological alterations it may cause poses significant concerns for aquatic ecosystems. In the last years, new technologies and practices have been increasingly adopted to minimize the impacts of hydropower plants, while improving efficiency and flexibility of energy generation. The overall effect of these innovations may be a more sustainable design and operation of hydropower, striking a better balance between the objectives of decarbonization and ecosystem protection. This contribution presents and discusses a few representative examples of hydropower installations from companies in Italy, France, Switzerland, Belgium and the USA, where solutions have been adopted in this direction. The case studies cover (1) ecologically improved and low head hydropower converters (Vortex turbine, Hydrostatic Pressure Machine, VLH and Girard-optimized turbines, hydrokinetic turbines), hydropeaking reduction (2) new control systems, governors and digitalization, (3) hydropower as a strategy for local sustainable development and (4) energy recovery in existing hydraulic infrastructures and aqueducts. It was found that better-governing systems can extend the life span of runners, for example avoiding the runner uplift during a trip. Digitalization can improve efficiency by 1.2%. New sustainable practices and turbines with better ecological behavior can minimize environmental impacts, like the reduction of fish mortality, improvement of fish habitat availability, reduction of oil for lubrication purposes and generation of economic incomes for local development. The use of existing structures reduces the total installation cost: examples are the total saving of 277 €/kW by reusing irrigation pipes and reservoirs, or the reduction of the investment period from 9 years to 6 years by turbining the environmental flow. Innovative low head hydropower converters can exhibit good ecological behavior, with reduced costs (

In Switzerland, most of the hydro power plants were installed between 1950 and 1970. These power plants play an important role for electrical power network stability through their operational flexibility and ability to provide ancillary services. These services lead to frequent start and stop sequences, as well as continuous power variations inducing transient pressures in the water conduits. Due to electricity market recent evolutions, existing hydropower plants are subject to new operating conditions and sequences which were not foreseen during the design phase. This significant increase of load variations enhances fatigue problems by soliciting the penstock faster than originally expected. While loading spectra are the fundamental input for any fatigue assessment procedure, they are often difficult, if not impossible, to quantify accurately. In this paper, we present how the implementation of a digital clone of the power plant, namely the Hydro-Clone real-time simulation monitoring system, can be used to fill this gap. By replicating the hydraulic transients of the powerplant, the digital clone enables real-time knowledge of the pressure variations throughout the water conduits. This feature is used to implement a fatigue module in Hydro-Clone by monitoring the penstock level of solicitation, based on the accumulated damage during its past and future operations. To validate this approach, stresses related to pressure variations are measured in situ by installing strain gages on the penstock of the 200 MW La Bâtiaz hydropower plant, owned by Electricité d’Emosson SA, and compared to the simulated values. Our results reveal the considerable impact of the supply of ancillary services on penstock fatigue wear.

Environmental NGOs confront a dual challenge: managing an organisation and acting to address specific environmental issues. For this, they need coherent and relevant strategies. Concepts and perspectives from the disciplinary field of strategy in management can contribute if they are reworked in view of the specificities of environmental NGOs. Based on research in strategic environmental management analysis, strategic reasoning is advocated that starts from the environmental problem to be solved and moves from there to action strategies and thence to the actors that can perform them. This approach makes it possible to move beyond public-policy-centred approaches to environmental problems. It broadens the focus of strategic design for an NGO to encompass its place and role in the environmental sector. As a management and design approach, it adopts an ex ante perspective on the strategic challenges of NGOs that complements the ex post perspectives of sociology and history.

A photonic nanojet is a highly concentrated laser beam observed in the vicinity of dielectric micro-objects such as glass micro-spheres. Thanks to the concentration of the beam beyond the diffraction limit, giving a spot with a width smaller than a half-wavelength, the incident power density can be multiplied by a factor larger than 200. Photonic jet obtained with microspheres has been applied successfully to material ablation. It has been demonstrated that the ablation on metal or glass can have a half-wavelength width using a common infrared nanosecond pulse laser. However, the spheres in contact with the sample are difficult to move to achieve an industrial process and are disturbed by the removed material at the beginning of the process. Recently we have shown that photonic nanojet obtained in the vicinity of shaped optical fiber tip is an alternative to overcome these limitations. Sub-micron etchings have been obtained on metals, semiconductors and ITO using multimode optical fibers with a numerically designed shaped tip. The possibility to perform not only ablation, but also to generate self-organized micro-peaks, has also been experimentally demonstrated. Besides the small size of the processed area, our talk will focus on the low energy required for material removal. Due to the high energy concentration, the required energy to ablate is already 20 times smaller than in a classical process. Finally, we will show how the energy coupling in the fiber is a parameter as important as the tip shape to decrease the energy required to reach ablation.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose a new ecological-issues-centered accounting research agenda, at the crossroads of accounting research and conservation science. Design/methodology/approach Based on a case study of the Natural Capital Project, the research examines the efforts and challenges of conservation practitioners regarding the use of evaluative information systems for conservation (EISC) in complex social and ecological contexts. It discusses why and how, to address these challenges, EISC promoters would benefit from theoretical and empirical insights coming from accounting research. Findings The paper suggests that the use of new information systems centered on organized collective action for biodiversity conservation should be regarded as a new type of accounting for the management of ecosystems, complementary to organization-centered biodiversity accounting and to ecosystem accounting at the national scale. A research agenda inspired by critical accounting should be developed for EISC design and use by: critically analyzing the organizational models currently underlying the use of new calculative practices for ecosystems; and developing new analytical and practical avenues on the basis of more explicit and powerful theories adapted to collective action for conservation perimeters. Originality/value The paper shows the importance of combining three domains of research and practice that are usually disconnected: the design and use of innovative information systems in biodiversity conservation research and practice; accounting research; and theories and conceptual models of collective action to resolve ecological challenges.

This chapter proposes a more direct way of thinking the link between tourism and gentrification which turns tourists into gentrifiers due to the new short-term rental market. It argues that short-term rentals must be considered as a new segment of the housing market, which tightly interacts with more classic segments such as long-term rentals. The chapter also argues that the emergence of this new real estate market fuels a direct form of tourism gentrification. Analysing the link between the expansion of Airbnb and the evolution of the real estate market is particularly interesting in the case of Reykjavik, because it happened against the backdrop of the economic crisis which has had considerable effects on real estate values. The Icelandic real estate market is the mirror image of the economic fluctuations of the country. Indeed, the economic boom of this 'Nordic Tiger' in the 2000s relied partially on the building sector, whose expansion led to a strong and rapid urban sprawl.

International audience; The onset of the sintering of 5 nm ZrO2 and TiO2 nanoparticles is investigated by various methods including inelastic light scattering. A special attention is paid to low-frequency Raman spectra where scattering from confined acoustic vibrations and quasielastic scattering manifest. Significant changes are observed between samples sintered at different temperatures or applied forces. A detailed analysis of the spectra enables to follow the variation of the size of the nanoparticles, the surface area, and the formation of internanoparticles necks in the sintered materials. Finally, low-frequency scattering is shown to be more sensitive to the onset of sintering than most other experimental methods.

International audience; Technological transitions in the maritime and port industries go along with increased transport and economic efficiency, resulting in faster movements and longer travelled distances. Yet, such transformations may also enhance disparities between winners and loosers, should they be ports or shipping companies. This research focuses on the particular case of the transition from sail to steam over the period 1890-1925, which witnesses the rapid replacement of sailing vessels, the latter concentrating 65% of the world fleet in 1890 but only 3.5% in 1925. It applies a variety of measures to compare how these two layers overlap in the network (at links and ports) and what is their respective architecture in terms of cargo concentration, geographic distribution, and topological structure. Main results show very distinct patterns and evolutions affecting each fleet and its movements across the globe. Steam shipping, more recent and booming, appears to be more concentrated and hierarchically organized than sail shipping, while the two layers are less and less overlapped in space as the second replaces the first.

A new gel formulation containing loteprednol etabonate (LE), a C-20 ester corticosteroid used to treat ocular inflammation, was developed to provide increased retention on the ocular surface for improved drug delivery to intraocular tissues. This investigation evaluated concentrations of LE in tear fluid following topical instillation of LE gel to humans and the ocular and systemic pharmacokinetics of LE following administration to rabbits.LE ophthalmic gel 0.5% was administered as a single topical dose to human volunteers (n=12) and Dutch Belted rabbits (n=40). In the human study, tear sampling was performed at 6, 9, 12, and 24 h after instillation. In the rabbit study, tears and ocular tissues were collected from 5 min through 24 h postdose. Serial blood samples were collected from one cohort of rabbits for plasma analysis. Concentrations of LE were determined by high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry.In humans, LE was detected in tears at all the time points assessed with mean concentrations of 114 μg/g at 6 h declining to 2.41 μg/g at 24 h postdose. In rabbits, LE was detected in all ocular tissues within 5 min after dosing. Maximum concentrations of LE were achieved within 0.5 h and were highest in tear fluid (1560 μg/g), followed by bulbar conjunctiva (4.03 μg/g), cornea, (2.18 μg/g), iris/ciliary body (0.162 μg/g), and aqueous humor (0.0138 μg/mL). LE remained measurable in all ocular tissues through 24 h with the exception of aqueous humor. In contrast, plasma levels of LE were low with no detectable levels after 4 h.The gel formulation of LE provided prolonged exposure to LE on the ocular surface, with measurable levels in tears through 24 h in both humans and rabbits, for delivery of LE to anterior segment tissues, as evidenced by sustained levels of LE in rabbit conjunctiva, cornea, and iris/ciliary body.

Summary: A major challenge in cancer research is the complexity of the tumor microenvironment, which includes the host immunological setting. Inspired by the emerging technology of organ-on-chip, we achieved 3D co-cultures in microfluidic devices (integrating four cell populations: cancer, immune, endothelial, and fibroblasts) to reconstitute ex vivo a human tumor ecosystem (HER2+ breast cancer). We visualized and quantified the complex dynamics of this tumor-on-chip, in the absence or in the presence of the drug trastuzumab (Herceptin), a targeted antibody therapy directed against the HER2 receptor. We uncovered the capacity of the drug trastuzumab to specifically promote long cancer-immune interactions (>50 min), recapitulating an anti-tumoral ADCC (antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity) immune response. Cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) antagonized the effects of trastuzumab. These observations constitute a proof of concept that tumors-on-chip are powerful platforms to study ex vivo immunocompetent tumor microenvironments, to characterize ecosystem-level drug responses, and to dissect the roles of stromal components. : Inspired by the emerging technology of tumor-on-chip, Nguyen et al. reconstituted ex vivo a human tumor microenvironment (HER2+ breast cancer), characterized the ecosystem-level responses to the drug trastuzumab (Herceptin), and dissected the roles of stromal components (immune cells and fibroblasts), demonstrating the power of immunocompetent tumors-on-chip for preclinical drug studies. Keywords: tumor microenvironment, organ-on-chip, tumor-on-chip, trastuzumab, HER2+ breast cancer, cancer-associated fibroblasts, live cell imaging, microfluidics, pre-clinical models, immunotherapy

International audience; Environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) are major operators of conservation initiatives both in the political sphere and in the field. The context within which they operate can change rapidly and dramatically. As a result, they need to plan new strategies, and do so by taking up the challenges of strategic design like any institutionalised organization. However, the specific characteristics and situations of ENGOs call for new, relevant approaches to strategic analysis and design. Based on successive cycles of case studies and conceptual work drawing on the biodiversity and strategic management literatures, the present paper proposes a new framework to articulate four fundamental dimensions of ENGOs’ strategy: the choice of goals in terms of ecological priorities; the choice of how to act and press for change; the development of capacity (i.e. organization, internal governance and resources); and finally, a strategy to manage an often ambivalent mix of competition and cooperation with other ENGOs. The value of the framework is illustrated here by a case study of the French NGO ‘Humanité et Biodiversité’ (mankind and biodiversity), with dramatic changes in strategy to match and major strategic organizational challenges to be identified and resolved.

We have considered in this work the Wilhelmy plate tensiometer to characterize the wetting properties of two model surface textures: (i) a series of three superhydrophobic micropillared surfaces and (ii) a series of two highly water-repellent surfaces microtextured with a femtosecond laser. The wetting forces obtained on these surfaces with the Wilhelmy plate technique were compared to the contact angles of water droplets measured with the sessile drop technique and to the bouncing behavior of water droplets recorded at a high frame rate. We showed that it is possible with this technique to directly measure triple-line anchoring forces that are not accessible with the commonly used sessile drop technique. In addition, we have demonstrated on the basis of the bouncing drop experiments wetting transitions induced by the specific test conditions associated with the Wilhelmy plate tensiometer for the two series of textured surfaces. Finally, the tensiometer technique is proposed as an alternative test for characterizing the wetting properties of highly liquid-repellent surface, especially under immersion conditions.

International audience; We demonstrate that photonic jets (PJs) can be obtained in the vicinity of a shaped optical fiber and that they can be used to achieve subwavelength etchings. Only 10% of the power of a 30 W, 100 ns, near-infrared (1064 nm) Nd:YAG laser, commonly used for industrial laser processing, has been required. Etchings on a silicon wafer with a lateral feature size close to half-laser wavelength have been achieved using a shaped-tip optical fiber. This breakthrough has been carried out in ambient air by using a multimode 100/140 μm silica fiber with a shaped tip that generates a concentrated beam at their vicinity, a phenomenon referred to as a PJ, obtained for the first time without using microspheres. PJ achieved with a fiber tip, easier to manipulate, opens far-reaching benefits for all PJ applications. The roles of parameters such as laser fluence, tip shape, and mode excitation are discussed. A good correlation has been observed between the computed PJ intensity distribution and the etched marks' sizes.

International audience; This paper presents an explorative study on the machining of diffractive optical elements (DOEs) in transparent materials using a femtosecond laser source. A simple form of DOE, a binary phase grating with a period of 20.85 μm (σ = 0.5 μm), a groove depth and width of 0.7 μm (σ = 0.2 μm) and 8.8 μm (σ = 0.5 μm) respectively, was successfully machined in BK7. The topographic characteristics were measured by white light interferometry and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The processing was carried out on high precision stages with an ultrafast fibre laser (350 fs) emitting a 343 nm pulse focused onto the sample with a stationary microscope objective. A diffracted efficiency of 27%, obtained with a spectro goniometer, was corroborated by the theoretical results obtained by the Fourier modal method (FMM), taking into account the measured topographic values. These encouraging results demonstrate that high-speed femtosecond laser manufacturing of DOE in bulk glasses can be achieved, opening the way to rapid prototyping of multi-layered-DOEs.

In this work, stainless steel samples have been textured by a simple and fast one-step laser process. The particularity of this process is the use of an ultrashort pulsed laser technology, combining a high power pulses at high repetition rate. An improved productivity can thus be considered. Successive ablations by IR laser pulses allow to generate dual-scale surface structures. Hierarchical structures, composed of micro-hills on which are superimposed periodic nano-ripples, have been produced at the repetition rate of 50 kHz, by a repeated irradiation of a crossed pattern of parallel lines. In order to increase the process throughput, repetition rates of 100, 250 and 500 kHz have been tested. After an adaptation of the process parameters, topographies with the same dimensions of structures have been created. The presence of these structures modifies the wetting properties of the material. Immediately after laser irradiation the surface becomes hydrophilic; however this wetting state evolves to become superhydrophobic with contact angles higher than 160° and water droplets unable to adhere to the surface. The temporal evolution of the wettability results from the combination of the surface roughness and the chemical composition of this surface. The modeling of the wetting behavior of water droplet, deposited on grooves structures, shows the enhancement of the initial wettability of the surface.In this work, stainless steel samples have been textured by a simple and fast one-step laser process. The particularity of this process is the use of an ultrashort pulsed laser technology, combining a high power pulses at high repetition rate. An improved productivity can thus be considered. Successive ablations by IR laser pulses allow to generate dual-scale surface structures. Hierarchical structures, composed of micro-hills on which are superimposed periodic nano-ripples, have been produced at the repetition rate of 50 kHz, by a repeated irradiation of a crossed pattern of parallel lines. In order to increase the process throughput, repetition rates of 100, 250 and 500 kHz have been tested. After an adaptation of the process parameters, topographies with the same dimensions of structures have been created. The presence of these structures modifies the wetting properties of the material. Immediately after laser irradiation the surface becomes hydrophilic; however this wetting state evolves to become sup...

International audience; In contemporary contexts of complex, integrated policies, it has become ever more essential to assess whether environmental political commitments are effectively implemented. Endeavouring to find out, the evaluator finds himself ‘‘on-board’’: committed to one problematic, under strategic pressure, caught between paperwork and field investigation and looking for markers in ever changing situations and discourses. Based on evaluative research on environmental management programs in an arid region, the Senegal River valley, this paper reviews the pitfalls the evaluator has to confront, the successive deconstruction, reconstruction and assessment phases the evaluation has to go through, and proposes an ‘‘on-board’’ framework evaluation to prevent blurring of the environmental bottom-line.; Dans un contexte ou les politiques, projets et programmes de gestion de l’environnement se présentent comme des dispositifs de plus en plus complexes, il devient essentiel de s’assurer que les engagements environnementaux qui ont et e pris sont effectivement mis en œuvre. Pour cela, l’article propose une approche d’évaluation stratégique relative – un système embarqué d’aide au pilotage – qui permet d’évaluer l’efficacité environnementale des dispositifs de gestion mis en œuvre. Base sur une recherche évaluative des programmes de gestion de l’environnement dans la vallée du fleuve Sénégal, zone où les enjeux de lutte contre la désertification sont majeurs, l’article présente les pièges auxquels l’évaluateur est confronté, les principales étapes du système d’évaluation par lesquelles il doit passer, et propose une grille d’évaluation « embarquée » qui permet de voir si les objectifs environnementaux sont atteints et sinon d’évaluer dans quelle mesure les dispositifs s’en écartent.

Thin film polycrystalline silicon films grown on glass substrate were irradiated with an infrared continuous wave laser for defects annealing and/or dopants activation. The samples were uniformly scanned using an attachment with the laser system. Substrate temperature, scan speed and laser power were varied to find suitable laser annealing conditions. The Raman spectroscopy and Suns-V oc analysis were carried out to qualify the films quality after laser annealing. A maximum enhancement of the open circuit voltage V oc of about 100 mV is obtained after laser annealing of as-grown polysilicon structures. A strong correlation was found between the full width half maximum of the Si crystalline peak and V oc. It is interpreted as due to defects annealing as well as to dopants activation in the absorbing silicon layer. The maximum V oc reached is 485 mV after laser treatment and plasma hydrogenation, thanks to defects passivation.

PURPOSE: To determine whether oral supplementation with omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids can reduce conjunctival epithelium expression of the inflammatory marker human leucocyte antigen-DR (HLA-DR) in patients with dry eye syndrome (DES). METHODS: This 3-month, double-masked, parallel-group, controlled study was conducted in nine centres, in France and Italy. Eligible adult patients with mild to moderate DES were randomized to receive a placebo containing medium-chain triglycerides or treatment supplement containing omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, vitamins and zinc. Treatment regimen was three capsules daily. Impression cytology (IC) was performed at baseline and at month 3 to assess the percentage of cells expressing HLA-DR and to evaluate fluorescence intensity, an alternate measure of HLA-DR. Dry eye symptoms and objective signs were also evaluated. Analyses were performed on the full analysis set (FAS) and per-protocol set (PPS). RESULTS: In total, 138 patients were randomized; 121 patients with available IC were included in the FAS, and of these, 106 patients had no major protocol deviations (PPS). In the PPS, there was a significant reduction in the percentage of HLA-DR-positive cells in the fatty acids group (p = 0.021). Expression of HLA-DR as measured by fluorescence intensity quantification was also significantly reduced in the fatty acids group [FAS (p = 0.041); PPS (p = 0.017)]. No significant difference was found for the signs and symptoms, but there was a tendency for improvement in patients receiving the fatty acids treatment. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates that supplementation with omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids can reduce expression of HLA-DR conjunctival inflammatory marker and may help improve DES symptoms.

Resume Introduction La polyendocrinopathie auto-immune de type 1, ou syndrome APECED, est une maladie genetique rare liee a des mutations du gene AIRE. Nous rapportons le cas d’une patiente atteinte de ce syndrome. Observation Une jeune fille de 18 ans, nee de parents consanguins, etait adressee en consultation de dermatologie pour prise en charge d’une pelade. L’examen cutane mettait egalement en evidence une dystrophie ungueale, des anomalies de l’email dentaire et une perleche bilaterale. Elle avait des antecedents d’insuffisance surrenalienne, d’hypoparathyroidie, d’ovarite auto-immune et de maladie de Biermer ; elle presentait aussi depuis l’enfance des episodes recidivants de candidose cutaneomuqueuse. La patiente etait donc atteinte d’un syndrome APECED, caracterise par une polyendocrinopathie auto-immune, une candidose chronique et des anomalies cutaneophaneriennes. L’etude genetique mettait en evidence une mutation c.769C>T a l’etat homozygote dans l’exon 6 du gene AIRE. Discussion Le syndrome APECED est une maladie genetique rare, grave, de transmission autosomique recessive, a laquelle il faut penser devant des episodes infectieux candidosiques cutaneomuqueux recidivants chez l’enfant. La prise en charge est difficile, pluridisciplinaire ; elle repose sur l’education des patients et de l’enfant, des supplementations hormonales et un traitement antimycosique systemique au long cours.

BACKGROUND: The course of biological therapy (BT) in clinical practice may differ markedly from treatment schedules in clinical trials. Treatment modifications and patient characteristics can affect treatment safety and efficacy. In addition, long-term results concerning the use of BT in clinical practice are lacking. OBJECTIVES: To report our experience of BT in terms of short- and long-term efficacy and safety. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The retrospectively analysed cohort consisted of psoriasis patients receiving BT between 2004 and 2008. Patients in clinical trials were excluded. Mean body surface area (BSA) and Dermatology Life Quality Index were recorded. RESULTS: Fifty-eight patients undergoing 86 courses of BT were enrolled. Thirty-three patients were treated with efalizumab, 21 with infliximab and 32 with etanercept. During the study period, 40% of patients were switched to another BT. The number of patients attaining BSA-75 at 3and 6months respectively was 38% and 75% for efalizumab, 62% and 61% for infliximab, and 36% and 61% for etanercept. After 24months of follow-up, only 33% of patients (34% of patients with efalizumab, 52% with infliximab and 22% with etanercept) were still following their initial BT, with treatment being discontinued in 52% of patients due to adverse events or treatment failure. DISCUSSION: Our study confirms the efficacy and feasibility of BT in clinical practice. However, the high frequency of BT discontinuation for adverse events or non-response led to sequential therapy using different biological treatments.

The weak point for Insulated-Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT) modules in terms of reliability is thermal fatigue in solder joints due to the thermal stress induced by constitutive materials with different coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE). Now, many researches aimed to define accurate finite element simulation with constitutive equations of material behavior and fatigue failure relation connecting the inelastic strain and the number of cycles before failure. Even when these relations are clearly identified, the validation of the finite element model is difficult due to the scatter of input data. In fact, fatigue life of solder joints strongly depends on geometric shape, solders behavior (due to the process) and applied load. The aim of this article is to estimate the probability of failure of power module with structural reliability methods by considering geometric, material and loading variables as random variables. Since in a non-linear context, the finite element calls are expensive in terms of computer run time, an FE strategy is proposed here to replace conventional 3D mesh of layer by 3D-shell. To reduce computation time, response surface method, which approximates the output strain with respect to input random variable (RV) with the design of experiment (DOE) procedure, is used to perform reliability analysis. This reponse surface allows at the end to perform Monte Carlo random simulation process for fitting Weibull and fatigue life distribution on the output inelastic strain.

In order to set up the precision limit that can be reached with laser-induced breakdown spectrometry microprobe, a steel sample was scanned by using a 6-µm diameter spot. Besides being close to the limit of the technique, such a spot diameter resulted in a small plasma size that minimized self-absorption effects. To minimize shot noise, Cr and Fe were used as test elements because of their high contents. Scan consisted of 25 successive matrices formed by 5 × 6 shots, i.e. a total of 750 shots. Results were studied as a whole, as well as between matrices and within matrices, to search for inhomogeneity, outliers and drift. Except a few outliers, the main contribution in the experimental RSD was the drift either within a matrix or between matrices. Drift attributed to laser warm up could be compensated for either by using a polynomial fitting or by using the other element. %RSD significantly below 2 were then obtained demonstrating that there is no penalty in terms of precision to perform laser microprobe using a series of single shots.

Definition of cerebral palsy (CP) has become more precise in recent years and, even if CP remains an umbrella term, a simple classification system for CP types has been proposed. CP is the commonest motor impairment in childhood. New validated motor scales for gross and fine motor functions describe a third of children with CP as severely impaired. Children with CP may also have associated impairments, other than motor, that deserve particular attention and support at school and work, and which are responsible for lower survival rates. The prevalence of CP, 2 per 1000 children, has remained remarkably stable over the last 30 years, particularly for term children who represent half of all children with CP. However, recently, a consistent downward trend has been seen in moderately and very low birth weight children. Prevention measures still seems difficult to define since CP is the result of multifactorial events. Decreasing multiple births and specific health actions during early infancy may have an impact. Followup programmes have been implemented to assess how the consequences of CP are best reduced.

As for railway traction applications, aeronautical power electronics implies high power density handling. Moreover typical aeronautical applications impose a harsh thermal environment. SiC technology has recently emerged for high power and high temperature application, but is not yet mature enough. Consequently it is still important to push the silicon devices temperature limits in order to increase the amount of switched power. Device ageing is accelerated and there exists the risk of catastrophic failure by thermal runaway. In order to design correctly high temperature power systems, knowing the IGBT characteristics at extended temperature ranges becomes essential. This paper describes an experimental setup and test procedure conceived to experiment with different available IGBT technologies at temperatures beyond the limits rated by manufacturers (−55 °C, +175 °C). The aim is to characterize the devices for a better understanding and optimized safe application. This will ease prototyping for future development of IGBT modules in aircraft.

5 páginas, 8 figuras., This work reports two different characteristic patterns detected in IGBT chips failed in real operation (railway application) by failure analysis procedures. The analysed chips have been recovered from the rheostatic chopper leg and from the three legs which supplies the traction motor. It is observed that depending on the location and characteristics of the detected default (burn-out spot), this failure can be attributed to a latch-up process or a secondary breakdown mechanism. These results are corroborated with tests at limit, obtaining the same result. Consequently, each failure can be linked to overcurrent (latch-up) or overtemperature (secondary breakdown) events, which makes possible to distinguish between problems coming from driving strategies or thermal issues (uneven temperature distribution inside the module or packaging wear-out)., This work has been partially supported by the European project PORTES (Power Reliability for Traction Electronics, MTKI-CT-2004- 517224) and the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) (under contract ‘‘Junta para la Ampliación de Estudios”, JAE-Doc).