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International audience; The atomic-scale characterization of surface active sites on γ-alumina still represents a great challenge for numerous catalytic applications. Here, we combine advanced density functional theory (DFT) calculations with one- and two-dimensional proton solid-state NMR experiments to identify the exact location and the spatial proximity of hydroxyl groups on γ-alumina crystallites. Our approach relies on revisited models for the (100), (111), basal (110)b, and lateral (110)l facets of γ-alumina, as well as for the edges at their intersections. Notably, we show that the ≃0 ppm AlTd-μ1-OH protons are predominantly located on edges, where these are free from the H-bond network. The proximities among the AlTd-μ1-OH as well as with μ2-OH groups are revealed by 1H–1H dipolar correlation experiments and analyzed in the light of the DFT calculations, which identify their location on the basal (110)b facet and on the (110)b/(100) and (110)b/(110)l edges. Using chlorine atoms to probe the presence of hydroxyls, we show that the chlorination occurs selectively by exchanging μ1-OH located on edges and on lateral (110)l facets. By contrast, the basal (110)b and lateral (111) facets are not probed by Cl. This exchange explains the disappearance of the ≃0 ppm peak and of the correlations involving AlTd-μ1-OH species. Moreover, after chlorination, a deshielding of the AlTd is observed on high-resolution 27Al NMR spectra. More subtle effects are visible on the proton correlation spectra, which are attributed to the disruption of the H-bond network in the course of chlorination.

International audience; The synthesis of ionic liquids can generate large amounts of waste and use toxic or expensive raw materials. In this short review, we focused on one of the most promising pathways to large scale environment-friendly productions of ionic liquids. The “dialkylcarbonate route” has already allowed the preparation of more than one hundred original ion pairs, avoiding the use of pollutant alkylating agents and non-sustainable anion exchange materials, in a halide-free and water-free process.

International audience; The efficient capture of CO2 from flue gas ordirectly from the atmosphere is a key subject to mitigate globalwarming, with several chemical and physical absorption methodspreviously reported. Through polarizable molecular dynamics(MD) simulations and high-level quantum chemical (QC)calculations, the physical and chemical absorption of CO2 byionic liquids based on imidazolium cations bearing oxirane groupswas investigated. The ability of the imidazolium group to absorbCO2 was found to be prevalent in both the tri- and tetraepoxidizedimidazolium ionic liquids (ILs) with coordination numbers over 2for CO2 within the first solvation shell in both systems.Thermodynamic analysis of the addition of CO2 to convertepoxy groups to cyclic carbonates also indicated that the overall reaction is exergonic for all systems tested, allowing for chemicalabsorption of CO2 to also be favored. The rate-determining step of the chemical absorption involved the initial opening of the epoxyring through addition of the chloride anion and was seen to vary greatly between the epoxy groups tested. Among the groups tested,the less sterically hindered monoepoxy side of the triepoxidized imidazolium was shown to be uniquely capable of undergoingintramolecular hydrogen bonding and thus lowering the barrier required for the intermediate structure to form during the reaction.Overall, this theoretical investigation highlights the potential for epoxidized imidazolium chloride ionic liquids for simultaneouschemical and physical absorption of CO2.

We examine the educative role played by parents in social norm transmission. Using a field experiment, we study whether parents enforce and comply more with norms when their children are present compared to when they are not. We compare similar parents when or after they drop off or pick up their children at school. We find that parents accompanying children, in contrast to parents alone, are more likely to punish norm violators and to provide help to strangers when there is no violation. They also tend to substitute more direct punishment with withholding help as a means of indirect punishment.

International audience; Nacre, also called mother-of-pearl, is a naturally occurring biomineral, largely studied by chemists, structural biologists, and physicists to understand its outstanding and diverse properties. Nacre is constituted of aragonite nanograins surrounded by organic matrix, and it has been established that the organic matrix is responsible for initiating and guiding the biomineralization process. The first challenge to study the organic matrix of nacre lays in its separation from the biomineral. Several extraction methods have been developed so far. They are categorized as either strong (e.g., decalcification) or soft (e.g., water, ethanol) and they allow specific extractions of targeted compounds. The structure of the nacreous organic matrix is complex, and it provides interesting clues to describe the mineralization process. Proteins, sugars, lipids, peptides, and other molecules have been identified and their role in mineralization investigated. Moreover, the organic matrix of nacre has shown interesting properties for human health. Several studies are investigating its activity on bone mineralization and its properties for skin care. In this review, we focus on the organic constituents, as lipids, sugars, and small metabolites which are less studied since present in small quantities.

Collisions, resulting in aggregation of ice crystals in clouds, is an important step in the formation of snow aggregates. Here, we study the collision process by simulating spheroid-shaped particles settling in turbulent flows and by determining the probability of collision. We focus on platelike ice crystals (oblate ellipsoids), subject to gravity, and to the Stokes force and torque generated by the surrounding fluid. We also take into account the contributions to the drag and torque due to fluid inertia, which are essential to understand the tendency of crystals to settle with their largest dimension oriented horizontally. We determine the collision rate between identical crystals, of diameter 300 μm, with aspect ratios in the range 0.005 ≤ β ≤ 0.05, and over a range of energy dissipation per unit mass, ε, 1 ≤ ε ≤ 250 cm2 s−3. For all values of β studied, the collision rate increases with the turbulence intensity. The dependence on β is more subtle. Increasing β at low turbulence intensity () diminishes the collision rate, but increases it at higher ε ≈ 250 cm2 s−3. The observed behaviors can be understood as resulting from three main physical effects. First, the velocity gradients in a turbulent flow tend to bring particles together. In addition, differential settling plays a role at small ε when the particles are thin enough (β small), whereas the prevalence of particle inertia at higher ε leads to a strong enhancement of the collision rate.

We study non-parametric density estimation for densities in Lipschitz and Sobolev spaces, and under global privacy. In particular, we investigate regimes where the privacy budget is not supposed to be constant. We consider the classical definition of global differential privacy, but also the more recent notion of global concentrated differential privacy. We recover the result of Barber \& Duchi (2014) stating that histogram estimators are optimal against Lipschitz distributions for the L2 risk, and under regular differential privacy, and we extend it to other norms and notions of privacy. Then, we investigate higher degrees of smoothness, drawing two conclusions: First, and contrary to what happens with constant privacy budget (Wasserman \& Zhou, 2010), there are regimes where imposing privacy degrades the regular minimax risk of estimation on Sobolev densities. Second, so-called projection estimators are near-optimal against the same classes of densities in this new setup with pure differential privacy, but contrary to the constant privacy budget case, it comes at the cost of relaxation. With zero concentrated differential privacy, there is no need for relaxation, and we prove that the estimation is optimal.

We solve the nonlinear income tax program for rank-dependent social welfare functions, expressing the trade-off between size and inequality using the Gini and related families of positional indices. Absent bunching, ranks in the actual and optimal allocations are invariant. Exploiting this feature, we provide new, simple, and intuitive tax formulas for both the quasilinear and additive cases and new comparative static results. Our approach makes insights from optimal taxation more widely accessible. In some of our simulations the actual US tax policy is close to being optimal—except at the top, where optimal rates are much higher than in actuality. (JEL D31, D63, H21, H24, K34)

Understanding extreme events and their probability is key for the study of climate change impacts, risk assessment, adaptation, and the protection of living beings. Forecasting the occurrence probability of extreme heatwaves is a primary challenge for risk assessment and attribution, but also for fundamental studies about processes, dataset and model validation, and climate change studies. In this work we develop a methodology to build forecasting models which are based on convolutional neural networks, trained on extremely long climate model outputs. We demonstrate that neural networks have positive predictive skills, with respect to random climatological forecasts, for the occurrence of long-lasting 14-day heatwaves over France, up to 15 days ahead of time for fast dynamical drivers (500 hPa geopotential height fields), and also at much longer lead times for slow physical drivers (soil moisture). This forecast is made seamlessly in time and space, for fast hemispheric and slow local drivers. We find that the neural network selects extreme heatwaves associated with a North-Hemisphere wavenumber-3 pattern. The main scientific message is that most of the time, training neural networks for predicting extreme heatwaves occurs in a regime of lack of data. We suggest that this is likely to be the case for most other applications to large scale atmosphere and climate phenomena. For instance, using one hundred years-long training sets, a regime of drastic lack of data, leads to severely lower predictive skills and general inability to extract useful information available in the 500 hPa geopotential height field at a hemispheric scale in contrast to the dataset of several thousand years long. We discuss perspectives for dealing with the lack of data regime, for instance rare event simulations and how transfer learning may play a role in this latter task., Comment: 34 pages, 12 figures

International audience; Comparing probability distributions is at the crux of many machine learning algorithms. Maximum Mean Discrepancies (MMD) and Wasserstein distances are two classes of distances between probability distributions that have attracted abundant attention in past years. This paper establishes some conditions under which the Wasserstein distance can be controlled by MMD norms. Our work is motivated by the compressive statistical learning (CSL) theory, a general framework for resource-efficient large scale learning in which the training data is summarized in a single vector (called sketch) that captures the information relevant to the considered learning task. Inspired by existing results in CSL, we introduce the Hölder Lower Restricted Isometric Property and show that this property comes with interesting guarantees for compressive statistical learning. Based on the relations between the MMD and the Wasserstein distances, we provide guarantees for compressive statistical learning by introducing and studying the concept of Wasserstein regularity of the learning task, that is when some task-specific metric between probability distributions can be bounded by a Wasserstein distance.

International audience; Alors que le transport d’animaux vivants fait l’objet d’un intérêt crois- sant en matière de lutte contre la circulation des maladies animales, experts et législateurs butent, dans le cas des bovins, sur le fait que les professionnels condui- sant les camions ne respectent pas ou peu les réglementations en vigueur en matière de nettoyage et désinfection des camions. Ces écarts à la règle sont, le plus souvent, attribués au manque de formation et de connaissance des chauf- feurs.Appuyé sur des matériaux empiriques de première main, cet article montre que les pratiques de nettoyage et désinfection sont connues des chauffeurs d’ani- maux vivants dont les savoir-faire propres au monde agricole auxquels ils appar- tiennent, concurrencent l’expertise sanitaire. L’analyse souligne également les injonctions (temporelles, notamment) multiples et souvent contradictoires vécues par ces professionnels à la frontière du monde de l’élevage et de l’industrie comme facteurs principaux de cet écart aux règles en matière de nettoyage et désinfection, contestant ainsi l’hypothèse dominante d’un manque d’information.

The Local Group is a unique environment in which to study the astrophysics of galaxy formation. The proximity of the Milky Way and M31 enhances the frequency of interactions of the low-mass halo population with more massive dark matter haloes, which increases their concentrations and strips them of gas and other material. Some low-mass haloes pass through the haloes of the Milky Way or M31 and are either ejected into the field or exchanged between the two primary hosts. We use high resolution gas-dynamical simulations to describe a new class of field haloes that passed through the haloes of both the Milky Way and M31 at early times and are almost twice as concentrated as field haloes that do not interact with the primary pair. These 'Hermeian' haloes are distributed anisotropically at larger distances from the Local Group barycentre than the primary haloes and appear to cluster along the line connecting the Milky Way and M31. Hermeian haloes facilitate the exchange of dark matter, gas, and stars between the Milky Way and M31 and can enhance the star formation rate of the gas in the primary haloes during their interactions with them. We also show that some Hermeian haloes can host galaxies that, because they are embedded in haloes that are more concentrated than regular field haloes, are promising targets for indirect dark matter searches beyond the Milky Way virial radius and can produce signals that are competitive with those of some dwarf galaxies. Hermeian galaxies in the Local Group should be detectable by forthcoming wide-field imaging surveys., 14 pages, 7 figures, 1 appendix. Accepted by MNRAS. Plotting scripts and data available from: http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6629724

International audience

International audience; The molecular-scale understanding of the genesis of the MoS2 phase from Mo-oxide precursors supported on alumina is highly challenging with a strong impact on the activation process of heterogeneous industrial catalysts. By means of density functional theory (DFT), we quantify the activation free energies of the elementary steps involved in the sulfo-reduction mechanisms of Mo-trioxide oligomers and the stability of the corresponding Mo-oxysulfide intermediates supported on the γ-alumina (1 0 0) surface. The Gibbs free energy profiles highlight the characteristic chemical reactivity of various oxygen sites involved in the O/S exchange mechanism and reveal that interfacial oxygen atoms (Mo-O-Al) are the most challenging sites to be exchanged with S. We quantitatively compare the two main paths proposed experimentally: the one involving Mo-oxysulfide and Mo-trisulfide intermediates and the second one involving only Mo-oxysulfide. While O/S exchange requires moderate activation energies, the rate-determining steps correspond to S- and O-removal on small MonO3n-xSx or MonS3n (n ≤ 3) oligomeric intermediates. To overcome these high energy steps, the small Mo-trisulfide (MonS3n) oligomers are proposed to be fast diffusing surface species and to promote the growth process towards the targeted MoS2 phase. A reconstruction from a chain to a triangular Mo3S9 conformer also facilitates this phase transformation.

International audience; To tackle the challenge of the CO2 photoreduction, semiconducting layered transition metal dichalcogenides like MoS2 have attracted much attention due to their tunable 2D nano-structures. By using advanced periodic density functional theory calculations (HSE06 functional), we provide a systematic quantification of the optoelectronic properties of various interfacial heterostructures between MoS2 and anatase TiO2. We systematically determine the band gaps, conduction bands (CB) and valence bands (VB) positions to figure out the nature of the heterojunction. Two main surface orientations of anatase TiO2 particles, (101) and (001), are considered with 2D-MoS2 nanosheet or nanoribbon either through a 2D physical (van der Waals) or through a 1D chemical interface. The possibility to chemically modify the MoS2/TiO2 interface, either by sulfidation or hydration, and its effect on the electronic structure are deeply investigated. These modifications in the heterostructure lead to important changes in the electronic properties and charge transfer between the two materials which impact both photon absorption properties and charge carriers dynamics suspected to influence in turn the photocatalytic activity. While a type I hetrojunction is found for the 1D chemical interface, a type II heterojunction with appropriate CB/VB positions for CO2 reduction and H2O oxidation is identified for the 2D physical interface which could lead to the targeted Z-scheme mechanism with strong potential interest in photocatalysis applications.

International audience; To gain insights into few layer (FL) van der Waals MoO 3Àx S x /MoS 2Àx O x heterostructures for photocatalytic applications, we analyze how the concentration (x) and location of anionic isovalent atom (S or O) substitutions impact their opto-electronic properties and high frequency dielectric constant profiles. By using density functional theory (DFT) calculations within the HSE06 functional, we show that the electronic band gap of FL MoO 3Àx S x decreases with increasing x, while the dielectric constant profile and absorption coefficient in the UV-vis range increase. The stronger band gap reductions are obtained when S-atoms are located in the internal bulk region of FL MoO 3Àx S x and in interaction with O-atoms of the neighboring layer. Moreover, the conduction and valence band (CB/VB) levels are shifted to higher energy values in the case of the edge location (external surface) of these S-atoms. Thanks to the determination of the thermodynamic diagrams of 4L MoO 3Àx S x and 6L MoS 2Àx O x , we propose optimal heterojunctions made of 4L MoO 3Àx S x with either single-layer (SL) or FL MoS 2 with CB/VB levels compatible with a Z-scheme working principle and with potentials required for photocatalysis applications such as the photolysis of water into O 2 and H 2. This study combined with our previous theoretical investigations on bulk materials and SL provides a thorough analysis of SL-FL MoO 3Àx S x / MoS 2 heterojunctions where the concentration and location of S-atoms in MoO 3Àx S x are key to design efficient materials for water photolysis.

International audience; Considering optimal non-linear income tax problems when the social welfare function only depends on ranks as in Yaari (Econometrica 55(1):95–115, 1987) and weights agreeing with the Lorenz quasi-ordering, we extend the analysis of Simula and Trannoy (Am Econ J Econ Policy, 2021) in two directions. First, we establish conditions under which bunching does not occur in the social optimum. We find a sufficient condition on individual preferences, which appears as a reinforcement of the Spence-Mirrlees condition. In particular, the marginal dis-utility of gross income should be convex, but less convex the higher the productivity. We also show that, for all productivity distributions with a log-concave survival function, bunching is precluded under the maximin, Gini, and “illfare-ranked single-series Ginis”. Second, we turn to a discrete population setting, and provide an “ABC” formula for optimal marginal tax rates, which is related to those for a continuum of types found in Simula and Trannoy (2021), but remain essentially distinct.

Sonic boom propagation over urban areas is studied using numerical simulations based on the Euler equations. Two boom waves are examined: a classical N-wave and a low-boom wave. Ten urban geometries, generated from the local climate zone classification [Stewart and Oke (2012), Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 93(12), 1879–1900], are considered representative of urban forms. They are sorted into two classes, according to the aspect ratio of urban canyons. For compact geometries with a large aspect ratio, the noise levels and the peak pressure, especially for the N-wave, are highly variable between canyons. For open geometries with a small aspect ratio, these parameters present the same evolution in each urban canyon, corresponding to that obtained for isolated buildings. A statistical analysis of the noise levels in urban canyons is then performed. For both boom waves, the median of the perceived noise levels mostly differs by less than 1 dB from the value obtained for flat ground. The range of variation is greater for open geometries than for compact ones. Finally, low-frequency oscillations, associated with resonant modes of the canyons, are present for both compact and open geometries. Their amplitude, frequency and decay rate vary greatly from one canyon to another.

International audience; Unraveling the mechanisms of hydrodesulfurization (HDS) of dibenzothiophene (DBT) and the corresponding active sites represents a scientific challenge to improve the intrinsic performances of Co-promoted MoS2 (CoMoS) catalysts. By using density functional theory calculations, we compare two historical mechanisms for the Csingle bondS bond scission of DBT (direct desulfurization): direct hydrogenolysis of DBT and β–elimination of α,β–dihydro-diobenzothiophene (α,β–DHDBT) on four relevant sites of the two CoMoS M- and S-edges. On the Co promoted M-edge, the α,β–DHDBT is formed through dihydrogenation which is kinetically competing with hydrogenolysis (both exhibiting activation free energies, ΔG‡, smaller than +1.24 eV). On the S-edge, both dihydrogenation and hydrogenolysis exhibit higher ΔG‡ (>+1.78 eV). Interestingly, on the S-edge, the β–elimination (E2 type) on the α,β–DHDBT is found to be kinetically competing (ΔG‡ = +1.14 eV). The elimination of Hβ atom involves a S2 dimer close to the S-vacancy site where DHDBT is adsorbed. Since this leaving Hβ atom is distinct from the one added at dihydrogenation step, this may explain why direct desulfurization of 4,6-alkyl substituted DBT compounds is hampered according to the elimination mechanism. We finally discuss the possible synergy between the two edges of CoMoS for HDS of DBT.

Although there are several reports in the literature of SARS‐CoV‐2 infection in cats, few SARS‐CoV‐2 sequences from infected cats have been published. In this study, SARS‐CoV‐2 infection was evaluated in two cats by clinical observation, molecular biology (qPCR and NGS), and serology (microsphere immunoassay and seroneutralization). Following the observation of symptomatic SARS‐CoV‐2 infection in two cats, infection status was confirmed by RT‐qPCR and, in one cat, serological analysis for antibodies against N‐protein and S‐protein, as well as neutralizing antibodies. Comparative analysis of five SARS‐CoV‐2 sequence fragments obtained from one of the cats showed that this infection was not with one of the three recently emerged variants of SARS‐CoV‐2. This study provides additional information on the clinical, molecular, and serological aspects of SARS‐CoV‐2 infection in cats., This study provides additional information on the clinical, molecular, and serological aspects of SARS‐CoV‐2 infection in cats.

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is one of the most important transboundary animal diseases affecting livestock and wildlife species worldwide. Sustained viral circulation, as evidenced by serological surveys and the recurrence of outbreaks, suggests endemic transmission cycles in some parts of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. This is the result of a complex process in which multiple serotypes, multi-host interactions and numerous socio-epidemiological factors converge to facilitate disease introduction, survival and spread. Spatial and spatio-temporal analysis have been increasingly used to explore the burden of the disease by identifying high-risk areas, analysing temporal trends, and exploring the factors that contribute to the outbreaks. We systematically retrieved spatial and spatial-temporal studies on FMD outbreaks to summarise variations on their methodological approaches and identify the epidemiological factors associated with the outbreaks in endemic contexts. Fifty-one studies were included in the final review. A high proportion of papers described and visualised the outbreaks (72.5%), and used several approaches to study their spatial, temporal and spatio-temporal aggregation (49.0%). The epidemiological aspects commonly linked to FMD risk are broadly categorizable into themes such as: a) animal demographics and interactions, b) accessibility, c) trade, d) socio-economic and e) environmental factors. The consistency of these themes across studies underlines the different pathways in which the virus is sustained in endemic areas, with the potential to exploit them to design tailored evidence based-control programmes for the local needs. There was limited data linking the socioeconomics of communities and modelled FMD outbreaks, leaving a gap in the current knowledge. A thorough analysis of FMD outbreaks requires a systemic view as multiple epidemiological factors contribute to viral circulation and may improve the accuracy of disease mapping. Future studies should explore the links between socio-economic and epidemiological factors as a foundation for translating the identified opportunities into interventions to improve the outcomes of FMD surveillance and control initiatives in endemic contexts. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

International audience; We lay the foundations of a non-parametric theory of best-arm identification in multi-armed bandits with a fixed budget T. We consider general, possibly non-parametric, models D for distributions over the arms; an overarching example is the model D = P(0,1) of all probability distributions over [0,1]. We propose upper bounds on the average log-probability of misidentifying the optimal arm based on information-theoretic quantities that correspond to infima over Kullback-Leibler divergences between some distributions in D and a given distribution. This is made possible by a refined analysis of the successive-rejects strategy of Audibert, Bubeck, and Munos (2010). We finally provide lower bounds on the same average log-probability, also in terms of the same new information-theoretic quantities; these lower bounds are larger when the (natural) assumptions on the considered strategies are stronger. All these new upper and lower bounds generalize existing bounds based, e.g., on gaps between distributions.

In this article, we study numerically the dispersion of colloids in a two-dimensional cellular flow in the presence of an imposed mean salt gradient. Owing to the additional scalar, the colloids do not follow exactly the Eulerian flow field, but have a (small) extra-velocity proportional to the salt gradient, $\boldsymbol {v}_{dp}=\alpha \boldsymbol {\nabla } S$ , where $\alpha$ is the phoretic constant and $S$ the salt concentration. We study the demixing of an homogenous distribution of colloids and how their long-term mean velocity $\boldsymbol {V_m}$ and effective diffusivity $D_{eff}$ are influenced by the phoretic drift. We observe two regimes of colloids dynamics depending on a blockage criterion $R=\alpha G L/\sqrt {4 D_cD_s}$ , where $G$ is the mean salt gradient amplitude, $L$ the length scale of the flow and $D_c$ and $D_s$ the molecular diffusivities of colloids and salt. When $R , the mean velocity is strongly enhanced with $V_m \propto \alpha G \sqrt {Pe_s}$ , ${Pe}_s$ being the salt Péclet number. When $R > 1$ , the compressibility effect due to the phoretic drift is so strong that a depletion of colloids occurs along the separatrices inhibiting cell-to-cell transport.

International audience; Two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures currently have attracted much attention in widespread research fields where semiconductor materials are key. With the aim of gaining insights into photocatalytic materials, we use density functional theory (DFT) calculations within the HSE06 functional to analyze the evolution of optoelectronic properties and high-frequency dielectric constant profiles of various 2D MoO3–xSx/MoS2 heterostructures modified by chemical and physical approaches. Although the MoO3/MoS2 heterostructure is a type III heterojunction associated with a metallic character, we found that exchanging the terminal oxo atoms of the MoO3–xSx single layer (SL) with sulfur enables shifting its CB position above the VB position of the MoS2 SL. This trend gives rise to a type II heterojunction where the band gap and charge transfer within the two layers are driven continuously by the S concentration in the MoO3–xSx SL. This fine-tuning leads to a versatile type II heterostructure proposed to provide a direct Z-scheme system valuable for photocatalytic water splitting.

Modern epidemiological analyses to understand and combat the spread of disease depend critically on access to, and use of, data. Rapidly evolving data, such as data streams changing during a disease outbreak, are particularly challenging. Data management is further complicated by data being imprecisely identified when used. Public trust in policy decisions resulting from such analyses is easily damaged and is often low, with cynicism arising where claims of ‘following the science’ are made without accompanying evidence. Tracing the provenance of such decisions back through open software to primary data would clarify this evidence, enhancing the transparency of the decision-making process. Here, we demonstrate a Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) data pipeline. Although developed during the COVID-19 pandemic, it allows easy annotation of any data as they are consumed by analyses, or conversely traces the provenance of scientific outputs back through the analytical or modelling source code to primary data. Such a tool provides a mechanism for the public, and fellow scientists, to better assess scientific evidence by inspecting its provenance, while allowing scientists to support policymakers in openly justifying their decisions. We believe that such tools should be promoted for use across all areas of policy-facing research. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Technical challenges of modelling real-life epidemics and examples of overcoming these’.

Sonic boom reflection is investigated over an isolated building and multiple buildings using numerical simulations. For that, the two-dimensional Euler equations are solved using high-order finite-difference techniques. Three urban geometries are considered for two boom waves, a classical N-wave and a low-boom wave. First, the variations of the pressure waveforms and the corresponding perceived noise are analyzed along an isolated building. The influence of the building is limited to an illuminated region at its front and a shadow region at its rear, whose size depends on the building's height and the Mach number. Two buildings are then considered. In addition to arrivals related to reflection on the building facades or to diffraction at the building corners, low-frequency oscillations, associated with resonances, are noticed in the street canyon. Their amplitude depends on the street width and on the incident boom frequency contents. Despite their significance, these low-frequency oscillations have little impact on the perceived noise. Finally, a periodic distribution of identical buildings is examined. The duration of the waveforms is notably increased due to multiple diffraction and canyon resonances. Variations in perceived noise at ground level are moderate for large streets, but become noticeable as the street width reduces.

This work was supported by EPSRC, United Kingdom grant no. EP/R014604/1. RR was funded by STFC, United Kingdom grant no ST/V006126/1. I.V. gratefully acknowledges Wellcome funding (218261/Z/19/Z) and EPSRC funding (EP W011956). T.P gratefully acknowledges funding from the Scottish Government Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division, United Kingdom, as part of the Centre of Expertise on Animal Disease Outbreaks (EPIC). T.P. would also like to thank the French National Research Agency and Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health France for support through the IDEXLYON project (ANR-16-IDEX-0005) and the Industrial Chair in Veterinary Public Health , as part of the VPH Hub in Lyon. Uncertainty quantification is a formal paradigm of statistical estimation that aims to account for all uncertain-ties inherent in the modelling process of real-world complex systems. The methods are directly applicable to stochastic models in epidemiology, however they have thus far not been widely used in this context. In this paper, we provide a tutorial on uncertainty quantification of stochastic epidemic models, aiming to facilitate the use of the uncertainty quantification paradigm for practitioners with other complex stochastic simulators of applied systems. We provide a formal workflow including the important decisions and considerations that need to be taken, and illustrate the methods over a simple stochastic epidemic model of UK SARS-CoV-2 transmission and patient outcome. We also present new approaches to visualisation of outputs from sensitivity analyses and uncertainty quantification more generally in high input and/or output dimensions. Publisher PDF

A growing number of studies investigate brain anatomy in migraine using voxel-(VBM) and surface-based morphometry (SBM), as well as diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). The purpose of this article is to identify consistent patterns of anatomical alterations associated with migraine. First, 19 migraineurs without aura and 19 healthy participants were included in a brain imaging study. T1-weighted MRIs and DTI sequences were acquired and analyzed using VBM, SBM and tract-based spatial statistics. No significant alterations of gray matter (GM) volume, cortical thickness, cortical gyrification, sulcus depth and white-matter tract integrity could be observed. However, migraineurs displayed decreased white matter (WM) volume in the left superior longitudinal fasciculus. Second, a systematic review of the literature employing VBM, SBM and DTI was conducted to investigate brain anatomy in migraine. Meta-analysis was performed using Seed-based d Mapping via permutation of subject images (SDM-PSI) on GM volume, WM volume and cortical thickness data. Alterations of GM volume, WM volume, cortical thickness or white-matter tract integrity were reported in 72%, 50%, 56% and 33% of published studies respectively. Spatial distribution and direction of the disclosed effects were highly inconsistent across studies. The SDM-PSI analysis revealed neither significant decrease nor significant increase of GM volume, WM volume or cortical thickness in migraine. Overall there is to this day no strong evidence of specific brain anatomical alterations reliably associated to migraine. Possible explanations of this conflicting literature are discussed.Trial registration numberNCT02791997, registrated February 6th, 2015.

International audience

International audience; Diffusing a graph signal at multiple scales requires computing the action of the exponential of several multiples of the Laplacian matrix. We tighten a bound on the approximation error of truncated Chebyshev polynomial approximations of the exponential, hence significantly improving a priori estimates of the polynomial order for a prescribed error. We further exploit properties of these approximations to factorize the computation of the action of the diffusion operator over multiple scales, thus reducing drastically its computational cost.

National audience; L'accroissement des crises et cyber crises touchant les organisations publiques et privées, tantà l'échelle nationale qu'internationale, appelle la création d'une culture du management de crise et de la cybersécurité. Pour former les organisations a ce risque croissant et préparer les professionnels aux cyberattaques, nous avons expérimenté un exercice de gestion de crise alliant cyberattaques, attaques communicationnelles et atteintes a la réputation, attaques sur le corps métier et kidnapping. Afin de se rapprocher des conditions proches du réel, cet exercice s'est effectué de manière immersive sur 24 heures consécutives. Les 14 et 15 janvier derniers, des cellules constituées par des membres de la Chancellerie de Genève, par des assistants en informatique de gestion et des professionnels de tous horizons ont subi "24 heures dans la tempête". Ces cellules ontété confrontéesà une crise majeure d'une entreprise dans le milieu financier. Le bilan de la simulation est extrêmement encourageant : les participants sont enrichis, transformés, renforcés. Après cette expérience positive, cette simulation est dorénavant mature et elle peutêtre réitéréeà plus largeéchelle avec un nombre plus important de formations impliquées.

International audience; In several species of non-human primates, non-agonistic vocal exchanges can be seen as a primitive form of conversation, as they respect basic temporal rules (i.e. turn-taking, overlap avoidance), the same as those that guide human conversations. Conversational rules have recently been suggested in captive great ape species, yet the only study investigating vocal turn-taking in wild great apes did not find any evidence of such vocal roles. Whether the environmental conditions (captivity versus free ranging) or the social organisation of a given species shape temporally ruled vocal exchanges remain open questions. Here, we investigated general calling patterns of peaceful vocal exchanges in a wild bonobo community. This pilot study revealed that wild bonobos respect the fundamental temporal rules of vocal turn-taking, namely the avoidance of overlapping and the presence of short call-intervals between interlocutors on the order of 2 sec, corroborating findings from captive bonobos. Despite the limited sample size, our finding suggests that vocal exchanges appear context-dependent but neither age nor sex seem to influence their occurrence. While further studies are needed to confirm these observations, this study helps to fill a major gap in research on the vocal communication of wild great apes, paving the way for more extensive comparative studies, representing a further step towards a better understanding of how vocal turn-taking arose in humans.

International audience; An experiment carried out in situ during the 2017 French presidential election provides the natural conditions in which to disentangle the motivations of expressive voting and strategic voting as determinants of voters' choice. Under the two-round plurality rule, when voters vote for a single candidate in the first round, they may wish primarily to express which is their favorite candidate, or, rather, to influence the outcome of the second-round outcome by strategic voting. These two motives may coincide or conflict. We show that insincere strategic voting is relatively low in this context since it represents less than 7% of the votes cast. When the expressive and the strategic motives conflict with each other, i.e., where expression requires giving up any influence on the outcome of the election, we show that voters are twice as likely to eschew strategic voting as to vote strategically.

We propose a new strategy for best-arm identification with fixed confidence of Gaussian variables with bounded means and unit variance. This strategy called Exploration-Biased Sampling is not only asymptotically optimal: we also prove non-asymptotic bounds occurring with high probability. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first strategy with such guarantees. But the main advantage over other algorithms like Track-and-Stop is an improved behavior regarding exploration: Exploration-Biased Sampling is slightly biased in favor of exploration in a subtle but natural way that makes it more stable and interpretable. These improvements are allowed by a new analysis of the sample complexity optimization problem, which yields a faster numerical resolution scheme and several quantitative regularity results that we believe of high independent interest.

International audience; We provide evidence on the link between the policy response to the SARS CoV-2 pandemic and conflicts worldwide. We combine daily information on conflict events and government policy responses to limit the spread of SARS CoV-2 to study how demonstrations and violent events vary following shutdown policies. We use the staggered implementation of restriction policies across countries to identify the dynamic effects in an event study framework. Our results show that imposing a nation-wide shutdown is associated with a reduction in the number of demonstrations, which suggests that public demonstrations are hampered by the rising cost of participation. However, the reduction is short-lived, as the number of demonstrations are back to their pre-restriction levels in two months. In contrast, we observe that the purported increase in mobilization or coordination costs, following the imposition of restrictions, is not followed by a drop of violent events that involve organized armed groups. Instead, we find that the number of events, on average, increases slightly following the implementation of the restriction policies. The rise in violent events is most prominent in poorer countries, with higher levels of polarization, and in authoritarian countries. We discuss the potential channels underlying this heterogeneity.

International audience; In spite of the interest of a-MoS3 based nanomaterials, the amorphous nature of the MoS3 phase makes it challenging to control and understand its chemical reactivity. In particular, the type of the structural building unit such as Mo3 triangular vs Mo chain is still debated, while the ambivalent interpretation of the nature of sulfur species (S2–, S22–) and Mo–Mo bonds leads to ambiguous interpretations of spectroscopic data and reactivity. By density functional theory (DFT), we simulate the energetic, structural, and spectroscopic features of relevant zero-dimensional 0D-, 1D-, and 2D-MoS3 triangular, chain-like polymorphs, including unprecedented ones (ring, wave, and helix) and revisit the interpretation of EXAFS, IR-RAMAN, and XPS experimental data. We analyze how MokS3k clusters of a few k atoms may grow up to infinite (periodic replica) MoS3 polymorphs. The evolution of the growth energy and the computed IR spectra within the density functional perturbation theory level suggest the coexistence of various polymorphs in the MoS3 phase as a function of sizes. Molecular dynamics simulations reveal how the small triangular MokS3k oligomers may transform into condensed MoS3 patches resembling embryos of the 2D 1T′-MoS2 phase. Finally, we discuss some plausible transformation pathways from one polymorph to another.

The sorption of CO2 is often used to modify the macroscopic properties of liquids and solids. In the particular case of ionic liquids, different from molecular liquids, the sorption of CO2 may not induce volume expansions due to the strong Coulombic interactions between the ions of the fluid. However, a considerable viscosity decrease has been systematically observed. In order to understand the mechanisms of properties modifications in ionic fluids, herein we used Raman spectroscopy to probe the effect of CO2 on the structure of ionic liquids. It is shown that CO2 perturbs the electrostatic interactions between cations and anions, thus inducing a change in the polar domain of ionic liquids. It is observed that ionic liquids having bulkier ions are more prone to be perturbed by CO2 in comparison to ionic liquids having smaller ions. These results reveal new means of controlling the electrostatic forces between the ions and contributes to the mechanistic understanding of the modification of the macroscopic properties of ionic liquids by CO2 sorption.

We consider the external validity of laboratory measures of risk attitude. Based on a large-scale experiment using a representative panel of the Dutch population, we test if these measures can explain two different types of behavior: (i) behavior in laboratory risky financial decisions, and (ii) behavior in naturally-occurring field behavior under risk (financial, health and employment decisions). We find that measures of risk attitude are related to behavior in laboratory financial decisions and the most complex measures are outperformed by simpler measures. However, measures of risk attitude are not related to risk-taking in the field, calling into question the methods currently used for the purpose of measuring actual risk preferences. We conclude that while the external validity of measures of risk attitude holds in closely related frameworks, this validity is compromised in more remote settings.

The practical use of ionic liquids (ILs) is benefiting from a growing understanding of the underpinning structural and dynamic properties, facilitated through classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The predictive and explanatory power of a classical MD simulation is inextricably linked to the underlying force field. A key aspect of the forcefield for ILs is the ability to recover charge based interactions. Our focus in this paper is on the description and recovery of charge transfer and polarisability effects, demonstrated through MD simulations of the widely used 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide [C4C1im][NTf2] IL. We study the charge distributions generated by a range of ab initio methods, and present an interpolation method for determining atom-wise scaled partial charges. Two novel methods for determining the mean field (total) charge transfer from anion to cation are presented. The impact of using different charge models and different partial charge scaling (unscaled, uniformly scaled, atom-wise scaled) are compared to fully polarisable simulations. We study a range of Drude particle explicitly polarisable potentials and shed light on the performance of current approaches to counter known problems. It is demonstrated that small changes in the charge description and MD methodology can have a significant impact; biasing some properties, while leaving others unaffected within the structural and dynamic domains.

An experiment carried out in situ during the 2017 French presidential election provides the natural conditions in which to disentangle the motivations of expressive voting and strategic voting as determinants of voters' choice. Under the two-round plurality rule, when voters vote for a single candidate in the first round, they may wish primarily to express which is their favorite candidate, or, rather, to influence the outcome of the second-round outcome by strategic voting. These two motives may coincide or conflict. We show that insincere strategic voting is relatively low in this context since it represents less than 7% of the votes cast. When the expressive and the strategic motives conflict with each other, i.e., where expression requires giving up any influence on the outcome of the election, we show that voters are twice as likely to eschew strategic voting as to vote strategically.

We present the extension of a modeling technique for Lagrangian tracer particles [B. Viggiano et al., J. Fluid Mech.(2020), vol. 900, A27] which accounts for the effects of particle inertia. Thereby, the particle velocity for several Stokes numbers is modeled directly by a multi-layered Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process and a comparison of key statistical quantities (second-order velocity structure function, acceleration correlation function, and root mean square acceleration) to expressions derived from Batchelor's model as well as to direct numerical simulations (DNS) is performed. In both approaches, Stokes' drag is treated by an approximate ``linear filter'' which replaces the particle position entering the fluid velocity field by the corresponding ideal tracer position. Effects of preferential concentration of inertial particles are taken into account in terms of an effective Stokes number that is determined from the zero crossing of the acceleration correlation function from DNS. This approximation thus allows the modeling of inertial particle statistics through stochastic methods and models for the Lagrangian velocity; the particle velocity is effectively decoupled from the particle position. In contrast to the ordinary filtering technique [Cencini et al., J. Turbul. (2006), 7, N36], our method captures the effects of preferential concentration of particles at low Stokes numbers which manifest themselves for instance by a sharp decrease of the acceleration variance for increasing Stokes numbers., 13 pages, 7 figures

An experimental Lagrangian study based on particle tracking velocimetry has been completed in an incompressible turbulent round water jet freely spreading into water. The jet is seeded with tracers only through the nozzle: inhomogeneous seeding called nozzle seeding. The Lagrangian flow tagged by these tracers therefore does not contain any contribution from particles entrained into the jet from the quiescent surrounding fluid. The mean velocity field of the nozzle seeded flow, $\langle \boldsymbol{U_\varphi} \rangle$, is found to be essentially indistinguishable from the global mean velocity field of the jet, $\langle \boldsymbol{U} \rangle$, for the axial velocity while significant deviations are found for the radial velocity. This results in an effective compressibility of the nozzle seeded flow for which $\boldsymbol{\nabla \cdot} \langle \boldsymbol{U_\varphi} \rangle \neq 0$ even though the global background flow is fully incompressible. By using mass conservation and self-similarity, we quantitatively explain the modified radial velocity profile and analytically express the missing contribution associated to entrained fluid particles. By considering a classical advection-diffusion description, we explicitly connect turbulent diffusion of mass (through the turbulent diffusivity $K_T$) and momentum (through the turbulent viscosity $\nu_T$) to entrainment. This results in new practical relations to experimentally determine the non-uniform spatial profiles of $K_T$ and $\nu_T$ (and hence of the turbulent Prandtl number $\sigma_T = \nu_T/K_T$) from simple measurements of the mean tracer concentration and axial velocity profiles. Overall, the proposed approach based on nozzle seeded flow gives new experimental and theoretical elements for a better comprehension of turbulent diffusion and entrainment in turbulent jets., Comment: Submitted to Journal of Fluid Mechanics

International audience; If individuals tend to behave like their reference group, is it because of peer effects, selfselection, or both? Using a peer effect model allowing for conformity and link formation, we designed a real-effort laboratory experiment in which individuals could misreport their performance and select their peers. Our results reveal both a preference for conformity and homophilous link formation, but only among individuals cheating in isolation. This suggests that such link formation was not motivated by a taste for similarity but by acquiring self-serving information. Importantly, we reject the presence of a self-selection bias in the peer effect estimates by showing that the size of peer effects is similar when identical peers were randomly assigned and when individuals selected them.

This paper shows how ethnic identities may become more salient due to natural resources extraction. We combine individual data on the strength of ethnic—relative to national—identities with geo-localised information on the contours of ethnic homelands, and on the timing and location of mineral resources exploitation in 25 African countries, from 2005 to 2015. Our strategy takes advantage of several dimensions of exposure to resources exploitation: time, spatial proximity and ethnic proximity. We find that the strength of an ethnic group identity increases when mineral resource exploitation in that group’s historical homeland intensifies. We argue that this result is at least partly rooted in feelings of relative deprivation associated with the exploitation of the resources. We show that such exploitation has limited positive economic spillovers, especially for members of the indigenous ethnic group; and that the link between mineral resources and the salience of ethnic identities is reinforced among members of powerless ethnic groups and groups with strong baseline identity feelings or living in poorer areas, or areas with a history of conflict. Put together, these findings suggest a new dimension of the natural resource curse: the fragmentation of identities, between ethnic groups and nations.

Controlling the adsorption/desorption of molecules at the solid/water interface is central to a wide range of fields from catalysis to batteries. For instance, adsorbing alcohols at the surface of γ-Al2O3 can prevent its chemical weathering. To make sure that γ-Al2O3 remains a stable catalyst support under operating conditions in liquid water, it is crucial to design alcohols that cannot desorb easily. Taking ethanol as a typical example, we here compare the adsorption/desorption mechanism for two distinct adsorption modes of ethanol at the water/alumina interface using various DFT-based approaches. Thermodynamic integration simulations unambiguously identify ethoxy as the more stable adsorption mode. The presence of liquid water yields to adsorption barriers fo adsorption barriers of at least 20 kJ·mol-1. To better assess the effect of water, we perform 3D well-tempered metadynamics simulations that include a bias accounting for solvation effects and proton transfers at the interface. Activating the proton shuffling allows to explore a variety of protonation and hydration configurations and yields to higher barriers (up to 40 kJ·mol−1) than the ones predicted by thermodynamic integration where the solvent reorganisation was assumed to be decoupled from the desorption. This study illustrates the importance of treating explicitly solvation effects when modelling reactions at the solid/liquid interface.

International audience; Artificial light at night (ALAN) affects numerous physiological and behavioural mechanisms in various species by po- tentially disturbing circadian timekeeping systems and modifying melatonin levels. However, given the multiple direct and indirect effects of ALAN on organisms, large-scale transcriptomic approaches are essential to assess the global ef- fect of ALAN on biological processes. Moreover, although studies have focused mainly on variations in gene expression during the night in the presence of ALAN, it is necessary to investigate the effect of ALAN on gene expression during the day. In this study, we combined de novo transcriptome sequencing and assembly, and a controlled laboratory experi- ment to evaluate the transcriptome-wide gene expression response using high-throughput (RNA-seq) in Bufo bufo tad- poles exposed to ecologically relevant light levels. Here, we demonstrated for the first time that ALAN affected gene expression at night (3.5% and 11% of differentially expressed genes when exposed to 0.1 and 5 lx compared to con- trols, respectively), but also during the day (11.2% of differentially expressed genes when exposed to 5 lx compared to controls) with a dose-dependent effect. ALAN globally induced a downregulation of genes (during the night, 58% and 62% of the genes were downregulated when exposed to 0.1 and 5 lx compared to controls, respectively, and dur- ing the day, 61.2% of the genes were downregulated when exposed to 5 lx compared to controls). ALAN effects were detected at very low levels of illuminance (0.1 lx) and affected mainly genes related to the innate immune system and, to a lesser extend to lipid metabolism. These results provide new insights into understanding the effects of ALAN on organism. ALAN impacted the expression of genes linked to a broad range of physiological pathways at very low levels of ALAN during night-time and during daytime, potentially resulting in reduced immune capacity under environmen- tal immune challenges.

International audience; The understanding of the structure and properties of γ−Al 2 O 3 supported platinum-tin catalysts in oxidizing conditions is of prominent importance for many catalytic reactions. By using density functional theory calculations and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations, we identify the adsorption sites of oxygen atoms on a Pt 10 Sn 3 /γ−Al 2 O 3 (100) cluster model and analyze its reconstruction and electronic charge redistribution. A strengthening of O adsorption is found for the cluster with respect to the Pt 3 Sn(111) surface, due to the key role of Al-Pt interfacial sites at low coverage, the ductility and the metastability of the cluster. Moreover, the ab initio ( [[EQUATION]] , T) thermodynamic phase diagrams show only minor differences between the supported Pt 10 Sn 3 and Pt 13 clusters. Both clusters are much more oxidized than their homologous Pt and Pt 3 Sn(111) surfaces, and their oxygen contents may exceed 1 ML. This suggests a stronger size effect than an alloying effect for the oxidation of the metallic nanoparticles at small size.

International audience; Description of temporal networks and detection of dynamic communities have been hot topics of research for the last decade. However, no consensual answers to these challenges have been found due to the complexity of the task. Static communities are not well defined objects, and adding a temporal dimension makes the description even more difficult. In this article, we propose a coherent temporal clustering method to explore the dynamics of research communities: the Best Combination of Local Communities (BCLC). Our method aims at finding a good balance between two contradictory objectives: closely following the short-term evolution by finding optimal partitions at each time step, on the one hand, and temporal smoothing, which privileges historical continuity, on the other hand. We test our algorithm on two bibliographic data sets by comparing their mesoscale dynamic description to those derived from a (static) simple clustering algorithm applied over the whole

The rational understanding of γ-alumina (γ-Al2O3) supported catalysts requires an ever more improved atomic scale determination of the support’s surface properties. By using density functional theory (DFT) calculations, we show how the structural and energetic surface properties of alumina crystallites intrinsically depend on its synthesis pathway. Considering γ-the case study of the topotactic transformation of boehmite (γ-AlOOH) into γ-Al2O3 taking place during calcination, we propose a methodology to mimic this pathway by reconstructing relevant slabs of boehmite into γ-alumina slabs following 3 steps : dehydration, contraction/translation and Al migration into spinel or non-spinel sites. On the one hand, we confirm the reliability of some earlier 100 ,110 and 111 surface structures determined by standard bulk cleavage approach. Moreover, we find new γ-alumina surfaces harboring Bronsted acid sites (BAS) and Lewis acid sites (LAS) of specific local structure. More strikingly, we find that the basal 110b surface of alumina inherited from the (010) basal surface of boehmite, exhibits a larger number of isolated µ2-OH groups than the lateral 110l surface. For the lateral 110l orientation (respectively 111 orientation), four (respectively three) thermodynamically competing surfaces are identified, including models earlier proposed. These results are induced by crystallites finite size and morphology effects during the topotactic transformation. Thanks to thorough comparative analysis of morphology and nature of BAS and LAS as a function of thermal treatment and water pressure for each surface, we identify coherent chemical families of surfaces across the main crystallographic orientations. These features open the door to a better differentiation of the reactivity of the basal alumina surfaces from the lateral ones.

International audience; The main risk factor for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is cigarette smoke (CS). It can alter many immune cells functions such as phagocytosis, efferocytosis and cytokine production. Cytokines play a role in the orchestration of inflammation in COPD. The JAK/STAT pathways are among the most important signaling components of cytokines. The objective of this work was to investigate the role of JAK/STAT pathway with regard to cytokine release and microsphere uptake capacity (to minimize the non-specific scavenging) in human monocyte-derived-macrophages (MDMs). MDMs were stimulated by cigarette smoke extract (CSE) alone or in combination with lipopolysaccharide (LPS). CSE alone was not associated with significant changes in the cytokine, with the exception of IL-8/CXCL8 production. However; CSE disturbed cytokine production in LPS-stimulated MDMs. CSE increase CXCL-8 and CCL2 release in LPS-stimulated MDM and suppressed the production of IL-6 and CXCL1 in these cells. CSE also decreased microsphere uptake capacity by MDMs. Then, CSE + LPS-stimulated MDMs were treated with two different JAK inhibitors. AG490 (specific inhibitor of JAK2) and ruxolitinib (inhibitor of JAK1 and JAK2). JAK/STAT inhibitors, particularly ruxolitinib, attenuated in cytokine production without completely inhibiting when compared with dexamethasone. On the other hand, the cells exposed to dexamethasone are nearly unable to capture the microspheres, while both JAK inhibitors does not affect the uptake capacity. In summary, our results showed the versatility of ruxolitinib which might bring a better balance disturbance of cytokine release and uptake capacity. The information regarding their distinctive effect, JAK/STAT inhibitors may be useful in the development of novel treatments for COPD.