pinecone/core-2020-05-10-deduplication huggingface dataset:
Monitoring of dioxin-like, estrogenic and anti-androgenic activities in sediments of the Bizerta lagoon (Tunisia) by means of in vitro cell-based bioassays: contribution of low concentrations of polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).

International audienceWe used an array of in vitro cell-based bioassays to assess dioxin-like, estrogenic and (anti-)androgenic activities in organic extracts of sediments from the Bizerta lagoon, one of the largest Tunisian lagoons subjected to various anthropogenic and industrial pressures. The sediments were sampled both in winter and summer 2006 in 6 stations differently impacted and in one reference station located in the seawards entrance of Ghar el Melh lagoon. Chemical analyses of the 16 priority PAHs showed that the sediments were low to moderately contaminated (2-537 ng/g dry weight). By using the estrogen- (MELN) and androgen-responsive (MDA-kb2) reporter cell lines, significant estrogenic and anti-androgenic activities were detected only in the Menzel Bourguiba (MB) site, the most contaminated site, both in winter and summer. By using 7-ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase (EROD) induction in the fish PLHC-1 cell line after both 4 and 24 h of cell exposure, dioxin-like activities were detected in all analysed samples. Dioxin-like activities were higher after 4 h exposure, and varied according to the sites and the sampling season. While highly significant correlation was observed between bioassay- and chemical analyses-derived toxic equivalents (TEQs), PAHs accounted for only a small part (up to 4%) of the detected biological activities, suggesting that other readily metabolised EROD-inducing compounds were present. This study argues for the use of short time exposure to assess biological TEQs in low contaminated samples and provides new induction equivalent factors (IEF(4h)) for 16 PAHs in the PLHC-1 cell line. Finally, our results stress the need to further characterise the nature of organic chemical contamination as well as its long-term impacts on aquatic wildlife in the Bizerta lagoon
Anode supported single chamber solid oxide fuel cells operating in exhaust gases of thermal engine

International audienceThis project deals with the development and the electrochemical characterization of anode supported single chamber SOFC in a simulated environment of thermal engine exhaust gas. In the present work, a gas mixture representative of exhaust conditions is selected. It is composed of hydrocarbons (HC: propane and propene), oxygen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen and water. Only oxygen content is varied leading to different gas mixtures characterized by three ratios R = HC/O<sub>2</sub>. Concerning the cell components, a cermet made of nickel and an electrolyte material, Ce<sub>0.9</sub>Gd<sub>0.1</sub>O<sub>1.95</sub> (CGO) is used as anode and two cathode materials, La<sub>0.6</sub>Sr<sub>0.4</sub>Co<sub>0.2</sub>Fe<sub>0.8</sub>O<sub>3−δ</sub> (LSCF) and Pr<sub>2</sub>NiO<sub>4+δ</sub> (PNO), are evaluated. The prepared cells are investigated in the various gas mixtures for temperatures ranging from 450 °C to 600 °C. Ni-CGO/CGO/LSCF-CGO cell has delivered a maximum power density of 15 mW cm<sup>−2</sup> at 500 °C with R = HC/O<sub>2</sub> = 0.21, while lower power densities are obtained for the other ratios, R = 0.44 and R = 0.67. Afterwards, LSCF and PNO cathode materials are compared and LSCF is found to deliver the highest power densities. Finally, by improving the electrolyte microstructure, some cells presenting a maximum power density of 25 mW cm<sup>−2</sup> at 550 °C are produced. Moreover, up to 17% of initial HC are eliminated in the gas mixture
Long lifetime components in the decay of excited super-heavy nuclei

Expérience GANIL, Détecteur INDRAInternational audienceFor nuclear reactions in which super-heavy nuclei can be formed, the essential difference between the fusion process followed by fission and non-equilibrium processes leading to fissionlike fragments is the reaction time. Quite probable non-equilibrium processes, characterized by very short reaction times, are highlighted thanks to mass-angle correlations. However, long lifetime components associated with fission following fusion have been observed with two independent experimental techniques, providing evidence for the formation of compound nuclei with Z = 120 and 124, followed by mass asymmetric fission
Ophicalcites from the northern Pyrenean belt: a field, petrographic and stable isotope study

International audienceBrecciated and fractured peridotites with a carbonate matrix, referred to as ophicalcites, are common features of mantle rocks exhumed in passive margins and mid-oceanic ridges. Ophicalcites have been found in close association with massive peridotites, which form the numerous ultramafic bodies scattered along the North Pyrenean Zone (NPZ), on the northern flank of the Pyrenean belt. We present the first field, textural and stable isotopic characterization of these rocks. Our observations show that Pyrenean ophicalcites belong to three main types: (1) a wide variety of breccias composed of sorted or unsorted millimeter- to meter-sized clasts of fresh or oxidized ultramafic material, in a fine-grained calcitic matrix; (2) calcitic veins penetrating into fractured serpentine and fresh peridotite; and (3) pervasive substitution of serpentine minerals by calcite. Stable isotopic analyses (O, C) have been conducted on the carbonate matrix, veins and clasts of samples from 12 Pyrenean ultramafic bodies. We show that the Pyrenean ophicalcites are the product of three distinct genetic processes: (1) pervasive ophicalcite resulting from relatively deep and hot hydrothermal activity; (2) ophicalcites in veins resulting from tectonic fracturing and cooler hydrothermal activity; and (3) polymictic breccias resulting from sedimentary processes occurring after the exposure of subcontinental mantle as portions of the floor of basins which opened during the mid-Cretaceous. We highlight a major difference between the eastern and western Pyrenean ophicalcites belonging, respectively, to the sedimentary and to the hydrothermal types. Our data set points to a possible origin of the sedimentary ophicalcites in continental endorheic basins, but a post-depositional evolution by circulation of metamorphic fluids or an origin from relatively warm marine waters cannot be ruled out. Finally, we discuss the significance of such discrepancy in the characteristics of the NPZ ophicalcites in the frame of the variable exhumation history of the peridotites all along the Pyrenean realm
Cenomanian vertebrate assemblages from southwestern France: a new insight into the European mid-Cretaceous continental fauna

International audienceCenomanian paralic deposits of Charentes (southwestern France) have yielded abundant vertebrate microremains, including rather diversified continental taxa (e.g., frogs, turtles, crocodilians, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, lizards, and mammals). In this short report, the succession of faunal assemblages observed is briefly described in relation to palaeoenvironmental change resulting from the Cenomanian-early Turonian transgressive episode. Continental forms occur commonly in estuarine and shallow marine rocks of the lower part of the Cenomanian stage, but seem to be lacking in younger strata deposited in more open marine settings. Among an unexpected biodiversity, several non-marine groups (e.g., ziphodont crocodilians, carcharodontosaurid and troodontid dinosaurs, marsupial-like mammals) are recorded for the first time in the lower Upper Cretaceous of Europe, thus providing new palaeobiogeographical indications for this poorly documented part of the world
Perspectives for integrating human and environmental risk assessment and synergies with socio-economic analysis

International audienceFor more than a decade, the integration of human and environmental risk assessment (RA) has become an attractive vision. At the same time, existing European regulations of chemical substances such as REACH (EC Regulation No. 1907/2006), the Plant Protection Products Regulation (EC regulation 1107/2009) and Biocide Regulation (EC Regulation 528/2012) continue to ask for sector-specific RAs, each of which have their individual information requirements regarding exposure and hazard data, and also use different methodologies for the ultimate risk quantification. In response to this difference between the vision for integration and the current scientific and regulatory practice, the present paper outlines five medium-term opportunities for integrating human and environmental RA, followed by detailed discussions of the associated major components and their state of the art. Current hazard assessment approaches are analyzed in terms of data availability and quality, and covering non-test tools, the integrated testing strategy (ITS) approach, the adverse outcome pathway (AOP) concept, methods for assessing uncertainty, and the issue of explicitly treating mixture toxicity. With respect to exposure, opportunities for integrating exposure assessment are discussed, taking into account the uncertainty, standardization and validation of exposure modeling as well as the availability of exposure data. A further focus is on ways to complement RA by a socio-economic assessment (SEA) in order to better inform about risk management options. In this way, the present analysis, developed as part of the EU FP7 project HEROIC, may contribute to paving the way for integrating, where useful and possible, human and environmental RA in a manner suitable for its coupling with SEA
Characterization of the rainy season in Burkina Faso and it's representation by regional climate models

International audienceWest African monsoon is one of the most challenging climate components to model. Five regional climate models (RCMs) were run over the West African region with two lateral boundary conditions, ERA-Interim re-analysis and simulations from two general circulation models (GCMs). Two sets of daily rainfall data were generated from these boundary conditions. These simulated rainfall data are analyzed here in comparison to daily rainfall data collected over a network of ten synoptic stations in Burkina Faso from 1990 to 2004. The analyses are based on a description of the rainy season throughout a number of it's characteristics. It was found that the two sets of rainfall data produced with the two driving data present significant biases. The RCMs generally produce too frequent low rainfall values (between 0. 1 and 5 mm/day) and too high extreme rainfalls (more than twice the observed values). The high frequency of low rainfall events in the RCMs induces shorter dry spells at the rainfall thresholds of 0. 1-1 mm/day. Altogether, there are large disagreements between the models on the simulate season duration and the annual rainfall amounts but most striking are their differences in representing the distribution of rainfall intensity. It is remarkable that these conclusions are valid whether the RCMs are driven by re-analysis or GCMs. In none of the analyzed rainy season characteristics, a significant improvement of their representation can be found when the RCM is forced by the re-analysis, indicating that these deficiencies are intrinsic to the models. © 2011 The Author(s)
Stage-classified matrix models and age estimates

When the size of individuals is a better indicator of their chances to survive, grow, and reproduce than their age, the suitable matrix population model is stage-classified. Cochran and Ellner developed a method to assess age-based parameters from such models. We present here, for these age estimates, simplified formulas that are valid whenever there is neither retrogression nor fission: individuals may only die, survive in the same stage, or survive and recruit to the next stage. Our formulas enable one to understand better why, and under which hypotheses, it is possible to compute age estimates from a stage-classified model, and point out some limitations of the method. These limitations in fact come from the basic hypothesis of stage-classified matrix models: stage is considered to be the only variable that influences survival and recruitment rates. As a consequence, age estimates using stage-classified models should be valid if the stages describe precisely enough the life cycles of the studied species, and particularly if senescence is taken into account
How multiplicity determines entropy and the derivation of the maximum entropy principle for complex systems

The maximum entropy principle (MEP) is a method for obtaining the most likely distribution functions of observables from statistical systems by maximizing entropy under constraints. The MEP has found hundreds of applications in ergodic and Markovian systems in statistical mechanics, information theory, and statistics. For several decades there has been an ongoing controversy over whether the notion of the maximum entropy principle can be extended in a meaningful way to nonextensive, nonergodic, and complex statistical systems and processes. In this paper we start by reviewing how Boltzmann-Gibbs-Shannon entropy is related to multiplicities of independent random processes. We then show how the relaxation of independence naturally leads to the most general entropies that are compatible with the first three Shannon-Khinchin axioms, the (c,d)-entropies. We demonstrate that the MEP is a perfectly consistent concept for nonergodic and complex statistical systems if their relative entropy can be factored into a generalized multiplicity and a constraint term. The problem of finding such a factorization reduces to finding an appropriate representation of relative entropy in a linear basis. In a particular example we show that path-dependent random processes with memory naturally require specific generalized entropies. The example is to our knowledge the first exact derivation of a generalized entropy from the microscopic properties of a path-dependent random process
Quantitative gait analysis of patients with bilateral hip osteoarthritis excluding the influence of walking speed

Background  The purpose of this study was to investigate gait characteristics of patients with bilateral hip osteoarthritis (BHO) independent of walking speed. 
Methods  We measured gait parameters in 12 BHO patients during free walking activities and in 12 normal adults during both free walking and slow walking activities using a three-dimensional computerized gait analysis system. 
Results  Patients with BHO had a lower walking speed, step length, and cadence than normal subjects during free walking. When compared with normal subjects walking at a slow speed, the walking speed difference among BHO patients disappeared, although BHO patients retained a relatively high cadence. Kinematic and kinetic factor analysis of BHO patients at free speed compared to normal subjects walking at a slow speed showed a forward-tilted pelvic angle in the BHO patients that dropped to that of the ipsilateral side during the stance phase. The peak extension and abduction angle of the hip and the peak abduction moment of the hip were all low, whereas the peak generation power of the ankle was high in BHO patients. 
Conclusions  Gait characteristics of patients with BHO, independent of walking speed, were as follows: (1) increased cadence and ankle generation power; (2) reduced step width, hip extension, and abduction angle as well as a lower hip abduction moment; (3) maintained forward tilting of the pelvis during gait cycle; and (4) appearance of a dropped pelvis during the stance phase
A new photocatalyzer InNxOy film grown by ArF excimer laser-induced MOCVD at low temperature (RT∼200 °C)

Using the ArF excimer laser-induced MOCVD method, InN_xO_y thin films are grown on a glass substrate. The photolytical decomposition of NH_3enables to grow them even at room temperature. It is found that the InN_xO_y thin films grown at a temperature less than 250 °C show an excellent photocatalytic decomposition of H_2S under UV irradiation, while the activity of the films grown at a temperature higher than 300 °C is very small, less than 1/4 of that for the low-temperature films. The excellent photocatalytic activity for the low-temperature films is closely related to the amorphous phase of the films
An interactive segmentation tool for quantifying fat in lumbar muscles using axial lumbar-spine MRI

In this paper we present an interactive tool that can be used to quantify fat infiltration in lumbar muscles, which is useful in studying fat infiltration and lower back pain (LBP) in adults. Currently, a qualitative assessment by visual grading via a 5-point scale is used to study fat infiltration in lumbar muscles from an axial view of lumbar-spine MR Images. However, a quantitative approach (on a continuous scale of 0–100%) may provide a greater insight. In this paper, we propose a method to precisely quantify the fat deposition/infiltration in a user-defined region of the lumbar muscles, which may aid better diagnosis and analysis. The key steps are interactively segmenting the region of interest (ROI) from the lumbar muscles using the well known livewire technique, identifying fatty regions in the segmented region based on variable-selection of threshold and softness levels, automatically detecting the center of the spinal column and fragmenting the lumbar muscles into smaller regions with reference to the center of the spinal column, computing key parameters [such as total and region-wise fat content percentage, total-cross sectional area (TCSA) and functional cross-sectional area (FCSA)] and exporting the computations and associated patient information from the MRI, into a database. A standalone application using MATLAB R2014a was developed to perform the required computations along with an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI)
Sail optimization for upwind sailing: application in a Tornado, the Olympic class catamaran.

A study of a boat’s motion is carried out in order to analyze the aerodynamic properties of the optimal sail for obtaining the maximum velocity when sailing to windward. The mechanics study shows the optimal CL and CD for a given sail and how the shape of the aerodynamic polar of the sail should be. A parametrical analysis of the aerodynamics of a sail is then carried out varying the maximum camber, position of the maximum camber in the chord direction and position of the maximum camber in the mast direction. The parametric analysis is done numerically with a vortex lattice method (VLM) and experimentally in a wind tunnel. The results show that the influence of the relevant parameters studied can be reduced to the variation of two parameters, A and B, defining the polar of the sail, CD = B + A2CL 2; and the influence of parameters A and B on the maximum VMG obtainable are calculated
MIRACLE at Ad-Hoc CLEF 2005: Merging and Combining Without Using a Single Approach

This paper presents the 2005 Miracle’s team approach to the Ad-Hoc Information Retrieval tasks. The goal for the experiments this year was twofold: to continue testing the effect of combination approaches on information retrieval tasks, and improving our basic processing and indexing tools, adapting them to new languages with strange encoding schemes. The starting point was a set of basic components: stemming, transforming, filtering, proper nouns extraction, paragraph extraction, and pseudo-relevance feedback. Some of these basic components were used in different combinations and order of application for document indexing and for query processing. Second-order combinations were also tested, by averaging or selective combination of the documents retrieved by different approaches for a particular query. In the multilingual track, we concentrated our work on the merging process of the results of monolingual runs to get the overall multilingual result, relying on available translations. In both cross-lingual tracks, we have used available translation resources, and in some cases we have used a combination approach
Analysis of internal helically finned tubes for parabolic trough design by CFD tools

This paper has analysed the effect of the utilization of internal finned tubes for the design of parabolic
 trough collectors with computational fluid dynamics tools. Our numerical approach has been qualified
 with the computational estimation of reported experimental data regarding phenomena involved in
 finned tube applications and solar irradiation of parabolic trough collector. The application of finned
 tubes to the design of parabolic trough collectors must take into account features as the pressure losses,
 thermal losses and thermo-mechanical stress and thermal fatigue. Our analysis shows an improvement
 potential in parabolic trough solar plants efficiency by the application of internal finned tubes
Visualization of Categorical Response Models - from Data Glyphs to Parameter Glyphs

The multinomial logit model is the most widely used model for nominal multi-category responses. One problem with the model is that many parameters are involved, another that interpretation of parameters is much harder than for linear models because the model is non-linear. Both problems
can profit from graphical representations. We propose to visualize the effect strengths by star plots, where one star collects all the parameters connected to one explanatory variable. In contrast to conventional
star plots, which are used to represent data, the plots represent parameters and are considered as parameter glyphs. The set of stars for a fitted model makes the main features of the effects of explanatory variables on
the response variable easily accessible. The method is extended to ordinal models and illustrated by several data sets.
High-throughput discrimination of bacteria isolated from Astacus astacus and A. leptodactylus

Bacterial diseases and pathogens of crayfish are common, widespread, and occasionally causing serious mortalities. In order to take rapid measures for correct treatment of crayfish diseases, the turnover time and accuracy in bacterial identification is an issue. Bacteria isolated from tissues of apparently healthy Astacus astacus and A. leptodactylus were identified by the commercial phenotypic tests (API 20E) and by the matrix assisted laser induced desorption ionization connected to the time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS). For Gram-negative rods, API 20E resulted in fewer species identifications than MALDI-TOF MS (5.2% versus 52.61%). The most frequently identified genus from A. astacus and A. leptodactylus was Pseudomonas spp.: API 20E (47.82%) and MALDI-TOF MS (52.17%). Both systems identified 60.86% of total isolates identically to the genus. Hafnia alvei was the only isolate for which API 20E and MALDI-TOF MS had a concordant reading to the species. MALDI-TOF MS proved to be a powerful, low-cost, rapid tool in bacterial genus identification. This is the first report of a direct comparison between the two systems for the identification of bacteria in crayfish, and also the first report on using MALDI-TOF MS for discrimination of freshwater crayfish bacterial isolates