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NetSurvival.jl: A glimpse into relative survival analysis with Julia
No full textIn many population-based medical studies, the specific cause of death is unidentified, unreliable or even unavailable. Relative survival analysis addresses this scenario, outside of standard (competing risks) survival analysis, to nevertheless estimate survival with respect to a specific cause. It separates the impact of the disease itself on mortality from other factors, such as age, sex, and general population trends. Different methods were created with the aim to construct consistent and efficient estimators for this purpose. The R package relsurv is the most commonly used today in application. With Julia continuously proving itself to be an efficient and powerful programming language, we felt the need to code a pure Julia take, thus NetSurvival.jl, of the standard routines and estimators in the field. The proposed implementation is clean, future-proof, well tested, and the package is correctly documented inside the rising JuliaSurv GitHub organization, ensuring trustability of the results. Through a comprehensive comparison in terms of performance and interface to relsurv, we highlight the benefits of the Julia developing environment
Factual Knowledge Assessment of Language Models Using Distractors
No full textInternational audienceLanguage models encode extensive factual knowledge within their parameters. The accurate assessment of this knowledge is crucial for understanding and improving these models. In the literature, factual knowledge assessment often relies on cloze sentences, which can lead to erroneous conclusions due to the complexity of natural language (out-of-subject continuations, the existence of many correct answers and the several ways of expressing them). In this paper, we introduce a new interpretable knowledge assessment method that mitigates these issues by leveraging distractors-incorrect but plausible alternatives to the correct answer. We propose several strategies for retrieving distractors and determine the most effective one through experimentation. Our method is evaluated against existing approaches, demonstrating solid alignment with human judgment and stronger robustness to verbalization artifacts. The code and data to reproduce our experiments are available on GitHub * .</div
An optimized electrically conductive Si-Fe matrix to boost the performance of Si electrodes in Li-ion Batteries
No full textInternational audienceThe development of Si-based anodes has opened the venue to increase the energy density in lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). Nonetheless, the use of Si-based electrodes usually leads to a gradual loss in the cell’s electrochemical performance due to the significant volume expansion of silicon in electrode reactions. Combining silicon, a poor electronic conductor, with an electronically conductive Li-inactive phase, is a promising strategy to alleviate the volume expansion of silicon during lithiation and delithiation while providing a robust electronic network. Si-Fe alloys are prospective candidates [1, 2, 3] which could be used to maintain the electronic network in the silicon electrodes. In this study, different Si-Fe alloys are synthesized using ball-milling (BM) and arc melting (AM) techniques, leading to highly different chemical compositions and powder morphologies to better understand the role of iron silicide inactive phases in electrochemical reactions and optimize their performance. The use of AM results in the formation of Si and α-Fe2Si5 conducting matrix in a desired ratio, as expected from the Si-Fe binary phase diagram, while BM generates a mixture of phases, including undesirable products. Thanks to the presence of the inactive iron silicide phase (α-Fe2Si5), the electrical conductivity of the Si/α-Fe2Si5 composite can be increased up to 103 S.m-1, five orders of magnitude compared to pristine Si. The electrochemical testing results show that the performance of such a composite is strongly influenced by the balance between Si and inactive iron silicide phase, as well as their interparticle contact. Dilatometry tests in full cell configuration also demonstrate the advantage of using α-Fe2Si5 as a matrix to buffer Si volume change, prevent the loss of active material, and maintain a reversible swelling of 24% throughout cycling up to the 45th cycle. After optimization of electrode and electrolyte formulations, such composites could significantly outperform current Si/C electrodes in terms of volumetric capacity, rate capability and long-term cycling
Investigation of asymmetric heating in Poiseuille-Rayleigh-Bénard water flow: A numerical study
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Synthèse des travaux sur le rôle de la température pour les traits d’histoires de vie de l’omble chevalier (Salvelinus umbla)
No full textAixOPÉRA: Cataloguing the Heritage Collections of the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence
No full textInternational audienceFounded in 1948, the Festival Lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence has established itself not only as a staple in the French musical calendar, but also as a major event on the international operatic stage. Furthermore, the Festival is of great cultural and economic importance to the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, bringing a significant influx of visitors to the area over three weeks each July. Preserving and promoting the heritage of the Festival is therefore of utmost importance, though its diverse cultural footprint — encompassing costumes, props, set designs, and an extensive audiovisual archive — presents a host of challenges to researchers and archivists alike. This paper thus reports on the early progress of the AixOPÉRA project, a three-year digital humanities initiative (2024–2027, financed by the Fondation Amidex) between Aix-Marseille Université and the Festival Lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence. Specifically, it focuses on the Festival’s vast audiovisual collections, and elaborates on the challenges of making this heritage widely available in the digital age. It also reflects on the enduring value of preserving, cataloguing, and promoting regional cultural heritage, and considers how collaborations of researchers with local partners can strengthen links between universities and communities. Finally, this talk contemplates the ways in which large-scale digital archive projects can not only contribute to a shared sense of cultural legacy, but can also make the case for the value of the arts in society at large
Seroepidemiological Reconstruction of Long-term Rift Valley Fever Virus Circulation in Nouakchott, Mauritania
No full textInternational audienceBackground Although Rift valley fever (RVF) is endemic in Mauritania, with 8 epidemics documented since 1987, infections among human populations, particularly in Nouakchott, the capital city of Mauritania, remain limited. The objectives of the present study were to assess the seroprevalence of RVF in humans and reconstruct the epidemiological history of RVF virus (RVFV) circulation within the city. Methods Using data from a cross-sectional and descriptive serological study among asymptomatic subjects conducted in Nouakchott in 2021, a mathematical model was developed to trace the seroepidemiological evolution of RVFV between 1927 and 2020 in the capital city. Results A total of 1319 participants were included, of whom 12.0% (158/1319) were positive for anti-RVFV immunoglobulin G (IgG). Sex, age group, district of residence, and use of mosquito nets or repellents at night were not statistically associated (P > .05) with anti-RVFV IgG positivity. Using the Hamiltonian Monte Carlo algorithm, posterior estimates of annual infection rates and probabilities of annual outbreak were calculated. The model suggested the absence of RVFV circulation before 1960, and the estimated outbreaks were concentrated between 1960 and 1972 and between 2017 and 2020. Discussion The present study provides the first overview of the evolution of RVF epidemiology in Nouakchott and the serological evidence that RVFV has been circulating in human populations in Nouakchott for a longer period of time than previously thought. Therefore, close surveillance in animals, humans, and mosquito vectors is necessary to detect the presence of RVFV and interrupt any future epidemics in the country
Una corda eculey
No full textThe Documentary Archaeology of Late Medieval Europe, edited by Daniel Lord Smail, Gabriel H. Pizzorno, and Laura Morreale.This article can be found on the website of the Documentary Archaeology of Late Medieval Europe: https://dalme.org/features/una-corda-eculey
Identification of Toxoplasma gondii antigenic proteins using an in vivo approach and in silico investigation of their polymorphism
No full textInternational audienceABSTRACT Toxoplasma gondii is a pathogen characterized by a large variety of strains whose virulence and clinical severity are likely linked to their genotype. Currently, the strains are genotyped using restriction fragment length polymorphism, multilocus sequence typing, and microsatellite markers. This typing requires the strain’s DNA, which is difficult to obtain. A serotyping test could overcome the constraints of genotyping, the challenge being to identify type-specific proteins. We identified immunogenic T. gondii proteins from co-immunoprecipitations for three tachyzoite strains (strain FOU from Africa 1 type, ME49 from Type II, and VEG from Type III) with hyperimmune murine sera and conducted an in silico polymorphism search for the identified proteins. A variant calling analysis was conducted on the next-generation sequencing sequences of 117 T. gondii isolates with the objective of identifying mutations present in the genes encoding the antigenic proteins previously identified. A total of 727 immunogenic proteins were identified, including 16% dense granule protein (GRA), rhoptry protein (ROP/RON), and surface antigen protein (SAG). Genetic analysis revealed the presence of 36 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in over 70% of isolates belonging to the same type, while less than 30% of isolates belonging to the other types exhibited these polymorphisms. Of these, only 15 are located on coding DNA sequence regions, while four are located on genes encoding apicomplexan proteins: two SNPs on the ROP5 gene and two on the ROP7 gene. The results of this study indicate that a significant number of T. gondii immunogenic proteins can be identified using an in vivo approach. The in silico study identified SNPs that could be genotype-specific. IMPORTANCE Toxoplasma gondii is a unique species that exhibits genotype diversity related to clinical virulence. Currently, genotyping is restricted, which limits epidemiological knowledge of the strains. To overcome this limitation, we aimed to develop serotyping tests. First, we used a murine in vivo , non-targeted experimental approach based on proteomics techniques through which we were able to identify a panel of more than 700 antigenic proteins from T. gondii . Then, we analyzed the polymorphism of these proteins using a whole-genome sequencing database containing the genomes of 117 genotyped strains. We showed that none of the 986 non-silent SNPs detected is specific to the strain type. The in vivo approach is the first that allowed the identification of such a large panel of antigenic proteins. Moreover, the polymorphism analysis, the first based on a large next-generation sequencing database, showed the limits that currently restrict the development of a serotyping technique
