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Le voyage épigraphique de Louis Jalabert en Transjordanie (1905)
No full textInternational audienceA notebook on a trip to Transjordan (1905) written by Louis Jalabert, one of the Jesuit Fathers of Beirut, is kept in the photo archives of the Bibliothèque Orientale of Université Saint-Joseph. It contains brief observations, quick impressions of the trip, and a distinct epigraphic section consisting of drawings of inscriptions or more summary notes and comments, but photos of inscriptions are almost absent. Most of the sites concerned are the best known in present-day Jordan: Petra, Kerak, Madaba, Gadara. The notebook also includes a few sites in Southern Syria and Palestine. In addition to its contribution to the historiography of epigraphy, this dossier provides additional information on some published inscriptions and a previously unpublished Greek text from Gerasa.Le carnet de voyage en Transjordanie (1905) de Louis Jalabert, l’un des pères jésuites de Beyrouth, est conservé à la photothèque de la Bibliothèque orientale de l’Université Saint-Joseph. Il contient des notes peu développées, rapides impressions de voyage, mais aussi une partie épigraphique bien distincte, composée de dessins d’inscriptions ou de copies plus sommaires et de commentaires, mais les photos d’inscriptions en sont presque absentes. Les sites concernés sont, pour la plupart, les plus connus de l’actuelle Jordanie : Pétra, Kérak, Madaba, Gadara. Figurent également quelques sites de Syrie du Sud et de Palestine. Outre son apport à l’historiographie de la discipline épigraphique, cette documentation fournit des enrichissements à la connaissance de certaines inscriptions connues et aussi un inédit de Gérasa
The NF-κB factor Relish is essential for the epithelial defenses protecting against δ-endotoxin dependent effects of Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis infection in the Drosophila model
No full textInternational audienceBacillus thuringiensis israelensis is largely regarded as the most selective, safe and ecofriendly biopesticide used for the control of insect vectors of human diseases. Bti enthomopathogenicity relies on the Cry and Cyt δ-endotoxins, produced as crystalline inclusions during sporulation. Insecticidal selectivity of Bti is mainly ascribed to the binding of the Cry toxins to receptors in the gut of target insects. However, the contribution of epithelial defenses in limiting Bti side effects in non-target species remains largely unexplored. Here, taking advantage of the genetically tractable Drosophila melanogaster model and its amenability for deciphering highly conserved innate immune defenses, we unravel a central role of the NF-κB factor Relish in the protection against the effects of ingested Bti spores in a non-susceptible host. Intriguingly, our data indicate that the Bti-induced Relish response is independent of its canonical activation downstream of peptidoglycan sensing and does not involve its longstanding role in the regulation of antimicrobial peptides encoding genes. In contrast, our data highlight a novel enterocyte specific function of Relish that is essential for preventing general septicemia following Bti oral infections strictly when producing δ-endotoxins. Altogether, our data provide novel insights into Bti-hosts interactions of prominent interest for the optimization and sustainability of insects' biocontrol strategies
Anaerobic Digestion of Poultry Droppings in Semi-Continuous Mode and Effect of Their Co-Digestion with Physico-Chemical Sludge on Methane Yield
No full textInternational audiencePoultry waste is rich in organic matter, which allows its treatment by the process of anaerobic digestion (AD) to reinforce economic and environmental green strategies. The aim of this study is to assess the technical feasibility of poultry waste AD in semi-continuous mode and to intensify methane production by co-digestion with physico-chemical sludge, i.e., the product of the primary treatment of wastewater after the slaughtering process. First, the AD of poultry droppings is conducted in a continuous stirred anaerobic digester (CSAD) at 37 °C. A volume of 0.791 and 0.623 Nm3·Nm−3 reactor·days−1 of biogas and methane, respectively, were produced during the entire process stabilization period. Biochemical characterization of the substrate and the final digestate show high reduction rates of the biochemical fractions, which corroborates with methane yield. In addition, the co-digestion of poultry droppings with two different ratios of physico-chemical sludge (20% and 40% added sludge considering the amount of volatile solids) shows an increase in methane production versus droppings alone, with a higher increase of 54% with a sludge ratio of 40%. Altogether, these promising results were obtained in stable processes, highlighting the pertinence of our study
Évaluation de l’aphasie bilingue au Liban : défis rencontrés lors de l’adaptation de la version courte du Bilingual Aphasia Test français au contexte libanais plurilingue
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Bioethanol Production from Woody Biomass: Recent Advances on the Effect of Pretreatments on the Bioconversion Process and Energy Yield Aspects
No full textInternational audienceAs greenhouse gas emissions are continuously increasing, research is now privileging greener and more sustainable human activities. An attractive strategy in the pursuit of sustainability is the valorization of lignocellulosic biomasses for the production of bioethanol. This approach relies on the bioconversion of wood and agricultural waste, which are abundant globally. They represent considerable sources of fermentable sugars that can be recovered through enzymatic hydrolysis. However, the presence of lignin in wood waste makes it more recalcitrant to enzymatic hydrolysis, and reduces the efficiency of the bioconversion process. Therefore, a pretreatment preceding hydrolysis is highly necessary in order to disrupt the resistant structure of woody biomass. The type and severity of the pretreatment affect the outcomes of the hydrolysis and fermentation steps, just as they strongly influence the overall process costs. Given this context, bioenergy production from this biomass is a promising alternative method of sustainably responding to energy demands while reducing the amounts of waste left in nature. The aim of this review is to thoroughly compare the recent bioconversion processes performed on woody substrates over the past five years, with a focus on thermomechanical pretreatments. Moreover, this review will discuss the outcomes of their separate steps, their impact on the overall process, and their energetic aspects
A posteriori error estimates for the time dependent Navier-Stokes system coupled with the convection-diffusion-reaction equation
No full textInternational audienceIn this paper we study the a posteriori error estimates for the time dependent Navier-Stokes system coupled with the convection-diffusion-reaction equation. The problem is discretized in time using the implicit Euler method and in space using the finite element method. We establish a posteriori error estimates with two types of computable error indicators, the first one linked to the space discretization and the second one to the time discretization. Finally, numerical investigations are performed and presented
A Four-Sided Matching Game for Energy-Efficient Scheduling in Narrowband-IoT Networks
No full textInternational audienceThis paper studies the uplink resource allocation problem in NB-IoT networks. We aim to maximize the network's energy efficiency to serve devices in need for long battery lifetime. Also, the network energy efficiency is affected by the associated UEs to candidates, carrying the scheduling information for UEs. For this reason, we investigate the joint resource allocation and Candidate-UE association problem in the uplink (UL) in NB-IoT. The resource allocation problem allocates the UEs with the suitable scheduling delay value and subcarrier indication field. The Candidate-UE association problem selects the appropriate UE for each candidate. The optimization variables involved in the joint problem are divided into binary association variables and binary resource allocation variables. This makes it hard to solve the joint problem since its optimization variables are of combinatorial nature. To this end, we formulate the joint problem as a four-sided matching game that ranks the UEs, candidates, the scheduling delay values and subcarrier indication fields while considering maximizing the energy efficiency as a preference metric. We then describe a four-sided matching game algorithm to solve the problem. The simulation results highlight the proposed algorithm's effectiveness compared to other algorithms in the obtained network energy efficiency.</div
Writing letters in two graphic systems : Behavioral and neural correlates in French/Arabic biscripters
No full textInternational audienceBiscriptuality is the ability to read and write using two scripts. Despite the increasing number of biscripters, this phenomenon remains poorly understood. Here, we focused on investigating graphomotor processing in French–Arabic biscripters. We chose the French and Arabic alphabets because they have comparable visuospatial complexity and linguistic features, but differ dramatically in their graphomotor characteristics. In a first experiment we describe the graphomotor features of the two alphabets and showed that while Arabic and Latin letters are produced with the same velocity and fluency, Arabic letters require more pen lifts, contain more right-to-left strokes and clockwise curves, and take longer to write than Latin letters. These results suggest that Arabic and Latin letters are produced via different motor patterns. In a second experiment we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to ask whether writing the two scripts relies upon partially distinct or fully overlapping neural networks, and whether the elements of the previously described handwriting network are recruited to the same extent by the two scripts. We found that both scripts engaged the so-called “writing network”, but that within the network, Arabic letters recruited the left superior parietal lobule (SPL) and the left primary motor cortex (M1) more strongly than Latin letters. Both regions have previously been identified as holding scale-invariant representations of letter trajectories. Arabic and Latin letters also activated distinct regions that do not belong to the writing network. Complementary analyses indicate that the differences observed between scripts at the neural level could be driven by the specific graphomotor features of each script. Overall, our results indicate that particular features of the practiced scripts can lead to different motor organization at both the behavioral and brain levels in biscripters
Late Pleistocene expansions from a single climatic refugium and close wild–domesticated relationships in the carob tree
No full textInternational audienceUnravelling the origin of present-day populations of plants in relation to the history of Quaternary environmental changes is challenging. In the case of fruit trees, the recurrent exchanges between domesticated and wild populations further complicate reconstructing their natural phylogeographic history. The carob tree (Ceratonia siliqua L.) is a Mediterranean fruit tree that has played a crucial role in societies due to its edible fruits, used as fodder for livestock and in subsistence agriculture. The spread of its cultivation and domestication was linked to the development of grafting methods ca. 3,000 years ago. As for several crops, the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean regions were initially proposed as the centre of carob domestication. Based on sound biogeographical assumptions and various molecular data and phylogeographic methods, our results refute this hypothesis. Our analyses support phylogeographic origin from a single refugium situated in south Morocco near the Atlantic coast and that expansion from this refugium has occurred before the Last Glacial and along at least two routes. The absence of clear genetic differentiation of cultivated carobs suggest multiple origins of domestication across its range and from local wild populations. Gene flow and admixture analyses confirm a genetic influence from the East that was probably caused by long-distance dispersal of domesticated varieties. Our studies on the phylogeography and ecology of the carob tree highlight the importance of wild and semi-natural habitats in climatic refugia for the conservation of fruit tree genetic resources
Source apportionment of PM2.5 oxidative potential in an East Mediterranean site
No full textInternational audienceThis study aimed to evaluate the oxidative potential (OP) of PM2.5 collected for almost a year in an urban area of the East Mediterranean. Two acellular assays, based on ascorbic acid (AA) and dithiothreitol (DTT) depletion, were used to measure the OP. The results showed that the mean volume normalized OP-AAv value was 0.64 ± 0.29 nmol·min−1·m−3 and the mean OP-DTTv was 0.49 ± 0.26 nmol·min−1·m−3. Several approaches were adopted in this work to study the relationship between the species in PM2.5 (carbonaceous matter, water-soluble ions, major and trace elements, and organic compounds) or their sources and OP values. Spearman correlations revealed strong correlations of OP-AAv with carbonaceous subfractions as well as organic compounds while OP-DTTv seemed to be more correlated with elements emitted from different anthropogenic activities. Furthermore, a multiple linear regression method was used to estimate the contribution of PM2.5 sources, determined by a source-receptor model (Positive Matrix Factorization), to the OP values. The results showed that the sources that highly contribute to the PM2.5 mass (crustal dust and ammonium sulfate) were not the major sources contributing to the values of OP. Instead, 69 % of OP-AAv and 62 % of OP-DTTv values were explained by three local anthropogenic sources: Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) combustion from a power plant, biomass burning, and road traffic emissions. As for the seasonal variations, higher OP-AAv values were observed during winter compared to summer, while OP-DTTv did not show any significant differences between the two seasons. The contribution of biomass burning during winter was 33 and 34 times higher compared to summer for OP-AAv and OP-DTTv, respectively. On the other hand, higher contributions were observed for HFO combustion during summer