Inferring dynamic genetic networks with low order independencies

In this paper, we propose a novel inference method for dynamic genetic networks which makes it possible to face with a number of time measurements n much smaller than the number of genes p. The approach is based on the concept of low order conditional dependence graph that we extend here in the case of Dynamic Bayesian Networks. Most of our results are based on the theory of graphical models associated with the Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs). In this way, we define a minimal DAG G which describes exactly the full order conditional dependencies given the past of the process. Then, to face with the large p and small n estimation case, we propose to approximate DAG G by considering low order conditional independencies. We introduce partial qth order conditional dependence DAGs G(q) and analyze their probabilistic properties. In general, DAGs G(q) differ from DAG G but still reflect relevant dependence facts for sparse networks such as genetic networks. By using this approximation, we set out a non-bayesian inference method and demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach on both simulated and real data analysis. The inference procedure is implemented in the R package 'G1DBN' freely available from the CRAN archive

Integrating industrial ecology thinking into the management of mining waste

Mining legacies are often dominated by large waste facilities and their associated environmental impacts. The most serious environmental problem associated with mine waste is heavy metals and acid leakage through a phenomenon called acid mine drainage (AMD). Interestingly, the toxicity of this leakage is partly due to the presence of valuable metals in the waste stream as a result of a diversity of factors influencing mining operations. A more preventive and recovery-oriented approach to waste management, integrated into mine planning and operations, could be both economically attractive and environmentally beneficial since it would: mitigate environmental impacts related to mine waste disposal (and consequently reduce the remediation costs); and increase the resource recovery at the mine site level. The authors argue that eco-efficiency and resilience (and the resulting increase in a mine’s lifetime) are both critical—yet overlooked—characteristics of sustainable mining operations. Based on these arguments, this paper proposes a framework to assist with identification of opportunities for improvement and to measure this improvement in terms of its contribution to a mine’s sustainability performance

Proyecto de ordenación paisajista del Recinto 1 del Conjunto Arqueológico Dólmenes de Antequera

El Sitio de los Dólmenes de Antequera es Patrimonio Mundial desde Julio 2016. La incorporación en la lista del Patrimonio de la Humanidad conlleva una serie de compromisos con ICOMOS para el correcto tratamiento del Sitio inscrito y para mejorar sus relaciones, con el entorno próximo y lejano tanto a nivel urbanístico como paisajístico. El proyecto de restauración paisajística forma parte de dichas medidas previstas para resolver el tratamiento paisajístico del Recinto 1 así como los problemas de circulación ligados a la visita pública. La propuesta pretende resolver la ordenación paisajística del Recinto 1 del Conjunto Arqueológico Dólmenes de Antequera con el mayor respeto posible de los yacimientos existentes. La propuesta paisajística desarrolla actuaciones concretas sobre arbolado y vegetación, trazado y acondicionamiento de caminos, mobiliario urbano, iluminación, aprovechamiento de los recursos hídricos, etc. para conseguir una correcta integración y un tratamiento adecuado del ámbito. En estrecha colaboración con la Agencia de Medio Ambiente y Agua de Andalucía, se ha elaborado una selección minuciosa de plantas autóctonas de la flora silvestre andaluza, adaptadas al medio del proyecto y que hacen referencia a los tiempos prehistóricos de los Dólmenes, ya que corresponden a la evolución natural del paisaje si no hubiera habido actuaciones humanas sobre este territorio. Además de la utilización de especies nativas, se plantea la incorporación de algunas especies amenazadas o en peligro de extinción. En efecto, se pretende utilizar el proyecto como plataforma para la conservación de la flora amenazada a través de su incorporación en un parque público.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

VANET Applications: Hot Use Cases

Current challenges of car manufacturers are to make roads safe, to achieve free flowing traffic with few congestions, and to reduce pollution by an effective fuel use. To reach these goals, many improvements are performed in-car, but more and more approaches rely on connected cars with communication capabilities between cars, with an infrastructure, or with IoT devices. Monitoring and coordinating vehicles allow then to compute intelligent ways of transportation. Connected cars have introduced a new way of thinking cars - not only as a mean for a driver to go from A to B, but as smart cars - a user extension like the smartphone today. In this report, we introduce concepts and specific vocabulary in order to classify current innovations or ideas on the emerging topic of smart car. We present a graphical categorization showing this evolution in function of the societal evolution. Different perspectives are adopted: a vehicle-centric view, a vehicle-network view, and a user-centric view; described by simple and complex use-cases and illustrated by a list of emerging and current projects from the academic and industrial worlds. We identified an empty space in innovation between the user and his car: paradoxically even if they are both in interaction, they are separated through different application uses. Future challenge is to interlace social concerns of the user within an intelligent and efficient driving

Search for surface magnetic fields in Mira stars. First detection in chi Cyg

In order to complete the knowledge of the magnetic field and of its influence during the transition from Asymptotic Giant Branch to Planetary Nebulae stages, we have undertaken a search for magnetic fields at the surface of Mira stars. We used spectropolarimetric observations, collected with the Narval instrument at TBL, in order to detect - with Least Squares Deconvolution method - a Zeeman signature in the visible part of the spectrum. We present the first spectropolarimetric observations of the S-type Mira star chi Cyg, performed around its maximum light. We have detected a polarimetric signal in the Stokes V spectra and we have established its Zeeman origin. We claim that it is likely to be related to a weak magnetic field present at the photospheric level and in the lower part of the stellar atmosphere. We have estimated the strength of its longitudinal component to about 2-3 Gauss. This result favors a 1/r law for the variation of the magnetic field strength across the circumstellar envelope of chi Cyg. This is the first detection of a weak magnetic field at the stellar surface of a Mira star and we discuss its origin in the framework of shock waves periodically propagating throughout the atmosphere of these radially pulsating stars. At the date of our observations of chi Cyg, the shock wave reaches its maximum intensity, and it is likely that the shock amplifies a weak stellar magnetic field during its passage through the atmosphere. Without such an amplification by the shock, the magnetic field strength would have been too low to be detected. For the first time, we also report strong Stokes Q and U signatures (linear polarization) centered onto the zero velocity (i.e., at the shock front position). They seem to indicate that the radial direction would be favored by the shock during its propagation throughout the atmosphere.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures accepted by Astronomy and Astrophysics (21 November 2013

Monarchie et patriciats municipaux en Castille sous Charles II. Le renouvellement des millions à la fin du XVIIe siècle

Ecrit en 2000, révisé en 2003. Devait être publié dans un ouvrage collectif resté en souffrance...At the end of the XVIIth century, every six years, every Castilian town with a right to send members to the Cortes, had to renew its consent to the "millones" tax. This being done, the members of the town councils begged for favors from the royal gratitude. Their petitions and related papers have been preserved. They provide a crude but higly interesting point of view over the system of personal relationships between the king and the town fathers which developped at that time. Recent historiography considers these developments as of utmost importance to explain the raise of absolutism.Le renouvellement tous les six ans de l'impôt des millions par les municipalités ayant droit de vote aux Cortes est l'occasion pour les membres des corps municipaux concernés de demander au roi faveurs et récompenses. Leurs pétitions, les réponses données et les documents de négociations sont soigneusement archivés. Cette source permet une plongée dans l'univers de la relation personnelle développée par le souverain avec chacun des membres de l'élite municipale, dans laquelle l'historiographie actuelle voit l'un des outils principaux du développement de l'Etat absolu

The structure of radiative shock waves. V. Hydrogen emission lines

We considered the structure of steady-state plane-parallel radiative shock waves propagating through the partially ionized hydrogen gas of temperature T_1 = 3000K and density 1e-12 gm/cm^3 <= \rho_1 <= 1e-9 gm/cm^3. The upstream Mach numbers range within 6 <= M_1 <= 14. In frequency intervals of hydrogen lines the radiation field was treated using the transfer equation in the frame of the observer for the moving medium, whereas the continuum radiation was calculated for the static medium. Doppler shifts in Balmer emission lines of the radiation flux emerging from the upstream boundary of the shock wave model were found to be roughly one-third of the shock wave velocity. The gas emitting the Balmer line radiation is located at the rear of the shock wave in the hydrogen recombination zone where the gas flow velocity in the frame of the observer is approximately one-half of the shock wave velocity. The ratio of the Doppler shift to the gas flow velocity of 0.7 results both from the small optical thickness of the shock wave in line frequencies and the anisotropy of the radiation field typical for the slab geometry. In the ambient gas with density of \rho_1 >= 1e-11 gm/cm^3 the flux in the H-alpha frequency interval reveals the double structure of the profile. A weaker H-beta profile doubling was found for \rho_1 >= 1e-10 gm/cm^3 and U_1 <= 50 km/s. The unshifted redward component of the double profile is due to photodeexcitation accompanying the rapid growth of collisional ionization in the narrow layer in front of the discontinuous jump.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figures, LaTeX, accepted for publication in A

Magnetic fields in single late-type giants in the Solar vicinity: How common is magnetic activity on the giant branches?

We present our first results on a new sample containing all single G,K and M giants down to V = 4 mag in the Solar vicinity, suitable for spectropolarimetric (Stokes V) observations with Narval at TBL, France. For detection and measurement of the magnetic field (MF), the Least Squares Deconvolution (LSD) method was applied (Donati et al. 1997) that in the present case enables detection of large-scale MFs even weaker than the solar one (the typical precision of our longitudinal MF measurements is 0.1-0.2 G). The evolutionary status of the stars is determined on the basis of the evolutionary models with rotation (Lagarde et al. 2012; Charbonnel et al., in prep.) and fundamental parameters given by Massarotti et al. (1998). The stars appear to be in the mass range 1-4 M_sun, situated at different evolutionary stages after the Main Sequence (MS), up to the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB). The sample contains 45 stars. Up to now, 29 stars are observed (that is about 64 % of the sample), each observed at least twice. For 2 stars in the Hertzsprung gap, one is definitely Zeeman detected. Only 5 G and K giants, situated mainly at the base of the Red Giant Branch (RGB) and in the He-burning phase are detected. Surprisingly, a lot of stars ascending towards the RGB tip and in early AGB phase are detected (8 of 13 observed stars). For all Zeeman detected stars v sin i is redetermined and appears in the interval 2-3 km/s, but few giants with MF possess larger v sin i.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, Proceedings IAU Symposium No. 302, 201

Lithium and magnetic fields in giants. HD 232862 : a magnetic and lithium-rich giant star

We report the detection of an unusually high lithium content in HD 232862, a field giant classified as a G8II star, and hosting a magnetic field. With the spectropolarimeters ESPaDOnS at CFHT and NARVAL at TBL, we have collected high resolution and high signal-to-noise spectra of three giants : HD 232862, KU Peg and HD 21018. From spectral synthesis we have inferred stellar parameters and measured lithium abundances that we have compared to predictions from evolutionary models. We have also analysed Stokes V signatures, looking for a magnetic field on these giants. HD 232862, presents a very high abundance of lithium (ALi = 2.45 +/- 0.25 dex), far in excess of the theoretically value expected at this spectral type and for this luminosity class (i.e, G8II). The evolutionary stage of HD 232862 has been precised, and it suggests a mass in the lower part of the [1.0 Msun ; 3.5 Msun ] mass interval, likely 1.5 to 2.0 solar mass, at the bottom of the Red Giant Branch. Besides, a time variable Stokes V signature has been detected in the data of HD 232862 and KU Peg, pointing to the presence of a magnetic field at the surface of these two rapidly rotating active stars.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures ; accepted by Astronomy and Astrophysic