ORT France

This paper presents the first implementation of a Time-to-First-Spike (TFS) pixel based on an uncooled microbolometer for infrared (IR) imaging. To the best of our knowledge, no TFS pixels based on thermal sensors have been demonstrated, while TFS pixels have been explored in the visible spectrum using photodiodes. In this work, the microbolometer is modeled as a temperature-dependent resistor whose voltage is compared against a reference ramp. The crossing time, which varies with temperature, is captured as a digital spike using a C-element and converted to a digital signal via a Time-to-Digital Converter (TDC). This temporally encoded scheme enables efficient, event-driven readout and naturally suppresses spatial redundancy, as pixels responding to similar IR radiation spike simultaneously. To validate this approach, a proof-of-concept (PoC) testchip was designed in 130nm CMOS, integrating a single TFS pixel, a 3×3 TFS pixel array, a ramp voltage generator, and a bias current source. The readout circuitry, including the TDC and control logic, will be implemented on an FPGA to support experimentation with both global and rolling shutter strategies. This work opens a new path toward low-power, event-based IR sensors and neuromorphic thermal imaging systems.

This work aims at identifying the main AIOps techniques reported in peer-reviewed literature in the last six years (1) and classify the techniques according to what software quality attribute to they contribute to. It presents the preliminary results of a systematic mapping study considering peer-reviewed literature. 72 peer-reviewed studies were analyzed in order to extract strategies and practices. Anomaly detection and fault prediction were the strategies most often applied on AIOps. Classical machine learning techniques, as well as deep learning techniques were the most frequently found groups of techniques in literature. Availability and maintainability are the most frequently software quality attributes improved by applying AIOps techniques.

This chapter aims to retrace the key periods in the history of the French state that have shaped the fabric of contemporary healthcare territorialization. It also aims to understand the conditions of their transformation, by examining the ways in which actors are organized, their frames of reference for shaping policies and their resistance to change, which bear the imprint of their past history on today's territorial divisions. As early as the 17th century, central government felt the need to intervene to guarantee a certain territorial balance in the location of healthcare facilities. The economic crisis of the early 1970s made controlling the expansion of the healthcare system absolutely crucial. As a result, the desire to rationalize and better distribute the supply of hospital care grew. In the field of mental health, the recomposition of contemporary divisions is part of a dynamic that is already well advanced.

Earlier this year, the Organization for Musculoskeletal Therapy of France (OMT-France) in collaboration with the Preuve et Evidence en Kinésithérapie Association de Bretagne (PEKAB) association produced in French language an open-access triage guide (https://www.omt-france.fr/le-guide-du-triage-en-kinesitherapie-musculo-squelettique/) for physiotherapists assessing patients with neuro-musculoskeletal conditions. The aims of this first screening guide were to introduce the notions of triage and to provide information on common red flags organized by systems. An appropriate triage makes it possible to redirect patients either directly to the emergency room (ER) or to their attending physician or to be able to safely initiate physiotherapy treatment. This guide will be regularly updated in order to offer a document based on current scientific data. The information that will emerge from the latest scientific studies, as well as new recommendations in the field of triage, will therefore be integrated and updated. [...]

The present paper analyzes possible bridges between two types of graphical models: on the one hand, Bayesian Networks, and on the other hand, Graphs of Deterrence associated with a particular category of qualitative games called matrix Games of Deterrence, in which players do not look for optimal outcomes but for acceptable ones. Three related-types of relations are scrutinized: implications and rebuttals; priors and hidden parts of the graph; probability and playability.

It should come as no surprise to learn that poorer countries have disproportionately higher risks of mortality and economic loss from disasters than rich ones, given similar levels of hazard exposure. Earlier we listed the underlying disaster risk drivers, namely, rural and urban poverty, urbanization, bad urban governance, and eco-system decline, i.e., environmental degradation, all of which are more present in poorer countries than in rich ones. The unequal distribution of these drivers translates poverty and every day risk into disaster risk. Concomitantly, the poor cannot buffer disaster losses and therefore generally become even poorer when disaster strikes. The weakness of social protection in poor countries (and increasingly in the poorer sections of rich ones) adds to this problem.

Private enterprise is subject to the inexorable pressure of having to make a profit above all else. Businesses that fail in this do not survive, a structural constraint that makes it virtually impossible for the private sector to take a neutral view towards being regulated, especially if a regulation limits even its short-term profit-making possibilities. The question of whether the regulation in question is in everyone’s interest, including its own, does not enter into its deliberations.

Grape polyphenols have beneficial health effects, but grape ingestion has been associated with acute renal failure leading most often to fatal issue in dogs. The responsible factors are unknown.Our aim was to check the safety of a supplement of polyphenol‐rich mixture (grape and blueberry extracts (specific pet Neurophenols® blend)) in dogs.Seventeen dogs were given, for 12 wks, capsules containing 4 (n=5) or 20 (n=6) or 40 (n=6) mg/kg/d of the polyphenol mixture. Five control dogs were given maltodextrin capsules. Blood and 24‐h urine were taken before the beginning of the study (W0), then after 4 wks and 12 wks of supplementation. Plasma standard analysis (creatinine (Creat), urea, minerals (Na, K, Ca, P), total protein, hepatic biomarkers (ALT, ALP)) were assayed. New biomarkers that reveal early renal damage were measured : plasma and urinary cystatin C (CysC), clusterin (Clu), neutrophil gelatinase‐associated lipocalin (NGAL). Urinary biomarkers/Creat ratios were calculated. Data were compared with limits of reference intervals or with the highest values from our control dogs and experimental dogs at W0.Whatever the week, plasma standard analysis were below high limits of reference intervals. Plasma CysC concentration was below our own high limit. Plasma Clu and NGAL concentrations were below limits of reference intervals. Urinary CysC/Creat, Clu/Creat, NGAL/Creat ratios were below our own limit.Grape extract and blueberry extract (specific pet Neurophenols® blend) consumption was not associated with any sign of renal failure and can be consumed safely in dogs.

BackgroundMass treatment with ivermectin controls onchocerciasis as a public health problem, but it was not known if it could also interrupt transmission and eliminate the parasite in endemic foci in Africa where vectors are highly efficient. A longitudinal study was undertaken in three hyperendemic foci in Mali and Senegal with 15 to 17 years of annual or six-monthly ivermectin treatment in order to assess residual levels of infection and transmission, and test whether treatment could be safely stopped. This article reports the results of the final evaluations up to 5 years after the last treatment.Methodology/Principal FindingsSkin snip surveys were undertaken in 131 villages where 29,753 people were examined and 492,600 blackflies were analyzed for the presence of Onchocerca volvulus larva using a specific DNA probe. There was a declining trend in infection and transmission levels after the last treatment. In two sites the prevalence of microfilaria and vector infectivity rate were zero 3 to 4 years after the last treatment. In the third site, where infection levels were comparatively high before stopping treatment, there was also a consistent decline in infection and transmission to very low levels 3 to 5 years after stopping treatment. All infection and transmission indicators were below postulated thresholds for elimination.Conclusion/SignificanceThe study has established the proof of principle that onchocerciasis elimination with ivermectin treatment is feasible in at least some endemic foci in Africa. The study results have been instrumental for the current evolution from onchocerciasis control to elimination in Africa.