Search

A structured definition of amniotic fluid embolism (AFE) based on 4 criteria was recently proposed for use in research by the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) and the Amniotic Fluid Embolism Foundation. The main objective of this study was to review all AFE-related maternal deaths in France during 2007-2011 according to the presence or not of all these 4 diagnostic criteria.Maternal deaths due to AFE were identified by the national experts committee of the French Confidential Enquiry into Maternal Deaths during 2007-2011 (n = 39). The maternal mortality ratio for AFE was calculated. We applied the structured definition proposed by the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine and the Amniotic Fluid Embolism Foundation to AFE-related maternal deaths identified by the national experts committee. Characteristics of women, pregnancies and deliveries; clinical and biological features of AFE; and specific laboratory tests used were described by the presence or not of all 4 diagnostic criteria. Management of obstetric hemorrhage and quality of care according to the experts were also described.The maternal mortality ratio from AFE was 0.95/100,000 live births (95% confidence interval, 0.67-1.3). Detailed clinical data were collected for 36 women who died from AFE: 21 (58%) had all 4 proposed diagnostic criteria and 15 (42%) had 1 or more missing criterion. Documented early disseminated intravascular coagulopathy was missing for 14 women, and 2 women exhibited more than 1 missing criterion. Ten of the 15 women with missing criteria had clinical coagulopathy, with standard hemostasis tests performed in only 3. Specific diagnostic examinations for AFE were performed in similar proportions by the presence or not of all diagnostic criteria. Opportunities to improve care included timely performance of indicated hysterectomy (n = 13) and improved transfusion practices (n = 9). In the context of maternal cardiac arrest, for 5 of 13 women, fetal extraction was performed within 5 minutes.The structured definition of AFE for research studies would exclude more than one-third of AFE-related maternal deaths identified by the national experts committee. Inclusion of clinical coagulopathy as a diagnostic criterion for AFE would reduce this proportion to 14%. There is still room for improvement in the management of obstetric hemorrhage and timely fetal extraction in the context of maternal cardiac arrest, frequently observed in AFE-related maternal death.

This paper presents a theoretical model for the characterization of complex flexible printed interconnects. The main aim of this work is to extract, from the multi-layers complex structure subject to harsh environment (high intensity electromagnetic fields), an equivalent circuit model from 500 MHz to 8 GHz. The proposed methodology requires assessing the voltages induced at the end of the signal tracks: interconnects have been considered as multiconductor transmission line (MTL) networks. It is to be noted that the structure is firstly considered as uniform transmission line that is illuminated by external electromagnetic (EM) fields (represented by current and voltage generators localized at the lines' terminals). The deterministic model is validated by comparing MTL results with data simulated with CST Microwave Studio®, based on “Full-wave” description (including geometrical — electrical and mechanical — schemes) of the interconnects.

The paper deals with a stochastic analysis of influence of randomly distributed values of certain parameters on the value of the transient impedance of the horizontal grounding electrode. Deterministic model for the transient impedance calculation is based on the antenna theory and corresponding Pocklington integro-differential equation in the frequency domain. The Pocklington equation is solved using previously developed analytical technique, thus obtaining scattered voltage at the input terminal of the grounding electrode and, subsequently, transient impedance. Stochastic collocation analysis is applied by taking into account three different random parameters and performing subsequent analysis of their respective impact.

Hundreds of herbarium collections have accumulated a valuable heritage and knowledge of plants over several centuries (Page et al. 2015). Recent initiatives, such as iDigBio (https://www.idigbio.org), aggregate data from and images of vouchered herbarium sheets (and other biocollections) and make this information available to botanists and the general public worldwide through web portals. These ambitious plans to transform and preserve these historical biodiversity data into digital format are supported by the United States National Science Foundation (NSF) Advancing the Digitization of Natural History Collections (ADBC) and the digitization is done by the Thematic Collections Networks (TCNs) funded under the ADBC program. However, thousands of herbarium sheets are still unidentified at the species level while numerous sheets should be reviewed and updated following more recent taxonomic knowledge. These annotations and revisions require an unrealistic amount of work for botanists to carry out in a reasonable time (Bebber et al. 2010). Computer vision and machine learning approaches applied to herbarium sheets are promising (Wijesingha and Marikar 2012) but are still not well studied compared to automated species identification from leaf scans or pictures of plants taken in the field. In a recent study, we evaluate the accuracy with which herbarium images can be potentially exploited for species identification with deep learning technology (Carranza-Rojas et al. 2017), particularly Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) (Szegedy et al. 2015). This type of network allows automatic learning of the most prominent visual patterns in the images since they are trainable end-to-end (thus, differentiable), as opposed to previous approaches that use custom, hand-made feature extractors. A first challenge is to use herbarium sheet images alone to automatically identify the species of plants mounted on herbarium sheets. Secondly, we propose studying if the combination of herbarium sheet images with photos of plants in the field (Joly et al. 2015, Carranza-Rojas and Mata-Montero 2016) is a viable idea to train models that provide accurate results during identification. Finally, we explore if herbarium images from one region with a specific flora can be used in transfer learning (a technique in deep learning that first allows training a model with a dataset and then once trained, uses the weighted results to train another model with that knowledge as the baseline) to another region with other species; for example, in a region under-represented in terms of collected data. Our evaluation shows that the accuracy for species identification with deep learning technology, based on herbarium images, reaches 90.3% on a dataset of more than 1200 European plant species. This could potentially lead to the creation of a semi-, or even fully automated system to help taxonomists and experts with their annotation, classification, and revision works. In this paper, we take a closer look at the accuracy levels achieved with respect to the first two challenges. We evaluate the accuracy levels for each species included in the dataset, which encompasses 253,733 images, 1,204 species.

International audience; In this study, we demonstrate the benefit of an original vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) nanostructuration on the electrochemical performances. This new synthesis way of high purity nanosized V2O5 consists in a facile fluorination reaction of micro-V2O5 in aqueous solution followed by a heat-treatment at low temperature (230 °C). Highly porous calisson-like particles with crystallite sizes in the 13–30 nm range are obtained. Remarkably, this nanostructured V2O5 exhibits outstanding rate capacities and cycling stabilities. This material can deliver reversible capacities of 260 mAh g−1 at 15 mA g−1 (C/10 rate) and 150 mAh g−1 at 300 mA g−1 (2C rate), as well as a stable capacity of 200 mAh g−1 at C rate after 50 cycles. The unique structural features of nano-LixV2O5 electrodes are determined over the large Li composition range 0 ≤ x < 2 based on XRD and Raman microspectrometry experiments. We provide evidence that lithiation in nanosized V2O5 proceeds via solid solution state without domain boundaries: a single phase behavior of the ε’-type whose interlayer distance and unit cell volume linearly increase with x is revealed. This constitutes a disruption of the usual mirco-LixV2O5 phase diagram made of the successive appearance of the (α/ε), (ε/δ) and (δ/γ) wide biphasic regions. These limited and reversible structural changes combined with shorter Li diffusion pathways explain the huge improvement in electrochemical performances of nano-V2O5. These findings fully elucidate the peculiar voltage profile of nanosized V2O5 and give a unique insight into the impact of nanostructures in terms of electrochemistry and solid state chemistry.

The paper deals with a stochastic-deterministic modeling and sensitivity analysis of the transient field generated by a ground penetrating radar (GPR) dipole antenna and transmitted into a lossy ground in time domain. Uncertainties are inherent to the environmental and geometrical parameters pertaining to GPR applications. Such settings include dielectric properties of a soil, the terrain inhomogeneity, surface roughness, uncertainty in detected depth of buried object etc. The stochastic modelling is carried out by means of Lagrange's stochastic collocation (SC) method while deterministic model is based on the Time Domain Integral Equation (TDIE) approach and related numerical solution via the space-time variant of Galerkin Bubnov's Indirect Boundary Element Method (GB-IBEM). The presented model provides a mean to rank the input parameters from the most to least influential one and to obtain statistical moments for the transient field values. The paper also aims to combine the time domain techniques with the stochastic method to provide a more complete description of GPR antenna generated fields.

International audience; Pl@ntNet is a free web and mobile platform dedicated to automated, image-based plant identification and to collaborative gathering of plant observations (http://identify.plantnet-project.org/). It relies on crowdsourcing approaches and machine learning techniques for data production, validation and enrichment. The initial version of the application, launched in 2013, covered 800 French native species. It now covers a large part of European flora (6,200 species) and has been extended to other floristic regions, such as the Mascarene Islands, the Guiana Shield and Maghreb. Through its iPhone and Android apps (> 3 million downloads and 10,000-50,000 daily users), Pl@ntNet gathers increasingly large amounts of botanical observations voluntarily contributed by an array of people who are often novice in plant identification. These observations are continually checked and amended (for identifications and image quality) by hundreds of amateur botanists, through Pl@ntNet’s collaborative web tools. We recently worked on several different datasets shared by national and international institutions (such as a visual dataset from Encyclopedia of Life), in the aim to improve efficiency and taxonomic coverage of Pl@ntNet application. This has allowed the adaptation of Pl@ntNet to several new floras, such as the North American flora, a part of the Caribbean and Hawaiian flora, and the Tropical Andes flora. We propose to present (i) recent developments dedicated to data aggregation and enrichment (notably the semi-automated plant image annotation), (ii) the limits of this approach, (iii) as well as the perspectives of improvements, based on both the users feedback, and on analyses of the data already collected. This emphasize on one side, the potential of new technologies for botanical and ecological activities, and on the other side, the capacity of multi-disciplinary projects to address societal needs at large scale.

Background A comparison of the effective dose in 50% of patients (ED50) has suggested that the potency of levobupivacaine lies between that of bupivacaine and ropivacaine. However, for clinical purposes, knowledge and use of doses close to the ED95 are more relevant. This study was designed to determine the EC80 (effective concentration) for both epidural levobupivacaine and ropivacaine using the Continual Reassessment Method (CRM) during obstetric analgesia. Methods In this double-blind randomised study, term parturients were included by cohorts of 6 if cervical dilatation was ≤ 5 cm and visual analogue pain score (VAPS) > 30 mm. Efficacy was defined by a decrease of VAPS to a value ≤ 10, thirty minutes after epidural injection of 20 mL of levobupivacaine or ropivacaine. The first cohort received the lowest dose. Every next cohort received a dose according to the response's probability calculated using a Bayesian method, incorporating data from all consecutive previous patients. In addition, a logistic equation was fitted a posteriori to the whole data set to determine the whole dose-probability curve. Results Fifty-four patients were enrolled. Levobupivacaine 0.17% and ropivacaine 0.2% gave probabilities of success of 82% and 72% respectively. By fitting the logistic model to the data, the concentration leading to a probability of 0.8 (EC80) was 0.14% for levobupivacaine and 0.24% for ropivacaine while the EC50 were 0.09% for levobupivacaine and 0.17% for ropivacaine, respectively. Conclusion This study suggests that epidural levobupivacaine used as the sole drug for labour analgesia has an EC80 lower than that of ropivacaine.

Two N-substituted naphthalene tetracarboxylic diimide (NTCDI) ionic compounds, carboxylic and sulfonic sodium salts, were prepared and used as positive electrode active materials in lithium-half cells. The aim of this investigation was to assess the solubility-suppressing effect of two different negatively charged substituent groups on a redox-active organic backbone using a carbonate-based liquid electrolyte. NTCDI derivatives were obtained in high yields from reaction of naphthalene tetracarboxylic dianhydride with neutralized glycine or with neutralized taurine. They were mixed with carbon black and cycled in galvanostatic mode against lithium metal using 1 M LiPF6 EC/DMC liquid electrolyte. These two NTCDI derivatives exhibit a quite stable electrochemical activity upon cycling at an average potential of 2.3 V vs. Li+/Li0 giving rise to specific capacity values of 147 mAh·g−1 and 113 mAh·g−1 for the dicarboxylate and the disulfonate derivative, respectively. This study clearly supports the useful effect of such grafted permanent charges as a general rule on the electrochemical stability of crystallized organic materials based on the assembly of small redox-active units. Keywords: Naphthalene diimide, Lithium batteries, Organic electrode, Organic batteries

This contribution aims to assess the sensitivity of the time domain response of a straight thin electrode buried in a lossy half-space. The issue is of crucial importance in many fields including electrical engineering (e.g. ground penetrating radar purposes, lightning protection for electrical settlements). Indeed, such systems are subject to more and more complex radiating coupling, mostly due to the variability of input parameters. An alternative approach to classical Sobol' indices is proposed here, jointly with an analytical resolution of Pocklington integro-differential equation.

The conversion reaction of Mg2MHx (M = Co, Ni) complex hydrides with lithium has been investigated by in and ex situ X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The structural properties of the involved products are compared to those obtained by thermal decomposition as well as to the results of previous studies on the Mg2FeH6 hydride. For all complex hydrides, M–H bonding is clearly evidenced by XAS. Whatever the decomposition reaction (thermal or electrochemical), Mg–M alloys (MgCo and Mg2Ni) are obtained for Mg2CoH5 and Mg2NiH4, respectively, whereas hydrogen depletion from Mg2FeH6 leads to decomposition into elemental Mg and Fe. A significant disorder is observed for all M-containing phases, which increases as Fe < MgCo < Mg2Ni; affects mainly the transition-metal sites; and is more pronounced for the electrochemical route. The consequences of these structural properties on the expected reversibility of the conversion reaction of Mg-based complex hydrides with lithium are discussed.

Resume Objectif Faire la synthese des connaissances concernant l’incidence, les causes et les facteurs de risque de l’hemorragie du post-partum (HPP) et la morbi-mortalite maternelle associee. Methodes Consultation de la base de donnees Medline et des rapports nationaux sur la mortalite maternelle. Resultats L’HPP est definie comme une perte sanguine ≥ 500 mL apres l’accouchement, et l’HPP severe comme une perte sanguine ≥ 1000 mL, quelle que soit la voie d’accouchement (accord professionnel). Dans les etudes en population, l’incidence de l’HPP est autour de 5 % des accouchements lorsque la mesure des pertes sanguines est imprecise, et autour de 10 % lorsque les pertes sanguines sont mesurees precisement. L’incidence de l’HPP severe est autour de 2 %. L’atonie uterine est la principale cause d’HPP. La mortalite maternelle par hemorragie obstetricale a diminue en France (actuellement 1,6 deces/100 000 naissances vivantes), mais elle demeure la premiere cause de deces maternel (16 %), et la plus evitable (80 %). Dans l’ensemble des pays developpes, l’HPP est la principale cause de morbidite maternelle severe aigue, et d’admission en reanimation chez la femme en etat gravido-puerperal. Outre les consequences directes de l’hypovolemie aigue, elle expose la femme aux complications de la transfusion, de la reanimation, et a l’infertilite en cas d’hysterectomie. Les principaux facteurs de risque d’HPP sont des facteurs d’atonie uterine, mais ils sont globalement peu predictifs. Conclusion L’HPP est la principale cause de morbi-mortalite maternelle, le plus souvent en rapport avec une atonie uterine. Les facteurs de risque correspondant a des elements de prise en charge du travail ou de l’accouchement sont potentiellement modifiables et l’examen de leur balance benefice-risque doit prendre en compte le risque associe d’HPP (accord professionnel).

Resume La douleur liee au travail est prise en charge par l’analgesie peridurale avec un taux de realisation de 80 % en France. Dans des conditions de realisation difficile, l’analgesie peridurale est fiabilisee par l’echo-reperage. Des techniques comme la rachianalgesie-peridurale sequentielle completent l’analgesie peridurale classique. L’entretien peut faire appel a des techniques recentes telles que les programmed intermittent epidural bolus (PIEB) et la computer integrated patient controlled epidural analgesia (CI-PCEA) qui permettent de reduire la consommation d’anesthesique local sans modifier le confort des parturientes. Les adjuvants tels que la clonidine et la neostigmine sont moins utilises actuellement. L’ambulation reste un objectif qui n’est pas toujours atteint.

International audience; Tape casting is a process often used for the preparation of microelectronics substrates. The present work is a continuation of the first part where we have discussed the structural and microstructural characteristics of calcium aluminate cement tape. Indeed, in this second part, we focus on the physical properties of these tapes such as electrical, thermal, mechanical characterizations and surface roughness. We studied in particular how these physical properties vary according to the setting environment (water, air at 50% relative humidity or air saturated in humidity), setting time (1 day, 4 days or 1 month) and setting temperature (20 °C or 70 °C in the case of water setting environment). A Heat treatment on the consolidated tape was made essentially to decrease the dielectric constant. Following our results and comparing the physical properties with those of substrates commonly used in microelectronics, in particular alumina substrates, our films can be potentially used as microelectronics substrate.

Des la premiere annee d’etude en faculte de medecine, un cours d’Introduction a l’anatomie et un cours d’histologie generale sont dispenses afin d’etablir les bases de l’architecture du corps humain et de la composition des tissus biologiques qui le composent. Dans les annees ulterieures, l’anatomie et l’histologie sont abordees de facon integree par systeme anatomique. L’enseignement theorique de ces disciplines est accompagne de travaux pratiques. Ils font appel a de nombreux scenarios pedagogiques qui permettent de developper des savoirs mais aussi des savoir-faire en entrainant les etudiants a observer et a decrire, a developper leurs aptitudes visio-spatiales, a construire un raisonnement diagnostique a partir de l’observation de structures microscopiques… Selon la taxonomie de Bloom, il existe 6 niveaux d’habilite cognitive qui sont, du plus basique au plus eleve : la connaissance, la comprehension, l’application, l’analyse, la synthese et l’evaluation. Les differents objectifs vises par nos dispositifs d’enseignement ne font pas tous appel au meme niveau cognitif. Pour evaluer les objectifs d’apprentissage cibles en anatomie et en histologie, nous utilisons un panel d’outils comme des QCM, des QCL, des QROL a correction standardisee en ligne, un dispositif d’evaluation en ligne se basant sur la reconnaissance anatomique d’images ou un examen oral. La force de ces differentes methodes d’evaluations releve de leur complementarite qui garantit une coherence et un recouvrement de l’ensemble des objectifs vises et de leur utilisation avec de grands groupes d’etudiants. C’est aussi la condition sine qua non pour atteindre un niveau de validite necessaire aux inferences associees a la reussite ou l’echec des etudiants evalues. Grâce a un tel panel d’outils, nous sommes ainsi en mesure d’evaluer les competences acquises faisant appel a des niveaux cognitifs allant de la connaissance a la synthese, tout en respectant la concordance entre nos objectifs d’apprentissage, nos methodes d’enseignement et l’evaluation.

Li-ion batteries using silicon (Si) as an anodic electroactive material are promising devices that are currently being investigated. However, they have a major disadvantage, which is the large volume variation (about 300%) associated with the formation of the Li-Si alloy, this expansion leading to a rapid loss of cell capacity. The usual solution to this problem is the use of a polymeric binder to maintain the cohesion of the electrode during electrochemical cycling. Carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) [1], a semi-synthetic material, has been and is still one of the most studied and used polymers for this purpose. Thus, the formulation of the negative electrode requires a mixture of silicon, CMC and a carbon additive with the "SPEX" ball milling [2] to ensure good electrical conductivity within the composite mixture. This type of mixture, which is highly energetic, reduces the size of the particles and allows the formation of a nanostructured mixture, is essential for the activation of silicon. However, as we have very recently shown in the case of the use of polyacrylic acid (PAA) as a binder [3], it also causes significant degradation of polymer chains. The objective of the work presented here is to study the effect of this mechanical grinding on CMC, in particular the effect on average molecular weights and chemical degradation and, hence, the influence of the characteristics of this modified polysaccharide on the electrochemical performance of the composite negative electrode. To answer this question, we selected three types of commercial CMCs with different molecular weights (90, 250, 700) kg/mol [4]. The formulation of the negative electrode is then modified to better define the impact of the actual molar masses on silicon capacity retention. CMC is no longer mixed with the other components in the SPEX mill, which is too energetic for the polymer binder. This new formulation allows to see the effect of grinding on CMC and to discuss the impact of molar mass variation on capacity retention. A study on the effect of grinding was therefore carried out using different characterization techniques (SEC-MALLS, FTIR, MALDI-TOF, TGA-MS). References: Bridel, J.S., et al., In Situ Observation and Long-Term Reactivity of Si/C/CMC Composites Electrodes for Li-Ion Batteries. Journal of The Electrochemical Society, 2011. 158(6): p. A750-A759. Ponrouch, A. and M.R. Palacín, On the impact of the slurry mixing procedure in the electrochemical performance of composite electrodes for Li-ion batteries: A case study for mesocarbon microbeads (MCMB) graphite and Co3O4. Journal of Power Sources, 2011. 196(22): p. 9682-9688. Chartrel, T., et al., Revisiting and improving the preparation of silicon-based electrodes for lithium-ion batteries: ball milling impact on poly(acrylic acid) polymer binders. Materials Chemistry Frontiers, 2019. 3(5): p. 881-891. Lee, B.-R. and E.-S. Oh, Effect of Molecular Weight and Degree of Substitution of a Sodium-Carboxymethyl Cellulose Binder on Li4Ti5O12 Anodic Performance. The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 2013. 117(9): p. 4404-4409.

The use of Brønsted acid ionic liquid (BAIL) as a catalyst for the activation of unreactive and unprotected glycosyl donors has been demonstrated for the first time in aqueous solution.

Resume Le nombre d’anesthesies realisees chez des femmes ayant une grossesse meconnue est estime entre 0,15 % et 2,2 % de l’ensemble des interventions effectuees chez les femmes en âge de procreer. Une chirurgie realisee chez une femme enceinte est potentiellement a risque de complications maternelles et/ou embryofœtales. Il est donc important en cas de depistage d’une grossesse meconnue, d’avoir la possibilite de discuter des risques avec une patiente informee et d’adapter les techniques chirurgicales et anesthesiques le cas echeant. S’il est etabli que les agents anesthesiques utilises aux concentrations cliniques et dans le respect de la physiologie maternelle ne sont pas teratogenes, les risques de fausses couche ou d’accouchements prematures sont augmentes par la chirurgie et l’anesthesie en cours de grossesse. De fait, de nombreuses societes savantes y compris la Societe francaise d’anesthesie et de reanimation (Sfar) preconisent aujourd’hui un depistage systematique de la grossesse chez les femmes en âge de procreer avant tout acte necessitant une anesthesie. Ce depistage s’appuie dans un premier temps sur un interrogatoire cible afin de preciser l’eventualite d’une grossesse. S’il existe un doute, le recours a un dosage plasmatique de la sous-unite β de l’hormone chorionique gonadotrope (test de sensibilite et de specificite de 100 %) apres consentement de la patiente, est recommande. En cas de confirmation de la grossesse, et en fonction de la balance du benefice/risque maternofœtal, le report de l’intervention doit etre envisage chaque fois que possible.

Objectives : In this study, the role of rho-kinase activity in the modulation of vascular contractility induced by hemin, a heme oxygenase inducer, was investigated. Methods : Aortic rings from Wistar rats were incubated in physiological saline solution (PSS) containing hemin at 10-4 M for six hours then contracted with phenylephrine, and a dose-response curve was established. The effect of Y-27632, a rho-kinase inhibitor, on the relaxation of the pre-contracted aortic rings was then studied. Results : Incubation of the aortic rings in hemin induced an increased expression of heme oxygenase 1 (HO-1). A reduction in the contractile force of aortic rings incubated in hemin was observed in response to phenylephrine. Y-27632 at a concentration of 10-6 M induced a 36% relaxation of the control aortic rings but only a 20% relaxation in aortic rings treated with hemin. Conclusion : These data suggest that the decreased vascular contractility induced by hemin could, in part, result from an inhibition of rho-kinase activity.

These works were dedicated to the electrical modeling of biological cell subjected to pulsed electromagnetic fields. From the variability of living parameters encountered, an accurate modeling of the electrical and stochastic parameters is necessary. In this paper, we propose simple stochastic approaches based upon a Monte Carlo-like “philosophy” to integrate uncertainties. The use of robust stochastic methods in the field of bio-electromagnetic compatibility allows an improvement of both the efficiency and precision of the technique. The potential aimed applications relying in the study on the sensitivity of biological and electrical parameters in the start of the electroporation phenomenon. We will present the electrical model and the theoretical foundations of these techniques—they will be illustrated on numerical examples.

International audience; Electrochemical energy storage is one of the main societal challenges of this century. The performances of classical lithium-ion technology based on liquid electrolytes have made great advances in the past two decades, but the intrinsic instability of liquid electrolytes results in safety issues. Solid polymer electrolytes would be a perfect solution to those safety issues, miniaturization and enhancement of energy density. However, as in liquids, the fraction of charge carried by lithium ions is small (\textless20%), limiting the power performances. Solid polymer electrolytes operate at 80 degrees C, resulting in poor mechanical properties and a limited electrochemical stability window. Here we describe a multifunctional single-ion polymer electrolyte based on polyanionic block copolymers comprising polystyrene segments. It overcomes most of the above limitations, with a lithium-ion transport number close to unity, excellent mechanical properties and an electrochemical stability window spanning 5V versus Li+/Li. A prototype battery using this polyelectrolyte outperforms a conventional battery based on a polymer electrolyte.

Resume Bien que non formellement prouve, le lien de causalite entre fievre et analgesie peridurale obstetricale est generalement accepte en raison d’une abondante litterature en sa faveur. La physiopathologie est encore mal connue. La possibilite d’une inflammation, notamment placentaire, constituerait le mecanisme physiopathologique le plus probable. La fievre au cours du travail obstetrical associee a l’analgesie peridurale, bien que benigne la plupart du temps, augmente le nombre de procedures maternelles et fœtales. De plus, elle pourrait avoir des consequences deleteres sur l’enfant, notamment en favorisant les complications neurologiques neonatales. A ce jour, aucune therapeutique preventive ou curative ne peut etre recommandee vis-a-vis de la fievre au cours du travail. En effet, il n’existe ni preuves formelles d’impacts negatifs sur la mere et l’enfant, ni traitement ayant fait la preuve de son efficacite dans cette indication. Le sujet est donc encore ouvert a de nombreuses questions de recherche.

In the present study, physico-chemical investigations have been carried out on the possibility of using Cameroonian volcanic or clay pozzolans as raw material for geopolymer or pozzolanic binder. The research had made some suggestive results and conclusions. Powders of less than 100 μm of five sampled pozzolans from volcanic or clay origins have been subjected to chemical and mineralogical analysis, BET specific surface, absolute density, granulometry and pozzolanic activity in solution tests. The results obtained showed that, geopolymers or pozzolanic binders can be produced from samples studied. The samples contain significant amounts of glassy or amorphous phase ready to dissolve in an alkaline solution. The high alkali content of volcanic pozzolans makes them more appropriate for geopolymer application. Clay pozzolans are the easier to grind in order to obtain the appropriate fineness and can be used for both geo- polymers and pozzolanic binders.

Background and Objectives The effectiveness of labor epidural analgesia is difficult to explore, as it includes the maternal satisfaction with analgesia as well as the overall childbirth experience. In this population-based study, we sought to identify factors associated with the effectiveness of epidural analgesia for labor pain relief. Methods We performed a secondary analysis of the 2010 French National Perinatal Survey, a cross-sectional study of a representative sample of births in France. All participants who gave birth with an epidural analgesia were included. Effectiveness of epidural analgesia was assessed 2 to 3 days after delivery and intended to include analgesic efficacy and maternal satisfaction together. The factors analyzed were anesthetic management and maternal, obstetrical, and organizational characteristics, using a logistic regression with random effects model. Results Among the 9337 women who gave birth with an epidural analgesia and were included, 8377 (89.3%; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 88.7–89.9) considered their epidural to be very or fairly effective. In the multivariate analysis, effectiveness was significantly associated with the use of patient-controlled epidural analgesia (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 1.2 [1.0–1.5]; P = 0.02) and delivery in private maternity facilities (aOR = 1.3 [1.1–1.6]); it was significantly less effective in obese women (aOR = 0.6 [0.5–0.8]) and multiparous women not receiving oxytocin during labor (aOR = 0.4 [0.4–0.6]) as compared with nonobese and nulliparous women with oxytocin, respectively. Conclusions At the population level, most women found epidural analgesia effective for labor pain relief, but specific attention should be paid to obese parturients and multiparous women not receiving oxytocin. High epidural effectiveness with patient-controlled analgesia should promote an increased use of this method.

Large scale biodiversity monitoring is essential for sustainable development (earth stewardship). With the recent advances in computer vision, we see the emergence of more and more effective identification tools allowing to set-up large-scale data collection platforms such as the popular Pl@ntNet initiative that allow to reuse interaction data. Although it covers only a fraction of the world flora, this platform is already being used by more than 300K people who produce tens of thousands of validated plant observations each year. This explicitly shared and validated data is only the tip of the iceberg. The real potential relies on the millions of raw image queries submitted by the users of the mobile application for which there is no human validation. People make such requests to get information on a plant along a hike or something they find in their garden but not know anything about. Allowing the exploitation of such contents in a fully automatic way could scale up the world-wide collection of implicit plant observations by several orders of magnitude, which can complement the explicit monitoring efforts. In this paper, we first survey existing automated plant identification systems through a five-year synthesis of the PlantCLEF benchmark and an impact study of the Pl@ntNet platform. We then focus on the implicit monitoring scenario and discuss related research challenges at the frontier of computer science and biodiversity studies. Finally, we discuss the results of a preliminary study focused on implicit monitoring of invasive species in mobile search logs. We show that the results are promising but that there is room for improvement before being able to automatically share implicit observations within international platforms.

Two new datasets were created for the evaluation of plant varieties recognition.An experimental study was conducted with today's best performing techniques.Recognizing rice seeds variety appears to be feasible in controlled environment.Recognizing grape varieties from their leaves is still an open problem.Results show that convolutional neural networks perform the best on such problems. This paper addresses the problem of categorizing plant images at the variety level, i.e. at a finer taxonomic grain than state-of-the-art studies usually working at the species level. It therefore introduces two new evaluation datasets of agro-biodiversity interest, each being related to concrete scenarios on large-scale plant resources. They have been chosen so as to involve very different acquisition protocols and visual patterns in order to evaluate if state-of-the-art image classification techniques can generalize to such specific contexts and avoid the cost of building specific ad-hoc solutions. The first one is a collection of 2071 pictures of loose rice seeds built from 95 accessions kept in a bank of seeds. The second one is a collection of 2037 pictures of grape leaves taken in the fields and belonging to 34 varieties among the most commonly ones used in viticulture. Both datasets exhibit a very low inter-class variability resulting in two challenging fine-grained classification tasks, even for expert human operators. A baseline experimental study was conducted on the two datasets using the two most effective families of classification techniques in the state-of-the-art, i.e. convolutional neural networks on one side and fisher vectors-based discriminant models on the other side. It shows that the achieved classification performance is very different between the two problems. It is actually pretty bad for the grape leaves collection but much better in the case of the rice seeds collection for which the acquisition protocol was much more constrained and the morphological variability more visible. The conclusion is that automatically identifying plant varieties might already be feasible for some specific scenarios and in controlled environments but that it is still an open problem in the general case.

The placenta is a complex and changing organ necessary for normal fetal growth and development and for maintenance of a healthy pregnancy. It has three major functions: a protective function of the fetus, an endocrine function, and a metabolic function. The main functional unit of the placenta is the chorionic villous, responsible for the majority of the fetal–maternal exchanges. Migration of trophoblastic cells induces a remodelling of the uterine arteries, with vasodilatated and compliant vessels, unresponsive to maternal vasomotor control. Therefore, any significant change in maternal blood pressure, in particular in the context of general or regional anaesthesia, can directly impact on uteroplacental perfusion. Most anaesthetic drugs cross the placental barrier, but without significant consequences on the fetal well-being.

International audience; The LifeCLEF plant identification challenge aims at evaluating plant identification methods and systems at a very large scale, close to the conditions of a real-world biodiversity monitoring scenario. The 2016-th edition was actually conducted on a set of more than 110K images illustrating 1000 plant species living in West Europe, built through a large-scale participatory sensing platform initiated in 2011 and which now involves tens of thousands of contributors. The main novelty over the previous years is that the identification task was evaluated as an open-setrecognition problem, i.e. a problem in which the recognition system has to be robust to unknown and never seen categories. Beyond the brute-force classification across the known classes of the training set, the big challenge was thus to automatically reject the false positive classification hits that are caused by the unknown classes. This overview presents more precisely the resources and assessments of the challenge, summarizes the approaches and systems employed by the participating research groups, and provides an analysis of the main outcomes.

International audience; Using multimedia identification tools is considered as one of the most promising solutions to help bridge the taxonomic gap and build accurate knowledge of the identity, the geographic distribution and the evolution of living species. Large and structured communities of nature observers (e.g., iSpot, Xeno-canto, Tela Botanica, etc.) as well as big monitoring equipment have actually started to produce outstanding collections of multimedia records. Unfortunately, the performance of the state-of-the-art analysis techniques on such data is still not well understood and is far from reaching real world requirements. The LifeCLEF lab proposes to evaluate these challenges around 3 tasks related to multimedia information retrieval and fine-grained classification problems in 3 domains. Each task is based on large volumes of real-world data and the measured challenges are defined in collaboration with biologists and environmental stakeholders to reflect realistic usage scenarios. For each task, we report the methodology, the data sets as well as the results and the main outcome

Recently, a framework for optimization of wideband antennas that takes into account antenna parameter tolerances and fabrication uncertainty has been proposed by the authors. In this follow-up paper, we show that the method can be adapted to the optimization for the patterns of leaky-wave antennas (LWAs). In particular, using predetermined tolerances of the manufacturing process, the length of a LWA will be optimized such that the sidelobe level is not higher than −18 dB with a calculated failure probability of less than 1%. The results further demonstrate the flexibility and applicability of the previously proposed method for antenna optimization in general.

Postpartum Haemorrhage (PPH) is a major cause of maternal morbidity and mortality. Treatment of acquired coagulopathy observed in severe PPH is an important part of PPH management, but is mainly based on literature in trauma patients, and data thus should be interpreted with caution. This review describes recent advances in transfusion strategy and in the use of tranexamic acid and fibrinogen concentrates in women with PPH.

This contribution aims to illustrate the interest of re-sampling technique for accurate and efficient assessment of confidence intervals. Taking exhaustively into account uncertain inputs of complex systems theoretically requires to model an infinite number of configurations (i.e. to properly compute probability density function of random output). Sampling techniques such as Monte Carlo (MC) simulations are reference methods but are also restricted due to their slow convergence rate. This study offers a computational framework to validate the use of re-sampling techniques for an aerospace EMC immunity issue. A particular attention will be given to the assessment of confidence intervals of currents due to field-to-wire coupling in reverberating environments. The robustness and accuracy of the method will be validated by considering high-orders statistics and quantiles based upon time domain MC simulations.

This paper aims to demonstrate the ability of stochastic collocation method (SCM) for electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) space applications. The increasing number of antennas embedded on spacecraft implies growth of potential EMC issues. Harsh constraints on antennas could spoil ideal radiating performances. Project management for spacecraft development requires deeper analyses (e.g., modifying locations of several radiators) between qualification and flight models. We propose here to quantify behaviour modifications using SCM in antennas and EMC frameworks.

International audience; Postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) is defined as blood loss ≥500mL after delivery and severe PPH as blood loss ≥1000mL, regardless of the route of delivery (professional consensus). The preventive administration of uterotonic agents just after delivery is effective in reducing the incidence of PPH and its systematic use is recommended, regardless of the route of delivery (Grade A). Oxytocin is the first-line prophylactic drug, regardless of the route of delivery (Grade A); a slowly dose of 5 or 10 IU can be administered (Grade A) either IV or IM (professional consensus). After vaginal delivery, routine cord drainage (Grade B), controlled cord traction (Grade A), uterine massage (Grade A), and routine bladder voiding (professional consensus) are not systematically recommended for PPH prevention. After caesarean delivery, placental delivery by controlled cord traction is recommended (grade B). The routine use of a collector bag to assess postpartum blood loss at vaginal delivery is not systematically recommended (Grade B), since the incidence of severe PPH is not affected by this intervention. In cases of overt PPH after vaginal delivery, placement of a blood collection bag is recommended (professional consensus). The initial treatment of PPH consists in a manual uterine examination, together with antibiotic prophylaxis, careful visual assessment of the lower genital tract, a uterine massage, and the administration of 5-10 IU oxytocin injected slowly IV or IM, followed by a maintenance infusion not to exceed a cumulative dose of 40IU (professional consensus). If oxytocin fails to control the bleeding, the administration of sulprostone is recommended within 30minutes of the PPH diagnosis (Grade C). Intrauterine balloon tamponade can be performed if sulprostone fails and before recourse to either surgery or interventional radiology (professional consensus). Fluid resuscitation is recommended for PPH persistent after first line uterotonics, or if clinical signs of severity (Grade B). The objective of RBC transfusion is to maintain a haemoglobin concentration (Hb) >8g/dL. During active haemorrhaging, it is desirable to maintain a fibrinogen level ≥2g/L (professional consensus). RBC, fibrinogen and fresh frozen plasma (FFP) may be administered without awaiting laboratory results (professional consensus). Tranexamic acid may be used at a dose of 1 g, renewable once if ineffective the first time in the treatment of PPH when bleeding persists after sulprostone administration (professional consensus), even though its clinical value has not yet been demonstrated in obstetric settings. It is recommended to prevent and treat hypothermia in women with PPH by warming infusion solutions and blood products and by active skin warming (Grade C). Oxygen administration is recommended in women with severe PPH (professional consensus). If PPH is not controlled by pharmacological treatments and possibly intra-uterine balloon, invasive treatments by arterial embolization or surgery are recommended (Grade C). No technique for conservative surgery is favoured over any other (professional consensus). Hospital-to-hospital transfer of a woman with a PPH for embolization is possible once hemoperitoneum is ruled out and if the patient's hemodynamic condition so allows (professional consensus).

The state of the art of conversion reactions of metal hydrides (MH) with lithium is presented and discussed in this review with regard to the use of these hydrides as anode materials for lithium-ion batteries. A focus on the gravimetric and volumetric storage capacities for different examples from binary, ternary and complex hydrides is presented, with a comparison between thermodynamic prediction and experimental results. MgH2 constitutes one of the most attractive metal hydrides with a reversible capacity of 1480 mA·h·g−1 at a suitable potential (0.5 V vs Li+/Li0) and the lowest electrode polarization (

International audience; It is now accepted that plants perceive high-frequency electromagnetic field (HF-EMF). We wondered if the HF-EMF signal is integrated further in planta as a chain of reactions leading to a modification of plant growth. We exposed whole small ligneous plants (rose bush) whose growth could be studied for several weeks. We performed exposures at two different development stages (rooted cuttings bearing an axillary bud and 5-leaf stage plants), using two high frequency (900 MHz) field amplitudes (5 and 200 V m(-1)). We achieved a tight control on the experimental conditions using a state-of-the-art stimulation device (Mode Stirred Reverberation Chamber) and specialized culture-chambers. After the exposure, we followed the shoot growth for over a one-month period. We observed no growth modification whatsoever exposure was performed on the 5-leaf stage plants. When the exposure was performed on the rooted cuttings, no growth modification was observed on Axis I (produced from the elongation of the axillary bud). Likewise, no significant modification was noted on Axis II produced at the base of Axis I, that came from pre-formed secondary axillary buds. In contrast, Axis II produced at the top of Axis I, that came from post-formed secondary buds consistently displayed a delayed and significant reduced growth (45%). The measurements of plant energy uptake from HF-EMF in this exposure condition (SAR of 7.2 10(-4) W kg(-1)) indicated that this biological response is likely not due to thermal effect. These results suggest that exposure to electromagnetic field only affected development of post-formed organs.

The paper deals with the stochastic collocation analysis of a time domain response of a straight thin wire scatterer buried in a lossy half-space. The wire is excited either by a plane wave transmitted through the air-ground interface or by an equivalent current source representing direct lightning strike pulse. Transient current induced at the center of the wire, governed by corresponding Pocklington integrodifferential equation, is determined analytically. This antenna configuration suffers from uncertainties in various parameters, such as ground properties, wire dimensions, and position. The statistical processing of the results yields additional information, thus enabling more accurate and efficient analysis of buried wire configurations.

International audience; This paper reports a large-scale experiment aimed at evaluating how state-of-art computer vision systems perform in identifying plants compared to human expertise. A subset of the evaluation dataset used within LifeCLEF 2014 plant identification challenge was therefore shared with volunteers of diverse expertise, ranging from the leading experts of the targeted flora to inexperienced test subjects. In total, 16 human runs were collected and evaluated comparatively to the 27 machine-based runs of LifeCLEF challenge. One of the main outcomes of the experiment is that machines are still far from outperforming the best expert botanists at the image-based plant identification competition. On the other side, the best machine runs are competing withexperienced botanists and clearly outperform beginners and inexperienced testsubjects. This shows that the performances of automated plant identification systems are very promising and may open the door to a new generation of ecological surveillance systems.

International audience; We report a multistep synthesis of anhydrous NiF2 nanoparticles using Single Walled Carbon Nanotubes (SWCNT), Multi Walled Carbon Nanotubes (MWCNT) and cellulose as sacrificial supports. The synthesis method includes precipitation at the surface of carbonaceous supports, followed by gas-solid treatments under air and pure molecular fluorine. The as-prepared nanoparticles exhibit different particle size distributions depending on the initial support from ∼20 nm with SWCNT up to ∼60 nm with cellulose. The carbonaceous matrices act as sacrificial supports and are totally removed under fluorine gas. The influence of carbonaceous supports on the as-obtained nanoparticles is reported and discussed. Since SWCNT, MWCNT and cellulose exhibit different surface chemistries (nature of chemical sites, size related reactivity, …), they drive the formation of nanoparticles with different characteristics. Moreover, intermediate materials Ni(OH)2/C and NiO/C have been also studied and the opportunity to obtain promising structures like NiO/graphene nanocomposites by this method has been demonstrated.