Food in a row: urban trees offer valuable floral resources to pollinating insects

Urbanization affects the availability and diversity of floral resources (pollen and/or nectar) for wild pollinating insects. For example, urban green areas are characterized by an abundance of ornamental plant species. Increasingly, trees are planted to improve the aesthetics of urban streets and parks. These urban trees might offer important floral resources to pollinating insects. To examine the suitability of urban trees as resources for pollinating insects, we investigated the chemical composition of pollen and nectar as well as the amount of nectar produced by the nine major insect-pollinated tree species planted in cities of Western Europe, namely Acer pseudoplatanus, Aesculus carnea, A. hippocastanum, Robinia pseudoacacia, Tilia cordata, T. x euchlora, T. x europaea, T. platyphyllos and T. tomentosa. The analyses revealed that globally the Tilia trees provide pollen with lower contents of polypeptides, amino acids and phytosterols compared with the other species. Urban tree flowers offer abundant nectar with relatively high sugar contents (0.16–1.28 mg/flower); sucrose was the predominant sugar in all nectars. The investigated tree species could therefore be considered in future city plantings.     

柬埔寨受经济危机重创

日益萎缩的全球市场正威胁着柬埔寨人的快乐时光。柬埔寨国民经济的四大支柱——服装业、旅游业、建筑业和农业，除农业之外均受到了全球经济危机的严重影响。     

Quantitative Risk Assessment of Listeria monocytogenes in French Cold-Smoked Salmon: I. Quantitative Exposure Assessment

A quantitative assessment of the exposure to Listeria monocytogenes from cold-smoked salmon (CSS) consumption in France is developed. The general framework is a second-order (or two-dimensional) Monte Carlo simulation, which characterizes the uncertainty and variability of the exposure estimate. The model takes into account the competitive bacterial growth between L. monocytogenes and the background competitive flora from the end of the production line to the consumer phase. An original algorithm is proposed to integrate this growth in conditions of varying temperature. As part of a more general project led by the French Food Safety Agency (Afssa), specific data were acquired and modeled for this quantitative exposure assessment model, particularly time-temperature profiles, prevalence data, and contamination-level data. The sensitivity analysis points out the main influence of the mean temperature in household refrigerators and the prevalence of contaminated CSS on the exposure level. The outputs of this model can be used as inputs for further risk assessment.     

A Statistical Framework for Hypothesis Testing in Real Data Comparison Studies

In computational sciences, including computational statistics, machine learning, and bioinformatics, it is often claimed in articles presenting new supervised learning methods that the new method performs better than existing methods on real data, for instance in terms of error rate. However, these claims are often not based on proper statistical tests and, even if such tests are performed, the tested hypothesis is not clearly defined and poor attention is devoted to the Type I and Type II errors. In the present article, we aim to fill this gap by providing a proper statistical framework for hypothesis tests that compare the performances of supervised learning methods based on several real datasets with unknown underlying distributions. After giving a statistical interpretation of ad hoc tests commonly performed by computational researchers, we devote special attention to power issues and outline a simple method of determining the number of datasets to be included in a comparison study to reach an adequate power. These methods are illustrated through three comparison studies from the literature and an exemplary benchmarking study using gene expression microarray data. All our results can be reproduced using R codes and datasets available from the companion website http://www.ibe.med.uni-muenchen.de/organisation/mitarbeiter/020_professuren/boulesteix/compstud2013.     

Individual Uncertainty About Longevity

This article presents an assessment of individual uncertainty about longevity. A survey performed on 3,331 French people enables us to record several survival probabilities per individual. On this basis, we compute subjective life expectancies (SLE) and subjective uncertainty regarding longevity (SUL), the standard deviation of each individual’s subjective distribution of her or his own longevity. It is large and equal to more than 10 years for men and women. Its magnitude is comparable to the variability of longevity observed in life tables for individuals under 60, but it is smaller for those older than 60, which suggests use of private information by older respondents. Our econometric analysis confirms that individuals use private information—mainly their parents’ survival and longevity—to adjust their level of uncertainty. Finally, we find that SUL has a sizable impact, in addition to SLE, on risky behaviors: more uncertainty on longevity significantly decreases the probability of unhealthy lifestyles. Given that individual uncertainty about longevity affects prevention behavior, retirement decisions, and demand for long-term care insurance, these results have important implications for public policy concerning health care and retirement.     

Disengagement in Open Innovation: A Cognitive Perspective

The central tenet of open innovation (OI) is that useful knowledge is widely distributed. By purposively engaging in knowledge sourcing and sharing (KSS) activities, organisations can create and capture value through collaborative exchange with others. Organising for OI relies on the assumption that individual managers tasked to bring it to fruition will enact behavioural responses conducive to external KSS. However, understanding what characterises and informs managers’ disengagement in OI remains an unresolved challenge. The interactions between managers’ in-role demands in OI and their self-concept, which guide behavioural responses, are under-investigated. Drawing on cognitive dissonance theory (CDT), this article conceptualises the sources of managerial dissonance and situates discussions on underlying influencing mechanisms, culminating towards a cognitive model of disengagement in OI. Bridging OI, psychology and management literature, hypotheses are developed to stimulate investigations into what characterises and influences managers’ disengagement in OI. Managerial implications are discussed to curate approaches that can help manage managerial dissonance in order to attain the desired organisational OI goals.     

Promoting social equality values to improve judgement of a woman reporting sexism / El fomento de valores relacionados con la igualdad social para mejorar la opinión sobre las mujeres que denuncian discriminación por sexismo

Previous research has shown that discriminated women blame themselves more than they blame discrimination when meritocracy values are salient. In two studies, we examined whether meritocracy values also influence female observers when they judge a female victim of sexism. Such values were expected to lead them to judge more positively a victim incriminating herself than a victim claiming discrimination. Conversely, social equality values should lead them to judge more positively a victim claiming discrimination. Women who were either feminists or non-feminists (Study 1) or who were exposed to either social equality values or personal merit values (Study 2) had to judge a female victim of sexism who ascribed what happened to discrimination or to her ability. Feminist women and women exposed to social equality judged the female victim more positively when she reported discrimination than when she incriminated herself. The reverse pattern of judgement was observed for non-feminist women and women exposed to meritocracy values. The importance of values is discussed to improve the image of women claiming sexism.     

A century of mosques in France: building religious pluralism

The public debate in France has rolled out heatedly on the building of minarets, with opinion polls giving a majority of French opposed to the idea. Nevertheless, a fair number of mosques has been built throughout the past century. The French reception of mosques is therefore a complicated case. Recalling the history of French mosques and its different turns, with a focus on recent history, allows a glimpse at the visibility of Islam in the national sphere in France and its public reception. It also underlines that religious buildings, in the city, are at the intersection of different levels: questions of identity, of politics, of faith, and of integration, are all at stake.     

Estimation de densités unimodales

This paper proposes a new nonparametric unimodal estimator of a unimodal probability density function, in the case where the mode is known. The classical solution to this problem is the maximum-likelihood estimator under monotonicity constraint, considered by Grenander (1956). Our approach is based on a unimodal rearrangement of the kernel estimator of the density. Asymptotic properties of this estimator are studied, and its small-sample behaviour is examined through simulations.     

Shifting religions in shifting territories

One of the specificities of modernity is the way its challenges the human relation to space. This in turns implies changes concerning religion. This article is an introduction to the special issue of the Review on “religion and territory.” It displays the diverse aspects at play: first, the contemporary study of the question of space in human and social sciences, and its recent evolution, open a vast and challenging field. The complex relationship between religious belonging and spatial setting is also a promising entry point. Furthermore, the evolution of the state-religion relationship, and the governance of religious space, are revealing points of view as regards religion and territory. Finally, the questions pertaining to religion and the management of the urban space are also of interest.