L'invention des sciences coloniales belges

Book published by Karthala (2008)

Histoire critique des sciences coloniales belges en rapport avec l'afrique centrale. Naissance et déploiement institutionnel d'une science d'outre-mer.

Invention du bien-être, invention d'une politique du vivant

Article for general public (2009)

Cet article introduit la notion de bien-être en la reliant directement aux travaux historiques de Michel Foucault sur le bio-politique

Invention or Migration? The Siuren I Aurignacian

Conference (1996)

The invention that does not cease changing our world: the radar, (L’invention qui ne cesse de changer notre monde: le radar)

Scientific conference (2003)

Inventories and Maps: Cognitive Ways of Framing the Nature Policies in Europe

in Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning (2002), 4(4), 313-322

Since the Earth Summit in Rio, declining biodiversity has become a subject of general concern for many countries. To counter these negative trends, government nature policies in Europe at least are now ... [more ▼]

Since the Earth Summit in Rio, declining biodiversity has become a subject of general concern for many countries. To counter these negative trends, government nature policies in Europe at least are now thought out primarily in terms of networks. They concern new areas outside nature reserves, new players and new management strategies. Consequently, these policies should themselves become the subject of new public debate. Our study concerns the analysis of the forms used to collect the data required to set up the European Union's Natura 2000 network and maps drawn as part of the Council of Europe's Pan-European Ecological Network strategy. The aim of this article, which takes the perspective developed by the sociology of science, will be to show how the forms and maps used in these new nature policies produce knowledge that precedes policy discussions to search for the best possible socio-political compromises. In other words, the knowledge that is collected in and by means of these documents, forms and maps offers a cognitive way of framing the subsequent public debates. [less ▲]

Inventory control in a decentralized two-stage make-to-stock queuing system

in INCOM 06, 12th IFAC Symposium on Information Control Problems in Manufacturing, Saint-Etienne, France, 17-19 May 2006 (2006, May 17)

In an Enterprise network, several companies interact to produce families of goods. Each member company seeks to optimize his own production and inventory policy to maximize his profit. These objectives ... [more ▼]

In an Enterprise network, several companies interact to produce families of goods. Each member company seeks to optimize his own production and inventory policy to maximize his profit. These objectives are generally antagonistic and can lead to contradictory choices in the context of a network with a high degree of local decisional autonomy. To avoid a global loss of economic efficiency, the network should be equipped with a coordination mechanism. The present paper describes a coordination contract negotiated between a manufacturer and a supplier. The purpose of the negotiation is to determine the price of the supplied intermediate goods and the delay penalty in case of a late delivery. For a manufacturer with a dominant contracting position, the outcome of the negotiation can be computed as a Stackelberg equilibrium point. Under the resulting contract, the two-stage supply chain reaches globally optimal running conditions with the maximal possible profit obtained by the manufacturer and the smallest acceptable profit obtained by the supplier. [less ▲]

Inventory control in a multi-supplier system

in International Journal of Production Economics (2006), 104

An enterprise network is analyzed from the viewpoint of an end-product manufacturer who receives customer orders and organises his production and supply policy so as to minimize the sum of his average ... [more ▼]

An enterprise network is analyzed from the viewpoint of an end-product manufacturer who receives customer orders and organises his production and supply policy so as to minimize the sum of his average holding cost and average stockout cost. For each main component to be ordered, the producer has several possible suppliers. The arrivals of customers’ orders are random and delivery times from suppliers are also supposed random. This supply system is represented as a queuing network where the producer uses a base-stock inventory control policy that keeps constant the inventory position level (current inventory level+pending replenishment orders). The decision variables are the reference inventory position level and the percentages of orders sent to the different suppliers. In the queuing network model, the percentages of orders are implemented as Bernoulli branching parameters. A close-form expression of the expected cost criterion is obtained as a complex non-linear function of decision variables. A decomposed approach is proposed for solving the optimization problem in an approximate manner. The quality of the approximate solution is evaluated by comparison to the exact solution, which can be computed numerically in some simple cases, in particular in the two-supplier case. Numerical applications show the important economic advantage for the producer of sending orders to several suppliers rather than to a single one. [less ▲]

Inverse analysis from in situ measurements: Soil parameter identification using a genetic algorithm and a principle component analysis

Conference (2007)

Inverse analysis on in situ geotechnical measurement using a genetic algorithm

in Pande, G. N.; Pietruszczak, S. (Eds.) Numerical Models in Geomechanics (2004)

This paper is dedicated to the identification of constitutive parameters of the Mohr-Coulomb constitutive model from in situ measurements. A general definition of an objective function is proposed. A ... [more ▼]

This paper is dedicated to the identification of constitutive parameters of the Mohr-Coulomb constitutive model from in situ measurements. A general definition of an objective function is proposed. A direct approach of inverse analysis is used to identify the shear modulus and the friction angle in four different situations. The first two examples deal with a “numerical” and with a real pressuremeter curve. A difficult convergence and a strong non unicity of solution is observed, which is classical in inverse analysis (ill posed problems). In a second stage, the horizontal displacements related to two excavation problems are used for identifying the two mechanical parameters. A clear minimum of the objective function is detected, giving a unique solution. The reasons of these differences are discussed and some ways of improving the interpretation of the pressuremeter test results are proposed. [less ▲]

Inverse control of prolactin and growth hormone gene expression: effect of thyroliberin on transcription and RNA stabilization

in EMBO Journal (1983), 2(9), 1493-9

The hypothalamic tripeptide thyroliberin (TRH) regulates prolactin (PRL) and growth hormone (GH) synthesis inversely by modulating the levels of their specific mRNA. Changes in mRNA levels could involve ... [more ▼]

The hypothalamic tripeptide thyroliberin (TRH) regulates prolactin (PRL) and growth hormone (GH) synthesis inversely by modulating the levels of their specific mRNA. Changes in mRNA levels could involve both transcriptional and posttranscriptional events. To examine further these possibilities, we have investigated the effect of TRH on the biosynthesis and degradation of PRL and GH RNA in a rat pituitary tumor cell line. Newly synthesized PRL and GH RNA sequences were quantified in nuclear and cytoplasmic fractions by hybridization of 3H-labelled RNA to immobilized plasmid DNA containing either PRL or GH cDNA sequences. Steady-state levels of specific RNA were estimated by RNA blot hybridization. The results indicate that TRH increases in a rapid but transient manner the transcription of the PRL gene, and suggest that it does not alter the processing and the transport to the cytoplasm. In contrast, after a lag-time, TRH seems to induce a long-lasting inhibition on GH, as well as on overall gene transcription. Furthermore, we observed an effect of TRH on mRNA stability. TRH significantly increases the half-life of PRL mRNA. Our results also support the hypothesis that TRH decreases the half-life of GH mRNA. Such post-transcriptional action of TRH amplifies and prolongs the regulations exerted at the transcriptional level. [less ▲]