Renouveau religieux et politique au Mozambique: entre permanence, rupture et historicité

La recherche sur le religieux en Afrique s’est beaucoup intéressée, ces vingt dernières années, au phénomène du « renouveau religieux », et elle s’est plutôt penchée sur la question des ruptures et des innovations qui en résultent. Le présent article interroge la réalité ce renouveau et explore, sur la base d’une étude de cas, la question des continuités et des ruptures dans les changements survenus  [1]. Tout d’abord, il s’intéresse à la nature du renouveau religieux au Mozambique ; il examine ensuite les continuités historiques et dénominationnelles existantes au sein du renouveau pour discuter, dans une troisième section, l’impact des transformations religieuses sur la relation entre religion et politique. La conclusion tente, elle, de faire la part entre ruptures et permanences, et d’appréhender la question du renouveau au-delà de cette dichotomie.

King David’s City at Khirbet Qeiyafa: Results of the Second Radiocarbon Dating Project

Fifteen samples of burnt olive pits discovered inside a jar in the destruction layer of the Iron Age city of Khirbet Qeiyafa were analyzed by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating. Of these, four were halved and sent to two different laboratories to minimize laboratory bias. The dating of these samples is ~1000 BC. Khirbet Qeiyafa is currently the earliest known example of a fortified city in the Kingdom of Judah and contributes direct evidence to the heated debate on the biblical narrative relating to King David. Was he the real historical ruler of an urbanized state-level society in the early 10th century BC or was this level of social development reached only at the end of the 8th century BC? We can conclude that there were indeed fortified centers in the Davidic kingdom from the studies presented. In addition, the dating of Khirbet Qeiyafa has far-reaching implications for the entire Levant. The discovery of Cypriot pottery at the site connects the 14C datings to Cyprus and the renewal of maritime trade between the island and the mainland in the Iron Age. A stone temple model from Khirbet Qeiyafa, decorated with triglyphs and a recessed doorframe, points to an early date for the development of this typical royal architecture of the Iron Age Levant.

The Tao survivorship of schistosomes: implications for schistosomiasis control

Schistosomiasis, caused by blood flukes of the genus Schistosoma, is a major public health problem which contributes substantially to the economic and financial burdens of many nations in the developing world. An array of survival strategies, such as the unique structure of the tegument which acts as a major host-parasite interface, immune modulation mechanisms, gene regulation, and apoptosis and self-renewal have been adopted by schistosome parasites over the course of long-term evolution with their mammalian definitive hosts. Recent generation of complete schistosome genomes together with numerous biological, immunological, high-throughput "-omics" and gene function studies have revealed the Tao or strategies that schistosomes employ not only to promote long-term survival, but also to ensure effective life cycle transmission. New scenarios for the future control of this important neglected tropical disease will present themselves as our understanding of these Tao increases.

Multilinear and Integer Programming for Markov Decision Processes with Imprecise Probabilities

Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) are extensively used to encode sequences of decisions with probabilistic effects. Markov Decision Processes with Imprecise Probabilities (MDPIPs) encode sequences of decisions whose effects are modeled using sets of probability distributions. In this paper we examine the computation of Γ-maximin policies for MDPIPs using multilinear and integer programming. We discuss the application of our algorithms to “factored” models and to a recent proposal, Markov Decision Processes with Set-valued Transitions (MDPSTs), that unifies the fields of probabilistic and “nondeterministic” planning in artificial intelligence research. 

Positive dilations of piecewise monotonic Markov maps

We provide an explicit formula which gives natural extensions of piecewise monotonic Markov maps defined on an interval of the real line. These maps are exact endomorphisms and define chaotic discrete dynamical systems.

The Effects of Anti-Hypertensive Drugs Evaluated Using Markov Modelling for Northern Ireland Chronic Kidney Disease Patients

The aim of this paper is to use Markov modelling to
investigate survival for particular types of kidney patients
in relation to their exposure to anti-hypertensive treatment
drugs. In order to monitor kidney function an intuitive three
point assessment is proposed through the collection of blood
samples in relation to Chronic Kidney Disease for Northern
Ireland patients. A five state Markov Model was devised
using specific transition probabilities for males and
females over all age groups. These transition probabilities
were then adjusted appropriately using relative risk scores
for the event death for different subgroups of patients. The
model was built using TreeAge software package in order to
explore the effects of anti-hypertensive drugs on patients.

Nonrigid Structure-From-Motion From 2-D Images Using Markov Chain Monte Carlo

In this paper we present a new method for simultaneously determining three dimensional (3-D) shape and motion of a non-rigid object from uncalibrated two dimensional (2- D) images without assuming the distribution characteristics. A non-rigid motion can be treated as a combination of a rigid rotation and a non-rigid deformation. To seek accurate recovery of deformable structures, we estimate the probability distribution function of the corresponding features through random sampling, incorporating an established probabilistic model. The fitting between the observation and the projection of the estimated 3-D structure will be evaluated using a Markov chain Monte Carlo based expectation maximisation algorithm. Applications of the proposed method to both synthetic and real image sequences are demonstrated with promising results.