Each of the INPI 2016 Innovation Trophy winners received the following Ora-ïto designed trophy:
Reference
Ora-ito
Friday, December 16, 2016
Ora-ïto INPI 2016 Innovation Trophy
Copyright © Françoise Herrmann
Each of the INPI 2016 Innovation Trophy winners received the following Ora-ïto designed trophy:
Each of the INPI 2016 Innovation Trophy winners received the following Ora-ïto designed trophy:
INPI 2016 Innovation trophies – The winners!
Copyright © Françoise Herrmann
The winners of the 2016 INPI Innovation trophies in the four categories of Trademark, Patents, Research and Design, are the following:
The winners of the 2016 INPI Innovation trophies in the four categories of Trademark, Patents, Research and Design, are the following:
- Obut®, a pétanque ball company in the Trademark category.
- Wandercraft, a firm designing robotic exoskeletons for wheelchair users, striving to create ordinary lives for extraordinary people, in the Patent category.
- LAPHIA (Laser and Photonics in Aquitaine) an interdisciplinary cluster of research, operating with funds from the University of Bordeaux, bringing together multidisciplinary teams focused on laser and high energy physics, photonics and materials, and innovative imaging, in the Research category.
- Procédés Chénel, a firm creating interior design solutions made of paper, with a more than 100-year old history, dating back to 1896, in the Design category.
The lucky winners not only received an Ora-ïto designed trophy. They were also treated to 25 years of macaron dessert creations, celebrating the 25th annual award of the INPI Innovation Trophies, offered by the master pastry-chef and President of the Jury Pierre Hermé.
Pierre Hermé
Ora-ïto
Obut
Wandercraft
LAPHIA
Procédés Chénelhttps://chenel.com/
Friday, December 9, 2016
Global warming and clean air (Paris)
Copyright © Françoise Herrmann
This week, Paris recorded the worse air quality in 10 years with a spike in airborne pollution of particles measuring less than 10 microns (PM10) equal to 80 ɥg/m3 (Willshire, 2016 The Guardian)
French air quality norms are set to PM10 < 50 ɥg/m3 (daily mean) with an alert threshold of 80 ɥg/m3 (AirParif).
As a result, public transportation in Paris is operating free of charge, and an odd/even car use ban. similar to that which operates in New Delhi, was implemented to combat air pollution, under virtually windless conditions.
This means that only cars with odd license plates could operate on Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2016, whereas only cars with even license plates could operate on Thursday, Dec. 8, 2017. Today, the car use ban is still effective with only odd license plate vehicles allowed to operate (carpool, emergency vehicles, hybrids and EV excluded). (Sharman, 2016 The Independent). And the same sort of ban has been implemented in the city of Lyon.
The spike in Paris air pollution was determined due to a combination of factors: household heating, transportation exhaust and windless weather conditions.
According to The World Health Organization (WHO) :
Ambient (outdoor air pollution) in both cities and rural areas was estimated to cause 3 million premature deaths worldwide per year in 2012; this mortality is due to exposure to small particulate matter of 10 microns or less in diameter (PM10), which cause cardiovascular and respiratory disease, and cancers
References
Airparif – French Air quality standards
http://www.airparif.asso.fr/en/reglementation/normes-francaises
Durand, A. (Dec. 9, 2016) La pollution de l'air en 9 question - Le Monde.
http://abonnes.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2016/12/09/la-pollution-de-l-air-en-9-questions_5046076_4355770.html
Durand, A. (Dec. 9, 2016) La pollution de l'air en 9 question - Le Monde.
http://abonnes.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2016/12/09/la-pollution-de-l-air-en-9-questions_5046076_4355770.html
Sharman, J (Dec. 8, 2016) Paris makes all public transport free in battle against 'worst air pollution for 10 years – The Independent
Van Eeckhout, L. (Dec. 8, 2016) Qualité de l’air : de nouvelles limites d’émissions polluantes dans l’Union européenne – Le Monde
http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2016/12/08/qualite-de-l-air-de-nouvelles-limites-d-emissions-polluantes-dans-l-union-europeenne_5045957_3244.html#kPxp7bAPvcC5pzM9.99
http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2016/12/08/qualite-de-l-air-de-nouvelles-limites-d-emissions-polluantes-dans-l-union-europeenne_5045957_3244.html#kPxp7bAPvcC5pzM9.99
WHO – Fact Sheet: Ambient (outdoor) air quality and health
Willshire, K. (Dec. 7, 2016) Paris bans cars for second day running as pollution chokes city - The Guardian
Saturday, December 3, 2016
Global warming and clean air (New Delhi)
Copyright © Françoise Herrmann
And you thought that Los Angeles smog was bad! Here is what the worse air pollution on earth looks like in New Delhi.
On Nov. 1, 2016, the airborne pollution of particles measuring less than 2.5 microns (PM2.5 particulate matter < 2.5 microns) measured 1.2 ppm (or 1200 ɥg/m3 - micrograms per cubic meter of air), that is, 120 times more than the annual mean threshold (PM2.5 = 10 ɥg/m3) set by the World Health organization for protecting public health, or close to 50 times more than the 24-hour mean average of 25 ɥg/m3 set by WHO for protection public health (WHO, 2005, p. 8).
Similarly, in comparison, the US EPA National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) sets the threshold level of PM2.5 at 12 and 15 ɥg/m3 mean average for 3 years, respectively for primary and secondary air standards. Primary air standards are set to protect public health, including vulnerable populations such as the elderly, children and asthmatics. Secondary air standards are set to protect public welfare, including “protection against decreased visibility and damage to animals, crops, vegetation and buildings.” (US NAAQS)
For a 24 hour period, the EPA NAAQS for PM2.5 is set at 35 ɥg/m3, for both primary and secondary air standards, averaged over three years. Thus, in New Delhi, on Nov 1, 2016, the air quality was about 35 times too dangerous even for buildings and vegetation, according to the EPA NAAQS standards. (US NAAQS)
And none of this is measuring any other pollutants, considered critical air quality criteria both by the US EPA NAAQS, and the WHO Air Quality Guidelines, such as levels of ozone (O3), sulphur dioxide (SO2), carbon monoxide (CO), lead (Pb) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2).
Nor does the particulate matter measurements include those “well-mixed” GHG gasses and emissions such as: “carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)” incorporated in Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act by the US Administration on Dec. 7, 2009, as “Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings” deemed threatening to the public health and welfare of current and future generations (Clean Air Act, Section 202(a), and Technical Report in support of the Findings).
References
EPA – Table NAAQS – National Ambient Air Quality Standards
US Clean Air Act (1990)
WHO Air quality Standards (2005 – English)
US Clean Air Act - Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under the Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act
Technical support for the findings on GHG appended to the Clean Air Act on Dec. 7, 2009https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-08/documents/endangerment_tsd.pdf
New Delhi suffoque dans un brouillard de pollution – Le Monde Nov. 7, 2016
New Delhi asphyxiée par la pollution - Le Monde Dec. 1, 2016
Friday, December 2, 2016
Green gone grey post Nov. 2016 US elections?
Copyright © Françoise Herrmann
Does this mean that the US is slated to become color-blind, and that the new color green is going to be grey, like the color of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, for the next 4 years? Is this for real?
The UNFCCC - COP22 (Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), held this year in Marrakesh, Morocco, ended on Nov. 7, 2016, just one day before voters elected Mr. Trump as the 45th President of the United States.
During the presidential campaign, President-elect Donald Trump expressed the following position and opinions about climate change:
“I’m not a big believer in man made climate change. There could be some impact, but I don’t believe it’s a devastating impact … I would say that it goes up, it goes down, and I think it’s very much like this over the years. We’ll see what happens. I mean, we’ll see what happens. Maybe you and I – even you, as young as you are – you won’t be around to see. But certainly, climate has changed. You know, they used to call it global warming. They’ve had many different – they call it extreme weather. They always change the name to encapsulate everything.” interview [Miami Herald, 8/11/16]
“This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing, record low temps, and our GW scientists are stuck in ice.” [Donald Trump Twitter, 1/1/14]
“It's really cold outside, they are calling it a major freeze, weeks ahead of normal. Man, we could use a big fat dose of global warming!” [Donald Trump Twitter, 10/19/15]
“The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” [Donald Trump Twitter, 11/6/12]
[Quotes extracted from: League of conservation voters (Oct. 2016) – In their own words – 2016 Presidential candidates on climate change http://www.lcv.org/assets/docs/presidential-candidates-on.pdf ]
Does this mean that the US is slated to become color-blind, and that the new color green is going to be grey, like the color of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, for the next 4 years? Is this for real?
According to Noam Chomsky, in response to a question on the long-term consequences of a Trump administration:
“First we have to ask if he means what he is saying... And if he does, then not only we, but the human species is in very deep trouble.” (Chomsky, 2016)
Indeed… the above-cited President-elect electoral campaign remarks and opinions are not only disturbing, they are backed by an even more unsettling policy agenda which includes such items as: 1. a pledge to revive the US coal industry; 2. a vision of the US as a leader in fossil fuel production with an expansion of both onshore and offshore drilling and, 3. a plan to dismantle, or greatly cut back on the activities of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). All of which arises in direct and complete opposition to internationally binding climate change decisions and agreements. First, beginning in 1994, with the ratification, and quasi-universal acceptance of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an agreement whose essential goal is to prevent “dangerous human interference with the climate” and that brought together 197 countries party to the Convention. Secondly, the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 which set internationally binding emissions reduction targets for all the 197 countries party to the UNFCCC. And finally, in stark denial of the UNFCCC – COP21 - Paris Agreement, ratified on Dec. 12, 2015, and now in force, 113 countries of the 197 Parties to the UNFCCC having already signed the agreement which calls for keeping the rise in global temperatures this century down to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and if possible even down to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
As a result of such denial, responses to the new grey color of climate change have ranged from raw despair, fear and anger on the part of climate change activists, to a more tempered, firm and hopeful response on the part of scientists and current climate change policy makers, who complacently believe that their indisputable data on climate change and global warming will ultimately be recognized --once the new administration is in place.
In other words, and as Chomsky put it, activists definitely believe that the President-elect “means what he says” and that the US is on a new path to opt out of all previous international climate change agreements, whereas scientists and climate change policymakers think the President-elect “can’t possibly be meaning what he says”, considering the amount irrefutable data on global warming, produced by such widely recognized and reputable institutions as: the US EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), The World Meteorological Organization, the CNRN - Centre national de recherches météorologiques (France), Environment and Climate change Canada, the UK Met Office, plus many more.
As Daniel Kammen, science envoy for the U.S. State Department, Professor of Energy at the University of California at Berkeley, has responded:
“To be a climate denier in 2016 is to simply ignore science. A businessman is supposed to be flexible and thoughtful about opportunity. Clean energy is an economic boom, and it’s a boom for equity around the planet. And to turn your back on that is to put ideology over simple, good clean energy business and clean energy jobs.” (Democracy Now!, Nov. 15, 2016)
So, at the end of the day, do we, translators, all update our term bases with the term “grey” instead of “green” in reference to technology and patents that seek to both reduce global warming and/or mitigate its effects?
Well, it is perhaps too early to tell, since the US has just entered the transition period between administrations, before the January 20th, 2017 inauguration day. What is certain, however, is that the President-elect’s opinions and remarks are both misguided and the reflection of a true misunderstanding of global warming and climate change.
Such statements as: “This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing, record low temps, and our GW scientists are stuck in ice” uncover several important misconceptions of global warming, climate change and the science that drives the interpretation of planetary temperature.
First, scientists understand climate change as a result of global-warming, and not vice versa. Scientists understand global warming as a phenomenon arising out of the accumulation of greenhouse gases (GHG) such as carbon dioxide (CO2). In other words, it is not the weather that is responsible for global warming, it is our fossil-fuel and heavy emissions industrial activity, and more particularly the industrial activity of the Northern Hemisphere, that is assumed responsible for the accumulation of GHG, which in turn has steadily augmented the temperature of the planet. A record streak of freezing temperatures in New York City, Paris or Vienna will not “cool” our planet, just as a record heat wave in Detroit, Chicago or Southern Europe will not “increase the temperature” of our planet. These exceptional climate events are the consequences, not the cause of global warming, especially when recorded as increasingly frequent phenomena.
The following glossary entry on “Global Warming” extracted from the EPA Student’s guide to Global Warming clearly explains the relationship between global warming and climate change (italics mine):
Global warming: An increase in temperature near the surface of the Earth. Global warming has occurred in the distant past as the result of natural causes. However, the term is most often used to refer to recent and ongoing warming caused by people's activities. Global warming leads to a bigger set of changes referred to as global climate change.
Secondly, a warmer planet does not mean just warmer weather, it means an increase in the frequency of extreme weather and catastrophic weather events, such as for example, an increase in both the number and intensity of hurricanes arising from the increase in ocean temperature; a record number of tornados, an increase in rainfall and floods by almost 20% in the last century, and an increase in snowfall and resulting damages, pointing to “weather gone-crazy” in the Northern Hemisphere, and to the disappearance of lakes and increased droughts in the non-industrialized Southern Hemisphere generating increased suffering from the resulting shortages of both food and water supplies. However, these points are truly nothing new. This is a message that was already delivered loudly and very clearly in 2006 by Former Vice-President Al Gore in the book and non-fiction documentary titled An inconvenient truth: The planetary emergency of global warming and what we can do about it.
In fact, this message was powerful enough to generate a quasi-universal response, consolidating the action of 197 countries in the fight against global warming and its consequences (Lapowski, 2016). All of which makes the President-elect's remarks all the more disconcerting.
The hope then, as far as translators and interpreters are concerned, is that we might be commissioned to build more communication bridges in educational campaigns designed to gain the support of “climate change deniers”, whose loudest and winning representative is about to take the highest office.
If the new grey color of green is just a misconception, then there is still a place for reason, and for hope. Indeed, if President-elect Donald Trump really meant what he said when he asserted:
“I think that clean air is a pressing problem. You want to have clean air, clean water. That's very important to me, and I've won many environmental awards. I am not a believer in climate change,’ [Politico, 9/24/15 in League of Conservation Voters, 2016]
then it won’t be too difficult to reconcile the contradiction expressed above, so that green, clean and renewable energy remains the true color of climate change and the fight against global warming. 👠
References
Al Gore (website)
COP22
Chomsky, n. (2016) If Trump becomes president (YouTube recording)
CNRM - Centre national de recherches météorologiques (France)
Democracy now! (Nov 15, 2016) U.S. State Dept. Science Envoy on Trump's Climate Denialism & Why Sanders Could Have Beaten Him
Environment and Climate Change Canada
EPA- Environmental Protection Agency - EPA
EPA – Student’s Guide to Global Climate change
Gore, A. (2006) An inconvenient Truth: the Planetary Emergency of global Warming and what we can do about it. New York, NY: Rodale.
Lapowski, I. (2016) Ten years after An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore may actually be winning.
League of Conservation Voters (Oct. 2016) – In their own words – 2016 Presidential candidates on climate change
The World Meteorological Organization
UK Met Office
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/researchThursday, December 1, 2016
World AIDS Day
Copyright © Françoise Herrmann
An estimated 37 million people are currently living HIV-positive worldwide with about 2.1 million annual new infections (WHO, 2016). Only an estimated 18.2 million people are receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) (WHO, 2016). At the end of 2015, 1.1 million people died of AIDS-related causes (WHO, 2016).
Thus, the fight continues for an HIV-free world, via access to prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care, in particular:
- within the context of the UN-WHO Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of ending AIDS by 2030
- access to antiretroviral (ART) therapies, education and information
- prevention of the transmission of HIV from mother to child (WHO, 2016)
- access to HIV self-testing (WHO, 2016)
- development of strong labs in areas of incidence (CDC Global)
- eradication of the stigma of the disease and of discrimination in health care settings (Elton John AIDS Foundation)
Increasingly, the AIDS epidemic is becoming indissociably connected to the tuberculosis (TB) epidemic worldwide, as TB is the leading cause of death for people living with HIV (CDC HIV & TB).
The prevalence of people living with HIV/AIDS world-wide is the following:
World map of HIV prevalence 2009 - UNAIDS - Our world in data
-----
Note: HIV vs. AIDS: People who are infected with HIV (Human immunodeficiency virus) do not always develop AIDS (Acquired immune-deficiency syndrome) which is a clinical diagnosis of the final stages of the infection.
References
AIDS.gov
CDC – HIV AIDS
CDC – HIV AIDS – Statistics Center
CDC – AIDS statistics
CDC – Global HIV & TB
Elton John AIDS Foundation
Elton John Foundation London
Our world in DATA
https://ourworldindata.org/hiv-aids/
UN-WHO Sustainable Development goals (SDG)
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/topics/sustainabledevelopmentgoals
UN-WHO Sustainable Development goals (SDG)
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/topics/sustainabledevelopmentgoals
WHO – World AIDS Day 2016
WHO – 10 facts on HIV/AIDS
WHO – HIV self-testing (HIVST)
World AIDS Day OrganisationSunday, November 27, 2016
Terminology - OED WOTY!
Copyright © Françoise Herrmann
The Oxford English Dictionaries also select a WOTY (word of the year)! And the votes are already tallied. The OED WOTY 2016 is… post-truth – a word which you might have recently seen flooding the media! In fact, according to OED researchers, usage of this word has increased approximately 2000% in 2015.
Post-truth in 2016 has a quite different meaning from what one might expect. Post-truth selected as WOTY 2016 by the OED means “relating or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal beliefs”, in contrast to “post-truth meaning “after the truth.
Consider the following two examples:
(1) 'Pre-truth' far scarier than 'post-truth'. (Bangkok Post - Rithdee, 2016)
(2) "Of all the concerns facing a Madam President, governing in a post-truth environment may be the biggest challenge. Perhaps a third of American adults now believe a few Big Lies. And those Big Lies may be nearly impossible to dislodge, because in the course of this awful election, even fact-checking became suspect." (NYTimes – Egan, 2016)
The first example is the title of an article where pre-truth refers to a situation or state with no truth is sight, and post-truth refers to at least some involvement of truth, assuming a post-modern stance where there is not one truth, but many truths, and at least one truth has prevailed. The prefix post means "after". In the second example, the author is referring to governing in an environment where facts and truth no longer take precedence. The prefix post means "belonging to a time in which the specified concept has become unimportant or irrelevant".
So indeed, post-truth in 2016 is actually the antonym of post-truth as in post-war ! In a post-truth 2016 US environment, for example:
“More than 70 percent of Trump’s statements have been rated false, mostly false or pants-on-fire lies by PolitiFact — nearly three times the falsity score of Hillary Clinton. And yet, Trump is considered more honest and trustworthy in some polls.” [NYTimes – Egan, 2016).
So, post-truth is dangerous, isn’t it? And, of course, both Google and Facebook are blamed for spreading “fake news", in turn prompting their action against fake news sites. (WSJ - James Taranto - Interview; WSJ - Nicas & Seetharaman, 2016)
However, the OED’s choice of post-truth as WOTY 2016 was not without serious competition. Competition for the OED WOTY 2016 title included such terms as brexiteer, Alt-right, Latinx and adulting, among others.
Brexiteer is used in reference to “anti-European Union advocates”. Alt-right (short for Alternative Right) refers to an ultra-conservative group in the United States with "far right ideologies who reject mainstream conservatism in the United States" (Wikipedia). Adulting, like parenting, refers to behaving as a responsible adult. And Latinx arises as a gender-neutral term for a person of Latin origin, instead of the terms Latina or Latino.
Cheers for catching post-truth in 2016! It was spotted as Truth Lite in 2004 (Keyes, 2004)... but that was way before it really spiked! 👠
References
Egan, T. (Nov. 4, 2016) Post-truth Presidency -
Holmes, R. (Nov. 16, 2016) Oxford Dictionaries names 'post-truth' word of the year
Keyes, R. (2004) The post-truth era: Dishonesty and deception in contemporary life. NY, NY: St. Martins Press.
Nicas, J. and D. Seetharaman (Nov. 15, 2016) Google and Facebook take aim at fake news sites, Wall Street Journal
NPR (National Public Radio) Staff – What you need to know about the Alt-Right movement (Aug, 26, 2016)
Oxford English Dictionaries - Word of the Year
Politifact
http://www.politifact.com/
Rithdee, K. (Nov. 19, 2016) Pre-truth far scarier than post-truth. Bangkok Post
http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/1139021/pre-truth-far-scarier-than-post-truth
Rithdee, K. (Nov. 19, 2016) Pre-truth far scarier than post-truth. Bangkok Post
http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/1139021/pre-truth-far-scarier-than-post-truth
Sharockman , A. (Aug 16, 2016) The post-truth election? Comparing 2016 to past elections on the Truth-O-Meter, Politifact
WSJ - Wall Street Journal (Nov. 22, 2016) Fake news and fake scandals - James Taranto Interview
Wikipedia – Alt-right
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