This article documents how the COVID-19 crisis has affected the drinking behavior of Latin European wine consumers. Using a large online survey conducted during the first lockdown in France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain (n = 7,324 individuals), we reconstruct the purchasing and consumption patterns of the respondents. The number of people who maintained their wine consumption frequency is significantly higher than those who increased or decreased their consumption. Wine consumption frequency held up better than other types of alcohol (beer and spirits). We analyze heterogeneities among countries and individuals by employing the Marascuilo procedure and an ordered logit model. The latter identifies the impact of demographic, commercial, and psychosocial factors on wine consumption frequency. The results shed light on changes in wine consumer behavior during the first lockdown and consider possible post-lockdown trends that could be useful to industry players. (JEL Classifications: D5, L66, Q1)

This paper is a revised and updated edition of a previous description of the Quebec Newborn Twin Study (QNTS), an ongoing prospective longitudinal follow-up of a birth cohort of twins born between 1995 and 1998 in the greater Montreal area, Québec, Canada. The goal of QNTS is to document individual differences in the cognitive, behavioral, and social-emotional aspects of developmental health across childhood, their early genetic and environmental determinants, as well as their putative role in later social-emotional adjustment, school, health, and occupational outcomes. A total of 662 families of twins were initially assessed when the twins were aged 6 months. These twins and their family were then followed regularly. QNTS now has 16 waves of data collected or planned, including 5 in preschool. Over the last 24 years, a broad range of physiological, cognitive, behavioral, school, and health phenotypes were documented longitudinally through multi-informant and multimethod measurements. QNTS also entails extended and detailed multilevel assessments of proximal (e.g., parenting behaviors, peer relationships) and distal (e.g., family income) features of the child’s environment. QNTS children and a subset of their parents have been genotyped, allowing for the computation of a variety of polygenic scores. This detailed longitudinal information makes QNTS uniquely suited for the study of the role of the early years and gene–environment transactions in development.

This article investigates the extent to which provincial political parties made use of social media in their strategy, organization and communication in order to achieve their electoral goals during the Quebec 2012 general election. Using data from a series of 19 interviews conducted with online strategists and campaign directors from the five leading parties active in the 2012 election, we identify the strategic objectives these organizations followed when developing their social media campaigns. The strategists' narratives reveal that social media became a central component of electioneering and that parties were carrying out, in various forms, hybrid campaigns that combined traditional and emergent communication technologies and employed both old and new types of organizational principles.

This article examines how the government framed its communications during the so-called "Printemps érable" (Maple Spring), a historic student protest movement that took place in Quebec in 2012. Six years after the end of the conflict, and despite the production of a significant volume of analysis and reflections on this social crisis, no empirical work had been dedicated yet to the study of the government’s communication strategy. Following a quantitative content analysis of 424 public interventions from cabinet members, this study raises the argumentative frameworks at the heart of the government’s communication strategy. Drawing on Entman's cascading activation model (2004), the analysis shows how the government tried to define the problems, solutions and protagonists involved in this societal conflict. Our study highlights the government's failure to maintain the framing initiative of the crisis, and the change in communication strategy that resulted.

The Quebec Newborn Twin Study (QNTS) is an ongoing prospective longitudinal follow-up of a birth cohort of twins born between 1995 and 1998 in the greater Montreal area, Québec, Canada. The goal of QNTS is to document individual differences in the cognitive, behavioral, and social-emotional aspects of developmental health across childhood, their early bio-social determinants, as well as their putative role in later social-emotional adjustment, school and health outcomes. A total of 662 families of twins were initially assessed when the twins were aged 6 months. These twins and their family were then followed regularly. QNTS has 14 waves of data collected or planned, including 5 in preschool. Over the past 15 years, a broad range of physiological, cognitive, behavioral, school, and health phenotypes were documented longitudinally through multi-informant and multi-method measurements. QNTS also entails extended and detailed multi-level assessments of proximal (e.g., parenting behaviors, peer relationships) and distal (e.g., family income) features of the child's environment. This detailed longitudinal information makes QNTS uniquely suited for the study of the role of the early years and gene-environment transactions in development.

The common starfish, Asterias rubens, occurs in fluctuating environments in the North Atlantic. To better understand energy allocation dynamics, we recorded gonad, body wall, and pyloric caeca (storage organ) indices between 2000 and 2004 from three different habitats. We applied a Fourier transform to the data to evaluate and compare the seasonal variation in these indices. Specific effects of emersion and salinity variation were examined in two laboratory studies. Differences in energy allocation were found between sites and temporally within sites. Food availability appeared to be the most important factor controlling allocation dynamics while fluctuating salinity and/or emersion had a significant but smaller impact. Only severe food shortage reduced reproductive investment indicating a preferential energy allocation to gonads. This study is the first to encompass a broad range of populations over several reproduction cycles and emphasizes the ability of A. rubens to adapt to a fluctuating environment.

The dynamics of intertidal populations of the starfish Asterias rubens, living in contrasted habitats and over a broad geographical range, were studied from March 2000 to November 2002 using modal analysis. As only 1 juvenile (first year after recruitment) and 1 adult (subsequent years) modes could be distinguished; only juvenile growth was quantified. Concomitantly, experiments were carried out to test several factors assumed to influence juvenile growth: food quantity and quality, emersion, salinity variations and temperature. Three different juvenile growth patterns were evidenced: (1) a fast and protracted growth linked to high food availability and lack of disturbance; (2) a winter cessation of growth likely due to a seasonal increase of emersion-related stress and salinity variations; and (3) disrupted juvenile dynamics, which was encountered in 2 populations. In the first one, estuarine salinity conditions limited growth and, combined with food depletion, led to the extinction of the population. In the second one, wave action confined most of the population to a restricted area with low food levels. In the third scenario, intraspecific competition for food was probably at the source of an unusual growth pattern in which most juveniles did not grow while a small proportion achieved a medium growth rate.

We discuss the principles of Optical interconnects, and discuss the potential of silicon photonics to provide all the necessary building blocks to construct dense, high-bandwidth, lowpower optical links. We discuss waveguides, wavelength division multiplexing, modulators and photodetectors. We also take a look at the options for implementing light sources, a function which silicon cannot natively provide, with a focus on implementations in the IMEC silicon photonics platform.

We report the heritability of response inhibition, latency, and variability, which are potential markers of genetic risk in neuropsychiatric conditions. Genetic and environmental influences on cancellation and restraint, response latency, and variability measured in a novel variant of the stop signal task were studied in 139 eight-year-old twin pairs from a birth cohort. Cancellation (50%), restraint (27%), and response latency (41%) showed significant heritability, the balance being non-shared environmental influences and/or error. Response variability was not heritable, with 23% of the variance attributable to shared environmental influences and 77% to non-shared environmental risk or error. The phenotypic correlation between response cancellation and restraint was −.44 and between response latency and restraint was .21. These phenotypic correlations were entirely genetic in origin. The phenotypic correlation between response variability and % successful inhibition was .27, but was not genetic. Cancellation and restraint were heritable and shared genetic influences, indicating that they may be influenced by a common gene or genes. Response latency was moderately heritable and shared genetic influences with restraint, but was not correlated with cancellation. Response variability was not heritable. These results support the potential of response inhibition and latency as endophenotypes in genetic research. (JINS, 2011, 17, 238–247)

In addition to the spicules typically produced by sponges, about twenty hypercalcified species belonging to both classes Demospongiae and Calcispongiae secrete a massive basal calcareous skeleton composed of calcite or aragonite. Skeletal growth rates and growth mechanisms are still poorly known in those hypercalcified Calcispongiae. In situ calcein staining experimentation on the Mediterranean calcisponge Petrobiona massiliana revealed a mean annual growth rate of the massive skeleton of 236 µm/y (±90). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed that some spicules are entrapped within the massive skeleton (a solid mass forming apical crests with multidirectional growth axes) during its formation. Whole actines were observed within the massive skeleton of fractured specimens, indicating that they do not dissolve after entrapping. Calcein incorporation bands seen through epifluorescence microscopy and SEM morphological observations of the skeletal surface revealed cone shaped protuberances corresponding to active growth areas. A spatially discontinuous growth was highlighted, but the annual growth rates were similar at the tip of crests and at the bottom of depressions separating them. The skeleton of P. massiliana is composed of magnesium calcite with strontium as the main trace element. Significant differences in skeletal chemistry of specimens collected in different Mediterranean locations revealed a possible temperature dependence of Mg/Ca. Although such temperature signature exists in the massive skeleton of P. massiliana, its use as an accurate environmental recorder is limited by several factors including multidirectional and spatially discontinuous growth.

This study contrasts the implantation of 25 μm thick Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membranes with titanium and gold ions at 10 keV and 35 keV for doses from 1×1015 at/cm2 to 2.5×1016 at/cm2 implanted with two different techniques: Filtered Cathodic Vacuum Arc (FCVA) and Low Energy Broad Ion Beam (LEI). The influence of the ion energy, ion type, and implantation tool on the Young’s modulus (E), resistivity and structural properties (nanocluster size and location, surface roughness) of PDMS membranes is reported. At a dose of 2.5×1016 at/cm2 and an energy of 10 keV, which for FCVA yields sheet resistance of less than 200 Ω/square, the initial value of E (0.85 MPa) increases much less for FCVA than for LEI. For gold we obtain E of 5 MPa (FCAV) compared to 86 MPa (LEI) and for titanium 0.94 MPa (FCVA) compared to 57 MPa (LEI). Resistivity measurements show better durability for LEI than for FCVA implanted samples and better time stability for gold than for titanium.

We present a study of the influence on Young's modulus, stress and electrical conductivity of poly-dimethylsiloxane membranes implanted with titanium ions at energies from 5 to 35 keV, with doses up to 8×1016 ions/cm2. The motivation for this study was to find the optimum implantation conditions to create electrodes for microfabricated dielectric electroactive polymer actuators, which must combine low resistivity with low stiffness. Two implantation techniques are used, Filtered Cathodic Vacuum Arc (FCVA) and the more conventional Low Energy broad beam Implanter (LEI). Of the two, it is found that the FCVA implanter is much better suited to create compliant electrodes.