domain: sdu.stu.hy sde spi

text:
SMASH -SPATIALLY DISTRIBUTED MODELLING AND ASSIMILATION FOR HYDROLOGY: PYTHON WRAPPING TOWARDS ENHANCED RESEARCH-TO-OPERATIONS TRANSFER

T he distributed SMASH platform is based on a gridded mesh and on a modular design. On each cell, the model features different hydrological components. Each component offers different modeling options such as snow modules, surface interception, production, transfer and percolation functions. At the grid scale, different routing models are implemented via a cell-to-cell numerical routing scheme.

S MASH comes with its numerical adjoint model which is obtained by automatic differentiation with Tapenade. A variational data assimilation algorithm is implemented and helps to calibrate the distributed parameters or evaluate the model states. This algorithm uses the quasi-Newton lbfgs-b descent algorithm and the gradient of the cost function relative to the model parameters and states. This gradient is computed by a run of the adjoint model.

T he numerical SMASH platform is a Fortran code. To gain in modularity and facilitate the use of SMASH in the research and engineering communities, a Python interface has been created with the new F90Wrap software. The original Fortran code has been revamped. The new structure enables to 1) control any inputs and outputs with Python, 2) keep an automatically differentiable and computationally efficient numerical Fortran model, 3) call a binary from the shell to preserve a backward compatibility with old practices.

T he key to achieve this Python interface is to use Fortran modules and derived types to store all inputs and outputs variables. These Fortran structures are stored in different modules. F 90Wrap automatically generates the fortran functions and wrappers to give access to every component of each derived type. A Python class is generated to facilitate the use of these wrappers inside a Python code.

T he Python object "model" aggregates all inputs/outputs variables required by SMASH. The "model" object comes with built-in methods to allow end users to perform simulations, calibrations, plotting and hdf5 export. The Python binding facilitates all post-processing since it does not requires I/O into text files anymore.

(1) HYDRIS Hydrologie, Parc Scientifique Agropolis II, 2196 Boulevard de la Lironde, Montferrier-surLez, France ; maxime.jay-allemand@hydris-hydrologie.fr (2) INRAE, unité de recherche RECOVER, 3275 route de Cézanne, Aix-en-Provence, France ; pierre-andre.garambois@inrae.fr

SMASH FOR A DISTRIBUTED AND MODULAR HYDROLOGICAL MODEL WITH ITS NUMERICAL ADJOINT

Jay-Allemand Maxime(1), Colleoni François(2), Garambois Pierre-André(2), Pierre Javelle (2) & Julie Demargne(1)

SCIENTIFIC PURPOSES :

T hese Python wrappers offer several perspectives : • SMASH will ease the transfer of scientific enhancements into operations, in particular for the national Vigicrues Flash service • Coupling SMASH with probabilistic precipitation nowcasting could be facilitated with the Python library Pysteps (Pulkkinen S, 2019) • Future toolchain improvements will benefit from up-to-date numerical technologies, such as parallel computing, model couplings, hybrid solvers, web services and mapping, as well as uncertainty modeling and data assimilation algorithms.

The python object "Model" and the end-user specific methods

A Sphinx based documentation is autogenerated with the latest source code. It documents the whole Python class, gives scripting examples and also describes inputs/ outputs of the Fortran subroutines.

G etting started with the hydrological SMASH platform is easy: several handy python practice cases have been written to explore all SMASH features.

T he SMASH platform is distributed through the standard pip package-management sytem. It depends on few scientific python librairies such as numpy, pandas, scipy, matplotlib.

W ith few Python lines, one can optimize the model parameters with different objective functions (NSE, KGE), simulate discharges for a watershed, save data to hdf5, plot and analyse results. Here is an example on the French Ardeche catchment.

T he prediction of extreme hydrological events at high resolution is a scientific challenge. Efficient modeling tools are required to integrate scientifc progress, take advantage of the information provided by satellites and sensors, and meet the needs of the end users. This contribution presents the tailoring of a hydrological modeling and data assimilation code, SMASH (Spatially distributed Modelling and ASsimilation for Hydrology), based on modular design and written in Fortran.

T his work aims to facilitate scientific enhancements and their transfer to the operational French flash flood warning system, Vigicrues Flash. Thanks to the recent f90wrap library (Kermode J. 2020), the whole SMASH toolchain has been wrapped for use in a Python environment. The revamped Fortran structure and the python class are presented.

Semi-distributed calibration (by catchment) Distributed calibration

Production parameter c p (mm)


Entry for The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History (2009)

Globalisation

One could start from the paper sheet sticked in the shop around the corner window the other day : "today nothing is spared by globalisation, not even the baguette". In order to explain the price rise of this familiar French breadstick to grouchy customers, my baker used "globalisation" as a contemporary factor and the underlying cause behind the skyrocketing price of wheat and cereals. Just like him, leaders and simple citizens alike have resorted to such interpretative scheme in the last 30 years, after the terms "global" and "globalisation", hardly ever new then, began their march to the headlines and the small talk in the middle of the 1980s. To keep the grips these terms seemed to offer on the current state of our worldly affairs, their users mostly insisted on the break in intensity and nature that was at play in the last decades in terms of interconnection, dependence, convergence, homogenization and fragmentation of human societies and polities on this planet. Just like my baker, they were not very receptive to powerful voices that very early on had warned about the longue durée aspects that were incorporated into current patterns. Roland Robertson, Immanuel Wallerstein, Olivier Dollfus, Kevin O'Rourke, Jeffrey Williamson or Anthony King's caveats failed to remind the baker that cereals have been traded on long distances for centuries; that the grains market was 'cornered' from the late 1880s, with speculations in the futures trade on the Chicago market causing the prices to rise in Europe; that the baguette is but one juncture into the historical and anthropological history of bread as a staple food of human kind; or that the culture of cereals has expanded and contracted throughout history through acclimatization, random journeys or conquest. When we embarked upon the project of this dictionary, one of our aims was to act as go-betweens, as it were, for the baker and the social theorists who unsuccessfully tried to urge commentators and citizens alike to identify the ways into which the global pasts of our world was incorporated within its present, rather than asserting its 'newness'. We were also keen to bring first hand historical material to the growing choir of scholars who have stressed that not everything transnational or even long distance is global. Many if not most of the connections and circulations that cross national borders do not embrace the whole planet, they do not by nature add to the interdependence or integration of the world, nor do they connect to integration processes regardless of circumstances of birth. In other words, and from likely similar empirical reasons, we shared the concerns that Frederick Cooper had expressed in 2001. This historian of Africa identified three questions that were left unasked by the prophets and Cassandras of globalisation: newness (about the historical depth of interconnection), comprehensiveness (the evolving linking and delinking operated by the circulations at work), and operation (the specificity of the structures that make connections and circulations work). He called for modest but effective ways to analyze processes, networks and social fields that crossed borders by focusing on these empirical questions. Such a contract had been signed off by a significant number of historians in the past and clearly does foot the bill of what we call the transnational perspective. The first hand study of connections an circulations by historians of all trades offers a genuine opportunity to engage the globalisation discourse with our picks and shovels: sources and material. Picking up from Cooper's leads, this entry will sketch the contribution of a transnational perspective on history to the study of globalisation.

Cycles, waves, processes: the timing of globalization Periodization is the bread and butter of historians, and it stays central as they try to have their say within the globalization discussion. Part of their contribution has to deal with the very long term: the questions about the age of the world system ("500 or 5000 years ?" asked Frank and Gills provocatively in 1993) have been pushed backward and forward by such proposals as Chris Bayly's ideal-type chronologizing of 'archaic', 'proto', 'modern' and 'post colonial' globalization, while world historians or geographers have scrutinized 'human webs' that started to thrive with the colonization of the planet by homo sapiens. Such developments have been possible because of first hand research that could be mobilized to chart and map circulations and connections of and about goods, ideas, germs, people, funds, with the result that past interconnections and interdependencies, especially those which were not centered around Europe or the Atlantic world, are now more familiar to us, and prevent us from teleological readings of current trends and patterns. The stake appears to be not so much to tunnel through the past to read the origins of what our times have called globalization, but to identify the manifold configurations that have been seen as high points of integration and interconnection at other times. A similar possibility is opened by the development of first hand research on circulations and connections in the modern age. The most widely accepted chronologies have been developed within the general attempt to 'root' our current situation and forecast a possible future, and are embedded within two major frames: on one hand, the wish to assess the good and evil sizes of globalization and on the other a focus on the economic aspects that have been central into the perception of "our" globalisation. The most classical formulation is the one inspired by the work of Jeffrey Williamson, that has produced a narrative articulated in three episodes as he contested the 'newness' of globalisation together with the views that erected the turn of the 15 th and 16 th centuries as a landmark. Focusing on the "open economy forces of trade and mass migrations", Williamson identified economic performance and convergence as the key criteria to assess globalization and sketched three moments. The first phase, between 1850 and 1914, was when globalization began. Its expansion was cut short by a deglobalization phase from 1914 to 1950, as national economies turned outside in, to thrive again from 1950 until the peak of the late 20 th century. Some others have proposed a slightly different periodization, like the French economist Charles Albert Michalet who claims to build from a wider range of economic data as he charts three configurations of mondialisation ('international' until the 1960s, 'multinational' from then onto the 1980s, and 'global' ever since), each one being characterized by the prominence of a different kind of economic material (goods, services, investments or capital). But Williamson's narrative has became the basis of a canon, endorsed by the World Bank (who shifted the time frame to 1870-1914, 1914-1945 and 1945-1980) or popularized by the allusions to our "first globalisation". In a recent article, Adam McKeown has engaged this periodization by stressing that it was built mostly from North Atlantic data and focused on a model of development bounded in time and space. Using the example of migrations, Mc Keown has suggested that the portrait of the first globalization left two of the biggest world frontiers out of the picture, that is northern and southeastern Asia. He also underlines that the depiction of 1914-1945 as a moment of deglobalization was only possible by a camouflage of the 1920s and their impressive record of economic convergence and migrations. Following up on his suggestion to pick up from different flows and different regions, reconstructing the connections and circulations across borders can effectively contribute to consideration of a wider world, which is the least one can expect when studying globalization. Considering non economic flows certainly puts the chronology in a different light. Though immigration quotas restricted some kinds of migration in the Atlantic world, refugees' and seasonal workers' movements did not come to a halt, and even increased, while the sea transportation of Asian pilgrims to Mecca peaked in the late 1920s. The interwar years were a crucial moment of connections and circulations in both the social and natural sciences, when both conceptual and organizational definitions were exchanged, translated and appropriated across borders to shape the development of scientific research, policies and institutions. Even the 1930s, the hard core of 'deglobalization' according to the master narrative, have seen almost unprecendented cross-fertilization in the worlds of science, especially with the departure of Italian, Spanish or German artists, scientifics and thinkers. Similarly, those who linked across borders to defend a cause or an interest in the arts, politics or social activism did not stop abruptly to do so during the inter war. The re-nationalization of the world, which presumably brought about economic deglobalization, also triggered an impressive range of new flows and links (for example about public policies to cope with the depression), while existing ones did not vanish in a snap. Existing and current research to document the history of circulations and connections, of which only a fraction is presented in this volume, should ultimately lead to re-consideration of the master narrative's periodization. They should support and expand the idea that connections and circulations, and their contribution to fostering convergence and divergence, homogeneity and difference, were at the core of the history of the modern age in a constant fashion. Christopher Bayly, working from existing scholarship, has gone some way in insisting on this aspect for the period 1780-1914. His work is especially powerful in stressing how much two of the most salient aspects of the modern age, the strengthening of the nation-sate and the development of circulations and connections of all sorts, were intertwined variables of an equation rather than two elements in a zero sum game. Besides being a clue that the 'first globalization' is a fragile typification, , the connections and circulations he identified do not cease abruptly after 1914. But what about the lesson that periodizations are ultimately supposed to deliver, that is the assessment of change over time ? Is this just to be jettisoned in favour of a blunt and dull recognition that the modern age has been nothing but a space of flows, at best with ebbs and tides but deprived of any order, or reversely the steady expansion of a single core capitalist system that integrated the rest of the planet in the connections and circulations it generated ? This is when the master narrative periodization should be kept in mind to provide a first clue, and return with a vengeance. There have been several moments in the modern age where protagonists were keen to predict a period of unprecedented change and the advent of a new global age, while former epochs were frozen into "a past of borders, isolation and stasis" (McKeown, 2007, 220). Every teacher of a class about the history of globalization has probably played the quotation game, mixing anonymized citations from Karl Marx, Ulysses Grant, Kenichi Ohmae, Jean Charles de Sismondi, Ghose Ackroyd Aurobindo, Thomas Friedman, Wendell Wilkie, Goethe, Edouard Glissant or Manuel Castells (for the famous) and Carl Ritter, William Stead, King Kalakaua, Elisée Reclus, Max Nordau, Alexander Supan or Guillaume de Greef (my favourite underdogs). When informed about the whos and whens, students are both amused and amazed by how repetitive is the consciousness of what has recently been called the time space compression and the assertion of a move toward a world culture, economy or society. They are also intrigued by the lexicological invention that has been demonstrated to create appropriate neologisms in different languages (like the French mondialité which was used in early 20 th century Belgium). A subsequent batch of contradictory quotes about the delinking and unmaking of planetary connections usually helps to bring home the idea that there has been a long contest throughout the modern age about the direction, impact, value of connections and circulations. The canonical periodization not only derives from a focus on economic circulations in the North Atlantic world, it is also an inscription of the personal and collective feelings that resulted dominant (but not exclusive) at different moments of the attempts to capture or define the order of the world: the description of a world united by technologies is a striking common feature for the contemporary observers who felt they were living in a "great acceleration" in the 1890s or the 1990s, while commentators of the late 1930s lumped the interwar years into a dark and gloomy whole to explain to themselves how their world had fragmented and bumped into a wall. Moreover, such visions were for a large part prescriptive and should be read as exhortations to go with the grain and catch the wind of a shrinking or expanding world system. There are no reasons to be satisfied with encoding these visions into our own understanding of the past, and the painstaking reconstruction of connections and circulations should help us imagine other periodizations while we explore the making and unmaking of economic and non-economic flows in order to document how circulations and connections between societies and polities have framed the very existence of these. It might ultimately tell us more about the business of history, that is the assessment of change, than to try telling 'when did globalization begin', walking backwards or forwards with what we call our globalization as a focal point. If we want to narrate the world's past in an age of globality, we must not work backwards and fall pray to the self-fulfilling prophecies of this very age.

What makes connecti ons work ?

If so, the current diagnosis of 'globalisation' would thus have to be read with the hindsight of previous moments where other such prescriptive narratives were developed in the context of universal hubris, including the writing of 'universal histories'. Beyond the scope of this volume are world and space views that were defended in the context of the Chinese empire, the protagonists of dar al-islam in Caliphate times, the Iberian monarchy or the Tokugawa dynasty. But a transnational perspective suggests that there is profit to consider the range of projects and protagonists that have been at work, engineering connections and circulations with some universal aspirations in the background in the last 150 years. This includes wide and modest designs powered by national governments ( Old and New 'American Century' blueprints, late 19 th century plans by Hawaii's 'Cosmopolitan King' Kalakaua or current worldviews in sections of the Chinese business and government), political ideologies (the Revolution mantra or the different strands of communism) or private agencies (the Rockefeller Foundation's schemes for a 'free trade of ideas') as well as individual hankerings for contributing to developing norms, standards or other forms of conversations where the subject was to dispute about what was or should be universal. Recovering the agency of these projects requires to work from first hand material, and to take a deep look into the 'structures necessary to make connections work', in Cooper's words. This volume has understood 'structures' in a very catholic sense. The steamship, the container box, the symphonic orchestra, the news agency, the publishing industry, the submarine or terrestrial power cables, the international non governmental organisation are such structures. The study of such structures may seem a bit dry, but a first hand study of these has the potential to disclose the logics and order of circulations. This clearly calls for extensive historical investigation. For example, it is not satisfactory to draw on the existence of international associations or non-governmental organisations to assert the existence of a global civil society. The analysis of their printed turnouts such as conference proceedings or campaign material does not give access to the debates and discussions about their programs and activities, nor about their spatial extension or how they got along with other existing groups with similar goals, nor about the way they organised the circulation of information and funds within their flock. To get at what made the connections of such an organisation work, one needs to dive into personal correspondance, outsiders' comments and archives of the organisation, all things that shape the emerged part of the iceberg, that is the public face of campaigns, conferences and publications. The transnational perspective is about the operation and agency of the structures at work across borders. Only then can one assess their 'global' reach and aim.

The search for circulatory regimes Just as the exploration of different kinds of flows offers a different insight into the periodization of globalisation and the question of its newness, the study of circulations provides the opportunity to consider its comprehensiveness and the limits of interconnections between the different parts of the world. The fact that transnational circulations and connections are not global by nature seems to be obvious. While the non ubiquitous characteristics of ties and flows have often been discarded in both celebrative and critical accounts of globalization, there is a growing concern to recover the extent, direction and order of flows and ties. Several of the contributors to this volume, with very different disciplinary or research track records, have come up with a suggestion to make sense of connections and circulations they research and record over the last 150 years. The proposal is to focus on the structural but dynamic, specific orders that organized, directed and empowered flows and networks of goods, people, ideas, projects or capital. This does not boil down to a desire to reconnect these flows to the identification of meta processes such as capitalism, imperialism or ideological and religious universal aspirations, and the proposal is much more modest than a suggestion to rethink and expand the world-system theory. Everything that crosses a border is not bound to go global, and there are circulations and connections that have had major impact despite their very limited spatial reach (think of the complex process of comparison, emulation and rejection that have taken place between the polities and societies of Japan and China, or Germany and France). Beyond the specific experiences that are encapsulated in the Dictionary entries, we believe that the study of circulatory regimes or configurations, and of their concatenation over time, is a promising way to capture historical developments of circulations and connections in their multiscalar instantiations. I am not sure that what we mean by 'regimes' or 'configurations' has been inspired by the definitions of these two notions respectively by John Ruggie and Stephen Krasner in international relations theory or Norbert Elias in sociology, but this is not the right place to linger on this lexical dimension. What we are trying to identify are sets of structures and practices with durable effects on the orientation, extent and impact of circulations and connections. A circulatory regime or configuration might be identified by the following characteristics:

-The existence of individual and collective actors -'regime makers'-who invest time, energy and resources (social, economic, or cultural) in the establishment, maintenance and use of connections made to circulate specific items beyond the limits of their polities and societies.

-The formation of intertextual (reading, translation, quotation) and interactional (visits, correspondence, formal and informal organisations) communities, which can be used as resources for action by every member of these communities.

-The establishment of long-term and relatively stable patterns of interactions between mutually identified protagonists that take part to connections and circulations (these interactions pertaining to a range of possibilities, i.e competition or cooperation)

-The agreement of these protagonists and actors on a common language that is the basis of agreements, disagreements, misunderstandings around notions, categories, processes, worldviews that are discussed and disputed among themselves.

-The purposive development of projects, trajectories, aspirations and institutions able to establish connections, nourish circulations and orient them in specific directions.

-The production of a finite, differentiated and uneven landscape where the value of a region (be it a place, an institution, an individual or collective protagonist and actor) is tied with its role and place into the circulatory regime or configuration.

Establishing the circulatory configurations that have succeeded, vied or cohabited in time and space would allow us to assess the orders that have presided over the spatial extension of connections and circulations, and to map the changing intensity, contractions and dilatations of the latter. It does not presuppose the existence of a single and comprehensive system of circulations, but take it for granted that different systems have unfurled in interaction with each other, while some regions may have been left out of the picture. Again, such a concern will be familiar to those who have paid attention to the work our colleagues in sociology or anthropology who have tried to make sense of the problems they had to deal with when they tried to grasp people, artefacts, projects or ideas that stretched across national borders. According to their affiliations, some have used the terms 'transnational system' while others go for 'transnational social field' to name their tools. While we would certainly all insist on the specific value and reach of these different proposals, they have nevertheless all been triggered by a common search for order in the 'space of flows', a desire to recover the degree of autonomy of circulations and connections, and a wish to identify the goals and resources of regime makers. Behind these different proposals, though with different degrees, is the desire to disassemble the seemingly singleness and comprehensiveness of globalisation, and to establish the historical basins of convergence and divergence that were created in order to build or fight interdependence and interconnection among polities and societies. The multiscalar methodology that is increasingly proposed and used by scholars from a wide range of disciplines to study transnational processes enhances such possibilities, as the idea is more and more to study formations, circulations, networks that cut across social spheres usually encoded into our perception of nested scales (the local, the national, the global). The study of circulatory configurations fits within this concern, as it does not start from the local or the global or the national to wonder about the 'impact' of one on the other, but from connections and circulations that defy the conception of nested scales because their structures and protagonists most often simultaneously make use of resources and positions that are usually ascribed to one of these levels. As documented in this Dictionary, the study of the circulatory configuration at work during the last 150 years suggests that none of them is embracing the whole planet in its conception or operation, and that connections and circulations do not work 'from' one level to the others.

Conclusion:

If a transnational historical perspective can contribute to the discussions about the whens and wheres of globalization, it is likely because it ultimately proposes a 'hands on' approach to what is said to characterize globalization.

Interdependence, interconnection and their expansion, deepening or speeding are said to be its trademarks. Because it stresses the study of connections and circulations, the transnational approach is very much concerned by what make them work, and accordingly allows us to identify their individual and collective protagonists. It is not a meta history of tropes, discourses and processes (westernization, development,…) as 'big picture' history sometimes turns to be. When it deals with the global, it is to consider projects, designs, aspirations that boasted or concealed a global perspective and implemented it through a mechanics of sort: an organisation, a community, a wire. When it deals with the universal, it is to reconstruct the practical struggles between different definitions of possible universals, and these definitions were embodied into institutions, printed material, technical norms, individual behaviours and group ethos. Such a passion for nuts, bolts and pipes might seem trivial to those who love to juggle with imperialism, capitalism, revolution, modernization, secularism, post fordism or other meta processes and concepts. But by enlisting such processes and concepts as connected circulatory regimes on their own, the modest study of circulatory systems helps pinpoint the goals and resources of specific regimes and regime makers that have tried to control existing connections and circulations, or to establish new ones, sometimes with hankerings for a general and ubiquitous extension in space and society. Ultimately, this empirical dimension might be what makes the transnational approach valuable for students of globalization. , 2001, vol.100, pp. 189-213 Jeffrey G. Williamson, "Globalization, Convergence, and History", The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 56, No. 2, 1996), pp. 277-306.

Pierre-Yves Saunier

  Furthe r reading Bayly, C.A. 2004. The Birth of the Modern World 1780-1914: global connections and comparisons. Oxford: Blackwell A.G. Hopkins, ed.,Globalization in world history, New York: Norton, 2002 A.G. Hopkins, ed., Global history. Interactions between the local and the universal, New York: Palgrave, 2006 Christian Grataloup, Géohistoire de la mondialisation. Le temps long du monde, Paris: Armand Colin, 2007 F. Cooper, What is the concept of globalization good for? An African historian's perspective, « African Affairs »


Cédric Blanchard
email: cedric.blanchard@u-bourgogne.fr

Alain Lalande
email: alain.lalande@u-bourgogne.fr

Tadeusz Sliwa
email: sliwatadeusz@yahoo.fr

Olivier Bouchot
email: olivier.bouchot@chu-dijon.fr

Yvon Voisin
email: yvon.voisin@u-bourgogne.fr

Y Vo

Automatic evaluation of the Valsalva sinuses from cine-MRI

Keywords: Sinus of Valsalva, Image processing, Computer-assisted, Automatic data processing, Magnetic resonance imaging

niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

Introduction

The aortic root comprises the annulus, the sinuses of Valsalva (SV), the aortic valve cusps (or leaflets), the commissures, the interleaflet triangles and the sino tubular junction (Fig. 1) [START_REF] Underwood | The aortic root: structure, function, and surgical reconstruction[END_REF][START_REF] Anderson | Coronary arteries arising from the contralateral aortic sinus: electron beam computed tomographic demonstration of the initial course of the artery with respect to the aorta and the right ventricular outflow tract[END_REF]. The sinuses are named as right coronary sinus, left coronary sinus and the non coronary sinus respectively. Aortic valves are morphologically classified by the number of cusps as unicuspid, bicuspid or tricuspid aortic valves [START_REF] Sievers | A classification system for the bicuspid aortic valve from 304 surgical specimens[END_REF]. The bicuspid aortic valve is the most common congenital cardiac abnormality [START_REF] Roberts | The congenitally bicuspid aortic valve: a study of 85 autopsy cases[END_REF][START_REF] Peterson | Types of aortic stenosis in surgically removed valves[END_REF].

Grande et al. [START_REF] Grande | Stress variations in the human aortic root and valve: the role of anatomic asymmetry[END_REF] have shown that the stress and strain due to physiologic pressure loading are highest in the noncoronary cusp and lowest in the left one. These differential results may explain the clinical incidence of isolated sinus dilatation.

Different pathologies could affect the aortic root and the most common one is the annulo ectasia disease. There is a risk of evolution towards aortic dissection with a high level of mortality. To avoid such an evolution, it is admitted that for a maximum diameter of the aorta of 50-55 mm, an aortic replacement is necessary [START_REF] Patel | Ascending and arch aorta: pathology, natural history, and treatment[END_REF]. For the past decade, with recent advanced techniques, the number of aortic valve surgical procedures has increased [START_REF] Albes | Restitution of the aortic valve: what is new, what is proven, and what is obsolete[END_REF]. Recent data have shown that the prosthetic graft should incorporate the sinuses for proper valve closure. In order to share the stress with the cusps, the graft design must more closely resemble the original aorta [START_REF] Kunzelman | Aortic root and valve relationships: impact on surgical repair[END_REF]. Hence a global knowledge of the shape of the SV is required for the complete diagnosis or the design of a specific prosthesis.

However, there is no global consensus on the choice of methods for measuring aortic root dimensions. Although the transesophageal echocardiography of the aortic root is the commonly used preoperative tool [START_REF] Vasan | Determinants of echocardiographic aortic root size: the Framingham Heart Study[END_REF][START_REF] Roman | Two-dimensional echocardiographic aortic root dimensions in normal children and adults[END_REF], magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and in particular cine-MRI, could be a well-suited technique since it has been shown to be useful in more precisely defining anatomy [START_REF] Feldman | Aneurysms of the sinuses of Valsalva[END_REF]. Indeed, the orientation of the plane in echocardiography does not ensure the measure of the maximal diameter, and for the SV, the measurement is considerably more difficult than for the sino-tubular junction or for the ascending aorta since the SV is not a cylindrical structure but a trifolied one.

In cine-MRI, the number of images usually acquired renders manual processing excessively time-consuming in clinical practice. A visual selection of the image with the maximum aortic surface and a manual determination of the maximum diameter could induce inter and intra-observer variations. To our knowledge, there is no method to automatically extract the contour of SV from MRI. In this paper, we propose a new method which automatically extracts and analyzes the SV shapes from cine-MRI without contrast material. The choice of a specific imaging plane that crosses the aortic root and the development of a robust, accurate and fast automatic post-processing method render our global protocol usable in clinical practice. This constitutes the first mandatory step towards a 3D representation of the aortic root from multiplane cine-MRI.

After the description of the data sets and of the imaging protocol, our automatic segmentation method based on geodesic reconstruction is detailed. The geodesic reconstruction was preferred to a more commonly used active contours approach, because the latter method is often slow, unpredictable and difficult to parameterize [START_REF] Acton | Biomedical image analysis: segmentation[END_REF]. Geodesic recon-struction is a fast and simple method that can be controlled and corrected by means of mathematical morphology tools and statistical studies. The next step of our method consists in automatically detecting characteristic points and to then determine the different measures between the centre of the SV, the cusps and the commissures. Evaluation of our method was performed on synthesized data sets in order to find the limit conditions for the SV extraction, and on 41 patient data sets to determine the robustness of our whole method. The obtained values were compared with manual processing.

Methods

Synthesized data sets

Firstly, series of synthesized data sets have been built, including tricuspid SV, bicuspid SV and cylindrical SV prosthesis. Blur and noise are applied on images while the visibility of valve borders and the intensity of blood flow are also modified.

Each sequence is composed of 24 images. The isotropic spatial resolution is set to 1.6 mm per pixel, corresponding to the lowest resolution among our patient data base. The images cover a square of 80 × 80 mm and SV maximum diameter is set to 30 mm, whatever their morphology. The SV shape is composed of one, two or three partially overlapping white disks. During a sequence, their positions vary slightly, simulating the evolution of the SV shape during a cardiac cycle. Some background shapes are added around the SV. In the SV, the edges of cusps can be represented as cubic valves starting and ending on commissures allowing the simulation of the movement of valves between diastole and systole (Fig. 2). For cylindrical SV prosthesis, the commissures are equidistant.

Simulation of flow intensity variations due to the blood flow are introduced by adding, in areas of high signal intensity, a random noise with low contrast C. Random intensity values are drawn from a standard uniform distribution on the open interval]1-C,1[. Moreover, when the signal-tonoise ratio (SNR) is greater than 3, the Rician noise present in MR images [START_REF] Gudbjartsson | The Rician distribution of noisy MRI data[END_REF] tends towards a Gaussian distribution. Hence Gaussian blur and Gaussian noise can also be applied on each image.

To summarize, the intensity of valve shapes, blood flow contrast, noise and blur parameters are all customizable for each synthesized sequence. Some examples of synthesized images are presented in Fig. 3.

Subjects

Data were obtained from 41 patients with aortic root pathologies. Twenty-two patients had a SV dilatation (5 women, 17 men, age : 58 ± 13 years). Three further patients had a control examination after surgical procedure (3 men, ages: 61, 69 and 77 years). The surgical procedure was a valve sparing aortic root replacement for aortic insufficiency known as the reimplantation procedure (Tirone David procedure [START_REF] David | Aortic valve sparing operations[END_REF]), involving replacement of the aortic root without replacement of the aortic valve. The 16 remaining patient examinations concerned other pathologies associated with the aortic root (3 women, 13 men, age: 55 ± 18 years). Evaluation of the SV is included in a routine imaging protocol concerning the follow-up of aortic root diseases. The study was conducted in accordance with the recommendations of the local ethics committee. Twenty eight patients presented a tricuspid valve (25 with the native aortic root, and 3 with aortic root replace-ment with valve sparing (reimplantation procedure)). Four patients had a purely bicuspid valve, with no raphe and nine patients presented a bicuspid valve with one raphe (A raphe being defined as a line of fusion of two leaflets).

Image acquisition

Magnetic resonance imaging was performed on a 1.5 T magnetic resonance whole body imager (Siemens Magnetom Avanto, Siemens Medical Solution, Germany) using a phased array thoracic coil. The cine-MR images were acquired using a breath-hold ECG-gated steady-state freeprecession sequence (TrueFISP sequence) with the following acquisition parameters: repetition time (TR) 1.54 ms, echo time (TE) 1.49 ms, 17 lines per segment, pulse flip angle (α) 65 degrees and a slice thickness of 5 mm. The temporal resolution was 27 ms per image. The in-plane isotropic spatial resolution varied from 0.7 mm per pixel to 1.6 mm per pixel, according to the patient examination (mean = 1.1 mm, standard deviation = 0.4 mm). From scout images orientated in the left ventricular long and short axes, acquisition according to the left ventricular outflow tract was performed (Fig. 4a). A second acquisition in the left ventricular outflow tract was performed, perpendicular to the first (Fig. 4b). The aortic valve cross-section was defined as the plane perpendicular to the two left ventricular outflow tract planes (Fig. 4c). Then, a series of cine MR images covering the whole cardiac cycle was acquired in this orientation.

Image processing

The automatic process involved three steps: the localization of the SV (Fig. 5) in each image, the detection of SV contours (Fig. 6) and the extraction of characteristic points (Fig. 7).

These points allow the metric evaluation of the SV. After a quick review of the useful tools of mathematical morphology, the different steps of our method are detailed in the following paragraphs.

Mathematical morphology for image segmentation

The efficiency of mathematical morphology for image segmentation has already been demonstrated [START_REF] Soille | Morphological image analysis: principles and applications[END_REF][START_REF] Serra | A lattice approach to image segmentation[END_REF][START_REF] Salembier | Flat zones filtering, connected operators, and filters by reconstruction[END_REF]. Some useful simple tools of greyscale morphology with flat structuring elements are presented here.

Let B r be a disk of radius r , centred at the origin. B r is an isotropic structuring element. The greyscale dilation (noted ⊕) of a function f by B r is given by g ⊕ B r (x) = Sup{g(xy), y ∈ B r }. Conversely, the greyscale erosion (noted ⊖) of f by B r is given by g ⊖ B r (x) = Inf{g(xy), y ∈ B r }. The composition of the erosion with the dilation (called opening) removes unwanted small components whereas the composition of the dilation with the erosion (called closing) erases the holes which are smaller than the structuring element.

The greyscale geodesic reconstruction [START_REF] Vincent | Morphological grayscale reconstruction in image analysis: applications and efficient algorithms[END_REF] allows recovering an area from a marker. The reconstruction h of function f from g is the supremum of the geodesic dilations of g inside f (Fig. 8):

h = Sup{Inf(g ⊕ B r , f ), r > 0}
Using this tool, one can fill holes in binary images, regardless of their sizes, by considering the geodesic reconstruction of the image border inside the set of pixels equal to zero.

An advantage of using mathematical morphology for image segmentation is that results are not very sensitive to small variations of parameters in a pipeline of morphological operations [START_REF] Serra | A lattice approach to image segmentation[END_REF]. Hence these parameters can be coarsely chosen.

Localization of the SV

Let I (k) be the frame number k. Firstly, a mask representing bright regions inside the body is extracted:

• We suppose that the whole body does not move during image acquisition. By means of a morphological closing and an erosion, the study area is restricted to within the body on I (1) (Fig. 5b). The closing is performed using a big structuring element according to the common mean body size whereas the radius of the disk for the erosion relies on a visual estimation of the thickness of the fat around the body; • Inside the body, a threshold equal to 30% of the maximum intensity is applied in order to keep visually bright pixels in each frame I (k) (Fig. 5c). The set of bright pixels is called A(k); • The regularity of shapes is guaranteed by several morphological operations: holes are filled (by geodesic reconstruction), elements which are close to each other are merged by closing, small isolated elements are erased by opening (Fig. 5d); • Finally, areas which are not in all frames are deleted by applying a constraint of temporal coherence (Fig. 5e).

Even if each region is not separately identified, the centre of each region can still be detected and the temporal movement of these centres are identified:

• For each image, the contours are detected inside the considered area by binarization of the norm of the gradient 5f); • A distance map is computed using the Euclidean distance transform (i.e. the shortest distance is considered) (Fig. 5g) and local maxima are found inside bright regions (Fig. 5h); • From these maxima, trajectory for each region is built by considering all the images of the sequence. A trajectory for a region is defined as a set of points, each point is This trajectory allows the definition of a Region Of Interest (ROI) which includes the SV in each frame of the sequence (Fig. 6a). The size of the ROI is automatically set to 80 mm (the number of considered pixels varies according to the pixel spacing) since it empirically fits with all SV sizes of the patient data sets.

G ′ = Sup{Inf((G ⊖ B 1 )⊕ B r , G), r > 0} (Fig.

Estimation of the SV area

During a cardiac cycle, the variation of the sinus surface will not exceed certain limits. Indeed, an area variation of about 20% is a maximum physiologically acceptable variation of the SV area during a cardiac cycle [START_REF] Lansac | A four-dimensional study of the aortic root dynamics[END_REF] and SV area is often almost constant. Hence the mean area value is determined by the following step in order to control the extraction of SV contours:

• Since the centre of the extracted ROI is always inside the SV, a geodesic reconstruction is performed on the ROI (Fig. 6b) from the 8-connectivity neighbourhood of the ROI centre in order to recover the SV shape from this marker. As a consequence, high grey scale intensities outside the centred region disappear (Fig. 8b). • Then, each image is binarized by Minimum Variance Quantization (MVQ) [START_REF] Wu | Efficient statistical computations for optimal color quantization[END_REF] and holes are filled (Fig. 6c) because SV shapes are theoretically simply connected. However, although MVQ often provides good thresholds automatically, this method sometimes fails when the geodesic reconstruction does not provide a significant intensity difference between the SV area and other areas. This is mainly due to a partial volume effect produced by the relative thinness of the SV edge. • On each binarized image, the area is computed by simply summing white pixels. Let A min be the minimum of area values. A min constitutes the minimal acceptable area and is a reliable first estimation of SV area even if there may be an underestimation. Conversely the maximum of area values is not a pertinent supremum because huge overestimations due to ambiguous junctions could be present. So, a maximal acceptable area (A max ) is defined as 1.5 × A min and only areas under A max are kept. Thus the greatest values from images are not retained when the MVQ binarization fails due to ambiguous junctions. • Subsequently, the mean (m) and the standard deviation (σ ) of remaining values are calculated. The most incoherent cases are eliminated providing a robust mean value of the SV area. Indeed, the set of area values can be seen as an independent random variable for which the probability of being in the interval [m -3σ, m + 3σ ] is almost 99.7%. Only the values that are in this interval are kept, the mean and the standard deviation of the new set are computed and the selection is repeated three times (in our case, four iterations or more gave no significant improvements). The final mean (m) provides the reference area corresponding to sinuses.

Extraction of the SV contours

In order to extract the SV edges, the result of geodesic reconstruction is binarized a second time using the mean area (m) to automatically choose the correct threshold for each image.

To be more precise, a cumulative histogram from highest to lowest intensities (Fig. 6d) is computed on the ROI of each image. Indeed it gives information about the number of points with intensity greater than a certain value. When the threshold decreases from 1 to 0, this number increases from 0 to the total number of points. The required threshold is obtained directly from each curve by determining the level for which the number of points is the nearest to the mean area (m).

Examples in Fig. 6e represent the resultant image after the application of a threshold, followed by filling holes as previously and a morphological closing to regularize the contours. The ambiguous junction shown in Fig. 5d is corrected.

Furthermore, if the absolute difference between the mean area of the whole sequence (m) and the SV estimated area on one frame exceeds 20% of the mean (m), the corresponding frame is classified as a recalcitrant case and is removed from the sequence.

Determination of characteristic points

The last part of our process aims to detect relevant points such as SV centre, commissures and cusps and to give measurements between these points:

• The centre of the SV region is defined as the centre of the maximum disk surrounding the lumen whatever its shape (tricuspid or bicuspid valves). This definition avoids the problems associated with the barycentre location of complex shapes. Moreover, this disk matches perfectly the geometric centre in the case of a cylindrical prosthesis. The position of the SV was estimated in the first step of our process, but to more precisely determine this centre, the Euclidean distance transform is now applied on the complimentary of the SV region (Fig. 7a). Candidate points are pixels having the greatest distance. If more than one candidate point is found, the barycentre of these points is taken. On the examples in the Figs. 7b and 9a, this centre falls within the movement area of valve cusps. • For each cusp, radii are defined as the Euclidian distance between the centre of the SV region and the border pixels of the SV. To estimate the geometrical properties of the SV, the local maxima and minima of radii are then SV contours are in yellow, distances between each cusp to the centre in green, distances between two commissures in blue and distances between two cusps in red. The distances between each cusp to the opposite commissure are not displayed located in each frame. As each cusp must have only one maximum, indifferently for tricuspid (three local maxima) and bicuspid valves (two local maxima), maxima positions cannot be close to each other. So, a constraint concerning the minimal distance of separation between these maxima is added. The radius (R) of a disk of same area as the SV region is an usable threshold for this condition whatever the size and the shape of the SV. From all local maxima, only those having the highest value in a distance of R are kept. Moreover if there are n different local maxima P 1 , .., P n with the same radius and |P i , P j |≤R for all (i, j) ∈[1, n], the median position along the edge is kept as the location of the local maximum. • Similarly, the commissures are obtained from minimum distances from centre to border (Fig. 7c). An example of final results is shown in Fig. 9b.

Measurement of the relevant distances

A reliable estimation of radii is obtained using the same processing as for the area estimation (three consecutive selections in the interval [m -3σ, m + 3σ ]). The mean number of radii (m r ) per image in the sequence determines the classification of sinus as bicuspid or tricuspid (in our automatic classification, a tricuspid valve with a raphe is classified as tricuspid).

With knowledge of the spatial resolution, the different distances can then be calculated. In the case of tricuspid valves (and by extension in the case of bicuspid valve with a raphe), the considered points are detailed in the Fig. 1a. The considered points for a bicuspid valve case are detailed in the Fig. 1b. The calculated distances from these marks are to the distances between each cusp to the centre of the SV, the distances between each cusp to the opposite commissure, the distances between two commissures and finally to the distances between two cusps.

The image with the maximal sum (respectively minimal sum) of the distances of each cusp to the centre of the SV is considered as the systolic (respectively diastolic) image (Fig. 7c).

Evaluation of the method

The SV extraction was initially tested on the synthesized data sets. Then, for each patient, the automatic measurements on all the images were compared with manual measurements performed on diastolic and systolic images that had been visually selected. The results obtained with manual tracing were considered as the reference measures. For the interobserver variation study, manual measurements were performed independently by two experienced observers on ten specific cases (seven patients with tricuspid valves, one with a bicuspid valve, one with a biscuspid valve with a raphe and one with prosthesis on tricuspid valve). An intra-observer variation study was performed on the same patient data set. For the intra-observer variation study the results obtained with the first manual tracing were considered as the reference measures. The comparisons were performed with a linear regression analysis. In addition, the agreement between methods was verified using the Bland-Altman method [START_REF] Bland | Statistical methods for assessing agreement between two methods of clinical measurement[END_REF]. The Bland-Altman plot was generated by considering the Firstly, all the measures in diastole (respectively in systole) were considered together. Secondly, four specific groups with homogeneous data were considered: the distances between each cusp to the centre of the SV, the distances between each cusp to the opposite commissure, the distances between two commissures and the distances between two cusps. Bland-Altman evaluations were performed on each of these groups. Hence the accuracy of cusp or commissure detections can be assessed.

Results

Synthesized data sets

Tricuspid SV are correctly extracted and there is at most one rejected image under the various conditions presented in Table 1. The intensity of the valve edge must not be too important, otherwise the geodesic reconstruction is too heavily influenced by its presence. Fortunately, the reconstruction is more flexible if the image is blurred. Gaussian noise can also influence the success of our extraction as shown in the two last cases in Table 1. Under these conditions, we are visually close to poor conditions.

Results are almost the same for bicuspid SV and cylindrical SV prosthesis. Figure 3 shows some examples of synthesized data sets where SV are correctly extracted. All these tests show that our automatic extraction works correctly under various conditions and specific MR resolution but can fail or reject some frames if the image quality is too close or lower than the empirically found limit conditions. Moreover, the cylindrical SV prosthesis is the hardest shape to evaluate since its cusps and its commissures have the same radii. In this case, the valve edges must be visible enough to produce a small notch in the cylindrical boundaries of SV. Inversely, valve edges must not be too visible since it can influence too heavily the geodesic reconstruction and its binarization.

Patient data sets

On the 41 patient examinations, 30 sequences have no recalcitrant image and only 5.0% of the whole set of images are classified as recalcitrant cases and are rejected due to failure of the segmentation.

Figures 9 and10 illustrate two examples of post-processing on tricuspid valve cases. In Fig. 10a, some images have poor segmentation at the MVQ step. They are corrected by ensuing steps, providing appropriate results (Fig. 10b). Figure 11 illustrates an example of correct classification of a bicuspid aortic valve. In Fig. 11a, many images with poor segmentation are corrected by the following steps. The second image is even eliminated. The last statistical estimation step is necessary to correct some imperfect point detections as shown in Fig. 11b. For example, the third image has an ill-positioned red point. With the recursive statistical estimation, these cases are not taken into account for the final measures and classification. Figure 12 illustrates the case of post-processing on a bicuspid aortic valve with a false raphe. This case is classified as tricuspid. This result is considered as correct because a bicuspid valve with a false raphe includes three cusps. The example shown in Fig. 13 is the case of a tricuspid prosthesis valve, with a number of difficulties due to the shape of the prosthesis. Although the shape of the valve is awkward to manage, because it is close to a circular shape, the algorithm provides good results and classifies the sinuses as tricuspid. This classification is correct, because surgery with Tirone David procedure preserved the initial tricuspid valve.

Numerical results

Concerning the intra-observer variation study, there is an excellent correlation (r = 0.99; y = x + 0.24; P < 10 -5 ) and an excellent agreement between the two manual processing procedures (mean value of the differences = 0.4 mm; standard deviation of the differences = 1.4 mm). Moreover, concerning the inter-observer variation study, there is an excellent correlation (r = 0.98; y = 0.94x + 1.21; P < 10 -5 ) and an excellent agreement between the two manual processing procedures (mean value of the differences = 0.7 mm; standard deviation of the differences = 1.9 mm). Considering the entire set of measurements, there is an excellent correlation between manual and automatic measurements for both the diastole (r = 0.97; y = 0.97x + 0.57; P < 10 -5 ;Fig. 14a) and the systole (r = 0.96; y = 0.96x + 1.2; P < 10 -5 ;Fig. 15a) phases. The corresponding Bland-Altman plots are presented in Figs. 14b and15b. For the diastole, the mean value of the differences is equal to -0.2 mm and the standard deviation is equal to 2.0 mm. For the systole, the mean value of the differences is less than 0.1 mm and the standard deviation is equal to 2.4 mm. These values show that Fig. 12 Example of automatic processing for a bicuspid valve with a raphe. See legend of Fig. 9 for more explanations Fig. [START_REF] Acton | Biomedical image analysis: segmentation[END_REF] Example of automatic processing for a patient with a prosthesis. See legend of Fig. 9 for more explanations there is no bias between the automatic method versus manual tracing. By comparing these values with the image pixel size, we can conclude that these results are excellent. The Table 2 provides the Bland-Altman estimations according to homogeneous clusters. Whatever the distances, the mean of differences is smaller than the image pixel size, in both diastole and systole.

Discussion

The long-term survival of patients who have undergone aortic root surgery depends on different factors such as the surgical technique. The development of new techniques requires more precise information on the anatomy of the aortic valve structure. Today, there is no consensus on the method allowing geometric modelling of functional aortic valves for individual patient. A first step would be to define a reliable imaging modality, in order to perform an accurate morphometric study.

Using cross-sectional cine-MRI, Burman et al. [START_REF] Burman | Aortic root measurement by cardiovascular magnetic resonance: specification of planes and lines of measurement and corresponding normal values[END_REF]have manually measured the cusp-cusp and cusp-commissure dimensions at maximum systolic distension and at end-diastole. In our opinion, a choice must be made between these two distances and the distance between cusps and the centre. Indeed, the detection of the centre of the aortic valve enables the measure of each cusp separately, and hence allows a study In this article, an automatic segmentation method was used to measure the SV. MR imaging techniques appear to be particularly attractive for the study of the aortic root, allowing direct and non-invasive measurement of SV. The use of a SSFP-type sequence provides high spatial and temporal resolution images, as well as an excellent contrast between the blood and the tissues. Acquisition during breathhold allows one to deal with the artefacts due to diaphragmatic motion. The chosen plane allows the distance measurements between cusps, commissures and the centre of the aorta without partial volume effects. Contrary to echocardiography, the aortic root asymmetry can be studied.

The estimation of SV area on the whole sequence improves the robustness of the segmentation, in particular, due to the A max threshold that removes incorrect cases. Moreover, the definition of the centre of the SV is based on a transformation distance map, which is more efficient than a classical barycentre location. Finally, the method of location of the different relevant points includes a module for the elimination of the non-realistic cases. The present study Mean and standard deviation (SD) of differences between manual and automatic processing (in mm) using Bland-Altmann method by grouping the measures in homogeneous clusters shows that our shape evaluation can be an efficient alternative to manual measurement or the use of active contours algorithms. Compared with these classical tools, our method is quick and uses simple parameterization. Even if the parameters of morphological operations can be coarsely chosen, the quality of results obviously depends on the MR-imaging sequence, the acquisition parameters, the success of each step of the method and the choice of thresholds.

The method was tested on 41 patient examinations by considering the distance measures between relevant points obtained for the diastolic and systolic phases. Globally, the measures obtained automatically are close to the manual ones and there is no bias between the automatic method and the manual tracing. In general, the differences are due to the definition of the boundaries in the geodesic reconstruction and the small size of SV in terms of pixels. The relative differences are greater for the distances with the commissure points than for the distances calculated with the cusp points. Indeed, as the commissure points are singular points (contrary to cusp points that are located on an area without an important variation of radius), a small difference in the location of these points causes a larger difference in the involved measures of distance (contrary to cusp points that neighbour pixels and produce the same distances).

The use of MR data acquired from one specific plane also has its limits. Indeed, the aortic root changes position during the heart contraction and the through-plane motion could be important [START_REF] Kozerke | Heart motion adapted cine phase-contrast flow measurements through the aortic valve[END_REF]. Our work is the first essential step towards a 3D representation of the aortic root from several acquisitions covering the whole aortic root, from the annulus to the sinotubular junction. Moreover, even when considering only one plane, acquiring the whole cardiac cycle allows us to get the SV maximum diameter, in spite of the through-plane motion.

Conclusions

In conclusion, the reliable morphometric evaluation of the SV is crucial in the follow up of patients with aortic root pathologies, and by extension to the surgery indication. Cine-MRI in a cross-sectional orientation seems to be an attractive modality, but currently, there is no consensus on the measured distance in this orientation. We propose an original automatic method providing several reference measures, based on the automatic location of the centre of the SV, and on the commissure and the cusp positions. This method uses mathematical morphology combining numerical geodesic reconstruction with area estimation and distance transform function. Application of this method on typical patient examination cases provides results close to those obtained with a manual evaluation. Future works are the segmentation and analyse of the SV from multiplane sequences and then the building of a 3D representation of them. Then, the automatic evaluation of the SV will be applied on more patient examinations, in particular on a healthy population or on a patient population having the same pathology, in order to discuss the current reference values of measurement in terms of pertinence or accuracy.

Fig. 1

 1 Fig. 1 Diastolic and systolic representations a of a tricuspid valve as visible on MR images, and b of a bicuspid valve with anterior-posterior cusps. RC, right coronary cusp; LC, left coronary cusp; NC, noncoronary cusp; C, Centre of the SV; C1, C2 and C3, commissures

Fig. 2

 2 Fig. 2 Two images of a synthesized sequence. Three cubic splines (in blue) and their control points (in red) represent the cusps. a Image simulating the moment just after the diastole. b Image simulating the moment of the systolic phase

Fig. 3

 3 Fig. 3 For images from four synthesized sequences. a A tricuspid valve without noise or blur. b A blurred and noisy tricuspid valve. c A blurred and noisy bicuspid valve. d A blurred and noisy cylindrical SV prosthesis

Fig. 4

 4 Fig. 4 Localization of the aortic valve cross-section plane. a Left ventricular outflow tract plane obtained from scout images. b Left ventricular outflow tract plane obtained perpendicularly from the

Fig. 5

 5 Fig. 5 Flow diagram summarizing the different steps of the localization of the SV. See text for complete explanation

Fig. 6 Fig. 7

 67 Fig. 6 Flow diagram summarizing the different steps of the extraction of the SV contours. Two examples from the same patient examination, the left one in diastole and the right one in systole, illustrate these different steps. See text for complete explanation

Fig. 8 aFig. 9

 89 Fig. 8 a Geodesic reconstruction (in white)o ff( in gray)f r o mg( in black). b Example of geodesic reconstruction of a diastolic image. The hypersignal shown by the white arrow is eliminated

Fig. 10

 10 Fig. 10 Four examples extracted from a sequence containing a tricuspid valve. a First binarization of the geodesic reconstruction. b Automatically extracted SV contour and relevant points

Fig. 11

 11 Fig. 11 Four examples extracted from a sequence containing a bicuspid valve. a First binarization of the geodesic reconstruction. b Automatically extracted SV contour and relevant points. The second image

Fig. 14

 14 Fig. 14 Comparison between manual and automatic measurements for the diastolic images of the 41 patient examinations. a Correlation between the measurements of the different distances obtained with a manual tracing and the automatic processing. b The corresponding Bland-Altman plot

Fig. 15

 15 Fig. 15 Comparison between manual and automatic measurements for the systolic images of the 41 patient examinations. a Correlation between the measurements of the different distances obtained with a manual tracing and the automatic processing. b The corresponding Bland-Altman plot

Table 1

 1 Limit conditions for a correct extraction of SV edges from synthetic data

	MRI Gaussian	MRI Gaussian blur Blood noise	Va l ve
	noise SD	Filter size (px) SD	contrast (%)	intensity (%)
	No	No	No No	<95
	No	No	No 60	<40
	No	9	1.5 60	<50
	No	9	<2.2 60	No
	No	5	<2.6 60	40
	0.01	5	<2.2 60	40
	In the first three cases, valve intensities (in % of the maximum inten-
	sity value) vary while other parameters were constant during the tests.
	In the other three cases, the standard deviation of the Gaussian blur
	varies while other parameters remain constant. Blood noise contrast is
	expressed in % of the maximum intensity value
	measurements obtained with the manual tracing as the inde-
	pendent variable and the corresponding values obtained with
	automatic processing as the dependant variable. Statistical
	differences between groups were compared with the paired
	t-test. P < 0.05 considered to indicate a statistically
	significant difference.

Table 2

 2 Comparison between manual and automatic processing on the 41 patient examinations

		Diastole		Systole
		Mean	SD	Mean	SD
	Cusp-cusp distances	-0.62 .2	-0.53 .0
	Cusp-centre distances	0.71 .50 .91 .9
	Commissure-commissure	0.03 .30 .23 .6
	distances
	Cusp-commissure distances	-1.13 .1	-0.44 .4

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Dr Paul M. Walker for his precious help in the redaction of this article. They would also like to thank the regional council of Burgundy and the city of Auxerre for supporting this work.


Pierre-Yves Saunier

Entry for The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History (2009) International Non governmental organizations 'Non-governmental organizations' (NGOs) is a phrase that developed after 1945 in the ambit of the United Nations agencies, to name all what was not a mere element of the governmental system of member nations. This definition by default was shoved into the Charter during the UN San Francisco Conference by the civic groups representatives included as consultants into the official US delegation.

According to article 71 of the UN charter, the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) was allowed to "make suitable arrangements for consultation with non-governmental organizations which are concerned with matters within its competence". The term became part of the vocabulary used by the groups which wanted to develop a working relationship with the UN, or with UNESCO and the other inter governmental agencies that adopted article 71 terminology.

Even groups that have thrived under a distinct legal tradition, such as the catholic groups which have adopted the status of private International Catholic Organisations as defined by articles 321-329 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, are eager to call themselves non governmental organizations. There are several characteristics that make these organizations of importance for who tries to follow circulations and connections across national units: their program, their partnerships, their membership, their funding, their aspiration can extend beyond one country. International Non-governmental organizations (INGOs), that share one or several of these characteristics are the subject of this entry.

The previous generation of inter-governmental organizations, which had no specific mechanism to deal with such organizations, had called them 'semi private' 'voluntary organization' or 'unofficial organizations', though the phrase 'non government organisation' was used in the early 1920s by some labour activists connected to the International Labour Office and the former International Association for Labour Legislation. These groups have had other terms to describe themselves, such as 'international associations', or from the late 1970s 'transnational associations', while their name flagged words such as 'union', 'conference' or 'council'. But they progressively adopted the UN denomination in their public presentation and working vocabulary, especially from the 1970s when it rang true with some groups's intention to distinguish themselves from governments and from inter governmental organizations. 's (1951). This entry will adopt such a catholic spirit for its chronological and typological extension.

Another salient common feature of the literature about voluntary organizations is the teleological or millenarist statement that the growing number of these different families attest of a quasi linear march towards world society since the beginning of the modern age. Some underscore the role of non governmental organizations as handmaidens of globalization, others stress their activity as a resistance to the latter, most view INGOs as 'good' in nature, and by and large few detract from the idea of a trend towards 'global civil society' that non governmental organizations would foster.

INGOs scholarship is still, by many aspects, very close from the home made glorious founding narratives which INGOs themselves have produced. One aspect of this immature character is that we researchers in the field are always elaborating from the data of the Union of International Associations (UIA), without acknowledging that this international association, a creation of Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine in 1907, has been an active protagonist of international voluntary organizing, that it developed its statistical perspective retrospectively for the 19 th century, and that its categories are framed by its cooperation with the League of Nations, and later with the UN ECOSOC NGO committee.

There are a number of studies which have elaborated detailed tables and charts from UIA data. Though it still falls under some statistical fallacies because of the absence of a reflection on UIA data and typology, the study by Boli and Thomas is the most complete, and offers stimulating charts and graphs on the chronological, thematic and geographical evolution of non governmental organizations since 1875. For this entry, lest it fell into mere paraphrase of their explorations, it may be enough to stress the overall numerical expansion of INGOs, though un linear and uneven, the geographical focus of headquarters in a limited number of cities (Paris, Brussels, London, New York, Geneva), or the growing importance of non Western countries nationals in INGOs memberships and in the creation of new INGOs. This essay will, instead, assume an exploratory dimension and focus on two aspects of the modern history of voluntary organizations, among so many which have attracted the attention of researchers.

Charts and faces

INGOs have mostly been studied for their discourse, impact or programs but rarely for their operation mode. We know very few about the historical evolution of their financial situation, staff, organizational culture. While a comprehensive view is far from being possible here, the focus will be on organizational lines and personnel.

Membership into INGOs has and is still mediated by national lines in most cases. National sections or branches have been created both as a convenient way to manage membership and funding, and as an acknowledgement of the importance of the national scene in voluntary action, both as a scene and a target. This was especially true on a legal plane, and Belgium was the first nation to create a legal status for international associations (1919), before the Council of Europe presented its member states with a European Convention on the Recognition of the Legal Personality of International Non-Governmental Organisations (Convention No. 124, 1986). Some voluntary groups have tried to breach this organizational nationalism, and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom imagined a 'world section' in 1924, with some leaders longing for it to be a 'psychological laboratory' to disconnect national affiliations. But the national branches plan was the basic scheme that was promoted by international organizers such as Paul Otlet and Henri Lafontaine, and even recent groups are developed along national lines. Accordingly, these are national sections that are the members of INGOs institutions, and the 'one member/one vote' principle that govern their life often turned out to be 'one national section/one vote', a fact that established the national dimension as a central aspect of international associations politics. Many of the conflicts that straddled their life, be it of professional, ideological or conceptual origin, were mediated through the national lines, or at best had to overlap with them.

Accordingly, political shenanigans often borrowed their garb from national contests, of which the inner life of the Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and International Olympics Committee (IOC) are perhaps the most famous, but not the fiercest. One of these struggles for national domination of INGOs took place in the 1930s, and opposed US civic groups, who wanted to seize international societies' imagination, to the Nazi government, which was out for power in these associations. Since the middle of the 19 th century, the inner life of voluntary groups, international or others, has extensively been moulded over the general framework of parliamentary regimes, with a distinction between a legislative branch (assembly) and an executive branch (council/committee) with a collegial leadership (board). There have been a range of variations on this scheme, though it remains to be known whether this matrix was equally successful among the groups which were bolstered from the Eastern Block during the Cold War, or among the voluntary groups which have emerged in non Western countries. Catholic organizations also have maintained some links with the church hierarchic organization that balanced the democratic factor, and so did Muslim relief groups which are financed by the Saudian monarchy of the Sudanese state. Within this wide frameworks, the informal political, professional or cultural networks that are crystallized in a given organization have given birth to different organization cultures. During the interwar years, for example, organizations with a large membership into continental European socialist parties and political personnel like the International Union of Local Authorities followed the rule of majority to take their decisions, while the architects, civil servants and city planners of the International Garden Cities and Town Planning Federation relentlessly sought compromise and consensus.

Very often, the coming of age of our voluntary groups went along with progressive changes in organization. A classic pattern was the evolution from sporadic to regular meetings, which solidified informal networks of individuals with a similar interest or purpose, followed by the creation of a 'permanent committee' to organize these meetings, and later by the establishment of regulated governance system with elected officers. This was especially true in The governance question often crystallized around the headquarters matter.

Creating a headquarter was an act of faith in the cause defended by the organization (e.g the project of a 'Woman's Temple' for WWCTU), but also a strong organizational gesture designed to hold the group together and manifest its presence to the world. This was no accident that, in the 1920s, more and more groups created a headquarter in Geneva : it has been computed that 3 international associations were located in the Swiss city in 1919, and 60 in 1930. The IWLPF with its Maison Internationale in 1919 and the International Council of Nurses in October 1925 were among those who sought both the opportunities for international understanding opened by a location in neutral Switzerland, and the propinquity with the League of Nations or International Labor Office's officers and delegation. But the creation of a headquarter also signified the affirmation of a central power inside the association, at the expense of regional or national sections (Amnesty International being a clear case of centralized decision and operation making). This made the headquarters formula a favourite device of international organizers who were motivated by a desire to promote internationalism in general. The location of such a secretariat was a matter of national or cultural prominence and an important element as to the inwards and outwards perception of the group, as witnessed by the split that took continental European housing reformers out of the International Federation of Garden Cities and Town and Country Planning in 1928, to create the International Housing Association with a secretariat in Francfort (Germany). This led to heated discussions, all the more than these groups were often living on a shoestring, with conferences and congresses being a major resource for funding.

The creation or the expansion of headquarters also included the question of the permanent staff, and connected with the uneasy relationship between volunteers and professionals. The process of change was not linear, but in early days, management tasks were often performed by energetic members themselves, possibly people with independent resources such as Christiane Reinmann at the International Council of Nurses. She was the society's secretary from 1925, and contributed to the group finances from her own chest in addition to her unpaid labour. Solutions were also found by employing staff who were part time of full time paid by some political group or governmental agency with which the voluntary group was associated, as in the Brussels based International Institute of Administrative Sciences in the 1920s-1930s that relied on Belgian civil servants from the Interior Department. But the workload increased with the growth of the associations, or with the need for field agents when they began to develop specific programs 'out there', or with the growing cooperation with funding agencies that required accountability.

The professionalization process often began with the hiring of clerical and publication personnel, and was a potential breach in the social fabric of the voluntary groups. Julia Henderson, the secretary of the International Planned Parenthood Federation from 1970, spent a lot of energy in talking with key volunteers so they accepted both professionalization and the growing importance of the London staff global headquarters paid staff over voluntary regional directors and committees. More recently, such a transition was especially challenging in humanitarian relief organisations that constructed their profile around individual dedication, like Médecins Sans Frontières or Médecins du Monde, where the number of logistics and administrative hands has grown at the expense of health volunteers while the organizations expanded the size and budget of their operations during the 1990s. A real labor market has appeared: it is now a familiar profile, that of the expatriated or local field worker who commutes between short term contracts for different NGOs in the same region or country, or that of the managing officer who switches from Médecins Sans Frontières to CARE. This is but the latest aspect of a long history where voluntary organizations interacted continuously with one another, through cooperation or competition mechanisms.

A field of international Non governmental organizations ?

The world of ideals is not an ideal world, and voluntary societies have been competing for members, funds, recognition and ground in the very name of the cause they defended. In the middle of the 19 th century, national and transatlantic abolitionist societies split over the question of integral or incremental abolition of slavery. More widely, the endorsement of programs, values and activities by the newest societies in a given field was often the result of conscious differentiation from older groups. The history of the women's organizations at the turn of the century thus looks like a chain reaction: the International Coucil of Women was created in 1888 following the conclusion that issue oriented groups (temperance, abolitionism, socialism, peace) were not giving their place to women and to women's problems. The International Woman Suffrage Alliance took shape in 1904 as the Council was deemed too shy about suffrage, and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom was imagined by some women who wanted to take side against the First World War while the Alliance leaders had decided to suspend activities and abide to national loyalties. Similarly, the foundation of Médecins sans Frontières in 1971 resulted from a disagreement with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) neutral attitude into the Biafra conflict.

The whole 'sans frontierism' repertoire and values have, for a long time, explicitly been defined against ICRC practices. Competition also contributed to frame relationships between voluntary associations that did not belong to the same genealogy, especially among groups that share a field of action with different geographical, cultural, religious or ideological affiliations. They often end up in competing for non elastic resources, be it funding, members, recognition or even beneficiaries. Competition can be severe, as witnessed by attempts by some Muslim relief organizations to get exclusive access to Muslims beneficiaries in Africa or Asia terrains since the 1990s, a communitarism they justify by the attempts of some Christian NGOs to cure, care …and convert. On a lighter note, there has been a lot of comments on But this sense of competition did not radically alter the common feeling that voluntary societies were some sort of global avant garde, an elite of 'people of good will' bonded by brotherhood or sisterhood ties. The fact that it was quite common to belong to several international voluntary societies, especially in the 19 th century where professional or issue specialization was not so developed, facilitated both competition and cooperation. Competition itself suggested that coordination was a solution that would allow for peaceful coexistence. A range of solutions were imagined to manage the latter, from the geographical or intellectual division of labor to the creation of informal or formal mechanisms.

Thus in the 1920s and 1930s, the International Union of Local Authorities and the International Institute of Administrative Sciences had agreed that the latter would leave municipal administration out of his agenda, and many other 'non governmental Yaltas' have taken place among INGOs. In the 1920s, the different women's societies held meetings to coordinate their conference schedule, and joint conferences were not rare even among feuding groups, especially in the 1930s where members could not afford attending two conferences in a row. Merger, the ultimate coordination device, was also a solution that was contemplated to solve out conflicts that were seen as among voluntary agencies underscores a bottom line: these groups are part of a field where they take inspiration and positions from one another, and this field is in constant tension with the international system and the national dimension to gain some degree of autonomy.

Conclusion

The historical study of international non governmental organizations, as foreseen by Ian Tyrrell in a 1991 American Historical Review article, is a rich seam for historians who want to adopt a transnational perspective. Existing scholarship has brought food for thought in three of the directions that these may want to follow. During the last two centuries, from informal networks to legal forms, these groups have been making and unmaking the threads of interdependence and interaction between polities and societies across borders, and acted as globalizers or regionalizers even when they wanted to fight globalization or regionalization as recently illustrated by the anti globalization movement. They also have been crucial in the construction of national societies and polities, by show casing differences and similarities, and by fostering conversations which shaped social, professional, cultural or political aspects of national life. Also, they are historical objects of their own, which have invented forms of action, of governance, of dedication, in their attempt to do with national differences and pressures and their frequent -but not ominous-aspiration to some universal nature.

But there is still a long way to go, and we need to go beyond the historical narrative of moral goodness and linear progress and expansion that are

  Nevertheless, the 1945 terminology quickly bursted into a myriad of subcategories. Acronyms flourished to match the variety of organization forms, of membership, of purpose, such as GRINGOs (government regulated and initiated NGOs), GONGOs (government organised NGOs), BINGOs (business organized NGOs) or DONGOs (donor organized NGOs). Social science researchers have contributed to this abundance, creating ad hoc typologies to study very specific questions and aspects. 'Transnational advocacy networks', 'global social movements', 'issue networks', 'transnational activism', 'principled issue movements', 'transnational coalitions' are some types which have been distinguished from 'international non governmental organizations'. Despite this flourishing cottage industry of labels, the recent explosion of scholarship focused on a very limited chronological range (from the last 1970s onwards), and on a limited number of 'blazing' fields and groups (development, human rights, environment, humanitarian relief) at the expense of NGOs in sports, business or disputable moral causes. The formidable expansion of this field of study, which has created its own forums with journals like Voluntas, has not yet explored the breadth of its variety. Monographs are still scarce, and studies are very much focused thematically and chronogically. Together with Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Sidney Tarrow is among the few social scientists to engage with historical transnational voluntary organizations from the early 19 th century, while Steve Charnowitz and Akira Iriye are the only ones who have recently attempted to grasp the development of voluntary groups from the 19 th to the 21s centuries, expanding previous overviews such as F.S Lyons' (1963) or L.C White

  The battle raged on several fronts: the International Criminal Police Commission, the International Union of Local Authorities, the International Institute of Administrative Sciences, or the International Union for the Scientific Investigation of Population Problems were ardently disputed. Both sides won, it can be said, but one victory was more durable than the other. This contest developed in the open field, but mostly in the dull areas of agenda control, membership fees, board meetings or nominations to executive and honorary positions. The governance mechanisms of voluntary groups became weapons for both sides.

  scientific groups which began to expand from the 1850s, like the Congress of Statistics, after initial gatherings during World Fairs. But some groups have also lived for years under the charismatic leadership of an energetic individual, such as Frances Willard at the World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WWCTU) in the late 19 th century, Jean Marie Bressant at the United Towns Organization from the 1950s to the 1980s or Abdallah Suleyman al'Awad at the Islamic African Relief Agency (1981), and this established different but not peaceful rules for internal discussion and decision making.

  the 'logo wars' that saw relief organisations competing to plant their flag or show their branded-apparel in front of TV cameras, either during the Yugoslavia or Rwanda 1990s events. The increasing number of NGOs who are now present on emergency relief terrains has certainly sharpened the elbows: the Save the Children Fund and the ICRC were alone in Ethiopia in 1935-1936, while there were 43 NGOs in Bangladesh in 1972, and 120 around the Great Lakes during the Rwanda civil war of 1994-1995. But competition was already at the order of the day during 19 th century world fairs when scientific groups competed for conference opportunities, or during the 1930s where the scarcity of financial resources led to disputes on congress locations and the 'proper' affiliation of members among groups with similar audiences. Such rivalries surfaced publicly during the Cold War years, and there were continuous battles between the blocks to include or expel non governmental organizations from consultative status at ECOSOC, such as when the boycott of Russian representatives in July 1950 gave the Western side the opportunity to downgrade the International Organization of Journalists (based in Czekoslovakia). Voluntary societies sometimes instrumentalized this conflict to get prominence over a neighbouring group.

  financially and intellectually perilous. The International Council of Women and the International Woman Alliance contemplated it several times during the 1920s, but the Alliance refused for reasons of 'pace and temper', a diplomatic way to say the Council was deemed too conservative. More recently, the United Towns Organization and the International Union of Local Authorities have merged into a new organization, United Cities and Local Governments, after half a century of fight to monopolize the representation of municipal urban governments. It is no accident that this last merger was strongly supported by the United Nations and its specialized agencies, who wanted a single partner for possible partnerships. Convergence among non governmental organizations owed a good deal to the gentle pressure of funding and partner agencies. This has been made obvious by evolutions in the relief field since a couple of decades, though some attempts had been made in this direction in the 1960s for development aid. National governments and intergovernmental organizations (such as the European ECHO or the UN High Commission for Refugees) have massively farmed out their emergency aid to INGOs, harnessing their funding with requests for accountability, norms and, sometimes, obedience. Sierra Leone (1998) and later Western Timor for the UN, Afghanistan operations for the US government, have been places where the integration of NGOs into governmental operations have been pushed quite far. The confusion during the Rwanda crisis and other 1990s critical moments was a crucial reason for non governmental relief groups to participate into this quest for norms and standards. Ad hoc programs have been created to foster this convergence and coordination with more or less directivity, such as Parinac for the UN High Commission for Refugees, InterAction for U.S.-based international development and humanitarian nongovernmental organizations, or the Sphere Project (1997), which documents minimum standards in disaster response accepted by part of the NGO community and by concerned United Nations agencies. The production of the now famous Sphere handbook (2000, revised in 2004) has nevertheless been contested, and other NGOs, mostly but not exclusively French, have launched their own 'quality program' in 1999. Private givers have also been keen to get what they deemed increased efficiency from the voluntary groups which received their funding, and the Spelman Fund of New York (a by product of the Rockefeller Foundation) was the crucial engineer of the creation of a joint secretariat and common information services for several international associations in Brussels in 1938, despite the fact that the project's growth was interrupted by World War 2. But there is more into the history of coordination and convergence than the weight of external pressure in recent times. Cross observation among voluntary groups was part of the original culture of these groups, as suggested by the reproduction of charters and status among different families of organizations (e.g how the International Council of Nurses got its name, its personnel and its first constitution from the International Council of Women). The establishment of coalitions and councils of non governmental organizations has extensive precedents. Early in the 20 th century, Belgian international organizers Otlet and Lafontaine, with their Union des Associations Internationales, wanted to coordinate the action and programs of international associations they created or gathered. International catholic organizations held their first Conference of International Catholic Organizations in 1927, well before the Holy See gave them recognition in 1953. Making international associations contributions to the League of Nations different committees more effective was the reason for the creation of several issue coalitions, especially between women's or welfare organizations, while a 'Féderation des Institutions Internationales semi officielles et privées établies à Genève' was created in Geneva in 1929 to lobby for tax exemptions and access to League of Nations operations. The United Nations and its specialized agencies also incited INGOs to get together, and the 1948 creation of the Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations (CONGO) has been an important step to associate NGOs to the UN committees and working groups. Many more regional, specialized, religious or affinity federations have been established in the last decades: International Council of Voluntary Agencies (1962), International Cooperation for Development and Solidarity (CIDSE, 1967), Islamic Coordination Council (maglis al-tansiq al-islami, 1986), International Islamic Council for Da'wa and Relief, Caritas Internationalis , Forum for African Voluntary and Development Organizations…. Together with the narrative of competition, this now long history of federations, coalitions and organization

  obvious hurdles to our understanding. Historical depth is one of the solutions to these flaws of 'third sector' scholarship. It makes you realize that 'new domains' of INGOs activity have been framed by generations of activism, organizational work and campaigns. The range of INGOs activities has expanded and shrunk unevenly, and there is something to be gained to consider the different nexus of causes which have impulsed new dynamics in the space of INGOs: abolitionism/temperance/social reform/feminism from the first half of the 19 th century, where a large part of the current repertoire of INGOs has been created (the boycott, the petition, the conference…); human rights and development have also be a powerhouse of innovation from the 1950s; environment groups of the 1960s with their aggressive presence into the media; fields like science from the middle of the 19 th century, with the invention of the congress and its specific rules, or relief from the 1910s, and the aspiration to define a human solidarity in front of fear, disease and catastrophes, all have worked partly as vortexes which aspired and inspired changes into other domains and groups. The history of individual INGOs, of their interrelations, of their ties with political parties, religious institutions, national governments, inter governmental organizations, firms or philanthropic foundations, has to be written taking into account these concatenating configurations.