Piezo-generated charge mapping revealed through Direct Piezoelectric Force Microscopy

While piezoelectrics and ferroelectrics are playing a key role in many everyday applications, there are still a number of open questions related to the physics of those materials. In order to foster the understanding of piezoelectrics and ferroelectric and pave the way to future applications, the nanoscale characterization of these materials is essential. In this light, we have developed a novel AFM based mode that obtains a direct quantitative analysis of the piezoelectric coefficient d33. This nanoscale tool is capable of detecting and reveal piezo-charge generation through the direct piezoelectric effect at the surface of the piezoelectric and ferroelectric materials. We report the first nanoscale images of the charge generated in a thick single crystal of Periodically Poled Lithium Niobate (PPLN) and a Bismuth Ferrite (BiFO3) thin film by applying a force and recording the current produced by the materials. The quantification of both d33 coefficients for PPLN and BFO are 13 +- 2 pC/N and 46 +- 7 pC/N respectively, in agreement with the values reported in the literature. This new mode can operate simultaneously with PFM mode providing a powerful tool for the electromechanical and piezo-charge generation characterization of ferroelectric and piezoelectric materials

Multiobjective genetic algorithm strategies for electricity production from generation IV nuclear technology

Development of a technico-economic optimization strategy of cogeneration systems of electricity/hydrogen, consists in finding an optimal efficiency of the generating cycle and heat delivery system, maximizing the energy production and minimizing the production costs. The first part of the paper is related to the development of a multiobjective optimization library (MULTIGEN) to tackle all types of problems arising from cogeneration. After a literature review for identifying the most efficient methods, the MULTIGEN library is described, and the innovative points are listed. A new stopping criterion, based on the stagnation of the Pareto front, may lead to significant decrease of computational times, particularly in the case of problems involving only integer variables. Two practical examples are presented in the last section. The former is devoted to a bicriteria optimization of both exergy destruction and total cost of the plant, for a generating cycle coupled with a Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR). The second example consists in designing the heat exchanger of the generating turbomachine. Three criteria are optimized: the exchange surface, the exergy destruction and the number of exchange modules

Optimisation technico-économique multiobjectif de systèmes de conversion d'énergie : cogénération électricité-hydrogène à partir d'un réacteur nucléaire de IVème génération.

Face aux préoccupations environnementales de plus en plus pressantes, telles que la maîtrise des rejets de gaz à effet de serre, et face à l'épuisement annoncé des réserves d'énergies fossiles, l'hydrogène est perçu comme un vecteur énergétique prometteur. Un des principaux enjeux technologiques d'une future économie de l'hydrogène est sa production à grande échelle en se passant d'énergies fossiles émettrices de gaz à effet de serre. Dans ce contexte, le nucléaire est particulièrement intéressant pour produire massivement de l'hydrogène par cycles thermochimiques ou par électrolyse haute température. Un des systèmes nucléaires sélectionnés est le réacteur à très haute température (950°C/1200°C), refroidi à l'hélium, dédié à la production d'hydrogène ou à la cogénération hydrogène/électricité, VHTR (Very High Temperature Reactor). L'objectif principal de ces travaux, dans le cadre d'une collaboration entre le CEA de Cadarache et le LGC consistait à définir une méthodologie d'optimisation technico-économique de tels systèmes de cogénération, pour identifier et proposer des stratégies prometteuses de développement. Parmi les procédés de production massive d'hydrogène à l'étude, le cycle thermochimique Iode-Soufre a été retenu. Compte tenu de la diversité des énergies exploitées (chaleur, électricité) et produites (hydrogène et électricité) du système de cogénération, une approche exergétique à été développée, particulièrement adaptée à la comparaison de différentes formes d'énergie. Dans ce but, le logiciel CYCLOP (CEA) a été utilisé et adapté pour la modélisation thermodynamique de ces systèmes. Le critère économique, calculé à l'aide du logiciel SEMER (CEA), est basé sur la minimisation du coût total du site de production sur sa durée de vie impliquant l'investissement, les coûts d'exploitation et celui du combustible nucléaire. Le calcul d'investissement implique le développement de fonctions de coûts adaptées aux technologies et aux conditions de fonctionnement spécifiques. Les études ont été menées pour maximiser la production d'énergie au niveau global, tout en minimisant les coûts de production. Ce problème bicritère a été résolu grâce au développement d'une bibliothèque modulaire et extensible d'algorithmes génétiques (MULTIGEN), basés sur l'algorithme NSGAII. Plusieurs procédures y sont intégrées pour traiter des problèmes mono et multicritère en variables continues, entières et binaires. Les principales innovations ont porté sur la fiabilisation des algorithmes implantés, le traitement des contraintes et des variables de structure ainsi que l'implantation d'un critère d'arrêt basé sur la stagnation du front de Pareto. Une méthodologie technico-économique multicritère générale a été appliquée à trois systèmes de conversion de chaleur produite par un réacteur VHTR : production d'électricité seule, cogénération électricité-hydrogène et, enfin, seule production d'hydrogène. Parmi les résultats significatifs obtenus, on note que les sites dédiés exclusivement à la production d'hydrogène, ainsi que les sites de cogénération, présentent un coût de production comparable dans la zone de coût de production du réseau électrique français. Les sites de cogénération sont donc particulièrement intéressants du point de vue du coût hydrogène, mais le nombre de sites doit être multiplié, pour espérer un effet de série. Cette méthodologie générique peut également s'appliquer à la production d'hydrogène par électrolyse à haute température, ou bien à d'autres cycles de production d'hydrogène existants, notamment les cycles hybrides. ABSTRACT : With the increase in environmental considerations, such as the control of greenhouse emissions, and with the decrease in the fossil energy resources, hydrogen is currently considered as a promising energy vector. One of the main technological challenges of a future hydrogen economy is its large scale production without fossil fuel emissions. Under this context, nuclear energy is particularly adapted for hydrogen massive production by thermochemical cycles or high temperature electrolysis. One of the selected nuclear systems is the Very High Temperature Reactor (950°C/1200°C), cooled with helium, and dedicated to hydrogen production or to hydrogen electricity cogeneration. The main objective of this investigation, within the framework of a collaboration between CEA, French Atomic Agency (Cadarache) and LGC (Toulouse), consists in defining a technico-economic optimization methodology of electricity-hydrogen cogeneration systems, in order to identify and propose promising development strategies. Among the massive production processes of hydrogen, the thermochemical cycle Iodine-Sulphur has been considered. Taking into account the diversity of the used energies (i.e., heat and electricity) on the one hand and of the produced energies (hydrogen and electricity) on the other hand of the studied cogeneration system, an exergetic approach has been developed due to its ability to consider various energy forms on the same thermodynamical basis. The CYCLOP software tool (CEA) is used for the thermodynamic modelling of these systems. The economic criterion, calculated using the SEMER software tool (CEA), is based on the minimization of the total production site cost over its lifespan i.e., investment, operating costs and nuclear fuel cost. Capital investment involves the development of cost functions adapted to specific technologies and their specific operating conditions. The resulting optimization problems consist in maximizing the energy production, while minimizing the production costs, which constitutes a multicriteria problem, solved by the so-called MULTIGEN, i.e. a library of genetic algorithms designed with modular and extensible properties, based on the well-known NSGA II algorithm. Several procedures have been implemented, adapted to both mono and multicriteria problems case, to their type (structural optimization for example) and to nature of the considered variables (continuous, binary, integer or mixed). The main innovations related to the reliability of the algorithms involve the constraints treatment, the structural variables and the development of a stop criterion, based on the stagnation of the Pareto front. A generic multicriteria technico-economic methodology was applied to three conversion systems by a VHTR reactor: electrical production, electricity/hydrogen cogeneration and, finally, hydrogen production. Among the most significant results, it can be highlighted that exclusively dedicated hydrogen production sites are comparable with cogeneration sites from production costs point of view, within the range of french electrical network production costs. The cogeneration sites exhibit an increased economic interest from hydrogen cost point of view, but the number of sites will have to be multiplied, so that a series effect is observed. This methodology is still valid for the production of hydrogen by high temperature electrolysis, or by other existing production cycles of hydrogen, in particular hybrid cycles

Optimization of electricity / hydrogen cogeneration from generation IV nuclear energy systems

One of the great motivations of studying and developing Generation IV (Gen IV) reactors of VHTR (Very High Temperature Reactor) design concept is their capacity to efficiently produce both electricity and H2 (hydrogen). This study aims at developing an optimization methodology for cogeneration systems of H2 and electricity, from Gen IV nuclear reactors, with respect to energy constraints, economics and conjuncture in term of demand. It lies within a scope of a collaboration between the Laboratoire de Génie Chimique (Toulouse, France) and the Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique (CEA, Cadarache, France) in order to compare various cogeneration systems from both energy and economics viewpoint. This paper presents the results of an optimization study based on the “minimal destruction of exergy” or “exergy loss” concept. This criterion, used within the framework of a mono-objective genetic algorithm optimizer, was applied successfully to electric and heat production from Gen IV systems

Human platelets and their capacity of binding viruses: Meaning and challenges?

Blood platelets are first aimed at ensuring primary hemostasis. Beyond this role, they have been acknowledged as having functions in the maintenance of the vascular arborescence and, more recently, as being also innate immune cells, devoted notably to the detection of danger signals, of which infectious ones. Platelets express pathogen recognition receptors that can sense bacterial and viral moieties. Besides, several molecules that bind epithelial or sub-endothelial molecules and, so forth, are involved in hemostasis, happen to be able to ligate viral determinants, making platelets capable of either binding viruses or even to be infected by some of them. Further, as platelets express both Fc-receptors for Ig and complement receptors, they also bind occasionally virus-Ig or virus-Ig-complement immune complexes. Interplays of viruses with platelets are very complex and viral infections often interfere with platelet number and functions. Through a few instances of viral infections, the present review aims at presenting some of the most important interactions from pathophysiological and clinical points of view, which are observed between human viruses and platelets.Fil: Chabert, Adrien. Universite Lyon 2; FranciaFil: Hamzeh Cognasse, Hind. Universite Lyon 2; FranciaFil: Pozzetto, Bruno. Universite Lyon 2; FranciaFil: Cognasse, Fabrice. Universite Lyon 2; FranciaFil: Schattner, Mirta Ana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Medicina Experimental. Academia Nacional de Medicina de Buenos Aires. Instituto de Medicina Experimental; ArgentinaFil: Gomez, Ricardo Martin. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto de Biotecnología y Biología Molecular. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Instituto de Biotecnología y Biología Molecular; ArgentinaFil: Garraud, Olivier. Universite Lyon 2; Franci

Analytical study of the radio signals propagation in planetary atmospheres

The ESA JUICE (JUpiter ICy moons Explorer) mission is planned for launch in 2022 and arrival at Jupiter around 2030. The mission is dedicated to the study of the giant gaseous and its largest moons. While the spacecraft will probe the Jovian system it will be occulted by the atmosphere of Jupiter or its satellites as seen from antennas on Earth. Such a configuration offers a great opportunity to study remotely the physical properties of the occulting atmosphere using radio links as the probe is being occulted. Indeed, non-unity index of refraction causes the electromagnetic waves to depart from the straight line and also impacts the propagation speed of the waves. Both changes modify the wave frequency and conversely, from the time variation of the Doppler measurements the index of refraction profile can be retrieved. In the literature, there are different approaches devoted to the retrieval of the refractive profile from these observables. Let mention, i) the analytic formulation of the Abel inversion which is employed for spherically symmetric atmospheres, and ii) the ray tracing method which is a numerical integration of the fundamental equations of optics and which is well suited for atmospheres with more complicated shapes. Both possess their own advantages and inconveniences. For instance, to invert a complete set of data, the ray tracing method requires more computational time than the Abel transformation. In return, the Abel inversion is based on the spherical symmetry assumption while the ray tracing technique can handle non-radial gradient in the refractive profile. In the context of the future occultations of JUICE by Jupiter, we discuss the benefit of a new formalism based on a full reformulation of the fundamental equations of optics. This new approach let to provide a very comprehensive description of the light trajectory inside a planetary atmosphere with no assumption on the refractive profile. In the special case where the departure from the spherical symmetry is small, we present an analytic solution which is well suited for the data processing of radio occultation experiments. Indeed, this solution can handle the effect of a non-spherically symmetric atmosphere with a low computational cost. We use this solution to process the Cassini Doppler data acquired during an occultation by the oblate atmosphere of Saturn. The validity of the proposed approach is assessed comparing the results with other studies available in the literature

Prioritized training on points that are learnable, worth learning, and not yet learned

We introduce Goldilocks Selection, a technique for faster model training which selects a sequence of training points that are "just right". We propose an information-theoretic acquisition function -- the reducible validation loss -- and compute it with a small proxy model -- GoldiProx -- to efficiently choose training points that maximize information about a validation set. We show that the "hard" (e.g. high loss) points usually selected in the optimization literature are typically noisy, while the "easy" (e.g. low noise) samples often prioritized for curriculum learning confer less information. Further, points with uncertain labels, typically targeted by active learning, tend to be less relevant to the task. In contrast, Goldilocks Selection chooses points that are "just right" and empirically outperforms the above approaches. Moreover, the selected sequence can transfer to other architectures; practitioners can share and reuse it without the need to recreate it

Versatile micro-electrode array to monitor human iPSC derived 3D neural tissues at air-liquid interface

Engineered 3D neural tissues made of neurons and glial cells derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC) are among the most promising tools in drug discovery and neurotoxicology. They represent a cheaper, faster, and more ethical alternative to in vivo animal testing that will likely close the gap between in vitro animal models and human clinical trials. Micro-Electrode Array (MEA) technology is known to provide an assessment of compound effects on neural 2D cell cultures and acute tissue preparations by real-time, non-invasive, and long-lasting electrophysiological monitoring of spontaneous and evoked neuronal activity. Nevertheless, the use of engineered 3D neural tissues in combination with MEA biochips still involves series of constraints, such as drastically limited diffusion of oxygen and nutrients within tissues mainly due to the lack of vascularization. Therefore, 3D neural tissues are extremely sensitive to experimental conditions and require an adequately designed interface that provides optimal tissue survival conditions. A well-suited technique to overcome this issue is the combination of the Air-Liquid Interface (ALI) tissue culture method with the MEA technology. We have developed a full 3D neural tissue culture process and a data acquisition system composed of high-end electronics and novel MEA biochips based on porous, flexible, thin-film membranes integrating recording electrodes, named as “Strip-MEA,” to allow the maintenance of an ALI around the 3D neural tissues. The main motivation of the porous MEA biochips development was the possibility to monitor and to study the electrical activity of 3D neural tissues under different recording configurations, (i) the Strip-MEA can be placed below a tissue, (ii) or by taking advantage of the ALI, be directly placed on top of the tissue, or finally, (iii) it can be embedded into a larger neural tissue generated by the fusion of two (or more) tissues placed on both sides of the Strip-MEA allowing the recording from its inner part. This paper presents the recording and analyses of spontaneous activity from the three positioning configurations of the Strip-MEAs. Obtained results are discussed with the perspective of developing in vitro models of brain diseases and/or impairment of neural network functioning

Spontaneous Bacterial Peritonitis due to Ochrobactrum anthropi: A Case Report

We report a case of spontaneous bacterial peritonitis from Ochrobactrum anthropi. O. anthropi is recognized as an emerging pathogen in immunocompromised patients. In contrast to most previously described cases, the patient reported here had no indwelling catheter. To our knowledge, no case of O. anthropi spontaneous bacterial peritonitis has been reported in the medical literature until now