Near-infrared active polarimetric and multispectral laboratory demonstrator for target detection

International audienceWe report on the design and exploitation of a real-field laboratory demonstrator combining active polarimetric and multispectral functions. Its building blocks, including a multiwavelength pulsed optical parametric oscillator at the emission side and a hyperspectral imager with polarimetric capability at the reception side, are described. The results obtained with this demonstrator are illustrated on some examples and discussed. In particular it is found that good detection performances rely on joint use of intensity and polarimetric images, with these images exhibiting complementary signatures in most cases

Evolutionary Advantage Conferred by an Eukaryote-to-Eukaryote Gene Transfer Event in Wine Yeasts

Although an increasing number of horizontal gene transfers have been reported in eukaryotes, experimental evidence for their adaptive value is lacking. Here, we report the recent transfer of a 158-kb genomic region between Torulaspora microellipsoides and Saccharomyces cerevisiae wine yeasts or closely related strains. This genomic region has undergone several rearrangements in S. cerevisiae strains, including gene loss and gene conversion between two tandemly duplicated FOT genes encoding oligopeptide transporters. We show that FOT genes confer a strong competitive advantage during grape must fermentation by increasing the number and diversity of oligopeptides that yeast can utilize as a source of nitrogen, thereby improving biomass formation, fermentation efficiency, and cell viability. Thus, the acquisition of FOT genes has favored yeast adaptation to the nitrogen-limited wine fermentation environment. This finding indicates that anthropic environments offer substantial ecological opportunity for evolutionary diversification through gene exchange between distant yeast species

OPERAS SIG on Tools for Open Scholarly Communication : White Paper 2021

This white paper is the output of the OPERAS Special Interest Group (SIG) Tools and R&D for scholarly communication; it is an updated version of a previous 2018 white paper1. With a focus on scholarly publishing tools, the objectives of the SIG Tools are to: provide a landscape analysis, identify emerging trends, and list the areas of potential improvements, developments, and collaborations. Since 2018, various studies and initiatives confirmed the necessity to both coordinate the developments of tools and provide guidance to the users. Similarly, OPERAS emphasizes the importance of building the open science scholarly communication infrastructure in Social Sciences and Humanities on community driven tools. The white paper brings information on the existing tools for scholarly publishing, as well as recommendations that will support the building of such an open scholarly communication infrastructure. The paper first examines tools types, definitions, and criteria that are able to facilitate their description and selection. The tools are then analyzed according to publishing main functions. For authoring, the development of online and collaborative tools represents an interesting perspective, especially when relying on structured formats, but also increases the risk of lock-in within multi-functional proprietary services. In peer reviewing, alongside widely used commercial tools, open peer review represents an innovative area, both in terms of usage and tools. Open source tools for publishing already offer a high level of service, but face interoperability challenges with the integration of an increasing variety of third-party services. A specific section is dedicated to communicating tools allowing for comments and annotations, as such function is transversal to the others. To complement this description, the SIG tools also identified major trends that should impact the future of scholarly communication, namely: preprint servers, artificial intelligence, data papers, and user-centric developments. In conclusion, the white paper provides a list of recommendations able to address the challenges identified and to provide building blocks for the envisioned open scholarly infrastructure. The recommendations suggest: to establish user-centric criteria for tools, a tools’ observatory, a set of training materials, guidelines about publishing workflows, and collaborations with other community initiatives

Evaluation of the chagas western blot igg assay for the diagnosis of chagas disease

Chagas disease is a debilitating and often fatal pathology resulting from infection by the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi. In its recommendations, the World Health Organization states that the diagnosis of T. cruzi infection is usually based on the detection of antibodies against T. cruzi antigens and performed with two methodologically different assays. An inconclusive result can be resolved with a third “confirmatory” assay. The objective of this article is to evaluate the effectiveness of the Chagas Western Blot IgG assay (LDBio Diagnostics, Lyon, France) as a confirmatory serologic test. The Chagas Western Blot IgG assay was performed with native antigens derived from a T. cruzi strain of the TcVI genotype. Retrospective sera were provided by two parasitology laboratories (France and Argentina). The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of the Chagas blot were all 100% in our sera collection. The Chagas blot is an easy and qualitative method for the diagnosis of Chagas disease, with results in less than 2 h. This immunoblot has potential as a supplemental test for the confirmation of the presence of antibodies against T. cruzi in serum specimens. Nonetheless, the very good initial results presented here will need to be confirmed in larger studies.Fil: Brossas, Jean Yves. Sorbonne Université Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière; FranciaFil: Ballering, Griselda Edith. Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Investigaciones en Patologías Pediátricas. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Investigaciones en Patologías Pediátricas; ArgentinaFil: Bisio, Margarita María Catalina. Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Investigaciones en Patologías Pediátricas. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Investigaciones en Patologías Pediátricas; ArgentinaFil: Guihenneuc, Jeremy. Sorbonne Université Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière; FranciaFil: Gulin, Julián Ernesto Nicolás. Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Investigaciones en Patologías Pediátricas. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Investigaciones en Patologías Pediátricas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas; ArgentinaFil: Jauréguiberry, S.. Sorbonne Université Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière; FranciaFil: Lescure, François Xavier. Hôpitaux Universitaires Paris Nord val de Seine; FranciaFil: Fekkar, Arnaud. Sorbonne Université Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière; FranciaFil: Mazier, Dominique. Sorbonne University; FranciaFil: Altcheh, Jaime Marcelo. Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Investigaciones en Patologías Pediátricas. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto Multidisciplinario de Investigaciones en Patologías Pediátricas; ArgentinaFil: Paris, Luc. Sorbonne Université Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière; Franci

A 2015 International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF) candidate model based on <i>Swarm’s</i> experimental absolute magnetometer vector mode data

International audienceEach of the three satellites of the European Space Agency Swarm mission carries an absolute scalar magnetometer (ASM) that provides the nominal 1-Hz scalar data of the mission for both science and calibration purposes. These ASM instruments, however, also deliver autonomous 1-Hz experimental vector data. Here, we report on how ASM-only scalar and vector data from the Alpha and Bravo satellites between November 29, 2013 (a week after launch) and September 25, 2014 (for on-time delivery of the model on October 1, 2014) could be used to build a very valuable candidate model for the 2015.0 International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF). A parent model was first computed, describing the geomagnetic field of internal origin up to degree and order 40 in a spherical harmonic representation and including a constant secular variation up to degree and order 8. This model was next simply forwarded to epoch 2015.0 and truncated at degree and order 13. The resulting ASM-only 2015.0 IGRF candidate model is compared to analogous models derived from the mission's nominal data and to the now-published final 2015.0 IGRF model. Differences among models mainly highlight uncertainties enhanced by the limited geographical distribution of the selected data set (essentially due to a lack of availability of data at high northern latitude satisfying nighttime conditions at the end of the time period considered). These appear to be comparable to differences classically observed among IGRF candidate models. These positive results led the ASM-only 2015.0 IGRF candidate model to contribute to the construction of the final 2015.0 IGRF model

La Roque-Gageac – La grotte Maldidier

Les opérations de terrain menées depuis 2012 dans la grotte Maldidier, petite cavité qui surplombe la vallée de la Dordogne, ont pour objectif de caractériser dans le temps et l’espace, les occupations par les Hommes et les Carnivores au début du Paléolithique récent. En 2015, les opérations de fouille se sont concentrées sur trois zones de la cavité (entrée, milieu de couloir et fond de la cavité). Le matériel recueilli est composé de nombreux restes de faune, d’industrie lithique, d’élément..

Muscle inactivation of mTOR causes metabolic and dystrophin defects leading to severe myopathy

Mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) is a key regulator of cell growth that associates with raptor and rictor to form the mTOR complex 1 (mTORC1) and mTORC2, respectively. Raptor is required for oxidative muscle integrity, whereas rictor is dispensable. In this study, we show that muscle-specific inactivation of mTOR leads to severe myopathy, resulting in premature death. mTOR-deficient muscles display metabolic changes similar to those observed in muscles lacking raptor, including impaired oxidative metabolism, altered mitochondrial regulation, and glycogen accumulation associated with protein kinase B/Akt hyperactivation. In addition, mTOR-deficient muscles exhibit increased basal glucose uptake, whereas whole body glucose homeostasis is essentially maintained. Importantly, loss of mTOR exacerbates the myopathic features in both slow oxidative and fast glycolytic muscles. Moreover, mTOR but not raptor and rictor deficiency leads to reduced muscle dystrophin content. We provide evidence that mTOR controls dystrophin transcription in a cell-autonomous, rapamycin-resistant, and kinase-independent manner. Collectively, our results demonstrate that mTOR acts mainly via mTORC1, whereas regulation of dystrophin is raptor and rictor independent

New function for the RNA helicase p68/DDX5 as a modifier of MBNL1 activity on expanded CUG repeats

Myotonic Dystrophy type I (DM1) is caused by an abnormal expansion of CTG triplets in the 3′ UTR of the dystrophia myotonica protein kinase (DMPK) gene, leading to the aggregation of the mutant transcript in nuclear RNA foci. The expanded mutant transcript promotes the sequestration of the MBNL1 splicing factor, resulting in the misregulation of a subset of alternative splicing events. In this study, we identify the DEAD-box RNA helicase p68 (DDX5) in complexes assembled onto in vitro-transcribed CUG repeats. We showed that p68 colocalized with RNA foci in cells expressing the 3′UTR of the DMPK gene containing expanded CTG repeats. We found that p68 increased MBNL1 binding onto pathological repeats and the stem–loop structure regulatory element within the cardiac Troponin T (TNNT2) pre-mRNA, splicing of which is misregulated in DM1. Mutations in the helicase core of p68 prevented both the stimulatory effect of the protein on MBNL1 binding and the colocalization of p68 with CUG repeats, suggesting that remodeling of RNA secondary structure by p68 facilitates MBNL1 binding. We also found that the competence of p68 for regulating TNNT2 exon 5 inclusion depended on the integrity of MBNL1 binding sites. We propose that p68 acts as a modifier of MBNL1 activity on splicing targets and pathogenic RNA

International Geomagnetic Reference Field: the 12th generation

The 12th generation of the International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF) was adopted in December 2014 by the Working Group V-MOD appointed by the International Association of Geomagnetism and Aeronomy (IAGA). It updates the previous IGRF generation with a definitive main field model for epoch 2010.0, a main field model for epoch 2015.0, and a linear annual predictive secular variation model for 2015.0-2020.0. Here, we present the equations defining the IGRF model, provide the spherical harmonic coefficients, and provide maps of the magnetic declination, inclination, and total intensity for epoch 2015.0 and their predicted rates of change for 2015.0-2020.0. We also update the magnetic pole positions and discuss briefly the latest changes and possible future trends of the Earth’s magnetic fiel