Multi-purpose cowpea inoculation for improved yields in small holder farms in Kenya

Introduction In Kenya, cowpea is the most important pulse crop in the dry lands of Eastern and Coastal regions where it is commonly inter cropped with maize and sorghum. The poor yields obtained in small holder farms in Kenya (150 kg ha-1) can in part be attributed to the use of poor yielding varieties, low soil fertility (mainly N and P deficiency) low presence of effective indigenous rhizobia and high occurrence of highly competitive but inefficient indigenous rhizobia strains. Biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) through exploitation of the rhizobia-legume symbiosis and use of inoculants coupled with soil amendments such as Phosphorus offers in part a means to improve cowpea yield, nutrition and soil fertility

Les nouvelles dynamiques de la solidarite intergenerationnelle et de la protection contre les risques de la vie en Algerie

Les mutations démographiques (vieillissement de la population, décès des retraités émigrés de la première génération vivant en France ou en Algérie, etc.) et sociales ainsi que l’informalisation importante de l’économie algérienne ne vont-elles pas à l’avenir poser un problème de protection contre les risques de la vie? Que recouvre et comment évolue la solidarité intergénérationnelle en Algérie? Est-elle de nature formelle ou informelle? Est-elle ascendante ou descendante? Nous nous concentrons ici sur une thématique transversale qui est celle de la solidarité intergénérationnelle. Celle-ci peut être le cadre pertinent pour mobiliser des  acteurs autour de projets collectifs susceptibles d’être pilotés avec des critères d’efficacité sociale plutôt que de rentabilité financière. Il s’agit donc d’identifier des pratiques sociales organisées de manière à créer un champ de crédibilité permettant l’intervention de tiers en appui aux projets via, par exemple, la microfinance.MOTS CLEFS: Solidarité intergénérationnelle, mutations sociales, financement des risques de la vie, Algérie

Emulsions stabilised by whey protein microgel particles: Towards food-grade Pickering emulsions

We have investigated a new class of food-grade particles, whey protein microgels, as stabilisers of triglyceride-water emulsions. The sub-micron particles stabilized oil-in-water emulsions at all pH with and without salt. All emulsions creamed but exhibited exceptional resistance to coalescence. Clear correlations exist between the properties of the microgels in aqueous dispersion and the resulting emulsion characteristics. For conditions in which the particles were uncharged, fluid emulsions with relatively large drops were stabilised, whereas emulsions stabilized by charged particles contained smaller flocculated drops. A combination of optical microscopy of the drops and spectrophotometry of the resolved aqueous phase allowed us to estimate the interfacial adsorption densities of the particles using the phenomenon of limited coalescence. We deduce two classes of particle arrangement. Complete adsorption of the particles was obtained when they were neutral or when their charges were screened by salt resulting in at least one particle monolayer at the interface. By contrast, only around 50% of the particles adsorbed when they were charged with emulsion drops being covered by less than half a monolayer. These findings were supported by direct visualization of drop interfaces using cryo-scanning electron microscopy. Uncharged particles were highly aggregated and formed a continuous 2-D network at the interface. Otherwise particles organized as individual aggregates separated by particle-free regions. In this case, we suggest that some particles spread at the interface leading to the formation of a continuous protein membrane. Charged particles displayed the ability to bridge opposing interfaces of neighbouring drops to form dense particle disks protecting drops against coalescence; this is the main reason for the flocculation and stability of emulsions containing sparsely covered drops. © 2014 the Partner Organisations

Activation of the GLP-1 Receptor Signalling Pathway: A Relevant Strategy to Repair a Deficient Beta-Cell Mass

Recent preclinical studies in rodent models of diabetes suggest that exogenous GLP-1R agonists and DPP-4 inhibitors have the ability to increase islet mass and preserve beta-cell function, by immediate reactivation of beta-cell glucose competence, as well as enhanced beta-cell proliferation and neogenesis and promotion of beta-cell survival. These effects have tremendous implication in the treatment of T2D because they directly address one of the basic defects in T2D, that is, beta-cell failure. In human diabetes, however, evidence that the GLP-1-based drugs alter the course of beta-cell function remains to be found. Several questions surrounding the risks and benefits of GLP-1-based therapy for the diabetic beta-cell mass are discussed in this review and require further investigation

Lipids behaviour in aqueous solution of disrupted microalgae cultivated under nitrogen starving conditions: molecular simulation compared to experimental study of representative synthetic mixtures

International audienceThis work deals with the microalgae culture and biorefinery for biofuel production. Microalgae transform CO 2 into biomass and valuable molecules, including lipids. The downstream processing to valorise intracellular compounds necessitates innovative, efficient and clean processes for biomass harvesting, concentration, cell disruption and fractionation. Membrane filtration is a promising process for the concentration and the purification of lipids in a wet pathway to produce biofuel. The behaviour of the biomolecules and particles during the filtration processes is unknown. Yet it drives their performances. For example, strong interactions between lipids and polar molecules released during the cell disruption may prevent an efficient separation and valorisation of both compounds because of the water-oil interface stabilisation. Consequently, to achieve oil droplets coalescence, the interface must be disturbed during filtration. The understanding of the local organisation on the target molecules is a necessary step to develop innovative fractionation strategies and optimize the coupling of different processes. To bring understanding, a multiscale approach is proposed. The use of synthetic mixtures drives the link between the different scales. These synthetic mixtures are simplified emulsions that mimic a supernatant of a real grinded biomass, centrifugated to get rid of cell fragments. The composition is based on the characterisation of disrupted cells samples, from a P. kessleri culture, under nitrogen starving conditions. The synthetic mixtures contain water, triglycerides and polar lipids. On the one hand, coarse-grained molecular simulations were carried out, to study the behaviour of lipids in the solution. Interfacial tension of the water-lipids interface was calculated for several compositions and validated with experiments. On the other hand, the interfacial properties of complex mixtures were related to molecular organisation deduced from molecular simulation. The perspective of this project is at first the characterization of water-lipid interfaces with real products, to compare to the results with synthetic solutions. This necessitates a large-scale culture in starving conditions to recover enough lipids in the supernatant. The acquired knowledge on the behaviour and organisation of lipids at the interfaces will help the optimization of membrane processes for the concentration and coalescence of lipids before valorisation into biofuels

Universal cumulants of the current in diffusive systems on a ring

We calculate exactly the first cumulants of the integrated current and of the activity (which is the total number of changes of configurations) of the symmetric simple exclusion process (SSEP) on a ring with periodic boundary conditions. Our results indicate that for large system sizes the large deviation functions of the current and of the activity take a universal scaling form, with the same scaling function for both quantities. This scaling function can be understood either by an analysis of Bethe ansatz equations or in terms of a theory based on fluctuating hydrodynamics or on the macroscopic fluctuation theory of Bertini, De Sole, Gabrielli, Jona-Lasinio and Landim

TEL is a sequence-specific transcriptional repressor.

TEL is a gene frequently involved in specific chromosomal translocations in human leukemia and sarcoma that encodes a member of the ETS family of transcriptional regulators. TEL is unusual among other ETS proteins by its ability to self-associate in vivo, a property that is essential to the oncogenic activation of TEL-derived fusion proteins. We show here that TEL is a sequence-specific transcriptional repressor of ETS-binding site-driven transcription of model and natural promoters