France-Allemagne : une comparaison des effets de gamme dans l’industrie

Au cœur des différences entre l’Allemagne et la France se trouvent plusieurs secteurs industriels de grande taille : automobile, autres matériels de transport, matériel électronique et biens d’équipement, métallurgie et, à un moindre degré, la chimie. Pour ces secteurs, nous trouvons une élasticité-prix des exportations significativement plus forte en France qu’en Allemagne, ce qui révèle un niveau de gamme plus bas ; une hausse de la productivité du travail nettement plus forte en Allemagne qu’en France ; une évolution beaucoup plus favorable des marges bénéficiaires en Allemagne qu’en France ; un lien entre le niveau de gamme et la consommation de services sophistiqués (R&D, IT, formation) ; une productivité globale des facteurs en croissance nettement plus rapide en Allemagne qu’en France, dans tous les secteurs, en particulier dans les secteurs « centraux » pour la différence France/Allemagne. L’intensité capitalistique augmente dans presque tous les secteurs en France comme en Allemagne. La différence entre l’Allemagne et la France, qui explique les écarts de niveau de gamme, de gains de productivité, de marges, ne vient donc pas de l’effort d’accumulation du capital, mais de la qualité du capital investi, ce que révèlent l’évolution de la productivité globale des facteurs et la consommation de services sophistiqués.At the heart of the differences between Germany and France we find several large industrial sectors: car-making, other transport equipment, electronic equipment and capital goods, metallurgy, and to a lesser extent chemicals. In these sectors we find: significantly higher export price elasticity in France than in Germany, something that reflects a lower level of sophistication; a far stronger increase in labour productivity in Germany than in France. A far more positive trend in profit margins in Germany than in France; a link between the level of sophistication and consumption of sophisticated services (R&D, IT, training); far more rapid total factor productivity growth in Germany than in France, in all the sectors, in particular in the “key” sectors for the difference between France and Germany. Capital intensity is increasing in nearly all sectors in France like in Germany. The difference between Germany and France, which explains the gaps in terms of level of sophistication of production, productivity gains and margins, therefore does not stem from the effort to accumulate capital, but from the quality of capital invested, as is shown by changes in total factor productivity and consumption of sophisticated services

Multiplex sorting of foodborne pathogens by on-chip free-flow magnetophoresis

This study reports multiplex sorting of Salmonella typhimurium and Escherichia coli 0157, from broth cultures and from pathogen-spiked skinned chicken breast enrichment broths by employing microfluidic free-flow magnetophoresis. Magnetic beads of different sizes and magnetite content, namely Dynabeads anti-salmonella and Hyglos-Streptavidin beads together with the corresponding pathogen-specific biotinylated recombinant phages, were utilised as affinity solid phases for the capture and concentration of viable S. typhimurium and E. coli 0157. Following optimisation, the protocol was used to demonstrate continuous magnetophoretic sorting of the two pathogen-bound magnetic bead populations from mixed cultures and from pathogen-spiked chicken pre-enrichment broths under the influence of a Halbach magnet array. For example, in the la tter case, a pure population of S. typhimurium-bound Dynabeads (72% recovery) was sorted from a 100 μL mixture containing E. coli 0157-bound Hyglos beads (67% recovery) within 1.2 min in the presence of 0.1% Tween 20. This proof-of-principle study demonstrates how more than one pathogen type can be simultaneously isolated/enriched from a single food pre-enrichment broth (e.g. Universal food enrichment broth)

On-chip acoustophoretic isolation of microflora including S. typhimurium from raw chicken, beef and blood samples

Pathogen analysis in food samples routinely involves lengthy growth-based pre-enrichment and selective enrichment of food matrices to increase the ratio of pathogen to background flora. Similarly, for blood culture analysis, pathogens must be isolated and enriched from large excess of blood cells to allow further analysis. Conventional techniques of centrifugation and filtration are cumbersome, suffer from low sample throughput, are not readily amenable to automation and carry a risk of damaging biological samples. We report on-chip acoustophoresis as a pre-analytical technique for the resolution of total microbial flora from food and blood samples. The resulting ‘clarified’ sample is expected to increase the performance of downstream systems for the specific detection of the pathogens. A microfluidic chip with three inlets, a central separation channel and three outlets was utilized. Samples were introduced through the side inlets, buffer through the central inlet. Upon ultrasound actuation, large debris particles (10–100 μm) from meat samples were continuously partitioned into the central buffer channel, leaving the “clarified” outer sample streams containing both, the pathogenic cells and the background flora (ca. 1 μm) to be collected over a 30 min operation cycle before further analysis. The system was successfully tested with Salmonella typhimurium-spiked (ca. 103 CFU mL⁻¹) samples of chicken and minced beef, demonstrating a high level of the pathogen recovery (60–90%). When applied to S. typhimurium contaminated blood samples (107 CFU mL⁻¹), acoustophoresis resulted in a high depletion of the red blood cells (99.8%) which partitioned in the buffer stream, whilst sufficient numbers of the viable S. typhimurium remained in the outer channels for further analysis. These results indicate that the technology may provide a generic approach for pre-analytical sample preparation prior to integrated and automated downstream detection of bacterial pathogens

Identification of novel filament-forming proteins in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Drosophila melanogaster

A screen for GFP-tagged yeast proteins that can assemble into visible structures reveals four new filamentous structures in the cytoplasm formed by metabolic enzymes and translation factors

Oxia Planum: The Landing Site for the ExoMars “Rosalind Franklin” Rover Mission: Geological Context and Prelanding Interpretation

The European Space Agency (ESA) and Roscosmos ExoMars mission will launch the “Rosalind Franklin” rover in 2022 for a landing on Mars in 2023.The goals of the mission are to search for signs of past and present life on Mars, investigate the water/geochemical environment as a function of depth in the shallow subsurface, and characterize the surface environment. To meet these scientific objectives while minimizing the risk for landing, a 5-year-long landing site selection process was conducted by ESA, during which eight candidate sites were down selected to one: Oxia Planum. Oxia Planum is a 200 km-wide low-relief terrain characterized by hydrous clay-bearing bedrock units located at the southwest margin of Arabia Terra. This region exhibits Noachian-aged terrains. We show in this study that the selected landing site has recorded at least two distinct aqueous environments, both of which occurred during the Noachian: (1) a first phase that led to the deposition and alteration of ∼100 m of layered clay-rich deposits and (2) a second phase of a fluviodeltaic system that postdates the widespread clay-rich layered unit. Rounded isolated buttes that overlie the clay-bearing unit may also be related to aqueous processes. Our study also details the formation of an unaltered mafic-rich dark resistant unit likely of Amazonian age that caps the other units and possibly originated from volcanism. Oxia Planum shows evidence for intense erosion from morphology (inverted features) and crater statistics. Due to these erosional processes, two types of Noachian sedimentary rocks are currently exposed. We also expect rocks at the surface to have been exposed to cosmic bombardment only recently, minimizing organic matter damage