L'utilisation par la viticulture française d'un exercice de prospective pour l'élaboration d'une stratégie d'adaptation au changement climatique

Foresight studies are regularly conducted at sectoral or geographical scales, in order to help policy makers and economic actors to define their strategy of adaptation to climate change (CC)

Emulsion sheet doublets as interface trackers for the OPERA experiment

New methods for efficient and unambiguous interconnection between electronic counters and target units based on nuclear photographic emulsion films have been developed. The application to the OPERA experiment, that aims at detecting oscillations between mu neutrino and tau neutrino in the CNGS neutrino beam, is reported in this paper. In order to reduce background due to latent tracks collected before installation in the detector, on-site large-scale treatments of the emulsions ("refreshing") have been applied. Changeable Sheet (CSd) packages, each made of a doublet of emulsion films, have been designed, assembled and coupled to the OPERA target units ("ECC bricks"). A device has been built to print X-ray spots for accurate interconnection both within the CSd and between the CSd and the related ECC brick. Sample emulsion films have been extensively scanned with state-of-the-art automated optical microscopes. Efficient track-matching and powerful background rejection have been achieved in tests with electronically tagged penetrating muons. Further improvement of in-doublet film alignment was obtained by matching the pattern of low-energy electron tracks. The commissioning of the overall OPERA alignment procedure is in progress.Comment: 19 pages, 19 figure

Evaluation of chloroform/methanol extraction to facilitate the study of membrane proteins of non-model plants

Membrane proteins are of great interest to plant physiologists because of their important function in many physiological processes. However, their study is hampered by their low abundance and poor solubility in aqueous buffers. Proteomics studies of non-model plants are generally restricted to gel-based methods. Unfortunately, all gel-based techniques for membrane proteomics lack resolving power. Therefore, a very stringent enrichment method is needed before protein separation. In this study, protein extraction in a mixture of chloroform and methanol in combination with gel electrophoresis is evaluated as a method to study membrane proteins in non-model plants. Benefits as well as disadvantages of the method are discussed. To demonstrate the pitfalls of working with non-model plants and to give a proof of principle, the method was first applied to whole leaves of the model plant Arabidopsis. Subsequently, a comparison with proteins extracted from leaves of the non-model plant, banana, was made. To estimate the tissue and organelle specificity of the method, it was also applied on banana meristems. Abundant membrane or lipid-associated proteins could be identified in both tissues, with the leaf extract yielding a higher number of membrane proteins

Novel event classification based on spectral analysis of scintillation waveforms in Double Chooz

Liquid scintillators are a common choice for neutrino physics experiments, but their capabilities to perform background rejection by scintillation pulse shape discrimination is generally limited in large detectors. This paper describes a novel approach for a pulse shape based event classification developed in the context of the Double Chooz reactor antineutrino experiment. Unlike previous implementations, this method uses the Fourier power spectra of the scintillation pulse shapes to obtain event-wise information. A classification variable built from spectral information was able to achieve an unprecedented performance, despite the lack of optimization at the detector design level. Several examples of event classification are provided, ranging from differentiation between the detector volumes and an efficient rejection of instrumental light noise, to some sensitivity to the particle type, such as stopping muons, ortho-positronium formation, alpha particles as well as electrons and positrons. In combination with other techniques the method is expected to allow for a versatile and more efficient background rejection in the future, especially if detector optimization is taken into account at the design level

Study of the effects induced by lead on the emulsion films of the OPERA experiment

The OPERA neutrino oscillation experiment is based on the use of the Emulsion Cloud Chamber (ECC). In the OPERA ECC, nuclear emulsion films acting as very high precision tracking detectors are interleaved with lead plates providing a massive target for neutrino interactions. We report on studies related to the effects occurring from the contact between emulsion and lead. A low radioactivity lead is required in order to minimize the number of background tracks in emulsions and to achieve the required performance in the reconstruction of neutrino events. It was observed that adding other chemical elements to the lead, in order to improve the mechanical properties, may significantly increase the level of radioactivity on the emulsions. A detailed study was made in order to choose a lead alloy with good mechanical properties and an appropriate packing technique so as to have a low enough effective radioactivity.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figure

Implications of the polymorphism of HLA-G on its function, regulation, evolution and disease association

The HLA-G gene displays several peculiarities that are distinct from those of classical HLA class I genes. The unique structure of the HLA-G molecule permits a restricted peptide presentation and allows the modulation of the cells of the immune system. Although polymorphic sites may potentially influence all biological functions of HLA-G, those present at the promoter and 3′ untranslated regions have been particularly studied in experimental and pathological conditions. The relatively low polymorphism observed in the MHC-G coding region both in humans and apes may represent a strong selective pressure for invariance, whereas, in regulatory regions several lines of evidence support the role of balancing selection. Since HLA-G has immunomodulatory properties, the understanding of gene regulation and the role of polymorphic sites on gene function may permit an individualized approach for the future use of HLA-G for therapeutic purposes

Théories et expériences relatives à la thermophorèse de particules sphériques et non‐sphériques : état de l’art et perspectives d’expérimentations sur les aérosols de combustion

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Increase in thermophoretic velocity of carbon aggregates as a function of particle size

WOS:000342541100008International audienceThe Radial Flow Thermophoretic Analyser developed by Brugiere et al. (2013) is used to measure the thermophoretic velocity of carbon nanoparticle aggregates produced by combustion with a propane/air diffusion flame. This work is carried out within the scope of the evaluation of aerosol deposition by thermophoresis for nuclear power plant fire risk assessment purposes. Thermophoretic velocity measurements are performed on monodisperse particles with electrical mobility diameters ranging from 30 nm to 600 nm and for a temperature gradient equal to 50 750 K/m. The results obtained show an increase in thermophoretic velocity as a function of the mobility diameter, contrary to what is observed for spherical particles in the transition regime. When the thermophoretic velocity is expressed as a function of the number of primary particles making up the aggregates, a good agreement is found with the experimental results of Messerer et al. (2003). Measurements performed with the Radial Flow Thermophoretic Analyser show, for the first time, an increase in the thermophoretic velocity of carbon aggregates as a function of the number of primary particles, in qualitative agreement with the Monte Carlo simulation results of Mackowski (2006). (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved