Transition to Equilibrium in International Trades

Building on Giraud & Tsomocos (2009), we develop a model of non equilibrium international trades with incomplete markets. Trades occur in continuous time, both on international and domestic markets. Traders are assumed to exhibit locally rational expectations on future prices, interest rates and exchange rates. Although currencies turn out to be non-neutral, if their stock grows sufficiently rapidly and if agents can trade assets during a sufficiently long period, the world economy converges in probability towards some interim constrained efficient state. Moreover, a random localized version of the Quantity Theory of Money holds provided the economy is not trapped in a liquidity hole. The traditional theory of comparative advantages, however, turns out to be challenged by international capital mobility.Currency, cash, liquidity, monetary policy, money, international trade, quantity theory of money, transition to equilibrium.

Automatic 3D seed location and orientation in CT images for prostate brachytherapy

International audienceIn prostate brachytherapy, the analysis of the 3D pose information of each individual implanted seed is one of the critical issues for dose calculation and procedure quality assessment. This paper addresses the development of an automatic image processing solution for the separation, localization and 3D orientation estimation of prostate seeds. This solution combines an initial detection of a set of seed candidates in CT images (using a thresholding and connected component method) with an orientation estimation using principal components analysis (PCA). The main originality of the work is the ability to classify the detected objects based on a priori intensity and volume information and to separate groups of seeds using a modified k-means method. Experiments were carried out on CT images of a phantom and a patient aiming to compare the proposed solution with manual segmentation or other previous work in terms of detection performance and calculation time

Fast multiclonal clusterization of V(D)J recombinations from high-throughput sequencing

International audienceBACKGROUND: V(D)J recombinations in lymphocytes are essential for immunological diversity. They are also usefulmarkers of pathologies. In leukemia, they are used to quantify the minimal residual disease duringpatient follow-up. However, the full breadth of lymphocyte diversity is not fully understood. RESULTS: We propose new algorithms that process high-throughput sequencing (HTS) data to extract unnamedV(D)J junctions and gather them into clones for quantification. This analysis is based on a seedheuristic and is fast and scalable because in the first phase, no alignment is performed with germlinedatabase sequences. The algorithms were applied to TR HTS data from a patient with acutelymphoblastic leukemia, and also on data simulating hypermutations. Our methods identified themain clone, as well as additional clones that were not identified with standard protocols. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed algorithms provide new insight into the analysis of high-troughput sequencing data forleukemia, and also to the quantitative assessment of any immunological profile. The methodsdescribed here are implemented in a C++ open-source program called Vidjil

Pitch-based carbon/nano-silicon composite, an efficient anode for Li-ion batteries

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Multi-loci diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia with high-throughput sequencing and bioinformatics analysis

International audienceHigh-throughput sequencing (HTS) is considered a technical revolution that has improved our knowledge of lymphoid and autoimmune diseases, changing our approach to leukaemia both at diagnosis and during follow-up. As part of an immunoglobulin/T cell receptor-based minimal residual disease (MRD) assessment of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia patients, we assessed the performance and feasibility of the replacement of the first steps of the approach based on DNA isolation and Sanger sequencing, using a HTS protocol combined with bioinformatics analysis and visualization using the Vidjil software. We prospectively analysed the diagnostic and relapse samples of 34 paediatric patients, thus identifying 125 leukaemic clones with recombinations on multiple loci (TRG, TRD, IGH and IGK), including Dd2/Dd3 and Intron/KDE rearrangements. Sequencing failures were halved (14% vs. 34%, P = 0.0007), enabling more patients to be monitored. Furthermore, more markers per patient could be monitored, reducing the probability of false negative MRD results. The whole analysis, from sample receipt to clinical validation, was shorter than our current diagnostic protocol, with equal resources. V(D)J recombination was successfully assigned by the software, even for unusual recombinations. This study emphasizes the progress that HTS with adapted bioinformatics tools can bring to the diagnosis of leukaemia patients

Purity distribution for generalized random Bures mixed states

We compute the distribution of the purity for random density matrices (i.e.random mixed states) in a large quantum system, distributed according to the Bures measure. The full distribution of the purity is computed using a mapping to random matrix theory and then a Coulomb gas method. We find three regimes that correspond to two phase transitions in the associated Coulomb gas. The first transition is characterized by an explosion of the third derivative on the left of the transition point. The second transition is of first order, it is characterized by the detachement of a single charge of the Coulomb gas. A key remark in this paper is that the random Bures states are closely related to the O(n) model for n=1. This actually led us to study "generalized Bures states" by keeping $n$ general instead of specializing to n=1

Fast multiclonal clusterization of V(D)J recombinations from high-throughput sequencing

International audienceBACKGROUND: V(D)J recombinations in lymphocytes are essential for immunological diversity. They are also usefulmarkers of pathologies. In leukemia, they are used to quantify the minimal residual disease duringpatient follow-up. However, the full breadth of lymphocyte diversity is not fully understood. RESULTS: We propose new algorithms that process high-throughput sequencing (HTS) data to extract unnamedV(D)J junctions and gather them into clones for quantification. This analysis is based on a seedheuristic and is fast and scalable because in the first phase, no alignment is performed with germlinedatabase sequences. The algorithms were applied to TR HTS data from a patient with acutelymphoblastic leukemia, and also on data simulating hypermutations. Our methods identified themain clone, as well as additional clones that were not identified with standard protocols. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed algorithms provide new insight into the analysis of high-troughput sequencing data forleukemia, and also to the quantitative assessment of any immunological profile. The methodsdescribed here are implemented in a C++ open-source program called Vidjil

A phylogenetic framework of the legume genus Aeschynomene for comparative genetic analysis of the Nod-dependent and Nod-independent symbioses

Background : Among semi-aquatic species of the legume genus Aeschynomene, some have the property of being nodulated by photosynthetic Bradyrhizobium lacking the nodABC genes necessary for the synthesis of Nod factors. Knowledge of the specificities underlying this Nod-independent symbiosis has been gained from the model legume Aeschynomene evenia but our understanding remains limited due to the lack of comparative genetics with related taxa using a Nod factor-dependent process. To fill this gap, we combined different approaches to perform a thorough comparative analysis in the genus Aeschynomene. Results: This study significantly broadened previous taxon sampling, including in allied genera, in order to construct a comprehensive phylogeny. In the phylogenetic tree, five main lineages were delineated, including a novel lineage, the Nod-independent clade and another one containing a polytomy that comprised several Aeschynomene groups and all the allied genera. This phylogeny was matched with data on chromosome number, genome size and low-copy nuclear gene sequences to reveal the diploid species and a polytomy containing mostly polyploid taxa. For these taxa, a single allopolyploid origin was inferred and the putative parental lineages were identified. Finally, nodulation tests with different Bradyrhizobium strains revealed new nodulation behaviours and the diploid species outside of the Nod-independent clade were compared for their experimental tractability and genetic diversity. Conclusions: The extended knowledge of the genetics and biology of the different lineages sheds new light of the evolutionary history of the genus Aeschynomene and they provide a solid framework to exploit efficiently the diversity encountered in Aeschynomene legumes. Notably, our backbone tree contains all the species that are diploid and it clarifies the genetic relationships between the Nod-independent clade and the Nod-dependent lineages. This study enabled the identification of A. americana and A. patula as the most suitable species to undertake a comparative genetic study of the Nod-independent and Nod-dependent symbioses

Identification and pathogenicity of Alternaria species associated with leaf blotch disease and premature defoliation in French apple orchards

Leaf blotch caused by Alternaria spp. is a common disease in apple-producing regions. The disease is usually associated with one phylogenetic species and one species complex, Alternaria alternata and the Alternaria arborescens species complex (A. arborescens SC), respectively. Both taxa may include the Alternaria apple pathotype, a quarantine or regulated pathogen in several countries. The apple pathotype is characterized by the production of a host-selective toxin (HST) which is involved in pathogenicity towards the apple. A cluster of genes located on conditionally dispensable chromosomes (CDCs) is involved in the production of this HST (namely AMT in the case of the apple pathotype). Since 2016, leaf blotch and premature tree defoliation attributed to Alternaria spp. have been observed in apple-producing regions of central and south-eastern France. Our study aimed to identify the Alternaria species involved in apple tree defoliation and assess the presence of the apple pathotype in French orchards. From 2016 to 2018, 166 isolates were collected and identified by multi-locus sequence typing (MLST). This analysis revealed that all these French isolates belonged to either the A. arborescens SC or A. alternata. Specific PCR detection targeting three genes located on the CDC did not indicate the presence of the apple pathotype in France. Pathogenicity was assessed under laboratory conditions on detached leaves of Golden Delicious and Gala apple cultivars for a representative subset of 28 Alternaria isolates. All the tested isolates were pathogenic on detached leaves of cultivars Golden Delicious and Gala, but no differences were observed between the pathogenicity levels of A. arborescens SC and A. alternata. However, the results of our pathogenicity test suggest that cultivar Golden Delicious is more susceptible than Gala to Alternaria leaf blotch. Implications in the detection of the Alternaria apple pathotype and the taxonomic assignment of Alternaria isolates involved in Alternaria leaf blotch are discussed

Measurement of the B0-anti-B0-Oscillation Frequency with Inclusive Dilepton Events

The $B^0$-$\bar B^0$ oscillation frequency has been measured with a sample of 23 million \B\bar B pairs collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II asymmetric B Factory at SLAC. In this sample, we select events in which both B mesons decay semileptonically and use the charge of the leptons to identify the flavor of each B meson. A simultaneous fit to the decay time difference distributions for opposite- and same-sign dilepton events gives $\Delta m_d = 0.493 \pm 0.012{(stat)}\pm 0.009{(syst)}$ ps$^{-1}$.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, submitted to Physical Review Letter