The shape and mechanics of curved fold origami structures

We develop recursion equations to describe the three-dimensional shape of a sheet upon which a series of concentric curved folds have been inscribed. In the case of no stretching outside the fold, the three-dimensional shape of a single fold prescribes the shape of the entire origami structure. To better explore these structures, we derive continuum equations, valid in the limit of vanishing spacing between folds, to describe the smooth surface intersecting all the mountain folds. We find that this surface has negative Gaussian curvature with magnitude equal to the square of the fold's torsion. A series of open folds with constant fold angle generate a helicoid

Worship Contextualization in Seventh-day Adventist Ethnic Congregations in São Paulo

This article offers an example of Adventist ethnic churches in São Paulo. Next, it analyzes the contextualization of worship among those groups. Finally, it explores contextualization possibilities in the face of the growing missionary challenges in these urban contexts of cultural plurality. The data was collected in three ways: (1) exchange of e-mails with current pastors of nine contextual projects; (2) ethnographic observations in two of the contextual projects (the Korean church and the Chinese Adventist community of São Paulo) at the time of an internship in 2020; and (3) bibliographic review. The analysis and evaluation of the projects was based on the Institute of World Mission’s description of contextualized worship, which includes six aspects: architecture, music, prayer models, teaching initiatives, ways to show reverence, and types of meetings. Four more aspects were also added—language, pastor, objects for rites, and public (former religion), which were considered as equally relevant and important for the research

Three new bricks in the wall: Berkeley 23, Berkeley 31, and King 8

A comprehensive census of Galactic open cluster properties places unique constraints on the Galactic disc structure and evolution. In this framework we investigate the evolutionary status of three poorly-studied open clusters, Berkeley 31, Berkeley 23 and King 8, all located in the Galactic anti-centre direction. To this aim, we make use of deep LBT observations, reaching more than 6 mag below the main sequence Turn- Off. To determine the cluster parameters, namely age, metallicity, distance, reddening and binary fraction, we compare the observational colour-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) with a library of synthetic CMDs generated with different evolutionary sets (Padova, FRANEC and FST) and metallicities. We find that Berkeley 31 is relatively old, with an age between 2.3 and 2.9 Gyr, and rather high above the Galactic plane, at about 700 pc. Berkeley 23 and King 8 are younger, with best fitting ages in the range 1.1-1.3 Gyr and 0.8-1.3 Gyr, respectively. The position above the Galactic plane is about 500- 600 pc for the former, and 200 pc for the latter. Although a spectroscopic confirmation is needed, our analysis suggests a sub-solar metallicity for all three clusters.Comment: 17 Pages, Accepted for publication in MNRA

Sorting by weighted inversions considering length and symmetry

International audienceLarge-scale mutational events that occur when stretches of DNA sequence move throughout genomes are called genome rearrangements. In bacteria, inversions are one of the most frequently observed rearrangements. In some bacterial families, inversions are biased in favor of symmetry as shown by recent research. In addition, several results suggest that short segment inversions are more frequent in the evolution of microbial genomes. Despite the fact that symmetry and length of the reversed segments seem very important, they have not been considered together in any problem in the genome rearrangement field. Here, we define the problem of sorting genomes (or permutations) using inversions whose costs are assigned based on their lengths and asymmetries. We consider two formulations of the same problem depending on whether we know the orientation of the genes. Several procedures are presented and we assess these procedure performances on a large set of more than 4.4 × 10^9 permutations. The ideas presented in this paper provide insights to solve the problem and set the stage for a proper theoretical analysis

Automated search for galactic star clusters in large multiband surveys: I. Discovery of 15 new open clusters in the Galactic anticenter region

Aims: According to some estimations, there are as many as 100000 open clusters in the Galaxy, but less than 2000 of them have been discovered, measured, and cataloged. We plan to undertake data mining of multiwavelength surveys to find new star clusters. Methods: We have developed a new method to search automatically for star clusters in very large stellar catalogs, which is based on convolution with density functions. We have applied this method to a subset of the Two Micron All Sky Survey catalog toward the Galactic anticenter. We also developed a method to verify whether detected stellar groups are real star clusters, which tests whether the stars that form the spatial density peak also fall onto a single isochrone in the color-magnitude diagram. By fitting an isochrone to the data, we estimate at the same time the main physical parameters of a cluster: age, distance, color excess. Results: For the present paper, we carried out a detailed analysis of 88 overdensity peaks detected in a field of $16\times16$ degrees near the Galactic anticenter. From this analysis, 15 overdensities were confirmed to be new open clusters and the physical and structural parameters were determined for 12 of them; 10 of them were previously suspected to be open clusters by Kronberger (2006) and Froebrich (2007). The properties were also determined for 13 yet-unstudied known open clusters, thus almost tripling the sample of open clusters with studied parameters in the anticenter. The parameters determined with this method showed a good agreement with published data for a set of well-known clusters.Comment: accepted to A&

Enabling the UCD-SPH code on the Xeon Phi

11 pages, 10 figures, 9 references. Other author's papers can be downloaded at http://www.denys-dutykh.com/This white-paper reports on our efforts to enable an SPH-based Fortran code on the Intel Xeon Phi. As a result of the work described here , the two most computationally intensive subroutines (rates and shepard_beta) of the UCD-SPH code were refactored and parallelised with OpenMP for the first time, enabling the code to be executed on multi-core and many-core shared memory systems. This parallelisation achieved speedups of up to 4.3x for the rates subroutine and 6.0x for the shepard_beta subroutine resulting in overall speedups of up to 4.2x on a 2 processor Sandy Bridge Xeon E5 machine. The code was subsequently enabled and refactored to execute in different modes on the Intel Xeon Phi co-processor achieving speedups of up to 2.8x for the rates subroutine and up to 3.8x for the shepard_beta subroutine producing overall speedups of up to 2.7x compared to the original unoptimised code. To explore the capabilities of auto-vectorisation the shepard_beta subroutine was refactored which results in speedups of up to 6.4x for the shepard_beta subroutine relative to the original unoptimised version of the shepard_beta subroutine. The development and testing phases of the project were carried out on the PRACE EURORA machine

Infection with a Brazilian isolate of Zika virus generates RIG‐I stimulatory RNA and the viral NS5 protein blocks type I IFN induction and signalling

Zika virus (ZIKV) is a major public health concern in the Americas. We report that ZIKV infection and RNA extracted from ZIKV infected cells potently activated the induction of type I interferons (IFNs). This effect was fully dependent on the mitochondrial antiviral signalling protein (MAVS), implicating RIG‐I‐like receptors (RLRs) as upstream sensors of viral RNA. Indeed, RIG‐I and the related RNA sensor MDA5 contributed to type I IFN induction in response to RNA from infected cells. We found that ZIKV NS5 from a recent Brazilian isolate blocked type I IFN induction downstream of RLRs and also inhibited type I IFN receptor (IFNAR) signalling. We defined the ZIKV NS5 nuclear localization signal and report that NS5 nuclear localization was not required for inhibition of signalling downstream of IFNAR. Mechanistically, NS5 blocked IFNAR signalling by both leading to reduced levels of STAT2 and by blocking phosphorylation of STAT1, two transcription factors activated by type I IFNs. Taken together, our observations suggest that ZIKV infection induces a type I IFN response via RLRs and that ZIKV interferes with this response by blocking signalling downstream of RLRs and IFNAR

Ásia Central e seus desafios geoeconômicos perante o COVID-19

O presente artigo tem por objetivo apresentar os desafios geoeconômicos que irão se manifestar para a Ásia Central diante da recente instabilidade no mundo devido ao COVID-19. Deste modo, montamos um panorama acerca da situação pandêmica na região, e apontamos os principais elementos que funcionam como vetores geoeconômicos centro-asiáticos assim como os impactos que eles sofreram diante da recente crise mundial.     Cet article présente les enjeux géoéconomiques de l’Asie Centrale à la suite de l’instabilité mondiale provoquée par la Covid-19. Pour cela, on a ébauché un panorama de la situation pandémique dans la région, ainsi qu’on a identifié les principaux vecteurs géoéconomiques et ses enjeux devant la crise globale.This article aims to present the geoeconomic challenges in Central Asia face to the global instability caused by Covid-19. In this way, I provided an overview of the pandemics situation in that region, as well as the recognition of the main geoeconomic factors and its challenges vis-à-vis the world crisis.Este artículo tiene como objetivo presentar los desafíos geoeconómicos que se hace manifestado para Asia Central ante la reciente inestabilidad en el mundo debido al COVID-19. De este modo, presentamo un panorama sobre la situación pandémica en la región, y apuntamos los principales elementos que funcionan como vectores geoeconómicos centroamericanos así como los impactos que ellos sufrieron ante la reciente crisis mundial

New light on Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic projectile weapon elements / Eclairages actuels sur quelques armatures de projectiles paléo-, méso- et néolithiques

Article disponible en versions française et anglaise (traduction de M. O'Farrell)International audienceThis text is the introduction to the proceedings of the colloquium "Recherches sur les armatures de projectiles du Paléolithique supérieur au Néolithique / Research on projectile tips from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Neolithic" held September 7-8, 2006, within the 15th Congress of the IUPPS in Lisboa.Ce texte est l'introduction des actes du colloque "Recherches sur les armatures de projectiles du Paléolithique supérieur au Néolithique / Research on projectile tips from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Neolithic" qui se tint les 7 et 8 septembre 2006 dans le cadre du XVe congrès de l'UISPP à Lisbonne