Vernou-sur-Brenne – La butte aux trésors

Date de l'opération : 1986 (SU) Inventeur(s) : Raynaud F Dans le cadre de l'étude d'impact de la future ligne TGV Atlantique, une opération de sauvetage a été programmée en 1986 pour les parties de parcelles menacées au lieu-dit « La butte aux trésors », sur le territoire de la commune de Vernou sur Brenne (Raynaud, 1987). Malgré l'éloignement de la zone étudiée par rapport aux vestiges de la villa de « La butte aux trésors » attestés par photographie aérienne (Gallia, 1985 : 322), le décapa..

A minimal model for spontaneous cell polarization and edge activity in oscillating, rotating and migrating cells

How the cells break symmetry and organize their edge activity to move directionally is a fun- damental question in cell biology. Physical models of cell motility commonly rely on gradients of regulatory factors and/or feedback from the motion itself to describe polarization of edge activity. Theses approaches, however, fail to explain cell behavior prior to the onset of polarization. Our analysis using the model system of polarizing and moving fish epidermal keratocytes suggests a novel and simple principle of self-organization of cell activity in which local cell-edge dynamics depends on the distance from the cell center, but not on the orientation with respect to the front-back axis. We validate this principle with a stochastic model that faithfully reproduces a range of cell-migration behaviors. Our findings indicate that spontaneous polarization, persistent motion, and cell shape are emergent properties of the local cell-edge dynamics controlled by the distance from the cell center.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Intercellular ultrafast Ca(2+) wave in vascular smooth muscle cells: numerical and experimental study.

Vascular smooth muscle cells exhibit intercellular Ca(2+) waves in response to local mechanical or KCl stimulation. Recently, a new type of intercellular Ca(2+) wave was observed in vitro in a linear arrangement of smooth muscle cells. The intercellular wave was denominated ultrafast Ca(2+) wave and it was suggested to be the result of the interplay between membrane potential and Ca(2+) dynamics which depended on influx of extracellular Ca(2+), cell membrane depolarization and its intercel- lular propagation. In the present study we measured experimentally the conduction velocity of the membrane depolarization and performed simulations of the ultrafast Ca(2+) wave along coupled smooth muscle cells. Numerical results reproduced a wide spectrum of experimental observations, including Ca(2+) wave velocity, electrotonic membrane depolarization along the network, effects of inhibitors and independence of the Ca(2+) wave speed on the intracellular stores. The numerical data also provided new physiological insights suggesting ranges of crucial model parameters that may be altered experimentally and that could significantly affect wave kinetics allowing the modulation of the wave characteristics experimentally. Numerical and experimental results supported the hypothesis that the propagation of membrane depolarization acts as an intercellular messenger mediating intercellular ultrafast Ca(2+) waves in smooth muscle cells

Can we predict the duration of an interglacial?

Differences in the duration of interglacials have long been apparent in palaeoclimate records of the Late and Middle Pleistocene. However, a systematic evaluation of such differences has been hampered by the lack of a metric that can be applied consistently through time and by difficulties in separating the local from the global component in various proxies. This, in turn, means that a theoretical framework with predictive power for interglacial duration has remained elusive. Here we propose that the interval between the terminal oscillation of the bipolar seesaw and three thousand years (kyr) before its first major reactivation provides an estimate that approximates the length of the sea-level highstand, a measure of interglacial duration. We apply this concept to interglacials of the last 800 kyr by using a recently-constructed record of interhemispheric variability. The onset of interglacials occurs within 2 kyr of the boreal summer insolation maximum/precession minimum and is consistent with the canonical view of Milankovitch forcing pacing the broad timing of interglacials. Glacial inception always takes place when obliquity is decreasing and never after the obliquity minimum. The phasing of precession and obliquity appears to influence the persistence of interglacial conditions over one or two insolation peaks, leading to shorter (~ 13 kyr) and longer (~ 28 kyr) interglacials. Glacial inception occurs approximately 10 kyr after peak interglacial conditions in temperature and CO2, representing a characteristic timescale of interglacial decline. Second-order differences in duration may be a function of stochasticity in the climate system, or small variations in background climate state and the magnitude of feedbacks and mechanisms contributing to glacial inception, and as such, difficult to predict. On the other hand, the broad duration of an interglacial may be determined by the phasing of astronomical parameters and the history of insolation, rather than the instantaneous forcing strength at inception

Very low R/sub ON/ measured on 4H-SiC accu-MOSFET high power device

International audienceThis paper describes the I-V characteristics obtained from a 4H-SiC current limiting device. Some specific aspects of the specific on-resistance are discussed in simulation with the DESSIS ISE software. The device behaviors place it in the field of the best Implanted Channel MOSFET (IC-MOSFET) obtained in the literature. The best on-resistance measured is 13 mWcm 2 and the saturation current density reaches 900 Acm-2

Dynamics of cell shape inheritance in fission yeast.

Every cell has a characteristic shape key to its fate and function. That shape is not only the product of genetic design and of the physical and biochemical environment, but it is also subject to inheritance. However, the nature and contribution of cell shape inheritance to morphogenetic control is mostly ignored. Here, we investigate morphogenetic inheritance in the cylindrically-shaped fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe. Focusing on sixteen different 'curved' mutants--a class of mutants which often fail to grow axially straight--we quantitatively characterize their dynamics of cell shape inheritance throughout generations. We show that mutants of similar machineries display similar dynamics of cell shape inheritance, and exploit this feature to show that persistent axial cell growth in S. pombe is secured by multiple, separable molecular pathways. Finally, we find that one of those pathways corresponds to the swc2-swr1-vps71 SWR1/SRCAP chromatin remodelling complex, which acts additively to the known mal3-tip1-mto1-mto2 microtubule and tea1-tea2-tea4-pom1 polarity machineries.This is the published manuscript. It has been published by PLoS in PLoS ONE and is available online here: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0106959

Kalman filter design for atmospheric tip/tilt, tip/tilt anisoplanatism and focus filtering on extremely large telescopes

This paper discusses Kalman filter design to correct for atmospheric tip/tilt, tip/tilt anisoplanatism and focus disturbances in laser guide star multi-conjugate adaptive optics. Model identification, controller design and computation, command oversampling and disturbance rejection are discussed via time domain analysis and control performance evaluation. End-to-end high-fidelity sky-coverage simulations are presented by Wang and co-authors in a companion paper