Information Flow in the White Matter During a Motor Task: A Structural Connectivity Driven Approach

International audienceCognitive tasks emerge from the interaction of functionally specialized cortical regions (Verhagen et al. 2013). These interactions are supported by information flow through white matter fiber bundles connecting distant cortical regions. Estimating the information flow through white matter fiber bundles would therefore provide valuable information into the necessary cortical interactions to realize a task.In this work, we build a Bayesian network representing cortical regions and their connections using a structural connectivity driven parcellation (Gallardo et al., 2016) derived from diffusion MRI (dMRI). We then introduce Magnetoencephalography (MEG) measurements as evidence into this network to infer the information flow between cortical regions (Deslauriers-Gauthier et al., 2016). We show, for the first time, results on the interaction between the precentral, postcentral and occipital regions during a hand-movement task

Récupération d'Energie Biomécanique et Systèmes Autonomes

National audienceLa récupération d'énergie (Energy Harvesting) est une thématique en plein essor visant à utiliser l'énergie ambiante (lumière, vibrations, gradients thermiques) présente dans l'environnement direct de dispositifs électroniques (capteurs, équipements mobiles) pour les alimenter, de façon à prolonger leur durée de fonctionnement, voire à les rendre totalement autonomes. La récupération d'énergie est généralement mise en œuvre pour alimenter de petits systèmes électroniques tels que des capteurs autonomes communicants pour le transport, l'industrie ou l'habitat du fait des puissances récupérées assez faibles; appliquée au cas de l'Homme, la récupération d'énergie peut atteindre des puissances de plusieurs milliwatts voire de plusieurs watts permettant d'alimenter des systèmes plus complexes tels que des lecteurs MP3, des téléphones portables ou des systèmes de localisation GPS. De nombreuses sources d'énergie présentes dans l'environnement de l'Homme peuvent être exploitées: le soleil, le gradient thermique entre la peau et l'extérieur, la déformation des vêtements, les contraintes dans les chaussures... . Cet article se focalise plus particulièrement sur la récupération d'énergie mécanique issue du corps humain et présente des exemples de dispositifs et d'applications issus de l'état de l'art montrant que la récupération d'énergie est déjà une réalité; et qu'elle permettra sur le plus long terme d'alimenter des dispositifs placés directement à l'intérieur du corps humain tels que des implants médicaux ou des pacemakers

Open data from the third observing run of LIGO, Virgo, KAGRA, and GEO

The global network of gravitational-wave observatories now includes five detectors, namely LIGO Hanford, LIGO Livingston, Virgo, KAGRA, and GEO 600. These detectors collected data during their third observing run, O3, composed of three phases: O3a starting in 2019 April and lasting six months, O3b starting in 2019 November and lasting five months, and O3GK starting in 2020 April and lasting two weeks. In this paper we describe these data and various other science products that can be freely accessed through the Gravitational Wave Open Science Center at https://gwosc.org. The main data set, consisting of the gravitational-wave strain time series that contains the astrophysical signals, is released together with supporting data useful for their analysis and documentation, tutorials, as well as analysis software packages

Search for eccentric black hole coalescences during the third observing run of LIGO and Virgo

Despite the growing number of confident binary black hole coalescences observed through gravitational waves so far, the astrophysical origin of these binaries remains uncertain. Orbital eccentricity is one of the clearest tracers of binary formation channels. Identifying binary eccentricity, however, remains challenging due to the limited availability of gravitational waveforms that include effects of eccentricity. Here, we present observational results for a waveform-independent search sensitive to eccentric black hole coalescences, covering the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We identified no new high-significance candidates beyond those that were already identified with searches focusing on quasi-circular binaries. We determine the sensitivity of our search to high-mass (total mass M>70 M⊙) binaries covering eccentricities up to 0.3 at 15 Hz orbital frequency, and use this to compare model predictions to search results. Assuming all detections are indeed quasi-circular, for our fiducial population model, we place an upper limit for the merger rate density of high-mass binaries with eccentricities 0<e≤0.3 at 0.33 Gpc−3 yr−1 at 90\% confidence level

Ultralight vector dark matter search using data from the KAGRA O3GK run

Among the various candidates for dark matter (DM), ultralight vector DM can be probed by laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors through the measurement of oscillating length changes in the arm cavities. In this context, KAGRA has a unique feature due to differing compositions of its mirrors, enhancing the signal of vector DM in the length change in the auxiliary channels. Here we present the result of a search for U(1)B−L gauge boson DM using the KAGRA data from auxiliary length channels during the first joint observation run together with GEO600. By applying our search pipeline, which takes into account the stochastic nature of ultralight DM, upper bounds on the coupling strength between the U(1)B−L gauge boson and ordinary matter are obtained for a range of DM masses. While our constraints are less stringent than those derived from previous experiments, this study demonstrates the applicability of our method to the lower-mass vector DM search, which is made difficult in this measurement by the short observation time compared to the auto-correlation time scale of DM

A low power and efficient microcontroller-based extraction circuit for HVAC applications

International audienceIn this paper, we report a low power implementation of a Power Management Circuit (PMC) performed by means of a microcontroller unit (MCU) surrounded by discrete components. In the context of HVAC applications with the aim of converting rotational movements into electrical energy, a non-linear extraction technique is implemented by controlling a Flyback converter at the maximum voltage of a magnetoelectric harvester.Compared with the Standard Energy Harvesting (SEH) interface, a power gain up to 1.75 was measured at a frequency of 47 Hz and a Flyback efficiency up to 80% for an output power of 0.5 mW. This architecture contributes to increase the versatility of PMCs addressing lowly-coupled piezoelectric harvesters (PEHs)

Evaluation of the Antiviral Activity of Sephin1 Treatment and Its Consequences on eIF2α Phosphorylation in Response to Viral Infections

International audienceThe guanabenz derivative Sephin1 has recently been proposed to increase the levels of translation initiation factor 2 (eIF2α) phosphorylation by inhibiting dephosphorylation by the protein phosphatase 1—GADD34 (PPP1R15A) complex. As phosphorylation of eIF2α by protein kinase R (PKR) is a prominent cellular antiviral pathway, we evaluated the consequences of Sephin1 treatment on virus replication. Our results provide evidence that Sephin1 downregulates replication of human respiratory syncytial virus, measles virus, human adenovirus 5 virus, human enterovirus D68, human cytomegalovirus, and rabbit myxoma virus. However, Sephin1 proved to be inactive against influenza virus, as well as against Japanese encephalitis virus. Sephin1 increased the levels of phosphorylated eIF2α in cells exposed to a PKR agonist. By contrast, in virus-infected cells, the levels of phosphorylated eIF2α did not always correlate with the inhibition of virus replication by Sephin1. This work identifies Sephin1 as an antiviral molecule in cell culture against RNA, as well as DNA viruses belonging to phylogenetically distant families

Reverse engineering synthetic antiviral amyloids

Human amyloids have been shown to interact with viruses and interfere with viral replication. Based on this observation, we employed a synthetic biology approach in which we engineered virus-specific amyloids against influenza A and Zika proteins. Each amyloid shares a homologous aggregation-prone fragment with a specific viral target protein. For influenza we demonstrate that a designer amyloid against PB2 accumulates in influenza A-infected tissue in vivo. Moreover, this amyloid acts specifically against influenza A and its common PB2 polymorphisms, but not influenza B, which lacks the homologous fragment. Our model amyloid demonstrates that the sequence specificity of amyloid interactions has the capacity to tune amyloid-virus interactions while allowing for the flexibility to maintain activity on evolutionary diverging variants.status: publishe