Evidence, Mechanisms and Improved Understanding of Controlled Salinity Waterflooding Part 1 : Sandstones

Acknowledgements TOTAL are thanked for partial supporting Jackson through the TOTAL Chairs programme at Imperial College London, for supporting Vinogradov through the TOTAL Laboratory for Reservoir Physics at Imperial College London, and for granting permission to publish this work.Peer reviewedPostprin

New dry friction model with load- and velocity- dependence and dynamic identification of multi-dof robots

International audience— Usually, the joint transmission friction model for robots is composed of a viscous friction force and of a constant dry sliding friction force. However, according to the Coulomb law, the dry friction force depends linearly on the load driven by the transmission, which has to be taken into account for robots working with large variation of the payload or inertial and gravity forces. Moreover, for robots actuating at low velocity, the Stribeck effect must be taken into account. This paper proposes a new inverse dynamic identification model for n degrees of freedom (dof) serial robot, where the dry sliding friction force is a linear function of both the dynamic and the external forces, with a velocity-dependent coefficient. A new sequential identification procedure is carried out. At a first step, the friction model parameters are identified for each joint (1 dof), moving one joint at a time (this step has been validated in [23]). At a second step, these values are fixed in the n dof dynamic model for the identification of all robot inertial and gravity parameters. For the two steps, the identification concatenates all the joint data collected while the robot is tracking planned trajectories with different payloads to get a global least squares estimation of inertial and new friction parameters. An experimental validation is carried out with an industrial 3 dof robot

A Child with Resistance to Thyroid Hormone without Thyroid Hormone Receptor Gene Mutation: A 20-Year Follow-Up

We report here the 20-year follow-up study of a male subject diagnosed at 15 months of age as a sporadic case of pituitary resistance to thyroid hormone on the combination of clinical hyperthyroidism, elevated serum thyroid hormone (TH) levels and inappropriate thyrotropin (TSH). On d-thyroxine (D-T4) therapy from 30 months of age to 12.5 years, hyperactivity and hyperthyroid signs and symptoms as well as growth abnormalities improved, serum l-thyroxine (L-T4) enantiomer normalized, and basal and stimulated TSH decreased significantly without complete suppression. After 8 years off D-T4, at 20 years of age, clinical status was normal despite persisting high TH levels and inappropriate TSH. Evolution of serum markers of TH action and echocardiography measurements followed up from 15 months to 20 years of age either in basal condition or on triiodothyronine (T3), as well as the sequential determination of bone mineral density suggest differences in the tissue responses to T3: normal in bone with a high remodelling rate, heterogeneity for various hepatic markers, and decreased at heart level. No mutations were found in the coding sequence of TRβ1, TRβ2, TRα1, RXRγ, SMRT, NCoR1, and NCoA1. In this patient the putative long-term effects of the persisting high bone resorption are unknown

The Vertical Distribution of some West African Mosquitoes (Diptera,Culicidae) Over Open Farmland in a Freshwater Area of the Gambia

Mosquitoes flying at low levels over open farmland were sampled by means of electrical suction traps. These were set up at nine levels from ground level up to 6 m. From the vertical profiles obtained it was possible to recognise three patterns of behaviour: (1) a low-flying group with relatively very high densities below 1 m, comprising Mansonia (Mansonioides) spp., Aedes spp. and some species of Anopheles; (2) an intermediate group with densities rather evenly distributed at the lower levels but declining above 2-4 m, comprising A. funestus Giles, A. gambiae Giles and Culex neavei Theo.; (3) a high-flying group with catches at 6 m greater, or much greater, than at 1 m, composed of C. antennatus (Becfcer),C. thalassius Theo. and C. poicilipes (Theo.). For all species, catches after 23.00 h showed an increase in the proportion of mosquitoes taken in traps at the lower levels, this being most marked at ground level and 0-5 m. No influence of either moonlight or wind speed could be detected to account for this. Biting catches on human baits showed a generally similar pattern to suction-trap catches, although differences between baits at 1-m intervals at the higher levels were less than with unbaited traps

L'amélioration des plantes tropicales

L'amélioration des plantes a connu au cours des dix dernières années une évolution rapide. D'une part, elle bénéficie désormais des outils biotechnologiques d'exploitation des ressources génétiques et de création de variétés, qui viennent enrichir les méthodes classiques de sélection. D'autre part, elle doit répondre à de nouvelles attentes : gérer la biodiversité et concourir à une agriculture durable. Cet ouvrage présente les derniers progrès réalisés en amélioration des plantes tropicales. Il se fonde principalement sur les travaux que les équipes françaises du CIRAD et de l'ORSTOM conduisent en collaboration avec leurs homologues des pays tropicaux. Il comprend vingt-quatre chapitres, chacun étant consacré à une culture et rédigé par des spécialistes de la génétique et de la sélection de l'espèce. Pour chaque plante ou groupe de plantes, les auteurs analysent la diversité des formes cultivées et leurs relations avec les espèces sauvages apparentées. Ils décrivent les méthodes d'amélioration et les apports des biotechnologies dans la pratique du sélectionneur. Ils examinent les progrès génétiques réalisés en partant d'exemples tirés des programmes de création variétale. Enfin ils traitent de la diffusion des variétés améliorées. Cet ouvrage de référence s'adresse au chercheur, à l'enseignant, à l'étudiant comme au professionnel de la sélection. (Résumé d'auteur