Commentaire : Paradoxes d'une révolution ou Le temps des illusions

Commentair

Efficacy and safety of Privigen® in patients with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy: results of a prospective, single-arm, open-label Phase III study (the PRIMA study)

This prospective, multicenter, single-arm, open-label Phase III study aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of Privigen (R) (10% liquid human intravenous immunoglobulin [IVIG], stabilized with l-proline) in patients with chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP). Patients received one induction dose of Privigen (2g/kg body weight [bw]) and up to seven maintenance doses (1g/kg bw) at 3-week intervals. The primary efficacy endpoint was the responder rate at completion, defined as improvement of 1 point on the adjusted Inflammatory Neuropathy Cause and Treatment (INCAT) disability scale. The preset success criterion was the responder rate being 35%. Of the 31 screened patients, 28 patients were enrolled including 13 (46.4%) IVIG-pretreated patients. The overall responder rate at completion was 60.7% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 42.41%-76.43%). IVIG-pretreated patients demonstrated a higher responder rate than IVIG-naive patients (76.9% vs. 46.7%). The median (25%-75% quantile) INCAT score improved from 3.5 (3.0-4.5) points at baseline to 2.5 (1.0-3.0) points at completion, as did the mean (standard deviation [SD]) maximum grip strength (66.7 [37.24] kPa vs. 80.9 [31.06] kPa) and the median Medical Research Council sum score (67.0 [61.5-72.0] points vs. 75.5 [71.5-79.5] points). Of 108 adverse events (AEs; 0.417 AEs per infusion), 95 AEs (88.0%) were mild or moderate in intensity and resolved by the end of study. Two serious AEs of hemolysis were reported that resolved after discontinuation of treatment. Thus, Privigen provided efficacious and well-tolerated induction and maintenance treatment in patients with CIDP

Tests of achromatic phase shifters performed on the SYNAPSE test bench: a progress report

The achromatic phase shifter (APS) is a component of the Bracewell nulling interferometer studied in preparation for future space missions (viz. Darwin/TPF-I) focusing on spectroscopic study of Earth-like exo-planets. Several possible designs of such an optical subsystem exist. Four approaches were selected for further study. Thales Alenia Space developed a dielectric prism APS. A focus crossing APS prototype was developed by the OCA, Nice, France. A field reversal APS prototype was prepared by the MPIA in Heidelberg, Germany. Centre Spatial de Li\`ege develops a concept based on Fresnel's rhombs. This paper presents a progress report on the current work aiming at evaluating these prototypes on the SYNAPSE test bench at the Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale in Orsay, France

Electromodulated infrared spectroscopy of methanol electrooxidation on electrodispersed platinum electrodes: Enhancement of reactive intermediates

EMIRS spectra of the surface species resulting from methanol electrosorption on electrodispersed Pt were obtained by working under a wide range of experimental conditions, i.e. electrode roughness factor, methanol concentration and mean modulation potential. The intensity of the absorption band related to linearly adsorbed CO-species, COL, at ca. 2030–2080 cm−1 decreases on increasing the electrode roughness factor, a fact which is interpreted as a decrease in the CO adsorbate poisoning effect on electrodispersed Pt surfaces. As a consequence, under well-defined conditions, several bands are observed which might be assigned to adsorbed intermediates and reactive species. EMIRS also reveals a competition between COB and COL at high surface coverages. Spectral data for methanol electrooxidation on electrodispersed electrodes correlate well with the expected structure of this type of electrode.Instituto de Investigaciones Fisicoquímicas Teóricas y AplicadasFacultad de Ciencias Exacta

Electromodulated infrared spectroscopy of methanol electrooxidation on electrodispersed platinum electrodes: Enhancement of reactive intermediates

EMIRS spectra of the surface species resulting from methanol electrosorption on electrodispersed Pt were obtained by working under a wide range of experimental conditions, i.e. electrode roughness factor, methanol concentration and mean modulation potential. The intensity of the absorption band related to linearly adsorbed CO-species, COL, at ca. 2030–2080 cm−1 decreases on increasing the electrode roughness factor, a fact which is interpreted as a decrease in the CO adsorbate poisoning effect on electrodispersed Pt surfaces. As a consequence, under well-defined conditions, several bands are observed which might be assigned to adsorbed intermediates and reactive species. EMIRS also reveals a competition between COB and COL at high surface coverages. Spectral data for methanol electrooxidation on electrodispersed electrodes correlate well with the expected structure of this type of electrode.Instituto de Investigaciones Fisicoquímicas Teóricas y AplicadasFacultad de Ciencias Exacta

Opto-thermo-mechanical numerical simulations of 3 different concepts of infrared achromatic phase shifters

The Darwin/TPF mission aims at detecting directly extra solar planets. It is based on the nulling interferometry, concept proposed by Bracewell in 1978, and developed since 1995 in several European and American laboratories. One of the key optical devices for this technique is the achromatic phase shifter (APS). This optical component is designed to produce a π phase shift over the whole Darwin spectral range (i.e. 6-18 μm), and will be experimentally tested on the NULLTIMATE consortium nulling test bench (Labèque et al). Three different concepts of APS are being simulated: dispersive plates focus crossing and field reversal. In this paper, we show how thermal, mechanical and optical models are merged into a single robust model, allowing a global numerical simulation of the optical component performances. We show how these simulations help us to optimizing the design and present results of the numerical model

A mean-field kinetic lattice gas model of electrochemical cells

We develop Electrochemical Mean-Field Kinetic Equations (EMFKE) to simulate electrochemical cells. We start from a microscopic lattice-gas model with charged particles, and build mean-field kinetic equations following the lines of earlier work for neutral particles. We include the Poisson equation to account for the influence of the electric field on ion migration, and oxido-reduction processes on the electrode surfaces to allow for growth and dissolution. We confirm the viability of our approach by simulating (i) the electrochemical equilibrium at flat electrodes, which displays the correct charged double-layer, (ii) the growth kinetics of one-dimensional electrochemical cells during growth and dissolution, and (iii) electrochemical dendrites in two dimensions.Comment: 14 pages twocolumn, 17 figure

Photoelectrochemical water oxidation of GaP 1−x Sb x with a direct band gap of 1.65 eV for full spectrum solar energy harvesting

International audienceHydrogen produced using artificial photosynthesis, i.e. solar splitting of water, is a promising energy alternative to fossil fuels. Efficient solar water splitting demands a suitable band gap to absorb near full spectrum solar energy and a photoelectrode that is stable in strongly alkaline or acidic electrolytes. In this work, we demonstrate for the first time, a perfectly relaxed GaP0.67Sb0.33 monocrystalline alloy grown on a silicon substrate with a direct band gap of 1.65 eV by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) without any evidence of chemical disorder. Under one Sun illumination, the GaP0.67Sb0.33 photoanode with a 20 nm TiO2 protective layer and 8 nm Ni co-catalyst layer shows a photocurrent density of 4.82 mA cm−2 at 1.23 V and an onset potential of 0.35 V versus the reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) in 1.0 M KOH (pH = 14) aqueous solution. The photoanode yields an incident-photon-to-current efficiency (IPCE) of 67.1% over the visible range between wavelengths 400 nm to 650 nm. Moreover, the GaP0.67Sb0.33 photoanode was stable over 5 h without degradation of the photocurrent under strong alkaline conditions under continuous illumination at 1 V versus RHE. Importantly, the direct integration of the 1.65 eV GaP0.67 Sb0.33 on 1.1 eV silicon may pave the way for an ideal tandem photoelectrochemical system with a theoretical solar to hydrogen efficiency of 27%

Bioinformatic analysis of ESTs collected by Sanger and pyrosequencing methods for a keystone forest tree species: oak

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Fagaceae family comprises about 1,000 woody species worldwide. About half belong to the <it>Quercus </it>family. These oaks are often a source of raw material for biomass wood and fiber. Pedunculate and sessile oaks, are among the most important deciduous forest tree species in Europe. Despite their ecological and economical importance, very few genomic resources have yet been generated for these species. Here, we describe the development of an EST catalogue that will support ecosystem genomics studies, where geneticists, ecophysiologists, molecular biologists and ecologists join their efforts for understanding, monitoring and predicting functional genetic diversity.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We generated 145,827 sequence reads from 20 cDNA libraries using the Sanger method. Unexploitable chromatograms and quality checking lead us to eliminate 19,941 sequences. Finally a total of 125,925 ESTs were retained from 111,361 cDNA clones. Pyrosequencing was also conducted for 14 libraries, generating 1,948,579 reads, from which 370,566 sequences (19.0%) were eliminated, resulting in 1,578,192 sequences. Following clustering and assembly using TGICL pipeline, 1,704,117 EST sequences collapsed into 69,154 tentative contigs and 153,517 singletons, providing 222,671 non-redundant sequences (including alternative transcripts). We also assembled the sequences using MIRA and PartiGene software and compared the three unigene sets. Gene ontology annotation was then assigned to 29,303 unigene elements. Blast search against the SWISS-PROT database revealed putative homologs for 32,810 (14.7%) unigene elements, but more extensive search with Pfam, Refseq_protein, Refseq_RNA and eight gene indices revealed homology for 67.4% of them. The EST catalogue was examined for putative homologs of candidate genes involved in bud phenology, cuticle formation, phenylpropanoids biosynthesis and cell wall formation. Our results suggest a good coverage of genes involved in these traits. Comparative orthologous sequences (COS) with other plant gene models were identified and allow to unravel the oak paleo-history. Simple sequence repeats (SSRs) and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were searched, resulting in 52,834 SSRs and 36,411 SNPs. All of these are available through the Oak Contig Browser <url>http://genotoul-contigbrowser.toulouse.inra.fr:9092/Quercus_robur/index.html</url>.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This genomic resource provides a unique tool to discover genes of interest, study the oak transcriptome, and develop new markers to investigate functional diversity in natural populations.</p

Electromodulated infrared spectroscopy of methanol electrooxidation on electrodispersed platinum electrodes: Enhancement of reactive intermediates

EMIRS spectra of the surface species resulting from methanol electrosorption on electrodispersed Pt were obtained by working under a wide range of experimental conditions, i.e. electrode roughness factor, methanol concentration and mean modulation potential. The intensity of the absorption band related to linearly adsorbed CO-species, COL, at ca. 2030–2080 cm−1 decreases on increasing the electrode roughness factor, a fact which is interpreted as a decrease in the CO adsorbate poisoning effect on electrodispersed Pt surfaces. As a consequence, under well-defined conditions, several bands are observed which might be assigned to adsorbed intermediates and reactive species. EMIRS also reveals a competition between COB and COL at high surface coverages. Spectral data for methanol electrooxidation on electrodispersed electrodes correlate well with the expected structure of this type of electrode.Instituto de Investigaciones Fisicoquímicas Teóricas y AplicadasFacultad de Ciencias Exacta