Purchasing power parity and cultural convergence: evidence from the global video games market

Purchasing power parity, Video games, Cultural convergence, Z10, F31,

Artificial Photosynthesis: An Approach for a Sustainable Future

International audienceThe energy needs of humankind has experimented a sharp increase since the beginning of the Anthropocene due to a large increase in population and the evolution of our society’s lifestyle. Recent projections suggest that it will likely lead to a major crisis due to environmental issues associated with the increasing use of fossil fuel as major energy source, as well as due to a rapid dwindling of the classical and easily accessible fossil-fuels stocks. These issues require a quick response if the lifestyle adopted by our societies shall be sustained. Several solutions have been envisioned to tackle these problems, of which, the development of Artificial Photosynthetic systems is one of the most appealing. The field of artificial photosynthesis takes Nature itself as a source of inspiration, to propose alternative energy harvesting and storage strategies. This field of research not only aims at mimicking the main processes that permitted photosynthetic organisms to thrive and become the most successful autotrophs on earth, but as well at improving and optimizing these processes using synthetic materials. In this chapter, the underlying mechanisms that enable photosynthetic organisms to convert (and store) solar energy into a directly usable chemical energy will be discussed. Then it will be explained how these concepts can be extended to artificial systems and ultimately used to our own benefit

Biological and epidemiological consequences of MTBC diversity

Tuberculosis is caused by different groups of bacteria belonging to the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC). The combined action of human factors, environmental conditions and bacterial virulence determine the extent and form of human disease. MTBC virulence is a composite of different clinical phenotypes such as transmission rate and disease severity among others. Clinical phenotypes are also influenced by cellular and immunological phenotypes. MTBC phenotypes are determined by the genotype, therefore finding genotypes responsible for clinical phenotypes would allow discovering MTBC virulence factors. Different MTBC strains display different cellular and clinical phenotypes. Strains from Lineage 5 and Lineage 6 are metabolically different, grow slower, and are less virulent. Also, at least certain groups of Lineage 2 and Lineage 4 strains are more virulent in terms of disease severity and human-to-human transmission. Because phenotypic differences are ultimately caused by genotypic differences, different genomic loci have been related to various cellular and clinical phenotypes. However, defining the impact of specific bacterial genomic loci on virulence when other bacterial determinants, human and environmental factors are also impacting the phenotype would contribute to a better knowledge of tuberculosis virulence and ultimately benefit tuberculosis control