404 research outputs found
On the Floquet Theory of Delay Differential Equations
We present an analytical approach to deal with nonlinear delay differential
equations close to instabilities of time periodic reference states. To this end
we start with approximately determining such reference states by extending the
Poincar'e Lindstedt and the Shohat expansions which were originally developed
for ordinary differential equations. Then we systematically elaborate a linear
stability analysis around a time periodic reference state. This allows to
approximately calculate the Floquet eigenvalues and their corresponding
eigensolutions by using matrix valued continued fractions
Les transferis intra-européens de main d’oeuvre qualifiée: difficultés conceptuelles pour le management
Au-delà de la reconnaissance des difficultés réelles inhérentes aux voyages
et Ă l’acclimatation Ă 1’étranger, les cadres qui travaillent en Europe rĂont pas
obtenu une reconnaissance managériale claire. Des phénomènes nouveaux, propres
au «cadre européen», ont peut-être pour origine la naissance de règles particulières
à 1’Union Européenne. Les directions de Ressources Humaines utilisent, en suivant
un raisonnement analogique, les outils de mesure utilisés pour la gestion des RH
en dimension nationale pour appréhender l’existence et les activités de cet
« euromanager ». Celui-ci existe-t-il? Est-il un concept réel et opérationnel pour
le management des ressources humaines à l’intemational? Comment doit-on
reposer la problématique de la gestion de ces «cadres européens» dès lors qu 'emerge
une spécificité européenne en la matière? Telles sont les questions auxquelles les
auteurs proposent, en guise de réponse, quelques pistes de réflexion
Direct microcontact printing of oligonucleotides for biochip applications
BACKGROUND: A critical step in the fabrication of biochips is the controlled placement of probes molecules on solid surfaces. This is currently performed by sequential deposition of probes on a target surface with split or solid pins. In this article, we present a cost-effective procedure namely microcontact printing using stamps, for a parallel deposition of probes applicable for manufacturing biochips. RESULTS: Contrary to a previous work, we showed that the stamps tailored with an elastomeric poly(dimethylsiloxane) material did not require any surface modification to be able to adsorb oligonucleotides or PCR products. The adsorbed DNA molecules are subsequently printed efficiently on a target surface with high sub-micron resolution. Secondly, we showed that successive stamping is characterized by an exponential decay of the amount of transferred DNA molecules to the surface up the 4(th )print, then followed by a second regime of transfer that was dependent on the contact time and which resulted in reduced quality of the features. Thus, while consecutive stamping was possible, this procedure turned out to be less reproducible and more time consuming than simply re-inking the stamps between each print. Thirdly, we showed that the hybridization signals on arrays made by microcontact printing were 5 to 10-times higher than those made by conventional spotting methods. Finally, we demonstrated the validity of this microcontact printing method in manufacturing oligonucleotides arrays for mutations recognition in a yeast gene. CONCLUSION: The microcontact printing can be considered as a new potential technology platform to pattern DNA microarrays that may have significant advantages over the conventional spotting technologies as it is easy to implement, it uses low cost material to make the stamp, and the arrays made by this technology are 10-times more sensitive in term of hybridization signals than those manufactured by conventional spotting technology
Geometric Friction Directs Cell Migration
In the absence of environmental cues, a migrating cell performs an isotropic random motion. Recently, the breaking of this isotropy has been observed when cells move in the presence of asymmetric adhesive patterns. However, up to now the mechanisms at work to direct cell migration in such environments remain unknown. Here, we show that a nonadhesive surface with asymmetric microgeometry consisting of dense arrays of tilted micropillars can direct cell motion. Our analysis reveals that most features of cell trajectories, including the bias, can be reproduced by a simple model of active Brownian particle in a ratchet potential, which we suggest originates from a generic elastic interaction of the cell body with the environment. The observed guiding effect, independent of adhesion, is therefore robust and could be used to direct cell migration both in vitro and in vivo
Spatiotemporal communication with synchronized optical chaos
We propose a model system that allows communication of spatiotemporal
information using an optical chaotic carrier waveform. The system is based on
broad-area nonlinear optical ring cavities, which exhibit spatiotemporal chaos
in a wide parameter range. Message recovery is possible through chaotic
synchronization between transmitter and receiver. Numerical simulations
demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed scheme, and the benefit of the
parallelism of information transfer with optical wavefronts.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
Experimental observation of spatial antibunching of photons
We report an interference experiment that shows transverse spatial
antibunching of photons. Using collinear parametric down-conversion in a
Young-type fourth-order interference setup we show interference patterns that
violate the classical Schwarz inequality and should not exist at all in a
classical description.Comment: 4 pages, 7 figure
Generalized Totalizer Encoding for Pseudo-Boolean Constraints
Pseudo-Boolean constraints, also known as 0-1 Integer Linear Constraints, are
used to model many real-world problems. A common approach to solve these
constraints is to encode them into a SAT formula. The runtime of the SAT solver
on such formula is sensitive to the manner in which the given pseudo-Boolean
constraints are encoded. In this paper, we propose generalized Totalizer
encoding (GTE), which is an arc-consistency preserving extension of the
Totalizer encoding to pseudo-Boolean constraints. Unlike some other encodings,
the number of auxiliary variables required for GTE does not depend on the
magnitudes of the coefficients. Instead, it depends on the number of distinct
combinations of these coefficients. We show the superiority of GTE with respect
to other encodings when large pseudo-Boolean constraints have low number of
distinct coefficients. Our experimental results also show that GTE remains
competitive even when the pseudo-Boolean constraints do not have this
characteristic.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables. To be published in 21st International
Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming 201
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