What Sound Reveals To Our Eyes: The Intersection Between Subconscious Thought and Real Imagery in Experimental Film and Sound Design

The impetus for making films that conjure up atemporal, interconnected spaces suggestive of a unique reality has been influenced in large part by Michel Foucault’s idea of heterotopia, or the creation of a new world by joining together discursive spaces. As such, my practice begins with the collection and re-imagination of these discursive spaces through a combination of an in-depth exploration of little-known landscapes and the organic observation of the natural realm in relation to the human world. By combining various mixed media including digital, film print, as well as re-purposed archival footage, I alter the filmic quality of the images I have captured and researched to lend them a sense of other worldliness. Concurrently, I create a soundscape, composed of multi-layered field recordings and archival sounds, which are at once harmonious and reminiscent of nature, yet have a cacophonic and almost hyperreal quality. The result of the combination of image and sound is the manifestation of a reality that speaks to the relationship between humanity and the natural world

Flexibility in the receptor-binding domain of the enzymatic colicin E9 is required for toxicity against Escherichia coli cells

The events that occur after the binding of the enzymatic E colicins to Escherichia coli BtuB receptors that lead to translocation of the cytotoxic domain into the periplasmic space and, ultimately, cell killing are poorly understood. It has been suggested that unfolding of the coiled-coil Mull receptor binding domain of the E colicins may be an essential step that leads to the loss of immunity protein from the colicin and immunity protein complex and then triggers the events of translocation. We introduced pairs of cysteine mutations into the receptor binding domain of colicin E9 (ColE9) that resulted in the formation of a disulfide bond located near the middle or the top of the R domain. After dithiothreitol reduction, the ColE9 protein with the mutations L359C and F412C (ColE9 L359C-F412C) and the ColE9 protein with the mutations Y324C and L447C (ColE9 Y324C-L447C) were slightly less active than equivalent concentrations of ColE9. On oxidation with diamide, no significant biological activity was seen with the ColE9 L359C-F412C and the ColE9 Y324C-L447C mutant proteins; however diamide had no effect on the activity of ColE9. The presence of a disulfide bond was confirmed in both of the oxidized, mutant proteins by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry. The loss of biological activity of the disulfide-containing mutant proteins was not due to an indirect effect on the properties of the translocation or DNase domains of the mutant colicins. The data are consistent with a requirement for the flexibility of the coiled-coil R domain after binding to BtuB

The ALADIN Interactive Sky Atlas

The Aladin interactive sky atlas, developed at CDS, is a service providing simultaneous access to digitized images of the sky, astronomical catalogues, and databases. The driving motivation is to facilitate direct, visual comparison of observational data at any wavelength with images of the optical sky, and with reference catalogues. The set of available sky images consists of the STScI Digitized Sky Surveys, completed with high resolution images of crowded regions scanned at the MAMA facility in Paris. A Java WWW interface to the system is available at: http://aladin.u-strasbg.fr/Comment: 8 pages, 3 Postscript figures; to be published in A&

Nuclear Ca2+ signalling in arbuscular mycorrhizal and actinorhizal endosymbioses: on the trail of novel underground signals

Root endosymbioses are beneficial associations formed between terrestrial plants and either bacterial or fungal micro-organisms. A common feature of these intracellular symbioses is the requirement for mutual recognition between the two partners before host-regulated microbial entry. As part of this molecular dialogue, symbiosis-specific microbial factors set in motion a highly conserved plant signal transduction pathway, of which a central component is the activation of sustained nuclear Ca2+ oscillations in target cells of the host epidermis. Here, we focus on recent findings concerning this crucial Ca2+-dependent signalling step for endosymbiotic associations involving either arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi or nitrogen-fixing Frankia actinomycetes, and in particular how this knowledge is contributing to the identification of the respective microbial factors

Parameter Optimization in Groundwater using Proper Orthogonal Decomposition as a Reduced Modeling Technique

http://www.epsmso.gr/all_conf_index/abstracts/ic-scce_2012_abs054.pdfInternational audienceThis paper deals with different approaches of applying Proper Orthogonal Decomposition in the field of groundwater flow, specifically the Richards equation, which is a convection-diffusion partial differential equation governing the behaviour of unsaturated fluid flow through a porous medium. The motivation for this research is the need to reduce computational complexity in inverse modelling studies, where a significant number of simulations are needed to determine suitable model parameters. Three different methods of implementing Proper Orthogonal Decomposition are explored. The first method is the Petrov-Galerkin method, a method well suited to speeding up linear problems. The second method is a "Hybrid" method, and proposes a linearization of all non-linear functions, building upon the Petrov-Galerkin approach. As such, it is suitable for use in the non-saturated groundwater zone. The third method combines the use of kriging and Proper Orthogonal to create a non-intrusive model for comparison purposes. With these three methods, the suitability of Proper Orthogonal as a reduced modelling method for unsaturated groundwater flow is shown

Finite capacity planning algorithm for semiconductor industry considering lots priority

International audienceA finite capacity planning heuristic is developed for semiconductor manufacturing with high-mix low-volume production, complex processes, variable cycle times and reentrant flows characteristics. The proposed algorithm projects production lots trajectories (start and end dates) for the remaining process steps, estimates the expected load for all machines and balances the workload against bottleneck tools capacities. It takes into account lots' priorities, cycle time variability and equipment saturation. This algorithm helps plant management to define feasible target production plans. It is programmed in java, and tested on real data instances from STMicroelectronics Crolles300 production plant which allowed its assessment on the effectiveness and efficiency. The evaluation demonstrates that the proposed heuristic outperforms current practices for capacity planning and opens new perspectives for the production line management

Lactate dehydrogenase as a marker of Plasmodium infection in malaria vector Anopheles

Lactate dehydrogenase (Ldh) electrophoresis showed the presence of #Plasmodium yoelii yoelii in #Anopheles stephensi and #An. gambiae. The Ldh appeared as an additional band (pLdh) whose activity was more intense with 3-acetyl pyridine adenine dinucleotide as coenzyme than with beta nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide. Several allelic forms occurred both in the vector and the host. The isoelectric point of Ldh, similar in the vector and host, differed from those of Ldh from mosquito and mouse. The presence of pLdh was detected from the 2nd to the 28th day of infection. The pLdh appeared to be proportional to the number of sporozoites present in infected salivary glands. However, pLdh was not found in salivary glands or midguts, but it was detected in the rest of the corresponding mosquito. The origin and use of pLdh as a marker of #Plasmodium in its vector is discussed. (Résumé d'auteur

Three osculating walkers

We consider three directed walkers on the square lattice, which move simultaneously at each tick of a clock and never cross. Their trajectories form a non-crossing configuration of walks. This configuration is said to be osculating if the walkers never share an edge, and vicious (or: non-intersecting) if they never meet. We give a closed form expression for the generating function of osculating configurations starting from prescribed points. This generating function turns out to be algebraic. We also relate the enumeration of osculating configurations with prescribed starting and ending points to the (better understood) enumeration of non-intersecting configurations. Our method is based on a step by step decomposition of osculating configurations, and on the solution of the functional equation provided by this decomposition

Biological Exploration of Immunoallergic Events at the Pasteur Institute of Côte d’Ivoire

Introduction : The Immunology Laboratory at the Pasteur Institute of Côte d\u27Ivoire (IPCI) provides the diagnosis of many diseases including immuno-allergic diseases. This study aimed to indicate the various biological tests used in the diagnosis of immuno-allergic diseases. Patients and methods: This was a retrospective study from 2012 to 2014with 113 patients. Multi allergenic specific IgE Test, ALL ONZE and ALL CHECK and automated assay VIDAS systemfor total IgE were used on sera of patients. Results: Private and public hospitals provided all the patients. The clinical manifestations were mostly skin,respiratory and ENT diseases (76,10%) .About 65,48 % of patients were aged 3 to 45 years. Pneumallergens occupied the first place,followed by dust cockroaches ,moulds, and pollens.Conclusion: It is necessary to advocate epidemiological investigation on a large scale following the U.S. and Europe investigation models to screen local allergens

Does structured counselling influence combined hormonal contraceptive choice?

Objective To assess the effect of structured counselling on women's contraceptive decisions and to evaluate gynaecologists' perceptions of comprehensive contraceptive counselling. Methods Belgian women (18-40 years old) who were considering using a combined hormonal contraceptive (CHC) were counselled by their gynaecologists about available CHCs (combined oral contraceptive [COC], transdermal patch, vaginal ring), using a comprehensive leaflet. Patients and gynaecologists completed questionnaires that gathered information on the woman's pre- and post-counselling contraceptive choice, her perceptions, and the reasons behind her post-counselling decision. Results The gynaecologists (N = 121) enrolled 1801 eligible women. Nearly all women (94%) were able to choose a method after counselling (53%, 5%, and 27% chose the COC, the patch, and the ring, respectively). Counselling made many women (39%) select a different method: patch use increased from 3% to 5% (p < 0.0001); ring use tripled (from 9% to 27%, p < 0.0001). Women who were undecided before counselling most often opted for the method their gynaecologist recommended, irrespective of counselling. Conclusion Counselling allows most women to select a contraceptive method; a sizeable proportion of them decide on a method different from the one they initially had in mind. Gynaecologists' preferences influenced the contraceptive choices of women who were initially undecided regarding the method to use