Molecular Dynamics of HPMC/SDS Interactions

Hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) is a target polymer that has been found to be an efficient way to manipulate the release rate of the active pharmaceutical ingredient in a drug. Our goal is to use Molecular Dynamics (MD) to determine the interaction of HPMC with SDS over four locations GP2, GP6, GM2, and GM6. The surfactant is placed in an environment with HPMC where a water box is created. The overall goal is to generate results that will allow pharmaceutical companies to better select inactive ingredients in drugs reducing the side effects and essentially improving patient’s quality of life

The Conservation of Functional Uncertainty in Biological Proteins

Proteins are the molecules that make life possible. Protein sequences are random, by and large. This makes it challenging to infer component identity and functions, given partial information about a sequence. In this research, we observe a conservation principle of functional uncertainty at the amino acid sites. Significantly, functional uncertainty was found to be a conserved property across archetypal proteins and proteomes. Further, the information of at least 1000 proteins is required for uncertainty for maximum correlations and conservation. Just as important, we show how viral systems diverge from living in that they are not subject to functional uncertainty conservation

The influence of the financial crisis on the Moroccan economy

Overall GDP growth in Morocco slowed from 5.8% in 2008 to 1.5% in 2009, and then picked up slightly to 3.2% in 2010. However, the pace of recovery remains weak. Real GDP growth was just over 3% in both 2011 and 2012 and is expected to remain around the same level in 2013. The pace of growth has been especially slow in the non-agricultural sector where GDP declined by 1.9% in 2009. By sector, the contraction was primarily driven by reductions in investment in construction and a slowdown in activity in the service sector. As a result, employment in the non-agricultural sector fell by over 1 million during the financial crisis period, while unemployment increased from 7.6 in 2008 to 11.2% in 2010 and has remained above 10% since then. Meanwhile, Morocco's economy has suffered from many structural weaknesses that have held back its long-term development. These include a heavily statist industrial policy and a lack of financial sector reforms. Corruption has also taken a heavy toll on the economy, with the average household paying an estimated 650 per year in bribes. The country also continues to face significant challenges in addressing unemployment and social inequality, which are likely to continue to constrain economic growth in the years to come. In this article, we have tried to assess and examine the financial crisis and the economy at the national level through statistics. This paper aims to discuss the influence of the financial crisis on the Moroccan economy to stimulate knowledge development in the economic sector. It is based on an overview of the relevant literature on financial problems and their impact on the Moroccan economy with a perspective vision. The recommended research areas aim to advance the knowledge base to help the Moroccan economic sector recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and the financial crisis, by proposing recommendations and ways of improvement to reverse the harmful effects of the crisis. The proposed research areas should provide actionable information to promote the development and sustainability of the economic sector.   Keywords: economy, financial crisis, pandemic, economic growth, crisis, Brexit, GPD, COVID-19 JEL Classification: G01 Paper type: Theoretical ResearchOverall GDP growth in Morocco slowed from 5.8% in 2008 to 1.5% in 2009, and then picked up slightly to 3.2% in 2010. However, the pace of recovery remains weak. Real GDP growth was just over 3% in both 2011 and 2012 and is expected to remain around the same level in 2013. The pace of growth has been especially slow in the non-agricultural sector where GDP declined by 1.9% in 2009. By sector, the contraction was primarily driven by reductions in investment in construction and a slowdown in activity in the service sector. As a result, employment in the non-agricultural sector fell by over 1 million during the financial crisis period, while unemployment increased from 7.6 in 2008 to 11.2% in 2010 and has remained above 10% since then. Meanwhile, Morocco's economy has suffered from many structural weaknesses that have held back its long-term development. These include a heavily statist industrial policy and a lack of financial sector reforms. Corruption has also taken a heavy toll on the economy, with the average household paying an estimated 650 per year in bribes. The country also continues to face significant challenges in addressing unemployment and social inequality, which are likely to continue to constrain economic growth in the years to come. In this article, we have tried to assess and examine the financial crisis and the economy at the national level through statistics. This paper aims to discuss the influence of the financial crisis on the Moroccan economy to stimulate knowledge development in the economic sector. It is based on an overview of the relevant literature on financial problems and their impact on the Moroccan economy with a perspective vision. The recommended research areas aim to advance the knowledge base to help the Moroccan economic sector recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and the financial crisis, by proposing recommendations and ways of improvement to reverse the harmful effects of the crisis. The proposed research areas should provide actionable information to promote the development and sustainability of the economic sector.   Keywords: economy, financial crisis, pandemic, economic growth, crisis, Brexit, GPD, COVID-19 JEL Classification: G01 Paper type: Theoretical Researc

A Depth-Based Algorithm for Manipulating Deformable Objects Using Smooth Parametric Surfaces and Energy Minimisation

International audienceIn this brief work, we present a new method for controlling deformations of soft objects by using parametric surfaces as a new type of deformation feedback features. This new approach allows us to actively deform objects into complex 3D shapes. A kinematic-based motion controller is derived using an energy minimisation strategy

Vision-Based Control for Robots by a Fully Spiking Neural System Relying on Cerebellar Predictive Learning

The cerebellum plays a distinctive role within our motor control system to achieve fine and coordinated motions. While cerebellar lesions do not lead to a complete loss of motor functions, both action and perception are severally impacted. Hence, it is assumed that the cerebellum uses an internal forward model to provide anticipatory signals by learning from the error in sensory states. In some studies, it was demonstrated that the learning process relies on the joint-space error. However, this may not exist. This work proposes a novel fully spiking neural system that relies on a forward predictive learning by means of a cellular cerebellar model. The forward model is learnt thanks to the sensory feedback in task-space and it acts as a Smith predictor. The latter predicts sensory corrections in input to a differential mapping spiking neural network during a visual servoing task of a robot arm manipulator. In this paper, we promote the developed control system to achieve more accurate target reaching actions and reduce the motion execution time for the robotic reaching tasks thanks to the cerebellar predictive capabilities.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl

A Neurorobotic Embodiment for Exploring the Dynamical Interactions of a Spiking Cerebellar Model and a Robot Arm During Vision-based Manipulation Tasks

While the original goal for developing robots is replacing humans in dangerous and tedious tasks, the final target shall be completely mimicking the human cognitive and motor behaviour. Hence, building detailed computational models for the human brain is one of the reasonable ways to attain this. The cerebellum is one of the key players in our neural system to guarantee dexterous manipulation and coordinated movements as concluded from lesions in that region. Studies suggest that it acts as a forward model providing anticipatory corrections for the sensory signals based on observed discrepancies from the reference values. While most studies consider providing the teaching signal as error in joint-space, few studies consider the error in task-space and even fewer consider the spiking nature of the cerebellum on the cellular-level. In this study, a detailed cellular-level forward cerebellar model is developed, including modeling of Golgi and Basket cells which are usually neglected in previous studies. To preserve the biological features of the cerebellum in the developed model, a hyperparameter optimization method tunes the network accordingly. The efficiency and biological plausibility of the proposed cerebellar-based controller is then demonstrated under different robotic manipulation tasks reproducing motor behaviour observed in human reaching experiments