Geotextile reinforced strip footing: numerical modeling and analysis

This paper aims to evaluate the impact of geotextile used on strip footing settlement and bearing capacity in sandy soil. Comparing reinforced and unreinforced soil foundations required numerical analysis. To determine their influence on the footing bearing capacity, the stiffness, number, and spacing of reinforcing layers were investigated parametrically using the validated numerical model. The failure stage in the sand was simulated using the Mohr-Coulomb criterion and a non-associated flow rule. The results showed that the geotextile could improve the footing’s bearing capacity and reduce settlement. Finally, a comparison between the previously published experimental findings and the numerical results of this study showed good agreement.(undefined

The Host Protein Aquaporin-9 is Required for Efficient Plasmodium falciparum Sporozoite Entry into Human Hepatocytes

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The Host Protein Aquaporin-9 is Required for Efficient Plasmodium falciparum Sporozoite Entry into Human Hepatocytes

International audienceHepatocyte invasion by Plasmodium sporozoites represents a promising target for innovative antimalarial therapy, but the molecular events mediating this process are still largely uncharacterized. We previously showed that Plasmodium falciparum sporozoite entry into hepatocytes strictly requires CD81. However, CD81-overexpressing human hepatoma cells remain refractory to P. falciparum infection, suggesting the existence of additional host factors necessary for sporozoite entry. Here, through differential transcriptomic analysis of human hepatocytes and hepatoma HepG2-CD81 cells, the transmembrane protein Aquaporin-9 (AQP9) was found to be among the most downregulated genes in hepatoma cells. RNA silencing showed that sporozoite invasion of hepatocytes requires AQP9 expression. AQP9 overexpression in hepatocytes increased their permissiveness to P. falciparum. Moreover, chemical disruption with the AQP9 inhibitor phloretin markedly inhibited hepatocyte infection. Our findings identify AQP9 as a novel host factor required for P. falciparum sporozoite hepatocyte-entry and indicate that AQP9 could be a potential therapeutic target

Evaluation of optimality in the fuzzy single machine scheduling problem including discounted costs

International audienceThe single machine scheduling problem has been often regarded as a simplified representation that contains many polynomial solvable cases. However, in real-world applications, the imprecision of data at the level of each job can be critical for the implementation of scheduling strategies. Therefore, the single machine scheduling problem with the weighted discounted sum of completion times is treated in this paper, where we assume that the processing times, weighting coefficients and discount factor are all described using trapezoidal fuzzy numbers. Our aim in this study is to elaborate adequate measures in the context of possibility theory for the assessment of the optimality of a fixed schedule. Two optimization approaches namely genetic algorithm and pattern search are proposed as computational tools for the validation of the obtained properties and results. The proposed approaches are experimented on the benchmark problem instances and a sensitivity analysis with respect to some configuration parameters is conducted. Modeling and resolution frameworks considered in this research offer promise to deal with optimality in the wide class of fuzzy scheduling problems, which is recognized to be a difficult task by both researchers and practitioners