Behaviour of the clay cover of a site for storing nuclear waste of verylow activity submitted to differential settlement of underlying waste:laboratory and field bending tests

International audienceThe behaviour of the cover barrier of a site for storing nuclear waste of very low activity isstudied. The risk of a bending of the clay layer in case of differential settlements within underlying waste isparticularly studied. Laboratory and field bending tests are performed. Influence of the water content on themechanical behaviour of the clay is examined. Initialization and propagation of cracks are studied. The limitvalue of the extension strain of the clay layer without cracking is characterized. Results of field and laboratorybending tests are presented. The main aim is to optimize the use of clay as landfill cover, in terms ofconditions of implementation (water content, compaction energy)

Bruxelles, région de la connaissance ?

Constats L’importance de la connaissance pour l’Europe et pour Bruxelles La Région bruxelloise compte plus de 70 000 étudiants dans l’enseignement supérieur. La diffusion des connaissances basées sur la recherche académique et/ou l’expérience de praticiens est organisée sur les campus universitaires et dans les Hautes Ecoles établis sur les 19 communes. L’encadrement de l’enseignement supérieur est de plus assuré par plus de 14 000 assistants, chercheurs et personnes de support administratif ..

Brussel, een kennisregio?

Vaststellingen Het belang van kennis voor Europa en Brussel Brussel telt meer dan 70 000 studenten in het hoger onderwijs. De op academisch onderzoek en/of praktische ervaring gebaseerde kennis wordt doorgegeven op de universiteitscampussen en in de hogescholen die in de 19 gemeenten zijn gevestigd. In het hoger onderwijs zijn meer dan 14 000 docenten, assistenten, onderzoekers en administratief-technische personeelsleden aan de slag. Die uitzonderlijke concentratie van onderwijs- en onderzoe..

Brussels, region of knowledge?

Observations The importance of knowledge for Europe and Brussels There are more than 70 000 students in higher education in the Brussels Region. The diffusion of knowledge based on academic research and/or the experience of practitioners is organised on university campuses and in colleges of higher education in the 19 municipalities. Higher education staff also represent more than 14 000 assistants, researchers and administrative and logistic support staff. This exceptional concentration of e..

Hydrogeological effects on terrestrial gravity measurements

For the 20 last years, terrestrial and satellite gravity measurements have reached such a precision that they allow for identification of the signatures from water storage fluctuations. In particular, hydrogeological effects induce significant time-correlated signature in the gravity time series. Gravity response to rainfall is a complex function of the local geologic and climatic conditions, e.g., rock porosity, vegetation, evaporation, and runoff rates. The gravity signal combines contributions from many geophysical processes, source separation being a major challenge. At the local scale and short-term, the associated gravimetric signatures often exceed the tectonic and GIA effects, and monitoring gravity changes is a source of information on local groundwater mass balance, and contributes to model calibrations. Some aquifer main characteristics can then be inferred by combining continuous gravity, geophysical and hydrogeological measurements. In Membach, Belgium, a superconducting gravimeter has monitored gravity continuously for more than 24 years. This long time series, together with 300 repeated absolute gravity measurements and environmental monitoring, has provided valuable information on the instrumental, metrological, hydrogeological and geophysical points of view. This has allowed separating the signal sources and monitoring partial saturation dynamics in the unsaturated zone, convective precipitation and evapotranspiration at a scale of up to 1 km², for signals smaller than 1 nm/s², equivalent to 2.5 mm of water. Based on this experience, another superconducting gravimeter was installed in 2014 in the karst zone of Rochefort, Belgium. In a karst area, where the vadose zone is usually thicker than in other contexts, combining gravity measurements at the surface and inside accessible caves is a way to separate the contribution from the unsaturated zone lying between the two instruments, from the saturated zone underneath the cave, and the common mode effects from the atmosphere or other regional processes. Those experiments contribute to the assessment of the terrestrial hydrological cycle, which is a major challenge of the geosciences associated with key societal issues: availability of freshwater, mitigation of flood hazards, or measurement of evapotranspiration

Expression profiling of migrated and invaded breast cancer cells predicts early metastatic relapse and reveals Krüppel-like factor 9 as a potential suppressor of invasive growth in breast cancer

Cell motility and invasion initiate metastasis. However, only a subpopulation of cancer cells within a tumor will ultimately become invasive. Due to this stochastic and transient nature, in an experimental setting, migrating and invading cells need to be isolated from the general population in order to study the gene expression profiles linked to these processes. This report describes microarray analysis on RNA derived from migrated or invaded subpopulations of triple negative breast cancer cells in a Transwell set-up, at two different time points during motility and invasion, pre-determined as “early” and “late” in real-time kinetic assessments. Invasion- and migration-related gene expression signatures were generated through comparison with non-invasive cells, remaining at the upper side of the Transwell membranes. Late-phase signatures of both invasion and migration indicated poor prognosis in a series of breast cancer data sets. Furthermore, evaluation of the genes constituting the prognostic invasion-related gene signature revealed Krüppel-like factor 9 (KLF9) as a putative suppressor of invasive growth in breast cancer. Next to loss in invasive vs non-invasive cell lines, KLF9 also showed significantly lower expression levels in the “early” invasive cell population, in several public expression data sets and in clinical breast cancer samples when compared to normal tissue. Overexpression of EGFP-KLF9 fusion protein significantly altered morphology and blocked invasion and growth of MDA-MB-231 cells in vitro. In addition, KLF9 expression correlated inversely with mitotic activity in clinical samples, indicating anti-proliferative effects

Estimation des biais et précisions des marégraphes par combinaison de plusieurs séries temporelles co-localisées.

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