Lagrangian Cobordisms via Generating Families: Constructions and Geography

Embedded Lagrangian cobordisms between Legendrian submanifolds are produced from isotopy, spinning, and handle attachment constructions that employ the technique of generating families. Moreover, any Legendrian with a generating family has an immersed Lagrangian filling with a compatible generating family. These constructions are applied in several directions, in particular to a non-classical geography question: any graded group satisfying a duality condition can be realized as the generating family homology of a connected Legendrian submanifold in R^{2n+1} or in the 1-jet space of any compact n-manifold with n at least 2.Comment: 34 pages, 11 figures. v2: corrected a referenc

Homologie de contact des varietes toroidales

We show that contact homology distinguishes infinitely many tight contact structures on any orientable, toroidal, irreducible 3-manifold. As a consequence of the contact homology computations, on a very large class of toroidal manifolds, all known examples of universally tight contact structures with nonvanishing torsion satisfy the Weinstein conjecture. ----- On montre que l'homologie de contact distingue une infinite de structures de contact tendues sur toute variete toroidale irreductible et orientable de dimension trois. En consequence des calculs d'homologie de contact, sur une tres large classe de varietes toroidales, tous les exemples de structures de contact universellement tendues de torsion non nulle connus verifient la conjecture de Weinstein.Comment: Published by Geometry and Topology at http://www.maths.warwick.ac.uk/gt/GTVol9/paper9.abs.html Version 3: one minor correctio

Catalyst Repurposing Sequential Catalysis by Harnessing Regenerated Prolinamide Organocatalysts as Transfer Hydrogenation Ligands

A catalyst repurposing strategy based on a sequential aldol addition and transfer hydrogenation giving access to enantiomerically enriched α-hydroxy-γ-butyrolactones is described. The combination of a stereoselective, organocatalytic step, followed by an efficient catalytic aldehyde reduction induces an ensuing lactonization to provide enantioenriched butyrolactones from readily available starting materials. By capitalizing from the capacity of prolineamides to act as both an organocatalyst and a transfer hydrogenation ligand, catalyst repurposing allowed the development of an operationally simple, economic, and efficient sequential catalysis approach

UN – Institut Jean-Nicod

Frederic Nef, directeur d’étudesSacha Bourgeois-Gironde, maître de conférences à l’ENS-LSHPierre Livet, professeur à l’Université Aix-Marseille-I/Provence Philosophie expérimentale Ce séminaire a proposé une initiation à un domaine en pleine expansion, la philosophie expérimentale, sous la forme d’exposés de recherches originales dans le champ de l’ontologie sociale, de l’économie cognitive et neuronale, de l’éthique appliquée expérimentale... Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde a présenté ses travaux d’..

Microfluidic devices for the rapid and automated processing of sample populations

Microfluidic devices for the rapid and automated processing of sample populations are provided. Described are multiplexer microfluidic devices configured to serially deliver a plurality of distinct sample populations to a sample processing element rapidly and automatically, without cross-contaminating the distinct sample populations. Also provided are microfluidic sample processing elements that can be used to rapidly and automatically manipulate and/or interrogate members of a sample population. The microfluidic devices can be used to improve the throughput and quality of experiments involving model organisms, such as C. elegans.Board of Regents, University of Texas Syste

Le mythe de l'homme derrière la technique

International audienceLa présente traduction est inédite en langue française. Elle ouvre à la francophonie la conférence donnée en allemand par José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) lors de la seconde édition des fameux Darmstädter Gespräche qui se sont tenus en août 1951 et avaient pour thème L’homme et l’espace (Mensch und Raum). Un groupe d’une vingtaine d’intervenants, issus principalement de la philosophie et de l’architecture, était alors présent autour de l’architecte Otto Bartning, organisateur et animateur du colloque.Les Darmstädter Gespräche désignent une série de 13 colloques qui se sont tenus à Darmstadt, en Allemagne, principalement entre 1950 et 1968 ; ils avaient pour but de discuter des fondements nécessaires à un nouveau départ démocratique. Ces rendez-vous réunirent de nombreuses personnalités intellectuelles de l’époque et furent dédiées aux problématiques posées par la reconstruction des villes détruites et à des réflexions sur l’avenir de l’architecture, mais aussi à des questionnements sur le rapport de l’homme à la technique ou à l’habitation. Rencontres scientifiques novatrices entre architecture et philosophie, ces colloques furent accompagnés d’une exposition qui devait éviter que les discussions restent prisonnières de discours uniquement théoriques ; quelques-uns des projets présentés lors des expositions accompagnant les colloques furent réalisés, notamment l’école Georg-Büchner de Hans Schwippert, le lycée Ludwig-Georg de Max Taut, la clinique pour femmes d’Otto Bartning et une résidence d’ Ernst Neufert. (extrait de la note de traduction de l'ouvrage)

Le mythe de l'homme derrière la technique

International audienceLa présente traduction est inédite en langue française. Elle ouvre à la francophonie la conférence donnée en allemand par José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) lors de la seconde édition des fameux Darmstädter Gespräche qui se sont tenus en août 1951 et avaient pour thème L’homme et l’espace (Mensch und Raum). Un groupe d’une vingtaine d’intervenants, issus principalement de la philosophie et de l’architecture, était alors présent autour de l’architecte Otto Bartning, organisateur et animateur du colloque.Les Darmstädter Gespräche désignent une série de 13 colloques qui se sont tenus à Darmstadt, en Allemagne, principalement entre 1950 et 1968 ; ils avaient pour but de discuter des fondements nécessaires à un nouveau départ démocratique. Ces rendez-vous réunirent de nombreuses personnalités intellectuelles de l’époque et furent dédiées aux problématiques posées par la reconstruction des villes détruites et à des réflexions sur l’avenir de l’architecture, mais aussi à des questionnements sur le rapport de l’homme à la technique ou à l’habitation. Rencontres scientifiques novatrices entre architecture et philosophie, ces colloques furent accompagnés d’une exposition qui devait éviter que les discussions restent prisonnières de discours uniquement théoriques ; quelques-uns des projets présentés lors des expositions accompagnant les colloques furent réalisés, notamment l’école Georg-Büchner de Hans Schwippert, le lycée Ludwig-Georg de Max Taut, la clinique pour femmes d’Otto Bartning et une résidence d’ Ernst Neufert. (extrait de la note de traduction de l'ouvrage)

A generic infection model to compare airborne fungal plant pathogens for climate change studies

International audienceGeneric models can be relevant tools for exploring and comparing the impact of climate change on the development of crop diseases. The infection process of foliar pathogens is mainly driven by surface wetness duration (SWD) and temperature. Hence, our objective was to propose a generic response function that attempts to be robust (adapted to the infection process of many foliar pathogens), and easy to apply (well-informed parameters in the literature). This model was then used to quantify the impact of climate change on four foliar fungal pathogens, in the French context. First, the infection was modeled as a function of, both, temperature and SWD, using a simplified version of the sigmoidal Weibull equation. The upper asymptote of this equation was described by linear functions between four cardinal temperatures. Second, this model was fitted and validated with published data from 19 controlled laboratory studies. Especially low relative root mean square errors (RRMSE) were obtained for species in the genera Colletotrichum (about 0.11) and Puccinia (about 0.23). Last, the model was used to assess the CC impact on the infection rate and frequency of Albugo occidentalis, Phytophthora ramorum, Cercospora carotae and Botrytis cinerea. The simulations showed different trends, according to the four pathogens and climate sites: an increased frequency of infection and of the rate of infection of A. occidentalis and P. ramorum, in northern France, and the maintaining or the decrease of the frequency and rate of infection, at more or less long-term, for C. carotae and B. cinerea, in southern France. The importance of microclimate in the canopy, to explain the infection process, could justify coupling this generic model of infection to a mechanistic model based on energy balances, to simulate temperature and SWD, within the crop cover, rather than at the weather station scal

Llama V(H)H antibody fragments against GFAP: better diffusion in fixed tissues than classical monoclonal antibodies.

International audienceCamelids produce antibodies made of homodimeric heavy chains, and the antigen-binding region being composed of a single domain called V(H)H. These V(H)Hs are much smaller than complete IgG. They are also more thermostable and more soluble in water; they should, therefore, diffuse more readily in the tissues. V(H)Hs, expressed in bacteria, are easier to produce than conventional monoclonal antibodies. Because of these special characteristics, these antibody fragments could have interesting developments in immunohistochemistry and in the development of biomarkers. To test the possibility of their use in immunohistochemistry (IHC), we selected the glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), a well-known marker of astrocytes. One alpaca (Lama pacos) was immunized against GFAP. Lymphocytes were isolated; the DNA was extracted; the V(H)H-coding sequences were selectively amplified. Three V(H)Hs with a high affinity for GFAP and their corresponding mRNA were selected by ribosome display. Large quantities of the recombinant V(H)Hs coupled with different tags were harvested from transfected bacteria. One of them was shown to immunolabel strongly and specifically to GFAP of human astrocytes in tissue sections. The quality of the IHC was comparable or, in some aspects, superior to the quality obtained with conventional IgG. The V(H)H was shown to diffuse on a longer distance than conventional monoclonal antibodies in fixed cortical tissue: a property that may be useful in immunolabeling of thick sections