2-D Prony-Huang Transform: A New Tool for 2-D Spectral Analysis

This work proposes an extension of the 1-D Hilbert Huang transform for the analysis of images. The proposed method consists in (i) adaptively decomposing an image into oscillating parts called intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) using a mode decomposition procedure, and (ii) providing a local spectral analysis of the obtained IMFs in order to get the local amplitudes, frequencies, and orientations. For the decomposition step, we propose two robust 2-D mode decompositions based on non-smooth convex optimization: a "Genuine 2-D" approach, that constrains the local extrema of the IMFs, and a "Pseudo 2-D" approach, which constrains separately the extrema of lines, columns, and diagonals. The spectral analysis step is based on Prony annihilation property that is applied on small square patches of the IMFs. The resulting 2-D Prony-Huang transform is validated on simulated and real data.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figure

The habitability of Proxima Centauri b I. Irradiation, rotation and volatile inventory from formation to the present

International audienceProxima b is a planet with a minimum mass of 1.3 MEarth orbiting within the habitable zone (HZ) of Proxima Centauri, a very low-mass, active star and the Sun's closest neighbor. Here we investigate a number of factors related to the potential habitability of Proxima b and its ability to maintain liquid water on its surface. We set the stage by estimating the current high-energy irradiance of the planet and show that the planet currently receives 30 times more EUV radiation than Earth and 250 times more X-rays. We compute the time evolution of the star's spectrum, which is essential for modeling the flux received over Proxima b's lifetime. We also show that Proxima b's obliquity is likely null and its spin is either synchronous or in a 3:2 spin-orbit resonance, depending on the planet's eccentricity and level of triaxiality. Next we consider the evolution of Proxima b's water inventory. We use our spectral energy distribution to compute the hydrogen loss from the planet with an improved energy-limited escape formalism. Despite the high level of stellar activity we find that Proxima b is likely to have lost less than an Earth ocean's worth of hydrogen before it reached the HZ 100-200 Myr after its formation. The largest uncertainty in our work is the initial water budget, which is not constrained by planet formation models. We conclude that Proxima b is a viable candidate habitable planet

Multichannel Poisson Denoising and Deconvolution on the Sphere : Application to the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope

International audienceA multiscale representation-based denoising method for spherical data contaminated with Poisson noise, the multiscale variance stabilizing transform on the sphere (MS-VSTS), has been recently proposed. This paper first extends this MS-VSTS to spherical 2D-1D, where the two first dimensions are longitude and latitude, and the third dimension is a meaningful physical index such as energy or time. Then we introduce a novel multichannel deconvolution built upon the 2D-1D MS-VSTS, which allows to get rid of both the noise and the blur introduced by the point spread function (PSF) in each energy (or time) band. The method is applied to simulated data from the Large Area Telescope (LAT), the main instrument of the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope, which detects high energy gamma-rays in a very wide energy range (from 20 MeV to more than 300 GeV), and whose PSF is strongly energy-dependent (from about 3.5 at 100 MeV to less than 0.1 at 10 GeV)

Plants affect the dissipation and leaching of anilide pesticides in soil mesocosms: Insights from compound-specific isotope analysis (CSIA)

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The ASTRES Toolbox for Mode Extraction of Non-Stationary Multicomponent Signals

International audienceIn this paper, we introduce the ASTRES toolbox which offers a set of Matlab functions for non-stationary multi-component signal processing. The main purposes of this proposal is to offer efficient tools for analysis, synthesis and transformation of any signal made of physically meaningful components (e.g. sinusoid, trend or noise). The proposed techniques contain some recent and new contributions, which are now unified and theoretically strengthened. They can provide efficient time-frequency or timescale representations and they allow elementary components extraction. Usage and description of each method are then detailed and numerically illustrated

Priming Dental Pulp Stem Cells from Human Exfoliated Deciduous Teeth with Fibroblast Growth Factor-2 Enhances Mineralization Within Tissue-Engineered Constructs Implanted in Craniofacial Bone Defects

International audienceThe craniofacial area is prone to trauma or pathologies often resulting in large bone damages. One potential treatment option is the grafting of a tissue‐engineered construct seeded with adult mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). The dental pulp appears as a relevant source of MSCs, as dental pulp stem cells display strong osteogenic properties and are efficient at bone formation and repair. Fibroblast growth factor‐2 (FGF‐2) and/or hypoxia primings were shown to boost the angiogenesis potential of dental pulp stem cells from human exfoliated deciduous teeth (SHED). Based on these findings, we hypothesized here that these primings would also improve bone formation in the context of craniofacial bone repair. We found that both hypoxic and FGF‐2 primings enhanced SHED proliferation and osteogenic differentiation into plastically compressed collagen hydrogels, with a much stronger effect observed with the FGF‐2 priming. After implantation in immunodeficient mice, the tissue‐engineered constructs seeded with FGF‐2 primed SHED mediated faster intramembranous bone formation into critical size calvarial defects than the other groups (no priming and hypoxia priming). The results of this study highlight the interest of FGF‐2 priming in tissue engineering for craniofacial bone repair

Capturing the mutational landscape of the beta-lactamase TEM-1

International audienceAdaptation proceeds through the selection of mutations. The distribution of mutant fitness effect and the forces shaping this distribution are therefore keys to predict the evolutionary fate of organisms and their constituents such as enzymes. Here, by producing and sequencing a comprehensive collection of 10,000 mutants, we explore the mutational landscape of one enzyme involved in the spread of antibiotic resistance, the beta-lactamase TEM-1. We measured mutation impact on the enzyme activity through the estimation of amoxicillin minimum inhibitory concentration on a subset of 990 mutants carrying a unique missense mutation, representing 64% of possible amino acid changes in that protein reachable by point mutation. We established that mutation type, solvent accessibility of residues, and the predicted effect of mutations on protein stability primarily determined alone or in combination changes in minimum inhibitory concentration of mutants. Moreover, we were able to capture the drastic modification of the mutational landscape induced by a single stabilizing point mutation (M182T) by a simple model of protein stability. This work thereby provides an integrated framework to study mutation effects and a tool to understand/define better the epistatic interactions

Simulated effect of the Galactic Cosmic Rays on the surface of Pluto's dark-red region

Session SB9International audienceOn Pluto, the largest object in the Kuiper Belt, the dark surface of Cthulhu seems to indicate thepresence of photochemical aerosols, stemming from the interaction between solar ultravioletradiation and atmospheric methane, nitrogen, carbon monoxide, and further sedimentation [1-4].Tholins have been tested and identified as analogues of the said surface. The flyby of the NewHorizons Pluto probe enabled reflectance spectra acquisitions of the Cthulhu region. Dissimilaritieswere found with the reflectance of Pluto tholins, which might be due to Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR)irradiation of Pluto’s surface [5]. To test this hypothesis, Pluto tholins were synthesized and swiftheavy ion irradiation was performed on the analogues to simulate the impact of cosmic rays on thesurface of Cthulhu region. Moreover, GCR-analogues irradiation of the said tholins triggers adesorption of organic volatile compounds whose study could provide crucial information on both thestructure of tholins and the chemical mechanisms involved. The volatile desorption was followed bymass spectrometry