The EU-LAC museums project and community-based museums

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 693669. For further information, please visit https://www.eulacmuseums.net/.For four years, the EU-LAC Museums project researched community empowerment and state-of-the-art initiatives in museums and in Europe and LAC and then created new research prisms to foster good relations between these regions through shared histories and a common vision. Throughout this process, the consortium oscillated between pushing the boundaries of given museum definitions and trying to locate a working definition for the project. The term ‘community-based museums’ became key to this process, providing a cornerstone for bi-regional museological understanding. This chapter explores this collaborative process and presents the findings of our survey ‘What is a community museum in your region?’Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

French-English Bilingual Education and Language Achievement of Second Graders.

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether or not second grade students in Avoyelles Parish, Louisiana changed differentially in reading and language achievement from regular classroom students as a result of participation in the French-English Bilingual Program. A second purpose was to ascertain whether students in the bilingual program achieved significantly in developing French language ability. Data was coded for the 278 students in the study. The statistical findings (tested at the .05 level) are summarized as follows: (1) Bilingual students did not change differentially in reading achievement from regular classroom students. (2) Females in the bilingual program did not change differentially in reading achievement from females in the regular English program. (3) Males in the bilingual program did not change differentially in reading achievement from males in the regular English program. (4) Black children in the bilingual program did not change differentially in reading achievement from black children in the regular English program. (5) White students in the bilingual program did not change differentially in reading achievement from white students in the regular English program. (6) Francos in the bilingual program did not achieve differentially in reading achievement from Francos in the regular English program. (7) Anglos in the bilingual program did not change differentially in reading achievement from Anglos in the regular English program. (8) Bilingual program students did not change differentially in language achievement from regular classroom students. (9) Females in the bilingual program did not change differentially in language achievement from females in the regular English program. (10) Males in the bilingual program did not change differentially in language achievement from males in the regular English program. (11) Black children in the bilingual program did not change differentially in language achievement from black children in the regular English program. (12) White students in the bilingual program did not change differentially in language achievement from white students in the regular English program. (13) Francos in the bilingual program did not change differentially in language achievement from Francos in the regular English program. (14) Anglos in the bilingual program did not change differentially in language achievement from Anglos in the regular English program. (15) Among students of high educational ability, no significant differential change in language achievement existed between bilingual education students and regular English students. However, group ability interaction made a significant difference for the other two levels. The change in language achievement for low ability students in the experimental and control groups was significantly different from pretest to posttest in favor of the low ability students in the control group. Also, the change in language achievement for average ability students in the experimental and control groups was significantly different from pretest to posttest in favor of the average ability students in the experimental group. (16) A significant change in educational ability occurred from pretest to posttest for students in the total population depending on the ability level. This may represent regression toward the mean. Low ability students in the total population gained in educational ability, average ability students remained the same in educational ability, and high ability students lost in educational ability from pretest to posttest. Also, the mean difference in educational ability score for average ability students from pretest to posttest was significant in favor of students in the control group. (17) Students in the bilingual education classes made a significant gain in French language ability from pretest to posttest. This difference was significant at the .01 level

In Vivo Evolution of Bacterial Resistance in Two Cases of Enterobacter aerogenes Infections during Treatment with Imipenem

International audienceInfections caused by multidrug resistant (MDR) bacteria are a major concern worldwide. Changes in membrane permeability, including decreased influx and/or increased efflux of antibiotics, are known as key contributors of bacterial MDR. Therefore, it is of critical importance to understand molecular mechanisms that link membrane permeability to MDR in order to design new antimicrobial strategies. In this work, we describe genotype-phenotype correlations in Enterobacter aerogenes, a clinically problematic and antibiotic resistant bacterium. To do this, series of clinical isolates have been periodically collected from two patients during chemotherapy with imipenem. The isolates exhibited different levels of resistance towards multiple classes of antibiotics, consistently with the presence or the absence of porins and efflux pumps. Transport assays were used to characterize membrane permeability defects. Simultaneous genome-wide analysis allowed the identification of putative mutations responsible for MDR. The genome of the imipenem-susceptible isolate G7 was sequenced to closure and used as a reference for comparative genomics. This approach uncovered several loci that were specifically mutated in MDR isolates and whose products are known to control membrane permeability. These were omp35 and omp36, encoding the two major porins; rob, encoding a global AraC-type transcriptional activator; cpxA, phoQ and pmrB, encoding sensor kinases of the CpxRA, PhoPQ and PmrAB two-component regulatory systems, respectively. This report provides a comprehensive analysis of membrane alterations relative to mutational steps in the evolution of MDR of a recognized nosocomial pathogen

MENTOR ou une méthodologie et des outils opérationnels de conception et de qualification de sites de mesures en réseau d'assainissement

International audienceLe projet MENTOR (MEasurement sites conception method for sewer NeTwORks) a pour objectif principal d'aider les gestionnaires dans la mise en place d'une instrumentation intégrée de la chaîne de mesures visant à mieux surveiller en continu la quantité et la qualité des masses d'eau rejetées par les systèmes urbains d'assainissement. Ce projet permettra la mise au point d'outils opérationnels destinés aux gestionnaires et aux responsables de métrologie des réseaux d'assainissement urbains. Il fournira également des recommandations au niveau organisationnel qui aideront à l'acquisition de " bonnes pratiques métrologiques ". Nous présenterons le détail de la démarche puis nous illustrerons cela par quelques cas concrets traités par les partenaires du projet

The grapevine (Vitis vinifera) LysM receptor kinases VvLYK1-1 and VvLYK1-2 mediate chitooligosaccharide-triggered immunity

Chitin, a major component of fungal cell walls, is a well-known pathogen-associated molecular pattern (PAMP) that triggers defense responses in several mammal and plant species. Here, we show that two chitooligosaccharides, chitin and chitosan, act as PAMPs in grapevine (Vitis vinifera) as they elicit immune signalling events, defense gene expression and resistance against fungal diseases. To identify their cognate receptors, the grapevine family of LysM receptor kinases (LysM-RKs) was annotated and their gene expression profiles were characterized. Phylogenetic analysis clearly distinguished three V. vinifera LysM-RKs (VvLYKs) located in the same clade as the Arabidopsis CHITIN ELICITOR RECEPTOR KINASE1 (AtCERK1), which mediates chitin-induced immune responses. The Arabidopsis mutant Atcerk1, impaired in chitin perception, was transformed with these three putative orthologous genes encoding VvLYK1-1, -2, or -3 to determine if they would complement the loss of AtCERK1 function. Our results provide evidence that VvLYK1-1 and VvLYK1-2, but not VvLYK1-3, functionally complement the Atcerk1 mutant by restoring chitooligosaccharide-induced MAPK activation and immune gene expression. Moreover, expression of VvLYK1-1 in Atcerk1 restored penetration resistance to the non-adapted grapevine powdery mildew (Erysiphe necator). On the whole, our results indicate that the grapevine VvLYK1-1 and VvLYK1-2 participate in chitin- and chitosan-triggered immunity and that VvLYK1-1 plays an important role in basal resistance against E. necator

Isotopic control of the boron-vacancy spin defect in hexagonal boron nitride

We report on electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy of boron-vacancy (V$_\text{B}^-$) centers hosted in isotopically-engineered hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) crystals. We first show that isotopic purification of hBN with $^{15}$N yields a simplified and well-resolved hyperfine structure of V$_\text{B}^-$ centers, while purification with $^{10}$B leads to narrower ESR linewidths. These results establish isotopically-purified h$^{10}$B$^{15}$N crystals as the optimal host material for future use of V$_\text{B}^-$ spin defects in quantum technologies. Capitalizing on these findings, we then demonstrate optically-induced polarization of $^{15}$N nuclei in h$^{10}$B$^{15}$N, whose mechanism relies on electron-nuclear spin mixing in the V$_\text{B}^-$ ground state. This work opens up new prospects for future developments of spin-based quantum sensors and simulators on a two-dimensional material platform.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figur

The role of dynamical polarization of the ligand to metal charge transfer excitations in {\em ab initio} determination of effective exchange parameters

The role of the bridging ligand on the effective Heisenberg coupling parameters is analyzed in detail. This analysis strongly suggests that the ligand-to-metal charge transfer excitations are responsible for a large part of the final value of the magnetic coupling constant. This permits to suggest a new variant of the Difference Dedicated Configuration Interaction (DDCI) method, presently one of the most accurate and reliable for the evaluation of magnetic effective interactions. This new method treats the bridging ligand orbitals mediating the interaction at the same level than the magnetic orbitals and preserves the high quality of the DDCI results while being much less computationally demanding. The numerical accuracy of the new approach is illustrated on various systems with one or two magnetic electrons per magnetic center. The fact that accurate results can be obtained using a rather reduced configuration interaction space opens the possibility to study more complex systems with many magnetic centers and/or many electrons per center.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Pandoravirus Celtis Illustrates the Microevolution Processes at Work in the Giant Pandoraviridae Genomes

With genomes of up to 2.7 Mb propagated in μm-long oblong particles and initially predicted to encode more than 2000 proteins, members of the Pandoraviridae family display the most extreme features of the known viral world. The mere existence of such giant viruses raises fundamental questions about their origin and the processes governing their evolution. A previous analysis of six newly available isolates, independently confirmed by a study including three others, established that the Pandoraviridae pan-genome is open, meaning that each new strain exhibits protein-coding genes not previously identified in other family members. With an average increment of about 60 proteins, the gene repertoire shows no sign of reaching a limit and remains largely coding for proteins without recognizable homologs in other viruses or cells (ORFans). To explain these results, we proposed that most new protein-coding genes were created de novo, from pre-existing non-coding regions of the G+C rich pandoravirus genomes. The comparison of the gene content of a new isolate, pandoravirus celtis, closely related (96% identical genome) to the previously described p. quercus is now used to test this hypothesis by studying genomic changes in a microevolution range. Our results confirm that the differences between these two similar gene contents mostly consist of protein-coding genes without known homologs, with statistical signatures close to that of intergenic regions. These newborn proteins are under slight negative selection, perhaps to maintain stable folds and prevent protein aggregation pending the eventual emergence of fitness-increasing functions. Our study also unraveled several insertion events mediated by a transposase of the hAT family, 3 copies of which are found in p. celtis and are presumably active. Members of the Pandoraviridae are presently the first viruses known to encode this type of transposase

Identification of protein-coding sequences using the hybridization of 18S rRNA and mRNA during translation

We introduce a new approach in this article to distinguish protein-coding sequences from non-coding sequences utilizing a period-3, free energy signal that arises from the interactions of the 3′-terminal nucleotides of the 18S rRNA with mRNA. We extracted the special features of the amplitude and the phase of the period-3 signal in protein-coding regions, which is not found in non-coding regions, and used them to distinguish protein-coding sequences from non-coding sequences. We tested on all the experimental genes from Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Schizosaccharomyces pombe. The identification was consistent with the corresponding information from GenBank, and produced better performance compared to existing methods that use a period-3 signal. The primary tests on some fly, mouse and human genes suggests that our method is applicable to higher eukaryotic genes. The tests on pseudogenes indicated that most pseudogenes have no period-3 signal. Some exploration of the 3′-tail of 18S rRNA and pattern analysis of protein-coding sequences supported further our assumption that the 3′-tail of 18S rRNA has a role of synchronization throughout translation elongation process. This, in turn, can be utilized for the identification of protein-coding sequences