Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Small-Scale Sample Handling for Studies of Liquid Crystals and Lipid-Based Soft Matter

In the field of sensing in general and biosensing in particular, there is a growing need for integrating miniaturised senor elements in microfluidic systems. The advantages are several, some of which being that the consumption of, often very expensive, sample material can be reduced; sample exchange can be optimized; sensor performance in terms of detection limits can be improved and phenomena occurring on a very small, and even single-molecule, scale can be studied. In this work different microfluidic solutions have been designed and integrated with a number of different sensing techniques chosen based on their capacity to unravel a number of different physically, chemically or biologically relevant phenomena in connection with lipid-based soft matter and liquid crystals. The first part of the thesis is focused on the advantages of miniaturizing one out of three dimensions of a reaction chamber designed for quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation (QCM-D) monitoring, while keeping the size of the radial extension macroscopic. With a high radius- to-height ratio, surface induced effects could be identified and taken advantage of in studies of liquid-crystal phase transitions in confined geometries. A similar approach was implemented to improve the performance of aqueous-phase QCM-D studies of the self assembly of supported cell-membrane mimics, revealing improved reaction rates and reduced sample consumption. The ability of QCM-D to unravel the viscoelastic properties of thin soft matter films was also used to study changes in the viscoelastic properties of surface-immobilized lipid vesicles undergoing a transition from gel to liquid phase during a temperature sweep. By varying buffer salt and pH, it was shown that the vesicle-surface interaction plays an important role in determining the characteristics of the shape fluctuations, phase transition temperature and hysteresis around the phase transition. In the last part of the thesis work, two different microfluidic systems were designed and used to study rapid transport of water and glycerol across the lipid membrane of surface-immobilized lipid vesicles. In this case, fluorescence imaging was employed to resolve transport reactions on the level of individual liposomes. The membrane-transport reactions were induced by rapidly exchange the solution outside the liposomes, for which purpose two conceptually different approaches were developed and compared. The first approach took advantage of the fact that small sample volumes can be moved rapidly over a predetermined probe area containing surface- immobilized lipid vesicles. In the second approach the vesicles were suspended and moved into a mixing region, while the liquid flows were kept constant in order to reduce the limitation imposed by external equipment such as electric valves on the system. Both methods generated lipid-membrane permeability data close to what has been reported in the literature, and statistics from single vesicle data revealed a new means to characterize the efficiency of membrane-protein incorporation.
Contribution à la robustesse et à l'optimisation fiabiliste des structures

La conception des ouvrages economiques a suscite de nombreux progres dans les domaines de la modelisation et de l’optimisation, permettant l’analyse de structures de plus en plus complexes. Cependant, les conceptions optimisees sans considerer les incertitudes des parametres, peuvent ne pas respecter certains criteres de fiabilite. Pour assurer le bon fonctionnement de la structure, il est important de prendre en consideration l’incertitude des la phase de conception. Il existe plusieurs theories dans la litterature pour traiter les incertitudes. La theorie de la fiabilite des structures consiste a definir la probabilite de defaillance d’une structure par la probabilite que les conditions de bon fonctionnement ne soient pas respectees. On appelle cette etude l’analyse de la fiabilite. L’integration de l’analyse de fiabilite dans les problemes d’optimisation constitue une nouvelle discipline introduisant des criteres de fiabilite dans la recherche de la configuration optimale des structures, c’est le domaine de l’optimisation fiabiliste (RBDO). Cette methodologie de RBDO vise donc a considerer la propagation des incertitudes dans les performances mecaniques en s’appuyant sur une modelisation probabiliste des fluctuations des parametres d’entree. Dans ce cadre, ce travail de these porte sur l’analyse robuste et l’optimisation fiabiliste des problemes mecaniques complexes. Il est important de tenir compte des parametres incertains du systeme pour assurer une conception robuste. L’objectif de la methode RBDO est de concevoir une structure afin d’etablir un bon compromis entre le cout et l’assurance de fiabilite. Par consequent, plusieurs methodes, telles que la methode hybride et la methode optimum safety factor, ont ete developpees pour atteindre cet objectif. Pour remedier a la complexite des problemes mecaniques complexes comportant des parametres incertains, des methodologies specifiques a cette problematique, tel que les methodes de meta-modelisation, ont ete developpees afin de bâtir un modele de substitution mecanique, qui satisfait en meme temps l’efficacite et la precision du modele.
Réseaux époxy/liquide ionique avec et sans anhydride : Etude des mécanismes de polymérisation et des propriétés diélectriques

Les liquides ioniques (LIs) sont des sels a faible temperature de fusion (plus petit 100 °C). Ils disposent generalement de bonnes stabilites thermique et chimique ainsi qu’une haute conductivite ionique. Ces proprietes les rendent par exemple interessants en tant que lubrifiant, electrolyte ou additif en sciences des polymeres. Dans le cadre de cette these, les liquides ioniques sont proposes comme alternative aux problematiques d’accumulation de charges au sein d’un isolant composite a base epoxy pour postes sous enveloppe metallique (PSEM) sous haute tension en courant continu (HVDC). Une augmentation des phenomenes de conduction electrique est recherchee afin d’evacuer les charges accumulees en surface de l’isolant au cours de son utilisation. L’influence de l’addition de LI sur les mecanismes de polymerisation et sur les proprietes finales du reseau epoxy et a ete evaluee avec et sans durcisseur anhydride et en presence d’un liquide ionique a cation phosphonium et anion phosphinate, connu comme reactif et amorceur de la polymerisation des polyepoxydes. Les mecanismes de polymerisation ont ete determines par resonance magnetique nucleaire (RMN) et analyse calorimetrique differentielle (DSC), les reseaux et leur microstructure par analyse mecanique dynamique (DMA), et leur morphologie par microscopie electronique (SEM ou TEM). Enfin, les proprietes dielectriques et mecanismes de conduction ont ete etudies par spectroscopie dielectrique et mesures de conductivite DC et discutes en fonction des architectures des differents reseaux.
Density modulation produced by lase r pulses at modest intensities and induced phase reflection in underdense plasmas

The interaction of light with periodic layered media is very different to continuous media [1-3]. In this paper, we study the plasma density modulations formed in pre-plasma in front of a solid target and the induced phase reflection, where the average plasma density is lower than the critical density. Dependence of the phase reflection on laser and plasmas parameters are discussed. The phase reflection may significantly reduce laser absorption in ICF targets. 2. Density modulations We consider the interaction of a plane laser pulse with a pre-plasma in front of target as shown in Fig. 1(a). The total interfering field caused by the input and reflected laser pulses in pre-plasma can be given by ] z f z f e t x k a e t x k a t x a ˆ ) cos( ˆ ) cos( ) , ( 2 1 y y
Nutrients profile, protein quality and energy value of whole Prosopis pods meal as a feedstuff for poultry feeding

Abstract The chemical composition, tannins level, mineral profile, fatty acids profile and amino acids profile of whole Prosopis pods meal (WPPM) were determined. In addition, apparent energy metabolisability (AEM) and true energy metabolisability (TEM) and apparent (AAAD) and true (TAAD) amino acids digestibility were determined via a precision-feeding assay. Protein quality was also determined via a total protein efficiency assay. The tannins content of WPPM was 42.8 mg/g dry matter. WPPM showed 15.2% crude protein, 2.61% ether extract, 18.58% crude fibre and 6.04% ash, with 5.44 and 7.57 MJ/kg AEM and TEM, respectively. The WPPM contained 0.66% Ca, 0.20% P, 764 ppm Fe, 69.4 ppm Zn, 33.9 ppm Mn, 36.1 ppm Cu, 21.7 ppm Cr, 7.4 ppm Cd, 9.8 ppm Ni and 28.2 ppm Pb. The WPPM showed 92.54% total fatty acids, of which 25.33% were saturated fatty acids and 67.21% unsaturated fatty acids; of the latter, 37.83% were monounsaturated and 29.37% polyunsaturated. Threonine, valine, methionine, isoleucine, leucine, phenylalanine, histidine, lysine, arginine and tryptophan levels were 0.47, 0.67, 0.12, 0.54, 1.03, 0.40, 0.20, 0.46, 0.67 and 0.44%, respectively. Therefore, WPPM can meet 1.08% of the total amino acids requirements of broiler chickens from 1 to 21 days of age. The AAAD and TAAD of the WPPM were 34.9 and 65.0%, respectively. The protein quality of WPPM was 23.4% lower than that of soybean meal. In conclusion, WPPM contains a considerable amount of energy and nutrients (protein, minerals, fatty acids and amino acids), but its protein quality is lower than that of soybean meal.
Do damaging variants of SLC6A9, the gene for the glycine transporter 1 (GlyT-1), protect against schizophrenia?

Aims To test whether genetic variants predicted to impair the functionality of SLC6A9, which codes for the GlyT-1 glycine transporter, are protective against schizophrenia. Method In an exome sequenced sample of 4225 schizophrenia cases and 5834 controls variants occurring in SLC6A9 were annotated and weights were assigned using GENEVARASSOC. Genotype counts were compared using SCOREASSOC. Results Variants predicted to be deleterious by SIFT and damaging by PolyPhen were examined. Genotypes at 1:44466494-G/A seemed likely to be erroneous. If these were ignored then there were 15 damaging variants in controls and 5 in cases. Conclusions The results are consistent with the hypothesis that variants which damage SLC6A9 are protective against schizophrenia but a larger sample would be required to confirm this. Declaration of interest The author declares no conflict of interest.
Sulphur and phosphorus transformations in wastewater storage and treatment reservoirs in northeast Brazil

Sulphur and phosphorous transformations were studied in two pilot-scale wastewater storage and treatment reservoirs on the basis of four experiments carried out at EXTRABES in northeast Brazil. The reservoirs were fed with the effluent from an anaerobic pond and after filling they were allowed to rest until faecal coliform numbers dropped below 100 cfu/100 ml (10 times below the WHO guideline for unrestricted irrigation). During the filling periods sulphate was reduced to sulphide which reached high values by the beginning of the rest period, decreasing thereafter due to its oxidation, mainly to sulphate. Based on these results a rest period of at least two months is required for sulphide to fall to safe levels from the point of view of biological toxicity. Total phosphorus removal in the reservoirs was low, 9–33%; soluble orthophosphate concentrations remained virtually unchanged, especially when the initial organic loading was high.
Semiconductor Superlattices: Growth and Electronic Properties

Growth, K. Fujiwara and M. Nakayama miniband transport, A. Sibille Wannier-Stark localization and Bloch oscillations, F. Agullo-Rueda and J. Feldmann resonant tunneling, H. Grahn electric field domain formation, H. Grahn.
Impact d'un transfert monétaire et/ou d'un supplément nutritionnel pour la prévention du retard de croissance du jeune enfant en milieu rural au Mali : analyse d'un essai randomisé par clusters

En 2014, afin de reduire le retard de croissance chez les jeunes enfants en milieu rural a Kayes au Mali, le Programme Alimentaire Mondial a integre a un programme nutritionsante preexistant (SNACK) i) un transfert monetaire (TM) aux femmes enceintes et meres d’enfants de moins de deux ans et ii) une supplementation nutritionnelle a base lipidique (LNS) aux enfants de 6-23 mois; sous condition de frequenter les centres de sante pendant les 1000 premiers jours (de la conception aux 2 ans de l'enfant). Nous avons evalue l’impact de ces interventions sur la croissance des jeunes enfants, notre critere principal de jugement etant l’indice Taille-pour-Age moyen exprime en z-scores (TA), ainsi que sur des indicateurs intermediaires le long des chemins d’impact du programme. Un essai controle randomise en grappe a ete mene, ou 76 centres de sante ont ete repartis dans 4 bras : 1) SNACK (comparaison), 2) SNACK+TM, 3) SNACK+LNS et 4) SNACK+TM+LNS. Nous avons compare des echantillons transversaux d'enfants de 12-42 mois enquetes avant (2013, n=5046) et en fin d’intervention (2016, n=5098). Malgre une amelioration de l’indice TA moyen et une prevalence du retard de croissance (TA< -2) en baisse entre 2013 et 2016 dans les bras 2 (35,6% vs. 31,8%) et 3 (34,6% vs. 29,5%), ces evolutions n’etaient pas statistiquement significatives comparativement au bras SNACK. La combinaison des 2 interventions n’a pas eu d’impact sur la croissance, mais a permis l’amelioration modeste de l’indice moyen Poids-pour-Taille (s=+0.16 P<0,01). Dans les bras 3 et 4, le suivi de croissance des enfants et certaines connaissances des meres ont ete significativement ameliores. Des donnees sur la mise en œuvre du programme ont identifie plusieurs freins a l’efficacite des interventions, notamment des delais d’approvisionnement et de distribution des intrants du a des difficultes d’acces geographique, une surcharge de travail des agents de terrain, un montant insuffisant du TM, ainsi qu’un partage du LNS dans le menage.
On Native Language Use in Tertiary Level English Classes

This study focuses on the tertiary level classes to explore the contexts of learners’ native language (NL) in English as a foreign language (EFL) classes. The main objective of the study is to explore the contexts and consequences of the NL use in EFL classes. To achieve this objective, descriptive research design was adopted. The sample population consists of forty teachers teaching English in university classes. The study collected and analyzed the data obtained from open and close ended questions. Most respondents agreed in the use of the NL for substantiating learning experiences, enhancing learner-centered approaches, and bridging gaps between the target and the native languages. The researchers also discovered that the NL use inhibited fluency, and use of the FL; thus hindered developing pragmatic and discourse competence in the learners. Notwithstanding this fact, the NL use created learner-friendly setting, enhanced strong bond between the teachers and the learners, and developed comprehensibility in the learners. These pros and cons imply that the NL should judiciously be used in the EFL classes.
Occurrence and antimicrobial resistance of Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli isolated from domestic animals from Southern Ecuador

ABSTRACT: Occurrence and antimicrobial resistance profiles of Campylobacter jejuni and C. coli strains isolated from fecal samples of dogs, pigs, cows and hens in southern Ecuador were studied. Of the 250 samples studied, 84 (33.6%) were Campylobacter positive, with C. jejuni being more frequent (78.6%) than C. coli (21.4%), with the exception of porcine samples, from which C. coli was the only species isolated. Multidrug resistance was reported in 10 Campylobacter strains (11.9%), four C. jejuni and six C. coli, and was always associated with nalidixic acid and ciprofloxacin resistance. All of the amoxicillin-resistant strains were susceptible to amoxicillin-clavulanic acid and were therefore beta-lactamase producers. However, one strain of C. jejuni remained resistant with additional resistance to gentamycin. This is an uncommon resistance pattern in Campylobacter and could reflect different resistance mechanisms.
Antiplasmodial and antidiarrhoeal activities of Dicliptera verticillata leaf extract

Dicliptera verticillata (Forssk) Ch. (Acanthaceae) (leaf) is used as a traditional medicine for the treatment of malaria and diarrhoea in Burkina Faso and among the Ibibios of southern Nigeria. This study was aimed at evaluating the antiplasmodial activities of the ethanol leaf extract of Dicliptera verticillata in Plasmodium berghei infected mice and antidiarrhoeal activity in rats. Suppressive, repository and curative tests were used in determining the antiplasmodial activities in mice following oral administration of the extract (290, 580 and 870 mg/kg). Chloroquine (5 mg/kg) and Pyrimethamine (1.2 mg/kg) were used as standard drugs. The antidiarrhoeal activity of the extract (290, 580, and 870 mg/kg) was evaluated using castor oil-induced diarrhea, fluid accumulation and intestinal transit models. Loperamide (3 mg/kg) and atropine (3 mg/kg) were used as positive controls. The extract showed a dose dependent antiplasmodial activity in the suppressive, repository and curative tests. The mean survival time of the groups treated with extract increased in a dose dependent fashion from 14.33 to 19.33 days compared to control. These results were statically significant (p<0.001) compared to the control. Also, there was a dose-dependent reduction in castor oil–induced diarrhoea and this reduction was significant (P<0.001). A significant (P<0.05 – 0.01) and dose-dependent decrease in intestinal transit and castor oil–induced fluid accumulation was observed. The antiplasmodial and antidiarrhoeal activities of the extract may be due to the presence of alkaloids, saponnins, tannins and flavonoids in the extract. The results of this study confirm the ethnobotanical use of this plant as a malarial and diarrhoeal remedy.
Quantitative analysis of lexical complexity in contemporary Russian novels

This research presents a set of methods for measuring the lexical complexity against the culture at large. We applied a range of statistical measures upon a set of texts. For the analysis, we selected 50 famous Russian novels of the 20th century based on their historical and generic variety. The main approach consists of the comparison of the relative frequency of a work’s words against the Google Books dataset. This dataset represents a remarkable resource, with the Russian Google Books corpus in the period 1800 - 2012, containing approximately 4.7 billion 1-grams. Relative frequencies distribution for a novels words were compared with frequencies of Google Books corpus of different years using JensenShannon divergence, KullbackLeibler divergence and other information measures. Also, so-called a Flesch reading ease scale was calculated, such measure was used in similar research of modern English fiction. It was shown that the lexical complexity of individual texts should be measured against the culture at large. It was found that a writer who commonly seems to be difficult, verbose or notional, can in fact use language that is more ‘common’ (relative to the culture at large) than any other texts.
PaKman: Scalable Assembly of Large Genomes on Distributed Memory Machines

De novo genome assembly is a fundamental problem in the field of bioinformatics, that aims to assemble the DNA sequence of an unknown genome from numerous short DNA fragments (aka reads) obtained from it. With the advent of high-throughput sequencing technologies, billions of reads can be generated in a matter of hours, necessitating efficient parallelization of the assembly process. While multiple parallel solutions have been proposed in the past, conducting a large-scale assembly at scale remains a challenging problem because of the inherent complexities associated with data movement, and irregular access footprints of memory and I/O operations. In this paper, we present a novel algorithm, called PaKman, to address the problem of performing large-scale genome assemblies on a distributed memory parallel computer. Our approach focuses on improving performance through a combination of novel data structures and algorithmic strategies for reducing the communication and I/O footprint during the assembly process. PaKman presents a solution for the two most time-consuming phases in the full genome assembly pipeline, namely, k-mer counting and contig generation.A key aspect of our algorithm is its graph data structure, which comprises fat nodes (or what we call “macro-nodes”) that reduce the communication burden during contig generation. We present an extensive performance and qualitative evaluation of our algorithm, including comparisons to other state-of-the-art parallel assemblers. Our results demonstrate the ability to achieve near-linear speedups on up to 8K cores (tested); outperform state-of-the-art distributed memory and shared memory tools in performance while delivering comparable (if not better) quality; and reduce time to solution significantly. For instance, PaKman is able to generate a high-quality set of assembled contigs for complex genomes such as the human and wheat genomes in a matter of minutes on 8K cores.
Genetics Of The Pyrenean Brown Bear (Ursus-Arctos) - 1st Results

Total DNA has been extracted from cells found at the base of a single hair plucked from a captive Pyrenean brown bear (U. arctos). A 307-base pair portion of the cytochrome b gene (encoded by mitochondrial DNA) has been sequenced using DNA amplified by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). A phylogenetic tree has been constructed, based on this and three other homologous sequences recently published by Shields and Kocher [4]. It suggests that the Pyrenean brown bear was already separated well before the recent split between the Alaskan brown bear (U. arctos) and the polar bear (U. maritimus).
Preferences of Scirtothrips dorsalis Hood 1919 (Thysanoptera: Thripidae) for different structures of cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L) plants in the Magdalena warm valley of Colombia

Thrips samples were collected from cotton crops in the Andean region of the Magdalena warm valley, an area represented by the Colombian departments of Tolima, Huila and Cundinamarca. Ten cotton plants were randomly selected per hectare in each plot. Five young leaves, five floral buds, five opened flowers and five bolls or fruits were inspected. Immature stages were separated from the adults and a first classification was made according to the present thrips morphotypes, separating the adults of possible S. dorsalis specimens from the others. T-Student and Kruskal-Wallis tests were performed in order to find statistical differences between the different evaluated variables. The selectivity of S. dorsalis for each plant structure was determined by Z tests, Spearman correlation analysis and the Bray-Curtis similarity index. Scirtothrips dorsalis was found in 77% (n = 46) of the inspected sites. The species exhibited greater affinity to the boll, followed by young leaves and buds. Opened flowers constituted a resource not frequented by the pest with a similarity range of I = 0.8 (<1). It is suggested that cotton plants are hosts to the thrips species; it means that the pest life cycle is highly associated to the cotton production in the Andean region. The importance of the results related to the cotton production and other crops associated to the insect species in the region is discussed.