脑库 Laboratoire工作室

Le Laboratoire是一个多领域人士参与的设计实验室性质的组织,一群有着不同背景的科学家、艺术家、设计师聚在一起进行实验和研发,将艺术(Art)、科学(Science)和技术(technology)的力量结合在一起。作为艺术科学(artscience)的创新发生地,Labor     

The necessity of sample quality assessment in 14C AMS dating: The case of Cova des Pas (Menorca – Spain)

The Cova des Pas cave is a karstic cave in the cliffs of the Barranc (canyon) de Trebalúger. It is a small cave only 6.5 m deep, 4.5 m wide and 1.7 m high. Yet more than 70 burials, in foetal position, from the Early Iron Age were found in this small cave. The conservation of the archaeological remains was very unusual. Not only wood, ropes and other plant material was found, but also remains of body tissue, hair and leather. In spite of the remarkable preservation of the bodies and artefacts, the state of conservation of the bone material was very bad. The bones contained little and heavily deteriorated collagen and the organic plant material was very fragile. The special environmental conditions of the cave are the cause of these unusual preservation conditions. Although the cave is situated in a limestone cliff, the soil of the cave is very acid. Unexpectedly bad sample quality seemed to be the major drawback for AMS radiocarbon dating on hair, wood, ropes and bone collagen, as well as on bio-apatite.     

Characterization of a Cutibacterium acnes Camp Factor 1-Related Peptide as a New TLR-2 Modulator in In Vitro and Ex Vivo Models of Inflammation

Cutibacterium acnes (C. acnes) has been implicated in inflammatory acne where highly mutated Christie–Atkins–Munch–Petersen factor (CAMP)1 displays strong toll like receptor (TLR)-2 binding activity. Using specific antibodies, we showed that CAMP1 production was independent of C. acnes phylotype and involved in the induction of inflammation. We confirmed that TLR-2 bound both mutated and non-mutated recombinant CAMP1, and peptide array analysis showed that seven peptides (A14, A15, B1, B2, B3, C1 and C3) were involved in TLR-2 binding, located on the same side of the three-dimensional structure of CAMP1. Both mutated and non-mutated recombinant CAMP1 proteins induced the production of C-X-C motif chemokine ligand interleukin (CXCL)8/(IL)-8 in vitro in keratinocytes and that of granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF), tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, IL-1β and IL-10 in ex vivo human skin explants. Only A14, B1 and B2 inhibited the production of CXCL8/IL-8 by keratinocytes and that of (GM-CSF), TNF-α, IL-1β and IL-10 in human skin explants stimulated with rCAMP1 and C. acnes. Following pretreatment with B2, RNA sequencing on skin explants identified the 10 genes displaying the strongest differential expression as IL6, TNF, CXCL1, CXCL2, CXCL3, CXCL8, IL-1β, chemokine ligand (CCL)2, CCL4 and colony stimulating factor (CSF)2. We, thus, identified a new CAMP1-derived peptide as a TLR-2 modulator likely to be a good candidate for clinical evaluation.     

Simple and straightforward determination of the enclosed water volume fraction of W/O/W double emulsions by analytical photocentrifugation

ABSTRACT

During the preparation of W/O/W-type double emulsions, a part of the internal water phase is often released to the external water phase. Thus, it is important that the enclosed water volume fraction can be determined in a simple and straightforward manner after preparation. In this work, a method is developed to determine the enclosed water volume fraction of W/O/W-type double emulsions using analytical photocentrifugation after which the results are compared to the enclosed water volume fraction as determined using pulsed field gradient Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR). From the results, it can be concluded that analytical photocentrifugation is indeed a simple and straightforward method to determine the enclosed water volume fraction of double emulsions.     

Removal and destruction of endocrine disrupting contaminants by adsorption with molecularly imprinted polymers followed by simultaneous extraction and phototreatment

This study presents a method to regenerate molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) used for the selective removal of endocrine disrupting compounds from aqueous effluents. Regeneration was based on solvent extraction under UV irradiation to regenerate the polymer and the solvent while destroying the contaminants. Acetone was selected as the best solvent for irradiation of estrone (E1), 17beta-estradiol (E2) and ethinylestradiol (EE2) using either UVC (254 nm) or UV-vis. A MIP synthesized with E2 as template was then tested for the extraction of this compound from a 2 microg/L loaded aqueous solution. E2 was recovered by 73+/-11% and 46+/-13% from the MIPs and a non-imprinted control polymer synthesized under the same conditions, respectively, after a single step elution with acetone. The irradiated polymers and acetone were reused for an additional extraction-regeneration cycle and showed no capacity decrease.     

Tolerancing kinematic couplings

This paper presents a method for allocating tolerances to dimensions in kinematic couplings, which are exact constraint devices used to locate one object with respect to another. The objective is to reduce the manufacturing cost without exceeding limits on the variation of the coupled position and orientation. The allocation procedure uses parametric models of the contacting surfaces and a solution for the resting position of the coupled body. A multivariate error analysis provides a relation between variation in manufactured dimensions and variation in the position and orientation of the coupled body. Optimal tolerances are then determined using a non-linear constrained optimization algorithm that minimizes the manufacturing cost while satisfying constraints on the variation of the coupled position and orientation. The method provides a useful tool when designing mass-produced kinematic couplings intended for applications where coupled bodies are exchanged.     

A computational model of bounded developable surfaces with application to image‐based three‐dimensional reconstruction

Developable surfaces have been extensively studied in computer graphics because they are involved in a large body of applications. This type of surfaces has also been used in computer vision and document processing in the context of three‐dimensional (3D) reconstruction for book digitization and augmented reality. Indeed, the shape of a smoothly deformed piece of paper can be very well modeled by a developable surface. Most of the existing developable surface parameterizations do not handle boundaries or are driven by overly large parameter sets. These two characteristics become issues in the context of developable surface reconstruction from real observations. Our main contribution is a generative model of bounded developable surfaces that solves these two issues. Our model is governed by intuitive parameters whose number depends on the actual deformation and including the “flat shape boundary”. A vast majority of the existing image‐based paper 3D reconstruction methods either require a tightly controlled environment or restricts the set of possible deformations. We propose an algorithm for reconstructing our model's parameters from a general smooth 3D surface interpolating a sparse cloud of 3D points. The latter is assumed to be reconstructed from images of a static piece of paper or any other developable surface. Our 3D reconstruction method is well adapted to the use of keypoint matches over multiple images. In this context, the initial 3D point cloud is reconstructed by structure‐from‐motion for which mature and reliable algorithms now exist and the thin‐plate spline is used as a general smooth surface model. After initialization, our model's parameters are refined with model‐based bundle adjustment. We experimentally validated our model and 3D reconstruction algorithm for shape capture and augmented reality on seven real datasets. The first six datasets consist of multiple images or videos and a sparse set of 3D points obtained by structure‐from‐motion. The last dataset is a dense 3D point cloud acquired by structured light. Our implementation has been made publicly available on the authors' web home pages. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

To Empower or Not to Empower Your Sales Force? An Empirical Examination of the Influence of Leadership Empowerment Behavior on Customer Satisfaction and Performance.

This research focuses on the impact of leadership empowerment behavior (LEB) on customer service satisfaction and sales performance, as mediated by salespeople's self-efficacy and adaptability. Moreover, the authors propose an interactive relationship whereby LEB will be differentially effective as a function of employees' empowerment readiness. The authors' hypotheses are tested using survey data from a sample of 231 salespeople in the pharmaceutical field, along with external ratings of satisfaction from 864 customers and archival sales performance information. Results indicated that contrary to popular belief, employees with low levels of product/industry knowledge and low experience benefit the most from leadership behaviors that are empowering, whereas high-knowledge and experienced employees reap no clear benefit. The authors conclude with directions for future research and application. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)