Simulation of the urban climate variations in connection with the transformations of the city of Nantes since the 17th century

The paper seeks to quantify the effect of urban politics on the microclimate of the city of Nantes (France), in particular those initiated by the sanitarians in the mid-19th century to find a remedy for the insalubrity that had been developing with urban densification since the late 17th century. Intensive historical research was first carried out in order to define and date the major transformations undergone by the city, its structure (densification, then widening of the streets, filling of water courses), the lifestyle habits (heating) or the building practices (appearance of stone and paving, higher buildings, insulation). This led to the definition of 5 characteristic states of the city, in 1680, 1756, 1835, 1880 and 1945.     

High prevalence of antibodies to Mycoplasma penetrans in human immunodeficiency virus-seronegative and -seropositive populations in Brazzaville, Congo

In industrialized countries, the prevalence of antibodies to Mycoplasma penetrans is higher among human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-seropositive homosexuals than other HIV-seropositive and HIV-seronegative groups. In an African heterosexual population, we found a higher prevalence of M. penetrans antibodies in HIV-seronegative blood donors (15.5%) than in France (0.9%) or the United States (0.3%) and a prevalence of 13.4% in HIV-seropositive individuals. HIV-seropositive individuals with less than 5% CD4 cells had a higher prevalence of M. penetrans antibodies than individuals with 5% or more CD4 cells (25.0 versus 8.5%).     

DESIGNING A RESILIENT WATERSCAPE USING A LIVING LAB AND CATALYZING POLYCENTRIC GOVERNANCE

The both polycentric governance and Living Labs concepts are based on decentralized participatory planning, co-design, and decisionmaking. While the concept of Living Lab is still emerging, the Isar-Plan (2000 ~ 2011) pioneered the approach for selecting, co-designing, and implementing nature-based solutions along the Isar River in Munich, Germany. Despite multiple governing authorities involved in the decisionmaking process of the Isar-Plan, the polycentric governance that led to the success of the project has to date not been analyzed. This paper presents the results of an ex-post-analysis of the Isar-Plan restoration planning process based on stakeholder interviews and a literature review. The contribution describes the evolution of Isar-Plan governance arrangements and discusses the Living Lab approaches to cooperative governance. The analysis demonstrates how polycentricity facilitated trust, learning, and the co-design of a resilient waterscape. The paper concludes that Living Labs can be a way of applying polycentric governance when autonomous and multi-scale decision-makers are collaboratively involved in the design of policy solutions, and vice-versa.     

Interactions of aqueous selenium (-II) and (IV) with metallic sulfide surfaces

The present study was initiated to determine the capacity of sulfide minerals (pyrite FeS2 and chalcopyrite CuFeS2) to delay the migration of inorganic selenium species in geological formations. Interactions between Se(IV) and Se(-II) and synthetic and natural sulfide minerals were investigated under anoxic conditions using the batch method. Significant sorption of selenium occurred under acidic conditions. Analysis of the solids after Se sorption using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) demonstrated the presence of reduced selenium species on the metallic sulfide surfaces, thus suggesting an oxido-reduction process coupled with sorption. Selenium reduction occurred concomitantly with the oxidation of pyritic sulfur, whereas metallic species (Fe, Cu) were not involved in the redox process. Formation of ferroselite (FeSe2) was postulated to take place on the synthetic solid while surface complexation or ionic exchange processes were more likely on the natural solids.     

Applications of the pyramidal clustering method to biological objects.

In conventional hierarchical clustering methods, any object can belong to only one class or cluster. We present here an application of the pyramidal classification method to biological objects, which illustrates the intuitively appealing idea that some objects may belong simultaneously to two classes. In a first step, we performed an all-by-all comparison of all the open reading frames in the genomes from S. cerevisiae, M. jannaschii, E. coli, H. influenzae and Synechocystis. In a second step, a series of connex classes was built, each connex class containing all those sequences that were linked by a Z-value (obtained after 100 sequence shufflings) greater than a given threshold. Finally, each connex class was submitted to a pyramidal classification. Three examples of such classifications are given, concerning two sets of multi-domains protein sequences and a family of aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases. They make it clear that the linear order among the classified objects that results from the pyramidal classification is useful in deciphering the multiple relationships that can exist between the objects under study. A program for calculating and displaying a pyramidal classification from a dissimilarity matrix is available from http:/(/)genome.genetique.uvsq.fr/Pyramids. The pyramidal classifications of the connex classes from the five organisms (intra- and inter-genomic comparisons) are available from http:/(/)www.gene-it.com under the family item.     

Functional properties of the α-chain of a major legumin subunit of Pisum sativum legumin

The constituting polypeptides of a heavy pea legumin subunit were separated. The interfacial and emulsifying properties of the α-chains were studied and compared with those of the respective subunit and the native legumin molecules. The α-polypeptides show modified interface behaviour as compared to the legumin. Faster diffusion and higher adsorption barriers during the phase of rearrangement, higher interface coverage in the equilibrium state and improved emulsifying properties were measured.     

Conceptual distinctiveness supports detailed visual long-term memory for real-world objects.

Humans have a massive capacity to store detailed information in visual long-term memory. The present studies explored the fidelity of these visual long-term memory representations and examined how conceptual and perceptual features of object categories support this capacity. Observers viewed 2,800 object images with a different number of exemplars presented from each category. At test, observers indicated which of 2 exemplars they had previously studied. Memory performance was high and remained quite high (82% accuracy) with 16 exemplars from a category in memory, demonstrating a large memory capacity for object exemplars. However, memory performance decreased as more exemplars were held in memory, implying systematic categorical interference. Object categories with conceptually distinctive exemplars showed less interference in memory as the number of exemplars increased. Interference in memory was not predicted by the perceptual distinctiveness of exemplars from an object category, though these perceptual measures predicted visual search rates for an object target among exemplars. These data provide evidence that observers' capacity to remember visual information in long-term memory depends more on conceptual structure than perceptual distinctiveness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Quantitative and qualitative variability of pea (Pisum sativum L.) protein composition

Smooth and wrinkled pea cultivars were studied to evaluate the protein content of the seeds, the proportion of albumins to globulins and the variability of the vicilin/legumin ratio. Principal components analysis showed a strong negative correlation between albumin and globulin contents. Stepwise discriminant analysis demonstrated that two variables, protein content and vicilin/legumin ratio, divided the samples into smooth and wrinkled cultivars with a percentage of success of 95%. In addition, the vicilin/legumin ratio tended to increase, the lower the protein content is.     

Selected physico-chemical properties of succinylated legumin from pea (Pisum sativum L.)

Selected physico-chemical properties of pea legumin before and after succinylation have been investigated using isoelectric focusing, PAGE, SDS-PAGE, hydrophobicity measurements, SE-HPLC and RP-HPLC. Exhaustive succinylation shifted the I.P. of legumin from 4.75 to 3.5. The stepwise dissociation of legumin by increasing succinylation has been confirmed both by means of PAGE in a nondenaturing system, and by SE-HPLC. The results of SDS-PAGE provided evidence for the exposure of α-polypeptide chains in the native legumin. High succinylation resulted in a decrease of the surface hydrophobicity (S₀) measured by both fluorescence probes (cis-parinaric acid and anilino-naphtalene sulfonic acid). RP-HPLC gave a response both to conformational changes and the introduced succinyl residues.