A Far-Red Emitting Fluorescent Chemogenetic Reporter for In Vivo Molecular Imaging

Far-red emitting fluorescent labels are highly desirable for spectral multiplexing and deep tissue imaging. Here, we describe the generation of frFAST (far-red Fluorescence Activating and absorption Shifting Tag), a 14-kDa monomeric protein that forms a bright far-red fluorescent assembly with (4-hydroxy-3-methoxy-phenyl)allylidene rhodanine (HPAR-3OM). As HPAR-3OM is essentially non-fluorescent in solution and in cells, frFAST can be imaged with high contrast in presence of free HPAR-3OM, which allowed the rapid and efficient imaging of frFAST fusions in live cells, zebrafish embryo/larvae, and chicken embryos. Beyond enabling the genetic encoding of far-red fluorescence, frFAST allowed the design of a far-red chemogenetic reporter of protein–protein interactions, demonstrating its great potential for the design of innovative far-red emitting biosensors.     

Sensitivity analysis of thermal performances of flat plate solar air heaters

Sensitivity analysis is a mathematical tool, first developed for optimization methods, which aim is to characterize a system response through the variations of its output parameters following modifications imposed on the input parameters of the system. Such an analysis may quickly become laborious when the thermal model under consideration is complex or the number of input parameters is high. In this paper, we develop a mathematical model to analyse the heat exchanges in four different types of solar air collectors. When building this thermal model we show that for each collector, at quasi-steady state, the energy balance equations of the components of the collector cascade into a single first-order non-linear differential equation that is able to predict the thermal behaviour of the collector. Our heat transfer model clearly demonstrates the existence of an important dimensionless parameter, referred to as the thermal performance factor of the collector, that compares the useful thermal energy which can be extracted from the heater to the overall thermal losses of that collector for a given set of input parameters. A sensitivity analysis of our thermal model has been performed for the most significant input parameters such as the incident solar irradiation, the inlet fluid temperature, the air mass flow rate, the depth of the fluid channel, the number and nature of the transparent covers in order to measure the impact of each of these parameters on our model. An important result which can be drawn from this study is that the heat transfer model developed is robust enough to be used for thermal design studies of most known flat plate solar air heaters, but also of flat plate solar water collectors and linear solar concentrators.     

Attractors for a Three-Dimensional Thermo-Mechanical Model of Shape Memory Alloys

Abstract In this note, we consider a Frémond model of shape memory alloys. Let us imagine a piece of a shape memory alloy which is fixed on one part of its boundary, and assume that forcing terms, e.g., heat sources and external stress on the remaining part of its boundary, converge to some time-independent functions, in appropriate senses, as time goes to infinity. Under the above assumption, we shall discuss the asymptotic stability for the dynamical system from the viewpoint of the global attractor. More precisely, we generalize the paper [12] dealing with the one-dimensional case. First, we show the existence of the global attractor for the limiting autonomous dynamical system; then we characterize the asymptotic stability for the non-autonomous case by the limiting global attractor. * Project supported by the MIUR-COFIN 2004 research program on “Mathematical Modelling and Analysis of Free Boundary Problems”.     

Uniform bounds under increment conditions

We apply a majorizing measure theorem of Talagrand to obtain uniform bounds for sums of random variables satisfying increment conditions of the type considered in Gál-Koksma Theorems. We give some applications.

     

Syntactic characterization of closure under connected limits

Summary We give a syntactic characterization of (finitary) theories whose categories of models are closed under the formation of connected limits (respectively the formation of pullbacks and substructures) in the category of all structures. They are also those theories whose consistent extensions by new atomic facts admit in each component an initial structure (respectively an initial term structure), and also thoseT for whichM(T) is locally finitely multi-presentable in a canonical way. We also show that these two properties of theories are nonuniform.     

Constraint Programming and Operations Research: Comments from an Operations Researcher

This paper relates the author's personal experience with constraint programming and gives a personal assessment of the relationships between constraint programming and operations research.