Abstract: The system comprises at least a support (5) to be attached to a patient by fixing means (4), said support having an outer thread (7), a first nut (9) with an inner thread (11) cooperating with said outer thread (7); and an anchor having a spherical bottom end (10) being placed between said support and said nut, a spherical head (15) said spherical bottom end and head being linked by a shaft, a second nut (16) having an inner thread (17) and intended to be screwed on an external device having a corresponding thread (31), such as a platform (20) or a surgical device (30), whereby the tightening of at least one of the nuts (9,16) on the support and/or on the external device allows to block the position of the anchor.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a novel organometallic compound based on a divalent metal belonging to the 2nd column of the Periodic Table that can be used as an alkylating agent in a catalytic system based on a rare-earth metal. This novel compound corresponds to the formula: in which, M is a metal belonging to the 2nd column of the Periodic Table, chosen from Be, Mg, Sr, Ba, and Ra; R1, R2, R3 and R4 are hydrogen atoms or alkyl or aryl substituents, optionally bonded together to form at least one ring or at least one aromatic ring; R and R? denote alkyl or aryl substituents; L is a Lewis base; x is an integer from 0 to 4; m is an integer greater than or equal to 0; and n is an integer greater than or equal to 1.

Abstract: The invention relates to a viscosimetric sensor for monitoring an analyte level in a patient or in body fluids ex vivo. In particular, the invention relates to a sensor for monitoring analytes, such as glucose levels in a patient. The sensor comprises at least two hermetically closed chambers (2a, 2b), including an activation chamber and a measuring chamber, containing a sensitive fluid (3), the chambers communicating with each other through at least one microchannel (5), and a semi-permeable barrier (4) allowing the analyte to enter or leave the chambers. Each said chamber comprises at least one flexible membrane (6, 7) configured for antagonistic variations of the volume of the chambers.

Abstract: The invention relates to a method for analysing an interaction between a first molecule and a second molecule bonded to a particle, including the following steps: contacting the first molecule with the second molecule bonded to the particle under conditions enabling the interaction thereof; applying a predetermined liquid flow to the particle bonded to the second molecule; observing a movement of the particle bonded to the second molecule caused by the applied flow; analysing the interaction according to the movement observed and the applied flow, the particle having a greater hydrodynamic resistance than the first and/or second molecule, and a mass Péclet number of greater than 1. The invention also relates to a device for analysing an interaction between a first molecule and at least one second molecule, as well as to the use of the method or of the device in screening a candidate molecule for developing a drug.

Abstract: The invention relates to an improved process for the production of powders of an inhalable medicament by crystallization from a supersaturated fluid containing said medicament, the method comprising passing along a tubular reactor (a) a segmented flow of that fluid comprised of discrete volumes; or (b) a fluid mixture being separated by discrete volumes of a separating fluid which is substantially immiscible with said fluid, characterized in that the crystallization is initiated by application of ultrasound.

Abstract: An external manipulator for positioning surgical instruments within the abdominal cavity, comprising a hybrid kinematics with a parallel structure, able to provide four, active or passive, positional degrees of freedom to a endoscopic unit, placed in the distal end of an instrument shaft. Due to this specific kinematics, the instrument shaft is able to perform two rotations, one translation, and a fourth orientation degree of freedom about a remote centre of rotation, coincident with the surgical incision port. Because of its unique design and kinematics, the proposed mechanism is highly compact, stiff and its dexterity fulfils the workspace specifications for surgical procedures.

Abstract: A method and computing system are proposed for producing an authenticable security device with two sides. The verso side is covered with a luminescent emissive variable intensity layer formed for example by invisible luminescent ink halftones and the recto side is covered with transmissive non-luminescent ink halftones. The backlit colors resulting from the emissions of the luminescent layer or resulting from illumination by normal white light through the transmissive non-luminescent ink halftones are predicted by a backlighting model. This model enables computing the surface coverages of the luminescent and/or non-luminescent ink halftones in order to obtain a desired color either under excitation light (UV light) or under normal white light. This enable creating authenticable backlit images substantially similar to pre-stored reference images, either under normal white light, under excitation light, or under both the normal white light and the excitation light.

Abstract: Systems, methods, and apparatus for managing resources assigned to an application or service. A resource manager maintains a set of workload classes and classifies workloads using workload signatures. In specific embodiments, the resource manager minimizes or reduces resource management costs by identifying a relatively small set of workload classes during a learning phase, determining preferred resource allocations for each workload class, and then during a monitoring phase, classifying workloads and allocating resources based on the preferred resource allocation for the classified workload. In some embodiments, interference is accounted for by estimating and using an “interference index”.

Abstract: The present invention relates to new organic sensitizer compounds and to photoelectric conversion devices, in particular dye-sensitised solar cells comprising the new sensitizers. The present invention also relates to flexible photoelectric conversion devices, which are based on ionic liquid electrolytes or organic charge transporting materials.

Abstract: A high-speed laser perfusion imaging instrument including a laser source, a detector, a signal-processing unit, data memory, and a screen to display results. A section of a sample surface is illuminated with laser light; reemitted light from the irradiated surface is collected by focusing optics on a 2D array of integrating photodetectors having elements that can be accessed individually or in a pre-defined selection of pixels at high speed. This 2D array measures intensity variations at each individual pixel. Average amplitude and mean frequency of the measured signal contain information about concentration and speed of moving blood cells. For real-time imaging, exposure time is used as a parameter to measure relative perfusion changes. These data are stored and processed with the signal-processing unit to deliver 2D flow maps of the illuminated sample section, and allow a simple overlay between a conventional image and processed flow maps.

Abstract: A method for labeling acyl carrier protein (ACP) fusion proteins with a wide variety of different labels is disclosed. The method relies on the transfer of a label from a coenzyme A type substrate to an ACP fusion protein using a holo-acyl carrier protein synthase (ACPS) or a homologue thereof. The method allows detecting and manipulating the fusion protein, both in vitro and in vivo, by attaching molecules to the fusion proteins that introduce a new physical or chemical property to the fusion protein. Examples of such labels are, among others, spectroscopic probes or reporter molecules, affinity tags, molecules generating reactive radicals, cross-linkers, ligands mediating protein-protein interactions or molecules suitable for the immobilization of the fusion protein.

Abstract: New logic blocks capable of replacing the use of Look-Up Tables (LUTs) in integrated circuits, such as Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), are disclosed herein. In one embodiment, the new logic block is an AND-Inverter Cone (AIC), which is a binary tree including one or more AND gates with a programmable conditional inversion and a number of intermediary outputs. Compared to LUTs, AICs are richer in terms of input and output bandwidth, because the area of the AICs grows only linearly with the number of inputs. Also, the delay grows only logarithmically with the input count. The new logic blocks can map circuits more efficiently than LUTs, because the AICs are multi-output blocks and can cover more logic depth due to the higher input bandwidth.

Abstract: Method of fabricating a multilayer film having at least one ultrathin layer of crystalline silicon, the film being fabricated from a substrate having a crystalline structure and including a previously-cleaned surface. The method includes the steps of: a) exposing the cleaned surface to a radiofrequency plasma generated in a gaseous mixture of SiF4, hydrogen, and argon, so as to form an ultrathin layer of crystalline silicon having an interface sublayer in contact with the substrate and containing microcavities; b) depositing at least one layer of material on the ultrathin layer of crystalline silicon so as form a multilayer film, the multilayer film including at least one mechanically strong layer; and c) annealing the substrate covered in the multilayer film at a temperature higher than 400° C., thereby enabling the multilayer film to be separated from the substrate.

Abstract: The subject of the invention is a method of synthesizing a compound MxPy where M is an element belonging to one of columns II to XV of the Periodic Table of the Elements or to the family of lanthanides or to the family of actinides, characterized in that it includes the reaction of x moles of compound comprising the element M in its oxidation state 0 with y/4n moles of compound (P4)n. The method of the invention may be carried out at a temperature much lower than those necessary in the methods of the prior art. It also allows low-temperature formation of nanoparticles and stoichiometric reaction control. The applications of this method are numerous: magnetic ferro-magnets for MnP and FeP; hydrodesulfurization catalysts for Ni2P; luminescent nanoparticles for biological applications; microelectronics and optoelectronics for InP; and electronics for GaP. The latter two phosphides are also used in the photovoltaic energy field.

Abstract: Apparatus comprising M sensors for measuring the temperature on M locations of the apparatus and an estimator configured to estimate a temperature vector of the apparatus with N temperature variables, whereby the estimator is configured to approximate the vector space of the temperature vector by K basis vectors and whereby the M temperature sensors are allocated on the apparatus on the basis of the K basis vectors.

Abstract: A multiple-junction photoelectric device includes sequentially, a substrate, a first conducting layer, at least two elementary photoelectric devices, at least one of the elementary photoelectric devices being made of microcrystalline silicon, and a second conducting layer. The first conducting layer has a surface facing the microcrystalline silicon elementary photoelectric device such that the surface: has a lateral feature size bigger than 100 nm, and a root-element-square roughness bigger than 40 nm, includes inclined elementary surfaces such that ?50 is greater than 20°, where ?50 is the angle for which 50% of the elementary surfaces of the surface of the first conducting layer have an inclination equal to or less than this angle, and includes valleys formed between two elementary surfaces and having a radius of curvature smaller than 100 nm.

Abstract: The present invention aims to capture two images simultaneously in the visible part of the spectrum and a NIR image. This is achieved through a camera for simultaneously capturing a visible and near-infrared image by at least a sensor producing sensor response data and having at least one color filter array (CFA) comprising at least four different filters, said color filter array having visible and near-infrared light filters, and said camera comprising means to obtain a visible image while using the sensor response data from the visible part of the spectrum and a NIR image using the sensor response data from the near-infrared part of the spectrum.

Abstract: A method for producing nanostructures on a metal oxide substrate includes the following steps: a) forming metal aggregates on the metal oxide substrate; and b) vapor phase growing nanostructures on the metal oxide substrate covered with metal aggregates, the substrate being heated in the presence of one or more precursor gases, and the vapor phase growth of nanostructures being catalyzed by the metal aggregates. The metal aggregate formation stage a) includes an operation for reducing the surface of the metal oxide substrate by reductive plasma treatment, causing droplets of metal aggregates to form on the substrate, the metal aggregate formation stage a) and the nanostructure growth stage b) being carried out in series in a single shared plasma reactor chamber, the nanostructure growth being directly carried out on the droplets of metal aggregates.

Abstract: A method for nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) measurements, includes creation of enhanced polarization of nuclei of a first kind within a sample in a magnetic field at cryogenic temperatures and transfer of the polarized sample to room temperature. The enhanced polarization of nuclei of the first kind is thereby transformed into long-lived states (LLS) of nuclei of a second kind and these LLS are sustained. The LLS is at least partially converted into observable magnetization and an NMR or MRI measurement is carried out. The method allows one to extend the time needed between hyperpolarized magnetization and NMR detection.

Abstract: A method is provided for exciting at least one electrode of a capacitively coupled reactive plasma reactor containing a substrate. The electrode is excited by applying a RF voltage with a trapezoidal waveform comprising a ramp-up, a high plateau, a ramp-down and a low plateau. The plasma density can be controlled by adjusting the duration of the ramp-up, the duration of the ramp-down, the amplitude and the repetition rate of the trapezoidal waveform. The ion energy distribution function at the substrate can be controlled by adjusting the amplitude and the relative duration between the high plateau and the low plateau of the trapezoidal waveform.