Abstract: The invention relates to an optical tweezer device including at least one light source and one three-dimensional optical trap, said optical trap comprising one focusing micro-mirror which is adapted to reflect and focus at least a portion of the light emitted by said light source.

Abstract: A method for the dimensional characterization of a structured material, in which method: an excitation laser beam suitable for coherent nonlinear microscopy is generated, this excitation laser beam being focused in a focal volume within the structured material; signals emitted by the structured material are detected; a plurality of emission patterns, each corresponding to one particular shape of the focal volume, is produced, the particular shapes being obtained for various non-Gaussian spatial profiles of the excitation laser beam wavefront; and on the basis of the emission patterns thus produced, dimensional characteristics of the structured material are deduced therefrom.

Abstract: A method is described of forming a film of an amorphous material on a substrate by deposition from a plasma. The substrate is placed in an enclosure, a film precursor gas is introduced into the enclosure, and unreacted and dissociated gas is extracted from the enclosure so as to provide a low pressure therein. Microwave energy is introduced into the gas within the enclosure to produce a plasma therein by distributed electron cyclotron resonance (DECR) and cause material to be deposited from the plasma on the substrate. The said flow rate of the film precursor gas is altered during the course of deposition of material, so as to cause the bandgap to vary over the thickness of the deposited material.

Abstract: In previously known imaging devices as in still and motion cameras, for example, image sensor signal response typically is linear as a function of intensity of incident light. Desirably, however, akin to the response of the human eye, response is sought to be nonlinear and, more particularly, essentially logarithmic. Preferred nonlinearity is realized in image sensor devices of the invention upon severely limiting the number of pixel states, combined with clustering of pixels into what may be termed as super-pixels.

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: A method using O6-alkylguanine-DNA alkyltransferases (AGT) is disclosed for transferring a label from a substrate to a fusion protein comprising the AGT. This allows the detection and/or manipulating of 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 molecules 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 immobilisation of the fusion protein.

Abstract: The present invention is directed to devices and methods for in situ delivering an antibody or a fragment thereof to a host. In particular, the invention relates to devices and methods for in situ delivering an antibody or a fragment thereof to patient suffering for a neurodegenerative disorder or other diseases treated by antibody administration.

Abstract: A dye sensitized solar cell, comprising a-heteroleptic polypyridil complex of Ru, Os or Fe. The donating ligand has an extended conjugated n-system increasing the light absorbance and keeing the LUMO energy level higher than that of the anchoring ligand. A compacting compound whose molecular structure comprises a terminal group, a hydrophobic part and an anchoring? group may be co-adsorbed together with the dye on the semi-conductive metal oxide layer of the photoanode, forming a dense mixed self-assembled monolayer.

Abstract: The present invention is directed to a collimator that comprises grooves or channels in the submicrometer to micrometer range. The present invention is also related to uses of a collimator and collimator holder as described herein as well as apparatuses comprising the same.

Abstract: It is an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for enhanced bladder voidance which would have the advantages of a rhizotomy yet be temporary and reversible by combining low and high-frequency sacral nerve stimulation. Applicants propose a new sacral neurostimulation strategy based on a combination of nerve conduction blockade using high frequency signals and nerve stimulation using low-frequency signals. The method and apparatus enhances micturition in paraplegics by sacral neurostimulation involving a combination of a low-frequency electrical stimulation applied to one or more sacral nerves to induce bladder contraction and a high frequency electrical stimulation applied to at least one sacral nerve to cause nerve conduction blockade that prevents urethral sphincter dyssynergic contraction.

Abstract: The device comprises at least an inlet tube for the passage of fluid to be drained, said tube being connected to a chamber wherein said chamber comprises rotating means for adjusting the flow rate in said tube.

Abstract: Customisable embedded processors that are available on the market make it possible for designers to speed up execution of applications by using Application-specific Functional Units (AFUs), implementing Instruction-Set Extensions (ISEs). Furthermore, techniques for automatic ISE identification have been improving; many algorithms have been proposed for choosing, given the application's source code, the best ISEs under various constraints. Read and write ports between the AFUs and the processor register file are an expensive asset, fixed in the micro-architecture—some processors indeed only allow two read ports and one write port—and yet, on the other hand, a large availability of inputs and outputs to and from the AFUs exposes high speedup. Here we present a solution to the limitation of actual register file ports by serialising register file access and therefore addressing multi-cycle read and write.

Abstract: Method for estimating and correcting a frequency offset between a local clock of a receiving transceiver and a remote clock of an emitting transceiver comprises receiving by said receiving transceiver, a signal emitted by the emitting transceiver, said signal lacking a continuous sinusoidal carrier and having at least one symbol, each symbol being emitted within a time frame having a first duration; sampling the signal by taking for each time frame a set of energy measurements of said signal; forming a matrix representative of said energy measurements; determining from said energy matrix, points of maximum of energy within each time frame; determining a line connecting a plurality of said points within each of said time frames; determining a slope of said line; calculating a frequency offset between the clocks of the emitting and receiving transceivers using the slope; and adjusting the receiving transceiver's clock frequency according to the frequency offset.

Abstract: A semiconductor device includes a semiconductor substrate, a photon avalanche detector in the semiconductor substrate. The photon avalanche detector includes an anode of a first conductivity type and a cathode of a second conductivity type. A guard ring is in the semiconductor substrate and at least partially surrounds the photon avalanche detector. A passivation layer of the first conductivity type is in contact with the guard ring to reduce an electric field at an edge of the photon avalanche detector.

Abstract: A method for producing nanostructures (1) on a metal oxide substrate (2) includes the following steps: a) forming metal aggregates (3) on the metal oxide substrate (2); and b) vapor phase growing nanostructures (1) on the metal oxide substrate (2) covered with metal aggregates, the substrate being heated in the presence of one or more precursor gases, and the vapor phase growth of nanostructures (1) being catalyzed by the metal aggregates (3). 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 (3) to form on the substrate (2), the metal aggregate formation stage a) and the nanostructure growth stage b) being carried out in series in a single shared plasma reactor chamber (4), the nanostructure growth being directly carried out on the droplets of metal aggregates (3).

Abstract: Microcavity comprising two reflectors, at least one semiconductor layer separating said reflectors and a semiconductor quantum well wherein at least one of said reflectors and of said at least one semiconductor layer comprises a structure which is adjusted to localize a polariton in said microcavity.

Abstract: The invention relates to AGT mutants showing, when compared to the wild type human AGT, two or more advantageous properties selected from (a) reduced DNA interaction; (b) localisation of the expressed protein in eukaryotic cells that is no longer restricted to the nucleus; (c) improved expression yield as soluble protein and improved stability in various hosts; (d) improved stability under oxidising conditions; (e) improved stability within cells after reaction with a substrate; (f) improved stability outside cells before and after reaction with a substrate; (g) improved in vitro solubility; (h) improved reactivity against O6-alkylguanine substrates; (1) reduced reactivity against DNA-based substrates; and (j) reduced reactivity against N9-substituted O6-alkylguanine substrates.

Abstract: There is described a method for non-invasively measuring electrical activity in a joint of a subject, the method comprising: removably attaching in a non-invasive manner at least two electrodes to a skin surface around an articulation comprising the joint; generating electroarthrographic potentials within the joint by loading the articulation; capturing the electroarthrographic potentials using the at least two electrodes; discriminating between electroarthrographic potentials originating from joint tissue activity and those from other sources; and generating measurement signals representing the electrical activity of joint tissue.

Abstract: A method of data retrieval from a data repository in response to a query having either list of keywords and/or list of attribute-value pairs, the method comprising the steps of: providing an inverted index generated from the data repository, the inverted index indicating the attribute with which each term is encountered in each entity when such an attribute is available; retrieving data from the inverted index by searching said inverted index based on said attribute-value pairs or keywords; providing scores to entities. A method of forming an inverted index from a data repository and a search engine for retrieval of data from a data repository is also provided.

Abstract: Methods of inferring user preferences using ontologies use ontology structure based similarity and an inference mechanism in defining ontology filtering (OF). Items are recommended to users by identifying items that the users may prefer, but may not have been aware of. This is performed by computing personalized scores for concepts and selecting an instance having a highest score.