APC Communiqué

This is the archive of the summer 2012 APC Communiqué, a bi-annual newsletter, which features a special report entitled, "President Rupiah Banda defends democracy in Zambia and Africa". Banda was APC's eighth President-in-Residence

Sorties de Cadre(s): Le licenciement pour motif personnel, instrument de gestion de la firme mondialisée

Tandis que les médias se focalisent sur les licenciements économiques et sur les plans sociaux devenus « plans de sauvegarde de l’emploi », les licenciements pour motif personnel (LMP) représentent désormais 70 % des licenciements prononcés en France. Les cadres sont les premiers visés, le plus souvent dans les grandes entreprises et dans le secteur des nouvelles technologies. Les auteurs s’appuient sur soixante entretiens avec des DRH, des cadres touchés par le LMP, des représentants syndicaux et des experts – juristes, avocats, inspecteurs du travail, consultants –, pour montrer comment les puissantes logiques de globalisation et de financiarisation ont profondément transformé la relation d’emploi. L’adoption d’un management par le marché, d’origine anglo-saxonne, a donné au LMP une place de premier plan. Moins contraignant juridiquement pour l’entreprise, moins « délicat » en terme d’image, ce dernier se substitue alors à d’autres modalités de départ. En donnant la parole aux cadres, les auteurs mettent à jour des situations très contrastées. Rupture identitaire et risque de précarité pour les uns, séparation négociée et opportunité pour d’autres, les « sorties de cadres » ne se valent pas toutes. Selon qu’ils sont « juniors » ou « seniors », qu’ils appartiennent à l’élite transnationale ou opèrent au niveau local, les cadres sont très inégalement armés pour y faire face. Un livre édifiant sur une pratique de gestion de plus en plus répandue, qui s’inscrit, plus largement, dans les débats contemporains sur les mutations du capitalisme français

X-ray diffraction reveals the intrinsic difference in the physical properties of membrane and soluble proteins.

Membrane proteins are distinguished from soluble proteins by their insertion into biological membranes. This insertion is achieved via a noticeable arrangement of hydrophobic amino acids that are exposed at the surface of the protein, and renders the interaction with the aliphatic tails of lipids more energetically favorable. This important difference between these two categories of proteins is the source of the need for a specific handling of membrane proteins, which transpired in the creation of new tools for their recombinant expression, purification and even crystallization. Following this line, we show here that crystals of membrane proteins display systematically higher diffraction anisotropy than those of soluble proteins. This phenomenon dramatically hampers structure solution and refinement, and has a strong impact on the quality of electron-density maps. A farther search for origins of this phenomenon showed that the type of crystallization, and thus the crystal packing, has no impact on anisotropy, nor does the nature or function of the membrane protein. Membrane proteins fully embedded within the membrane display equal anisotropy compared to the ones with extra membranous domains or fusions with soluble proteins. Overall, these results overturn common beliefs and call for a specific handling of their diffraction data

Jacquinot-Delaunay Geneviève & Fichez Élisabeth (dir.). L’université et les TIC. Chronique d’une innovation annoncée

Publié fin 2008, ce livre a de surcroît connu une longue genèse puisqu’il est fondé sur une recherche conduite entre 1999 et 2003 et portant sur un processus expérimental de grande ampleur en matière de ressources pour l’enseignement, une recherche menée par un groupe interuniversitaire et interdisciplinaire, associant des chercheurs en sciences dures et en sciences humaines rassemblés au sein du CODIF (Comité d’observation et d’orientation de dispositifs de formation). Il est donc légitime d..

Jacquinot-Delaunay Geneviève & Fichez Élisabeth (dir.). L’université et les TIC. Chronique d’une innovation annoncée

Publié fin 2008, ce livre a de surcroît connu une longue genèse puisqu’il est fondé sur une recherche conduite entre 1999 et 2003 et portant sur un processus expérimental de grande ampleur en matière de ressources pour l’enseignement, une recherche menée par un groupe interuniversitaire et interdisciplinaire, associant des chercheurs en sciences dures et en sciences humaines rassemblés au sein du CODIF (Comité d’observation et d’orientation de dispositifs de formation). Il est donc légitime d..

An Amphipathic α-Helix Directs Palmitoylation of the Large Intracellular Loop of the Sodium/Calcium Exchanger

The electrogenic sodium/calcium exchanger (NCX) mediates bidirectional calcium transport controlled by the transmembrane sodium gradient. NCX inactivation occurs in the absence of phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate and is facilitated by palmitoylation of a single cysteine at position 739 within the large intracellular loop of NCX. The aim of this investigation was to identify the structural determinants of NCX1 palmitoylation. Full-length NCX1 (FL-NCX1) and a YFP fusion protein of the NCX1 large intracellular loop (YFP-NCX1) were expressed in HEK cells. Single amino acid changes around Cys-739 in FL-NCX1 and deletions on the N-terminal side of Cys-739 in YFP-NCX1 did not affect NCX1 palmitoylation, with the exception of the rare human polymorphism S738F, which enhanced FL-NCX1 palmitoylation, and D741A, which modestly reduced it. In contrast, deletion of a 21-amino acid segment enriched in aromatic amino acids on the C-terminal side of Cys-739 abolished YFP-NCX1 palmitoylation. We hypothesized that this segment forms an amphipathic α-helix whose properties facilitate Cys-739 palmitoylation. Introduction of negatively charged amino acids to the hydrophobic face or of helix-breaking prolines impaired palmitoylation of both YFP-NCX1 and FL-NCX1. Alanine mutations on the hydrophilic face of the helix significantly reduced FL-NCX1 palmitoylation. Of note, when the helix-containing segment was introduced adjacent to cysteines that are not normally palmitoylated, they became palmitoylation sites. In conclusion, we have identified an amphipathic α-helix in the NCX1 large intracellular loop that controls NCX1 palmitoylation. NCX1 palmitoylation is governed by a distal secondary structure element rather than by local primary sequence

Inquiry into the interests of certain eighth-grade science pupils

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University, 1946. This item was digitized by the Internet Archive

La recepción de la obra de Jean-Baptiste Say en España: la teoría económica del empresario

Este trabajo analiza la difusión de la teoría del empresario de Jean-Baptiste Say en España, como último eslabón de una línea de pensamiento que tiene su origen en Richard Cantillon. Se prueba que la particularidad de este autor es su gran difusión en el siglo XIX español –siendo uno de los más traducidos– y la escasa influencia de su teoría económica del empresario. Explicamos las razones de una paradoja que deja sin fundamentos teóricos a cualquier política económica destinada al desarrollo del tejido empresarial nacional. Son presentados los mecanismos de difusión, tanto directos, por medio de traducciones, como indirectos, por medio de autores españoles que pudieron difundir esta teoría de la función empresarial. Nos interesa conocer la recepción por parte de los autores españoles de la teoría del empresario de Say, determinar su grado de comprensión, de interpretación en relación con la realidad nacional, de revisión teórica, e incluso conocer si la fuente real de la idea a transmitir es el propio autor o alguna otra.This paper illustrates the spread of Jean-Baptiste Say’s entrepreneur theory in Spain –a last contribution within the French tradition in which Richard Cantillon and A. R. J. Turgot were predecessors. We attempt to demonstrate that this is a special case, because, even though J. B. Say was the most important author from a publishing point of view, his economic theory of entrepreneurship had very little influence. The spread of economic ideas by way of translation and Spanish authors which employed J. B. Say’s economic theory, give possible explanations to a paradox which had left economic policy without a theoretical reference. We analyse how Say’s entrepreneur theory was received among Spanish authors in the 19th century, its degree of comprehension and the analytical additions made, and attempt to identify the real source of transmission

Conformational space exploration of cryo-EM structures by variability refinement

Cryo-EM observation of biological samples enables visualization of sample heterogeneity, in the form of discrete states that are separable, or continuous heterogeneity as a result of local protein motion before flash freezing. Variability analysis of this continuous heterogeneity describes the variance between a particle stack and a volume, and results in a map series describing the various steps undertaken by the sample in the particle stack. While this observation is absolutely stunning, it is very hard to pinpoint structural details to elements of the maps. In order to bridge the gap between observation and explanation, we designed a tool that refines an ensemble of structures into all the maps from variability analysis. Using this bundle of structures, it is easy to spot variable parts of the structure, as well as the parts that are not moving. Comparison with molecular dynamics simulations highlights the fact that the movements follow the same directions, albeit with different amplitudes. Ligand can also be investigated using this method. Variability refinement is available in the Phenix software suite, accessible under the program name phenix.varref

Elementos de química

Impresor en el v. 3: Imprenta de Mateo Repullé