Marie Morelle, Yaoundé carcérale. Géographie d’une ville et de sa prison

S’il se concentre sur un établissement carcéral spécifique, l’ouvrage de Marie Morelle n’est pas une monographie. Dès l’entame de l’introduction, l’auteure souligne que cette enquête sur la prison centrale de Yaoundé, appelée Kondengui en référence au nom du quartier dans lequel elle se situe, est un prolongement des travaux qu’elle a menés dans le cadre de ses recherches doctorales : des rues à la prison, elle a suivi la trajectoire de nombre des enfants à qui elle avait consacré sa thèse (M..

Ice Formation in Model Biological Membranes in the Presence of Cryoprotectors

Ice formation in model biological membranes is studied by SAXS and WAXS in the presence of cryoprotectors: dimethyl sulfoxide and glycerol. Three types of phospholipid membranes: DPPC, DMPC, DSPC are chosen for the investigation as well-studied model biological membranes. A special cryostat is used for sample cooling from 14.1C to -55.4C. The ice formation is only detected by WAXS in binary phospholipid/water and ternary phospholipid/cryoprotector/water systems in the condition of excess solvent. Ice formation in a binary phospholipid/water system creates an abrupt decrease of the membrane repeat distance by delta-d, so-called ice-induced dehydration of intermembrane space. The value of delta-d decreases as the cryoprotector concentration increases. The formation of ice does not influence the membrane structure (delta-d = 0) for cryoprotector mole fractions higher than 0.05.Comment: PDF: 9 pages, 3 figures; sourse in MS Wor

A Sucrose Solution Application to the Study of Model Biological Membranes

The small-angle X-ray and neutron scattering, time resolved X-ray small-angle and wide-angle diffraction coupled with differential scanning calorimetry have been applied to the investigation of unilamellar and multilamellar dimyristoylphosphatidylcholine (DMPC) vesicles in sucrose buffers with sucrose concentrations from 0 to 60%. Sucrose buffer decreased vesicle size and polydispersity and increased an X-ray contrast between phospholipid membrane and bulk solvent sufficiently. No influence of sucrose on the membrane thickness or mutual packing of hydrocarbon chains has been detected. The region of sucrose concentrations 30%-40% created the best experimental conditions for X-ray small-angle experiments with phospholipid vesicles.Comment: PDF: 10 pages, 6 figures. MS Word sours

Structural and Functional Hierarchy in Photosynthetic Energy Conversion—from Molecules to Nanostructures

Basic principles of structural and functional requirements of photosynthetic energy conversion in hierarchically organized machineries are reviewed. Blueprints of photosynthesis, the energetic basis of virtually all life on Earth, can serve the basis for constructing artificial light energy-converting molecular devices. In photosynthetic organisms, the conversion of light energy into chemical energy takes places in highly organized fine-tunable systems with structural and functional hierarchy. The incident photons are absorbed by light-harvesting complexes, which funnel the excitation energy into reaction centre (RC) protein complexes containing redox-active chlorophyll molecules; the primary charge separations in the RCs are followed by vectorial transport of charges (electrons and protons) in the photosynthetic membrane. RCs possess properties that make their use in solar energy-converting and integrated optoelectronic systems feasible. Therefore, there is a large interest in many laboratories and in the industry toward their use in molecular devices. RCs have been bound to different carrier matrices, with their photophysical and photochemical activities largely retained in the nano-systems and with electronic connection to conducting surfaces. We show examples of RCs bound to carbon-based materials (functionalized and non-functionalized single- and multiwalled carbon nanotubes), transitional metal oxides (ITO) and conducting polymers and porous silicon and characterize their photochemical activities. Recently, we adapted several physical and chemical methods for binding RCs to different nanomaterials. It is generally found that the P(+)(Q(A)Q(B))(−) charge pair, which is formed after single saturating light excitation is stabilized after the attachment of the RCs to the nanostructures, which is followed by slow reorganization of the protein structure. Measuring the electric conductivity in a direct contact mode or in electrochemical cell indicates that there is an electronic interaction between the protein and the inorganic carrier matrices. This can be a basis of sensing element of bio-hybrid device for biosensor and/or optoelectronic applications