La découverte de vastes régions non codantes avec des fonctions régulatrices conservées parmi les vertébrés, mais pas chez les invertébrés comme l'ascidie, pose en nouveaux termes la question de l'évolution des voies de régulation géniques chez les chordés. Pour détecter de telles régions régulatrices, en particulier à proximité de génes impliqués dans la mise en place de l'axe antero-posterieur, nous analyserons le génome du céphalochordé amphioxus, (dont l'assemblage est en cours pour l'espèce B. floridae), qui au contraire des ascidies partage avec les vertébrés des mécanismes moléculaires lies a la mise en place de cet axe. Les régions homologues seront clonées et séquencées dans deux autres espèces d'amphioxus, (B. lanceolatum et B. belcheri). La comparaison des séquences non codantes entre ces espèces nous permettra de découvrir des régions conservées entre céphalochordés mais pas avec les chordés mais aussi nous aurons accès a des variabilités intra-céphalochordés ce qui nous permettra d'avoir une meilleure idée des contraintes fonctionnelles dans ces séquences. Les régions conserves seront caractérisées in vitro, en culture cellulaire et in vivo ultérieurement. Ainsi, la relative simplicité du modèle amphioxus, couplée à la conservation de processus fondamentaux avec les vertébrés, nous permettra de reconstituer les voies de signalisation impliquées dans la mise en place de l'axe antéro-postérieur.

Polyvinylidene chloride (PVDC) is widely used in food and drug packaging, due to his excellent water vapor and oxygen barrier properties. PVDC is sold as either an extrudable resin or as an aqueous dispersion (latex) for coating. These applications, and also legislation related to these products, require that the level of degradation products be minimized, and the migration of any additives and/or by-products be well controlled and documented. This polymer has some limitations: migration of additives, which is a common problem to all industrial polymers synthesized by heterogeneous polymerization, and resistance to storage conditions and certain treatments. Limitations could be reduced if the following identified properties can be improved : • resistance to UV and visible light, • resistance to Beta radiation during processing of multilayer films, • thermal stability of PVDC during extrusion processing, • thermal stability of coated films, and • reduction of the migration of by-products and additives. The ASAP industrial research project aims to understand the degradation mechanisms, identify the various species which can be generated during PVDC degradation, and develop suitable solutions to limit the migration phenomena of both desirable species (such as surfactants and additives) and undesirable species (such as by-products). This understanding requires a preliminary analysis of the co-extruded and coated films produced with PVDC. Therefore, the proposed research programme will focus on the following points: • to know the critical UV and visible light wavelengths which contribute to PVDC degradation, • to know the impact of ? radiation on the PVDC layer in a coextruded film, • to better understand the relative contributions of both the monomer units used and the end groups present in the PVDC backbone to thermal degradation of PVDC products, and • to compare latexes using molecular surfactants to latexes without molecular surfactants. Research project results will lead to the development of a new generation of PVDC. In order to reach that goal, there is a high need for technological breakthrough by working on innovative processes, based on high level studies carried out at academic level, and which have demonstrated real benefits in terms of both polymer properties and processing. The multidisciplinary team brought together to execute the ASAP project includes renowned industrial and academic parties to ensure improvement of the current state-of-the-art and compliance with future industry (and market) specifications. SOLVIN SA, as project scientific coordinator, will lead this team with future industrial/market needs in mind. Academic partners UPMC, C2P2, ICG, LCP andTue Eindhoven, will all contribute with specific know-how, knowledge and experience in well defined areas and develop specific competencies.

Since the 90’, rechargeable Li-ion batteries are the most widely used for energy storage in portable devices. However, today’s most performing cells have almost reached their intrinsic limits while the demand in terms of performances and safety is still increasing. Commercially available batteries may not be able to answer the needs of new emerging applications (electric and hybrid vehicles, storage of sustainable energy...), or even more specific applications with strong added value. In this context, it is necessary to develop advanced battery technologies with characteristics such as high energy densities, long life, low production cost, little or no maintenance and a high degree of safety. “All solid state” Li-ion batteries may withstand such requirements and offer additional interests if we consider the possibility to work at high temperature or to design specific cell geometry. Up to now the development of such technology has faced assembly problems. Recent results obtained in the context of the project CeraLion (Stock-E-07-04) show the feasibility of developing bulk-type all solid state batteries by Spark Plasma Sintering. The objectives of this new project are then to valorize our previous results and the associated pending patent by bringing the use of all solid state technology closed to the applications. This project requires remaining relatively fundamental by considering the optimization of existing materials to fit the applications requirements in the aim to improve our prototypes performances. This will only be achieved by optimizing in parallel the formulation/mixture of solid compounds (active materials, electrolyte, electronic additive) in the composite electrodes. These lasts must have an optimized microstructure insuring ionic and electronic percolation within the ceramic volume without penalizing the energy density. The all solid state batteries will be obtained by adjusting parameters of the sintering technique from which the study of the influence on the electrochemical behavior of cells will allow to isolate the optimal conditions. These parameters will be used to prepare cells, some of which will have a peculiar geometry. These cells will then be characterized using standards defined by our industrial partner, which will validate the all solid state technology.

This project aims at the experimental and theoretical study of many-particle systems interacting through long-range forces. The experimental tool is a cloud of ions confined by a radio-frequency linear trap and cooled by laser techniques. The long-range interaction is thus provided by the Coulomb repulsion. Such sets of trapped ions can be theoretically described at the fully microscopic level, possibly including quantum effects, or using macroscopic descriptions as continuous media. These different approaches allow the various parameters of the problem, including the number of trapped atoms, the confining potential or the cooling limit temperature, to be connected to each other. Trapped ions also offer a convenient ground for investigating the detailed thermodynamics and dynamics of a many-body system, especially its nonlinear aspects, bringing together experts in the fields of nonlinear dynamics and statistical physics. Such system is sometimes referred as one-component plasma (OCP). They have been studied theoretically and, for the last 10 years, also experimentally with laser-cooled ions in traps. In the low temperature regime, and in the case of an infinite (bulk) plasma,the ions crystallise into the body-centered cubic lattice. BCC Wigner crystals have been observed in the center of very large ion cloud in Penning traps. In radio-frequency traps, where the number of ions that can be trapped is not sufficient for such regular crystals to be observed, the importance of surface effects gives rise to an interesting competition between the trapping potential (boundary conditions) and the size of the cloud. The observed structures range from 1D strings of ions to 3D spheroidal crystals, and include 2D planar shapes where the ions are usually set as concentric shells and effective 2D shaped with ions arranging themselves in a cylinder. In the fluid regime, trapped ions exhibit many features related to nonlinear dynamics, and one interest for the present project precisely lies in the possibility to detect and even monitor chaotic motion in the ion cloud. Of special interest is the freezing transition itself, as the cloud is laser-cooled from the fluid to crystalline regimes. Because the system is far below the macroscopic limit, finite-size effects may remain significant, not only on the structure itself, but on the dynamical and thermodynamical mechanisms. Some of these features, including the characterization of the finite-size phase transitions, have already been documented in a number of cases, but only for clouds confined by a linear quadrupolar trap. In this case, the ion density is essentially uniform in the cloud. Working with higher-order traps, the ions should move away from the center, leading to a whole new type of structures. We plan to investigate further the influence of the confining potential by performing numerical simulations with Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics particle-based methods of the stable structures of large sets of ions trapped in such traps. Once the structures are characterized and compared to simple continuous media theories, the thermodynamical and nonlinear dynamical behaviours will be investigated. The experimental tool chosen for the proposed study is a double linear radio-frequency trap designed specifically for this project. In linear traps, the radio-frequency is used to confine in the plane transverse to the symmetry axis, whereas confinement along this axis is reached by static voltage. The usual configuration is based on four electrodes, defining a quadrupole geometry for the electric field, resulting in an averaged pseudopotential with a parabolic shape. We propose to couple this trap to a second part consisting of a higher order geometry (2k-pole with k=4 or 6) where the confining potential can be described by r^(2k-2). These two different potential shapes result in different spatial atomic distributions, leading to different dependences of the dynamics. These differences are expected to modify the dynamics of the ion cloud, give a detailed insight useful for comparing with theoretical predictions. This original set-up offers many possibilities of modifying the internal state of the ion cloud, opening the way to trigger reversible phase transitions and giving access to 1D, 2D or 3D dynamics. As the cloud is laser cooled, the emergence of stable structures, temperature-induced shape transitions and transitions from chaotic to regular dynamics could be monitored. Higher-order traps (2k>4) lead, by definition, to nonlinear coupled equations of motions. Thus, the stability of a trajectory depends on the initial conditions as well as the trapping parameter. To increase the number of trapped atoms or to study the influence of these intial conditions, it is thus very useful to be able to load the high-order trap with ions already laser cooled in the quadrupolar part of the trap.