École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Described herein is method for manufacturing a nanoparticle mixture comprising surface-capped nanoparticles for adhesion to bacteria, the method comprising the steps of providing a nanoparticle starting mixture comprising nanoparticles in a liquid, optionally mixing the nanoparticle starting mixture with a non-ionic surfactant to obtain a nanoparticle intermediate mixture, adding a capping molecule to the nanoparticle starting mixture or the nanoparticle intermediate mixture to obtain a nanoparticle mixture, optionally adjusting the pH value of the nanoparticle mixture and optionally removing the non-ionic surfactant. Also described are surface-capped nanoparticles for adhesion to bacteria obtainable by said method and a method for detecting bacteria applying surface-capped nanoparticles. Further described is the use of surface-capped nanoparticles for detecting bacterial contamination in food and/or feed or for monitoring microbiological safety of production lines for food and/or feed.

A hydraulic creep testing machine comprising a pump system (2), an output force regulation system (3), and at least one output cylinder (4) configured to apply a force (F) on a creep test object (100). The output force regulation system (3) comprises an accumulator (6), the accumulator connected to a pump outlet (7) of the pump system via a pump to accumulator circuit portion (8) and connected to the at least one output cylinder (4) via an accumulator to cylinder circuit portion (14). The pump to accumulator circuit portion (8) comprises a pump outlet on-off valve (10) switchable between an on position allowing fluid to flow from the pump system to the accumulator and an off position closing fluid communication between the pump system (2) and the accumulator (6). The accumulator to cylinder circuit portion (14) comprises a cylinder inlet on-off valve (22) switchable between an on position allowing fluid communication between the accumulator and at least one output cylinder, and an off position closing fluid communication between the accumulator and at least one output cylinder. The system is configured such that when the pump outlet on-off valve (10) is open, the cylinder inlet on-off valve (22) is closed and when the cylinder inlet on-off valve (22) is open, the outlet on-off valve (10) is closed.

The invention provides bridged, bicyclic compounds selected from a trioxabicycloheptane, a trioxabicyclooctane, a trioxabicyclononane, and from alkylated and/or alkoxylated derivatives of any of these compounds as a new class of solvents useful for the preparation of solutions and dispersion for diverse applications. Moreover, methods making use of these compounds as solvents, solutions and dispersions containing these compounds, and solvent formulations containing these compounds are provided.

The present invention discloses compositions, such as pharmaceutical compositions, as well as methods, for use in the treatment and/or prevention of a disease or condition linked to oxidative stress, lipid peroxidation and ferroptosis. The pharmaceutical composition of the invention comprises an agent modulating the expression and/or activity of i) a KRAB-containing zinc finger protein ZNF354A (ZNF354A), ii) an mRNA encoding the ZNF354A, and/or iii) the ZNF354A gene.

An electro-mechanically stackable docking station (1) is proposed for a drone. The docking station (1) comprises: a housing (8) comprising a door (5); a tray mechanism (6) comprising a tray (6) configured to move between a retracted position, and an extended position; a landing pad (7) on the tray (6) for the drone; a data communication module to allow the docking station (1) to set up a data communication link with the drone (2) and/or with another device; a data processing unit to process data; one or more mechanical coupling features (9) on the housing (8) to allow the docking station (1) to be mechanically coupled to one or more other docking stations (1) on one or more sides of the docking station (1); and one or more electrical connectors (14) and/or inductive pads (49) to allow the docking station (1) to be electrically connected to the one or more other docking stations.

The present invention concerns a robotic system for manipulation of objects, for example harvesting agricultural products, comprising at least one robot that comprises at least one end-effector movable in space by at least one arm, said end-effector being suitable holding and/or cropping objects such as agricultural products, at least one camera to capture images of the environment of the robot and at least one processing unit controlling the movements of the end-effector and said arm, based on images of said camera and on a predetermined manipulation task, said system being characterized in that it comprises at least one support tensioned between at least two spaced-apart holders and on which said at least one robot is hanging, at least one motor for driving relative movements between said robot and parallel portions of said at least one support.

This invention relates to a carbon-based composite comprising a carbon material, said composite acting as a selective contact for positive charges or for negative charges in a photovoltaic or an electronic device and to an optoelectronic or photovoltaic device comprising a light-harvesting layer (3) comprising an organic/inorganic metal halide perovskite, and a carbon-based electrode (4) comprising said carbon-based composite.

An electromagnetic radiation detector (2) according to one embodiment of the invention comprises: a light source (11₁) for emitting continuous-wave optical radiation, and an electro-optic modulator (20) exposed to an electromagnetic radiation to be detected and configured to receive the optical radiation. The electro-optic modulator (20) comprises an antenna (22) for collecting the electromagnetic radiation, an optical waveguide (23) extending in the electro-optic modulator (20) to allow the optical radiation to propagate therethrough, and two electrodes (24) extending along the waveguide (23) and coupled to the antenna (22) to enable an electro-optic effect to take place in the waveguide (23) such that the electromagnetic radiation modulates the optical radiation propagating in the waveguide (23). The detector further comprises a photodetector (12) configured to receive the modulated optical radiation and convert the modulated optical radiation into an electrical signal to allow determination of the power of the detected electromagnetic radiation.

The invention is notably directed to a computer-implemented method of determining one or more physical properties of a physical system (10i, 10f, 10) represented by a graph neural network (GNN). The physical system is a multi-body dynamical system of components interacting through pairwise interactions, such as a 3D granular system. The GNN includes nodes and bidirectional edges that are mapped onto the components and the pairwise interactions, respectively. The method comprises: (i) accessing an initial state obtained (S121) in accordance with initial dynamics of the physical system; (ii) iteratively executing (S125) the GNN based on the initial state accessed to iteratively update (S1256) a virtual state of the physical system as represented by the GNN, whereby multiple iterations are performed, which respectively correspond to multiple time steps; and (iii) determining (S126) one or more physical properties of the physical system at one or more of the multiple time steps based on one or more virtual states of the physical system as updated (S1256) at one or more of the corresponding iterations, respectively. At each iteration, the virtual state is updated (S1256) through message passing steps, which iteratively update (S1252, S1256) representations of the nodes and the bidirectional edges, so as to enforce (S1255), for each bidirectional edge of the bidirectional edges, a conservation of both a linear momentum and an angular momentum of the pairwise interaction corresponding to said each bidirectional edge. The angular momentum is measured about a point of action of internal force of the corresponding pairwise interaction. The invention is further directed to characterization systems and computer program products.

There is described method of producing a metal micro-/nanoelectrode (EL), the method comprising: (a) providing a glass pipette template (PT), the glass pipette template (PT) exhibiting a tapered portion (TP) terminating with a tip of micrometric or nanometric scale, the tapered portion (TP) being adapted to contain a solution; (b) filling at least part of the tapered portion (TP) of the glass pipette template (PT) with a chemical growth solution (GS) containing a metal precursor suitable for selective growth of a metal deposit (MD) inside the tapered portion (TP); (c) processing the taper-filled glass pipette templates (PT) in bulk media (BM) containing a reacting agent to drive nucleation and growth of a metal deposit (MD) from the chemical growth solution (GS) in the tapered portion (TP) of the glass pipette template (PT); and (d) physically connecting a micro-wire (MW) to the metal deposit (MD) formed inside the tapered portion (TP) of the glass pipette template (PT). The method especially allows the formation of thin-wall micro-/nanoelectrodes (EL) with single-crystalline metal deposits (MD), which forms another aspect of the invention.