École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne Patente

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.

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.

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.

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.

Rectilinear stage (1) with substantially a single degree of freedom in translation along a first axis (X), comprising: - a movable element (3) arranged to translate in a plane (XY) along said first axis with respect to a frame (18); - a first arm (5) pivotally attached at its first extremity to said movable element and at its second extremity to a first rigid link (11) arranged to pivot about a first frame hinge (17) provided on said frame; - a second arm (7) pivotally attached at its first extremity to said movable element and at its second extremity to a second rigid link (13) arranged to pivot about a second frame hinge (19) provided on said frame; - a third arm (9) pivotally attached at its first extremity to said movable element and at its second extremity to a third rigid link (15) arranged to pivot about a third frame hinge (21) provided on said frame; wherein - two of said arms are attached on a first side of said movable element, a further one of said arms being attached on a second side of said movable element opposite to said first side, considered in said plane; - at least two of said arms have substantially the same effective length; - with said movable element in a neutral position, said arms functionally extend in mutually-parallel directions; - said first and second rigid links are rotationally coupled by a first coupler (23) pivotally connected to each of said first and second rigid links, - said third rigid link is rotationally coupled to another rigid link by a second coupler (25) pivotally connected to each of said third rigid link and said other rigid link, - said first arm, said second arm, said third arm, said first rigid link, said second rigid link, said third rigid link, said first coupler and said second coupler being configured such that an angle of rotation of each of said rigid links about its respective frame hinge is of substantially equal magnitude in response to a displacement of said movable element along said first axis.

The invention relates to a photonic component for setting non-volatile operational states, comprising:- At least one light-guiding structure (3) formed in a silicon layer of a silicon-on-insulator substrate (2);- At least one switching element (4) formed by an optical phase change material (8) and a heating structure (7) underneath thereof, wherein the at least one switching element (4) is laterally neighbored to the at least one light-guiding structure (3) so as to provide an evanescent coupling between the at least one light-guiding structure (3) and at least one switching element (4);wherein the heating structure (7) of the switching element (4) is formed by a thinned portion of the silicon layer (22) of the silicon-on-insulator-substrate (2) with the lowest silicon thickness to provide a current path through the silicon layer (22), particularly along the direction of arrangement of the at least one light-guiding structure (3) and the at least one switching element (4), so that the current density of the current path is highest in the heating structure (7) of the at least one switching element (4).

The invention is notably directed to a computer-implemented method of optimizing an optical sensor (1) comprising a single-walled carbon nanotube (2), or SWCNT for short, which is wrapped in single-stranded sequence (3) of nucleotides (ssSN). The method revolves around two or more optimization cycles. Each optimization cycle includes clustering ssSNs of an input set of ssSNs to obtain clusters and selecting representative ssSNs of the clusters obtained. Next, one accesses measurements of optical responses of optical sensors to a target molecule, where the optical sensors include SWCNTs wrapped in actual ssSNs, which are synthetized in accordance with the representative ssSNs selected. After that, a top ssSN is identified among the representative ssSNs. The top ssSN is one that led to the highest optical response. Importantly, the top ssSN identified at each optimization cycle (but the last cycle) is mutated to obtain mutants and form a superset of sequences including the top ssSN and its mutants, prior to performing the next optimization cycle, using this superset as a new input set of ssSNs. This way, a local optimum is identified in the initial input space of the ssSNs. Additional optimization can be achieved through supervised learning and pattern recognition. The invention is further directed to related engineering methods (to synthetize ssSNs and wrap SWCNTs) and computer programs (to perform the optimizations).

A scanning probe microscope (10) is described, comprising a probe (1) with a cantilever (11) carrying a tip (12), the scanning probe microscope configured to generate a first actuating motion changing a distance of the tip (12) with respect to a sample surface, a detector (4) configured to detect a tip position and to output a tip position signal, a control circuit (5) configured to generate a first control signal using the tip position signal, the scanning probe microscope being configured to generate a second actuating motion adapting a distance between the probe (1) and the sample surface using the first control signal, wherein the control circuit (5) is configured to generate a second control signal, the scanning probe microscope being configured to generate, using the second control signal, a third actuating motion at least partially opposing detachment-induced oscillations of the cantilever (11) induced by detaching of the tip (12) from the sample surface while retracting the probe (1).

A first aspect of the invention relates to a force sensor assembly (1) comprising:- a support (3) adapted to be attached to a frame (5);- a force sensor (9) attached at a proximal end to said support (3) and adapted to deform in response to a force along a measurement axis (2);- an end effector (11) attached at a distal end of said force sensor (9) and adapted to come into contact with a test piece, said end effector (11) having a mass (m);- a compensating system (13) comprising a counterweight (15) having a counterweight mass (m_c) supported by said support (3) and linked to said end effector (11) by at least one lever (17) pivotally mounted on said support (3) at a pivot point (19) intermediate between said counterweight (15) and a point at which said lever (17) is connected to said end effector (11), said compensating system (13) being arranged such that, when said end effector (11) and said counterweight (15) are subjected to an acceleration (g, a) parallel to said measurement axis (2), the effect of said acceleration (g, a) on said counterweight (15) applies a compensating force to said end effector (11) that is substantially of equal magnitude and opposite direction to the force applied by said acceleration (g, a) directly to said end effector (11).A second aspect of the invention relates to a torque sensor assembly (31) that functions analogosly.

To obtain a data-structure that is characteristic of a physical object, a computer receives (413) sensor-data ({{Y}}|↓) from a sensor-array. The received sensor-data ({{Y}}|↓) is - in spatial and temporal data arrangement - a sub-set of sensor-data of a reference sensor-array. The computer uses a neural network to enhance (433) the received sensor-data to enhanced sensor-data so that - in spatial and temporal data arrangement - the enhanced sensor-data correspond to the sensor-data of the reference sensor-array. An imaging module beamforms (453) the enhanced sensor-data to the data-structure. The neural network has been trained (402) to obtain network weights, with sensor-data from the ultrasound transducer elements of the reference sensor-array.

The present invention relates to a method for straining a two-dimensional layer of solid material (5) in a nanoelectronic device. The method comprises the steps of providing a substrate; adding a thin film onto the substrate to be in direct contact with the substrate (4), or onto one of one or more first interlayers placed on the substrate (4) to be in indirect contact with the substrate (4); patterning the thin film; and adding, through a high-temperature process, a two-dimensional layer of solid material onto the patterned thin film (3) to be in direct contact with the patterned thin film (3), or onto one of one or more second interlayers placed on the patterned thin film (3) to be in indirect contact with the patterned thin film (3).

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