When humans carry out actions in response to some external stimulation, they acquire associations between the stimulus and the action it triggered. These stimulus-response associations are the basis for the automatic aspects of human performance: The tighter the link between stimulus and response, the faster the motor action is carried out upon stimulus presentation (cf. Logan, 1988). However, the particular flexibility of human behavior roots in humans? ability to act in a way that is not completely stimulus-driven. Stimuli often afford more than only one action and humans are able to select among these actions according to the context and their intentions. That is, humans "complement" stimulus information with some top-down control mechanism that takes care that stimulus-driven schemas activated at the same time are "channeled" in accordance with the agent?s intentions (e.g., Norman & Shallice, 1986). The importance of top-down control mechanisms guiding bottom-up schemas becomes especially obvious when they malfunction: "Utilisation behavior" is characterized by inability to inhibit actions from being triggered by the mere sight of an object with which the action is habitually associated (Lhermitte, 1983). Still, automatic and executive processes are traditionally explored with different experimental techniques. Top-down processes have been investigated with a number of paradigms studying processes like resource allocation, module configuration, step sequencing, outcome monitoring, troubleshooting, and so forth (see Monsell, 1996). In contrast, bottom-up influences on performance have been explored typically with priming techniques, which focus on effects driven by stimuli and their associations and/or by immediately preceding processing states. The current project abolishes this separation between controlled and automatic aspects of behavior. It does not only explore the properties of S-R associations but investigates also the conditions in which involuntary retrieval, based on prior S-R episodes, is liable to have significant effects on performance. It will do so by using an integrative approach that applies techniques coming from several disciplines: experimental psychology (reaction times), neurophysiology (event-related potentials [ERPs], induced gamma-band responses [iGBR], transcranial magnetic stimulation [TMS]), and neuropsychology (lesion studies).

Numerical tables were one of the most commonly used instruments of calculation from the earliest periods for which we have evidence of mathematical activity until the appearance of computing machines. By 'numerical tables', we mean a broad category of texts that establish correspondences between two or more quantitative or qualitative phenomena and attempt to exhibit, on a plane surface, in some determinate way, numerical values that correspond to these phenomena. Such tables are interesting both as tools of calculation and insofar as evidence for certain social and scientific activities of the practitioners by, and for, whom they were produced. Nevertheless, despite the fact that the historical record has preserved thousands of tables from a broad range of civilizations, these tables have themselves received relatively little critical study. Hence, it has seemed to us both useful and innovative to consider broadly and for the first time the problem of tables in general by bringing together specialists of the different mathematical traditions (Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, India, China, the Arabic World, Europe since the Middle Ages) and of the different context for the development of tables (astrology, astronomy, metrology, arithmetic, mathematical analysis, numerical calculation, mechanics, physical sciences, engineering, school mathematics, administration and management, etc.). It is our expectation that this will allow us to make significant breakthroughs in our understanding of the places and roles of tables in the history of the sciences.

Mechanisms of transcriptional repression are important during terminal differentiation of cells. In addition to tissue-specific transcription factors, chromatin modifications play a central role in cell fate regulation. Skeletal muscle terminal differentiation is orchestrated by the myogenic transcription factors of the MEF2 and MyoD families. These transcription factors, in collaboration with chromatin-modifying enzymes, act in specific combinations and within complex transcriptional regulatory networks to achieve skeletal myogenesis. Indeed, epigenetic mechanisms play also a central role during this process. Among these mechanisms, histone H3 lysine 9 (H3K9) methylation pathway, which is involved in gene silencing and in the formation and maintenance of heterochromatin, is of crucial interest during myogenesis. The main goal of our original project was to elucidate the epigenetic mechanims involved in the regulation of skeletal muscle genes during terminal (trans)-differentiation induced by MyoD. To get insight into this, we performed an exhaustive biochemical characterization of MyoD protein partners. In addtion to known partners, we have found that MyoD interacts physically and functionally with the Heterochromatin Protein HP1 family, which recognize methylated H3K9 to insure gene silencing and heterochromatin maintainance (Yahi et al. 2008). In addition, our results show for the first time that MyoD copurifies with 4 histone methyltransferases (HMTs) specific for H3K9, namely Suv39h1, G9A, GLP and SETDB1! We and others have already found that Suv39h1 and H3K9 methylation are involved in MyoD target genes regulation. Our recent results indicate, in another cell system (ES cells), the existence a functional factory of 4 H3K9 HMTases composed of Suv39h1, G9A, GLP and SETDB1 (Fritsch et al, submitted, manuscript provided in annex). Thus, H3K9 methylation and H3K9 HMTs seem to play crucial roles in facultative heterochromatin establishment during muscle differentiation. On another hand, Suv39h1, G9A, GLP, and SETBD1 were all linked to human diseases (Huntington disease, Parder-Willi syndrome, and tumorigenesis). It is thus extremely important to understand how these H3K9 HMTs achieve their roles, especially during myogenesis. The project proposed here aims at deciphering the role of this H3K9 HMT factory during skeletal muscle differentiation. Our goals are: 1- Study the individual roles of the H3K9 HMT Suv39h1, G9A, GLP and SETDB1 in the regulation of myogenesis (cell cycle exit and terminal differentiation); 2- Biochemical characterization of the protein complexes containing the H3K9 HMT Suv39h1, G9A, GLP and SETDB1 in myoblasts. We hope to confirm the existence of the H3K9 methylases factory in muscle cells and its collaboration with MyoD. 3- Global identification of the target genes of the H3K9 HMT Suv39h1, G9A, GLP and SETDB1 in myoblasts (ChIP-seq, SACO method). We will get a global picture of the physiological pathways (co)-regulated by this HMTs factory in myoblasts. The quaternary complex of H3K9 HMT plays a role during ES cells differentiation (Fritsch et al, submitted). We will get insight on its role during myogenesis. The results will at least help improving the efficiency of cellular reprogramming used in cellular therapy applied to myopathies. On another hand, in contrast to genetic aberrations, epigenetic mechanisms can be reversed by the use of chemical inhibitors. Thus, our results will contribute to develop fine therapies targeting components of H3K9 methylation multimeric complexes.

The project presented here by the Department of Sociology of Fudan university (Shanghai) and the Center for Studies on Modern and Contemporary China of the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (Paris), with the support of the Beida University (Départment of Sociology and Anthropology) is concerned with the preservation and enrichment process of qualitative and quantitative data about a village community located in Zhejiang province (Lianmin village) rather than with purely academic research. It includes three stages: the first one is to complement the extensive data already collected about Lianmin village, the second one is to carry out the necessary stages to articulate it into a sound and comprehensive database; the third one is to make this preliminary database available to a group of fifteen international scholars that will use it to develop various research projects, having thus an opportunity to react to the quality, presentation, coherence of the database. At the end of the international conference presenting both the scientific papers of these scholars and their suggestions or criticisms regarding the content and form of the data gathered, the database about Lianming village will be revised, improved and finally made widely available to the scientific community on electronical support. From our perspective, the building of such an electronic database and its preliminary use by reputed scholars coming from different backgrounds to test its form and content while using it to pursue effective research projects are part and parcel of the same objective : to constitute a reliable, coherent and efficient database that might be enlarged in the future with new data. Through the present project, our common ambition is thus to make the informations gathered in Lianming village database available as a kind of "electronic fieldwork" to the present and future community of social scientists anchored in a variety of disciplines and interested in the history of China countryside during the 20th century. From the time being, the data already collected on Lianming village constitute the most exhaustive information, whether from a qualitative or quantitative point of view, ever gathered on a single village community in China. We fear that it would be a great loss if such data was to remain inaccessible to the wider scientific community in China as well as abroad, or be dispersed and disappear. One of the main purposes of the present project is to proceed with the digitalization process of the numerous documents already gathered (estimated duration of such a task : two years). This main task will be associated to another core activity : to complete the data already collected in order to build a more comprehensive database. Such work will be performed along two dimensions : When the data already available will be digitalized and the complementary data collected, fifteen reknown scholars coming from Taiwan, Mainland China, Europe and the United States will be invited to choose a research project and to carry it out by using the existing Lianmin village database. Under their guidance, the members of the research executive team in charge during the two first years of the project of the collection process of new material regarding Lianmin village will look for the complementary oral or written information required for each of the fifteen studies and missing in the database. Such information will be later incorporated into the database in the hope to thus build a more comprehensive and useful database. One year after launching these fifteen research projects related to Lianmin village, an international conference will be held to discuss the scholars' scientific findings but also to hear their appreciations regarding the database in process. We will ask them to write a brief report with their comments regarding the Lianmin village/Zhang Letian database and their suggestions to improve it. The electronic database will finally be processed and made available to the wider scientific community.