Collège de France

About: Collège de France is a education organization based out in Paris, France. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Receptor. The organization has 6541 authors who have published 11983 publications receiving 648742 citations. The organization is also known as: College de France.

Origins of mathematical intuitions: the case of arithmetic.

Abstract: Mathematicians frequently evoke their “intuition” when they are able to quickly and automatically solve a problem, with little introspection into their insight. Cognitive neuroscience research shows that mathematical intuition is a valid concept that can be studied in the laboratory in reduced paradigms, and that relates to the availability of “core knowledge” associated with evolutionarily ancient and specialized cerebral subsystems. As an illustration, I discuss the case of elementary arithmetic. Intuitions of numbers and their elementary transformations by addition and subtraction are present inallhumancultures.Theyrelatetoabrainsystem,locatedintheintraparietalsulcusof bothhemispheres,whichextractsnumerosityofsetsand,ineducatedadults,mapsback and forth between numerical symbols and the corresponding quantities. This system is available to animal species and to preverbal human infants. Its neuronal organization is increasingly being uncovered, leading to a precise mathematical theory of how we perform tasks of number comparison or number naming. The next challenge will be to understand how education changes our core intuitions of number.

Water electrolysers with closed and open electrochemical systems.

Abstract: Green hydrogen production using renewables-powered, low-temperature water electrolysers is crucial for rapidly decarbonizing the industrial sector and with it many chemical transformation processes. However, despite decades of research, advances at laboratory scale in terms of catalyst design and insights into underlying processes have not resulted in urgently needed improvements in water electrolyser performance or higher deployment rates. In light of recent developments in water electrolyser devices with modified architectures and designs integrating concepts from Li-ion or redox flow batteries, we discuss practical challenges hampering the scaling-up and large-scale deployment of water electrolysers. We highlight the role of device architectures and designs, and how engineering concepts deserve to be integrated into fundamental research to accelerate synergies between materials science and engineering, and also to achieve industry-scale deployment. New devices require benchmarking and assessment in terms of not only their performance metrics, but also their scalability and deployment potential.