Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Tracing Different Types of Local Economic Benefits of RIs: The Case Study of LHC

CERN is operating the world’s largest particle accelerator complex in the world. The interconnection of versatile particle accelerators working with different particle beams at different intensities and energies continue to attract scientists and engineers from all over the world. The socio-economic effects generated by the presence of in the region are manifold. They include, but are not limited to consumer spending, real-estate investments and local business and services activities, investments in education, leisure activities and tourism, urban development and tax contributions. This chapter traces different local socio-economic effects of concentrating a large number of people around a research infrastructure

Assessing the Circadian Rhythm of Cats Living in a Group using Accelerometers

This study explores the biological rhythms of domestic cats. Twelve cats from the AVA shelter in Cuy-Saint-Fiacre, France, participated in the experimental study, wearing collars equipped with IMU sensors for about three weeks. Recorded data were analyzed to measure the cats activity and to gain further insights into their biological rhythms. We first determined the time budget of the cats by categorizing behavior into inactivity and activity. Next, we analyzed the day/night activity repartition and the hourly distribution of activity. Results showed an average of 14.5% of global activity and a higher activity during the day in comparison with the night. Moreover, a bimodal activity pattern with increased activity at the time of the caretaker's interventions at feeding time was found.</div

Preparative isolation of glucosinolates from various edible plants by strong ion-exchange centrifugal partition chromatography

International audienceGlucosinolates (GSLs) are a class of phytochemicals found in all calciferous plants (Brassicaceae) family as well as in the whole order of Brassicales (syn. Capparales). GSLs and their hydrolysis products (e.g. isothiocyanates) are known to play a defensive role by protecting the plant against exterior aggressions and may be potent antitumor, anticancer, antioxidant and antibiotic agents. In order to obtain pure GSLs standards for developing research, an efficient two-step method was developed to preparatively isolate and separate GSLs from papaya (Carica papaya), upland cress (Barbarea verna), cauliflower (Brassica oleracea L. var. botrytis L.), and broccoletti seeds (Brassica rapa ruvo). In this process, solvent extraction was followed by a strong anion-exchange centrifugal partition chromatography protocol. TLC, HPLC-PDA, ESI-MS and NMR analysis of the collected fractions, demonstrated that the GSLs from papaya and upland cress seeds (i.e. glucotropaeolin and gluconasturtiin, respectively) as well as all the GSLs from cauliflower and broccoletti seeds (i.e. sinigrin, glucoiberin, glucoiberverin, gluconapin, glucobrassicanapin and gluconasturtiin) can be purified in a single chromatographic step. Gram amounts of pure reference standards were obtained. These results will facilitate investigation of the biological activities and the isolation of such compounds in other crucifers. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier B.V

Circadian rhythm of a group of cats living in a large enclosure monitored by embedded accelerometers

International audienc

Management Across Settings: An Ambulatory and Community Perspective for Patients Undergoing CAR T-Cell Therapy in Multiple Care Settings

Many patients are referred to chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy programs from outside their primary oncology setting and community. Collaboration between the referring and treating providers is required to coordinate safe and effective care. This article presents an overview of key considerations for referring providers and institutions prior to and following CAR T-cell therapy. Definitions of the consultation and workup, leukapheresis, bridging, lymphodepleting chemotherapy, infusion and monitoring, and long-term follow-up phases are presented, along with specific considerations for referring centers. Although CAR T-cell therapy is limited to select centers, the process of supporting and educating patients and their caregivers requires a partnership between referring and treating providers. As CAR T-cell indications expand, management of patients in diverse settings requires a collaborative and evidence-based approach to support safe and effective care

Costos de neumonia nosocomial en una unidad de cuidados intensivos en Cartagena, Colombia

Resumen Objetivo: Estimar el exceso de costos directos de atención atribuible a la neumonía asociada a ventilador mecánico en una unidad de cuidados intensivos de adultos en la ciudad de Cartagena durante los años 2009 al 2014. Material y Método: Se plantea un estudio de evaluación económica parcial centrado en el análisis de costos directos de atención contrastando los escenarios de neumonía asociada a ventilador mecánico versus los escenarios sin neumonía asociada a ventilador mecánico. La población de estudio la constituye 23 pacientes con neumonía asociada a ventilador mecánico. Del mismo modo, se tomaron 46 controles. La información correspondiente a los costos directos se obtuvo a través del departamento de costos de la institución hospitalaria. Se estimó la razón de costos que permite establecer el exceso de costo atribuible a la enfermedad nosocomial. Resultados: La estancia promedio en los casos fue de 47 días mientras que en los controles fue de 9 días. El costo promedio de un caso de neumonía asociada a ventilador mecánico fue de US$44.354 mientras que el de un control fue de US$ 5.037. Discusión: El exceso de costo promedio total así como el incurrido en antibióticos y en estancia resultan ser mucho más altos que los encontrados en otros estudios realizados. Conclusiones: Un caso de neumonía asociada a ventilador mecánico cuesta 10 veces más con respecto a los medicamentos y 8 veces más con relación a exámenes de laboratorio se insumos. La estancia resulta ser 6,6 veces más costosa que cuando no se presenta esta patología. El costo que se asume en antibióticos es 7,8 veces más alto. Los casos de neumonía asociada a ventilador mecánico cuestan en promedio 8,8 veces más que los controles

Predicting linear B-cell epitopes using string kernels

The identification and characterization of B-cell epitopes play an important role in vaccine design, immunodiagnostic tests, and antibody production. Therefore, computational tools for reliably predicting linear B-cell epitopes are highly desirable. We evaluated Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifiers trained utilizing five different kernel methods using fivefold cross-validation on a homology-reduced data set of 701 linear B-cell epitopes, extracted from Bcipep database, and 701 non-epitopes, randomly extracted from SwissProt sequences. Based on the results of our computational experiments, we propose BCPred, a novel method for predicting linear B-cell epitopes using the subsequence kernel. We show that the predictive performance of BCPred (AUC 0.758) outperforms 11 SVM-based classifiers developed and evaluated in our experiments as well as our implementation of AAP (AUC 0.7), a recently proposed method for predicting linear B-cell epitopes using amino acid pair antigenicity. Furthermore, we compared BCPred with AAP and ABCPred, a method that uses recurrent neural networks, using two data sets of unique B-cell epitopes that had been previously used to evaluate ABCPred. Analysis of the data sets used and the results of this comparison show that conclusions about the relative performance of different B-cell epitope prediction methods drawn on the basis of experiments using data sets of unique B-cell epitopes are likely to yield overly optimistic estimates of performance of evaluated methods. This argues for the use of carefully homology-reduced data sets in comparing B-cell epitope prediction methods to avoid misleading conclusions about how different methods compare to each other. Our homology-reduced data set and implementations of BCPred as well as the APP method are publicly available throug