Fluoride glasses : synthesis and properties

The discovery of heavy metal fluoride glasses has opened new prospects for fiber optics operating beyond 2 µm with expected losses less than 10(-2) dB/Km. The main interest of fluoride glasses lies in their infrared transmission up to 8 µm in the bulk form and 4.5 µm for optical fibers. We have reported here the preparation, the glass forming systems and properties of heavy metal fluoride glasses

Le kyste hydatique du rein fistulisé dans les voies urinaires, prise en charge diagnostique et thérapeutique A propos de 14 cas

Objectif: l’hydatidose est une pathologie fréquente au Maroc et constitue un problème majeur de santé publique. La localisation rénale de cette parasitose est rare. Les formes s’accompagnant de plus d’une fistulisation dans les voies excrétrices présentent des particularités diagnostiques etthérapeutiques qui seront décrites dans cet article.Patients et méthodes: 14 patients présentant un kyste hydatique du rein fistulisé dans la voie excrétrice urinaire ont été inclus dans l’étude de 2002 à 2008. Les variables étudiées ont été : l’âge moyen, les antécédents, la symptomatologie clinique, l’imagerie, le traitement et l’évolution.Résultats: L’âge moyen était de 38 ans (21-54). La douleur lombaire a été retrouvée chez tous les patients et l’hydaturie chez 8 patients. L’échographie réalisée chez tous les patients a montré 6 cas de kyste hydatique de type III et 8 cas de type IV selon la classification de GHARBI. L’uroscanner a confirmé la nature hydatique de la masse et deux cas de rein non fonctionnel. L’hydaturie et la dilatation des cavités excrétrices ont été les principaux éléments orientant vers le diagnostic. Le traitement a consisté en une résection du dôme saillant et la fermeture de la fistule chez 12 patients; huit d’entre eux ont eu une néphrostomie per-opératoire après cure de la fistule et deux patients une montée de sonde urétérale double crosse en pré-opératoire, les deux autres n’ont pas été drainés. Les deux patients restant ont eu une néphrectomie. Les suites ont été marquées par une fistule stercorale colique chez un patient et deux cas d’infection de paroi.Conclusion: Tout kyste hydatique du rein doit avoir un bilan d’imagerie comportant un uroscanner avec des clichés tardifs à la recherche d’une fistulisation dans la voie excrétrice urinaire. Il est conseillé de mettre en place une sonde urétérale en préopératoire à visée diagnostique et thérapeutique.Mots clés : Rein, kyste hydatique, fistule dans les cavités excrétrices, drainage sonde urétérale double crosse, sutures en deux plan

Regime-oriented causal model evaluation of Atlantic-Pacific teleconnections in CMIP6

The climate system and its spatio-temporal changes are strongly affected by modes of long-term internal variability, like the Pacific Decadal Varibility (PDV) and the Atlantic Multidecadal Variability (AMV). As they alternate between warm and cold phases, the interplay between PDV and AMV varies over decadal to multidecadal timescales. Here, we use a causal discovery method to derive fingerprints in the Atlantic-Pacific interactions and investigate their phase-dependent changes. Dependent on the phases of PDV and AMV, different regimes with characteristic causal fingerprints are identified in reanalyses in a first step. In a second step, a regime-oriented causal model evaluation is performed to evaluate the ability of models participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) in representing the observed changing interactions between PDV, AMV and their extra-tropical teleconnections. The causal graphs obtained from reanalyses detect a direct opposite-sign response from AMV on PDV when analysing the complete 1900&ndash;2014 period, and during several defined regimes within that period, for example, when AMV is going through its negative (cold) phase. Reanalyses also demonstrate a same-sign response from PDV on AMV during the cold phase of PDV. Historical CMIP6 simulations exhibit varying skill in simulating the observed causal patterns. Generally, Large Ensemble (LE) simulations showed better network similarity when PDV and AMV are out of phase compared to other regimes. Also, the two largest ensembles (in terms of number of members) were found to contain realizations with similar causal fingerprints to observations. For most regimes, these same models showed higher network similarity when compared to each other. This work shows how causal discovery on LEs complements the available diagnostics and statistics metrics of climate variability to provide a powerful tool for climate model evaluation.</p

Metabolic and behavior responses of lactating goats under heat stress

Altres ajuts: acords transformatius de la UABHeat stress (HS) negatively affects animal performance, but little is known about energetic metabolism and behavior changes in dairy goats under HS conditions. Eight multiparous Murciano-Granadina dairy goats (43.3 ± 1.6 kg BW; 2 ± 0.04 L milk/d; 81 ± 3 days of lactation) were kept in metabolism cages and randomly assigned to two treatments varying in the temperature humidity index (THI). The design was crossover (two 28-d periods) and treatments were: 1) thermal neutral (TN; 15-20C, 40-45% humidity, THI = 59-65), and 2) heat stress (HS 12 h/d at 37◦C and 40%, and 12 h/d at 30◦C and 40%, THI = 86 and 77, respectively). Jugular silicon catheters were fitted, and glucose tolerance test (0.25 g/kg BW), insulin tolerance test (4.6 μg/kg BW) and epinephrine challenge (2 μg/kg BW) were conducted. Before and after each metabolite administration, blood samples were collected for the analysis of insulin, glucose, and nonesterified fatty acids (NEFA). Also, behavior variables (position changes, duration of remaining standing, as well as eating and drinking bouts and duration) were observed at day 3 of each period by video cameras. Heat stress reduced (P < 0.01) feed intake (< 29%), milk yield (< 10%), milk fat (-12%), milk protein (-14%), and milk casein (-13%). Goats in both groups had similar blood NEFA after insulin administration, but NEFA values were greater (P < 0.05) in TN than HS goats after epinephrine infusion. The HS goats secreted lower (P < 0.05) amounts of insulin than TN goats in response to the glucose tolerance test. Additionally, TN and HS goats had similar number of eating bouts, but the duration of each bout was shorter in HS than in TN. Also, HS had greater number of drinking bouts with no differences in drinking bout durations between groups. In conclusion, body lipid tissue of HS goats became more resistant to lipolysis, making them unable to mobilize body fat reserves despite the negative energy balance. In addition, the reduction in feed intake by HS was because of the shorter time of eating bouts, whereas the greater water consumption was related to the increase in drinking bouts

Cryptosporidium and Giardia lamblia Epidemiology in Middle Eastern Countries: study of the proliferation problem in the aquatic environment

The aim is to present a summarized study of the available literature on Cryptosporidium and Giardia lamblia for Middle Eastern countries, in order to identify trends in human cryptosporidiosis and childhood morbidity, and to raise awareness among residents. This is necessary in order to address the gap in preventive measures required to mitigate the overall effect attributed to associated illness and its impact in the already water stressed Middle Eastern countries. To assess seroprevalence of Cryptosporidium and Giardia lamblia in Middle Eastern countries systematic review was carried out based on online articles published from 2010-2018. PubMed, Web of Science, Google Scholar, Science Direct, Scopus, World Bank and WHO report and scientific database were explored. The current study highlights the existing subsequent epidemiology, its seroprevalence distribution, genetic diversity across Middle Eastern countries since 2009. This study therefore will provide the platform for future research work and development in comprehending Cryptosporidium and Giardia lamblia epidemiology in Middle Eastern countries. It was found that lack of awareness, personal hygiene and sanitation facilities, poverty, indiscriminate eating habits are favourable infestation conditions for Cryptosporidium and Giardia lamblia infections. The prevalence for both Cryptosporidium and Giardia lamblia, is higher in developing countries as compared to developed countries. The originality is that it is the only study of its kind in the region, as such studies are still lacking in Middle East countries as compared to other European, Asian, American continents and countries

Sleep spindles may predict response to cognitive behavioral therapy for chronic insomnia

Background While cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia constitutes the first-line treatment for chronic insomnia, only few reports have investigated how sleep architecture relates to response to this treatment. In this pilot study, we aimed at determining whether sleep spindle density at pre-treatment predicts treatment response to cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. Methods Twenty-four participants with chronic primary insomnia took part in a 6-week cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia performed in groups of 4 to 6 participants. Treatment response was assessed using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and the Insomnia Severity Index measured at pre- and post-treatment and at 3- and 12-months follow-up assessments. Secondary outcome measures were extracted from sleep diaries over seven days and one overnight polysomnography, obtained at pre- and post-treatment. Spindle density during stages N2-N3 sleep was extracted from polysomnography at pre-treatment. Hierarchical linear modeling analysis assessed whether sleep spindle density predicted response to cognitive behavioral therapy. Results After adjusting for age, sex and education level, lower spindle density at pre-treatment predicted poorer response over the 12-months follow-up, as reflected by smaller reduction in Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index over time. Reduced spindle density also predicted lower improvements in sleep diary sleep efficiency and wake after sleep onset immediately after treatment. There were no significant associations between spindle density and changes in the Insomnia Severity Index or polysomnography variables over time. Conclusion These preliminary results suggest that inter-individual differences in sleep spindle density in insomnia may represent an endogenous biomarker predicting responsiveness to cognitive behavioral therapy. Insomnia with altered spindle activity might constitute an insomnia subtype characterized by a neurophysiological vulnerability to sleep disruption associated with impaired responsiveness to cognitive behavioral therapy

Giant primary adrenal hydatid cyst presenting with arterial hypertension: a case report and review of the literature

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>A primary hydatid cyst of the adrenal gland is still an exceptional localization. The adrenal gland is an uncommon site even in Morocco, where echinococcal disease is endemic.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We report the case of a 64-year-old Moroccan man who presented with the unusual symptom of arterial hypertension associated with left flank pain. Computed tomography showed a cystic mass of his left adrenal gland with daughter cysts filing the lesion (Type III). Despite his negative serology tests, the diagnosis of a hydatid cyst was confirmed on surgical examination. Our patient underwent surgical excision of his left adrenal gland with normalization of blood pressure. No recurrence has occurred after 36 months of follow-up.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>There are two remarkable characteristics of this case report; the first is the unusual location of the cyst, the second is the association of an adrenal hydatid cyst with arterial hypertension, which has rarely been reported in the literature.</p

Improving phylogeny reconstruction at the strain level using peptidome datasets

Typical bacterial strain differentiation methods are often challenged by high genetic similarity between strains. To address this problem, we introduce a novel in silico peptide fingerprinting method based on conventional wet-lab protocols that enables the identification of potential strain-specific peptides. These can be further investigated using in vitro approaches, laying a foundation for the development of biomarker detection and application-specific methods. This novel method aims at reducing large amounts of comparative peptide data to binary matrices while maintaining a high phylogenetic resolution. The underlying case study concerns the Bacillus cereus group, namely the differentiation of Bacillus thuringiensis, Bacillus anthracis and Bacillus cereus strains. Results show that trees based on cytoplasmic and extracellular peptidomes are only marginally in conflict with those based on whole proteomes, as inferred by the established Genome-BLAST Distance Phylogeny (GBDP) method. Hence, these results indicate that the two approaches can most likely be used complementarily even in other organismal groups. The obtained results confirm previous reports about the misclassification of many strains within the B. cereus group. Moreover, our method was able to separate the B. anthracis strains with high resolution, similarly to the GBDP results as benchmarked via Bayesian inference and both Maximum Likelihood and Maximum Parsimony. In addition to the presented phylogenomic applications, whole-peptide fingerprinting might also become a valuable complementary technique to digital DNA-DNA hybridization, notably for bacterial classification at the species and subspecies level in the future.This research was funded by Grant AGL2013-44039-R from the Spanish “Plan Estatal de I+D+I”, and by Grant EM2014/046 from the “Plan Galego de investigación, innovación e crecemento 2011-2015”. BS was recipient of a Ramón y Cajal postdoctoral contractfrom the Spanish Ministry of Economyand Competitiveness. This work was also partially funded by the [14VI05] Contract-Programme from the University of Vigo and the Agrupamento INBIOMED from DXPCTSUG-FEDER unha maneira de facer Europa (2012/273).The research leading to these results has also received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme FP7/REGPOT-2012-2013.1 under grant agreement n˚ 316265, BIOCAPS. This document reflects only the authors’ views and the European Union is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained herein. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript