Prévalence de l’hypertension artérielle dans la population des meuniers de la ville de Lubumbashi, République Démocratique du Congo

Introduction: L'objectif était de comparer la prévalence de l'hypertension artérielle chez les meuniers dans la ville de Lubumbashi qui sont exposés d'une manière permanente aux bruits des machines de  transformation des céréales à la prévalence de l'hypertension artérielle chez un groupe des gardiens. Méthodes: Quic'est une étude descriptive transversale qui a concerné 286 meuniers et 115 agents d'une entreprise de gardiennage. Apres un consentement éclairé, un auto questionnaire a été administré aux enquêtés et des mesures de poids, taille, et tension artérielle ont été prises. Résultats: La prévalence de l'HTA chez les meuniers était 49.3% et celle des gardes était 20.9%, pour un ratio de prévalence de 2.4.significativement élevée par rapport aux contrôles (49.3% vs 20.9%) et le ratio de prévalence était de 2.4 . Les facteurs de risque tels que: l'âge, l'indice de masse corporelle,  l'ancienneté, la durée de travail ont été significativement élevés chez les meuniers par rapport aux  gardiens. Conclusion: Nous avons trouvé une prévalence élevée de l'HTA chez les meuniers. Nos  résultats suggèrent que cette prévalence est probablement due à l'environnement du milieu de travail des meuniers (bruits, vibration des machines) et ce dernier constitue un facteur de risque de l'hypertension artérielle.Key words: Hypertension artérielle, meuniers, bruits, environnement du milieu de travai

SOX2 Is an Oncogene Activated by Recurrent 3q26.3 Amplifications in Human Lung Squamous Cell Carcinomas

Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the lung is a frequent and aggressive cancer type. Gene amplifications, a known activating mechanism of oncogenes, target the 3q26-qter region as one of the most frequently gained/amplified genomic sites in SCC of various types. Here, we used array comparative genomic hybridization to delineate the consensus region of 3q26.3 amplifications in lung SCC. Recurrent amplifications occur in 20% of lung SCC (136 tumors in total) and map to a core region of 2 Mb (Megabases) that encompasses SOX2, a transcription factor gene. Intense SOX2 immunostaining is frequent in nuclei of lung SCC, indicating potential active transcriptional regulation by SOX2. Analyses of the transcriptome of lung SCC, SOX2-overexpressing lung epithelial cells and embryonic stem cells (ESCs) reveal that SOX2 contributes to activate ESC-like phenotypes and provide clues pertaining to the deregulated genes involved in the malignant phenotype. In cell culture experiments, overexpression of SOX2 stimulates cellular migration and anchorage-independent growth while SOX2 knockdown impairs cell growth. Finally, SOX2 over-expression in non-tumorigenic human lung bronchial epithelial cells is tumorigenic in immunocompromised mice. These results indicate that the SOX2 transcription factor, a major regulator of stem cell function, is also an oncogene and a driver gene for the recurrent 3q26.33 amplifications in lung SCC

French Roadmap for complex Systems 2008-2009

This second issue of the French Complex Systems Roadmap is the outcome of the Entretiens de Cargese 2008, an interdisciplinary brainstorming session organized over one week in 2008, jointly by RNSC, ISC-PIF and IXXI. It capitalizes on the first roadmap and gathers contributions of more than 70 scientists from major French institutions. The aim of this roadmap is to foster the coordination of the complex systems community on focused topics and questions, as well as to present contributions and challenges in the complex systems sciences and complexity science to the public, political and industrial spheres

Biomarkers of Nutrition for Development (BOND)—Iron Review

This is the fifth in the series of reviews developed as part of the Biomarkers of Nutrition for Development (BOND) program. The BOND Iron Expert Panel (I-EP) reviewed the extant knowledge regarding iron biology, public health implications, and the relative usefulness of currently available biomarkers of iron status from deficiency to overload. Approaches to assessing intake, including bioavailability, are also covered. The report also covers technical and laboratory considerations for the use of available biomarkers of iron status, and concludes with a description of research priorities along with a brief discussion of new biomarkers with potential for use across the spectrum of activities related to the study of iron in human health. The I-EP concluded that current iron biomarkers are reliable for accurately assessing many aspects of iron nutrition. However, a clear distinction is made between the relative strengths of biomarkers to assess hematological consequences of iron deficiency versus other putative functional outcomes, particularly the relationship between maternal and fetal iron status during pregnancy, birth outcomes, and infant cognitive, motor and emotional development. The I-EP also highlighted the importance of considering the confounding effects of inflammation and infection on the interpretation of iron biomarker results, as well as the impact of life stage. Finally, alternative approaches to the evaluation of the risk for nutritional iron overload at the population level are presented, because the currently designated upper limits for the biomarker generally employed (serum ferritin) may not differentiate between true iron overload and the effects of subclinical inflammation

ECLAIRE: Effects of Climate Change on Air Pollution Impacts and Response Strategies for European Ecosystems. Project final report

The central goal of ECLAIRE is to assess how climate change will alter the extent to which air pollutants threaten terrestrial ecosystems. Particular attention has been given to nitrogen compounds, especially nitrogen oxides (NOx) and ammonia (NH3), as well as Biogenic Volatile Organic Compounds (BVOCs) in relation to tropospheric ozone (O3) formation, including their interactions with aerosol components. ECLAIRE has combined a broad program of field and laboratory experimentation and modelling of pollution fluxes and ecosystem impacts, advancing both mechanistic understanding and providing support to European policy makers. The central finding of ECLAIRE is that future climate change is expected to worsen the threat of air pollutants on Europe’s ecosystems. Firstly, climate warming is expected to increase the emissions of many trace gases, such as agricultural NH3, the soil component of NOx emissions and key BVOCs. Experimental data and numerical models show how these effects will tend to increase atmospheric N deposition in future. By contrast, the net effect on tropospheric O3 is less clear. This is because parallel increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations will offset the temperature-driven increase for some BVOCs, such as isoprene. By contrast, there is currently insufficient evidence to be confident that CO2 will offset anticipated climate increases in monoterpene emissions. Secondly, climate warming is found to be likely to increase the vulnerability of ecosystems towards air pollutant exposure or atmospheric deposition. Such effects may occur as a consequence of combined perturbation, as well as through specific interactions, such as between drought, O3, N and aerosol exposure. These combined effects of climate change are expected to offset part of the benefit of current emissions control policies. Unless decisive mitigation actions are taken, it is anticipated that ongoing climate warming will increase agricultural and other biogenic emissions, posing a challenge for national emissions ceilings and air quality objectives related to nitrogen and ozone pollution. The O3 effects will be further worsened if progress is not made to curb increases in methane (CH4) emissions in the northern hemisphere. Other key findings of ECLAIRE are that: 1) N deposition and O3 have adverse synergistic effects. Exposure to ambient O3 concentrations was shown to reduce the Nitrogen Use Efficiency of plants, both decreasing agricultural production and posing an increased risk of other forms of nitrogen pollution, such as nitrate leaching (NO3-) and the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O); 2) within-canopy dynamics for volatile aerosol can increase dry deposition and shorten atmospheric lifetimes; 3) ambient aerosol levels reduce the ability of plants to conserve water under drought conditions; 4) low-resolution mapping studies tend to underestimate the extent of local critical loads exceedance; 5) new dose-response functions can be used to improve the assessment of costs, including estimation of the value of damage due to air pollution effects on ecosystems, 6) scenarios can be constructed that combine technical mitigation measures with dietary change options (reducing livestock products in food down to recommended levels for health criteria), with the balance between the two strategies being a matter for future societal discussion. ECLAIRE has supported the revision process for the National Emissions Ceilings Directive and will continue to deliver scientific underpinning into the future for the UNECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution

ECLAIRE third periodic report

The ÉCLAIRE project (Effects of Climate Change on Air Pollution Impacts and Response Strategies for European Ecosystems) is a four year (2011-2015) project funded by the EU's Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP7)

Efficient panewise-like preconditioners for solving 3D problems

We deal with the numerical solution of large linear systems resulting from discretizations of three-dimensional boundary value problems. It has been shown recently that, if the use of presently available planewise preconditionings is as pathological as thought by many people, except for some trivial anisotropic problems, linewise preconditionings could fairly outperform pointwise methods of approximately the same computational complexity. We propose here a zebra (or line red-black) like numbering strategy of the grid points that leads to a rate of convergence comparable to the one predicted for ideal planewise preconditionings. The keys to the success of this strategy are threefold. On the one hand, one gets rid of the, time and memory consuming, task of computing some accurate approximation to the inverse of each pivot plane matrix. On the other hand, at each PCG iteration, there is no longer a need to solve linear systems whose matrices have the same structure as a two-dimensional boundary value problem matrix. Finally, it is well suited to parallel computations. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.SCOPUS: ar.jFLWINinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Experimental comparison of three-dimensional point and line modified incomplete factorizations

We examine how the variations of the coefficients of 3-dimensional (3D) partial differential equations (PDEs) influence the convergence of the conjugate gradient method, preconditioned by standard pointwise and linewise modified incomplete factorizations. General analytical spectral bounds obtained previously are applied, which displays the conditions under which good performances could be expected. The arguments also reveal that, if the total number of unknowns is very large or the number of unknowns in one direction is much larger than in both other ones, or if there are strong jumps in the variation of the PDE coefficients or fewer Dirichlet boundary conditions, then linewise preconditionings could be significantly more efficient than the corresponding pointwise ones. We also discuss reasons to explain why in the case of constant PDE coefficients, the advantage of preferring linewise methods to pointwise ones is not as pronounced as in 2D problems. Results of numerical experiments are reported.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe