95 research outputs found
Antinuclear Antibodies in Patients with Psoriatic Arthritis Treated or Not with Biologics
International audienceBackground:With the emergence of biotherapies, accurate diagnosis in early arthritis is needed. At this time, there is no biological marker of psoriatic arthritis.Objective:To test whether antinuclear antibodies (ANA) can be used as a diagnostic tool in psoriatic arthritis (PsA), we evaluated the prevalence of ANA in biologic-naĂŻve PsA patients and in healthy blood donors.Methods:232 patients from the Rheumatology department, St Marguerite's Hospital, Marseilles, who fulfilled the CASPAR criteria for PsA, underwent clinical and laboratory investigations. Antinuclear antibodies (ANA), anti-extractable nuclear antigen antibodies (ENA), rheumatoid factor (RF), anti-citrullinated protein antibodies (ACPA) were assayed. Ninety-one healthy blood donors were also tested.Results:Detection of ANA by indirect immunofluorescence was significantly more frequent in sera from PsA patients than those from controls at serum dilution of 1:100 (57% compared with 40%, Odds Ratio (OR) 1.98 (1.2-3.4) p<0.02) and 1:160 (52% compared with 24%, OR 3,7 (1.9-7.2) p<0.001). No patients had lupus specific autoantibodies, 15 % had RF (34/232), and 1.7 % had ACPA (4/232).Conclusions:Detection of ANA was more frequent in sera from PsA patients than in those from healthy controls. This suggests that ANA could be a diagnosis orientation tool in PsA. Nevertheless, the specificity of these antibodies still remains to be investigated
IoT and information processing in smart energy applications.
The articles in this special section address smart energy applications from the perspective of the Internet of Things (IoT). For smart grid applications, we need to predict the electrical load so that the underlying smart grid can effectively balance the power supply and demand. In general, predictions are made based on the data obtained using IoT and smart meter technologies. The (IoT) could accelerate establishment of such infrastructures. With IoT technologies, many more devices could be controlled and managed through the Internet; data pertaining to the grid, commercial buildings, and residential premises can readily be collected and utilized. To derive valuable information from the data, further information and data processing become essential
Discovery of a possibly old galaxy at , multiply imaged by the massive cluster Abell 383
We report the discovery of a unique galaxy, multiply imaged by the
cluster Abell 383 and detected in new Hubble Space Telescope ACS and WFC3
imaging, as well as in Warm Spitzer observations. This galaxy was selected as a
pair of i-dropouts; its suspected high redshift was confirmed by the
measurement of a strong Lyman-alpha line in both images using Keck/DEIMOS.
Combining Hubble and Spitzer photometry after correcting for contamination by
line emission (estimated to be a small effect), we identify a strong Balmer
break of 1.5 magnitudes. Taking into account the magnification factor of
11.4+/-1.9 (2.65+/-0.17 mag) for the brightest image, the unlensed AB magnitude
for the source is 27.2+/-0.05 in the H band, corresponding to a 0.4 L* galaxy,
and 25.7+/-0.08 at 3.6 um. The UV slope is consistent with beta~2.0, and from
the rest-frame UV continuum we measure a current star formation rate of
2.4+/-1.1 Msol/yr. The unlensed half-light radius is measured to be 300 pc,
from which we deduce a star-forming surface density of ~10 Msol/yr/kpc2. The
Lyman-alpha emission is found to be extended over ~3" along the slit,
corresponding to ~5 kpc in the source plane. This can be explained by the
presence of a much larger envelope of neutral hydrogen around the star-forming
region. Finally, fitting the spectral energy distribution using 7 photometric
data points with simple SED models, we derive the following properties: very
little reddening, an inferred stellar mass of M*=6e9 Msol, and an inferred age
of ~800 Myrs (corresponding to a redshift of formation of ~18). The
star-formation rate of this object was likely much stronger in the past than at
the time of observation, suggesting that we may be missing a fraction of
galaxies at z~6 which have already faded in rest-frame UV wavelengths.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, MNRAS in press, replaced with accepted version
including minor comment
Programme de recherches interdisciplinaires « Vérité et fiction »
StĂ©phane Breton, Jean-Paul Colleyn, AndrĂ© Gunthert, Jean-Claude Penrad, Annick Bouleau, Sabine Chalvon, Daniel Dayan, Renaud Dulong, Ăliane de Latour, Catarina Pasqualino, Dominique Pasquier, Marc-Henri Piault, Jean-Pierre Bertin-Maghit, Jacqueline Chervin, Emmannuel Grimaud, Roger Odin, Laurence Allard Allard, Gilles Saussier, Elodie Perreau Nous avons poursuivi nos travaux sur la tension (majeure), entre la vĂ©ritĂ© et la fiction dans les formes dâexpression audiovisuelles. Roger Odin (Univer..
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: Physical Properties and Purity of a Galaxy Cluster Sample Selected via the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect
We present optical and X-ray properties for the first confirmed galaxy
cluster sample selected by the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect from 148 GHz maps over
455 square degrees of sky made with the Atacama Cosmology Telescope. These
maps, coupled with multi-band imaging on 4-meter-class optical telescopes, have
yielded a sample of 23 galaxy clusters with redshifts between 0.118 and 1.066.
Of these 23 clusters, 10 are newly discovered. The selection of this sample is
approximately mass limited and essentially independent of redshift. We provide
optical positions, images, redshifts and X-ray fluxes and luminosities for the
full sample, and X-ray temperatures of an important subset. The mass limit of
the full sample is around 8e14 Msun, with a number distribution that peaks
around a redshift of 0.4. For the 10 highest significance SZE-selected cluster
candidates, all of which are optically confirmed, the mass threshold is 1e15
Msun and the redshift range is 0.167 to 1.066. Archival observations from
Chandra, XMM-Newton, and ROSAT provide X-ray luminosities and temperatures that
are broadly consistent with this mass threshold. Our optical follow-up
procedure also allowed us to assess the purity of the ACT cluster sample.
Eighty (one hundred) percent of the 148 GHz candidates with signal-to-noise
ratios greater than 5.1 (5.7) are confirmed as massive clusters. The reported
sample represents one of the largest SZE-selected sample of massive clusters
over all redshifts within a cosmologically-significant survey volume, which
will enable cosmological studies as well as future studies on the evolution,
morphology, and stellar populations in the most massive clusters in the
Universe.Comment: 20 pages, 15 figures, 6 tables. Accepted for publication in ApJ.
Higher resolution figures available at:
http://peumo.rutgers.edu/~felipe/e-prints
Programme de recherches interdisciplinaires « Vérité et fiction »
StĂ©phane Breton, Jean-Paul Colleyn, AndrĂ© Gunthert, Jean-Claude Penrad, Annick Bouleau, Sabine Chalvon, Daniel Dayan, Renaud Dulong, Ăliane de Latour, Catarina Pasqualino, Dominique Pasquier, Marc-Henri Piault, Jean-Pierre Bertin-Maghit, Jacqueline Chervin, Emmannuel Grimaud, Roger Odin, Laurence Allard Allard, Gilles Saussier, Elodie Perreau Nous avons poursuivi nos travaux sur la tension (majeure), entre la vĂ©ritĂ© et la fiction dans les formes dâexpression audiovisuelles. Roger Odin (Univer..
A Tale of Two Oxidation States: Bacterial Colonization of Arsenic-Rich Environments
Microbial biotransformations have a major impact on contamination by toxic elements, which threatens public health in developing and industrial countries. Finding a means of preserving natural environmentsâincluding ground and surface watersâfrom arsenic constitutes a major challenge facing modern society. Although this metalloid is ubiquitous on Earth, thus far no bacterium thriving in arsenic-contaminated environments has been fully characterized. In-depth exploration of the genome of the ÎČ-proteobacterium Herminiimonas arsenicoxydans with regard to physiology, genetics, and proteomics, revealed that it possesses heretofore unsuspected mechanisms for coping with arsenic. Aside from multiple biochemical processes such as arsenic oxidation, reduction, and efflux, H. arsenicoxydans also exhibits positive chemotaxis and motility towards arsenic and metalloid scavenging by exopolysaccharides. These observations demonstrate the existence of a novel strategy to efficiently colonize arsenic-rich environments, which extends beyond oxidoreduction reactions. Such a microbial mechanism of detoxification, which is possibly exploitable for bioremediation applications of contaminated sites, may have played a crucial role in the occupation of ancient ecological niches on earth
Regulation of Septin Dynamics by the Saccharomyces cerevisiae Lysine Acetyltransferase NuA4
In the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the lysine acetyltransferase NuA4 has been linked to a host of cellular processes through the acetylation of histone and non-histone targets. To discover proteins regulated by NuA4-dependent acetylation, we performed genome-wide synthetic dosage lethal screens to identify genes whose overexpression is toxic to non-essential NuA4 deletion mutants. The resulting genetic network identified a novel link between NuA4 and septin proteins, a group of highly conserved GTP-binding proteins that function in cytokinesis. We show that acetyltransferase-deficient NuA4 mutants have defects in septin collar formation resulting in the development of elongated buds through the Swe1-dependent morphogenesis checkpoint. We have discovered multiple sites of acetylation on four of the five yeast mitotic septins, Cdc3, Cdc10, Cdc12 and Shs1, and determined that NuA4 can acetylate three of the four in vitro. In vivo we find that acetylation levels of both Shs1 and Cdc10 are reduced in a catalytically inactive esa1 mutant. Finally, we determine that cells expressing a Shs1 protein with decreased acetylation in vivo have defects in septin localization that are similar to those observed in NuA4 mutants. These findings provide the first evidence that yeast septin proteins are acetylated and that NuA4 impacts septin dynamics
Placental Plasmodium falciparum malaria infection: Operational accuracy of HRP2 rapid diagnostic tests in a malaria endemic setting
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Malaria has a negative effect on the outcome of pregnancy. Pregnant women are at high risk of severe malaria and severe haemolytic anaemia, which contribute 60-70% of foetal and perinatal losses. Peripheral blood smear microscopy under-estimates sequestered placental infections, therefore malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) detecting histidine rich protein-2 antigen (HRP-2) in peripheral blood are a potential alternative.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>HRP-2 RDTs accuracy in detecting malaria in pregnancy (MIP >28 weeks gestation) and placental <it>Plasmodium falciparum </it>malaria (after childbirth) were conducted using Giemsa microscopy and placental histopathology respectively as the reference standard. The study was conducted in Mbale Hospital, using the midwives to perform and interpret the RDT results. Discordant results samples were spot checked using PCR techniques.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Among 433 febrile women tested, RDTs had a sensitivity of 96.8% (95% CI 92-98.8), specificity of 73.5% (95% CI 67.8-78.6), a positive predictive value (PPV) of 68.0% (95% CI 61.4-73.9), and negative predictive value (NPV) of 97.5% (95% CI 94.0-99.0) in detecting peripheral <it>P. falciparum </it>malaria during pregnancy. At delivery, in non-symptomatic women, RDTs had a 80.9% sensitivity (95% CI 57.4-93.7) and a 87.5% specificity (95%CI 80.9-92.1), PPV of 47.2% (95% CI 30.7-64.2) and NPV of 97.1% (95% CI 92.2-99.1) in detecting placental <it>P. falciparum </it>infections among 173 samples. At delivery, 41% of peripheral infections were detected by microscopy without concurrent placental infection. The combination of RDTs and microscopy improved the sensitivity to 90.5% and the specificity to 98.4% for detecting placental malaria infection (McNemar's <it>X </it><sup>2</sup>> 3.84). RDTs were not superior to microscopy in detecting placental infection (McNemar's <it>X </it><sup>2</sup>< 3.84). Presence of malaria in pregnancy and active placental malaria infection were 38% and 12% respectively. Placental infections were associated with poor pregnancy outcome [pre-term, still birth and low birth weight] (aOR = 37.9) and late pregnancy malaria infection (aOR = 20.9). Mosquito net use (aOR 2.1) and increasing parity (aOR 2.7) were associated with lower risk for malaria in pregnancy.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Use of HRP-2 RDTs to detect malaria in pregnancy in symptomatic women was accurate when performed by midwives. A combination of RDTs and microscopy provided the best means of detecting placental malaria. RDTs were not superior to microscopy in detecting placental infection. With a high sensitivity and specificity, RDTs could be a useful tool for assessing malaria in pregnancy, with further (cost-) effectiveness studies.</p
Structure, Function, and Evolution of the Thiomonas spp. Genome
Bacteria of the Thiomonas genus are ubiquitous in extreme environments, such as arsenic-rich acid mine drainage (AMD). The genome of one of these strains, Thiomonas sp. 3As, was sequenced, annotated, and examined, revealing specific adaptations allowing this bacterium to survive and grow in its highly toxic environment. In order to explore genomic diversity as well as genetic evolution in Thiomonas spp., a comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) approach was used on eight different strains of the Thiomonas genus, including five strains of the same species. Our results suggest that the Thiomonas genome has evolved through the gain or loss of genomic islands and that this evolution is influenced by the specific environmental conditions in which the strains live
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