Ab Initio Study of Electronic Transport in Cubic-HfO2 Grain Boundaries

In polycrystalline materials the grain boundaries (GBs) are particularly important as they can act as a sink for atom defects and impurities, which may drive structural transformation of the materials and consequently modify their properties. Characterising the structure and properties of GBs is critical for understanding and controlling material property. Here, we investigated how GBs can modify the structural, electronic, and transport properties of the polycrystalline material . In general, grain boundaries are considered to be detrimental to the physical stability and electronic transport in . Anyway, studying by first principles the two most stable and common types of GBs, the tilt and the twist, we found substantial differences on the impact they have on the material properties. In fact, while tilt defects create channels of different sizes and shapes in hafnia along which the electronic transport is stronger in relation to leakage current through GBs, twist defects create a sort of amorphous structure that tends to resemble the bulk and which is independent of the number of rotated planes/atoms

CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells inhibit natural killer cell functions in a transforming growth factor–β–dependent manner

Tumor growth promotes the expansion of CD4+CD25+ regulatory T (T reg) cells that counteract T cell–mediated immune responses. An inverse correlation between natural killer (NK) cell activation and T reg cell expansion in tumor-bearing patients, shown here, prompted us to address the role of T reg cells in controlling innate antitumor immunity. Our experiments indicate that human T reg cells expressed membrane-bound transforming growth factor (TGF)–β, which directly inhibited NK cell effector functions and down-regulated NKG2D receptors on the NK cell surface. Adoptive transfer of wild-type T reg cells but not TGF-β−/− T reg cells into nude mice suppressed NK cell–mediated cytotoxicity, reduced NKG2D receptor expression, and accelerated the growth of tumors that are normally controlled by NK cells. Conversely, the depletion of mouse T reg cells exacerbated NK cell proliferation and cytotoxicity in vivo. Human NK cell–mediated tumor recognition could also be restored by depletion of T reg cells from tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes. These findings support a role for T reg cells in blunting the NK cell arm of the innate immune system

DMTs and Covid-19 severity in MS: a pooled analysis from Italy and France

We evaluated the effect of DMTs on Covid-19 severity in patients with MS, with a pooled-analysis of two large cohorts from Italy and France. The association of baseline characteristics and DMTs with Covid-19 severity was assessed by multivariate ordinal-logistic models and pooled by a fixed-effect meta-analysis. 1066 patients with MS from Italy and 721 from France were included. In the multivariate model, anti-CD20 therapies were significantly associated (OR = 2.05, 95%CI = 1.39–3.02, p < 0.001) with Covid-19 severity, whereas interferon indicated a decreased risk (OR = 0.42, 95%CI = 0.18–0.99, p = 0.047). This pooled-analysis confirms an increased risk of severe Covid-19 in patients on anti-CD20 therapies and supports the protective role of interferon

Reversible cardiac dysfunction after venlafaxine overdose and possible influence of genotype and metabolism.

Acute poisoning by large venlafaxine (VEN) overdoses may result in serious cardiac events like acute left ventricular dysfunction or even fatalities. In humans, venlafaxine is biotransformed for the most part by CYP2D6 and CYP2C19 isoenzymes to its major metabolite O-desmethylvenlafaxine (ODV), and in parallel to N-desmethylvenlafaxine (NDV) and N,O-didesmethylvenlafaxine (NODV) by several CYP isoenzymes, mainly including CYP3A4 and CYP2C19. The ODV concentrations must be taken into consideration along with those of VEN when relating blood concentrations to clinical effects. Herein we describe a case of reversible cardiac dysfunction following VEN self-poisoning. The peak ODV concentration (46,094ng/mL) was observed 20h post-ingestion, being one of the highest ever associated with survival. The calculated elimination half-life was 10h for VEN and 22h for ODV, and the calculated ODV/VEN metabolic ratio 12.9. Genotyping confirmed the patient to have an extensive metabolizer phenotype for CYP2D6, and an ultra-rapid metabolizer phenotype for CYP2C19. We suspect cardiotoxicity was related to sustained ODV exposure despite extensive VEN metabolism, and therefore suggest that ODV metabolism saturation may occur following large VEN overdoses

Détection automatisée des chaleurs chez des brebis Mérinos d’Arles pendant 4 cycles successifs

En élevage ovin, l’IA a été rendue possible par la synchronisation de la survenue des chaleurs. Cependant, tout en conférant une bonne réussite moyenne à l’IA, l’utilisation successive de traitements et une insémination unique à heure fixe ont fait apparaitre des problèmes de subfertilité. L’opportunité de détecter en temps réel les brebis en chaleur offre de nouvelles perspectives : pour identifier les causes de sub-fertilité sur IA et, en BIO, pour réaliser des IA sur des brebis naturellement synchronisées par un effet mâle. Un détecteur électronique de chevauchement (ALPHA, Wallace), basé sur un lecteur RFID autonome porté par un bélier, identifie chaque brebis chevauchée par lecture de son identifiant (Bocquier et al., 2006 ; Maton et al., 2010). L’objectif de l’étude est d’évaluer l’ALPHA sur des effectifs importants de brebis synchronisées tels que ceux rencontrés sur le Rayon de Roquefort et de l’utiliser sur des cycles successifs afin de détecter les brebis non gestantes

Evaluation à mi-parcours de la mise en oeuvre du phasing-out de l'objectif 1 en Hainaut

info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublishe

Correction: Probing keto–enol tautomerism using photoelectron spectroscopy

WoS title: Probing keto-enol tautomerism using photoelectron spectroscopy (vol 17, pg 19991, 2015)Correction for ‘Probing keto–enol tautomerism using photoelectron spectroscopy’ by Nathalie Capron et al., Phsical Chemistry Chemical Physics., 2015, vol. 17, issue 30, pages 19991–19996. DOI: 10.1039/c5cp02023a</p