Winner loses all: The 2015 French regional elections

The French regional elections of 2015 presented two contrasting images of France: in the first round, a political landscape divided into three major blocs with the far-right Front National (FN) the dominant force; in the second round, a landscape as bipolarized between centre-right and centre-left as at any time under the Fifth Republic and with the FN a distant third. This article explores these two representations of political France and analyses the elections in relation to the wider French political context. It discusses the electoral dynamics that enabled the traditional parties to preserve their duopoly of regional power despite the increasingly intrusive challenge to their hegemony mounted by an ever more electorally potent FN

Generation of human-like motion on anthropomorphic systems using inverse dynamics

This work deals with the generation of human-like whole-body movements on anthropomorphic systems. We propose a general framework to generate robot movements from the definition of ordered stack of tasks and a global resolution scheme that enables to consider different kinds of constraints. We compare qualitatively the robot movements generated from this software with similar recorded human movements. We start with a direct global comparison of body movements. Then we analyze the magnitude of the reconstructed human torques and compare with the simulated robot torques during the motion

Is the breast-conserving treatment with radiotherapy appropriate in mutation carriers? Long-term results and review of the literature

International audienceAs tumours in mutation carriers might be more sensitive to radiation, we investigated after long-term follow-up whether mutation status influenced the rate of ipsilateral and contralateral breast cancers after breast-conserving treatment (BCT). and genes were screened for germline mutations in 131 patients with a family history of breast and/or ovarian cancer who had undergone BCT and radiotherapy. Patients were matched to 261 controls with sporadic breast cancer according to age at diagnosis and year of treatment. Controls were followed up for at least as long as the interval between diagnosis and genetic screening in familial cases. Rates of ipsilateral and contralateral cancer between groups were compared by the log-rank test. The mutations occurred in 20.6% of tested patients. Tumours in mutation carriers were more likely to be grade III ( < 10) and oestrogen receptor negative ( = 0.005) than in non-carriers and controls. Overall median follow-up was 161 months. There was no significant difference in ipsilateral tumours between mutation carriers, non-carriers and controls ( = 0.13). On multivariate analysis, age was the most significant predictor for ipsilateral recurrence ( < 10). The rate of contralateral cancer was significantly higher in familial cases: 40.7% (mutation carriers), 20% (non-carriers), and 11% (controls) ( < 10). After 13.4 years of follow-up, the rate of ipsilateral tumours was no higher in mutation carriers than in non-carriers or controls. As tumours in mutation carriers might be more sensitive to radiation, BCT is a possible treatment option

Mammary Paget's disease occurring after mastectomy

BACKGROUND: Mammary Paget's disease and extramammary Paget's disease are neoplastic conditions, in which there is intraepithelial (usually intraepidermal) infiltration by neoplastic cells showing glandular differentiation. Mammary Paget's disease occurs exclusively on the nipple/areola complex from where it may spread to the surrounding skin. CASE PRESENTATION: We here describe a case of Paget's disease occurring on the thoracic wall site of a previous simple mastectomy, and also briefly summarise the most important aspects leading to a diagnosis of mammary Paget's disease. CONCLUSION: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported case of mammary Paget's disease occurring after mastectomy. The absence of the nipple/areola complex obviously raised some questions concerning whether it was mammary or extra-mammary Paget's disease, and how it could occur in the absence of the nipple/areola complex

The impact of loco-regional recurrences on metastatic progression in early-stage breast cancer: a multistate model

To study whether the effects of prognostic factors associated with the occurrence of distant metastases (DM) at primary diagnosis change after the incidence of loco-regional recurrences (LRR) among women treated for invasive stage I or II breast cancer. The study population consisted of 3,601 women, enrolled in EORTC trials 10801, 10854, or 10902 treated for early-stage breast cancer. Data were analysed in a multivariate, multistate model by using multivariate Cox regression models, including a state-dependent covariate. The presence of a LRR in itself is a significant prognostic risk factor (HR: 3.64; 95%-CI: 2.02-6.5) for the occurrence of DM. Main prognostic risk factors for a DM are young age at diagnosis (</=40: HR: 1.79; 95%-CI: 1.28-2.51), larger tumour size (HR: 1.58; 95%-CI: 1.35-1.84) and node positivity (HR: 2.00; 95%-CI: 1.74-2.30). Adjuvant chemotherapy is protective for a DM (HR: 0.66; 95%-CI: 0.55-0.80). After the occurrence of a LRR the latter protective effect has disappeared (P = 0.009). The presence of LRR in itself is a significant risk factor for DM. For patients who are at risk of developing LRR, effective local control should be the main target of therapy

Developing Creativity: Artificial Barriers in Artificial Intelligence

The greatest rhetorical challenge to developers of creative artificial intelligence systems is convincingly arguing that their software is more than just an extension of their own creativity. This paper suggests that “creative autonomy,” which exists when a system not only evaluates creations on its own, but also changes its standards without explicit direction, is a necessary condition for making this argument. Rather than requiring that the system be hermetically sealed to avoid perceptions of human influence, developing creative autonomy is argued to be more plausible if the system is intimately embedded in a broader society of other creators and critics. Ideas are presented for constructing systems that might be able to achieve creative autonomy

Mould Routine Identification in the Clinical Laboratory by Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization Time-Of-Flight Mass Spectrometry

BACKGROUND: MALDI-TOF MS recently emerged as a valuable identification tool for bacteria and yeasts and revolutionized the daily clinical laboratory routine. But it has not been established for routine mould identification. This study aimed to validate a standardized procedure for MALDI-TOF MS-based mould identification in clinical laboratory. MATERIALS AND METHODS: First, pre-extraction and extraction procedures were optimized. With this standardized procedure, a 143 mould strains reference spectra library was built. Then, the mould isolates cultured from sequential clinical samples were prospectively subjected to this MALDI-TOF MS based-identification assay. MALDI-TOF MS-based identification was considered correct if it was concordant with the phenotypic identification; otherwise, the gold standard was DNA sequence comparison-based identification. RESULTS: The optimized procedure comprised a culture on sabouraud-gentamicin-chloramphenicol agar followed by a chemical extraction of the fungal colonies with formic acid and acetonitril. The identification was done using a reference database built with references from at least four culture replicates. For five months, 197 clinical isolates were analyzed; 20 were excluded because they were not identified at the species level. MALDI-TOF MS-based approach correctly identified 87% (154/177) of the isolates analyzed in a routine clinical laboratory activity. It failed in 12% (21/177), whose species were not represented in the reference library. MALDI-TOF MS-based identification was correct in 154 out of the remaining 156 isolates. One Beauveria bassiana was not identified and one Rhizopus oryzae was misidentified as Mucor circinelloides. CONCLUSIONS: This work's seminal finding is that a standardized procedure can also be used for MALDI-TOF MS-based identification of a wide array of clinically relevant mould species. It thus makes it possible to identify moulds in the routine clinical laboratory setting and opens new avenues for the development of an integrated MALDI-TOF MS-based solution for the identification of any clinically relevant microorganism