Metagenomics: A viable tool for reconstructing herbivore diet

Metagenomics can generate data on the diet of herbivores, without the need for primer selection and PCR enrichment steps as is necessary in metabarcoding. Metagenomic approaches to diet analysis have remained relatively unexplored, requiring validation of bioinformatic steps. Currently, no metagenomic herbivore diet studies have utilized both chloroplast and nuclear markers as reference sequences for plant identification, which would increase the number of reads that could be taxonomically informative. Here, we explore how in silico simulation of metagenomic data sets resembling sequences obtained from faecal samples can be used to validate taxonomic assignment. Using a known list of sequences to create simulated data sets, we derived reliable identification parameters for taxonomic assignments of sequences. We applied these parameters to characterize the diet of western capercaillies (Tetrao urogallus) located in Norway, and compared the results with metabarcoding trnL P6 loop data generated from the same samples. Both methods performed similarly in the number of plant taxa identified (metagenomics 42 taxa, metabarcoding 43 taxa), with no significant difference in species resolution (metagenomics 24%, metabarcoding 23%). We further observed that while metagenomics was strongly affected by the age of faecal samples, with fresh samples outperforming old samples, metabarcoding was not affected by sample age. On the other hand, metagenomics allowed us to simultaneously obtain the mitochondrial genome of the western capercaillies, thereby providing additional ecological information. Our study demonstrates the potential of utilizing metagenomics for diet reconstruction but also highlights key considerations as compared to metabarcoding for future utilization of this technique

Bovine tuberculosis: improvement of the detection of anergie and doubtful cases

Quatre-cent-soixante-dix-neuf animaux appartenant à trente-deux troupeaux reconnus infectés ont été tuberculinés par voie intradermique avec des doses croissantes de tuberculine bovine (1 600 - 5 400 et 12 000 unités). Cent-quarante-neuf animaux appartenant à cinq troupeaux reconnus sains ont servi de témoins négatifs. A partir des résultats d'abattoir observés sur cent-quatre-vingt-dix-sept animaux abattus dont cent-dix huit présentaient des lésions, il est montré que la dose forte de tuberculine améliore le dépistage de 21 p. 100, ne laissant subsister que 9,6 p. 100 d'anergiques.Four hundred seventy nine cattle from thirty two known to be infected herds were intradermally tested for tuberculosis with increasing doses of bovine tuberculin (1 600 -5 400 - 12000 units). One hundred fourty nine cattle belonging to five herds free from tuberculosis were used as negative controls. From the results observed at the slaughter-house on one hundred ninety seven animals, one hundred eighteen of which showed lesions, it was demonstrated the higher dose enhances the diagnosis by 21 p. 100, leaving out but 9,4 p. 100 of anergic animals

Premier isolement en France du virus de l'influenza du porc (Hsw1N1) dans un environnement pathologique plurimicrobien

Swine Influenza virus Hsw1N1 was isolated for the first time in France during a pathological episod in a holding. The virus was not transmitted to man and the origin of contagion remained unknown.Au cours d'un épisode pathologique ayant sévi dans une exploitation de porcs, il a pu être isolé, pour la première fois en France, un virus influenza du porc Hsw1N1, accompagné d'une flore microbienne pathogène. Le virus ne s'est pas transmis à l'homme et l’origine du contage est restée inconnue.Gourreau Jean-Marie, Kaiser C., Hannoun Claude, Vaissaire Josée, Gayot G., Gicquel B., Labie C., Mirial Ginette. Premier isolement en France du virus de l'influenza du porc (Hsw1N1) dans un environnement pathologique plurimicrobien. In: Bulletin de l'Académie Vétérinaire de France tome 133 n°1, 1980. pp. 181-188

Cyclodextrins as a potential carrier in drug nebulization.

The inhalation route is widely studied for many drug applications focusing on either local or systemic distributions. One matter of concern is the solubilization of hydrophobic drugs. We have studied the feasibility of using different cyclodextrins (CDs) to elaborate pharmaceutical formulations for the inhalation route and tested the short-term toxicity of such formulations administered by inhalation to C57BL/6 mice. We have shown that HP-beta-CD, gamma-CD, as well as RAMEB aqueous solutions can undergo aerosolization and that the resulting droplet-size ranges are compatible with pulmonary deposition. In vivo, we have demonstrated that short-term exposure to inhaled HP-beta-CD, gamma-CD and RAMEB solutions are non-toxic after assessing bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), lung and kidney histology, bronchial responsiveness to methacholine and blood urea. The only change noted is a slight increase in lymphocyte count in the BAL after HP-beta-CD and gamma-CD inhalation. We conclude that CDs are useful in significantly enhancing the solubility of apolar drugs with a view to inhalation therapy although an increase in lymphocyte counts in the BAL after CDs inhalations needs further investigations

Underdiagnosis of dementia in the elderly suffering from cancer: data from a preliminary study in an oncogeriatric unit.

International audienc

AnyHLS: High-level synthesis with partial evaluation

FPGAs excel in low power and high throughput computations, but they are challenging to program. Traditionally, developers rely on hardware description languages like Verilog or VHDL to specify the hardware behavior at the register-transfer level. High-Level Synthesis (HLS) raises the level of abstraction, but still requires FPGA design knowledge. Programmers usually write pragma-annotated C/C++ programs to define the hardware architecture of an application. However, each hardware vendor extends its own C dialect using its own vendor-specific set of pragmas. This prevents portability across different vendors. Furthermore, pragmas are not first-class citizens in the language. This makes it hard to use them in a modular way or design proper abstractions. In this paper, we present AnyHLS, an approach to synthesize FPGA designs in a modular and abstract way. AnyHLS is able to raise the abstraction level of existing HLS tools by resorting to programming language features such as types and higher-order functions as follows: It relies on partial evaluation to specialize and to optimize the user application based on a library of abstractions. Then, vendor-specific HLS code is generated for Intel and Xilinx FPGAs. Portability is obtained by avoiding any vendor-specific pragmas at the source code. In order to validate achievable gains in productivity, a library for the domain of image processing is introduced as a case study, and its synthesis results are compared with several state-of-theart Domain-Specific Language (DSL) approaches for this domain.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figure

Prévalence des troubles cognitifs et nutritionnels chez les sujets âgés cancéreux évalués en consultation d’oncogériatrie

National audienc

Monitoring of the intra-dermal tuberculosis skin test performed by Belgian field practitioners

The present study aimed to monitor skin test practices as performed by veterinarian field practitioners in Belgium. For this purpose, an anonymous postal questionnaire was elaborated and dispatched to veterinarians involved in bovine tuberculosis detection. The questionnaire included items focusing on the skin test performance. International experts in the field of bovine tuberculosis were asked to fill the questionnaire and a scoring scale was built as follows: 0='ideal' answer, 1=acceptable answer, whereas 2=unacceptable answer. Furthermore, experts were asked to rank the questionnaire's items according to their possible impact on the risk of not detecting reactors. A global score was further calculated for each participant and a comparison of practices was carried out between the two regions of the country, i.e. Wallonia and Flanders. Significant differences were observed between both regions, a harmonization at the country level is thus essential. No veterinarian summed a null score, corresponding to the ideal skin test procedure, which suggests that skin-testing is far from being performed correctly. Field practitioners need to be sensitized to the importance of correctly performing the test. The authors recommend the questionnaire is suitable for application in other countries or region