Diversité floristique, sécurisation foncière et gestion des systèmes agroforestiers à palmier à huile (Elaeis guineensis) en zones périurbaines et rurales du Département de l’Atlantique au Sud du Bénin

Les territoires ruraux et péri urbains des régions forestières d'Afrique de l'Ouest, comme ceux de la région tropicale guinéenne au Sud du Bénin, connaissent ces dernières années une évolution rapide de leur environnement physique, social et économique. Ces évolutions sont évidemment marquées dans l’espace par une diversification et une intensification des systèmes de production, des stratégies paysannes d’adaptation aux systèmes socio fonciers et à l’évolution de la demande alimentaire des villes. L’objectif de cette étude est de caractériser les systèmes agroforestiers à travers leur diversité floristique. Pour répondre à cet objectif, dans le cadre de ce travail, il a été procédé d’abord, à un zonage basé sur la classification des critères agroécologiques, géomorphologiques, des activités humaines, de la densité des populations et de l’existence ou non des jachères dans le système agraire du Département de l’Atlantique au Sud du Bénin. Pour caractériser les aspects phytoécologiques de chaque zone, il a été réalisé un inventaire forestier. L’échantillonnage probabiliste qui repose sur le principe de la randomisation (la sélection au hasard ou aléatoire) a été utilisé. L’analyse des données a permis de montrer que les types d’agrosystèmes forestiers à palmier à huile dans les trois zones identifiées, sont caractérisés par le mode d’accès à la terre et le type de traitement des pieds de palmiers à huile dans l’exploitation. De plus, le système agraire du Département de l’Atlantique était marqué par de différents types de systèmes agricoles basés sur la présence d’un nombre important de pieds de palmier à huile (Elaeis guineensis) : soit 270 pieds/ha dans la zone 1, 121 pieds/ha dans la zone 2 et 184 pieds/ha (associés à des cultures annuelles).Mots clé: Agrosystème, palmier à huile, diversité floristique, sud du Bénin

An evaluation of enteral nutrition practices and nutritional provision in children during the entire length of stay in critical care

<b>Background</b> Provision of optimal nutrition in children in critical care is often challenging. This study evaluated exclusive enteral nutrition (EN) provision practices and explored predictors of energy intake and delay of EN advancement in critically ill children.<p></p> <b>Methods</b> Data on intake and EN practices were collected on a daily basis and compared against predefined targets and dietary reference values in a paediatric intensive care unit. Factors associated with intake and advancement of EN were explored.<p></p> <b>Results</b> Data were collected from 130 patients and 887 nutritional support days (NSDs). Delay to initiate EN was longer in patients from both the General Surgical and congenital heart defect (CHD) Surgical groups [Median (IQR); CHD Surgical group: 20.3 (16.4) vs General Surgical group: 11.4 (53.5) vs Medical group: 6.5 (10.9) hours; p <= 0.001]. Daily fasting time per patient was significantly longer in patients from the General Surgical and CHD Surgical groups than those from the Medical group [% of 24 h, Median (IQR); CHD Surgical group: 24.0 (29.2) vs General Surgical group: 41.7 (66.7) vs Medical group: 9.4 (21.9); p <= 0.001]. A lower proportion of fluids was delivered as EN per patient (45% vs 73%) or per NSD (56% vs 73%) in those from the CHD Surgical group compared with those with medical conditions. Protein and energy requirements were achieved in 38% and 33% of the NSDs. In a substantial proportion of NSDs, minimum micronutrient recommendations were not met particularly in those patients from the CHD Surgical group. A higher delivery of fluid requirements (p < 0.05) and a greater proportion of these delivered as EN (p < 0.001) were associated with median energy intake during stay and delay of EN advancement. Fasting (31%), fluid restriction (39%) for clinical reasons, procedures requiring feed cessation and establishing EN (22%) were the most common reasons why target energy requirements were not met.<p></p> <b>Conclusions</b> Provision of optimal EN support remains challenging and varies during hospitalisation and among patients. Delivery of EN should be prioritized over other "non-nutritional" fluids whenever this is possible.<p></p&gt

Case report: intra-tendinous ganglion of the anterior cruciate ligament in a young footballer

A 20-year-old male medical student and keen rugby player presented with a 12-month history of progressively worsening right knee pain and stiffness with no history of trauma. Clinical examination revealed effusion and posterior knee pain exacerbated by end range movement and an extension lag of 15 degrees. Physiotherapy to improve the range of motion proved unsuccessful. Magnetic resonance imaging showed that the ACL was grossly thickened and displaced by material reported as mucoid in nature. There were also areas of focally high signal in relation to its tibial attachment and intra osseous small cysts. Arthroscopic examination revealed a ganglion related to the tibial attachment of the ACL and gross thickening and discoloration of the ACL. Biopsies were taken showing foci of mucoid degeneration in the ACL. A large intra-ACL mass of brownish coloured tissue was excised arthroscopically. Already at 2 weeks follow up the patient had greatly improved range of movement and was pain free. However, upon returning to rugby, joint instability was noticed and a tear of the ACL was confirmed. This rare clinical condition can be diagnosed with MRI and arthroscopic debridement effectively relieves symptoms. This case report illustrates that augmentation or reconstruction may end up being the definitive treatment for athletes. It may also offer some support to the argument that mucoid degeneration and ganglion cyst formation share a similar pathogenesis to intra-osseous cyst formation

Case and Activity Identification for Mining Process Models from Middleware

Process monitoring aims to provide transparency over operational aspects of a business process. In practice, it is a challenge that traces of business process executions span across a number of diverse systems. It is cumbersome manual engineering work to identify which attributes in unstructured event data can serve as case and activity identifiers for extracting and monitoring the business process. Approaches from literature assume that these identifiers are known a priori and data is readily available in formats like eXtensible Event Stream (XES). However, in practice this is hardly the case, specifically when event data from different sources are pooled together in event stores. In this paper, we address this research gap by inferring potential case and activity identifiers in a provenance agnostic way. More specifically, we propose a semi-automatic technique for discovering event relations that are semantically relevant for business process monitoring. The results are evaluated in an industry case study with an international telecommunication provider

Association of an INSIG2 obesity allele with cardiovascular phenotypes is gender and age dependent

Background: The INSIG2 gene has been implicated in cholesterol metabolism and a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) near INSIG2 has been shown to be associated with obesity. We sought to determine the relationship of the INSIG2 SNP to cardiovascular disease (CVD) related phenotypes.Methods and Results: Nine hundred forty six patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in wave 5 of the multicenter NHLBI Dynamic Registry were genotyped using RT-PCR/TaqMan/allelic discrimination for the rs7566605 SNP near the INSIG2 gene. Clinical variables analyzed include demographics, medical history, and procedural details. The prevalence of peripheral vascular disease (PVD) was significantly higher in older men (≥65 years) who were either homozygous or carriers of the obesity/lipid risk allele ("C") compared to non-carriers (odds ratio 3.4, p = 0.013) using a logistic regression model incorporating history of hypercholesterolemia, history of hypertension, cerebrovascular disease, history of diabetes, and BMI. A similar relationship with cerebrovascular disease was found in older (>65) women (odds ratio 3.4, p = 0.013). The INSIG2 SNP was not associated with BMI, nor with other clinical variables.Conclusion: Age and gender may influence the association of the INSIG2 obesity SNP with PVD and cerebrovascular disease in patients with pre-existing CVD. © 2010 Skelding et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd

Detection of monoclonal immunoglobulin heavy chain gene rearrangement (FR3) in Thai malignant lymphoma by High Resolution Melting curve analysis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Malignant lymphoma, especially non-Hodgkin lymphoma, is one of the most common hematologic malignancies in Thailand. The diagnosis of malignant lymphoma is often problematic, especially in early stages of the disease. Detection of antigen receptor gene rearrangement including T cell receptor (TCR) and immunoglobulin heavy chain (IgH) by polymerase chain reaction followed by heteroduplex has currently become standard whereas fluorescent fragment analysis (GeneScan) has been used for confirmation test. In this study, three techniques had been compared: thermocycler polymerase chain reaction (PCR) followed by heteroduplex and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, GeneScan analysis, and real time PCR with High Resolution Melting curve analysis (HRM). The comparison was carried out with DNA extracted from paraffin embedded tissues diagnosed as B- cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Specific PCR primers sequences for IgH gene variable region 3, including fluorescence labeled IgH primers were used and results were compared with HRM. In conclusion, the detection IgH gene rearrangement by HRM in the LightCycler System showed potential for distinguishing monoclonality from polyclonality in B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma.</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Malignant lymphoma, especially non-Hodgkin lymphoma, is one of the most common hematologic malignancies in Thailand. The incidence rate as reported by Ministry of Public Health is 3.1 per 100,000 population in female whereas the rate in male is 4.5 per 100,000 population <abbrgrp><abbr bid="B1">1</abbr></abbrgrp>. At Siriraj Hospital, the new cases diagnosed as malignant lymphoma were 214.6 cases/year <abbrgrp><abbr bid="B2">2</abbr></abbrgrp>. The diagnosis of malignant lymphoma is often problematic, especially in early stages of the disease. Therefore, detection of antigen receptor gene rearrangement including T cell receptor (TCR) and immunoglobulin heavy chain (IgH) by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay has recently become a standard laboratory test for discrimination of reactive from malignant clonal lymphoproliferation <abbrgrp><abbr bid="B3">3</abbr><abbr bid="B4">4</abbr></abbrgrp>. Analyzing DNA extracted from formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissues by multiplex PCR techniques is more rapid, accurate and highly sensitive. Measuring the size of the amplicon from PCR analysis could be used to diagnose malignant lymphoma with monoclonal pattern showing specific and distinct bands detected on acrylamide gel electrophoresis. However, this technique has some limitations and some patients might require a further confirmation test such as GeneScan or fragment analysis <abbrgrp><abbr bid="B5">5</abbr><abbr bid="B6">6</abbr></abbrgrp>.</p> <p>GeneScan technique or fragment analysis reflects size and peak of DNA by using capillary gel electrophoresis. This technique is highly sensitive and can detect 0.5-1% of clonal lymphoid cells. It measures the amplicons by using various fluorescently labeled primers at forward or reverse sides and a specific size standard. Using a Genetic Analyzer machine and GeneMapper software (Applied Bioscience, USA), the monoclonal pattern revealed one single, sharp and high peak at the specific size corresponding to acrylamide gel pattern, whereas the polyclonal pattern showed multiple and small peak condensed at the same size standard. This technique is the most sensitive and accurate technique; however, it usually requires high technical experience and is also of high cost <abbrgrp><abbr bid="B7">7</abbr></abbrgrp>. Therefore, rapid and more cost effective technique are being sought.</p> <p>LightCycler PCR performs the diagnostic detection of amplicon via melting curve analysis within 2 hours with the use of a specific dye <abbrgrp><abbr bid="B8">8</abbr><abbr bid="B9">9</abbr></abbrgrp>. This dye consists of two types: one known as SYBR-Green I which is non specific and the other named as High Resolution Melting analysis (HRM) which is highly sensitive, more accurate and stable. Several reports demonstrated that this new instrument combined with DNA intercalating dyes can be used to discriminate sequence changes in PCR amplicon without manual handling of PCR product <abbrgrp><abbr bid="B10">10</abbr><abbr bid="B11">11</abbr></abbrgrp>. Therefore, current investigations using melting curve analysis are being developed <abbrgrp><abbr bid="B12">12</abbr><abbr bid="B13">13</abbr></abbrgrp>.</p> <p>In this study, three different techniques were compared to evaluate the suitability of LightCycler PCR with HRM as the clonal diagnostic tool for IgH gene rearrangement in B-cell non-Hogdkin lymphoma, i.e. thermocycler PCR followed by heteroduplex analysis and PAGE, GeneScan analysis and LightCycler PCR with HRM.</p