Impaired aerobic exercise adaptation in children and adolescents with craniopharyngioma is associated with hypothalamic involvement

OBJECTIVE: Many patients treated for craniopharyngioma (CP) complain of a relative incapacity for physical activity. Whether this is due to an objective decrease in adaptation to exercise is unclear. We assessed exercise tolerance in children with surgically treated CP and appropriate pituitary hormone replacement therapy compared with healthy controls and we examined the potential relationships with hypothalamic involvement, GH replacement, and the catecholamine deficiency frequently observed in these subjects. DESIGN AND METHODS: Seventeen subjects (12 males and five females) with CP and 22 healthy controls (14 males and eight females) aged 15.3+/-2.5 years (7.3-18 years) underwent a standardized cycle ergometer test. Maximum aerobic capacity was expressed as the ratio of VO(2max) to fat-free mass (VO(2max)/FFM), a measure independent of age and fat mass in children. RESULTS: VO(2max)/FFM was 20% lower in children with CP compared with controls (P<0.05), even after adjustment for gender. Children with hypothalamic involvement (n=10) had a higher percentage of fat mass (P<0.05) than those without hypothalamic involvement (n=7) and lower VO(2max)/FFM (P<0.05), whereas children without hypothalamic involvement had VO(2max)/FFM close to that of controls (P>0.05). GH treatment was associated with a significant positive effect on aerobic capacity (P<0.05) only in the absence of hypothalamic involvement. No relationship was found between exercise capacity parameters and daily urine epinephrine excretion or epinephrine peak response to insulin-induced hypoglycemia. CONCLUSIONS: Children with CP have a decrease in aerobic capacity mainly related to hypothalamic involvement. The hypothalamic factors altering aerobic capacity remain to be determined

Effects of intrauterine exposure to synthetic glucocorticoids on fetal, newborn, and infant hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis function in humans : a systematic review

BACKGROUND: Synthetic glucocorticoids are commonly used in reproductive medicine. Fetal organ systems are highly sensitive to changes in the intrauterine environment, including overexposure to glucocorticoids. Structural and functional alterations resulting from such changes may persist throughout life and have been associated with diverse diseases. One system that could be particularly sensitive to fetal glucocorticoid overexposure is the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (hpa) axis. Many human studies have investigated this possibility, but a systematic review to identify consistent, emergent findings is lacking. METHODS: We systematically review 49 human studies, assessing the effects of intrauterine exposure to synthetic glucocorticoids on fetal, neonate, and infant hpa function. RESULTS: Study quality varied considerably, but the main findings held true after restricting the analyses to higher-quality studies: intrauterine exposure to synthetic glucocorticoids reduces offspring hpa activity under unstimulated conditions after pain but not pharmacological challenge. Although reduced unstimulated hpa function appears to recover within the first 2 wk postpartum, blunted hpa reactivity to pain is likely to persist throughout the first 4 months of life. There is some evidence that the magnitude of the effects is correlated with the total amount of glucocorticoids administered and varies with the time interval between glucocorticoid exposure and hpa assessment. CONCLUSIONS: This systematic review has allowed the demonstration of the way in which intrauterine exposure to various regimens of synthetic glucocorticoids affects various forms of hpa function. As such, it guides future studies in terms of which variables need to be focused on in order to further strengthen the understanding of such therapy, whilst continuing to profit from its clinical benefits

Absence, manque et espace : quelques remarques sur la préposition WITHOUT

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The development of prepositional absent in Contemporary American English: A corpus-based constructional approach

International audienceWe focus here on the use of absent in such utterances as Absent any other facts, there arises an implied contract. is usage is labelled "preposition" in dictionaries of English. e question we ask is whether absent really functions as a preposition in English nowadays. is would involve a change from a lexical category (that of adjective) to a grammatical one (preposition)-in other words, a grammaticalization process. A er explaining how we collected the data used in this study (section 2), we consider how absent might possibly have grammaticalized into a preposition (section 3). We argue that the change is not so much about the grammaticalization of an individual item as about the emergence of a new construction, a process known as constructionalization. In section 4 other contemporary usages of absent are examined, and evidence that the item has acquired prepositional status is adduced. Finally, since we posit matching through analogy with the construction to be key in that process, a comparison between the prepositions without and absent is drawn in present-day English (section 5)

Les Sermons kentois et les homélies de Maurice de Sully : étude morphosyntaxique de phénomènes de contact langagier

Gatelais Sylvain, Toupin Fabienne. Les Sermons kentois et les homélies de Maurice de Sully : étude morphosyntaxique de phénomènes de contact langagier. In: Bulletin des anglicistes médiévistes, N°80, Hiver 2011. pp. 71-92

The Kentish Sermons as evidence of thirteenth-century English and translation practice

International audienceThis paper compares the thirteenth-century Kentish Sermons with their French originals composed by Maurice of Sully. The aim is to study the influence French may have exerted on the translator when it came to choosing between competing English forms. The morphosyntactic domains under study are genitive relations (where the inflectional genitive competes with the of-phrase) and interclausal relations (which offer a choice between different connectives, whether adverbs or subordinators), and we build a case for a determinating influence from French. In that respect our paper raises the epistemological question of the reliability of the material that historical linguists have to work on. We also examine the relationship between the Kentish and the French homilies in the light of the different meanings the act of translation could have in the Middle Ages. The target text does not emerge so much from the fancy or habits of writing of one individualhere an anonymous translatoras from a scholarly community. As evidence of thirteenth-century translation practice, the Kentish Sermons can be characterized as somewhat awkwardly literal, probably because, we contend, they aim at serving the authority of a much-admired source rather than displacing it. In that respect our paper raises the question of translation theory and practice in medieval England, and should be a modest contribution to understanding vernacular translation of such audience-oriented texts

The development of prepositional absent in Contemporary American English: A corpus- based constructional approach.

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Studies in Linguistic Variation and Change 3: Corpus-based research in english syntax and lexis

International audienceThis volume brings together contributions tracing the complex paths of change taken by the English language in its long history, from its beginnings in Old English to the present day. It addresses issues in a variety of fields ranging from semantics and morphosyntax to the interface between syntax and phonology, using a number of different theoretical standpoints. As such, the text reflects a diversity of approaches to corpora, and will serve to improve the reader’s understanding of some of the many developments and alterations that have affected English. It will be of interest to all scholars and students working on the history of English, as well as students of historical linguistics in general