359 research outputs found
Subcellular localization of microcystin in the liver and the gonads of medaka fish acutely exposed to microcystin-LR
International audienceAmong the diverse toxic components produced by cyanobacteria, microcystins (MCs) are one of the most toxic and notorious cyanotoxin groups. Besides their potent hepatotoxicity, MCs have been revealed to induce potential reproductive toxicity in various animal studies. However, little is still known regarding the distribution of MCs in the reproductive organ, which could directly affect reproductive cells. In order to respond to this question, an acute study was conducted in adult medaka fish (model animal) gavaged with 10 ÎŒg.g â1 body weight of pure MC-LR. The histological and immunohistochemical examinations reveal an intense distribution of MC-LR within hepatocytes along with a severe liver lesion in the toxin-treated female and male fish. Besides being accumulated in the hepatocytes, MC-LR was also found in the connective tissue of the ovary and the testis, as well as in oocytes and degenerative spermatocyte-like structures but not spermatocytes. Both liver and gonad play important roles in the reproductive process of oviparous vertebrates. This observation constitutes the first observation of the presence of MC-LR in reproductive cells (female, oocytes) of a vertebrate model with in vivo study. Our results, which provide intracellular localization of MC-LR in the gonad, advance our understanding of the potential reproductive toxicity of MC-LR in fish
Programming environments based on structured editors : the Mentor experience
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Improved Video Content Indexing by Multiple Latent Semantic Analysis
Low-level features are now becoming insufficient to build efficient content-based retrieval systems. Users are not interested any longer in retrieving visually similar content, but they expect retrieval systems to also find documents with similar semantic content. Bridging the gap between low-level features and semantic content is a challenging task necessary for future retrieval systems. Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) was successfully introduced to efficiently index text documents by detecting synonyms and the polysemy of words. We have successfully proposed an adaptation of LSA to model video content for object retrieval and semantic content estimation. Following this idea we now present a new model composed of multiple LSA's (M-LSA) to better represent the video content. In the experimental section, we make a comparison of LSA and M-LSA on two problems, namely object retrieval and semantic content estimation
The MeMAD Submission to the WMT18 Multimodal Translation Task
This paper describes the MeMAD project entry to the WMT Multimodal Machine Translation Shared Task. We propose adapting the Transformer neural machine translation (NMT) architecture to a multi-modal setting. In this paper, we also describe the preliminary experiments with text-only translation systems leading us up to this choice. We have the top scoring system for both English-to-German and English-to-French, according to the automatic metrics for flickr18. Our experiments show that the effect of the visual features in our system is small. Our largest gains come from the quality of the underlying text-only NMT system. We find that appropriate use of additional data is effective.Peer reviewe
Vowel production: a potential speech biomarker for early detection of dysarthria in Parkinsonâs disease
ObjectivesOur aim is to detect early, subclinical speech biomarkers of dysarthria in Parkinsonâs disease (PD), i.e., systematic atypicalities in speech that remain subtle, are not easily detectible by the clinician, so that the patient is labeled ânon-dysarthric.â Based on promising exploratory work, we examine here whether vowel articulation, as assessed by three acoustic metrics, can be used as early indicator of speech difficulties associated with Parkinsonâs disease.Study designThis is a prospective caseâcontrol study.MethodsSixty-three individuals with PD and 35 without PD (healthy controls-HC) participated in this study. Out of 63 PD patients, 43 had been diagnosed with dysarthria (DPD) and 20 had not (NDPD). Sustained vowels were recorded for each speaker and formant frequencies were measured. The analyses focus on three acoustic metrics: individual vowel triangle areas (tVSA), vowel articulation index (VAI) and the Phi index.ResultstVSA were found to be significantly smaller for DPD speakers than for HC. The VAI showed significant differences between these two groups, indicating greater centralization and lower vowel contrasts in the DPD speakers with dysarhtria. In addition, DPD and NDPD speakers had lower Phi values, indicating a lower organization of their vowel system compared to the HC. Results also showed that the VAI index was the most efficient to distinguish between DPD and NDPD whereas the Phi index was the best acoustic metric to discriminate NDPD and HC.ConclusionThis acoustic study identified potential subclinical vowel-related speech biomarkers of dysarthria in speakers with Parkinsonâs disease who have not been diagnosed with dysarthria
Critical review on proteotypic peptide marker tracing for six allergenic ingredients in incurred foods by mass spectrometry
Peptide marker identification is one of the most important steps in the development of a mass spectrometry (MS) based method for allergen detection, since the robustness and sensitivity of the overall analytical method will strictly depend on the reliability of the proteotypic peptides tracing for each allergen. The European legislation in place issues the mandatory labelling of fourteen allergenic ingredients whenever used in different food formulations. Among these, six allergenic ingredients, namely milk, egg, peanut, soybean, hazelnut and almond, can be prioritized in light of their higher occurrence in food recalls for undeclared presence with serious risk decision. In this work, we described the results of a comprehensive evaluation of the current literature on MS-based allergen detection aiming at collecting all available information about proteins and peptide markers validated in independent studies for the six allergenic ingredients of interest. The main features of the targeted proteins were commented reviewing all details available about known isoforms and sequence homology particularly in plant-derived allergens. Several critical aspects affecting peptide markers reliability were discussed and according to this evaluation a final short-list of candidate markers was compiled likely to be standardized and implemented in MS methods for allergen analysis
High resolution spectroscopy of methyltrioxorhenium: towards the observation of parity violation in chiral molecules
Originating from the weak interaction, parity violation in chiral molecules
has been considered as a possible origin of the biohomochirality. It was
predicted in 1974 but has never been observed so far. Parity violation should
lead to a very tiny frequency difference in the rovibrational spectra of the
enantiomers of a chiral molecule. We have proposed to observe this predicted
frequency difference using the two photon Ramsey fringes technique on a
supersonic beam. Promising candidates for this experiment are chiral oxorhenium
complexes, which present a large effect, can be synthesized in large quantity
and enantiopure form, and can be seeded in a molecular beam. As a first step
towards our objective, a detailed spectroscopic study of methyltrioxorhenium
(MTO) has been undertaken. It is an ideal test molecule as the achiral parent
molecule of chiral candidates for the parity violation experiment. For the
187Re MTO isotopologue, a combined analysis of Fourier transform microwave and
infrared spectra as well as ultra-high resolution CO2 laser absorption spectra
enabled the assignment of 28 rotational lines and 71 rovibrational lines, some
of them with a resolved hyperfine structure. A set of spectroscopic parameters
in the ground and first excited state, including hyperfine structure constants,
was obtained for the antisymmetric Re=O stretching mode of this molecule. This
result validates the experimental approach to be followed once a chiral
derivative of MTO will be synthesized, and shows the benefit of the combination
of several spectroscopic techniques in different spectral regions, with
different set-ups and resolutions. First high resolution spectra of jet-cooled
MTO, obtained on the set-up being developed for the observation of molecular
parity violation, are shown, which constitutes a major step towards the
targeted objective.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figure
Ann Intensive Care
Despite a large body of evidence, the implementation of guidelines on hemodynamic optimization and goal-directed therapy remains limited in daily routine practice. To facilitate/accelerate this implementation, a panel of experts in the field proposes an approach based on six relevant questions/answers that are frequently mentioned by clinicians, using a critical appraisal of the literature and a modified Delphi process. The mean arterial pressure is a major determinant of organ perfusion, so that the authors unanimously recommend not to tolerate absolute values below 65Â mmHg during surgery to reduce the risk of postoperative organ dysfunction. Despite well-identified limitations, the authors unanimously propose the use of dynamic indices to rationalize fluid therapy in a large number of patients undergoing non-cardiac surgery, pending the implementation of a "validity criteria checklist" before applying volume expansion. The authors recommend with a good agreement mini- or non-invasive stroke volume/cardiac output monitoring in moderate to high-risk surgical patients to optimize fluid therapy on an individual basis and avoid volume overload. The authors propose to use fluids and vasoconstrictors in combination to achieve optimal blood flow and maintain perfusion pressure above the thresholds considered at risk. Although purchase of disposable sensors and stand-alone monitors will result in additional costs, the authors unanimously acknowledge that there are data strongly suggesting this may be counterbalanced by a sustained reduction in postoperative morbidity and hospital lengths of stay. Beside existing guidelines, knowledge and explicit clinical reasoning tools followed by decision algorithms are mandatory to implement individualized hemodynamic optimization strategies and reduce postoperative morbidity and duration of hospital stay in high-risk surgical patients
Scientific Objectives of Einstein Telescope
The advanced interferometer network will herald a new era in observational
astronomy. There is a very strong science case to go beyond the advanced
detector network and build detectors that operate in a frequency range from 1
Hz-10 kHz, with sensitivity a factor ten better in amplitude. Such detectors
will be able to probe a range of topics in nuclear physics, astronomy,
cosmology and fundamental physics, providing insights into many unsolved
problems in these areas.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, Plenary talk given at Amaldi Meeting, July 201
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