Safety in Healthcare: From the Flight Deck to the Operating Room

The recent health crisis has increased the workload and the stress levels of healthcare professionals around the world. Such stressful working environments are conducive to an increased incidence of medical errors. Implementing education and training specifically focused on human and organizational factors can promote teamwork and decrease the risk of error. Such techniques have been extensively deployed, most notably in commercial aviation. Numerous tools have been developed to reduce the risk of error associated with routine tasks, forgetting a task and handling alarm situations during commercial flights. Many of these tools can be transferred to the healthcare sector. After a brief recap about the importance of the working environment, this narrative review aims to highlight several specific tools used in commercial aviation that can be readily transferred to the operating theatre

Automatic Underwater Image Denoising

A novel pre-processing filter is proposed for underwater image restoration. Because of specific transmission properties of light in the water, underwater image suffers from limited range,non uniform lighting, low contrast, color diminished, important blur… Today pre-processing methods typically only concentrates on non uniform lighting or color correction and often require additional knowledge of the environment. The algorithm proposed in this paper is an automatic algorithm to pre-process underwater images. It reduces underwater perturbations, and improves image quality. It is composed of several successive independent processing steps which correct non uniform illumination, suppress noise, enhance contrast and adjust colors. Performances of filtering will be assessed using an edge detection robustness criterion.L'obstacle majeur dans le traitement des images sous-marines résulte des phénomènes d'absorption et de diffusion dus aux propriétés optiques particulières de la lumière dans l'eau. Ces deux phénomènes auxquels s'ajoute le problème de turbidité, impose de travailler sur des images très bruitées, avec souvent, une illumination non uniforme, des contrastes faibles, des couleurs atténuées… Cet article présente une nouvelle méthode automatique de pré-traitement des images sous marines. L'algorithme proposé qui ne nécessite ni paramétrage manuel ni information a priori, permet d'atténuer les défauts précédemment cités et d'améliorer de façon significative la qualité des images. L'éclairage, le bruit, les contrastes puis les couleurs sont corrigés séquentiellement

METHOD FOR CONTROLLING A SET OF ROBOTS, AND SET OF ROBOTS

A method is provided for piloting a set of robots comprising, for each robot, a step of generation of a guidance instruction for the robot at a given instant, the guidance instructions for the set of robots being determined from a single set of constraints comprising a pack constraint comprising at least one set of at least one first relative positioning constraint between a robot and its neighbors of the first order in the pack for the set of robots to form a pack exhibiting a predetermined shape, the method further comprising a step of piloting of the robots so as to observe the guidance instruction

Modeling Copper and Cadmium Mobility in an Albeluvisol Amended with Urban Waste Composts

International audienceTwo experimental plots amended with a co-compost of sewage sludge and green wastes (SGW) or with a municipal solid waste compost (MSW) were compared with a control plot without organic amendment (CONT) in terms of trace metals mobility. These plots were equipped with wick lysimeters, time-domain reflectometry probes and tensiometers for 6 yr (2004–2010). Different soil structures due to tillage and compost incorporation were identified in the tilled layers and reproduced in HYDRUS-2D for simulating water, Cu, and Cd transport. Two sorption estimation approaches were used, either assuming equilibrium between CaCl2 and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) extractable metals (Kd-1) or using equations based on pedotransfer functions assuming nonlinear sorption for Cu (Kf) and linear sorption for Cd (Kd-2). Lysimeter data on Cu leaching were successfully reproduced with the Kd-1 approach for the SGW and CONT plots (model efficiency coefficient ESGW = 0.97, ECONT = 0.95), while the MSW plot showed better fitting with the Kf approach (EMSW = 0.77), which could be explained by the less stable organic matter of the MSW compost because it takes into account organic matter components (dissolved organic C and soil organic matter). The Cd leaching was reproduced with the Kd-2 approach for the two amended plots (ESGW = 0.12, EMSW = 0.80), while CONT simulation overestimated leaching. The percentage of measured Cu and Cd leached in reference to input mass was 0.6 and 2.7%, respectively, in the SGW plot compared with 5% for both metals in the MSW plot. Trace metal mobility appeared to be limited in the tilled layer by sorption to organic matter

Early Interaction of Adeno-Associated Virus Serotype 8 Vector with the Host Immune System Following Intramuscular Delivery Results in Weak but Detectable Lymphocyte and Dendritic Cell Transduction

International audienceFollowing in vivo recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAV)–based gene transfer, adaptive immune responses specific to the vector or the transgene product have emerged as a potential roadblock to successful clinical translation. The occurrence of such responses depends on several parameters, including the route of vector administration as well as the viral serotype and the genome configuration, either self-complementary (sc) or single-stranded (ss). These parameters influence rAAV vector-associated immunity by modulating the crosstalk between the vector and the host immune system, including vector ability to interact or even transduce lymphoid tissues in general and antigen-presenting cells (APCs) in particular. Little is known about immune cell populations that are targeted in vivo by rAAV vectors. Moreover, the transduction of dendritic cells is still controversial and not directly demonstrated. Here, we show that intramuscular administration of an sc rAAV8 vector in the mouse leads to a rapid distribution of viral genomes in the lymphoid tissues that is associated with transgene expression. Transduced cells were detected in follicular areas of the spleen and the draining lymph nodes. In addition to B and T lymphocytes, transduced professional APCs were detected although at very low frequency. In addition, viral genomes and transgene transcripts were also detected in these cell populations after ss rAAV8 vector administration. Although the functional significance of those observations needs further explorations, our results highlight an early and intricate interaction between the rAAV vector upon its in vivo delivery and the host immune system