Intrauterine growth restriction is associated with alterations of the NO/cGMP pathway in the human umbilical vein

Le retard de croissance intra-utérin (RCIU) est un problème courant, touchant environ 8% des grossesses. Le RCIU engendre une morbidité et une mortalité périnatales importantes. Des études épidémiologiques démontrent qu'il est également un facteur de risque pour le développement de différentes maladies chroniques à l'âge adulte, suggérant ainsi une modification de l'expression génique à long terme, influencée par l'environnement intra-utérin. Malgré l'identification de certains facteurs de risque maternels, les mécanismes menant au RCIU ne sont actuellement pas élucidés. La nutrition du foetus et l'oxygénation de son sang sont assurés par le placenta, auquel le foetus est relié par la circulation ombilicale. Le tonus des vaisseaux ombilicaux participe à la régulation du flux sanguin entre le foetus et le placenta, et par conséquent à la régulation de l'apport d'oxygène et de nutriments. Ainsi, une constriction excessive des vaisseaux ombilicaux participe à une diminution de ces apports et pourrait jouer un rôle dans le développement du RCIU. L'hypothèse de ce projet de recherche est qu'un apport réduit en oxygène et/ou en nutriments au foetus en cas d'insuffisance placentaire pourrait être en lien avec des altérations dans les voies de régulation de la circulation ombilicale, ce qui contribuerait à l'aggravation des échanges foeto-maternels et ainsi au développement d'un RCIU. Des expériences préliminaires montrent que la relaxation induite par le DEA/NO (un donneur de monoxyde d'azote, NO) dans des veines ombilicales isolées, précontractées par de la sérotonine ou un analogue du thromboxane A2, est diminuée dans des veines ombilicales provenant de nouveau-nés présentant un RCIU, par rapport à des veines ombilicales contrôles. Ces observations vont dans le sens de l'hypothèse formulée. Le but de ce travail de master sera donc d'examiner, dans le cadre d'un projet plus global, si le RCIU est en lien avec des modifications des voies de transduction impliquées dans la régulation de la circulation ombilicale. De telles modifications pourraient être à l'origine d'une altération de la régulation du tonus des vaisseaux ombilicaux, diminuant ainsi l'apport de nutriments et d'oxygène au foetus, favorisant ainsi le développement d'un RCIU. Les modifications d'expression de protéines spécifiques impliquées dans la régulation du tonus vasculaire seront mises en évidence par la technique du Western Blot, en comparant des échantillons de vaisseaux ombilicaux provenant d'enfants atteints d'un RCIU, avec des échantillons contrôles. Des microarrays auront été préalablement réalisés afin de mettre en évidence des changements d'expression génique dans les vaisseaux ombilicaux, indiquant ainsi quelles voies de transduction étudier en priorité

Is Dysfunctional Breathing Preventing Effort Induced Asthma Exacerbation?

Introduction: The aim of this study is to analyse patients who were prescribed respiratory physiotherapy for dysfunctional breathing (DB) and exercise-induced asthma (EIA), as defined by a fall of FEV1 of ≥ 10%, in comparison to those with DB but negative exercise test defined as a fall of FEV1 of < 10%. Our hypothesis is that children or adolescents develop dysfunctional breathing patterns with obvious clinical signs, causing premature exercise interruption, to protect them from an EIA exacerbation. This is important as any treatment would involve on the one hand to address the dysfunctional breathing, whilst on the other hand the treatment of EIA. Method: Retrospective case series of patients followed at the respiratory outpatient clinic at the children's hospital Lausanne HEL. We studied the physiotherapeutic and medical records of those paediatric patients who were referred for dysfunctional breathing from the respiratory consultation to the physiotherapy department and analysed in case reports the patients presenting an association of EIA and DB more in detail. Results: The 5 patients with the association of both entities had a similar symptomatology to the sample presenting only DB. Even though EIA remained not optimally controlled for a longer period of time in most of the patients, there were only a few emergency consultations with a symptomatology evoking DB rather than EIA. In general, the predominant symptomatology was more suggestive of DB than EIA. Conclusion: Our hypothesis could not be confirmed or infirmed, due to the small numbers of cases. Our study suggests that DB might be playing instinctively a role in preventing EIA exacerbations, but the endpoint should be an effective treatment of both entities. A prospective study, conducted in a larger group, would be necessary to clarify if there is indeed a role played by this association

Some techniques of active network synthesis

This paper will prove that the realization of any transfer admittance can always be performed simultaneously with the realization of any pair of R-C driving point short-circuit admittances. The only condition is that the given Y11, Y12, and Y22 have the same poles

Collision-resistant hash function based on composition of functions

cryptographic hash function is a deterministic procedure that compresses an arbitrary block of numerical data and returns a fixed-size bit string. There exist many hash functions: MD5, HAVAL, SHA, ... It was reported that these hash functions are not longer secure. Our work is focused in the construction of a new hash function based on composition of functions. The construction used the NP-completeness of Three-dimensional contingency tables and the relaxation of the constraint that a hash function should also be a compression function.Comment: 18 pages, 1 figure. The preliminary version of this paper was published in the Conference CARI'10, pages 141-148, Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast. The preliminary version was also published in the arXiv August 6, 2011 under number arXiv:1108.1478v1. This version was submittted to the journal ARIMA (January 2011

Libres propos sur la législation OAPI relative aux obtentions végétales

Les innovations en matière variétale et de biotechnologie végétale sont présentées comme un moyen efficace et approprié susceptible de favoriser l'amélioration de la production alimentaire et des conditions de travail et de vie des agriculteurs ainsi que celles des collectivités coutumières dans les pays membres de l'Organisation africaine de la propriété intellectuelle (OAPI). Sur le plan juridique, il se pose le problème de la protection juridique de ces innovations ou obtentions végétales. Le législateur OAPI de 1977 n'avait pas envisagé de protection pour les obtentions végétales. À la différence de certains États industrialisés qui organisaient un régime de protection sui generis ou par le système des brevets, il n'évoquait les variétés végétales et les procédés d'obtention des végétaux que pour les exclure du domaine brevetable. L'accord sur les aspects des droits de propriété intellectuelle qui touchent au commerce (ADPIC) de l'organisation mondiale du commerce (OMC) est venu modifier la donne en imposant que les obtentions végétales puissent être protégées par les brevets, par un système sui generis ou par une combinaison des deux moyens. Le législateur OAPI de 1999 a voulu intégrer ces nouvelles exigences internationales en révisant l'Accord de Bangui. Ce faisant, l'exclusion de la brevetabilité des variétés végétales a été maintenue. Il ne restait plus au législateur qu'une seule option, l'adoption d'un régime de protection sui generis. Son choix s'est matérialisé par l'adoption de l'annexe X de l'Accord de Bangui de 1999 consacrée à « la protection des obtentions végétales ». Cette annexe est calquée sur la version de 1991 de la Convention Internationale pour la protection des obtentions végétales, mise en place par les pays européens. Il s'agit là d'un choix discutable. En effet, l'annexe X introduit dans l'espace OAPI une législation désincarnée, parce que à la fois incomplète et inadaptée à l'environnement socio-économique des pays membres de l'OAPI.Innovations related to biotechnology and plant varieties are regarded as an efficient and suitable means to enhance the improvement of food production, lives and working conditions of farmers as well as those of local communities in the member States of the African Intellectual Property Organization (OAPI). From a legal point of view, the legal protection of those innovations on plant varieties is questionable. The legislator of the OAPI Law of 1977 had not considered any protection for plant varieties. Contrary to some industrialized countries where a sui generis system of protection or a protection by the patent system were organized, plant varieties and biological processes for the breeding of plants were mentioned only to be excluded from the patentable domain. The Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) Agreement of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) modified the situation by imposing that plant varieties shall be protected either by patents or by a sui generis system or through the combination of the two methods. The legislator of the OAPI Law of 1999 wanted to incorporate these new international requirements while amending the Bangui Agreement. At the same time,the plant varieties' exclusion from patentability was maintained. Hence, the legislator had no other option than adopting a sui generis regime of protection. He materialized this option by inserting in the Bangui Agreement of 1999, the Annex X related to the “Plant Variety Protection”. This appendix is drafted in light of the 1991's version of the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants put in place by the European countries. This choice remains questionable. Indeed, the Annex X introduces in the OAPI zone a disembodied legislation, because it is incomplete and unsuited to the socioeconomic environment of the member States of the OAPI

Integrated Database for Rapid Mass Movements in Norway

Rapid mass movements include all kinds of slides in geological material, snow or ice. Traditionally, information about such events is collected separately in different databases covering selected geographical regions and event types. In Norway the terrain is susceptible to all types of rapid mass movements ranging from single rocks hitting roads and houses to large avalanches and huge rock falls where entire mountainsides collapse into fjords creating flood waves and endangering large areas. In addition, quick clay slides occur in desalinated marine sediments in south eastern and mid Norway. For the authorities and inhabitants of endangered areas, the type of treat is of minor importance and mitigation measures have to consider all types of mass movements. This demand asks for a national overview over all registered slide events that allows fast and easy access to the available data. Therefore an integrated national database for all kind of rapid mass movements was developed. The database is built around the single slide event. Only three data entries are mandatory: Time, location and type of slide. The remaining optional information enables registration of detailed information about the terrain, involved materials and damages. Pictures, movies and other documentation can be uploaded into the database. A web based graphical user interface was developed that allows entering new slides, editing and search for slide events. An integration of the database into a GIS system is currently under development. Datasets from various national sources like the road authorities and geological survey were imported into the database. Today, the database contains 21,000 slide events from the last 500 hundred years covering the entire country. A first analysis of the data shows that most slide registrations cover snow avalanche and rock fall events followed by debris slide events. Most events are registered in the steep fjord terrain of the Norwegian west coast, but major slides are registered all over the country. Avalanches clearly account for most fatalities, while large rock avalanche events causing flood waves are the most severe single events. The data is strongly influenced by the personal engagement of local observers and varying observation routines. This database gives a unique source for statistical analysis of slide events, risk analysis and the relation between slides and climate

Skred- og klimadatabase. Statusrapport. Skreddatabase

Avdeling for skred og ingeniørgeologi ønsker gjennom prosjektet 20041046 å utvikle en database for lagring av skredinformasjon, samt et webbasert grensesnitt for registrering av skredinformasjon. Arbeid i prosjektet er utført av Avdeling for skred og ingeniørgeologi, IKT, samt av ekstern leverandør.NG

Oesophageal foreign bodies in dogs: factors affecting success of endoscopic retrieval

Oesophageal foreign bodies are common in dogs. Endoscopic removal is a viable treatment option but few studies have assessed the clinical and radiographic features that would be useful in decision-making and prognosis

«Barnet er ikke vanskelig, det gjør så godt det kan». En studie om hvordan pedagogisk leder sammen med personalet kan arbeide på en småbarnsavdeling for at barn med utfordrende atferd skal få en bedre barnehagehverdag

Problemstilling: Hvordan kan pedagogiske ledere sammen med personalet på en småbarnsavdeling arbeide for at barn med utfordrende atferd skal få en bedre barnehagehverdag?bachelor-v201