Comparative Biology of the Resistance to Vitamin K Antagonists: An Overview of the Resistance Mechanisms

Vitamin K antagonists (VKA) are used in human medicine as well as for the management of rodent populations. In both cases, we have to deal with inter-individual resistances. Many mechanisms of resistances are common in humans and rodents. Moreover, with the large use of vitamin K antagonist rodenticides, the resistant phenotype is overrepresented in some rodent populations. Consequently, some resistance mechanisms with a low prevalence in the human population have a higher prevalence in rodent population; thus, they can be more studied in rodents. The aim of this chapter is to cross knowledge coming from human medicine and rodent research in order to better understand each resistance mechanism. After an overview of the essential knowledge for the understanding of the VKA action, this chapter presents the different methods of VKA resistance studying and then it assesses the current knowledge on VKA resistance in humans and rodents

Overview of laboratory methods to diagnose Leptospirosis and to identify and to type leptospires

Leptospirosis is a virulent zoonosis with a global distribution. Pathogenic spirochetes of the genus Leptospira are responsible for this disease, and the primary animal reservoirs are rodentvvvs. Direct and indirect contact with infected urine constitutes the main route of transmission. Renal failure and advanced abortions are frequently observed in animals affected by leptospirosis, causing serious problems for farms. In humans, there is a high rate of mortality (10 percent), and farmers and persons in contact with water are frequently exposed. However, vaccines and strict prevention measures confer protection against leptospirosis. Serological tests facilitate the detection and identification of leptospire strains. Such tests are based on specific surface antigen recognition and are used for clinical analyses. To determine which serovars circulate in the environment, leptospires must be typed. Molecular methods, such as restriction enzyme-based techniques and the sequencing of specific regions, permit serovar identification. Unfortunately, although there are numerous techniques, they are not very efficient, and thus, new methods must be developed. With the advent of genomic sequencing, a substantial amount of information regarding leptospire genomes is now available, facilitating the selection of regions to discriminate between strains. Typing is important for both epidemiologic purposes and clinical analyses.Keywords: Leptospirosis · zoonosis · methods · diagnosi

Proposition of a benchmark for evaluation of cores mapping onto NoC architectures

Proposition of a MC-CDMA Radiocommunication benchmark for evaluation of cores mapping onto NoC architectures. Illustration with CEA-LETI FAUST NoC in the context of 4-more European project

Kombilohn et salaire minimum : la fin de l’exception allemande

Kombilohn et/ou salaire minimum : un débat approche de son terme. A la fin novembre 2006, une commission présidée par Franz Müntefering présentera en effet, conformément aux dispositions de l’accord de coalition, des propositions sur un sujet brûlant : l’emploi pour les salariés peu qualifiés. Il faudra alors passer à la décision politique, phase qui s’annonce particulièrement difficile, tant la négociation touche à des aspects économiquement et socialement sensibles.Malgré la divergence de leurs approches, expressément consignée dans l’accord de coalition, chrétiens-démocrates et sociaux-démocrates partent au moins du même constat : l’accès au marché du travail des actifs peu qualifiés passe par des emplois mal rémunérés qui nécessitent une double intervention. D’une part, il faut, pour favoriser leur émergence, améliorer le système de subventions et de compléments salariaux qui les encadrent déjà. C’est à ces dispositifs d’aide à l’emploi que renvoie le terme de Kombilohn, appliqué de manière générique à toutes les combinaisons de revenus d’activité et de revenus de transfert conçues pour le secteur des bas salaires. Mais d’autre part, l’extension de ce secteur à bas salaires génère de plus en plus souvent des rémunérations « immorales » (sittenwidrig : la jurisprudence désigne ainsi les salaires inférieurs d’un tiers au salaire conventionnel ou aux salaires localement usités), qui justifient quant à elles que soit discutée l’opportunité d’un salaire minimum

La formation professionnelle en Allemagne : Spécificités et dynamique d’un système

Les politiques de formation sont confrontées à deux défis majeurs : répondre aux besoins de qualification des entreprises et assurer l'insertion professionnelle des jeunes. Parmi les grands pays industriels, l'Allemagne dispose d'un système de formation professionnelle qui, de ce double point de vue, compte indiscutablement parmi les plus performants. Pour l'essentiel, cette réussite repose sur une forte implication de l'entreprise dans la formation initiale. C'est ce que montre la présente étude, qui dresse un bilan synthétique de « l'alternance à l'allemande ». Après un bref rappel historique et une description du cadre institutionnel, René Lasserre et Alain Lattard évaluent la qualité des formations dispensées, la question de leur coût pour l'entreprise et celle de leur efficacité en termes d'emploi. Ils mettent en évidence les capacités d'adaptation du système allemand, sans pour autant ignorer ses difficultés face à l'évolution de la demande d'éducation

House Mice as a Real Sanitary Threat of Human and Animal Leptospirosis: Proposal for Integrated Management

International audienceLeptospirosis is a reemerging zoonosis and ranges in severity from benign to sometimes fatal. In cattle, infection may be responsible for abortion and infertility cases causing economic losses. Humans may be contaminated through direct contact with urine of infected animals or indirectly though interaction with urine-contaminated environment. Many wildlife species living close to cattle, especially commensal rodents may play a role in the transmission of leptospires. Because little is known on the epidemiology of nonmaintenance Leptospira serovars, appropriate management is still limited. On a French farm where human and cattle leptospirosis were detected, the transmission cycle was explored to propose appropriate mitigation measures. For that, commensal rodents present on the farm were trapped and their leptospires carriage was studied by molecular methods. Trapped mice were shown to carry two pathogenic Leptospira species (L. interrogans and L. kirschneri). Since these 2 serogroups were simultaneously detected in the trapped mice and in the cows of this farm, we suspected an initial Leptospira transmission from mice to cows requiring an effective management of mice on this farm. Because resistance to anticoagulant rodenticides due to Vkorc1 mutations has been largely described in rodents and first-generation anticoagulant rodenticides seemed to be inefficient in controlling mice on this farm, susceptibility of these mice to anticoagulants has been characterized by Vkorc1 sequencing. 50% of the trapped mice carried mutations in the Vkorc1 gene leading to severe resistance to first-generation anticoagulants. The management of such mice that are a real sanitary threat can be achieved only by using the most toxic second-generation anticoagulants or nonanticoagulant solutions

Flexible and Distributed Real-Time Control on a 4G Telecom MPSoC

International audienceApplications like 4G baseband modem require single-chip implementation to meet the integration and power consumption requirements. These applications demand a high computing performance with real-time constraints, low-power consumption and low cost. With the rapid evolution of telecom standards and the increasing demand for multi-standard products, the need for exible baseband solutions is growing. The concept of Multi-Processor System-on-Chip (MPSoC) is well adapted to enable hardware reuse between products and between multiple wireless standards in the same device. Based on the experience of two heterogeneous Software Defined Radio (SDR) telecom chipsets, this paper presents a distributed control architecture for the homoGENEous Processor arraY (GENEPY) platform for 4G applications. This MPSoC platform is built with telecom baseband processors interconnected with a Network-on-Chip. The control is performed by a MIPS processor embedded in each baseband processor. This control processor can locally reconfigure and schedule the applications with real-time telecom constraints

Chapitre 6. Étude biologique et archéo-anthropologique des structures funéraires

Trois structures à vocation funéraire ont été mises au jour : deux inhumations primaires individuelles (2160 et 2189) et une structure primaire de crémation (2057). I- Sépulture 2160 La sépulture primaire individuelle est complète, à l’exception du niveau supérieur du comblement, ôté lors du décapage de la zone. La conservation quantitative du squelette, de 81,3 % (ICA), est due à la disparition taphonomique des pièces ou parties des pièces les plus petites (phalanges, patella), les plus frag..

Heterogeneous vs Homogeneous MPSoC Approaches for a Mobile LTE Modem

International audienceApplications like 4G baseband modem require single-chip implementation to meet the integration and power consumption requirements. These applications demand a high computing performance with real-time constraints, low-power consumption and low cost. With the rapid evolution of tele- com standards and the increasing demand for multi-standard products, the need for flexible baseband solutions is growing. The concept of Multi-Processor System-on-Chip (MPSoC) is well adapted to enable hardware reuse between products and between multiple wireless standards in the same device. Heterogeneous architectures are well known solutions but they have limited flexibility. Based on the experience of two heterogeneous Software De- fined Radio (SDR) telecom chipsets, this paper presents the homoGENEous Processor arraY (GENEPY) platform for 4G ap- plications. This platform is built with SMEP units interconnected with a Network-on-Chip. The SMEP, implemented in 65nm low- power CMOS, can perform 3.2 GMAC/s with 77 GBits/s internal bandwidth at 400MHz. Two implementations of homogeneous GENEPY are compared to the heterogeneous MAGALI platform in terms of silicon area, performance and power consumption. Results show that a homogeneous approach can be more efficient and flexible than a heterogeneous approach in the context of 4G Mobile Terminals

Establishment of the Variation of Vitamin K Status According to Vkorc1 Point Mutations Using Rat Models

International audienceVitamin K is crucial for many physiological processes such as coagulation, energy metabolism, and arterial calcification prevention due to its involvement in the activation of several vitamin K-dependent proteins. During this activation, vitamin K is converted into vitamin K epoxide, which must be re-reduced by the VKORC1 enzyme. Various VKORC1 mutations have been described in humans. While these mutations have been widely associated with anticoagulant resistance, their association with a modification of vitamin K status due to a modification of the enzyme efficiency has never been considered. Using animal models with different Vkorc1 mutations receiving a standard diet or a menadione-deficient diet, we investigated this association by measuring different markers of the vitamin K status. Each mutation dramatically affected vitamin K recycling efficiency. This decrease in recycling was associated with a significant alteration of the vitamin K status, even when animals were fed a menadione-enriched diet suggesting a loss of vitamin K from the cycle due to the presence of the Vkorc1 mutation. This change in vitamin K status resulted in clinical modifications in mutated rats only when animals receive a limited vitamin K intake totally consistent with the capacity of each strain to recycle vitamin K