Chondrocalcinose articulaire révélatrice d’une hypercalcémie hypocalciurique familiale: à propos d’une observation

L'hypercalcémie hypocalciurique familiale (HHF) est une maladie bénigne à transmission autosomique dominante, caractérisée par une hypercalcémie persistante béhigne, une hypocalciurie, et des concentrations de  parathormone (PTH) normales ou modérément élevées, sans complication secondaire à l'hypercalcémie. Nous rapportons l'observation d'un patient ayant présenté une chondrocalcinose articulaire révélatrice d'une HHF. A travers cette observation nous essayons de décrire les aspects épidémiologiques, les caractéristiques cliniques, et paracliniques de cette association

An elitist quantum-inspired evolutionary algorithm for the flexible job-shop scheduling problem

The flexible job shop scheduling problem (FJSP) is vital to manufacturers especially in today’s constantly changing environment. It is a strongly NP-hard problem and therefore metaheuristics or heuristics are usually pursued to solve it. Most of the existing metaheuristics and heuristics, however, have low efficiency in convergence speed. To overcome this drawback, this paper develops an elitist quantum-inspired evolutionary algorithm. The algorithm aims to minimise the maximum completion time (makespan). It performs a global search with the quantum-inspired evolutionary algorithm and a local search with a method that is inspired by the motion mechanism of the electrons around an atomic nucleus. Three novel algorithms are proposed and their effect on the whole search is discussed. The elitist strategy is adopted to prevent the optimal solution from being destroyed during the evolutionary process. The results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the best-known algorithms for FJSPs on most of the FJSP benchmarks

The Impact of Long-Term Exposure to Space Environment on Adult Mammalian Organisms: A Study on Mouse Thyroid and Testis

Hormonal changes in humans during spaceflight have been demonstrated but the underlying mechanisms are still unknown. To clarify this point thyroid and testis/epididymis, both regulated by anterior pituitary gland, have been analyzed on long-term space-exposed male C57BL/10 mice, either wild type or pleiotrophin transgenic, overexpressing osteoblast stimulating factor-1. Glands were submitted to morphological and functional analysis

Burnout among surgeons before and during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: an international survey

Background: SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has had many significant impacts within the surgical realm, and surgeons have been obligated to reconsider almost every aspect of daily clinical practice. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study reported in compliance with the CHERRIES guidelines and conducted through an online platform from June 14th to July 15th, 2020. The primary outcome was the burden of burnout during the pandemic indicated by the validated Shirom-Melamed Burnout Measure. Results: Nine hundred fifty-four surgeons completed the survey. The median length of practice was 10 years; 78.2% included were male with a median age of 37 years old, 39.5% were consultants, 68.9% were general surgeons, and 55.7% were affiliated with an academic institution. Overall, there was a significant increase in the mean burnout score during the pandemic; longer years of practice and older age were significantly associated with less burnout. There were significant reductions in the median number of outpatient visits, operated cases, on-call hours, emergency visits, and research work, so, 48.2% of respondents felt that the training resources were insufficient. The majority (81.3%) of respondents reported that their hospitals were included in the management of COVID-19, 66.5% felt their roles had been minimized; 41% were asked to assist in non-surgical medical practices, and 37.6% of respondents were included in COVID-19 management. Conclusions: There was a significant burnout among trainees. Almost all aspects of clinical and research activities were affected with a significant reduction in the volume of research, outpatient clinic visits, surgical procedures, on-call hours, and emergency cases hindering the training. Trial registration: The study was registered on clicaltrials.gov "NCT04433286" on 16/06/2020

Modeling of a Ne/Xe dielectric barrier discharge excilamp for improvement of VUV radiation production

International audienceThis work is devoted to excimer lamp efficiency optimization by using a homogenous discharge model of a dielectric barrier discharge in a Ne-Xe mixture. The model includes the plasma chemistry, electrical circuit, and Boltzmann equation. In this paper, we are particularly interested in the electrical and kinetic properties and light output generated by the DBD. Xenon is chosen for its high luminescence in the range of vacuum UV radiation around 173 nm. Our study is motivated by interest in this type of discharge in many industrial applications, including the achievement of high light output lamps. In this work, we used an applied sinusoidal voltage, frequency, gas pressure, and concentration in the ranges of 2-8 kV, 10-200 kHz, 100-800 Torr, and 10-50%, respectively. The analyzed results concern the voltage V p across the gap, the dielectric voltage V d, the discharge current I, and the particles densities. We also investigated the effect of the electric parameters and xenon concentration on the lamp efficiency. This investigation will allow one to find out the appropriate parameters for Ne/Xe DBD excilamps to improve their efficiency

An Optimized Hardware Architecture of 4×4 Intra Prediction for HEVC Standard

International audienc

Biodegradation of malodorous mercaptans by a novel Staphylococcus capitis strain isolated from gas-washing wastewaters of the Tunisian Chemical Group

There are increasing concerns over the harmful effects of the phosphate industry on human health and quality of life worldwide, including the Tunisian Chemical Group (GCT) in Sfax, which generates various malodorous gas fractions, such as hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and fetid mercaptans, causing nuisance to employees and local residents. Accordingly, the present study aimed to investigate the ability of an adapted microbial consortium isolated from the gas-washing wastewaters (GWWs) generated from GCT to degrade hazardous and malodorous mercaptans. A novel mesophilic bacterial strain (SH6), which was noted to display particularly high mercaptan degradation potential, was isolated from the adapted consortium growing on those GWWs and several malodorous mercaptans after enrichment on 1-dodecanethiol. The results from 16 rRNA gene sequencing and identity analysis revealed that the SH6 isolate belonged to Staphylococcus genus, with a high sequence similarity to Staphylococcus capitis (99.7 %). The SH6 strain was able to completely degrade 1-dodecanethiol, used as the sole carbon and energy source, after 72 h of incubation at 37 °C and 180 rpm. A decrease in the surface tension of cell-free culture supernatants was observed during the oxidation of dodecanethiol, suggesting the production of surface-active compounds. The stain was also able to grow on other mercaptans, such as 1,8-octanedithiol and 2,3-butanedithiol, which further supports its potential candidacy for application in the bioremediation of mercaptan-contaminated sites. Overall, the findings of the present study indicate that the SH6 strain might offer promising opportunities for the development of more adapted, efficient and cost-effective bio-disodoration strategies