Eloignement prolongé du monde du travail et reprise d'un emploi

Ce travail a pour objectif la mise en lumière des raisons qui font qu’un éloignement prolongé du monde du travail est préjudiciable à la reprise d’un emploi. Des éléments de réponse sont obtenus par la lecture de références thématiques et par l’analyse d’entretiens sur un panel de onze personnes. Les aprioris vis-à-vis des sans emploi de longue durée, les risques de dégradation de santé physique et psychique de ces derniers ainsi que la péjoration de certaines aptitudes professionnelles expliquent les conséquences d’une inactivité professionnelle de longue durée sur la réinsertion dans l’économie. En guise de conclusion, des perspectives et des pistes d’action sont avancées: la préservation de la santé ainsi que des aptitudes professionnelles à travers des mesures d’insertion semble primordiale, un accompagnement personnalisé, discret, minimal et la mise en place de solutions supplémentaires pour inciter les employeurs à engager les sans emploi de longue durée

Multifocal electroretinographical changes in monkeys with experimental ocular hypertension: a longitudinal study

Purpose To study the time course of changes in the multifocal electroretinograms (mfERG) in monkeys with experimental ocular hypertension (OHT). Methods The mfERGs were recorded in 12 eyes out of 6 monkeys. Two baseline measurements were used to quantify the reproducibility, the inter-ocular and the inter-individual variability of the ERG signals. Thereafter, the trabeculum of one eye of each animal was laser-coagulated in one to three sessions to induce OHT. ERG measurements were repeated regularly in a period of 18months and the changes in ERG waveforms were quantified. Results All animals displayed OHT (between 20 and 50mmHg) in the laser-coagulated eyes. An ERG change was defined as the sum of differences during the first 90ms between the laser-coagulated eye and the same eye before laser coagulation and between the laser-coagulated eye and the non-treated fellow eye. Three animals displayed significant changes for nearly all retinal areas and all stimulus conditions. The three remaining animals displayed significant changes only in one comparison, indicating very mild changes. The data indicate that a high stimulus contrast is more sensitive to detect changes, probably because of a better signal-to-noise ratio. Moreover, the comparisons with the fellow eye are more sensitive to detect changes than comparisons with the measurements before laser-coagulation. Conclusions OHT does not always lead to ERG changes. Comparisons with fellow eyes using high contrast stimuli are more sensitive to detect changes related to OH

Quantitative analysis of fundusimage sequences reveals phase of spontaneous venous pulsations. Trans Vis Sci

Purpose: Spontaneous venous pulsation correlates negatively with elevated intracranial pressure and papilledema, and it relates to glaucoma. Yet, its etiology remains unclear. A key element to elucidate its underlying mechanism is the time at which collapse occurs with respect to the heart cycle, but previous reports are contradictory. We assessed this question in healthy subjects using quantitative measurements of both vein diameters and artery lateral displacements; the latter being used as the marker of the ocular systole time. Methods: We recorded 5-second fundus sequences with a near-infrared scanning laser ophthalmoscope in 12 young healthy subjects. The image sequences were coregistered, cleaned from microsaccades, and filtered via a principal component analysis to remove nonpulsatile dynamic features. Time courses of arterial lateral displacement and of diameter at sites of spontaneous venous pulsation or proximal to the disk were retrieved from those image sequences and compared. Results: Four subjects displayed both arterial and venous pulsatile waveforms. On those, we observed venous diameter waveforms differing markedly among the subjects, ranging from a waveform matching the typical intraocular pressure waveform to a close replica of the arterial waveform. Conclusions: The heterogeneity in waveforms and arteriovenous phases suggests that the mechanism governing the venous outflow resistance differs among healthy subjects. Translational relevance: Further characterizations are necessary to understand the heterogeneous mechanisms governing the venous outflow resistance as this resistance is altered in glaucoma and is instrumental when monitoring intracranial hypertension based on fundus observations

Ocular Blood Flow Measured Noninvasively in Zero Gravity

In spaceflight or a reduced-gravity environment, bodily fluids shift to the upper extremities of the body. The pressure inside the eye, or intraocular pressure, changes significantly. A significant number of astronauts report changes in visual acuity during orbital flight. To date this remains of unknown etiology. Could choroidal engorgement be the primary mechanism and a change in the curvature or shape of the cornea or lens be the secondary mechanism for this change in visual acuity? Perfused blood flow in the dense meshwork of capillaries of the choroidal tissue (see the preceding illustration) provides necessary nutrients to the outer layers of the retina (photoreceptors) to keep it healthy and maintain good vision. Unlike the vascular system, the choroid has no baroreceptors to autoregulate fluid shifts, so it can remain engorged, pushing the macula forward and causing a hyperopic (farsighted) shift of the eye. Experiments by researchers at the NASA Glenn Research Center could help answer this question and facilitate planning for long-duration missions. We are investigating the effects of zero gravity on the choroidal blood flow of volunteer subjects. This pilot project plans to determine if choroidal blood flow is autoregulated in a reduced-gravity environment

Immune Activation Reduces Sperm Quality in the Great Tit

Mounting an immune response against pathogens incurs costs to organisms by its effects on important life-history traits, such as reproductive investment and survival. As shown recently, immune activation produces large amounts of reactive species and is suggested to induce oxidative stress. Sperm are highly susceptible to oxidative stress, which can negatively impact sperm function and ultimately male fertilizing efficiency. Here we address the question as to whether mounting an immune response affects sperm quality through the damaging effects of oxidative stress. It has been demonstrated recently in birds that carotenoid-based ornaments can be reliable signals of a male's ability to protect sperm from oxidative damage. In a full-factorial design, we immune-challenged great tit males while simultaneously increasing their vitamin E availability, and assessed the effect on sperm quality and oxidative damage. We conducted this experiment in a natural population and tested the males' response to the experimental treatment in relation to their carotenoid-based breast coloration, a condition-dependent trait. Immune activation induced a steeper decline in sperm swimming velocity, thus highlighting the potential costs of an induced immune response on sperm competitive ability and fertilizing efficiency. We found sperm oxidative damage to be negatively correlated with sperm swimming velocity. However, blood resistance to a free-radical attack (a measure of somatic antioxidant capacity) as well as plasma and sperm levels of oxidative damage (lipid peroxidation) remained unaffected, thus suggesting that the observed effect did not arise through oxidative stress. Towards the end of their breeding cycle, swimming velocity of sperm of more intensely colored males was higher, which has important implications for the evolution of mate choice and multiple mating in females because females may accrue both direct and indirect benefits by mating with males having better quality sperm

New genetic loci link adipose and insulin biology to body fat distribution.

Body fat distribution is a heritable trait and a well-established predictor of adverse metabolic outcomes, independent of overall adiposity. To increase our understanding of the genetic basis of body fat distribution and its molecular links to cardiometabolic traits, here we conduct genome-wide association meta-analyses of traits related to waist and hip circumferences in up to 224,459 individuals. We identify 49 loci (33 new) associated with waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index (BMI), and an additional 19 loci newly associated with related waist and hip circumference measures (P < 5 × 10(-8)). In total, 20 of the 49 waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI loci show significant sexual dimorphism, 19 of which display a stronger effect in women. The identified loci were enriched for genes expressed in adipose tissue and for putative regulatory elements in adipocytes. Pathway analyses implicated adipogenesis, angiogenesis, transcriptional regulation and insulin resistance as processes affecting fat distribution, providing insight into potential pathophysiological mechanisms

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics' resources: focus on curated databases

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (www.isb-sib.ch) provides world-class bioinformatics databases, software tools, services and training to the international life science community in academia and industry. These solutions allow life scientists to turn the exponentially growing amount of data into knowledge. Here, we provide an overview of SIB's resources and competence areas, with a strong focus on curated databases and SIB's most popular and widely used resources. In particular, SIB's Bioinformatics resource portal ExPASy features over 150 resources, including UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot, ENZYME, PROSITE, neXtProt, STRING, UniCarbKB, SugarBindDB, SwissRegulon, EPD, arrayMap, Bgee, SWISS-MODEL Repository, OMA, OrthoDB and other databases, which are briefly described in this article

Data from: Quantitative analysis of fundus-image sequences reveals phase of spontaneous venous pulsations

Purpose: Spontaneous venous pulsation correlates negatively with elevated intracranial pressure and papilledema, and it relates to glaucoma. Yet, its etiology remains unclear. A key element to elucidate its underlying mechanism is the time at which collapse occurs with respect to the heart cycle, but previous reports are contradictory. We assessed this question in healthy subjects using quantitative measurements of both vein diameters and artery lateral displacements; the latter being used as the marker of the ocular systole time. Methods: We recorded 5-second fundus sequences with a near-infrared scanning laser ophthalmoscope in 12 young healthy subjects. The image sequences were coregistered, cleaned from microsaccades, and filtered via a principal component analysis to remove nonpulsatile dynamic features. Time courses of arterial lateral displacement and of diameter at sites of spontaneous venous pulsation or proximal to the disk were retrieved from those image sequences and compared. Results: Four subjects displayed both arterial and venous pulsatile waveforms. On those, we observed venous diameter waveforms differing markedly among the subjects, ranging from a waveform matching the typical intraocular pressure waveform to a close replica of the arterial waveform. Conclusions: The heterogeneity in waveforms and arteriovenous phases suggests that the mechanism governing the venous outflow resistance differs among healthy subjects. Translational relevance: Further characterizations are necessary to understand the heterogeneous mechanisms governing the venous outflow resistance as this resistance is altered in glaucoma and is instrumental when monitoring intracranial hypertension based on fundus observations

Fundus image sequences

12 Fundus image sequences recorded in 12 young (age 22-31) healthy subjects with a scanning laser ophthalmoscope under near-infrared illumination. Sequences of 5.0 to 5.5 s length, collected at 9 images/s, resulting in 45 to 50 images trimmed to vertical bands (386 x 768 pixels) centered on optic nerve head. Data provided as zipped uncompressed TIFF stacks file