The european project NURISP for nuclear reactor simulation

The NURISP project aims at developing the European NURESIM reference simulation platform [1] for nuclear reactor. A first version of NURESIM was delivered in 2008. 22 organizations from 14 European countries contribute to the further development of this platform. NURISP also includes a User’s Group (UG) whose members are not NURISP partners and come from the industrial nuclear sector or European and non-European R&D labs. Users can benefit from the use of the NURESIM platform, methods, results and modules and they provide concrete input and feedback on the use of these elements

Wildfire spreading simulator using fast marching algorithm

Programs that can predict wildfire behavior are a very useful tool in terms of extinguishing these fires more effectively. State of the art wildfire simulators present some drawbacks such as not being sufficiently user-friendly, being expensive, requiring great computational power or having poor graphical representation. This paper presents a prototype wildfire simulation app that uses Fast Marching (FM) as its core algorithm. The wildfire app is developed as a Matlab GUI. Said application shows the shape of the fire front at a given moment in time in a 3D map of the terrain affected by the fire. Any real life maps can be loaded to the application for wildfire prediction. The user can choose to vary parameters such as starting (ignition) and ending points, wind direction and speed and propagation time, and see its effect on fire propagation. Interface response to each change in the input is very fast, therefore proving the effciency of the algorithm. Although a prototype, the wildfire basic app is superior to some state of the art simulators regarding certain important features. It can be concluded that Fast Marching is a valid core algorithm for a fire simulator. The way the app is programmed in Matlab confers it flexibility, enabling further specific changes that make it truly competitive against currently used wildfire simulators

Nutritive Value, In Vitro Fermentation, and Methane Production of Cactus Cladodes, Sugarcane Bagasse, and Urea

Simple SummaryCyclical droughts affecting arid and semiarid regions promote direct negative impacts on agriculture, with deficits of water availability for the maintenance of crops destined for human supply and animal production, with direct and indirect socioeconomic effects. Although livestock rearing is one of the few viable economic activities for these regions, forage production in terms of quantity and quality is a critical obstacle to support the herd over the year. Research was developed to find a forage adapted to these climates. Cactus cladodes have been used as a traditional ingredient in ruminant diets in dry areas as a solution to forage scarcity. Many traditionally used sources of forage, fresh or conserved, can be added to diets with cactus. However, the limiting factor to their inclusion would be market availability and price. This study showed that cactus cladodes associated with sugarcane bagasse (a high available crop residue) present the same nutritive value of conserved crops as silages and hay. Cactus (Opuntia and Nopalea) are essential for ruminant production systems in arid and semiarid regions due to the limitation of forage production caused by the low precipitation.This study evaluated the effect of different roughages fed to sheep on nutrient and water intake, ingestive behavior, nitrogen balance, microbial protein synthesis, fermentation parameters, and methane production using an in vitro gas production system. The treatments consisted of five diets: cactus cladodes Nopalea (NUB) and Opuntia (OUB), both with the addition of sugarcane bagasse (SB) and urea/ammonium sulfate (urea/as); Tifton hay (TH); corn silage (CS); and sorghum silage (SS), also with added urea/as. The NUB provided greater (p <= 0.03) intakes of dry matter (1024 g/d), digestible organic matter (670 g/d), and crude protein (161 g/d) than those on the SS. The NUB provided greater (p < 0.01) dietary water intake (3023 g/d) than TH. The time spent on rumination was shorter (p < 0.01), and the idle time was longer in animals fed NUB and OUB than TH and CS. Microbial protein synthesis was not affected (p = 0.27). The final pH (6.4) of the incubation fluid and the concentration of NH3-N (39.05 mg/dL) were greater for NUB and OUB. Ruminal parameters and methane production were little or not affected by tested forages. We recommend using cactus cladodes in combination with sugarcane bagasse and urea/as in sheep diets

Genome-Wide Studies of Histone Demethylation Catalysed by the Fission Yeast Homologues of Mammalian LSD1

In order to gain a more global view of the activity of histone demethylases, we report here genome-wide studies of the fission yeast SWIRM and polyamine oxidase (PAO) domain homologues of mammalian LSD1. Consistent with previous work we find that the two S. pombe proteins, which we name Swm1 and Swm2 (after SWIRM1 and SWIRM2), associate together in a complex. However, we find that this complex specifically demethylates lysine 9 in histone H3 (H3K9) and both up- and down-regulates expression of different groups of genes. Using chromatin-immunoprecipitation, to isolate fragments of chromatin containing either H3K4me2 or H3K9me2, and DNA microarray analysis (ChIP-chip), we have studied genome-wide changes in patterns of histone methylation, and their correlation with gene expression, upon deletion of the swm1+ gene. Using hyper-geometric probability comparisons we uncover genetic links between lysine-specific demethylases, the histone deacetylase Clr6, and the chromatin remodeller Hrp1. The data presented here demonstrate that in fission yeast the SWIRM/PAO domain proteins Swm1 and Swm2 are associated in complexes that can remove methyl groups from lysine 9 methylated histone H3. In vitro, we show that bacterially expressed Swm1 also possesses lysine 9 demethylase activity. In vivo, loss of Swm1 increases the global levels of both H3K9me2 and H3K4me2. A significant accumulation of H3K4me2 is observed at genes that are up-regulated in a swm1 deletion strain. In addition, H3K9me2 accumulates at some genes known to be direct Swm1/2 targets that are down-regulated in the swm1¿ strain. The in vivo data indicate that Swm1 acts in concert with the HDAC Clr6 and the chromatin remodeller Hrp1 to repress gene expression. In addition, our in vitro analyses suggest that the H3K9 demethylase activity requires an unidentified post-translational modification to allow it to act. Thus, our results highlight complex interactions between histone demethylase, deacetylase and chromatin remodelling activities in the regulation of gene expression

Expression of CD20 after viral reactivation renders HIV-reservoir cells susceptible to Rituximab

Rituximab; Viral reactivation; CD20Rituximab; Reactivació viral; CD20Rituximab; Reactivación viral; CD20The identification of exclusive markers to target HIV-reservoir cells will represent a significant advance in the search for therapies to cure HIV. Here, we identify the B lymphocyte antigen CD20 as a marker for HIV-infected cells in vitro and in vivo. The CD20 molecule is dimly expressed in a subpopulation of CD4-positive (CD4+) T lymphocytes from blood, with high levels of cell activation and heterogeneous memory phenotypes. In lymph node samples from infected patients, CD20 is present in productively HIV-infected cells, and ex vivo viral infection selectively upregulates the expression of CD20 during early infection. In samples from patients on antiretroviral therapy (ART) this subpopulation is significantly enriched in HIV transcripts, and the anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody Rituximab induces cell killing, which reduces the pool of HIV-expressing cells when combined with latency reversal agents. We provide a tool for targeting this active HIV-reservoir after viral reactivation in patients while on ART.This study was supported by the American National Institutes of Health (grant R21AI118411 to M.B.), the Spanish Secretariat of Science and Innovation and FEDER funds (grant SAF2015-67334-R [MINECO/FEDER]), the Spanish "Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, Instituto de Salud Carlos III" (ISCIII, PI17/01470), GeSIDA and the Spanish AIDS network Red Tematica Cooperativa de Investigacion en SIDA (RD16/0025/0007). M.B. is supported by the Miguel Servet program funded by the Spanish Health Institute Carlos III (CP17/00179). M.G. is supported by the "Pla estrategic de recerca i innovacio en salut" (PERIS), from the Catalan Government

Ensayos de infección con Xanthomonas citri en plantas réplicas de líneas transgénicas de Citrus sinensis cv "Pineapple"

La producción de cítricos es una de las actividades frutícolas más importantes en Argentina, contribuyendo significativamente a las exportaciones y al desarrollo económico a nivel regional. La cancrosis, causada por Xanthomonas citri subsp citri (Xcc) provoca problemas en la exportación de los cítricos y afecta con diferente severidad a distintas especies y variedades. Las estrategias biotecnológicas ofrecen herramientas prometedoras para el control de diversas bacteriosis en forma conjunta. Anteriormente este grupo de trabajo obtuvo plantas de naranja "Pineapple" transformadas con una construcción genética que favorece la acumulación constitutiva del péptido antimicrobiano (AMP) dermaseptina, cuya expresión mostró niveles de reducción de los síntomas de hasta un 50% en comparación con las plantas no transformadas. Con el objetivo de evaluar la continuidad de la resistencia a la enfermedad, en este trabajo se realizaron ensayos de infección con Xcc en plantas réplicas obtenidas de yemas de las líneas madre transgénicas. Los ensayos de infección se realizaron en cámara de crecimiento en condiciones controladas utilizando tres concentraciones distintas del inóculo. La técnica de inoculación consistió en la infiltración infra-epidérmica de las suspensiones bacterianas utilizando la mitad de la lámina. Se utilizaron siete plantas réplicas y un control no transgénico, incluyendo por cada ensayo de 4 a 9 hojas por planta. A los 21 días post-infección se recolectó y se evaluó la incidencia de cancros típicos de la enfermedad (les/cm2). Análisis preliminares de datos dan como resultado que al menos una de las líneas transgénicas réplica muestra persistencia en la reducción de síntomas de cancrosis respecto de los controles sin transformar. Estos resultados avalan que el uso de AMPs es una estrategia promisoria para el control de la cancrosis y respalda su evaluación para el control de otras enfermedades bacterianas incluido el HuanglongbingFil: Vandecaveye, Melina Antonella. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro Regional Corrientes. Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Bella Vista; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Nordeste; ArgentinaFil: Furman, Nicolas. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Biodiversidad y Biología Experimental y Aplicada. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Biodiversidad y Biología Experimental y Aplicada; ArgentinaFil: Kobayashi, Ken. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Instituto de Biodiversidad y Biología Experimental y Aplicada. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Biodiversidad y Biología Experimental y Aplicada; ArgentinaFil: Gochez, Alberto Martin. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro Regional Corrientes. Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Bella Vista; ArgentinaFil: Lezcano, Cecilia Carolina. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro Regional Corrientes. Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Bella Vista; ArgentinaFil: Hermosis, Fabian. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro Regional Corrientes. Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Bella Vista; ArgentinaFil: Soliz, Jorge Andres. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro Regional Corrientes. Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Bella Vista; ArgentinaFil: Benitez, Rolando José. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro Regional Corrientes. Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Bella Vista; ArgentinaFil: Reyes Martinez, Carina Andrea. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto de Biotecnología y Biología Molecular. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Instituto de Biotecnología y Biología Molecular; ArgentinaFil: Conti, Gabriela. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Veterinarias y Agronómicas. Instituto de Biotecnología; ArgentinaFil: Garcia, Maria Laura. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto de Biotecnología y Biología Molecular. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas. Instituto de Biotecnología y Biología Molecular; ArgentinaFil: Hopp, Horacio Esteban. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Veterinarias y Agronómicas. Instituto de Biotecnología; ArgentinaFil: Canteros, Blanca Isabel. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro Regional Corrientes. Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Bella Vista; ArgentinaIX Congreso Argentino de CitriculturaSan Miguel de TucumánArgentinaInstituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Estación Experimental Agroindustrial Obispo Colombre

Global surgery, obstetric, and anaesthesia indicator definitions and reporting: An Utstein consensus report

Background Indicators to evaluate progress towards timely access to safe surgical, anaesthesia, and obstetric (SAO) care were proposed in 2015 by the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery. These aimed to capture access to surgery, surgical workforce, surgical volume, perioperative mortality rate, and catastrophic and impoverishing financial consequences of surgery. Despite being rapidly taken up by practitioners, data points from which to derive the indicators were not defined, limiting comparability across time or settings. We convened global experts to evaluate and explicitly define—for the first time—the indicators to improve comparability and support achievement of 2030 goals to improve access to safe affordable surgical and anaesthesia care globally. Methods and findings The Utstein process for developing and reporting guidelines through a consensus building process was followed. In-person discussions at a 2-day meeting were followed by an iterative process conducted by email and virtual group meetings until consensus was reached. The meeting was held between June 16 to 18, 2019; discussions continued until August 2020. Participants consisted of experts in surgery, anaesthesia, and obstetric care, data science, and health indicators from high-, middle-, and low-income countries. Considering each of the 6 indicators in turn, we refined overarching descriptions and agreed upon data points needed for construction of each indicator at current time (basic data points), and as each evolves over 2 to 5 (intermediate) and >5 year (full) time frames. We removed one of the original 6 indicators (one of 2 financial risk protection indicators was eliminated) and refined descriptions and defined data points required to construct the 5 remaining indicators: geospatial access, workforce, surgical volume, perioperative mortality, and catastrophic expenditure. A strength of the process was the number of people from global institutes and multilateral agencies involved in the collection and reporting of global health metrics; a limitation was the limited number of participants from low- or middle-income countries—who only made up 21% of the total attendees. Conclusions To track global progress towards timely access to quality SAO care, these indicators—at the basic level—should be implemented universally as soon as possible. Intermediate and full indicator sets should be achieved by all countries over time. Meanwhile, these evolutions can assist in the short term in developing national surgical plans and collecting more detailed data for research studies.publishedVersio

Antimicrobial resistance among migrants in Europe: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Rates of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are rising globally and there is concern that increased migration is contributing to the burden of antibiotic resistance in Europe. However, the effect of migration on the burden of AMR in Europe has not yet been comprehensively examined. Therefore, we did a systematic review and meta-analysis to identify and synthesise data for AMR carriage or infection in migrants to Europe to examine differences in patterns of AMR across migrant groups and in different settings. METHODS: For this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched MEDLINE, Embase, PubMed, and Scopus with no language restrictions from Jan 1, 2000, to Jan 18, 2017, for primary data from observational studies reporting antibacterial resistance in common bacterial pathogens among migrants to 21 European Union-15 and European Economic Area countries. To be eligible for inclusion, studies had to report data on carriage or infection with laboratory-confirmed antibiotic-resistant organisms in migrant populations. We extracted data from eligible studies and assessed quality using piloted, standardised forms. We did not examine drug resistance in tuberculosis and excluded articles solely reporting on this parameter. We also excluded articles in which migrant status was determined by ethnicity, country of birth of participants' parents, or was not defined, and articles in which data were not disaggregated by migrant status. Outcomes were carriage of or infection with antibiotic-resistant organisms. We used random-effects models to calculate the pooled prevalence of each outcome. The study protocol is registered with PROSPERO, number CRD42016043681. FINDINGS: We identified 2274 articles, of which 23 observational studies reporting on antibiotic resistance in 2319 migrants were included. The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or AMR infection in migrants was 25·4% (95% CI 19·1-31·8; I2 =98%), including meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (7·8%, 4·8-10·7; I2 =92%) and antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteria (27·2%, 17·6-36·8; I2 =94%). The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or infection was higher in refugees and asylum seekers (33·0%, 18·3-47·6; I2 =98%) than in other migrant groups (6·6%, 1·8-11·3; I2 =92%). The pooled prevalence of antibiotic-resistant organisms was slightly higher in high-migrant community settings (33·1%, 11·1-55·1; I2 =96%) than in migrants in hospitals (24·3%, 16·1-32·6; I2 =98%). We did not find evidence of high rates of transmission of AMR from migrant to host populations. INTERPRETATION: Migrants are exposed to conditions favouring the emergence of drug resistance during transit and in host countries in Europe. Increased antibiotic resistance among refugees and asylum seekers and in high-migrant community settings (such as refugee camps and detention facilities) highlights the need for improved living conditions, access to health care, and initiatives to facilitate detection of and appropriate high-quality treatment for antibiotic-resistant infections during transit and in host countries. Protocols for the prevention and control of infection and for antibiotic surveillance need to be integrated in all aspects of health care, which should be accessible for all migrant groups, and should target determinants of AMR before, during, and after migration. FUNDING: UK National Institute for Health Research Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, Imperial College Healthcare Charity, the Wellcome Trust, and UK National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare-associated Infections and Antimictobial Resistance at Imperial College London