Effect of antimicrobial use on the resistance of Escherichia coli in faecal flora of pigs

The antimicrobial use in veterinary medicine is of concern because of possible transmisston of resistant bacteria to humans. However the relation between use and occurrence of resistance is poorly documented in the field. Sixteen farrow-to-fimsh herds were selected and classified on the frequency of antimicrobial administrations (low (LU), medium (MU) and high (HU) users). lndtcative Eschenchia coli strains were tsolated from faeces of sows (5 per herd) and young pigs (3 per sow) at several ttmes during animals\u27 hfe and tested for reststance to amoxicillin, gentamicin, trimethoprim-sulfamids and tetracyclin. The percentages of resistant strams were compared between herd groups

The secondary eclipses of WASP-19b as seen by the ASTEP 400 telescope from Antarctica

The ASTEP (Antarctica Search for Transiting ExoPlanets) program was originally aimed at probing the quality of the Dome C, Antarctica for the discovery and characterization of exoplanets by photometry. In the first year of operation of the 40 cm ASTEP 400 telescope (austral winter 2010), we targeted the known transiting planet WASP-19b in order to try to detect its secondary transits in the visible. This is made possible by the excellent sub-millimagnitude precision of the binned data. The WASP-19 system was observed during 24 nights in May 2010. The photometric variability level due to starspots is about 1.8% (peak-to-peak), in line with the SuperWASP data from 2007 (1.4%) and larger than in 2008 (0.07%). We find a rotation period of WASP-19 of 10.7 +/- 0.5 days, in agreement with the SuperWASP determination of 10.5 +/- 0.2 days. Theoretical models show that this can only be explained if tidal dissipation in the star is weak, i.e. the tidal dissipation factor Q'star > 3.10^7. Separately, we find evidence for a secondary eclipse of depth 390 +/- 190 ppm with a 2.0 sigma significance, a phase consistent with a circular orbit and a 3% false positive probability. Given the wavelength range of the observations (420 to 950 nm), the secondary transit depth translates into a day side brightness temperature of 2690(-220/+150) K, in line with measurements in the z' and K bands. The day side emission observed in the visible could be due either to thermal emission of an extremely hot day side with very little redistribution of heat to the night side, or to direct reflection of stellar light with a maximum geometrical albedo Ag=0.27 +/- 0.13. We also report a low-frequency oscillation well in phase at the planet orbital period, but with a lower-limit amplitude that could not be attributed to the planet phase alone, and possibly contaminated with residual lightcurve trends.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics, 13 pages, 13 figure

Interval Slopes as Numerical Abstract Domain for Floating-Point Variables

The design of embedded control systems is mainly done with model-based tools such as Matlab/Simulink. Numerical simulation is the central technique of development and verification of such tools. Floating-point arithmetic, that is well-known to only provide approximated results, is omnipresent in this activity. In order to validate the behaviors of numerical simulations using abstract interpretation-based static analysis, we present, theoretically and with experiments, a new partially relational abstract domain dedicated to floating-point variables. It comes from interval expansion of non-linear functions using slopes and it is able to mimic all the behaviors of the floating-point arithmetic. Hence it is adapted to prove the absence of run-time errors or to analyze the numerical precision of embedded control systems

Zinc-gallium oxynitride powders: effect of the oxide precursor synthesis route

International audienceZinc-gallium oxynitride powders (ZnGaON) were synthesized by nitridation of ZnGa2O4 oxide precursor obtained by polymeric precursors (PP) and solid state reaction (SSR) methods and the influence of the synthesis route of ZnGa2O4 on the final compound ZnGaON was investigated. Crystalline single phase ZnGa2O4 was obtained at 1100 oC / 12 h by SSR and at 600 oC / 2 h by PP with different grain sizes and specific surface areas according to the synthesis route. After nitridation, ZnGaON oxynitrides with a GaN würtzite-type structure were obtained in both cases, however at lower temperatures for PP samples. The microstructure and the specific surface area were strongly dependent on the oxide synthesis method and on the nitridation temperature (42 m2g-1 and 5 m2g-1 for PP and SSR oxides treated at 700 °C, respectively). The composition analyses showed a strong loss of Zn for the PP samples, favored by the increase of ammonolysis temperature and by the higher specific surface area

Microstructure and mechanical behavior of superelastic Ti-24Nb-0.5O and Ti-24Nb-0.5N biomedical alloys

International audienceIn this study, the microstructure and the mechanical properties of two new biocompatible superelastic alloys, Ti-24Nb-0.5O and Ti-24Nb-0.5N (at.%), were investigated. Special attention was focused on the role of O and N addition on α″ formation, supereleastic recovery and mechanical strength by comparison with the Ti-24Nb and Ti-26Nb (at.%) alloy compositions taken as references. Microstructures were characterized by optical microscopy, X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy before and after deformation. The mechanical properties and the superelastic behavior were evaluated by conventional and cyclic tensile tests. High tensile strength, low Young's modulus, rather high superelastic recovery and excellent ductility were observed for both superelastic Ti-24Nb-0.5O and Ti-24Nb-0.5N alloys. Deformation twinning was shown to accommodate the plastic deformation in these alloys and only the {332}〈113〉 twinning system was observed to be activated by electron backscattered diffraction analyses