Evaluation of the contribution of NTFPs gathering: to rural people’s livelihoods around two timber concessions in Gabon

NTFP are often presented as bringing a major contribution to rural livelihoods in terms of food and cash, and this particularly for rural communities. Few data are available in Gabon to confirm this common assertion. An annual monitoring of 127 households was conducted in 14 villages around two timber concessions in the south-east and south-west regions of Gabon. Conventional socio‐economic survey tools such as focus group discussions, census and semi-structured interviews of households were used in gathering data during one year. Results reveal that rural people depend on various sources of livelihoods for food and income generation, but overall, the current contributions of vegetal NTFPs are insignificant compared to other activities. Odika (Irvingiagabonensis), atanga sauvage (Dacryodes buettneri), fungus (Termitomyces spp) and “nut” (Coula edulis) represent the main forest products that are commonly harvested by rural people, primarily for subsistence purposes while the surplus is sold. Although some efforts were made to promote the NTFP sector in the country, the results of this study suggest that: (1) the main components of the decree No.137/PR/MEFP of February 4, 2009, that prohibited the logging of five multiple use tree species over a period of 25 years should be reconsidered for revision; (2) the State authorities and partners should promote projects aiming at increasing the knowledge of the NTFP sector. These projects should contribute to the census of NTFP (for food, medicine and services), characterize their uses, the market chains of target products, and the development potential of NTFP. Such projects may help Gabon and other Congo Basin countries to fix norms/standards for a sustainable natural resource management and for enhancing their contribution to the national economy. This will be particularly relevant in the light of dwindling oil revenues and the need to diversify and promote other revenue sources in the country

Mitochondrial proteomics: analysis of a whole mitochondrial extract with two-dimensional electrophoresis

Mitochondria are complex organelles, and their proteomics analysis requires a combination of techniques. The emphasis in this chapter is made first on mitochondria preparation from cultured mammalian cells, then on the separation of the mitochondrial proteins with two-dimensional electrophoresis (2DE), showing some adjustment over the classical techniques to improve resolution of the mitochondrial proteins. This covers both the protein solubilization, the electrophoretic part per se, and the protein detection on the gels, which makes the interface with the protein identification part relying on mass spectrometry

Comparison of Cardiac and Non-Cardiac Biomarkers for Risk Stratification in Elderly Patients with Non-Massive Pulmonary Embolism.

Biomarkers unrelated to myocardial necrosis, such as cystatin C, copeptin, and mid-regional pro-adrenomedullin (MR-proADM), showed promise for cardiovascular risk prediction. Knowing whether they are comparable to cardiac biomarkers such as high-sensitive cardiac-troponin T (hs-cTnT) or N-terminal pro-Brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) in elderly patients with acute non-massive pulmonary embolism (NMPE) remains elusive. This study aims at comparing the prognostic accuracy of cardiac and non-cardiac biomarkers in patients with NMPE aged ≥65 years over time. In the context of the SWITCO65+ cohort, we evaluated 227 elderly patients with an available blood sample taken within one day from diagnosis. The primary study endpoint was defined as PE-related mortality and the secondary endpoint as PE-related complications. The biomarkers' predictive ability at 1, 3, 12 and 24 months was determined using C-statistics and Cox regression. For both study endpoints, C-statistics (95% confidence interval) were stable over time for all biomarkers, with the highest value for hs-cTnT, ranging between 0.84 (0.68-1.00) and 0.80 (0.70-0.90) for the primary endpoint, and between 0.74 (0.63-0.86) and 0.65 (0.57-0.73) for the secondary endpoint. For both study endpoints, cardiac biomarkers were found to be independently associated with risk, NT-proBNP displaying a negative predictive value of 100%. Among non-cardiac biomarkers, only copeptin and MR-proADM were independent predictors of PE-related mortality but they were not independent predictors of PE-related complications, and displayed lower negative predictive values. In elderly NMPE patients, cardiac biomarkers appear to be valuable prognostic to identify very low-risk individuals. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00973596

Efficient Certified Resolution Proof Checking

We present a novel propositional proof tracing format that eliminates complex processing, thus enabling efficient (formal) proof checking. The benefits of this format are demonstrated by implementing a proof checker in C, which outperforms a state-of-the-art checker by two orders of magnitude. We then formalize the theory underlying propositional proof checking in Coq, and extract a correct-by-construction proof checker for our format from the formalization. An empirical evaluation using 280 unsatisfiable instances from the 2015 and 2016 SAT competitions shows that this certified checker usually performs comparably to a state-of-the-art non-certified proof checker. Using this format, we formally verify the recent 200 TB proof of the Boolean Pythagorean Triples conjecture

Effects of copper on the early development of Xenopus laevis: the case of CuSO4 and Bordeaux mixture solutions

Not available

Effects of sports drinks on the maintenance of physical performance during 3 tennis matches: A randomized controlled study

Background: Tennis tournaments often involve playing several consecutive matches interspersed with short periods of recovery. Objective: The objective of this study was firstly to assess the impact of several successive tennis matches on the physical performance of competitive players and secondly to evaluate the potential of sports drinks to minimize the fatigue induced by repeated matches. Methods: This was a crossover, randomized controlled study. Eight male regionally-ranked tennis players participated in this study. Players underwent a series of physical tests to assess their strength, speed, power and endurance following the completion of three tennis matches each of two hours duration played over three consecutive half-days (1.5 day period for each condition). In the first condition the players consumed a sports drink before, during and after each match; in the second, they drank an identical volume of placebo water. The results obtained were compared with the third 'rest' condition in which the subjects did not play any tennis. Main outcomes measured were maximal isometric strength and fatigability of knee and elbow extensors, 20-m sprint speed, jumping height, specific repeated sprint ability test and hand grip strength. Results: The physical test results for the lower limbs showed no significant differences between the three conditions. Conversely, on the upper limbs the EMG data showed greater fatigue of the triceps brachii in the placebo condition compared to the rest condition, while the ingestion of sports drinks attenuated this fatigue. Conclusions: This study has demonstrated for the first time that, when tennis players are adequately hydrated and ingest balanced meals between matches, then no large drop in physical performance is observed even during consecutive competitive matches

Square root and division elimination in PVS

International audienceIn this paper we present a new strategy for PVS that imple- ments a square root and division elimination in order to use automatic arithmetic strategies that were not able to deal with these operations in the ﰁrst place. This strategy relies on a PVS formalization of the square root and division elimination and deep embedding of PVS expressions inside PVS. Therefore using computational reﰂection and symbolic com- putation we are able to automatically transform expressions into division and square root free ones before using these decision procedures