L'imaginaire urbain dans les régions ouvrières en reconversion: Le bassin stéphanois et le bassin minier du Nord Pas de Calais

Cette recherche est une recherche sociologique et anthropologique coordonnée par Michel Rautenberg rassemblant le Centre Max Weber de Saint-Étienne, le Centre Lillois d'études et de recherches sociologiques et économiques (sous la responsabilité du professeur Licia Valladarès) et l' Université de Sofia (sous la responsabilité du professeur Ivaylo Ditchev). Démarrée en décembre 2007 elle s'est terminée en avril 2011 et a bénéficié d'une aide de l'ANR de 180 k€ pour un montant global de 250 k€ de subventions publiques (non comprise une allocation de recherche).The general hypothesis at the origin of this research is that urban transformations do not go without social representations and the field of the imagination. It is essential for each image, word or story to be related to concrete situations that the researcher can describe. The choice of cities is thus not negligible. In this research programme, it has focussed on cities which have a had a difficult economic history characterised by brutal de-industrialization - more in people's minds than by its suddenness. This has left a traumatic effect on individual and collective memories, an urban landscape of industrial wasteland and 3 decades later it continues to strongly influence urban renovation policies. The first issue of this research, which in its second phase was extended to include Bulgarian cities thanks to the support of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, was to establish a method making it possible to describe this imagination. So researchers agreed to work on imagination "operators", that is to say means (administrative, artistic or social) used by socially identified actors : artists, associations, inhabitants, former miners, municipal authorities. The second issue was to favour the imagination of cites which cannot be measured against communication strategies but which considers the "popular" social imagination which is sufficiently autonomous to exist outside municipal institutions - without asserting that it is completely independent. The third issue was to find common features in the comparison between situations close enough in their history to justify a pertinent comparison.L'hypothèse générale à l'origine de cette recherche est que les transformations urbaines ne font pas l'économie des représentations et des imaginaires sociaux. Il est donc nécessaire que chaque image, parole ou récit recueilli soit rapporté à des situations concrètes que le chercheur peut décrire. Le choix des villes n'est alors pas anodin. Dans ce programme de recherche, il s'est porté sur des villes qui ont eu une histoire économique difficile caractérisée par une désindustrialisation brutale -dans les esprits peut-être plus que par sa soudaineté. Celle ci a laissé des traumatismes dans les mémoires individuelles et collectives, un paysage urbain de friches industrielles, et continue après 3 décennies d'influencer fortement sur les politiques de rénovation urbaine

No evidence for an association between the -871 T/C promoter polymorphism in the B-cell-activating factor gene and primary Sjögren's syndrome

Polyclonal B cell activation might be related to pathogenic over-expression of B-cell-activating factor (BAFF) in primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS) and other autoimmune diseases. We therefore investigated whether BAFF over-expression in pSS could be a primary, genetically determined event that leads to the disease. The complete BAFF gene was sequenced in Caucasian pSS patients and control individuals. The only single nucleotide polymorphism frequently observed, namely -871 T/C in the promoter region, was then genotyped in 162 French patients with pSS and 90 French control individuals. No significant differences in allele (T allele frequency: 49.7% in patients with pSS versus 50% in controls; P = 0.94) and genotype frequencies of BAFF polymorphism were detected between pSS patients and control individuals. BAFF gene polymorphism was not associated with a specific pattern of antibody secretion either. T allele carriers had significantly increased BAFF protein serum levels (mean values of 8.6 and 5.7 ng/ml in patients with TT and TC genotypes, respectively, versus 3.3 ng/ml in patients with CC genotype; P = 0.01), although no correlation was observed between BAFF polymorphism and mRNA level. In conclusion, BAFF gene polymorphism is neither involved in genetic predisposition to pSS nor associated with a specific pattern of antibody production

Genetic variants in novel pathways influence blood pressure and cardiovascular disease risk.

Blood pressure is a heritable trait influenced by several biological pathways and responsive to environmental stimuli. Over one billion people worldwide have hypertension (≥140 mm Hg systolic blood pressure or  ≥90 mm Hg diastolic blood pressure). Even small increments in blood pressure are associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular events. This genome-wide association study of systolic and diastolic blood pressure, which used a multi-stage design in 200,000 individuals of European descent, identified sixteen novel loci: six of these loci contain genes previously known or suspected to regulate blood pressure (GUCY1A3-GUCY1B3, NPR3-C5orf23, ADM, FURIN-FES, GOSR2, GNAS-EDN3); the other ten provide new clues to blood pressure physiology. A genetic risk score based on 29 genome-wide significant variants was associated with hypertension, left ventricular wall thickness, stroke and coronary artery disease, but not kidney disease or kidney function. We also observed associations with blood pressure in East Asian, South Asian and African ancestry individuals. Our findings provide new insights into the genetics and biology of blood pressure, and suggest potential novel therapeutic pathways for cardiovascular disease prevention

Genetic associations at 53 loci highlight cell types and biological pathways relevant for kidney function.

Reduced glomerular filtration rate defines chronic kidney disease and is associated with cardiovascular and all-cause mortality. We conducted a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), combining data across 133,413 individuals with replication in up to 42,166 individuals. We identify 24 new and confirm 29 previously identified loci. Of these 53 loci, 19 associate with eGFR among individuals with diabetes. Using bioinformatics, we show that identified genes at eGFR loci are enriched for expression in kidney tissues and in pathways relevant for kidney development and transmembrane transporter activity, kidney structure, and regulation of glucose metabolism. Chromatin state mapping and DNase I hypersensitivity analyses across adult tissues demonstrate preferential mapping of associated variants to regulatory regions in kidney but not extra-renal tissues. These findings suggest that genetic determinants of eGFR are mediated largely through direct effects within the kidney and highlight important cell types and biological pathways