L’engagement militant dans la recherche en agriculture urbaine Réflexions sur le contexte français au miroir du scholar activism nord-américain / Activist engagement in urban agriculture research Reflections on the French context in the mirror of North American scholar activism

Cet article propose une réflexion collective sur l’importance de l’engagement militant dans la recherche en agriculture urbaine. Le cas français est analysé au miroir du scholar activism Nord-américain. Il s’appuie sur une revue de la littérature, complétée par une série de séminaires. Ancrée dans la géographie critique, l’agriculture urbaine apparait comme un champ de recherche militant aux Etats Unis qui se concentre sur le jardinage communautaire et promeut la justice alimentaire. Dans le contexte français, il emprunte à des registres et se consacre à des espaces et acteurs beaucoup plus diversifiés. La recherche en agriculture urbaine y est encore dominée par un idéal d’objectivisme et marquée par un déficit de réflexivité critique et politique. L’article se conclut par un appel à plus de réflexivité critique en ce domaine. This article is a collective reflection on the militant commitment as shaping the research field of urban agriculture. The French case is analyzed in the mirror of the North American scholar activism experience. It is based on a literature review completed by a series of seminars and interviews devoted to researchers' commitment experiences. In the United States, researchers who define themselves as activists clearly refer to critical and radical traditions of geography. Academic activism is associated to identified epistemic communities and designates relatively codified ways of conceiving research to serve community struggles and projects. In France, while there are many examples of engaged intellectual, political commitment is above all an individual affair. And, it is only recently that French geography has been influenced by critical currents. Research in urban agriculture is part of an academic activism claimed in the United States. it focuses on community gardening and is part of the overall goal of food justice. In France, it borrows from registers and focus on much more diversified spaces and actors. Research in urban agriculture is still dominated by an ideal of objectivism and marked by a lack of critical and political reflexivity. The article concludes with a call for reflexivity to explicit the ontological and epistemic assumptions of this field of research

Anticoagulation With an Inhibitor of Factors XIa and XIIa During Cardiopulmonary Bypass

peer reviewedBackground: Exposure of blood to polyanionic artificial surfaces, for example, during cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB), induces a highly procoagulant condition requiring strong anticoagulation. Unfractionated heparin (UFH) is currently used during CPB but can lead to serious bleeding complications or development of a hypercoagulable state culminating in life-threatening thrombosis, highlighting the need for safer antithrombotics. Ixodes ricinus contact phase inhibitor (Ir-CPI) is a protein expressed by I. ricinus ticks, which specifically inhibits both factors XIIa and XIa, 2 factors contributing to thrombotic disease while playing a limited role in hemostasis. Objectives: This study assessed the antithrombotic activity of Ir-CPI in animal contact phase-initiated thrombosis models, including CPB. The safety of Ir-CPI also was evaluated. Methods: The authors evaluated the antithrombotic activity of Ir-CPI by using in vitro catheter-induced clotting assays and rabbit experimental models of catheter occlusion and arteriovenous shunt. During CPB with cardiac surgery in sheep, the clinical applicability of Ir-CPI was investigated and its efficacy compared to that of UFH using an uncoated system suitable for adult therapy. Taking advantage of the similar hemostatic properties of pigs and humans, the authors performed pig liver bleeding assays to evaluate the safety of Ir-CPI. Results: Ir-CPI prevented clotting in catheter and arteriovenous shunt rabbit models. During CPB, Ir-CPI was as efficient as UFH in preventing clot formation within the extracorporeal circuit and maintained physiological parameters during and post-surgery. Unlike UFH, Ir-CPI did not promote bleeding. Conclusions: Preclinical animal models used in this study showed that Ir-CPI is an effective and safe antithrombotic agent that provides a clinically relevant approach to thrombosis prevention in bypass systems, including highly thrombogenic CPB. © 2019 The Author

Enrichment methods to detect bone marrow micrometastases in breast carcinoma patients: clinical relevance

INTRODUCTION: Improving technologies for the detection and purification of bone marrow (BM) micrometastatic cells in breast cancer patients should lead to earlier prognosis of the risk of relapse and should make it possible to design more appropriate therapies. The technique used has to overcome the challenges resulting from the small number of target cells (one per million hematopoietic cells) and the heterogeneous expression of micrometastatic cell markers. In the present study, we have assessed the clinical relevance of current methods aimed at detecting rare disseminated carcinoma cells. METHODS: BM aspirates from 32 carcinoma patients were screened for the presence of micrometastatic cells positive for epithelial cell adhesion molecule and positive for cytokeratins, using optimized immunodetection methods. A comparison with data obtained for 46 control BM aspirates and a correlation with the clinical status of patients were performed. RESULTS: We developed a sensitive and efficient immunomagnetic protocol for the enrichment of BM micrometastases. This method was used to divide 32 breast carcinoma patients into three categories according to their epithelial cell adhesion molecule status. These categories were highly correlated with the recently revised American Joint Committee on Cancer staging system for breast cancer, demonstrating the clinical relevance of this simple and reliable immunomagnetic technique. We also evaluated immunocytochemical detection of cytokeratin-positive cells and cytomorphological parameters. Immunocytochemistry-based methods for the detection of BM micrometastases did not provide any information about the clinical status of patients, but helped to refine the immunomagnetic data by confirming the presence of micrometastases in some cases. We also tested a new density gradient centrifugation system, able to enrich the tumor fraction of BM specimens by twofold to threefold as compared with standard Ficoll methods. CONCLUSION: These improved methods for the detection of micrometastatic cells in patient BM should help clinicians to predict the clinical status of breast cancer patients at the time of surgery or treatment

Women’s Attitudes Toward Invasive and Noninvasive Testing When Facing a High Risk of Fetal Down Syndrome

International audienceImportance: Noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) using cell-free DNA in maternal blood is increasingly common compared with invasive testing (IT) in routine antenatal detection of Down syndrome (DS).Objective: To assess attitudes and decision making in pregnant women facing a risk of fetal DS greater than 1 in 250 as established by combined first trimester screening at 11 to 14 weeks of gestation.Design, Setting, and Participants: Survey study in which data were collected from pregnant women at high risk of fetal DS participating in a randomized clinical trial. Data were collected from April 8, 2014, to April 7, 2016, in 57 prenatal diagnosis centers in France. Data were analyzed in 2018.Interventions Data on attitudes were collected prior to offering randomization between NIPT and IT, whereas data on decision making and test results were collected as part of the clinical trial.Main Outcome and Measures: The primary outcome related to attitudes. A hierarchical cluster analysis was conducted to identify clusters with contrasting attitudes. Logistic regression analyses were used to identify factors associated with attitudes.Results: All 2436 consecutive women to whom the study was proposed (mean [SD] age, 36.3 [5.0] years) answered the questionnaire: 515 (21.1%) expressed preference toward IT with complete karyotyping, whereas 1843 (75.7%) favored NIPT with almost certain but limited information. Hierarchical cluster analysis yielded 4 different clusters that mainly differed in attitudes toward risk taking and extent of information seeking. Factors likely associated with attitudes driven by risk aversion were mostly age and religious beliefs (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.03; 95% CI, 1.00-1.05; P = .03 and aOR, 1.62; 95% CI, 1.29-2.04; P < .001, respectively), whereas higher nuchal translucency measurements by ultrasonography were associated with attitudes driven by ambiguity aversion (aOR, 1.67; 95% CI, 1.27-2.20; P < .001). For attitudes involving both risk and ambiguity aversion at different extents, lower education was associated with highly valuing all possibilities of getting information on pregnancy, whereas higher education was associated with highly valuing information on fetal DS as a primary concern (aOR, 0.54; 95% CI, 0.44-0.67; P < .001 and aOR, 1.44; 95% CI, 1.20-1.74; P < .001, respectively). In all, decision making was in line with attitudes.Conclusions and Relevance: Aversion to risk of fetal loss related to IT and aversion to ambiguity generated by incomplete information from NIPT played a major role in shaping attitudes and decision making. Informed decision making should require pregnant women at high risk of DS to receive extensive information on targeted abnormalities by both tests

Late Holocene pollen record from Fiume Morto (Dead River), a palaeomeander of Tiber River near Ancient Ostia (central Italy)

International audiencePollen and non pollen palynomorph analyseswere carried out in a sediment core (MO2) drilledin the southern lobe of a palaeomeander, Fiume Morto(Dead River), in the Tiber delta area, near AncientOstia (central Italy). Since the Roman period, theTiber River flowed close to Ancient Ostia and itssaltworks, Salinae Ostiensis. The Tiber meander wascut off during the Tiber River flood of 1557 AD andtransformed into an oxbow lake. During the nineteenthcentury the Fiume Morto pond was reclaimed and atpresent the area is about 3 km distant from the presentshoreline and intensely transformed by human settlements.According to radiocarbon dates, the pollenrecord, not continuous, spans from the fourth centuryBC to the nineteenth century AD. It shows first ariverine phase before the meander cut off of sixteenthcentury AD and probably only the last centuries BCwere preserved from erosion. The river deposits recordriparian vegetation (mainly tamarisk and alder) withmesophilous (mainly deciduous oaks) and Mediterranean(mainly evergreen oaks, heather and olive tree)elements. The human presence is clear, probablyrelated to the development of Ancient Ostia andevidenced by synanthropic taxa. The second phasecorresponds to the oxbow lake formed after themeander cut off. Several peaks of pine pollen aretentatively ascribed to Tiber flood events: the first peakis found just in correspondence with the meander cutoff at 1557 AD. The numerous floods we interpret inthe following part of the diagram could be linked to theincrease in extreme events and precipitation thatoccurred during the Little Ice Age. The last phase, inwhich freshwater plants are present and chenopodsdecrease, shows the saltworks abandonment thatoccurred in nineteenth century. This study turned outto be of key relevance to reconstruct the palaeoenvironmentalevolution of the ancient Holocene Tibermeander during the last two and a half millennia