Mycobacterium abscessus and Children with Cystic Fibrosis

We prospectively studied 298 patients with cystic fibrosis (mean age 11.3 years; range 2 months to 32 years; sex ratio, 0.47) for nontuberculous mycobacteria in respiratory samples from January 1, 1996, to December 31, 1999. Mycobacterium abscessus was by far the most prevalent nontuberculous mycobacterium: 15 patients (6 male, 9 female; mean age 11.9 years; range 2.5–22 years) had at least one positive sample for this microorganism (versus 6 patients positive for M. avium complex), including 10 with >3 positive samples (versus 3 patients for M. avium complex). The M. abscessus isolates from 14 patients were typed by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis: each of the 14 patients harbored a unique strain, ruling out a common environmental reservoir or person-to-person transmission. Water samples collected in the cystic fibrosis center were negative for M. abscessus. This major mycobacterial pathogen in children and teenagers with cystic fibrosis does not appear to be acquired nosocomially

Recombination between Polioviruses and Co-Circulating Coxsackie A Viruses: Role in the Emergence of Pathogenic Vaccine-Derived Polioviruses

Ten outbreaks of poliomyelitis caused by pathogenic circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses (cVDPVs) have recently been reported in different regions of the world. Two of these outbreaks occurred in Madagascar. Most cVDPVs were recombinants of mutated poliovaccine strains and other unidentified enteroviruses of species C. We previously reported that a type 2 cVDPV isolated during an outbreak in Madagascar was co-circulating with coxsackieviruses A17 (CA17) and that sequences in the 3′ half of the cVDPV and CA17 genomes were related. The goal of this study was to investigate whether these CA17 isolates can act as recombination partners of poliovirus and subsequently to evaluate the major effects of recombination events on the phenotype of the recombinants. We first cloned the infectious cDNA of a Madagascar CA17 isolate. We then generated recombinant constructs combining the genetic material of this CA17 isolate with that of the type 2 vaccine strain and that of the type 2 cVDPV. Our results showed that poliovirus/CA17 recombinants are viable. The recombinant in which the 3′ half of the vaccine strain genome had been replaced by that of the CA17 genome yielded larger plaques and was less temperature sensitive than its parental strains. The virus in which the 3′ portion of the cVDPV genome was replaced by the 3′ half of the CA17 genome was almost as neurovirulent as the cVDPV in transgenic mice expressing the poliovirus cellular receptor gene. The co-circulation in children and genetic recombination of viruses, differing in their pathogenicity for humans and in certain other biological properties such as receptor usage, can lead to the generation of pathogenic recombinants, thus constituting an interesting model of viral evolution and emergence

Towards a Privacy Scorecard – Initial Design Exemplified on an Intelligent Transport Systems Service

Increasingly many services depend on access to data that are traceable to individuals, the so-called "personally identifiable information" (PII). The ecosystem of PII-dependent services is growing, becoming highly complex and dynamic. As a result, a wide variety of PII is constantly collected, stored, exchanged, and applied by all kinds of services. Practice of PII handling among service providers varies, as does the insight and influence of the end-users on how their own PII is treated. For a user, privacy represents a condition for his/her trust and service adoption. It is moreover essential for a service provider to be able to claim privacy awareness over time. This is particularly important as the new EU privacy regulation is about to become operative, thus enforcing strict privacy requirements on the service providers and giving new rights to the users. In order to preserve user trust and manage the technical and legal privacy requirements, a practically usable support to continu ously and transparently plan and follow-up privacy compliance, is needed. To this end, we propose an initial version of a so-called "Privacy Scorecard", that is, a decision support for a service provider aimed to facilitate identification, specification, measurement and follow-up of fulfilment of privacy goals in a relatively transparent and comprehensible manner. In this position paper, we present initial design and intended usage of the Privacy Scorecard. We also exemplify how it can be applied to a concrete service. The initial findings indicate feasibility of the approach and suggest directions for further work, including refinement of the scorecard design and usage guidelines, tool support for visualization, as well as further empirical evaluation.publishedVersio

Towards Transparent Real-Time Privacy Risk Assessment of Intelligent Transport Systems

There are many privacy concerns within Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). On the one hand, end-users are concerned about their privacy risk exposure, while on the other hand, ITS providers need to claim privacy awareness and document compliance with regulations or otherwise face devastating fines. One approach to address these concerns is to use methods specifically developed to assess privacy risks of ITS. The literature lacks such methods, and the complex and dynamic nature of ITS introduces challenges that need to be properly addressed when assessing privacy risks. The main challenges are related to real-time assessment of privacy risks to (1) inform end-users about exposed privacy risks, and (2) help providers asses privacy-compliance risks. We propose a method to privacy risk assessment addressing these challenges. The method is exemplified on an ITS-example. The initial results indicate feasibility of the method and propose directions for future work.acceptedVersio

ETUDE DES GENOTYPES DE RESISTANCE DU VIRUS DE L'IMMUNODEFICIENCE HUMAINE DE TYPE 1 (VIH-1)AUX ANALOGUES NUCLEOSIDIQUES ET NON NUCLEOSIDIQUES CHEZ LES PATIENTS PRESENTANT UN ECHAPPEMENT VIROLOGIQUE (DES BIOL. MED.)

LYON1-BU Santé (693882101) / SudocSudocFranceF

Towards a Privacy Scorecard – Initial Design Exemplified on an Intelligent Transport Systems Service

Increasingly many services depend on access to data that are traceable to individuals, the so-called "personally identifiable information" (PII). The ecosystem of PII-dependent services is growing, becoming highly complex and dynamic. As a result, a wide variety of PII is constantly collected, stored, exchanged, and applied by all kinds of services. Practice of PII handling among service providers varies, as does the insight and influence of the end-users on how their own PII is treated. For a user, privacy represents a condition for his/her trust and service adoption. It is moreover essential for a service provider to be able to claim privacy awareness over time. This is particularly important as the new EU privacy regulation is about to become operative, thus enforcing strict privacy requirements on the service providers and giving new rights to the users. In order to preserve user trust and manage the technical and legal privacy requirements, a practically usable support to continu ously and transparently plan and follow-up privacy compliance, is needed. To this end, we propose an initial version of a so-called "Privacy Scorecard", that is, a decision support for a service provider aimed to facilitate identification, specification, measurement and follow-up of fulfilment of privacy goals in a relatively transparent and comprehensible manner. In this position paper, we present initial design and intended usage of the Privacy Scorecard. We also exemplify how it can be applied to a concrete service. The initial findings indicate feasibility of the approach and suggest directions for further work, including refinement of the scorecard design and usage guidelines, tool support for visualization, as well as further empirical evaluation.publishedVersio