Worldwide Distribution of Major Clones of Listeria monocytogenes

Listeria monocytogenes is worldwide a pathogen, but the geographic distribution of clones remains largely unknown. Genotyping of 300 isolates from the 5 continents and diverse sources showed the existence of few prevalent and globally distributed clones, some of which include previously described epidemic clones. Cosmopolitan distribution indicates the need for genotyping standardization

Resting Regulatory CD4 T Cells: A Site of HIV Persistence in Patients on Long-Term Effective Antiretroviral Therapy

BACKGROUND: In HIV-infected patients on long-term HAART, virus persistence in resting long-lived CD4 T cells is a major barrier to curing the infection. Cell quiescence, by favouring HIV latency, reduces the risk of recognition and cell destruction by cytotoxic lymphocytes. Several cell-activation-based approaches have been proposed to disrupt cell quiescence and then virus latency, but these approaches have not eradicated the virus. CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells (Tregs) are a CD4+ T-cell subset with particular activation properties. We investigated the role of these cells in virus persistence in patients on long-term HAART. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We found evidence of infection of resting Tregs (HLADR(-)CD69(-)CD25(hi)FoxP3+CD4+ T cells) purified from patients on prolonged HAART. HIV DNA harbouring cells appear more abundant in the Treg subset than in non-Tregs. The half-life of the Treg reservoir was estimated at 20 months. Since Tregs from patients on prolonged HAART showed hyporesponsiveness to cell activation and inhibition of HIV-specific cytotoxic T lymphocyte-related functions upon activation, therapeutics targeting cell quiescence to induce virus expression may not be appropriate for purging the Treg reservoir. CONCLUSIONS: Our results identify Tregs as a particular compartment within the latent reservoir that may require a specific approach for its purging

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

25th annual computational neuroscience meeting: CNS-2016

The same neuron may play different functional roles in the neural circuits to which it belongs. For example, neurons in the Tritonia pedal ganglia may participate in variable phases of the swim motor rhythms [1]. While such neuronal functional variability is likely to play a major role the delivery of the functionality of neural systems, it is difficult to study it in most nervous systems. We work on the pyloric rhythm network of the crustacean stomatogastric ganglion (STG) [2]. Typically network models of the STG treat neurons of the same functional type as a single model neuron (e.g. PD neurons), assuming the same conductance parameters for these neurons and implying their synchronous firing [3, 4]. However, simultaneous recording of PD neurons shows differences between the timings of spikes of these neurons. This may indicate functional variability of these neurons. Here we modelled separately the two PD neurons of the STG in a multi-neuron model of the pyloric network. Our neuron models comply with known correlations between conductance parameters of ionic currents. Our results reproduce the experimental finding of increasing spike time distance between spikes originating from the two model PD neurons during their synchronised burst phase. The PD neuron with the larger calcium conductance generates its spikes before the other PD neuron. Larger potassium conductance values in the follower neuron imply longer delays between spikes, see Fig. 17.Neuromodulators change the conductance parameters of neurons and maintain the ratios of these parameters [5]. Our results show that such changes may shift the individual contribution of two PD neurons to the PD-phase of the pyloric rhythm altering their functionality within this rhythm. Our work paves the way towards an accessible experimental and computational framework for the analysis of the mechanisms and impact of functional variability of neurons within the neural circuits to which they belong

A multi-country test of brief reappraisal interventions on emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions globally. Left unchecked, these emotional changes might have a wide array of adverse impacts. To reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions, we tested the effectiveness of reappraisal, an emotion-regulation strategy that modifies how one thinks about a situation. Participants from 87 countries and regions (n = 21,644) were randomly assigned to one of two brief reappraisal interventions (reconstrual or repurposing) or one of two control conditions (active or passive). Results revealed that both reappraisal interventions (vesus both control conditions) consistently reduced negative emotions and increased positive emotions across different measures. Reconstrual and repurposing interventions had similar effects. Importantly, planned exploratory analyses indicated that reappraisal interventions did not reduce intentions to practice preventive health behaviours. The findings demonstrate the viability of creating scalable, low-cost interventions for use around the world

Belief and adherence to COVID 19-lockdown restrictions in patients with asthma versus other chronic diseases: results from a cross-sectional survey nested in the ComPaRe e-cohort, in France

International audienc

Test Beam Performance and Detailed Studies of the Structure of Hadronic Showers with Highly Granular Calorimeters

International audienceThe highly granular calorimeters developed and tested by the CALICE collaboration have provided large data samples with precise three-dimensional information on hadronic showers with steel and tungsten absorbers and silicon, scintillator and gas detector readout. We will discuss the performance of the RPC-based Semi-Digital Hadron Calorimeter in terms of energy resolution and pattern recognition, compared to Geant4 based simulations including a detailed modeling of the RPC response. The influence of granularity on the resolution obtained with digital, semi-digital and analog reconstruction method will be demonstrated based on the analogue HCAL data and simulations. We will also present the results of the performance studies of the combined scintillator-based calorimeter system (Sc-W ECAL, Sc-Fe AHCAL and Sc-Fe TCMT). The validation of the system with muons and electrons will be discussed as well as the single hadron energy resolution using both classical energy reconstruction and software compensation techniques in comparison with the predictions of Geant4 simulations. We will show the parametrisation of the radial development of hadronic showers in the Sc-Fe AHCAL and the progress in the predictions of several Geant4 physics lists. The results of the detailed measurement of hadronic showers in the SiW ECAL in terms of integral observables will be also presented; the observables, which characterise the interaction region and tracks produced by secondaries will be analyzed and compared to Geant4 simulations

Rapport 2 : Représentations et positionnements des usagers face aux mesures de protection contre les grands prédateurs : étude territoriale menée dans 5 communes des Pyrénées-Atlantiques. In "Étude d'impact de la mise en place des mesures de protection des troupeaux contre les prédateurs sur le département des Pyrénées-Atlantiques. Volet 3 : Étude des pratiques et représentations des usagers"

This document was produced as part of the project "Étude d'impact de la mise en place des mesures de protection des troupeaux contre les prédateurs (ours brun Ursus arctos et loup gris Canis lupus lupus) sur le département des Pyrénées-Atlantiques 2021-2022" carried out by the Centre Départemental d'Elevage Ovin (CDEO) and the Chambre d'agriculture des Pyrénées-Atlantiques and financed by the Département des Pyrénées-Atlantiques, the Communauté d'Agglomération du Pays Basque, the Conseil Régional Nouvelle-Aquitaine and the French government. The study, which is taking place against a backdrop of still limited predation, aims to measure the issues at stake and better anticipate future management of the predator question as part of the overall projects for the areas concerned.The study brings together a large number of institutional players and research laboratories, who have worked on three aspects corresponding to three disciplinary approaches. The first analyses the dynamics of environments and landscapes linked to the implementation of herd protection measures, the second focuses on the changes in farming systems that could ensue, and the third looks at the territorial dynamics involved.Within this third section on territorial dynamics, the aim was to examine the impact that these protection measures may have on land use. In particular, the aim of this section was to understand the way in which the various users think about and represent local territories, in order to shed light on how and to what extent the implementation of herd protection measures reexamines these relationships to the territory and its many uses. This work was carried out jointly by geographers (UMR TREE CNRS/UPPA and the Association des Commissions syndicales du Pays basque) and an anthropologist (UMR GEODE CNRS/UT2), the authors of this section. Three reports were produced as part of part 3: a portrait of each area studied (5 communes) and two summary reports on users' perceptions of their landscapes and measures to protect them from predation. It is the latter document that is presented in this report.Ce document a été réalisé dans le cadre du projet "Étude d’impact de la mise en place des mesures de protection des troupeaux contre les prédateurs (ours brun Ursus arctos et loup gris Canis lupus lupus) sur le département des Pyrénées-Atlantiques 2021-2022" porté par le Centre Départemental d’Elevage Ovin (CDEO) et la Chambre d’agriculture des Pyrénées-Atlantiques et financé par le Département des Pyrénées-Atlantiques, la Communauté d’Agglomération du Pays basque, le Conseil Régional Nouvelle-Aquitaine et l’État. L’étude, qui se déroule dans un contexte de prédation encore limitée, vise à mesurer les enjeux et anticiper au mieux la gestion à venir de la question des prédateurs dans le cadre des projets globaux des territoires concernés.Cette étude réunit de nombreux acteurs institutionnels et laboratoires de recherche qui ont travaillé autour de trois volets correspondant à trois entrées disciplinaires. Le premier analyse les dynamiques des milieux et des paysages liées à la mise en place des mesures de protection des troupeaux, le deuxième se focalise sur l’évolution des systèmes d’élevage qui pourrait s’en suivre et le troisième s’intéresse aux dynamiques territoriales induites.Au sein de ce troisième volet sur les dynamiques territoriales, l’objectif était de s’interroger sur l’impact que peuvent avoir ces mesures de protection sur les usages d’un territoire. En particulier, ce volet visait à comprendre la manière dont les différents usagers pensent et se représentent les territoires locaux afin d’éclairer en quoi et dans quelle mesure la mise en œuvre des mesures de protection des troupeaux réinterroge ces relations au territoire et à ses multiples usages. Ce travail a été mené conjointement par des géographes (UMR TREE CNRS/UPPA et l’Association des Commissions syndicales du Pays basque) et un anthropologue (UMR GEODE CNRS /UT2), auteurs de ce volet. Trois rapports ont été produits dans le cadre de ce volet 3 : un portrait de chaque territoire étudié (5 communes) et deux rapports synthétiques sur les représentations des usagers de leurs paysages et des mesures de protection contre la prédation. C’est ce tout dernier document qui est présenté dans ce rapport