Pratiques et succès du cabotage en Méditerranée nord-occidentale au XIVe siècle

Navigation restant proche des côtes, le cabotage est un des modes de circulation maritime les plus répandus en Méditerranée au Moyen Âge. Pratiqué par les Provençaux comme par les autres riverains de cet espace, il n’est cependant pas toujours aisé à suivre et à caractériser dans nos sources. Même si celles-ci tendent à privilégier ses accidents de parcours (tempêtes, naufrages, actes de piraterie, litiges commerciaux…) nous pouvons entrevoir les techniques mises en œuvre, les routes suivies, de jour comme de nuit, et les compétences requises par cette activité en rien marginale à laquelle se livre tout type de navire. Au sein du domaine méditerranéen, le cabotage constitue assurément le type de navigation le plus naturel, le plus efficace et le mieux adapté aux opérations commerciales (maîtrise de l’information, appui sur des réseaux de proximité). Là résident les clés de son succès.In the Middle Ages, coastal navigation was one of the most common forms of maritime circulation in the Mediterranean. The people of Provence as well as others in the regions studied went in for this sort of navigation, but following their paths and defining characteristics is no simple matter. Source material tends to stress accidents met on the way (storms, shipwrecks, piracy, commercial disputes). It is nevertheless possible to define techniques being used, routes followed day and night, and skills being called for in this activity which was certainly never marginal, all types of ship being involved at one time or another.Within the Mediterranean region, coastal navigation evidently represented the most natural form of maritime expedition, the most efficient and the best adapted to trade activities (information circulated well, local networks functioned efficiently). This is what explains its success

L’écrivain de navire en Méditerranée au XIVe siècle

L’écrivain de navire est un acteur mal connu du monde maritime médiéval. En utilisant des sources variées (documents notariés, judiciaires, recueils de lois maritimes, glossaires) nous distinguons son importance et ses fonctions. Les aspects terminologiques ne sont pas oubliés, mais nous insistons surtout sur les traits remarquables du personnage. Il est présent dans le monde méditerranéen et, semble-t-il, pas ailleurs. Il est assez important pour que plusieurs grands textes législatifs lui consacrent des chapitres ou de larges mentions, réglementent sa fonction, ses devoirs. Ces textes et nos exemples issus des archives montrent la valeur de cet homme et du registre qu’il tient. L’écrivain prête un serment essentiel. De là, découle la valeur et la foi que l’on peut accorder à ses écrits. Il est le témoin principal de tout ce qui se passe à bord qu’il s’agisse des passagers, des marchandises, de l’équipage, du navire, des relations entre les uns et les autres, du déroulement du voyage, des dépenses, il est compétent en matière d’état-civil, peut évaluer les biens ou les personnes, a un rôle d’économe et une capacité à agir au nom d’autres personnes, y compris au nom du patron.The shipwriter is a scarcely acknowledged figure in the medieval maritime world. By drawing on various sources (notarial documents, registers of maritime law and glossaries) this article a offers clear idea of his importance and his role. Terminological aspects are not overlooked, but emphasis is mostly placed on the remarkable features of the figure. He is present in the Mediterranean world but not apparently beyond. He is sufficiently important to have chapters or lengthy references devoted to him in several major legislative texts defining his function and his duties. These texts and other examples taken from archives underline the value of this man and the register he kept. The writer pledged an essential oath, which explains the value of his accounts and the faith we can have in them. He was the principal witness of all that happened on board, whether in terms of the passengers, the merchandise, the crew, the ship, relations between people, incidents during the voyage or expenditure. He could issue documents relating to civil status, could assess the worth of goods or persons, served as an accountant and could act in the name of other people, including the captain

Assessment of targeted non-intentionally added substances in cosmetics in contact with plastic packagings. Analytical and toxicological aspects

International audienceContainer-content interactions are common in the food and pharmaceutical industries. However, these studies are more complicated in the cosmetic industry, and it is necessary to ensure consumer safety. The objective of this work was to develop a strategy for the toxicological evaluation of leachables for cosmetic packagings. Eleven common plastic packagings were selected to evaluate interactions with 5 simulants (acidic, alkaline and neutral water, 30% and 96% ethanol) chosen to mimic cosmetics behavior. A GC-MS method was developed to screen for 12 non-intentionally added substances of particular concern: 10 phthalates, bisphenol A and distearyl thiodipropionate (European Pharmacopoeia plastic additive 17). Results were analyzed using a toxicological procedure established for this study. Some phthalates and bisphenol A were detected in several samples, but only one contaminant, diisobutyl phthalate (DiBP), was found to be above the set concentration threshold. Using toxicological data, this concentration was found to be safe for users. 96% ethanol appeared to be the strongest simulant in term of extraction, with a maximum concentration of 491 μg/L for DiBP in a 100% styrene-acrylonitrile copolymer packaging. In water simulants, less contaminants were extracted, with concentrations under 20 μg/L

Assessment of targeted non-intentionally added substances in cosmetics in contact with plastic packagings. Analytical and toxicological aspects

Container-content interactions are common in the food and pharmaceutical industries. However, these studies are more complicated in the cosmetic industry, and it is necessary to ensure consumer safety. The objective of this work was to develop a strategy for the toxicological evaluation of leachables for cosmetic packagings. Eleven common plastic packagings were selected to evaluate interactions with 5 simulants (acidic, alkaline and neutral water, 30% and 96% ethanol) chosen to mimic cosmetics behavior. A GC-MS method was developed to screen for 12 non-intentionally added substances of particular concern: 10 phthalates, bisphenol A and distearyl thiodipropionate (European Pharmacopoeia plastic additive 17). Results were analyzed using a toxicological procedure established for this study. Some phthalates and bisphenol A were detected in several samples, but only one contaminant, diisobutyl phthalate (DiBP), was found to be above the set concentration threshold. Using toxicological data, this concentration was found to be safe for users. 96% ethanol appeared to be the strongest simulant in term of extraction, with a maximum concentration of 491 μg/L for DiBP in a 100% styrene-acrylonitrile copolymer packaging. In water simulants, less contaminants were extracted, with concentrations under 20 μg/L

Bioinformatic analysis of ESTs collected by Sanger and pyrosequencing methods for a keystone forest tree species: oak

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Fagaceae family comprises about 1,000 woody species worldwide. About half belong to the <it>Quercus </it>family. These oaks are often a source of raw material for biomass wood and fiber. Pedunculate and sessile oaks, are among the most important deciduous forest tree species in Europe. Despite their ecological and economical importance, very few genomic resources have yet been generated for these species. Here, we describe the development of an EST catalogue that will support ecosystem genomics studies, where geneticists, ecophysiologists, molecular biologists and ecologists join their efforts for understanding, monitoring and predicting functional genetic diversity.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We generated 145,827 sequence reads from 20 cDNA libraries using the Sanger method. Unexploitable chromatograms and quality checking lead us to eliminate 19,941 sequences. Finally a total of 125,925 ESTs were retained from 111,361 cDNA clones. Pyrosequencing was also conducted for 14 libraries, generating 1,948,579 reads, from which 370,566 sequences (19.0%) were eliminated, resulting in 1,578,192 sequences. Following clustering and assembly using TGICL pipeline, 1,704,117 EST sequences collapsed into 69,154 tentative contigs and 153,517 singletons, providing 222,671 non-redundant sequences (including alternative transcripts). We also assembled the sequences using MIRA and PartiGene software and compared the three unigene sets. Gene ontology annotation was then assigned to 29,303 unigene elements. Blast search against the SWISS-PROT database revealed putative homologs for 32,810 (14.7%) unigene elements, but more extensive search with Pfam, Refseq_protein, Refseq_RNA and eight gene indices revealed homology for 67.4% of them. The EST catalogue was examined for putative homologs of candidate genes involved in bud phenology, cuticle formation, phenylpropanoids biosynthesis and cell wall formation. Our results suggest a good coverage of genes involved in these traits. Comparative orthologous sequences (COS) with other plant gene models were identified and allow to unravel the oak paleo-history. Simple sequence repeats (SSRs) and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were searched, resulting in 52,834 SSRs and 36,411 SNPs. All of these are available through the Oak Contig Browser <url>http://genotoul-contigbrowser.toulouse.inra.fr:9092/Quercus_robur/index.html</url>.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This genomic resource provides a unique tool to discover genes of interest, study the oak transcriptome, and develop new markers to investigate functional diversity in natural populations.</p

Repositioning of the global epicentre of non-optimal cholesterol

High blood cholesterol is typically considered a feature of wealthy western countries(1,2). However, dietary and behavioural determinants of blood cholesterol are changing rapidly throughout the world(3) and countries are using lipid-lowering medications at varying rates. These changes can have distinct effects on the levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and non-HDL cholesterol, which have different effects on human health(4,5). However, the trends of HDL and non-HDL cholesterol levels over time have not been previously reported in a global analysis. Here we pooled 1,127 population-based studies that measured blood lipids in 102.6 million individuals aged 18 years and older to estimate trends from 1980 to 2018 in mean total, non-HDL and HDL cholesterol levels for 200 countries. Globally, there was little change in total or non-HDL cholesterol from 1980 to 2018. This was a net effect of increases in low- and middle-income countries, especially in east and southeast Asia, and decreases in high-income western countries, especially those in northwestern Europe, and in central and eastern Europe. As a result, countries with the highest level of non-HDL cholesterol-which is a marker of cardiovascular riskchanged from those in western Europe such as Belgium, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Malta in 1980 to those in Asia and the Pacific, such as Tokelau, Malaysia, The Philippines and Thailand. In 2017, high non-HDL cholesterol was responsible for an estimated 3.9 million (95% credible interval 3.7 million-4.2 million) worldwide deaths, half of which occurred in east, southeast and south Asia. The global repositioning of lipid-related risk, with non-optimal cholesterol shifting from a distinct feature of high-income countries in northwestern Europe, north America and Australasia to one that affects countries in east and southeast Asia and Oceania should motivate the use of population-based policies and personal interventions to improve nutrition and enhance access to treatment throughout the world.Peer reviewe

Contributions of mean and shape of blood pressure distribution to worldwide trends and variations in raised blood pressure: A pooled analysis of 1018 population-based measurement studies with 88.6 million participants

© The Author(s) 2018. Background: Change in the prevalence of raised blood pressure could be due to both shifts in the entire distribution of blood pressure (representing the combined effects of public health interventions and secular trends) and changes in its high-blood-pressure tail (representing successful clinical interventions to control blood pressure in the hypertensive population). Our aim was to quantify the contributions of these two phenomena to the worldwide trends in the prevalence of raised blood pressure. Methods: We pooled 1018 population-based studies with blood pressure measurements on 88.6 million participants from 1985 to 2016. We first calculated mean systolic blood pressure (SBP), mean diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and prevalence of raised blood pressure by sex and 10-year age group from 20-29 years to 70-79 years in each study, taking into account complex survey design and survey sample weights, where relevant. We used a linear mixed effect model to quantify the association between (probittransformed) prevalence of raised blood pressure and age-group- and sex-specific mean blood pressure. We calculated the contributions of change in mean SBP and DBP, and of change in the prevalence-mean association, to the change in prevalence of raised blood pressure. Results: In 2005-16, at the same level of population mean SBP and DBP, men and women in South Asia and in Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa would have the highest prevalence of raised blood pressure, and men and women in the highincome Asia Pacific and high-income Western regions would have the lowest. In most region-sex-age groups where the prevalence of raised blood pressure declined, one half or more of the decline was due to the decline in mean blood pressure. Where prevalence of raised blood pressure has increased, the change was entirely driven by increasing mean blood pressure, offset partly by the change in the prevalence-mean association. Conclusions: Change in mean blood pressure is the main driver of the worldwide change in the prevalence of raised blood pressure, but change in the high-blood-pressure tail of the distribution has also contributed to the change in prevalence, especially in older age groups

Global variations in diabetes mellitus based on fasting glucose and haemogloblin A1c

Fasting plasma glucose (FPG) and haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) are both used to diagnose diabetes, but may identify different people as having diabetes. We used data from 117 population-based studies and quantified, in different world regions, the prevalence of diagnosed diabetes, and whether those who were previously undiagnosed and detected as having diabetes in survey screening had elevated FPG, HbA1c, or both. We developed prediction equations for estimating the probability that a person without previously diagnosed diabetes, and at a specific level of FPG, had elevated HbA1c, and vice versa. The age-standardised proportion of diabetes that was previously undiagnosed, and detected in survey screening, ranged from 30% in the high-income western region to 66% in south Asia. Among those with screen-detected diabetes with either test, the agestandardised proportion who had elevated levels of both FPG and HbA1c was 29-39% across regions; the remainder had discordant elevation of FPG or HbA1c. In most low- and middle-income regions, isolated elevated HbA1c more common than isolated elevated FPG. In these regions, the use of FPG alone may delay diabetes diagnosis and underestimate diabetes prevalence. Our prediction equations help allocate finite resources for measuring HbA1c to reduce the global gap in diabetes diagnosis and surveillance.peer-reviewe

Worldwide trends in hypertension prevalence and progress in treatment and control from 1990 to 2019: a pooled analysis of 1201 population-representative studies with 104 million participants

Background Hypertension can be detected at the primary health-care level and low-cost treatments can effectively control hypertension. We aimed to measure the prevalence of hypertension and progress in its detection, treatment, and control from 1990 to 2019 for 200 countries and territories. Methods We used data from 1990 to 2019 on people aged 30–79 years from population-representative studies with measurement of blood pressure and data on blood pressure treatment. We defined hypertension as having systolic blood pressure 140 mm Hg or greater, diastolic blood pressure 90 mm Hg or greater, or taking medication for hypertension. We applied a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate the prevalence of hypertension and the proportion of people with hypertension who had a previous diagnosis (detection), who were taking medication for hypertension (treatment), and whose hypertension was controlled to below 140/90 mm Hg (control). The model allowed for trends over time to be non-linear and to vary by age. Findings The number of people aged 30–79 years with hypertension doubled from 1990 to 2019, from 331 (95% credible interval 306–359) million women and 317 (292–344) million men in 1990 to 626 (584–668) million women and 652 (604–698) million men in 2019, despite stable global age-standardised prevalence. In 2019, age-standardised hypertension prevalence was lowest in Canada and Peru for both men and women; in Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and some countries in western Europe including Switzerland, Spain, and the UK for women; and in several low-income and middle-income countries such as Eritrea, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Solomon Islands for men. Hypertension prevalence surpassed 50% for women in two countries and men in nine countries, in central and eastern Europe, central Asia, Oceania, and Latin America. Globally, 59% (55–62) of women and 49% (46–52) of men with hypertension reported a previous diagnosis of hypertension in 2019, and 47% (43–51) of women and 38% (35–41) of men were treated. Control rates among people with hypertension in 2019 were 23% (20–27) for women and 18% (16–21) for men. In 2019, treatment and control rates were highest in South Korea, Canada, and Iceland (treatment >70%; control >50%), followed by the USA, Costa Rica, Germany, Portugal, and Taiwan. Treatment rates were less than 25% for women and less than 20% for men in Nepal, Indonesia, and some countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania. Control rates were below 10% for women and men in these countries and for men in some countries in north Africa, central and south Asia, and eastern Europe. Treatment and control rates have improved in most countries since 1990, but we found little change in most countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania. Improvements were largest in high-income countries, central Europe, and some upper-middle-income and recently high-income countries including Costa Rica, Taiwan, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Brazil, Chile, Turkey, and Iran. Interpretation Improvements in the detection, treatment, and control of hypertension have varied substantially across countries, with some middle-income countries now outperforming most high-income nations. The dual approach of reducing hypertension prevalence through primary prevention and enhancing its treatment and control is achievable not only in high-income countries but also in low-income and middle-income settings

Heterogeneous contributions of change in population distribution of body mass index to change in obesity and underweight NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC)

From 1985 to 2016, the prevalence of underweight decreased, and that of obesity and severe obesity increased, in most regions, with significant variation in the magnitude of these changes across regions. We investigated how much change in mean body mass index (BMI) explains changes in the prevalence of underweight, obesity, and severe obesity in different regions using data from 2896 population-based studies with 187 million participants. Changes in the prevalence of underweight and total obesity, and to a lesser extent severe obesity, are largely driven by shifts in the distribution of BMI, with smaller contributions from changes in the shape of the distribution. In East and Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, the underweight tail of the BMI distribution was left behind as the distribution shifted. There is a need for policies that address all forms of malnutrition by making healthy foods accessible and affordable, while restricting unhealthy foods through fiscal and regulatory restrictions