Zur Epidemiologie arthropodenübertragener Virosen der Honigbiene, Apis mellifera, in Bayern

102 klinisch auffällige und 35 symptomlose Bienenvölker aus 19 bayerischen Landkreisen sowie 70 Proben des Ektoparasiten Varroa destructor wurden mittels RT-PCR auf das Vorkommen von Black queen cell virus (BQCV), Deformed wing virus (DWV) und Kashmir bee virus (KBV) untersucht. In 90.5 % der Bienenproben wurde mindestens eines der Viren nachgewiesen, wobei klinisch auffällige Völker hoch signifikant häufiger betroffen waren als symptomlose Völker (96 % vs. 74.3 %; p<0.01). Während KBV nicht in den Bienen nachgewiesen werden konnte, fanden sich BQCV- und DWV-Infektionen in jeweils 66.4 % der Proben. 42.3 % der Völker zeigten Doppelinfektionen mit BQCV und DWV. 131 der Bienenvölker wurden zusätzlich lichtmikroskopisch auf eine Infektion mit Mikrosporidien untersucht. Dabei wurden bei 14.5 % der Proben Mikrosporidiensporen nachgewiesen. 2.3 % der Proben zeigten leichte, 4.6 % mittelgradige und 7.6 % hohe Befallsgrade. Mit Hilfe einer Nosema apis-spezifischen PCR und einer universellen Mikrosporidien-PCR wurde in neun Proben eine Infektion mit Nosema apis und in neun weiteren Proben eine Infektion mit Nosema ceranae nachgewiesen. Eine Infektion von Bienen mit Viren war nicht mit einer Mikrosporidieninfektion korreliert. In den von den Bienen gewonnenen und getrennt davon untersuchten Varroa-Milben fand sich bei 94.3 % DWV, 20 % BQCV und 14.3 % KBV. 94.3 % aller Milbenproben wiesen mindestens ein Virus auf, 22.8 % zeigten eine Doppelinfektion und 5.7 % eine Infektion mit drei Bienenviren. Der hier gezeigte Nachweis von KBV in den Landkreisen Amberg, Landshut, Erding, Mühldorf am Inn, Rosenheim und Oberallgäu ist die erste Beschreibung für ein Vorkommen von KBV in Bayern. Die Ergebnisse dieser Untersuchung stützen die These nach einer ursächlichen Beteiligung von arthropodenübertragenen Bienenviren an den periodisch auftretenden Massenverlusten von Bienenvölkern in Bayern

The pattern of juvenile idiopathic arthritis; a retrospective Egyptian study

Background: Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is the most common autoimmune musculoskeletal disease in children. The spectrum of patients’ profile of JIA showed many similarities and differences among different populations. Therefore, our study aimed to analyze the clinical data, laboratory data, treatment protocols and patient’s outcomes of JIA among Egyptian population.Methods: We checked and analyzed medical files of children with JIA followed up at pediatric rheumatology clinic between 2004-2010 at Alexandria Main Children Hospital.Results: Our study included data about 63 Egyptian JIA patients (33 males and 30 females), with a mean age of 7.3±3.1 years (range 3-16 years). We found that oligoarticular subtype was the predominant (41.2%) among cases followed by polyarticular (35%) then systemic onset type in (23.8%). Most of the patients lived in rural areas (57.1%). Clinically, knee joints (74.6%) were the most affected joints while pallor (42.9%) was main extra-articular manifestations (42.2%) among all subtypes. Uveitis (6.3%) manifested among oligoarticular and polyarticular subtypes only. Rheumatoid factor and anti-nuclear antibody (ANA) were positive among 69.8% and 20.6% of the studied cases respectively. Remission rate was 47.6% and occurred mostly in oligoarticular subtype. Also, the regimen of combination of two drugs showed the highest remission rate (39.8%).Conclusion: The pattern of JIA among Egyptian children showed predominance of oligoarticular subtype specially at rural areas which differed from Western and Gulf  countries pattern.Keywords: Juvenile idiopathic arthritis, oligoarticular, Rheumatoid factor, morning stiffnes

Rhizostoma optimization algorithm and its application in different real-world optimization problems

In last decade, numerous meta-heuristic algorithms have been proposed for dealing the complexity and difficulty of numerical optimization problems in the realworld which is growing continuously recently, but only a few algorithms have caught researchers’ attention. In this study, a new swarm-based meta-heuristic algorithm called Rhizostoma optimization algorithm (ROA) is proposed for solving the optimization problems based on simulating the social movement of Rhizostoma octopus (barrel jellyfish) in the ocean. ROA is intended to mitigate the two optimization problems of trapping in local optima and slow convergence. ROA is proposed with three different movement strategies (simulated annealing (SA), fast simulated annealing (FSA), and Levy walk (LW)) and tested with 23 standard mathematical benchmark functions, two classical engineering problems, and various real-world datasets including three widely used datasets to predict the students’ performance. Comparing the ROA algorithm with the latest meta-heuristic optimization algorithms and a recent published research proves that ROA is a very competitive algorithm with a high ability in optimization performance with respect to local optima avoidance, the speed of convergence and the exploration/exploitation balance rate, as it is effectively applicable for performing optimization tasks

Cracking-assisted Fabrication of Nanoscale Patterns for Micro/Nanotechnological Applications

Cracks are frequently observed in daily life, but they are rarely welcome and are considered as a material failure mode. Interestingly, cracks cause critical problems in various micro/nanofabrication processes such as colloidal assembly, thin film deposition, and even standard photolithography because they are hard to avoid or control. However, increasing attention has been given recently to control and use cracks as a facile, low-cost strategy for producing highly ordered nanopatterns. Specifically, cracking is the breakage of molecular bonds and occurs simultaneously over a large area, enabling fabrication of nanoscale patterns at both high resolution and high throughput, which are difficult to obtain simultaneously using conventional nanofabrication techniques. In this review, we discuss various cracking-assisted nanofabrication techniques, referred to as crack lithography, and summarize the fabrication principles, procedures, and characteristics of the crack patterns such as their position, direction, and dimensions. First, we categorize crack lithography techniques into three technical development levels according to the directional freedom of the crack patterns: randomly oriented, unidirectional, or multidirectional. Then, we describe a wide range of novel practical devices fabricated by crack lithography, including bioassay platforms, nanofluidic devices, nanowire sensors, and even biomimetic mechanosensors.ope

International Conference Terminology : Arabic

Pour pouvoir mettre à jour un glossaire de terminologie de conférence trilingue arabe, anglais et français, ce mémoire tente de répondre à trois questions fondamentales : le glossaire est-il exhaustif, correct et bien adapté à l'objectif poursuivi? Pour répondre à cette question, la conception de recherche est passée en revue puis la méthodologie de recherche en trois étapes est adoptée. Les différents types de glossaires sont examinés et le lien entre glossaire et interprétation de conférence. Le statut de l'arabe dans les organisations internationales (l'ONU) est également expliqué. Les contraintes sont identifiées et les leçons retenues sont partagées

Examining the Role of Patent Quality in Large-Scale "Patent War" Litigation - A Historical Comparison and Proposal for a Restorative U.S. Patent System

Although the U.S. Patent System has been essential to spurring innovation, it has wavered in its efficiency and effectiveness at doing so. This research first makes historical comparison and analysis of the Apple and Wright landmark patent war cases to illustrate that, irrespective of timing, benefits of a patent system rest heavily on how well it defines and maintains “patent quality.” Much of the challenge in maintaining such quality relates to the subjective and often uncertain nature of invention criteria such as “non-obviousness.” As shown by recent trends, decreased patent quality leads to greater uncertainty about patent validity, which in turn invites more litigation. This work proposes that, in order to improve constancy on patent quality, the U.S. patent office should consider returning to original strategies envisioned by the Founders of the United States as described by a patent-registration system that emphasizes utility and public review in governing the patent granting process. Modern information technology can now be applied to effectively restore this original framework envisioned for patent quality control systems

Spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs): study of recovery kinetics and potential role in restoration of male fertility after cytotoxic treatment

Gonadotoxic therapies including radiotherapy and chemotherapy used to treat cancers are extremely damaging to germinal epithelium inducing transient or permanent azoospermia. Spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs) are the foundation of spermatogenesis. They represent the basis of a male fertility restoration strategy after treatment. This work presented herein addressed two critical aspects in this strategy; markers to identify and isolate human SSCs, and the kinetics of SSC recovery after chemotherapy. In chapter 2, the expression of various rodent SSC markers by undifferentiated human spermatogonia, which include SSCs, was examined by immunohistochemistry, and CD9 expression was detected in the basal compartment of human seminiferous tubules. After immunological sorting, human CD9 positive male gem cells showed 3 to 4-folds enrichment when transplanted into immune-deficient nude mice testes, confirming that CD9 is expressed on human putative human SSCs and can be used to enrich for this population. In chapter 3, I studied the contribution of SSC recovery to fertility recovery after chemotherapy in a mouse model, and provided functional evidence that the restoration kinetics of male fertility follows those of the SSC population after damage. I also addressed the question whether there is a critical SSC number to confer fertility and suggested a 30% of original SSC population as a threshold of the SSC population size required for the onset of male fertility restoration. Though the study did not identify a faithful physiological parameter related to male reproduction (sperm count, testis weight, testosterone level, Glial cell-derived neurotropic factor (GDNF) transcripts level in testes), which would allow for monitoring the degree of SSC recovery in a non-invasive manner, yet it paved the way for future efforts to predict the timing of male fertility restoration after chemotherapy. In conclusion, this work identified a new marker for human putative SSCs and proved it to be effective to enrich for this cell population. In addition, it provided functional evidence that restoration of male fertility results from that of SSC and identified for the first time a threshold level of SSC population size permitting recovery.Les thérapies gonadotoxiques y compris la radiothérapie et de la chimiothérapie utilisées pour traiter les cancers sont extrêmement dommageable pour l' épithélium germinal, induisant l'azoospermie transitoire ou permanente. Les cellules souches germinales (CSG) sont à la base de la spermatogenèse. Elles représentent la base d'une stratégie de restauration de la fertilité masculine après traitement. Ce travail a porté sur deux aspects essentiels de cette stratégie; identifier des marqueurs pour isoler les CSG humains, et étudier la cinétique de la récupération des CSG après une chimiothérapie. Dans le chapitre 2, l'expression de différents marqueurs des CSG de rongeurs a été examinée dans les CSG humaine par immunohistochimie, et l'expression de CD9 a été détectée dans le compartiment basal des tubes séminifères de l'homme. Après un triage cellulaire immunologique, les cellules CD9 positives ont montré un enrichissement de trois à quatre lorsqu'elles sont transplantées dans les testicules des souris nude immunodéficientes, confirmant que CD9 est exprimé sur les CSG mâles et peut être utilisé pour enrichir cette population.Dans le chapitre 3, j'ai étudié la corrélation entre la cinétique de récupération des CSG et la restauration de la fertilité après une chimiothérapie chez un modèle de souris, et fourni une preuve fonctionnelle que la restauration de la fertilité masculine est parallèle à celui de la population CGS après l'insulte. J'ai également abordé la question de savoir si il y a un nombre critique de CSG pour récupérer la fertilité. Mes résultats suggèrent que 30% de la population d'origine CSG doit être seuil pour supporter la restauration de la fertilité masculine. Bien que l'étude n'a pas identifié un paramètre physiologique mesurable indicateur de la capacité reproductive des mâles pour l'apparition de la restauration de la fertilité masculine (nombre de spermatozoïdes, poids des testicules, niveau de testostérone, niveau de transcription du facteur neurotrope dérivé des cellules gliales (GDNF) dans les testicules), qui permettrait de surveiller le degré de récupération de la CSG, mais il a ouvert la voie à de futurs efforts. En conclusion, ce travail a identifié un nouveau marqueur des CSG humaines et il s'est avéré être efficace pour enrichir cette population cellulaire. En outre, il a fourni des preuves que la restauration fonctionnelle de la fertilité masculine est le résultat de la récupération des CSG, et a identifié pour la première fois un seuil de taille de la population CSG permettant la récupération de fertilité masculine

Future Aspects in Human Cryopreservation

The capability to preserve human oocytes, blastocysts, ovarian tissue and spermatozoa is an important tool in human assisted reproductive techniques. This preservation allows patients undergoing chemotherapy or radiotherapy to preserve their fertility, and helps to attain all benefits from the costly ovarian superovulation therapies prior to ART. The primary goal in establishing an appropriate freezing protocol is to do as little damage as possible while exposing specimens to nonphysiologic ultra low temperatures. Nowadays two techniques are used in cryopreservation: the slow cooling method and the more recent rapid procedure  of vitrification. Vitrification is simple, requires no expensive programmable freezing equipment, efficient and cost effective way to improve cumulative pregnancy rates per cycle. Oocytes, blastocysts, ovarian tissue and spermatozoa could be suitable for vitrification and thus cryopreservation. Vitrification proved to be the future of cryopreservation and important progresses are achieved everyday in this active domain in a trial to set the optimal protocol for cryopreservation of different types of gametes, embryos and tissue

The Overlooked Role of Obesity in Infertility

Being either underweight or overweight can affect a woman's fertility. Irregular menstrual cycles, reduced spontaneous and assisted fertility and an increased risk of miscarriage are risks associated with obesity that are often overlooked. Excessive weight and central distribution of body fat are both related to an increased risk of normogonadotrophic anovulation. Weight loss can re-establish ovulation in obese anovulatory patients or improve their response to ovulation induction. However, even a small amount of weight loss (5%) may improve fertility. Men who are overweight or obese have significantly lower sperm counts than men of normal weight