Disclosure of investigators' Recruitment performance in multicenter clinical trials: a further step for research transparency

Transparency: A Fundamental Social Obligation for Clinical Research .After 60 years devoted to enhancing the methodology and ethics in clinical research, the last decade has been crucial to the scientific community in refining the transparency on conducting clinical trials (CTs), from their inception to the publication of results. A myriad of articles have been published on the design, conduct, conflicts of interest, reporting, and publication of CTs..

Les cinquante ans qui ont changé l'agriculture française

The fifty years which transformed french agriculture - In 1950, one-third of French employed persons worked in agriculture, only one among 22 nowadays, and farmers are less numerous than manufacturing industry workers in rural areas. Agricultural holdings remain family units, but their average area has become more than three times larger in fifty years. Over the same period, productivity gains, mainly due to the development of machinery, have been considerable. Agricultural output is more than twice higher, allowing France to become net exporter of agricultural products. This performance improvement leads to an upward trend in the purchasing power of gross individual income despite the sharp decrease of real output prices

dad: An R Package for Visualisation, Classification and Discrimination of Multivariate Groups Modelled by their Densities

Multidimensional scaling (MDS), hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA), and discriminant analysis (DA) are classical techniques which deal with data made of n individuals and p variables. When the individuals are divided into T groups, the R package dad associates with each group a multivariate probability density function and then carries out these techniques on the densities, which are estimated by the data under consideration. These techniques are based on distance measures between densities: chi-square, Hellinger, Jeffreys, Jensen-Shannon, and Lp for discrete densities, Hellinger , Jeffreys, L2 , and 2-Wasserstein for Gaussian densities, and L2 for numeric non-Gaussian densities estimated by the Gaussian kernel method. Practical methods help the user to give meaning to the outputs in the context of MDS and HCA and to look for an optimal prediction in the context of DA based on the one-leave-out misclassification ratio. Some functions for data management or basic statistics calculations on groups are annexed

Indicators of nitrogen status for ornamental woody plants

Indicators of plant nitrogen (N) status adapted to woody ornamental plants are essential to adjust fertilization to plant N demand in ornamental plant nurseries. N supply influences the synthesis of both proteins and polyphenols, because their biosynthetic pathways share a common precursor

What are the contributions of cytokinins, abscisic acid and sugars in bud outgrowth regulation by light intensity in rose?

In ornamentals, particularly in rose bush, the visual quality of a plant is an important element of its quality. Bud outgrowth, which is at the origin of branching, strongly impacts plant shape and compactness, that are two traits involved in rosebush visual quality (Boumaza et al. 2009).Changes in the environmental conditions, in particular in light intensity, can impact the number of buds that grow out and change bud outgrowth gradient along a stem in various species, including rose (Leduc et al. 2014; Furet et al. 2014). Bud outgrowth is controlled by a network of interacting hormones, the principal ones are auxin, cytokinins and strigolactones, but the role of abscisic acid is also emerging. Sugars are involved in bud outgrowth regulation too and they interact with the hormonal network. A natural hypothesis is that decreasing light intensity may limit bud outgrowth via a shortage in sugars and changes in plant hormonal content. However, the mechanisms by which light intensity affects bud outgrowth, especiallythe respective role of the different hormones and sugars in this regulation, is still poorly understood.The objective of this work was to test if the control of bud outgrowth gradient along the stem by light intensity is mediated by sugars, cytokinins and/or abscisic acid and to assess which of these actors is the main limiting actor. The study was conducted on whole plants and attention was paid to the location of bud outgrowth along the shoot

Depressive mixed state: Evidence for a new form of depressive state in type I and II bipolar patients

Katia M’Bailara1, Donatienne Van den Bulke2, Nicolas Demazeau2, Jacques Demotes-Mainard3, Chantal Henry11EA4139 Laboratoire de psychologie, Université Victor Segalen, Bordeaux Cedex, France; 2Centre Hospitalier Charles Perrens, Bordeaux Cedex, France; 3INSERM-DRCT, ECRIN, Paris, FranceBackground: A high proportion of unipolar and bipolar type II patients can present a depressive mixed state (DMX). This state is defined by an association of a major depressive episode with at least two specific hypomanic symptoms. This state seems underdiagnosed and this could have treatment implications. The aims of our study were: (i) to investigate the frequency of DMX in type I and II bipolar patients hospitalized for a severe or resistant depressive episode and (ii) to assess the therapeutic response in naturalistic conditions.Methods: Forty-two consecutive bipolar patients referred by psychiatrists for a severe or resistant depressive episode were assessed using the French version of the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview 5.0 (MINI 5.0), which assesses the suicide risk and provides DSM-IV diagnosis. The intensity of mood episodes was evaluated using the MADRS and Bech-Rafaelsen Mania Scale. One group of patients included patients presenting only depressive symptoms (ie, pure major depressive episode (MDE)), and the second group included patients with a major depressive episode and at least two specific hypomanic symptoms (DMX).Results: Twenty-one patients (50%) had a pure MDE and 21 patients (50%) had a DMX. The treatment leading to recovery was very different in the two groups. Antidepressants were effective (77%) in MDE patients, whereas antipsychotics were effective (81%) in DMX. 38% of patients with a MDE also received a mood stabilizer versus 86% in the group of DMX. Five MDE patients (24%) and one DMX patient required electroconvulsive therapy. The suicidal ideations did not differ between the two groups (p = 0.7).Conclusions: Some mood episodes in bipolar patients (type I and II) are characterised by depressive and hypomanic symptoms but do not meet criteria for mixed episode as defined by DSM-IV. These episodes are often diagnosed as depressive states, but are worsened by antidepressants and often considered as resistant depression. They rapidly respond to antimanic treatment. New categories of mood disorders should take into account this particular mixed state.Keywords: bipolar depression, mixed state, depressive mixed state, resistant depressio