Cell therapies for heart function recovery: focus on myocardial tissue engineering and nanotechnologies

Cell therapies have gained increasing interest and developed in several approaches related to the treatment of damaged myocardium. The results of multiple clinical trials have already been reported, almost exclusively involving the direct injection of stem cells. It has, however, been postulated that the efficiency of injected cells could possibly be hindered by the mechanical trauma due to the injection and their low survival in the hostile environment. It has indeed been demonstrated that cell mortality due to the injection approaches 90%. Major issues still need to be resolved and bed-to-bench followup is paramount to foster clinical implementations. The tissue engineering approach thus constitutes an attractive alternative since it provides the opportunity to deliver a large number of cells that are already organized in an extracellular matrix. Recent laboratory reports confirmed the interest of this approach and already encouraged a few groups to investigate it in clinical studies. We discuss current knowledge regarding engineered tissue for myocardial repair or replacement and in particular the recent implementation of nanotechnological approaches

Extraction of Suspicious Behavior of Vessels in the Exclusive Economic Zone

Available: http://ap-s.ei.tuat.ac.jp/isapx/2008/pdf/1645005.pdfInternational audienceIntroduction: Constant growth of world maritime transport and significant economic stakes of territorial water management have prompted the international community to invest in maritime global security research. In this context, the ScanMaris project, which is founded by the French National Research Agency (ANR), aims to continuously monitor activities in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) activities and detect abnormal behavior using both observation systems and external data sources

Sense, enrich and classify: The scanmaris workshop for assessment of vessel's abnormal behavior in the EEZ

International audienceConstant monitoring of the Exclusive Economic Zone cannot be performed only using high performance sensors. On the one hand, all available information on the observed area as juridical history of vessels or delineation of fishing zone is not necessarily measurable. On the other hand, even if the large amount of available information could be caught out they would be useless if none thorough sorting and analysis are carried on. So, we propose to sense vessel trail in Exclusive Economic Zone, to enrich the trail with the relevant non-measurable information and to use this material to classify vessel behaviors. The main issues of this approach are the selection of the relevant detailswhich point to uncommon behaviors and the definition of the criteria which allow differentiating uncommon behavior and fraudulent one. Thus, the challenge is to deal with multidisciplinary information (i.e. bathymetry, radar tracks, insurance database, weather, etc.) and multi-domain criteria (i.e. juridical, behavioral, zonal, temporal, etc.). The architecture presented here aims to overcome both the issues

Considering the degradation effects of amino-functional plasma polymer coatings for biomedical application

Materials for biomedical applications typically involve surface engineering. Scaffolds used for tissue engineering, for example, require a surface functionalization in order to support cell growth. The deposition of functional plasma polymer coatings seems to be an attractive approach to modify substrates for biomedical applications.Possible degradation of highly functional plasma polymers and the effect of its degradation products on cell growth, however, are not yet investigated in detail. Plasma polymer formation is governed by gas phase (mainly determining the chemical composition) and surface processes (inducing cross-linking) which both influence the incorporation of amino groups in a-C:H:N coatings deposited by NH₃/C₂H₄ discharges. Aging is studied in air and in aqueous conditions revealing the degradation of such plasma polymers (loss in thickness and loss of amino groups). Degradation products seem to influence viability and proliferation of mouse skeletal muscle cells on electrospun poly(ε-caprolactone) scaffolds. Thus, possible chemical changes as a function of time or exposure to different media must be taken into account in the design of functional plasma polymer coatings for biomedical applications in order to avoid possible adverse effects on cell growth

ScanMaris : automatic detection of abnormal vessel behaviours

International audienceThe ScanMaris project is a software workshop designed to develop and evaluate solutions for thread prevention and maritime border monitoring. It relies on enriched tactical picture exploitation tools resulting from the continuous treatment of important volumes of heterogeneous data gathered in real time and differed time. ScanMaris will enable the supervision of the permanent evolving traffic on a global maritime zone in order to follow the flow of transported goods (bulk, containers, energy, chemical....) according to various routes (corridor, coastal traffic...) and to automatically detect criminal traffic of illicit products. ScanMaris will use data treatment tools to merge ship's kinematic data and other information to establish and maintain a global enriched tactical picture compilation of the traffic, the training methods and the models which exploit the tactical picture. This produces a permanent knowledge of goods flows, improves its follow-up and the rules of investigation organised to detect irregularities like illicit products flows, disasters, regulation violations, etc. The ScanMaris project will involve functions that improve the effectiveness of a global surveillance of the contraveners. They will contribute to set up optimal answers and intervention means adequately fitting the struggle against illicit activities and maritime violations

Toward a complete system for surveillance of the whole EEZ: ScanMaris and associated projects

International audienceThere is currently an undeniable increase of maritime goods exchanges. As a consequence, maritime threats and risks are also rising. Innovative solution has to be developed to improve the security of this huge economic activity. Future generation of maritime surveillance system should allow: permanent and all weather coverage of maritime border areas, continuous collection of heterogeneous data provided by various sources, automatic detection of abnormal vessel behaviors, understanding of suspicious events, and early identification of threats. No equipment and information system deployments are at present able to answer all these requirements. We propose here an integrated system with relevant innovative technologies and capacities. The integrated system includes existing conventional and innovative sensors networks as well as new functionalities to track vessel movements and activities or detect abnormal vessel behaviors. The proposed high level engineering architecture is able to generate documented alarms using abnormal events. Those events are extracted from our intelligent maritime traffic picture. Thus, we aim to validate an end to end surveillance chain for future operational sea border surveillanc

Trafic Maritime : détection des comportements anormaux des navires

International audiencePour garantir aujourd'hui des conditions sécuritaires de passage dans les eaux territoriales et exclusives économiques françaises, le dispositif de surveillance maritime s'est renforcé en utilisant de manière optimale la synergie de ses différentes composantes : CROSS (Centre Régionaux Opérationnels de Surveillance et de Sauvetage), sémaphores, moyens nautiques et aériens des administrations en mer. Toutefois, le nombre de mobiles circulant sur certaines zones maritimes est en constante augmentation et les demandes d'assistance en cas de difficultés ont changé ; les grosses unités commerciales tardent, pour des raisons économiques, à signaler une avarie et tendent à en minimiser l'importance. Les actes illicites suivent des protocoles de plus en plus perfectionnés pour échapper à la surveillance. Le développement des activités nautiques de loisirs engorge les centres de surveillance et de sauvetage ..

"SARGOS" : Système d'Alerte et Réponse Graduée Off Shore

International audienceLe projet SARGOS répond à l'émergence du besoin de sûreté des infrastructures offshore civiles vulnérables aux actes de malveillance, de piraterie ou de terrorisme menées à partir de la mer. Il propose le développement d'un système assurant de manière coordonnée la chaîne globale de protection : veille et surveillance automatisées ; détection d'intrusion ; évaluation de dangerosité ; plan de réaction gradué et piloté en temps réel pour rester constamment adapté au niveau de menace représenté par l'intrusion détectée. Une des capacités clefs est l'élaboration d'une stratégie complète et mutualisée de défense, incluant la mise en sûreté des personnes, la diffusion de l'alarme, la coordination des moyens d'assistance extérieure et la mise en oeuvre de moyens de dissuasion non létaux pour apporter une réponse complète à la menace. Un démonstrateur du système SARGOS illustrant toute la chaîne de protection a été déployé sur site pour des expérimentations en vraie grandeur selon des scénarios définis avec les opérationnels. Les essais ont permis de valider tous les points clefs : détection de petites embarcations - levée d'alertes pertinentes couplant analyse de comportement des embarcations et évaluation de dangerosité - Assistance intuitive à l'opérateur pour l'activation de procédures de réaction proposées en dynamique suivant une logique prédéfinie propre aux moyens disponibles

Domestication of different varieties in the cheese-making fungus Geotrichum candidum

Domestication is an excellent model for studying adaptation processes, involving recent adaptation and diversification, convergence following adaptation to similar conditions, as well as degeneration of unused functions. Geotrichum candidum is a fungus used for cheese making and is also found in other environments such as soil and plants. By analyzing whole-genome data from 98 strains, we found that all strains isolated from cheese formed a monophyletic clade. Within the cheese clade, we identified three genetically differentiated populations and we detected footprints of recombination and admixture. The genetic diversity in the cheese clade was similar as that in the wild clade, suggesting the lack of strong bottlenecks. Commercial starter strains were scattered across the cheese clade, thus not constituting a single clonal lineage. The cheese populations were phenotypically differentiated from other populations, with a slower growth on all media, even cheese, a prominent production of typical cheese volatiles and a lower proteolytic activity. One of the cheese clusters encompassed all soft goat cheese strains, suggesting an effect of cheese-making practices on differentiation. Another of the cheese populations seemed to represent a more advanced stage of domestication, with stronger phenotypic differentiation from the wild clade, harboring much lower genetic diversity, and phenotypes more typical of cheese fungi, with denser and fluffier colonies and a greater ability of excluding cheese spoiler fungi. Cheese populations lacked two beta lactamase-like genes present in the wild clade, involved in xenobiotic clearance, and displayed higher contents of transposable elements, likely due to relaxed selection. Our findings suggest the existence of genuine domestication in G. candidum, which led to diversification into different varieties with contrasted phenotypes. Some of the traits acquired by cheese strains indicate convergence with other, distantly related fungi used for cheese maturation

Nurse staffing, medical staffing and mortality in intensive care: an observational study

Objectives: To investigate whether the size of the workforce (nurses, doctors and support staff) has an impact of the survival chances of critically ill patients both in the intensive care unit (ICU) and in the hospital. Background: Investigations of intensive care outcomes suggest that some of the variation in patient survival rates might be related to staffing levels and workload, but the evidence is still equivocal. Data: Information about patients, including the outcome of care (whether the patient lived or died) came from the Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre (ICNARC) Case Mix Programme. An Audit Commission survey of ICUs conducted in 1998 gave information about staffing levels. The merged dataset had information on 65 ICUs and 38,168 patients. This is currently the best available dataset for testing the relationship between staffing and outcomes in UK ICUs Design: A cross-sectional, retrospective, risk adjusted observational study. Methods: Multivariable, multilevel logistic regression. Outcome Measures: ICU and in-hospital mortality. Results: After controlling for patient characteristics and workload we found that higher numbers of nurses per bed and higher numbers of consultants were associated with higher survival rates. Further exploration revealed that the number of nurses had the greatest impact on patients at high risk of death whereas the effect of medical staffing was across the range of patient acuity. No relationship between patient outcomes and the number of support staff was found. Distinguishing between direct care and supernumerary nurses and restricting the analysis to patients who had been in the unit for more than 8 hours made little difference to the results. Separate analysis of in-unit and in-hospital survival showed that the clinical workforce in intensive care had a greater impact on ICU mortality than on hospital mortality which gives the study additional credibility. Conclusion: This study supports claims that the availability of medical and nursing staff is associated with the survival of critically ill patients and suggests that future studies should focus on the resources of the health care team. The results emphasise the urgent need for a prospective study of staffing levels and the organisation of care in ICUs