Partir étudier en Chine pour faire carrière en Afrique ?

En s’appuyant sur des entretiens récolté à Xi’an (République Populaire de Chine) et à Brazzaville (République du Congo), cet article s’intéresse à la formation et aux parcours professionnels d’étudiants africains diplômés d’ universités chinoises. L’accroissement du nombre d’étudiants africains dans les universités chinoises prend place dans un contexte marqué par le renforcement des liens économiques et politiques, mais aussi par l’internationalisation progressive de ces universités qui développent de nouveaux cursus en anglais.Les diplômés africains des universités chinoises interrogés cherchent généralement à travailler pour une grande entreprise chinoise en Afrique, mais doivent faire face à de nombreuses difficultés en raison de la mauvaise reconnaissance de leur diplôme et du fait que le fonctionnement des entreprises chinoises travaillant à l’international n’est pas encore très internationalisé. Dès lors, les employeurs chinois tendent à les cantonner dans un rôle de traducteur ou d’ « intermédiaire culturel »

Density-based hierarchical clustering of pyro-sequences on a large scale—the case of fungal ITS1

Motivation: Analysis of millions of pyro-sequences is currently playing a crucial role in the advance of environmental microbiology. Taxonomy-independent, i.e. unsupervised, clustering of these sequences is essential for the definition of Operational Taxonomic Units. For this application, reproducibility and robustness should be the most sought after qualities, but have thus far largely been overlooked. Results: More than 1 million hyper-variable internal transcribed spacer 1 (ITS1) sequences of fungal origin have been analyzed. The ITS1 sequences were first properly extracted from 454 reads using generalized profiles. Then, otupipe, cd-hit-454, ESPRIT-Tree and DBC454, a new algorithm presented here, were used to analyze the sequences. A numerical assay was developed to measure the reproducibility and robustness of these algorithms. DBC454 was the most robust, closely followed by ESPRIT-Tree. DBC454 features density-based hierarchical clustering, which complements the other methods by providing insights into the structure of the data. Availability: An executable is freely available for non-commercial users at ftp://ftp.vital-it.ch/tools/dbc454. It is designed to run under MPI on a cluster of 64-bit Linux machines running Red Hat 4.x, or on a multi-core OSX system. Contact: [email protected] or [email protected]

Comparative analysis of diversity and environmental niches of soil bacterial, archaeal, fungal and protist communities reveal niche divergences along environmental gradients in the Alps

Although widely used in ecology, comparative analyses of diversity and niche properties are still lacking for microorganisms, especially focusing on niche variations. Quantifying the niches of microbial taxa is necessary to then forecast how taxa and the communities they compose might respond to environmental changes. In this study, we first identified important topoclimatic, edaphic, spatial and biotic drivers of the alpha and beta di-versity of bacterial, archaeal, fungal and protist communities. Then, we calculated the niche breadth and position of each taxon along the important environmental gradients to determine how these vary within and among the taxonomic groups. We found that edaphic properties were the most important drivers of both, community di-versity and composition, for all microbial groups. Protists and bacteria presented the largest niche breadths on average, followed by archaea, with fungi displaying the smallest. Niche breadth generally decreased towards environmental extremes, especially along edaphic gradients, suggesting increased specialization of microbial taxa in highly selective environments. Overall, we showed that microorganisms have well defined niches, as do macro-organisms, likely driving part of the observed spatial patterns of community variations. Assessing niche variation more widely in microbial ecology should open new perspectives, especially to tackle global change effects on microbes.Peer reviewe

Predicting spatial patterns of soil bacteria under current and future environmental conditions

Soil bacteria are largely missing from future biodiversity assessments hindering comprehensive forecasts of ecosystem changes. Soil bacterial communities are expected to be more strongly driven by pH and less by other edaphic and climatic factors. Thus, alkalinisation or acidification along with climate change may influence soil bacteria, with subsequent influences for example on nutrient cycling and vegetation. Future forecasts of soil bacteria are therefore needed. We applied species distribution modelling (SDM) to quantify the roles of environmental factors in governing spatial abundance distribution of soil bacterial OTUs and to predict how future changes in these factors may change bacterial communities in a temperate mountain area. Models indicated that factors related to soil (especially pH), climate and/or topography explain and predict part of the abundance distribution of most OTUs. This supports the expectations that microorganisms have specific environmental requirements (i.e., niches/envelopes) and that they should accordingly respond to environmental changes. Our predictions indicate a stronger role of pH over other predictors (e.g. climate) in governing distributions of bacteria, yet the predicted future changes in bacteria communities are smaller than their current variation across space. The extent of bacterial community change predictions varies as a function of elevation, but in general, deviations from neutral soil pH are expected to decrease abundances and diversity of bacteria. Our findings highlight the need to account for edaphic changes, along with climate changes, in future forecasts of soil bacteria.Peer reviewe

Soil protist function varies with elevation in the Swiss Alps

Protists are abundant and play key trophic functions in soil. Documenting how their trophic contributions vary across large environmental gradients is essential to understand and predict how biogeochemical cycles will be impacted by global changes. Here, using amplicon sequencing of environmental DNA in open habitat soil from 161 locations spanning 2600 m of elevation in the Swiss Alps (from 400 to 3000 m), we found that, over the whole study area, soils are dominated by consumers, followed by parasites and phototrophs. In contrast, the proportion of these groups in local communities shows large variations in relation to elevation. While there is, on average, three times more consumers than parasites at low elevation (400-1000 m), this ratio increases to 12 at high elevation (2000-3000 m). This suggests that the decrease in protist host biomass and diversity toward mountains tops impact protist functional composition. Furthermore, the taxonomic composition of protists that infect animals was related to elevation while that of protists that infect plants or of protist consumers was related to soil pH. This study provides a first step to document and understand how soil protist functions vary along the elevational gradient.Peer reviewe

Granulomatous hepatitis, choroiditis and aortoduodenal fistula complicating intravesical Bacillus Calmette-Guérin therapy: Case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Intravesical instillation of Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) is the treatment of choice for superficial bladder carcinoma. Complications of BCG therapy include local infections and disseminated BCG infection with multiple endorgan complications.</p> <p>Case Presentation</p> <p>We report a case of disseminated, post-treatment BCG infection that initially presented with granulomatous hepatitis and choroiditis. After successful anti-mycobacterial therapy and resolution of the hepatic and ocular abnormalities, the patient developed an acute upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage from an aortoduodenal fistula that required emergency surgery. The resection specimen revealed multifocal, non-caseating granulomas, indicating mycobacterial involvement.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This case highlights the varied end organ complications of disseminated BCG infection, and the need for vigilance even in immuno-competent patients with a history of intravesical BCG treatment.</p

Guidance on noncorticosteroid systemic immunomodulatory therapy in noninfectious uveitis: fundamentals of care for uveitis (focus) initiative

Topic: An international, expert-led consensus initiative to develop systematic, evidence-based recommendations for the treatment of noninfectious uveitis in the era of biologics. Clinical Relevance: The availability of biologic agents for the treatment of human eye disease has altered practice patterns for the management of noninfectious uveitis. Current guidelines are insufficient to assure optimal use of noncorticosteroid systemic immunomodulatory agents. Methods: An international expert steering committee comprising 9 uveitis specialists (including both ophthalmologists and rheumatologists) identified clinical questions and, together with 6 bibliographic fellows trained in uveitis, conducted a Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses protocol systematic reviewof the literature (English language studies from January 1996 through June 2016; Medline [OVID], the Central Cochrane library, EMBASE,CINAHL,SCOPUS,BIOSIS, andWeb of Science). Publications included randomized controlled trials, prospective and retrospective studies with sufficient follow-up, case series with 15 cases or more, peer-reviewed articles, and hand-searched conference abstracts from key conferences. The proposed statements were circulated among 130 international uveitis experts for review.Atotal of 44 globally representativegroupmembersmet in late 2016 to refine these guidelines using a modified Delphi technique and assigned Oxford levels of evidence. Results: In total, 10 questions were addressed resulting in 21 evidence-based guidance statements covering the following topics: when to start noncorticosteroid immunomodulatory therapy, including both biologic and nonbiologic agents; what data to collect before treatment; when to modify or withdraw treatment; how to select agents based on individual efficacy and safety profiles; and evidence in specific uveitic conditions. Shared decision-making, communication among providers and safety monitoring also were addressed as part of the recommendations. Pharmacoeconomic considerations were not addressed. Conclusions: Consensus guidelines were developed based on published literature, expert opinion, and practical experience to bridge the gap between clinical needs and medical evidence to support the treatment of patients with noninfectious uveitis with noncorticosteroid immunomodulatory agents

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics' resources: focus on curated databases

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (www.isb-sib.ch) provides world-class bioinformatics databases, software tools, services and training to the international life science community in academia and industry. These solutions allow life scientists to turn the exponentially growing amount of data into knowledge. Here, we provide an overview of SIB's resources and competence areas, with a strong focus on curated databases and SIB's most popular and widely used resources. In particular, SIB's Bioinformatics resource portal ExPASy features over 150 resources, including UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot, ENZYME, PROSITE, neXtProt, STRING, UniCarbKB, SugarBindDB, SwissRegulon, EPD, arrayMap, Bgee, SWISS-MODEL Repository, OMA, OrthoDB and other databases, which are briefly described in this article

Partir étudier en Chine pour faire carrière en Afrique ? : Les jeunes diplômés africains des universités chinoises expérimentent la localisation du personnel des entreprises chinoises.

Based on interviews collected in Xi’an (People’s Republic of China), Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire (Congo), this article focuses on training and careers of African students graduated from Chinese universities. The increasing number of African students in Chinese universities is a phenomenon which occurs in a context of strengthened economic and political ties, but also gradual internationalization of Chinese universities that develop new curriculums in English.The survey shows that African graduates of Chinese universities are generally willing to work for a large Chinese company in Africa, but face many difficulties due to the poor recognition of their qualifications and the fact that the organization of Chinese companies operating abroad is not yet fully internationalized. Therefore, Chinese employers tend to confine them to translators or “cultural brokers jobs”.En s’appuyant sur des entretiens récolté à Xi’an (République Populaire de Chine) et à Brazzaville (République du Congo), cet article s’intéresse à la formation et aux parcours professionnels d’étudiants africains diplômés d’ universités chinoises. L’accroissement du nombre d’étudiants africains dans les universités chinoises prend place dans un contexte marqué par le renforcement des liens économiques et politiques, mais aussi par l’internationalisation progressive de ces universités qui développent de nouveaux cursus en anglais.Les diplômés africains des universités chinoises interrogés cherchent généralement à travailler pour une grande entreprise chinoise en Afrique, mais doivent faire face à de nombreuses difficultés en raison de la mauvaise reconnaissance de leur diplôme et du fait que le fonctionnement des entreprises chinoises travaillant à l’international n’est pas encore très internationalisé. Dès lors, les employeurs chinois tendent à les cantonner dans un rôle de traducteur ou d’ « intermédiaire culturel »

Partir étudier en Chine pour faire carrière en Afrique ? : Les jeunes diplômés africains des universités chinoises expérimentent la localisation du personnel des entreprises chinoises.

Based on interviews collected in Xi’an (People’s Republic of China), Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire (Congo), this article focuses on training and careers of African students graduated from Chinese universities. The increasing number of African students in Chinese universities is a phenomenon which occurs in a context of strengthened economic and political ties, but also gradual internationalization of Chinese universities that develop new curriculums in English.The survey shows that African graduates of Chinese universities are generally willing to work for a large Chinese company in Africa, but face many difficulties due to the poor recognition of their qualifications and the fact that the organization of Chinese companies operating abroad is not yet fully internationalized. Therefore, Chinese employers tend to confine them to translators or “cultural brokers jobs”.En s’appuyant sur des entretiens récolté à Xi’an (République Populaire de Chine) et à Brazzaville (République du Congo), cet article s’intéresse à la formation et aux parcours professionnels d’étudiants africains diplômés d’ universités chinoises. L’accroissement du nombre d’étudiants africains dans les universités chinoises prend place dans un contexte marqué par le renforcement des liens économiques et politiques, mais aussi par l’internationalisation progressive de ces universités qui développent de nouveaux cursus en anglais.Les diplômés africains des universités chinoises interrogés cherchent généralement à travailler pour une grande entreprise chinoise en Afrique, mais doivent faire face à de nombreuses difficultés en raison de la mauvaise reconnaissance de leur diplôme et du fait que le fonctionnement des entreprises chinoises travaillant à l’international n’est pas encore très internationalisé. Dès lors, les employeurs chinois tendent à les cantonner dans un rôle de traducteur ou d’ « intermédiaire culturel »