Sequential multiplex PCR assay for determining capsular serotypes of colonizing S. pneumoniae

Asymptomatic nasopharyngeal carriage represents an important biological marker for monitoring pneumococcal serotype distribution and evaluating vaccine effects. Serotype determination by conventional method (Quellung reaction) is technically and financially challenging. On the contrary, PCR-based serotyping represents a simple, economic and promising alternative method.Evaluation StudiesJournal ArticleResearch Support, Non-U.S. Gov'tSCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Impedance Analysis of Complex Formation Equilibria in Phosphatidylcholine Bilayers Containing Decanoic Acid or Decylamine

Bilayer lipid membranes composed of phosphatidylcholine and decanoic acid or phosphatidylcholine and decylamine were investigated using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Interaction between membrane components causes significant deviations from the additivity rule. Area, capacitance, and stability constant values for the complexes were calculated based on the model assuming 1:1 stoichiometry, and the model was validated by comparison of these values to experimental results. We established that phosphatidylcholine and decylamine form highly stable 1:1 complexes. In the case of decanoic acid-modified phosphatidylcholine membranes, complexes with stoichiometries other than 1:1 should be taken into consideration

BMC Cancer

BACKGROUND: In addition to tumor characteristics and lifestyle factors, cancer relapses are often related to the risk of death but have not been jointly studied. We investigate the prognostic factors of recurrent events and death after a diagnosis of breast cancer and predict individual deaths including a history of recurrences. METHODS: The E3N (Etude Epidemiologique aupres de Femmes de la Mutuelle Generale de l'Education Nationale) study is a prospective cohort study that was initiated in 1990 to investigate factors associated with the most common types of cancer. Overall survival and three types of recurrent events were considered: locoregional recurrence, metastasis, and second primary breast cancer. Recurrent events and death were analyzed using a joint frailty model. RESULTS: The analysis included 4926 women from the E3N cohort diagnosed with a first primary invasive breast cancer between June 1990 and June 2008; during the follow-up, 1334 cases had a recurrence (median time of follow-up is 7.2 years) and 469 women died. Cases with high grade, large tumor size, axillary nodal involvement, and negative estrogen and progesterone receptors had a higher risk of recurrence or death. Furthermore, smoking increased the risk of relapse. For cases with a medium risk profile in terms of tumor characteristics and lifestyle factors, the probability of dying between 5 and 10 years after diagnosis was 6, 20 and 36% for 0, 1 or 2 recurrences within the first 5 years after diagnosis, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Our study showed the importance of considering baseline lifestyle characteristics and history of relapses to dynamically predict the risk of death in breast cancer cases. Medical experience coupled with an estimate of a patient's survival probability that considers all available information for this patient would enable physicians to make better informed decisions regarding their actions and thus improve clinical output

SLACK-MAC: Adaptive MAC Protocol for Low Duty-Cycle Wireless Sensor Networks

International audienceWireless sensor networks (WSNs) are increasingly used in environmental monitoring applications. They are designed to operate for several months by featuring low activity cycles, in order to save energy. In this paper, we propose a MAC protocol for such WSNs with duty-cycles of 1%. Initially, nodes are activated randomly and independently, then they use the knowledge of previous successful frame exchanges to compute their next activation times. We study the choice of the history size, and we compare the performance of our protocol with other protocols from the literature. We show that with a limited history size of only six entries, we significantly improve the performance of existing protocols, while keeping the advantages of fully asynchronous protocols

History-based MAC Protocol for Low Duty-Cycle Wireless Sensor Networks: the SLACK-MAC Protocol

International audienceWireless sensor networks (WSNs) are increasingly used in environmental monitoring applications. They are designed to operate for several months by featuring low activity cycles in order to save energy. In this paper, we propose a Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol for such WSNs with very low duty-cycles of 1% and less. Nodes are activated randomly and use a history of previous successful frame exchanges to decide their next activation time. We study the choice of the history size, and we compare the performance of our protocol with other protocols from the literature. We show by simulations and real experiments that with a limited history size of only six entries, our protocol achieves better performance than other protocols from the literature, while keeping the advantages of fully asynchronous protocols

Practical Passive Leakage-abuse Attacks Against Symmetric Searchable Encryption

International audienceSymmetric Searchable Encryption (SSE) schemes solve efficiently the problem of securely outsourcing client data with search functionality. These schemes are provably secure with respect to an explicit leakage profile; however, determining how much information can be inferred in practice from this leakage remains difficult. First, we recall the leakage hierarchy introduced in 2015 by Cash et al. Second, we present complete practical attacks on SSE schemes of L4, L3 and L2 leakage profiles which are deployed in commercial cloud solutions. Our attacks are passive and only assume the knowledge of a small sample of plaintexts. Moreover, we show their devastating effect on real-world data sets since, regardless of the leakage profile, an adversary knowing a mere 1% of the document set is able to retrieve 90% of documents whose content is revealed over 70%. Then, we further extend the analysis of existing attacks to highlight the gap of security that exists between L2-and L1-SSE and give some simple countermeasures to prevent our attacks

No Such Thing as a Small Leak: Leakage-Abuse Attacks Against Symmetric Searchable Encryption

International audienceSymmetric Searchable Encryption (SSE) schemes enable clients to securely outsource their data while maintaining the ability to perform keywords search over it. The security of these schemes is based on an explicit leakage prole. [16], has initiated the investigation into how much information could be deduced in practice from this leakage. In this paper, after recalling the leakage hierarchy introduced in 2015 by Cash et al. and the passive attacks of [16] on SSE schemes. We demonstrate the effectiveness of these attacks on a wider set of real-world datasets than previously shown. On the other hand, we show that the attacks are inefficient against some types of datasets. Finally, we used what we learned from the unsuccessful datasets to give insight into future countermeasures

Risk of malignancy in rheumatoid arthritis patients initiating biologics: an historical propensity score matched cohort study within the French nationwide healthcare database

International audienceObjective To compare the risk of malignancy between patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) initiating their first biological disease-modifying antirheumatic drug (bDMARD) and those continuing conventional synthetic DMARDs (csDMARDs). Methods Nine-year historical Propensity Score (PS) matched cohort study within the French national healthcare database (87% of the French population; ~57 million people), including adults RA without malignancy. Exposures started with the first use of any systemic treatment (csDMARDs and/or bDMARDs). Incident users of bDMARDs were matched on a dynamic PS to patients continuing csDMARDs. Their risk of malignancy was compared by Cox model. Results From 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2014, 83 706 patients with RA started their first systemic treatment (63 837 remained on csDMARDs and 19 869 initiated a bDMARD during follow-up). After dynamic PS matching, 19 727 bDMARD initiators were compared with 19 727 RA remaining on csDMARDs. They did not statistically differ in risk of overall malignancies (HR 0.99 (95% CI 0.86 to 1.14)), solid cancer (HR 0.95 (95% CI 0.82 to 1.11)), nor lymphoma (HR 1.35 (95% CI 0.72 to 2.53)). Results were similar when bDMARDs were given as monotherapy or in association with csDMARDs. Analyses restricted to patients starting TNF inhibitor as first bDMARD compared with matched RA remaining on csDMARDs, provided similar results (HR for overall malignancy 1.03 (95% CI 0.88 to 1.21)). Sensitivity analyses, varying carry-over periods (up to 5 years) to define risk periods, provided similar results. Conclusions In this historical cohort study within the French nationwide healthcare database, the risk of overall, solid or haematological malignancies did not significantly differ between patients with RA initiating bDMARD and those continuing csDMARDs

Differential effect of corticosteroids and biological Dmards on five-year radiographic progression in rheumatoid arthritis: results from a weighted cumulative exposure model developed on the Espoir Cohort

International audienc