Focusing on human factors while designing a BMI room

International audienceThe research in Brain Machine Interfaces (BMIs), although in rapid expansion, must still be considered at the experimental level since no widely available BMI system exists for helping people with motor disabilities in everyday life. Transferring BMI applications from laboratories to dedicated clinical services - and later to patient homes - implies, first of all, the specification of perfectly adapted experimental conditions including all the human factors. Our paper surveys various criteria that must be taken into account while designing a room dedicated to BMI experimentation from the ergonomic point of view, as well as adapted experimental protocols. This related work emphasizes the need and the complexity of a global and multidisciplinary approach which places human factors at the centre of the concerns

Les partis s’intéressent-ils à nos enquêtes ? Éléments comparatifs sur la réception des recherches sur les partis

Les partis sont réputés être des organisations qui contrôleraient fortement l’enquête de terrain. Certains, à l’instar des organisations bureaucratiques, disposeraient « d’une panoplie de contraintes, de sanctions, d’interdictions que l’on ne trouve pas sur d’autres terrains, mises en œuvre en vue d’orienter, de tronquer ou de bloquer le cours de l’enquête ». Cet article poursuit la réflexion sur les manières d’enquêter dans les partis en comparant plus spécifiquement l’intérêt que les partis manifestent pour les enquêtes réalisées par les auteurs et pour la recherche en général

Education of Murine NK Cells Requires Both cis and trans Recognition of MHC Class I Molecules.

Although NK cells use invariant receptors to identify diseased cells, they nevertheless adapt to their environment, including the presence of certain MHC class I (MHC-I) molecules. This NK cell education, which is mediated by inhibitory receptors specific for MHC-I molecules, changes the responsiveness of activating NK cell receptors (licensing) and modifies the repertoire of MHC-I receptors used by NK cells. The fact that certain MHC-I receptors have the unusual capacity to recognize MHC-I molecules expressed by other cells (trans) and by the NK cell itself (cis) has raised the question regarding possible contributions of the two types of interactions to NK cell education. Although the analysis of an MHC-I receptor variant suggested a role for cis interaction for NK cell licensing, adoptive NK cell transfer experiments supported a key role for trans recognition. To reconcile some of these findings, we have analyzed the impact of cell type-specific deletion of an MHC-I molecule and of a novel MHC-I receptor variant on the education of murine NK cells when these mature under steady-state conditions in vivo. We find that MHC-I expression by NK cells (cis) and by T cells (trans), and MHC-I recognition in cis and in trans, are both needed for NK cell licensing. Unexpectedly, modifications of the MHC-I receptor repertoire are chiefly dependent on cis binding, which provides additional support for an essential role for this unconventional type of interaction for NK cell education. These data suggest that two separate functions of MHC-I receptors are needed to adapt NK cells to self-MHC-I

Hybrid BCI Coupling EEG and EMG for Severe Motor Disabilities

AbstractIn this paper, we are studying hybrid Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) coupling joystick data, electroencephalogram (EEG – electrical activity of the brain) and electromyogram (EMG – electrical activity of muscles) activities for severe motor disabilities. We are focusing our study on muscular activity as a control modality to interact with an application. We present our data processing and classification technique to detect right and left hand movements. EMG modality is well adapted for DMD patients, because less strength is needed to detect movements in contrast to conventional interfaces like joysticks. Across virtual reality tools, we believe that users will be more able to understand how to interact with such kind of interactive systems. This first part of our study report some very good results concerning the detection of hand movements, according to muscular channel, on healthy subjects

Les partis s’intéressent-ils à nos enquêtes ? Éléments comparatifs sur la réception des recherches sur les partis

Les partis sont réputés être des organisations qui contrôleraient fortement l’enquête de terrain. Certains, à l’instar des organisations bureaucratiques, disposeraient « d’une panoplie de contraintes, de sanctions, d’interdictions que l’on ne trouve pas sur d’autres terrains, mises en œuvre en vue d’orienter, de tronquer ou de bloquer le cours de l’enquête ». Cet article poursuit la réflexion sur les manières d’enquêter dans les partis en comparant plus spécifiquement l’intérêt que les partis manifestent pour les enquêtes réalisées par les auteurs et pour la recherche en général

Enquêter dans les partis politiques:Perspectives comparées

Ce dossier se situe à la croisée de deux mouvements récents qui traversent la science politique française. Le premier tient au constat que l’étude des partis politiques s’est largement transformée ces dernières années. D’abord, cet objet « canonique » a fait l’objet d’une attention renouvelée, et en particulier un nombre important de thèses, récemment soutenues ou en cours, y sont consacrées. Ensuite, ces travaux, émanant donc pour une large part de jeunes chercheur(se)s, ont pour point commun de s’appuyer sur des enquêtes, entendues au sens large comme des méthodes de production de données originales, que celles-ci soient qualitatives (par observations et entretiens) ou quantitatives (passation de questionnaires auprès d’adhérents d’un parti politique, par exemple). Cette multiplication de travaux empiriques sur les partis permet une confrontation des expériences d’enquête, afin de réfléchir collectivement à ces pratiques de recherche, pour elles-mêmes mais aussi pour ce qu’elles nous apprennent de l’objet de recherche parti politique (...)

Determination of Angptl4 mRNA as a Diagnostic Marker of Primary and Metastatic Clear Cell Renal-Cell Carcinoma

International audienceBACKGROUND: We have previously shown that angiopoietin-like 4 (angptl4) mRNA, a hypoxia-inducible gene, is highly expressed in clear cell renal-cell carcinoma (ccRCC), the most common subtype of RCC for which no specific marker is available. We here investigated whether angptl4 mRNA 1) could be a useful diagnostic and/or prognostic marker of ccRCC in a large and comprehensive retrospective series, 2) induction is dependent on the VHL status of tumors. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Using in situ hybridization, we report that angptl4 mRNA is expressed in 100% of both sporadic (n = 102) and inherited (n = 6) primary ccRCCs, without any statistical association with nuclear grade (p = 0.39), tumor size (p = 0.09), stage grouping (p = 0.17), progression-free survival (p = 0.94), and overall survival (p = 0.80). Angptl4 mRNA was also expressed in 26 (87%) of 30 secondary ccRCCs but neither in any other secondary RCCs (n = 7). In contrast, angptl4 mRNA was neither expressed in 94% non-ccRCC renal tumors (papillary RCCs (n = 46), chromophobe RCCs (n = 28), and oncocytomas (n = 9)), nor in non-renal clear cell carcinomas (n = 39). Angptl4 expression was also examined in tumors associated (n = 23) or not associated (n = 66) with VHL disease. 40 (98%) hemangioblastomas expressed angptl4 whereas all pheochromocytomas (n = 23) and pancreatic tumors (n = 25) were angptl4-negative, whatever their VHL status. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Angptl4 mRNA expression was highly associated with ccRCC (p = 1.5 10(-49), Chi square test) allowing to define its expression as a diagnosis marker for primary ccRCC. Moreover, angptl4 mRNA allows to discriminate the renal origin of metastases of clear-cell carcinomas arising from various organs. Finally, inactivation of VHL gene is neither necessary nor sufficient for angptl4 mRNA induction