Human brucellosis in North-West Ecuador : typifying of Brucella spp., sero-prevalence, and associated risk factors

in Vector Borne & Zoonotic Diseases (2013)

Appropriation progressive de l'arganeraie: exploration de l'histoire depuis la genèse des droits jusqu'à leur refonte

in Farcy, Christine; Peyron, Jean-Luc; Poss, Yves (Eds.) Forêts et Foresterie. Mutations et décloisonnements (2013)

L’arganeraie, spécificité du Sud-Ouest marocain, est l’ensemble des écosystèmes dont l’espèce caractéristique est l’arganier ou Argania spinosa. Outre leurs multiples fonctions écologiques, ces ... [more ▼]

L’arganeraie, spécificité du Sud-Ouest marocain, est l’ensemble des écosystèmes dont l’espèce caractéristique est l’arganier ou Argania spinosa. Outre leurs multiples fonctions écologiques, ces écosystèmes procurent de nombreux biens pour une population pauvre vivant dans des conditions précaires. Toutefois, cet espace intrigue. En effet, à la différence des autres forêts marocaines dont les riverains ne disposent que de deux droits (la récolte de bois mort gisant et le parcours), la population de l’arganeraie a bénéficié d’une législation spéciale depuis 1925, jouissant ainsi d’une large gamme d’utilisation et d’exploitation des ressources forestières. L’image classique véhiculée de cet espace est celle d’une population autochtone, connue pour son élevage caprin, poursuivant des pratiques ancestrales, notamment l’agdal, et gérant des terrains d’arganiers dont elle tire depuis toujours une huile, aujourd’hui très prisée à l’échelle internationale, et devenue emblématique du Maroc. Les historiens nous livrent pourtant une image contrastée entre recherche de la sécurité et de terrains fertiles et fuite de l’insécurité. Parmi les différentes étapes qui ont jalonné son histoire, nous distinguons pour notre propos deux étapes principales : une première période se situe avant la délimitation des forêts et est marquée par des vagues d’immigration successives venant du sud ; la seconde, à la suite de la colonisation, a remodelé et déstabilisé la situation foncière traditionnelle dans la zone en délimitant un espace domanial. Dans cet article, nous dressons le portrait actuel de l’espace et l’ensemble des droits qui le régissent. Cette construction sociale résulte d’une histoire riche et tourmentée, ayant affecté les modes de gestion des territoires. Pour ce faire, nous avons mobilisé des données d’historiens et d’enquêtes qualitatives et quantitatives réalisées dans le cadre de ce travail ; ces dernières se sont déroulées auprès de 100 ménages, principalement au niveau de trois communes rurales autour du massif du Jbel Amsitten. Il constitue l’une des dix-huit zones centrales de la Réserve de Biosphère de l’arganier, dans le Sud-Ouest marocain. Etant donné que les enquêtes s’intéressent aux usages et pratiques des ménages enquêtés, mais aussi de leurs aïeuls et ascendants, ce travail de recherche pourrait contribuer à reconstruire l’histoire de la zone à partir de celle des personnes interviewées via la compréhension de leur implantation spatiale ou temporelle. Nos enquêtes nous montrent que la population est issue d’un brassage récent d’émigrants du sud. Il s’en suit une trame de droits récemment forgée ; le domanial étant bien distinct du privé avec un rétrécissement des droits concédés par les Français. Renouer avec le corpus de règles qu’entretenait la population avec cet espace-ressources, pourrait être à notre avis, une des principales portes d’entrées à leur conservation. [less ▲]

Macrophytic Distribution and Trophic State of Some Natural and Impacted Watercourses - Belgium Wallonia

in International Journal of Water Sciences (2013), 2(3), 1-11

In the present paper we investigated macrophyte community structure in 60 natural and impacted stream and river sites distributed throughout the Walloon river network. The objectives were to describe the ... [more ▼]

In the present paper we investigated macrophyte community structure in 60 natural and impacted stream and river sites distributed throughout the Walloon river network. The objectives were to describe the distribution of macrophyte assemblages in relation to physico‐chemical parameters of their environment and to assess the variability in ecological metrics within these watercourses. Two‐way clustering allowed us to simultaneously assign sample units and species to groups by performing two separate cluster analyses. Indicator species analysis allowed us to assess the degree to which a species indicated a group, based on its constancy and distribution of abundance. Six end‐groups were identified as a result of using twoway clustering and indicator species analysis techniques. Hygroamblystegium fluviatile, Chiloscyphus polyanthos and Lemanea fluviatilis were found to characterize acidic and low impacted streams and rivers (G1), while Ranunculus fluitans was found in all low impacted large streams (G2). Potamogeton pectinatus, proved to be more common in eutrophicated waters in the calcareous areas particularly in the ʺLoess low plateauxʺ region (G6). Cinclidotus riparius, Fissidens crassipes and Pellia endiviifolia, appeared in rivers situated in the Condroz region (G4), which was characterized by a high concentration of nitrogen. [less ▲]

Influence de la plante hôte sur les stades de développement de Borocera cajani (Lepidoptera: Lasiocampidae)

in Entomologie Faunistique = Faunistic Entomology (2013), 66

Borocera cajani Vinson (Lepidoptera: Lasiocampidae) is a silk moth endemic to Madagascar that is currently used to produce silk textiles. This silk moth is polyphagous and colonizes forests situated in ... [more ▼]

Borocera cajani Vinson (Lepidoptera: Lasiocampidae) is a silk moth endemic to Madagascar that is currently used to produce silk textiles. This silk moth is polyphagous and colonizes forests situated in the central highlands, mainly constituted by Tapia trees (Uapaca bojeri). Two host plants are commonly used by the caterpillar of this moth species: Tapia and Voafotsy (Aphloia theiformis). In this work we have evaluated parameters of different stage (survival rate, development duration, weight and size, fecundity…) of B. cajani on both host plants. We have observed a 30% higher survival rate on U. bojeri. Larval and pupae duration were shorter on U. bojeri (64,8 ± 1,5 days) than on A. theiformis (87,4 ± 2,0 days). Cocoons were bigger when obtained from larvae fed on U. bojeri. This plant is therefore better for the development of B. cajani and should be used in intensive rearing of this silk moth. [less ▲]

Elements de processus stochastiques

Learning material (2013)

Involvement of the lipoxygenase pathway in the systemic resistance induced by Plant Growth-Promoting Rhizobacteria in tomato

Doctoral thesis (2013)

The treatment of plant roots with some Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR) results in the enhancement of the immune capacity of the host against phytopathogens. This phenomenon called Induced ... [more ▼]

The treatment of plant roots with some Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria (PGPR) results in the enhancement of the immune capacity of the host against phytopathogens. This phenomenon called Induced Systemic Resistance (ISR) is observed in the whole plant and is effective against a broad spectrum of diseases. Many previous studies showed that this resistance is associated, in some pathosystems, with the stimulation of the key enzyme of the lipoxygenase (LOX) pathway. This defense pathway synthesizes antibiotic and signal compounds called oxylipins from poly unsaturated fatty acids. The main goal of our work was to analyse the involvement of the LOX pathway during the ISR in tomato plants The different steps of the pathway were analyzed at the transcriptional, enzymatic and metabolic levels in leaves of tomato plants elicited with the PGPR Pseudomonas putida BTP1, before and after infection by the fungal pathogen Botrytis cinerea. Our study showed that the bacterial treatment reprogrammed the LOX pathway. Before infection, the activity of the key enzyme of the pathway, the LOX, was higher in P. putida BTP1-treated plants compared to control plants. This stimulation resulted in the accumulation 13-hydroperoxy fatty acids and 13-hydroxyfatty acids conjugated to phospholipids and galactolipids. These products could constitute a pool of antifungal compounds that can be used during the pathogen attack. During the first days after B. cinerea inoculation, the LOX activity, the accumulation of one of its substrate (linolenic acid) and of its products were stimulated in treated plants as compared to control plants. The increase of LOX activity was caused by the induction of the expression level of two Lox genes: TomLoxD and TomLoxF. We observed a decrease of the pool of conjugated oxylipins and a concomitant increase of non conjugated oxylipins, associated with the stimulation of the phospholipase A2 activity. The branches of the pathway which can use the products of the LOX as substrate were differentially regulated resulting in the accumulation of fungitoxic oxylipins against B. cinerea. In order to determine if the induction of the LOX pathway is a general feature of the ISR in tomato, the effect of other PGPR and resistance elicitors produced by PGPR was analysed. Three pure bacterial elicitors sharing common biosurfactant features (the n-alkylated benzylamine derivative (NABD) produced by P. putida BTP1, the surfactin synthesized by many Bacillus strains and rhamnolipids purified from P. aeruginosa) and six Bacillus strains including strong, medium and non producers of surfactin were applied onto tomato roots. The analysis of the key points of the modulation of the LOX pathway showed that the plant molecular response depended on the studied organ (root / leaf), the nature of the elicitor and the amount of elicitor produced by the PGPR. In addition to our study on the involvement of the LOX pathway, we searched other mechanisms potentially induced in ISR-expressing plants. The combination of histological staining, quantification of enzymatic activities and analysis of the genome expression by hybridization on DNA gene chips showed additional defense genes and pathways involved in the resistance in tomato. In conclusion, our work showed that the LOX pathway is one of the defense mechanisms which can be involved in ISR in tomato. The elicitation of the resistance allows the plant to prepare to a future infection, and to respond faster and in a more effective way to a subsequent pathogen invasion. [less ▲]

Semantic Annotation of GPS Traces: Activity Type Inference

in Proceedings of the 92nd Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board (DVD-ROM) (2013)

Due to the rapid development of technology, larger data sets concerning activity travel behavior become available. These data sets often lack semantic interpretation. This implies that annotation in terms ... [more ▼]

Due to the rapid development of technology, larger data sets concerning activity travel behavior become available. These data sets often lack semantic interpretation. This implies that annotation in terms of activity type and transportation mode is necessary. This paper aims to infer activity types from GPS traces by developing a decision tree-based model. The model only considers activity start times and activity durations. Based on the decision tree classification, a probability distribution and a point prediction model were constructed. The probability matrix describes the probability of each activity type for each class (i.e. combination of activity start time and activity duration). In each class, the point prediction model selects the activity type that has the highest probability. Two types of data were collected in 2006 and 2007 in Flanders, Belgium, i.e. activity travel data and GPS data. The optimal classification tree constructed comprises 18 leaves. Consequently, 18 if-then rules were derived. An accuracy of 74% was achieved when training the tree. The accuracy of the model for the validation set, i.e. 72.5%, shows that overfitting is minimal. When applying the model to the test set, the accuracy was almost 76%. The models indicate the importance of time information in the semantic enrichment process. This study contributes to future data collection in that it enables researchers to directly infer activity types from activity start time and duration information obtained from GPS data. Because no location information is needed, this research can be easily and readily implemented to millions of individual agents. [less ▲]

Direct and indirect use of GFP whole cell biosensors for the assessment of bioprocess performances: design of milliliter scale-down bioreactors

in Biotechnology Progress (2013), 29(1), 48-59

Substrate limitation responsive biosensors have been used for the development of a mini-bioreactor platform that can be used as a scale-down tool. Three green fluorescent protein (GFP) transcriptional ... [more ▼]

Substrate limitation responsive biosensors have been used for the development of a mini-bioreactor platform that can be used as a scale-down tool. Three green fluorescent protein (GFP) transcriptional reporters have been chosen in Escherichia coli, i.e., uspA::gfp, csiE::gfp and yciG::gfp. Our previous studies have shown that these kinds of promoters are induced in response to substrate limitation and are significantly repressed when cultures are carried out in heterogeneous bioreactors. This sensitivity to substrate limitation has been confirmed in the case of the csiE and yciG biosensors. A mini-scale-down platform is proposed as a high throughput tool to rapidly investigate the usefulness of a given microbial biosensor. This platform is composed of shake flasks able to operate in fed-batch mode either using the slow release or the intermittent feeding principle. Local heterogeneities were reproduced at the level of these mini-bioreactors (operating under the intermittent feeding principle) and caused a decrease in GFP expression as in conventional scale-down reactors. The presence of GFP in supernatants was also noted and seems to be correlated with the substrate limitation signal for the three cultivation systems considered in this work (i.e., chemostat, conventional and mini-bioreactors) and with membrane permeability. [less ▲]

Human papillomavirus predicts the outcome following concomitant chemoradiotherapy in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinomas.

in Oncology Reports (2013), 30(1), 371-6

We investigated the prevalence of human papillomavirus (HPV) in a clinical series of 72 patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) using a retrospective and prospective study design. The ... [more ▼]

We investigated the prevalence of human papillomavirus (HPV) in a clinical series of 72 patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) using a retrospective and prospective study design. The majority of patients were smokers and/or drinkers and were treated with concomitant chemoradiotherapy (CCR). Furthermore, we assessed the impact of HPV positivity on the response to CCR. Paraffin-embedded samples from HNSCC patients (n=72) were evaluated for the presence of HPV DNA using both GP5+/GP6+ consensus PCR and type-specific E6/E7 PCR to detect HPV types 6, 11, 16, 18, 31, 33, 35, 39, 45, 51, 52, 53, 56, 58, 59, 66, 67 and 68. The type-specific E6/E7 PCR demonstrated that 20 out of 69 HNSCC patients (29%) presented with high-risk (HR) HPV types and that 5 of the 69 HNSCC patients (7%) presented with low-risk (LR) HPV types. Using the GP5+/GP6+ PCR, we observed that the rate of response was statistically lower in the HPV+ group (P=0.02). Concerning patient outcomes in terms of recurrence and survival, we observed that the prognosis was poorer for HPV+ patients. We showed for the first time that patients with HPV+ HNSCC present with a worse prognosis after CCR. This observation highlights the need for prospective studies with large numbers of patients and a detailed history of tobacco and alcohol consumption before validating HPV as a marker of prognosis following CCR. [less ▲]

Expression of type 2 orexin receptor in human endometrium and its epigenetic silencing in endometrial cancer.

in Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (2013), 98(4), 1549-57

CONTEXT: Orexins A and B are neuropeptides that bind and activate 2 types of receptors. In addition to direct action in the brain, the orexinergic system has broader implications in peripheral organs, and ... [more ▼]

CONTEXT: Orexins A and B are neuropeptides that bind and activate 2 types of receptors. In addition to direct action in the brain, the orexinergic system has broader implications in peripheral organs, and it has been proposed to have a role in the induction of apoptosis. There are very few data on the endometrium. OBJECTIVE: The expression and epigenetic regulation of type 2 orexin receptor (OX2R) was investigated in the human endometrium as well as in endometrial endometrioid carcinoma (EEC). METHODS: OX2R localization was studied by immunohistochemistry in normal endometrium (n = 24) and in EEC (n = 32). The DNA methylation status of a CpG island located in the first exon of OX2R was analyzed by bisulfite sequencing in normal (n = 18), EEC (n = 34), and 3 endometrial cell lines. On the latter, mRNA expression and Western blotting as well as in vitro induction with orexin were performed. RESULTS: Expression of the OX2R protein was detected in normal endometrial epithelia, whereas it was frequently lacking in EEC. This loss was associated with hypermethylation of OX2R in EEC in comparison with normal endometrium (median CpG methylation percentages of 48.85% and 5.85%, respectively). In cell lines, hypermethylation correlated with weak OX2R expression. Additionally, in vitro treatment of the 3 EEC cell lines with orexins A and B did not result in proliferation change CONCLUSIONS: Altogether our data provide evidence for the epigenetic silencing of OX2R in EEC. The implication of the OX2R loss in tumoral progression remains to be elucidated. [less ▲]