Long-term clinical tolerance of antihypertensive treatment during the HOT study. Groupe fran?ais de l'etude HOT

The objective of the HOT study, an international, prospective, randomised study is to determine the optimal level of the blood pressure under treatment, in linked with the lowest cardiovascular mortality and morbidity. The target diastolic blood pressure of 80, 85 and 90 mmHg was determined at the randomisation. In order to reach the target blood pressure, a strategy of treatment was determined: the 1st step was felodipine (a long acting dihydropyridine) and the next steps (if the blood pressure reduction is not enough) propose the addition of different therapeutic classes and/or the increase of each drug doses. The available data after 2 years of the patients follow-up allow us to evaluate the incidence of the reported side effects according to the target blood pressure assigned by randomisation and the number of hypertension drugs used to reach these targets. The percentage of patients with at least one side effect at 12 and 24 months of follow-up are respectively: for the target group DBP < or = 90 mmHg: 9.2% versus 6%; for the target group DBP < or = 85 mmHg: 8% versus 4.4%; for the target group DBP < or = 80 mmHg: 7.9% versus 4.9%. The overall tolerability is not influenced by the target diastolic blood pressure but depends on the number of hypertension drugs used. At 24 months, 2.8% of patients are under monotherapy; 7% under bitherapy and 9.8% under tritherapy. The incidence of the side effects decreases after the 1st year, but slower than between the third months and the first year. There is an influence of the region on the incidence of the side effects, the south European countries describing more side effects than France or the north European countries. This seems to be linked with a perception of the side effects more than with a higher rate. In conclusion, these results confirm the possibility to reach a targeted blood pressure using a predetermined strategy without increasing dramatically the incidence of the side effects.     

A novel dynamin-like protein associates with cytoplasmic vesicles and tubules of the endoplasmic reticulum in mammalian cells

Dynamins are 100-kilodalton guanosine triphosphatases that participate in the formation of nascent vesicles during endocytosis. Here, we have tested if novel dynamin-like proteins are expressed in mammalian cells to support vesicle trafficking processes at cytoplasmic sites distinct from the plasma membrane. Immunological and molecular biological methods were used to isolate a cDNA clone encoding an 80-kilodalton novel dynamin-like protein, DLP1, that shares up to 42% homology with other dynamin-related proteins. DLP1 is expressed in all tissues examined and contains two alternatively spliced regions that are differentially expressed in a tissue-specific manner. DLP1 is enriched in subcellular membrane fractions of cytoplasmic vesicles and endoplasmic reticulum. Morphological studies of DLP1 in cultured cells using either a specific antibody or an expressed green fluorescent protein (GFP)- DLP1 fusion protein revealed that DLP1 associates with punctate cytoplasmic vesicles that do not colocalize with conventional dynamin, clathrin, or endocytic ligands. Remarkably, DLP1-positive structures coalign with microtubules and, most strikingly, with endoplasmic reticulum tubules as verified by double labeling with antibodies to calnexin and Rab1 as well as by immunoelectron microscopy. These observations provide the first evidence that a novel dynamin-like protein is expressed in mammalian cells where it associates with a secretory, rather than endocytic membrane compartment.     

Extended screening by PCR for seven cry-group genes from field-collected strains of Bacillus thuringiensis

An extended multiplex PCR method was established to rapidly identify and classify Bacillus thuringiensis strains containing cry (crystal protein) genes toxic to species of Lepidoptera, Coleoptera, and Diptera. The technique enriches current strategies and simplifies the initial stages of large-scale screening of cry genes by pinpointing isolates that contain specific genes or unique combinations of interest with potential insecticidal activities, thus facilitating subsequent toxicity assays. Five pairs of universal primers were designed to probe the highly conserved sequences and classify most (34 of about 60) genes known in the following groups: 20 cry1, 3 cry2, 4 cry3, 2 cry4, 2 cry7, and 3 cry8 genes. The DNA of each positive strain was probed with a set of specific primers designed for 20 of these genes and for cry11A. Twenty-two distinct cry-type profiles were identified from 126 field-collected B. thuringiensis strains. Several of them were found to be different from all published profiles. Some of the field-collected strains, but none of the 16 standard strains, were positive for cry2Ac. Three standard and 38 field-collected strains were positive by universal primers but negative by specific primers for all five known genes of cry7 and cry8. These field-collected strains seem to contain a new gene or genes that seem promising for biological control of insects and management of resistance.     

Neighborhood Search Based Improved Bat Algorithm for Web Service Composition

Web services are provided as reusable software components in the services-oriented architecture. More complicated composite services can be combined from these components to satisfy the user requirements represented as a workflow with specified Quality of Service (QoS) limitations. The workflow consists of tasks where many services can be considered for each task. Searching for optimal services combination and optimizing the overall QoS limitations is a Non-deterministic Polynomial (NP)-hard problem. This work focuses on the Web Service Composition (WSC) problem and proposes a new service composition algorithm based on the micro-bats behavior while hunting the prey. The proposed algorithm determines the optimal combination of the web services to satisfy the complex user needs. It also addresses the Bat Algorithm (BA) shortcomings, such as the tradeoff among exploration and exploitation searching mechanisms, local optima, and convergence rate. The proposed enhancement includes a developed cooperative and adaptive population initialization mechanism. An elitist mechanism is utilized to address the BA convergence rate. The tradeoff between exploration and exploitation is handled through a neighborhood search mechanism. Several benchmark datasets are selected to evaluate the proposed bat algorithm’s performance. The simulation results are estimated using the average fitness value, the standard deviation of the fitness value, and an average of the execution time and compared with four bat-inspired algorithms. It is observed from the simulation results that introduced enhancement obtains significant results.     

Combining color and depth for enhanced image segmentation and retargeting

As depth cameras become more popular, pixel depth information becomes easier to obtain. This information can clearly enhance many image processing applications. However, combining depth and color information is not straightforward as these two signals can have different noise characteristics, differences in resolution, and their boundaries do not generally agree. We present a technique that combines depth and color image information from real devices in synergy. In particular, we focus on combining them to improve image segmentation. We use color information to fill and clean depth and use depth to enhance color image segmentation. We demonstrate the utility of the combined segmentation for extracting layers and present a novel image retargeting algorithm for layered images.     

预硫化型CoMo加氢脱硫催化剂性能

采用等体积浸渍方法制备CoMo催化剂,选用不同预硫化方法制备一系列硫化型CoMo催化剂,考察反应温度和空速对加氢脱硫性能的影响,并与对比剂进行比较。结果表明,硫化型CoMo催化剂在不同温度和空速下,具有较好活性,在200 h周期实验中,硫化型CoMo催化剂表现出良好的稳定性,脱硫率98.7%。TEM表征显示,硫化型CoMo催化剂具有更多的MoS_2堆垛层,形成更多高活性Co-Mo-SⅡ型活性相。     

Single quantum dot tracking based on perceptual grouping using minimal paths in a spatiotemporal volume.

Semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) are new fluorescent probes with great promise for ultrasensitive biological imaging. When detected at the single-molecule level, QD-tagged molecules can be observed and tracked in the membrane of live cells over unprecedented durations. The motion of these individual molecules, recorded in sequences of fluorescence images, can reveal aspects of the dynamics of cellular processes that remain hidden in conventional ensemble imaging. Due to QD complex optical properties, such as fluorescence intermittency, the quantitative analysis of these sequences is, however, challenging and requires advanced algorithms. We present here a novel approach, which, instead of a frame by frame analysis, is based on perceptual grouping in a spatiotemporal volume. By applying a detection process based on an image fluorescence model, we first obtain an unstructured set of points. Individual molecular trajectories are then considered as minimal paths in a Riemannian metric derived from the fluorescence image stack. These paths are computed with a variant of the fast marching method and few parameters are required. We demonstrate the ability of our algorithm to track intermittent objects both in sequences of synthetic data and in experimental measurements obtained with individual QD-tagged receptors in the membrane of live neurons. While developed for tracking QDs, this method can, however, be used with any fluorescent probes.     

Context-conditioned generalization in adaptation to distorted speech.

People were trained to decode noise-vocoded speech by hearing monosyllabic stimuli in distorted and unaltered forms. When later presented with different stimuli, listeners were able to successfully generalize their experience. However, generalization was modulated by the degree to which testing stimuli resembled training stimuli: Testing stimuli's consonants were easier to recognize when they had occurred in the same position at training, or flanked by the same vowel, than when they did not. Furthermore, greater generalization occurred when listeners had been trained on existing words than on nonsense strings. We propose that the process by which adult listeners learn to interpret distorted speech is akin to building phonological categories in one's native language, a process where categories and structure emerge from the words in the ambient language without completely abstracting from them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)