DOMINIQUE VALÉRIAN (ed.) (Cyrille Aillet, Sophie Gilotte, AnnelieseNef, Christophe Picard, Jean-Pierre Van Staëvel, Élise Voguet):Islamisation et arabisation de l’Occident musulman médiéval (VIIe–XIIesiècle)

This book is the result of a one-year seminar series"Islam médiéval d"Occident (VIIe-XVe)", held at the Colegio de España in Paris in 2006-07 by the Association des doctorants en histoire des mondes musulmans médievaux (Diwan http://diwan.hypotheses.org), and a second volume focusing on Arabization is expected (p. 33). The contributors" experience, alongside their university and research backgrounds, have led to the publication of articles of an outstandingly high level throughout this book. This scholarly achievement is combined with a thought-provoking theoretical framework, where Arabization and Islamization give a common theme to the proceedings, which are developed in four parts.

Amor i literatura: dos conceptes per a la creació d'una novel·la

Treball de recerca realitzat per una alumna d'ensenyament secundari i guardonat amb un Premi CIRIT per fomentar l'esperit cientí­fic del Jovent l'any 2009. L'amor, l'etern tema en el món literari és el protagonista de la temàtica en què se centra el projecte però, des de les primeres mostres literàries fins l'actualitat són infinites les creacions aparegudes. El treball s'ha centrat en algunes que són una digna representació de l'amor literari en cada època i en diverses parts de la literatura universal. Fins aquí un plantejament que no s'alunya de cap model realitzat dins de la temàtica de la literatura comparada. Però per solucionar la manca d'un fil conductor es va crear una novel·la que és la que guia aquest treball. Així es mostra el que una persona pot extreure llegint diverses obres d'amor literari, i no només sobre teories generals, sinó també d'opinions i pròpies emocions que provoca l'experiència de lectura. De la mà d en Marco, un jove veronès, i la seva vella amiga, la bibliotecària Sophie, es guia al lector a través d'un viatge que sorgeix de les primeres mostres d'amor escrit i arriba fins als nostres dies.

The Öresund region: A dynamic region in Europe due to inter-regional collaboration?

El cluster Medicon Valley es troba a la regió d'Oresund binacional que s'estén per Dinamarca i Suècia, inclosa la Universitat de Lund, ciutat i tercera ciutat més gran de Suècia, Malmö (veure figura 1). El 2000, aquestes dues parts nacionals estaven connectades físicament per l'establiment dels 18 quilòmetres de longitud, enllaç fix del Øresund (ponts i túnels).

Projecte educatiu: les habilitats comunicatives, una eina bàsica per a la vida en societat

El treball pretén ser un recull d’informacions teòriques necessàries per al desenvolupament adequat de l’estada al centre de pràctiques, i d’un projecte educatiu anomenat Les habilitats comunicatives una eina bàsica per a la vida en societat. Aquests 2 apartats formen els 2 blocs de contingut separats per la seva temàtica. El primer bloc està format per aquella informació, que podríem classificar com a objectiva, necessària per a que el lector es pugui fer una idea general de l’objectiu d’aquestes pràctiques, la tipologia de centre i els seus usuaris, marc legislatiu. El segon bloc està format per aquella informació, que podríem etiquetar com a subjectiva, personal. Ens aquest, hi podreu llegir una petita part de la vivencialitat d’aquest procés de pràctiques. Aquest bloc consta d’una part inicial de Marc teòric per proporcionar informació al lector dels conceptes teòrics del qual se’n deriva el projecte educatiu. A continuació s’hi troba la informació referent al disseny i execució del projecte. Finalment hi ha una part de conclusions les quals són el tancament del treball

Islands of euchromatin-like sequence and expressed polymorphic sequences within the short arm of human chromosome 21

The goals of the human genome project did not include sequencing of the heterochromatic regions. We describe here an initial sequence of 1.1 Mb of the short arm of human chromosome 21 (HSA21p), estimated to be 10% of 21p. This region contains extensive euchromatic-like sequence and includes on average one transcript every 100 kb. These transcripts show multiple inter- and intrachromosomal copies, and extensive copy number and sequence variability. The sequencing of the "heterochromatic" regions of the human genome is likely to reveal many additional functional elements and provide important evolutionary information.

La Formación técnica y profesional en Haití: problemas y perspectivas

El presente trabajo ofrece un análisis sobre la problemática de la formación profesional en Haití, considerada primordial para contribuir de forma gradual al desarrollo económico y humano del país. Se identifican los desfases que existen entre la formación profesional ofrecida y la demanda de la sociedad y del mercado laboral, que afectan negativamente la consecución del objetivo de este sector y se proponen soluciones para la reestructuración del sector para asegurarse de que las infraestructuras técnicas y tecnológicas de los centros de formación profesional estén realmente adecuadas, y que los planes de estudio interdisciplinario tengan en cuenta el contexto socio-cultural.

Cellular and molecular evidence for a role of tumor necrosis factor alpha in the ovulatory mechanism of trout

Background: The relevance of immune-endocrine interactions to the regulation of ovarian function in teleosts is virtually unexplored. As part of the innate immune response during infection, a number of cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF alpha) and other immune factors, are produced and act on the reproductive system. However, TNF alpha is also an important physiological player in the ovulatory process in mammals. In the present study, we have examined for the first time the effects of TNF alpha in vitro in preovulatory ovarian follicles of a teleost fish, the brown trout (Salmo trutta). Methods: To determine the in vivo regulation of TNF alpha expression in the ovary, preovulatory brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) were injected intraperitoneally with either saline or bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS). In control and recombinant trout TNF alpha (rtTNF alpha)-treated brown trout granulosa cells, we examined the percentage of apoptosis by flow cytometry analysis and cell viability by propidium iodide (PI) staining. Furthermore, we determined the in vitro effects of rtTNF alpha on follicle contraction and testosterone production in preovulatory brown trout ovarian follicles. In addition, we analyzed the gene expression profiles of control and rtTNF alpha-treated ovarian tissue by microarray and real-time PCR (qPCR) analyses. Results: LPS administration in vivo causes a significant induction of the ovarian expression of TNF alpha. Treatment with rtTNF alpha induces granulosa cell apoptosis, decreases granulosa cell viability and stimulates the expression of genes known to be involved in the normal ovulatory process in trout. In addition, rtTNF alpha causes a significant increase in follicle contraction and testosterone production. Also, using a salmonid-specific microarray platform (SFA2.0 immunochip) we observed that rtTNF alpha induces the expression of genes known to be involved in inflammation, proteolysis and tissue remodeling. Furthermore, the expression of kallikrein, TOP-2, serine protease 23 and ADAM 22, genes that have been postulated to be involved in proteolytic and tissue remodeling processes during ovulation in trout, increases in follicles incubated in the presence of rtTNF alpha. Conclusions In view of these results, we propose that TNF alpha could have an important role in the biomechanics of follicle weakening, ovarian rupture and oocyte expulsion during ovulation in trout, primarily through its stimulation of follicular cell apoptosis and the expression of genes involved in follicle wall proteolysis and contraction.

Color differences among feral pigeons (Columba livia) are not attributable to sequence variation in the coding region of the melanocortin-1 receptor gene (MC1R)

Genetic variation at the melanocortin-1 receptor (MC1R) gene is correlated with melanin color variation in many birds. Feral pigeons (Columba livia) show two major melanin-based colorations: a red coloration due to pheomelanic pigment and a black coloration due to eumelanic pigment. Furthermore, within each color type, feral pigeons display continuous variation in the amount of melanin pigment present in the feathers, with individuals varying from pure white to a full dark melanic color. Coloration is highly heritable and it has been suggested that it is under natural or sexual selection, or both. Our objective was to investigate whether MC1R allelic variants are associated with plumage color in feral pigeons.We sequenced 888 bp of the coding sequence of MC1R among pigeons varying both in the type, eumelanin or pheomelanin, and the amount of melanin in their feathers. We detected 10 non-synonymous substitutions and 2 synonymous substitution but none of them were associated with a plumage type. It remains possible that non-synonymous substitutions that influence coloration are present in the short MC1R fragment that we did not sequence but this seems unlikely because we analyzed the entire functionally important region of the gene.Our results show that color differences among feral pigeons are probably not attributable to amino acid variation at the MC1R locus. Therefore, variation in regulatory regions of MC1R or variation in other genes may be responsible for the color polymorphism of feral pigeons.

Trafficking in Human Beings.THB unit in Stockholm

Our police work against human trafficking started in 2004 on behalf of the government. (Police Department received 300 000 euros which was divided between the three largest cities in Sweden, Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. Then, each police district had to find out how .THB looked like in their district and how it best could be combated.

An efficient algorithm to perform multiple testing in epistasis screening

Background: Research in epistasis or gene-gene interaction detection for human complex traits has grown over the last few years. It has been marked by promising methodological developments, improved translation efforts of statistical epistasis to biological epistasis and attempts to integrate different omics information sources into the epistasis screening to enhance power. The quest for gene-gene interactions poses severe multiple-testing problems. In this context, the maxT algorithm is one technique to control the false-positive rate. However, the memory needed by this algorithm rises linearly with the amount of hypothesis tests. Gene-gene interaction studies will require a memory proportional to the squared number of SNPs. A genome-wide epistasis search would therefore require terabytes of memory. Hence, cache problems are likely to occur, increasing the computation time. In this work we present a new version of maxT, requiring an amount of memory independent from the number of genetic effects to be investigated. This algorithm was implemented in C++ in our epistasis screening software MBMDR-3.0.3. We evaluate the new implementation in terms of memory efficiency and speed using simulated data. The software is illustrated on real-life data for Crohn’s disease. Results: In the case of a binary (affected/unaffected) trait, the parallel workflow of MBMDR-3.0.3 analyzes all gene-gene interactions with a dataset of 100,000 SNPs typed on 1000 individuals within 4 days and 9 hours, using 999 permutations of the trait to assess statistical significance, on a cluster composed of 10 blades, containing each four Quad-Core AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 2352 2.1 GHz. In the case of a continuous trait, a similar run takes 9 days. Our program found 14 SNP-SNP interactions with a multiple-testing corrected p-value of less than 0.05 on real-life Crohn’s disease (CD) data. Conclusions: Our software is the first implementation of the MB-MDR methodology able to solve large-scale SNP-SNP interactions problems within a few days, without using much memory, while adequately controlling the type I error rates. A new implementation to reach genome-wide epistasis screening is under construction. In the context of Crohn’s disease, MBMDR-3.0.3 could identify epistasis involving regions that are well known in the field and could be explained from a biological point of view. This demonstrates the power of our software to find relevant phenotype-genotype higher-order associations.

Comparative genomics of emerging pathogens in the Candida glabrata clade

BACKGROUND: Candida glabrata follows C. albicans as the second or third most prevalent cause of candidemia worldwide. These two pathogenic yeasts are distantly related, C. glabrata being part of the Nakaseomyces, a group more closely related to Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Although C. glabrata was thought to be the only pathogenic Nakaseomyces, two new pathogens have recently been described within this group: C. nivariensis and C. bracarensis. To gain insight into the genomic changes underlying the emergence of virulence, we sequenced the genomes of these two, and three other non-pathogenic Nakaseomyces, and compared them to other sequenced yeasts. RESULTS: Our results indicate that the two new pathogens are more closely related to the non-pathogenic N. delphensis than to C. glabrata. We uncover duplications and accelerated evolution that specifically affected genes in the lineage preceding the group containing N. delphensis and the three pathogens, which may provide clues to the higher propensity of this group to infect humans. Finally, the number of Epa-like adhesins is specifically enriched in the pathogens, particularly in C. glabrata. CONCLUSIONS: Remarkably, some features thought to be the result of adaptation of C. glabrata to a pathogenic lifestyle, are present throughout the Nakaseomyces, indicating these are rather ancient adaptations to other environments. Phylogeny suggests that human pathogenesis evolved several times, independently within the clade. The expansion of the EPA gene family in pathogens establishes an evolutionary link between adhesion and virulence phenotypes. Our analyses thus shed light onto the relationships between virulence and the recent genomic changes that occurred within the Nakaseomyces.

Tectonica extensiva d'edat jurassica a l'illa de Cabrera (Balears)

A Cabrera l'extensió juràssica causà la ruptura de la plataforma liàsica i l'aprofundiment de la conca pelàgica durant el Dogger, el Malm i el Cretaci inferior. Conseqüència d'aquesta extensió en són: La discordança de la serie pelàgica sobre els materials de plataforma, la presència d'olistòlits i olistostromes a la part baixa de la sèrie pelàgica i un sistema de falles normals conjugades sincròniques de la sedimentació pelàgica.