Microsatellite analysis supports clonal propagation and reduced divergence of Trypanosoma vivax from asymptomatic to fatally infected livestock in South America compared to West Africa

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

[Old and new interventional therapies in the treatment of symptomatic benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH)]

Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia is a common entity among the aging male population. Its prevalence is increasing with age and is around 80% in the over 80-years old. The androgen-estrogen ratio changes in favor of the estrogens, which leads to a growth of prostatic tissue, presenting histologically as hyperplasia. BPH can cause irritative or obstructive symptoms or both. Nowadays we speak of bladder storage or bladder voiding symptoms, summarised as LUTS (Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms). LUTS has a structural and a functional component, the structural being caused by the size of the adenoma itself the functional depending on the muscle tone of the bladder neck and the prostatic urethra. To investigate LUTS, we use validated symptom scores, sonography for residual urine and eventually a urodynamic evaluation. There are 3 grades of BPH. The indication for an interventional therapy is relative in BPH II, and absolute in BPH III. Prior to treatment, other diseases mimicking the same symptoms, have to be ruled out and adequatly treated. Electro-resection of the prostate (TUR-P) remains the standard therapy and the benchmark any new technology has to compete with. TUR-P has good short- and longterm results, but can be associated with a considerable perioperative morbidity, and the learning curve for the operator is long. The most promising of the newer techniques is the Holmium-Laser-Enucleation of the prostate (Laser-TUR-P), showing at least identical short- and median-term results, but a lower perioperative morbidity than TUR-P For several minimally-invasive techniques, indications are limited. TUMT TUNA, WIT and laser-coagulation all produce a coagulation necrosis of the prostatic tissue by thermic damage with secondary tissue shrinking. Urodynamic results however, are not comparable to TUR-P or Laser-TUR-P, and significantly more secondary interventions within 2 to 5 years are required. Minimal-invasive techniques present a favorable alternative for younger patients without complications of BPH, and for older patients with relevant comorbidities, and can usually be performed under local anaesthesia. The morbidity is low and further therapies remain possible later, if necessary.

Percutaneous aortic valve replacement for severe aortic stenosis in high-risk patients using the second- and current third-generation self-expanding CoreValve prosthesis: device success and 30-day clinical outcome

OBJECTIVES: We sought to determine both the procedural performance and safety of percutaneous implantation of the second (21-French [F])- and third (18-F)-generation CoreValve aortic valve prosthesis (CoreValve Inc., Irvine, California). BACKGROUND: Percutaneous aortic valve replacement represents an emerging alternative therapy for high-risk and inoperable patients with severe symptomatic aortic valve stenosis. METHODS: Patients with: 1) symptomatic, severe aortic valve stenosis (area <1 cm2); 2) age > or =80 years with a logistic EuroSCORE > or =20% (21-F group) or age > or =75 years with a logistic EuroSCORE > or =15% (18-F group); or 3) age > or =65 years plus additional prespecified risk factors were included. Introduction of the 18-F device enabled the transition from a multidisciplinary approach involving general anesthesia, surgical cut-down, and cardiopulmonary bypass to a truly percutaneous approach under local anesthesia without hemodynamic support. RESULTS: A total of 86 patients (21-F, n = 50; 18-F, n = 36) with a mean valve area of 0.66 +/- 0.19 cm2 (21-F) and 0.54 +/- 0.15 cm2 (18-F), a mean age of 81.3 +/- 5.2 years (21-F) and 83.4 +/- 6.7 years (18-F), and a mean logistic EuroSCORE of 23.4 +/- 13.5% (21-F) and 19.1 +/- 11.1% (18-F) were recruited. Acute device success was 88%. Successful device implantation resulted in a marked reduction of aortic transvalvular gradients (mean pre 43.7 mm Hg vs. post 9.0 mm Hg, p < 0.001) with aortic regurgitation grade remaining unchanged. Acute procedural success rate was 74% (21-F: 78%; 18-F: 69%). Procedural mortality was 6%. Overall 30-day mortality rate was 12%; the combined rate of death, stroke, and myocardial infarction was 22%. CONCLUSIONS: Treatment of severe aortic valve stenosis in high-risk patients with percutaneous implantation of the CoreValve prosthesis is feasible and associated with a lower mortality rate than predicted by risk algorithms.

Index-Oriented Methodologies for Landslide Consequence Analysis: An Application to a Mountain Community in the French Alps

Consequence analysis is a key aspect of anchoring assessment of landslide impacts to present and long-term development planning. Although several approaches have been developed over the last decade, some of them are difficult to apply in practice, mainly because of the lack of valuable data on historical damages or on damage functions. In this paper, two possible consequence indicators based on a combination of descriptors of the exposure of the elements at risk are proposed in order to map the potential impacts of landslides and highlight the most vulnerable areas. The first index maps the physical vulnerability due to landslide; the second index maps both direct damage (physical, structural, functional) and indirect damage (socio-economic impacts) of landslide hazards. The indexes have been computed for the 200 km2 area of the Barcelonnette Basin (South French Alps), and their potential applications are discussed.

Transregional Interactions between Jansenists, other Catholics, and Protestants in Seventeenth Century Northern Europe

This paper discusses the theological and cultural exchanges between Catholic clergy and theologians, and specifically between the neo-Augustinian-minded, the so-called “Jansenists”, and other Catholics, in Northern Europe during the seventeenth century. It also explores the Jansenists’ encounters and theological engagement with Protestantism. In this period, interaction and transfer between French Jansenist Catholics and other Catholics in other countries took place in various ways: 1. Via traveling and migration: French theologians and clergy returned home from their travels with reports about the situation of Catholicism and Protestantism in other countries; moreover, in the second half of the 17th century, French Jansenists fled to the northern Netherlands. 2. Via networking: it is little known that for a brief period on the North Sea island of Nordstrand, adherents to Port-Royal were buying land, and clergy of the Flemish Oratory provided pastoral care for the island’s Catholics. This project was not successful, but at the end it strengthened the network between French “Jansenists” and Catholics in the Dutch Republic. 3. Via publications by leading Jansenists and their counterparts. In this paper, the focus is on the view of Protestantism held by Jansenist writers.

"Contra toda forma de opresión" : Sexo, política y clases medias juveniles en las revistas de humor de los primeros '70

Este artículo explora cómo las revistas de humor político-cultural de los primeros '70 devinieron una fuente de autorreflexión para un público, o espacio social, que se constituyó en torno a ellas. A partir del análisis de la más importante de esas publicaciones, Satiricón, es posible aseverar que en términos socio-demográficos ese espacio social se componía de segmentos juveniles de los sectores medios intelectualizados que podían a la vez reírse y hacer reír, en especial cuando se remarcaban incongruencias en sus experiencias sexuales y políticas. Las revistas de humor elaboraron múltiples incongruencias: los llamados a una educación sexual imbricados con la persistencia de viejas creencias sexuales; el lenguaje "psi" domesticando, antes que ayudando a liberar, las represiones sexuales; los varones temiendo por el fin de privilegios ante la afirmación sexual de las mujeres; y, más en general, la militancia política como forma de opresión. Las incongruencias eran la base de lo risible, mientras que en su centro estaban los y las jóvenes de los sectores medios, a quienes se convocaba a un tipo de reflexión que, en ese contexto político, quizá era solo viable a partir de la exageración y del humor

"Contra toda forma de opresión" : Sexo, política y clases medias juveniles en las revistas de humor de los primeros '70

Este artículo explora cómo las revistas de humor político-cultural de los primeros '70 devinieron una fuente de autorreflexión para un público, o espacio social, que se constituyó en torno a ellas. A partir del análisis de la más importante de esas publicaciones, Satiricón, es posible aseverar que en términos socio-demográficos ese espacio social se componía de segmentos juveniles de los sectores medios intelectualizados que podían a la vez reírse y hacer reír, en especial cuando se remarcaban incongruencias en sus experiencias sexuales y políticas. Las revistas de humor elaboraron múltiples incongruencias: los llamados a una educación sexual imbricados con la persistencia de viejas creencias sexuales; el lenguaje "psi" domesticando, antes que ayudando a liberar, las represiones sexuales; los varones temiendo por el fin de privilegios ante la afirmación sexual de las mujeres; y, más en general, la militancia política como forma de opresión. Las incongruencias eran la base de lo risible, mientras que en su centro estaban los y las jóvenes de los sectores medios, a quienes se convocaba a un tipo de reflexión que, en ese contexto político, quizá era solo viable a partir de la exageración y del humor

"Contra toda forma de opresión" : Sexo, política y clases medias juveniles en las revistas de humor de los primeros '70

Este artículo explora cómo las revistas de humor político-cultural de los primeros '70 devinieron una fuente de autorreflexión para un público, o espacio social, que se constituyó en torno a ellas. A partir del análisis de la más importante de esas publicaciones, Satiricón, es posible aseverar que en términos socio-demográficos ese espacio social se componía de segmentos juveniles de los sectores medios intelectualizados que podían a la vez reírse y hacer reír, en especial cuando se remarcaban incongruencias en sus experiencias sexuales y políticas. Las revistas de humor elaboraron múltiples incongruencias: los llamados a una educación sexual imbricados con la persistencia de viejas creencias sexuales; el lenguaje "psi" domesticando, antes que ayudando a liberar, las represiones sexuales; los varones temiendo por el fin de privilegios ante la afirmación sexual de las mujeres; y, más en general, la militancia política como forma de opresión. Las incongruencias eran la base de lo risible, mientras que en su centro estaban los y las jóvenes de los sectores medios, a quienes se convocaba a un tipo de reflexión que, en ese contexto político, quizá era solo viable a partir de la exageración y del humor

In-situ sediment temperature and pore water chloride concentration at pockmarks of the Nigerian continental margin

A joint research expedition between the French IFREMER and the German MARUM was conducted in 2011 using the R/V 'Pourquoi pas?' to study gas hydrate distributions in a pockmark field (1141-1199 m below sea surface) at the continental margin of Nigeria. The seafloor drill rig MeBo of MARUM was used to recover sediments as deep as 56.74 m below seafloor. The presence of gas hydrates in specific core sections was deduced from temperature anomalies recorded during continuous records of infrared thermal scanning and anomalies in pore water chloride concentrations. In situ sediment temperature measurements showed elevated geothermal gradients of up to 258 °C/km in the center of the so-called pockmark A which is up to 4.6 times higher than that in the background sediment (72 °C/km). The gas hydrate distribution and thermal regime in the pockmark are largely controlled by the intensity, periodicity and direction of fluid flow. The joint interaction between fluid flow, gas hydrate formation and dissolution, and the thermal regime governs pockmark formation and evolution on the Nigerian continental margin.

Una propuesta de estudio para el humor en la conversación coloquial

En el grupo de investigación GRIALE hemos desarrollado un método teórico que aplicamos a los enunciados irónicos con humor en diferentes géneros textuales, a partir de la violación de principios conversacionales. Además, tendremos en cuenta para el análisis la Teoría General del Humor Verbal propuesta por Attardo. Así pues, estudiamos la ironía y el humor en ejemplos de conversaciones extraídos de corpus de muestras reales del español peninsular (COVJA y Corpus de conversaciones coloquiales). En este trabajo, nos centramos en la aplicación de dichas teorías a los enunciados irónicos humorísticos que se producen en la conversación y estudiaremos los efectos que desarrollan; y comprobaremos que ironía y humor conviven en un mismo intercambio conversacional con un fin comunicativo.

An approach to verbal humor in interaction

I propose a method to study interactional ironic humorous utterances in Spanish. In GRIALE research group consider this method can be applied to humorous ironic utterances in different textual genres, from the violation of conversational principles. Futhermore, we present the General Theory of Verbal Humor proposed by Attardo that it will be taken in our analysis. Therefore, I study irony and humor in examples of conversations from Peninsular Spanish real sample corpuses (COVJA, Corpus de conversaciones coloquiales [Corpus of Colloquial Conversations] and CREA, Corpus de Referencia del Español Actual [Reference Corpus of Present-Day Spanish]). In this article, I will focus on the application of this theory to humorous ironic statements which arise in conversation and examine the effects caused by them, which will additionally verify if irony and humor coexist in the same conversational exchange with a communicative aim and conversational strategies.

Semantic change and intersubjectification: The origin of reprise evidential conditional in Old Catalan

The reprise evidential conditional (REC) is nowadays not very usual in Catalan: it is restricted to journalistic language and to some very formal genres (such as academic or legal language), it is not present in spontaneous discourse. On the one hand, it has been described among the rather new modality values of the conditional. On the other, the normative tradition tended to reject it for being a gallicism, or to describe it as an unsuitable neologism. Thanks to the extraction from text corpora, we surprisingly find this REC in Catalan from the beginning of the fourteenth century to the contemporary age, with semantic and pragmatic nuances and different evidence of grammaticalization. Due to the current interest in evidentiality, the REC has been widely studied in French, Italian and Portuguese, focusing mainly on its contemporary uses and not so intensively on the diachronic process that could explain the origin of this value. In line with this research, that we initiated studying the epistemic and evidential future in Catalan, our aim is to describe: a) the pragmatic context that could have been the initial point of the REC in the thirteenth century, before we find indisputable attestations of this use; b) the path of semantic change followed by the conditional from a ‘future in the past’ tense to the acquisition of epistemic and evidential values; and c) the role played by invited inferences, subjectification and intersubjectification in this change.

De Gaulle and Europe: Historical Revision and Social Science Theory. Program for the Study of Germany and Europe Working Paper Series 8.5

The thousands of books and articles on Charles de Gaulle's policy toward European integration, whether written by historians, social scientists, or commentators, universally accord primary explanatory importance to the General's distinctive geopolitical ideology. In explaining his motivations, only secondary significance, if any at all, is attached to commercial considerations. This paper seeks to reverse this historiographical consensus by examining the four major decisions toward European integration during de Gaulle's presidency: the decisions to remain in the Common Market in 1958, to propose the Foucher Plan in the early 1960s, to veto British accession to the EC, and to provoke the "empty chair" crisis in 1965-1966, resulting in the "Luxembourg Compromise." In each case, the overwhelming bulk of the primary evidence-speeches, memoirs, or government documents-suggests that de Gaulle's primary motivation was economic, not geopolitical or ideological. Like his predecessors and successors, de Gaulle sought to promote French industry and agriculture by establishing protected markets for their export products. This empirical finding has three broader implications: (1) For those interesred in the European Union, it suggests that regional integration has been driven primarily by economic, not geopolitical considerations--even in the "least likely" case. (2) For those interested in the role of ideas in foreign policy, it suggests that strong interest groups in a democracy limit the impact of a leader's geopolitical ideology--even where the executive has very broad institutional autonomy. De Gaulle was a democratic statesman first and an ideological visionary second. (3) For those who employ qualitative case-study methods, it suggests that even a broad, representative sample of secondary sources does not create a firm basis for causal inference. For political scientists, as for historians, there is in many cases no reliable alternative to primary-source research.

The Mirage of the State: Why the West has failed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali and Central African Republic? Jean Monnet/Robert Schuman Paper Series Vol. 14 No. 15, July 2014

The state still matters. However, the members of the Euro-Atlantic community may be misinterpreting this crucial baseline prior launching their military interventions since 2001. The latest violence and collapse of the state of Iraq after the invasion of Northern Iraq by a radical Sunni Muslim terrorist group, so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), demonstrate once again the centrality and requirement of a functioning state in order to maintain violent forces to disrupt domestic and regional stability. Since 2001, the US and its European allies have waged wars against failed-states in order to increase this security and national interests, and then have been involved in some type of state-building.1 This has been the case in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali, and Central African Republic (CAR). France went into Mali (2012) and CAR (2013), which preceded two European Union military and civilian Common Security and Defense Policy missions (CSDP), in order to avoid the collapse of these two states. The threat of the collapse of both states was a concern for the members of the Euro-Atlantic community as it could have spread to the region and causing even greater instabilities. In Mali, the country was under radical Islamic pressures coming from the North after the collapse of Libya ensuing the 2011 Western intervention, while in CAR it was mainly an ethno-religious crisis. Failed states are a real concern, as they can rapidly become training grounds for radical groups and permitting all types of smuggling and trafficking.2 In Mali, France wanted to protect its large French population and avoid the fall of Mali in the hands of radical Islamic groups directly or indirectly linked to Al-Qaeda. A fallen Mali could have destabilized the region of the Sahel and ultimately affected the stability of Southern European borders. France wanted to avoid the development of a safe haven across the Sahel where movements of people and goods are uncontrolled and illegal.3 Since the end of the Cold War, Western powers have been involved in stabilizing neighborhoods and regions, like the Balkans, Africa, and Middle East, which at the exceptions of the Balkans, have led to failed policies. 9/11 changes everything. The US, under President George W. Bush, started to wage war against terrorism and all states link to it. This started a period of continuous Western interventions in this post-9/11 era in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali and CAR. If history has demonstrated one thing, the members of the Euro-Atlantic community are struggling and will continue to struggle to stabilize Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Mali and Central African Republic (CAR) for one simple reason: no clear endgame. Is it the creation of a state à la Westphalian in order to permit these states to operate as the sole guarantor of security? Or is the reestablishment of status quo in these countries permitting to exit and end Western operations? This article seeks to analyze Western interventions in these five countries in order to reflect on the concept of the state and the erroneous starting point for each intervention.4 In the first part, the political status of each country is analyzed in order to understand the internal and regional crisis. In a second time, the concept of the state, framed into the Buzanian trinity, is discussed and applied to the cases. In the last part the European and American civilian-military doctrines are examined in accordance with their latest military interventions and in their broader spectrum.