Characterisation, prevalence and severity of skin lesions caused by ophidiomycosis in a population of wild snakes.

Ophidiomycosis is an emerging infectious disease affecting wild snakes in the Northern Hemisphere. Recently confirmed in Great Britain, the prevalence, severity and significance of ophidiomycosis has yet to be characterised in free-living snakes at a population level in Europe. Therefore, a population of barred grass snakes (Natrix helvetica) in eastern England was monitored for three seasons (May 2019 to October 2021), to investigate the prevalence (25.

Income and professional inequalities in chronic diseases: prevalence and incidence in France.

Objectives: In France, almost nine of 10 deaths are caused by non-communicable diseases, and there is significant social inequality in mortality rates. However, it is not easy to collect robust data on the incidence and prevalence of such diseases according to socio-economic status. Based on data from the link between the primary longitudinal population sample and the national health data system, the aim of our study was to compute the standardised incidence and prevalence of seven major groups of chronic diseases according to socio-economic status.

Social inequalities and gender differences in healthcare management of acute ischaemic stroke in France.

Background And Purpose: There are regional disparities in access to stroke units in France. Several studies have shown that living in disadvantaged areas is associated with a higher frequency of stroke, worse severity at presentation, increased level of dependency and higher mortality rates. However, few studies have explored the association between an individual's socioeconomic characteristics and stroke care.

Oral function and nutritional status in non-acute hospitalised elders.

Introduction: Malnutrition and risk of malnutrition continues to be a common finding in elders, yet its association with oral function in hospitalised patients remains unclear.

Material And Methods: Patients aged 70 years or over who had been hospitalised for non-acute rehabilitation were recruited. Nutritional risk was screened using the Mini-Nutritional Assessment Short Form (MNA-SF) and Nutritional Risk Screening (NRS) scores.

Catalogue of herpetological specimens of the Ewha Womans University Natural History Museum (EWNHM), Republic of Korea.

The herpetology collection of the Ewha Womans University Natural History Museum (EWNHM) represents one of the oldest and largest institutional collections in the Republic of Korea. The specimens deposited in the EWNHM represent a major historical collection of the native herpetofauna, both in species diversity and time span. However, the full inventory of the herpetology collection has never been conducted and thus the collection has received little attention from researchers.

A new species of (Acanthocephala: Echinorhynchidae) from the guttural toad, (Bufonidae), introduced into Mauritius, with comments on the implications of the introductions of toads and their parasites into the UK.

Pseudoacanthocephalus goodmani n. sp. is described from faecal pellets collected from Sclerophrys gutturalis (Power, 1927), the guttural toad.

Common midwife toad ranaviruses replicate first in the oral cavity of smooth newts (Lissotriton vulgaris) and show distinct strain-associated pathogenicity.

Ranavirus is the second most common infectious cause of amphibian mortality. These viruses affect caudates, an order in which information regarding Ranavirus pathogenesis is scarce. In the Netherlands, two strains (CMTV-NL I and III) were suspected to possess distinct pathogenicity based on field data.

Key Parameters to Promote Granularization of Lath-Like Bainite/Martensite in FeNiC Alloys during Isothermal Holding.

The stability of lath-like microstructures during low-temperature isothermal ageing was analyzed in a Fe5Ni0.33C (in wt %) steel. The microstructures were characterized using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) coupled with Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD).

In Situ Investigation of the Iron Carbide Precipitation Process in a Fe-C-Mn-Si Q&P Steel.

Quenching and Partitioning (Q&P) steels are promising candidates for automotive applications because of their lightweight potential. Their properties depend on carbon enrichment in austenite which, in turn, is strongly influenced by carbide precipitation in martensite during quenching and partitioning treatment. In this paper, by coupling in situ High Energy X-Ray Diffraction (HEXRD) experiments and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), we give some clarification regarding the precipitation process of iron carbides in martensite throughout the Q&P process.

Effectiveness of a Type 2 Diabetes Screening Intervention in the Canadian Workplace.

Objectives: There is a lack of Canadian data concerning the effectiveness of diabetes interventions in the workplace. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of Motivaction, a diabetes screening and education pilot program, in the workplace.

Methods: The Motivaction program involves a voluntary web-based diabetes health-risk assessment, the Canadian Diabetes Risk Questionnaire (CANRISK), combined with an opportunity for those eligible (i.

Epigenetic memory via concordant DNA methylation is inversely correlated to developmental potential of mammalian cells.

In storing and transmitting epigenetic information, organisms must balance the need to maintain information about past conditions with the capacity to respond to information in their current and future environments. Some of this information is encoded by DNA methylation, which can be transmitted with variable fidelity from parent to daughter strand. High fidelity confers strong pattern matching between the strands of individual DNA molecules and thus pattern stability over rounds of DNA replication; lower fidelity confers reduced pattern matching, and thus greater flexibility.

Cognitive Impairment Mediates Workplace Impairment in Adults With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: Results From the Motivaction Study.

Objectives: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) is associated with substantial impairments in workplace function; however, the mediators of workplace performance in DM are not well characterized. Herein, we investigate depressive symptomatology and cognitive dysfunction as mediators of workplace productivity and hypothesize that workplace impairment is mediated principally by cognitive dysfunction in DM.

Methods: The Motivaction study screened individuals employed across Canada for diabetes.

Factors affecting recruitment into psychiatry: a canadian experience.

Objective: There is a projected shortage of psychiatrists in Canada in forthcoming years. This study assessed factors in medical school education that are associated with students selecting psychiatry first and matching as a discipline.

Method: The Canadian Organization of Undergraduate Psychiatry Educators (COUPE) conducted telephone interviews and sent e-mail questionnaires to the 17 medical schools across Canada; all schools provided data for 2012.

The tuberculous granuloma: an unsuccessful host defence mechanism providing a safety shelter for the bacteria?

One of the main features of the immune response to M. Tuberculosis is the formation of an organized structure called granuloma. It consists mainly in the recruitment at the infectious stage of macrophages, highly differentiated cells such as multinucleated giant cells, epithelioid cells and Foamy cells, all these cells being surrounded by a rim of lymphocytes.

First human model of in vitro Candida albicans persistence within granuloma for the reliable study of host-fungi interactions.

Background: The balance between human innate immune system and Candida albicans virulence signaling mechanisms ultimately dictates the outcome of fungal invasiveness and its pathology. To better understand the pathophysiology and to identify fungal virulence-associated factors in the context of persistence in humans, complex models are indispensable. Although fungal virulence factors have been extensively studied in vitro and in vivo using different immune cell subsets and cell lines, it is unclear how C.

Motor inhibition and response expectancy: a Laplacian ERP study.

In between-hand choice reaction time tasks, the motor cortex involved in the required response (contralateral) has been shown to be activated while the motor cortex involved in the non-required response (ipsilateral) has been shown to be inhibited. The aim of the present study was to test the hypothesis that ipsilateral inhibition reflects an active mechanism aimed at preventing errors. To this end, the risk of committing errors in between-hand choice reaction time tasks was manipulated by introducing a response probability bias.

Executive control and response expectancy: a Laplacian ERP study.

The event-related potential called "Error Negativity" (Ne, ERN), which appears when subjects commit errors in choice reaction time tasks, is a marker of response monitoring. By introducing a response probability bias, we show that the Ne is sensitive to response expectancy. We further show that the small negativity evoked by correct responses (Ne-like, CRN) is also sensitive to response expectancy: On unexpected responses, the former decreases while the latter increases to such an extent that the amplitudes of the two components are in the same range of magnitude.

Early triggering of exclusive IFN-gamma responses of human Vgamma9Vdelta2 T cells by TLR-activated myeloid and plasmacytoid dendritic cells.

gammadelta T cells, a major innate-like T cell subset, are thought to play in vivo an important role in innate and adaptive immune responses to various infection agents like parasites, bacteria, or viruses but the mechanisms contributing to this immune process remain ill defined. Owing to their ability to recognize a broad set of microbial molecular patterns, TLRs represent a major innate pathway through which pathogens induce dendritic cells (DC) maturation and acquisition of immunostimulatory functions. In this study, we studied the effects of various TLR ligands on the activation of human Vgamma9Vdelta2 T cells, a main human gammadelta PBL subset, which has been recently involved in the licensing of mycobacteria-infected DC.

Foamy macrophages and the progression of the human tuberculosis granuloma.

The progression of tuberculosis from a latent, subclinical infection to active disease that culminates in the transmission of infectious bacilli is determined locally at the level of the granuloma. This progression takes place even in the face of a robust immune response that, although it contains infection, is unable to eliminate the bacterium. The factors or environmental conditions that influence this progression remain to be determined.

EBSD for analysing the twinning microstructure in fine-grained TWIP steels and its influence on work hardening.

A 22 Mn-0.6 C twinning induced plasticity steel with an average grain size of 2.6 mum was deformed in tension at room temperature.

Sequential adjustments before and after partial errors.

In choice reaction time tasks, subjects speed up before making an error, but slow down afterward to prevent the occurrence of a new error. In some trials, the correct response is preceded by an incorrect electromyographic (EMG) activation too small to reach the response threshold. In this article, we show that these incorrect EMG activations give rise to the same sequential effects as overt errors: Before a trial containing an incorrect EMG activation, subjects speed up, whereas after that trial, they slow down.

Bridging innate and adaptive immunity through gammadelta T-dendritic cell crosstalk.

Like Natural Killer cells, gammadelta T cells and Natural Killer T cells display several innate-like features that confer them a broad reactivity against tumors and pathogens. By recognizing stress-induced conserved antigens upregulated a wide array of physiopathological contexts, these lymphoid subsets develop strong and early responses to a broad set of targets. One of the most exciting roles possibly played in vivo by non-conventional T lymphocytes, which exhibit a biased natural memory phenotype, is active regulation of adaptive immune responses through interactions with antigen presenting cells (APCs), such as dendritic cells.