Baseline human gut microbiota profile in healthy people and standard reporting template.

A comprehensive knowledge of the types and ratios of microbes that inhabit the healthy human gut is necessary before any kind of pre-clinical or clinical study can be performed that attempts to alter the microbiome to treat a condition or improve therapy outcome. To address this need we present an innovative scalable comprehensive analysis workflow, a healthy human reference microbiome list and abundance profile (GutFeelingKB), and a novel Fecal Biome Population Report (FecalBiome) with clinical applicability. GutFeelingKB provides a list of 157 organisms (8 phyla, 18 classes, 23 orders, 38 families, 59 genera and 109 species) that forms the baseline biome and therefore can be used as healthy controls for studies related to dysbiosis.

Spatial, temporal, and source variations of hydrocarbons in marine sediments from Baffin Bay, Eastern Canadian Arctic.

With declining sea ice conditions in Arctic regions owing to changing climate, the large prospective reservoirs of oil and gas in Baffin Bay and Davis Strait are increasingly accessible, and the interest in offshore exploration and shipping through these regions has increased. Both of these activities are associated with the risk of hydrocarbon releases into the marine ecosystem. However, hydrocarbons are also present naturally in marine environments, in some cases deriving from oil seeps.

[Coccidioidomycosis presenting as a pulmonary nodule after pneumonia].

Coccidioidomycosis is a fungal infection endemic in the south west of the United States. Sixty percent of infected individuals remain asymptomatic. Symptomatic disease manifests itself with variable signs such as pneumonia, pleural effusion, empyema or acute respiratory distress syndrome.

Mutation screen and association studies for the fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) gene and early onset and adult obesity.

Background: The orexigenic effects of cannabinoids are limited by activation of the endocannabinoid degrading enzyme fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH). The aim of this study was to analyse whether FAAH alleles are associated with early and late onset obesity.

Methods: We initially assessed association of five single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in FAAH with early onset extreme obesity in up to 521 German obese children and both parents.

Increasing contaminant burdens in an arctic fish, Burbot ( Lota lota ), in a warming climate.

The temporal patterns of mercury (Hg), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and other contaminants in Arctic aquatic biota are usually attributed to changing atmospheric sources. However, climate variability and change is another means of altering contaminant fate and bioavailability. We show here that the concentrations of Hg and PCBs in Mackenzie River burbot ( Lota lota ), a top predator fish and important staple food for northern Canadian communities, have increased significantly over the last 25 years despite falling or stable atmospheric concentrations, suggesting that environmental processes subsequent to atmospheric transport are responsible.

The delivery of mercury to the Beaufort Sea of the Arctic Ocean by the Mackenzie River.

Very high levels of mercury (Hg) have recently been reported in marine mammals and other higher trophic-level biota in the Mackenzie Delta and Beaufort Sea of the western Arctic Ocean. To quantify the input of Hg (particulate, dissolved and methylated) by the Mackenzie River as a potential source for Hg in the ecosystem, surface water and sediment samples were taken from 79 sites in the lower Mackenzie Basin during three consecutive summers (2003-2005) and analyzed for Hg and methylmercury (MeHg). Intensive studies were also carried out in the Mackenzie Delta during the freshets of 2004 and 2005.

[Actinomycosis presenting as a chronic excavated pneumonia in a young woman].

Introduction: Pulmonary actinomycosis is an anaerobic bacterial infection occurring primarily in debilated patients with poor oral hygiene. Before the penicillin era, thoracic actinomycosis looked like tuberculosis or neoplasia with chest wall invasion and fistula formation.

Observation: We report the case of a 39 years old woman presenting with a chronic lung abscess of the left upper lobe hospitalised after several unsuccessful courses of antibiotics.

Evaluation of a neural network model of amnesia in diffuse cerebral atrophy.

A digital computer program generating a simulated neural network was used to construct a model which can show behaviour resembling human associative memory. The experimental network uses distributed storage, and, in this respect, its functional organisation resembles that suggested by reported observations of neuronal activity in the human temporal lobe during memory storage and recall. Inactivation of increasing numbers of randomly distributed network units simulated advancing cerebral atrophy.

[Closure of sternotomy with Cotrel staplers].

The authors describe a new method for the closure of median sternotomies based on immediate compression with two or three Cotrel-Dubousset (CD) staples. This method was effective in a series of 100 patients. It was the curative treatment of septic sternal pseudarthrosis, and has been extended to high risk patients (age, severe sternal osteoporosis, obesity, diabetes, chronic respiratory insufficiency) or when surgery requires resection of the internal mammary arteries (IMA).

[The surgical approach to adrenal pheochromocytoma. A plea for lumbotomy].

The authors compare two successive series of surgically treated phaeochromocytomas. The first series consisted of 18 patients treated by laparotomy. During the immediate postoperative course, one patient died, 10 patients developed complications and 11 patients required blood transfusion.

[Indications and results of combined urokinase-lys plasminogen in acute ischemic pathology of the legs].

Low dose urokinase-lys plasminogen was used to treat 10 patients with acute ischemia of lower limbs. Preliminary results are reported and indications defined, the combination producing effective relief and being very well tolerated biologically and clinically. All patients presented clear signs of ischemia provoking a short term risk for the limb.

[Epidemiologic and clinical study of paragonimosis in Cameroon. Results of niclofolan treatment].

Paragonimiasis does not occur only in the South West Province of Cameroon. Four foci exist in the country. They are the well known focus in the Mount Kupe area, the Mbam focus, the Nyong focus and the Ntem focus.

[Epidemiological study of foci of S. intercalatum schistosomiasis in Eseka and Edea (Cameroon). Effects of treatment with praziquantel].

In Eseka and Edea bilharziasis caused by S. intercalatum is transmitted by B. forskali, the only intermediate host of human schistosomes found in the area.

[Epidemiological study of intestinal helminthiases (ascariasis, necatoriasis, taeniasis, and bilharziasis) in the town of Maroua (North Cameroon). Results of the treatment of the population with mebendazole].

Prevalence of intestinal helminthiasis: 970 stool specimens are examined in Doualare and 999 in Doursongo (Maroua) North Cameroon. In this sample eggs of T. saginata are seen in 14.

[Immunoenzymatic detection of human African trypanosomiasis using dried blood samples].

The application of the ELISA technique to dry blood samples is described with special reference to some parameters: the correspondence between the "confetti" eluate and the serum dilution, and the preservation time of the dry blood samples. A correlation is made between the results obtained with the confetti and those obtained with the sera. The study shows that the dry blood samples are a valuable tool for a large scale diagnosis of human African trypnanosomiasis during sero-epidemiological mass investigations.

[Epidemiologic study of the focus of cutaneous leishmaniasis in Mokolo (North Cameroon)].

Fifty-eight patients with cutaneous leishmaniasis are studied in the North of Cameroon. All of them are living in an area located not further than 30 miles away from Mokolo. Both sexes are equally concerned.

[Antitetanus vaccination: preliminary results of a study in Africa].

Two commercialized anatoxins, titrating 30 Lf per dose and adsorbed on Ca phosphate and Al hydroxide respectively, were studied in comparison with an experimental anatoxin titrating 25 Lf per dose and adsorbed on Al phosphate, and with a placebo. 595 schoolchildren from Cameroun were randomly assigned to four groups and inoculated twice, with a year's interval between the two inoculations. Serological checks were carried out by double-blind trials using the passive hemagglutination (HA) method on days 7, 90, 365 and 395.