Is there any relationship between physical activity level and patterns, and physical performance in children?

Background: It is often assumed that physical activity (PA) and physical performance during childhood and adolescence are beneficial for health during adulthood, but a positive relationship between PA and physical performance has not been precisely clarified in children. The lack or the weakness of the relationships between PA and physical performance could be due to the measure of PA. If the use of accelerometry is considered as an objective and common measure of PA, the real patterns of children's habitual PA must be reflected.

Lasting pituitary hormone deficiency after traumatic brain injury.

Pituitary deficiencies have been reported after traumatic brain injury (TBI) and may contribute to lasting cognitive disorders in this context. In a population of TBI patients with persistent cognitive and/or behavioral disorders, we sought to determine the prevalence of lasting pituitary deficiency and relationships with TBI severity, cognitive disorders, and impairments in activities of daily living (ADL). Fifty-five patients were included (mean age 36.

Selective decontamination by antimicrobials during long term treatment: perspectives for saving host indigenous microbiota.

Short bowel syndrome (SBS) occurs in patients fed total parenteral nutrition (TPN) after massive intestinal resection. TPN weaning is often associated with occlusion or sepsis. In the present study the intestinal biotope was investigated in young patients (n = 14) with massive intestinal resection and recurrent symptoms of sepsis or occlusion during enteral food introduction.

Retrosigmoid approach for meningiomas of the cerebellopontine angle: results of surgery and place of additional treatments.

Background: Meningiomas of the cerebellopontine angle (CPA), although homogenous in terms of location, present different surgical challenges depending on their site of dural origin and extension. Complete tumor resection sometimes leads to high morbidity. The objective of this work is to evaluate the results of surgery and the place of additional treatments.

Rapid identification of Cardiobacterium hominis by MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry during infective endocarditis.

We report a new case of Cardiobacterium hominis endocarditis identified during an acute coronary syndrome. The positivity of the blood cultures was confirmed rapidly (50 h) as a result of improvements to the automated detection system, whereby it is no longer necessary to incubate the vials for long periods of time when Aggregatibacter-Cardiobacterium-Eikenella-Kingella infections is suspected. The phenotype-based VITEK 2 NH identification system is not able to distinguish between the two species of Cardiobacterium, as it does not contain C.

Sequential versus volumetric computed tomography in the follow-up of chronic bronchopulmonary diseases: comparison of diagnostic information and radiation dose in 63 adults.

Purpose: To compare diagnostic information and radiation dose between volumetric and sequential scanning in the follow-up of chronic and diffuse bronchopulmonary diseases.

Materials And Methods: Sixty-three consecutive patients, aged 50 years or younger, referred for the follow-up of diffuse infiltrative lung disease (group 1; n=38) or cystic fibrosis (group 2; n=25), underwent a noncontrast high-resolution volumetric computed tomography (CT) examination with individually adapted selection of kilovoltage and 4-dimensional tube current modulation. From each acquisition, 2 sets of lung images were generated, namely the contiguous thin-collimated lung images, further referred to as the volumetric examination and considered as the reference standard, and thin-collimated lung images, spaced 10 mm apart, further referred to as the sequential examination.

Ubiquitylation and autophagy in the control of bacterial infections and related inflammatory responses.

The ubiquitin proteasome system and autophagy constitute key signalling pathways in the host response to infection. The identification of adaptors linking the two pathways has prompted a re-examination of the latter's involvement in inflammatory reactions and the clearance of bacteria. The ubiquitin-autophagy pathway is a preferred target for effectors from pathogens that seek to exploit and evade the host defence mechanisms.

Structural and content diversity of mitochondrial genome in beet: a comparative genomic analysis.

Despite their monophyletic origin, mitochondrial (mt) genomes of plants and animals have developed contrasted evolutionary paths over time. Animal mt genomes are generally small, compact, and exhibit high mutation rates, whereas plant mt genomes exhibit low mutation rates, little compactness, larger sizes, and highly rearranged structures. We present the (nearly) whole sequences of five new mt genomes in the Beta genus: four from Beta vulgaris and one from B.

Farnesoid X receptor deficiency improves glucose homeostasis in mouse models of obesity.

Objective: Bile acids (BA) participate in the maintenance of metabolic homeostasis acting through different signaling pathways. The nuclear BA receptor farnesoid X receptor (FXR) regulates pathways in BA, lipid, glucose, and energy metabolism, which become dysregulated in obesity. However, the role of FXR in obesity and associated complications, such as dyslipidemia and insulin resistance, has not been directly assessed.

Clinical outcomes of natalizumab-associated progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy.

Objective: Natalizumab, a therapy for multiple sclerosis (MS), has been associated with progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), a rare opportunistic infection of the CNS associated with the JC virus. We assessed clinical outcomes and identified variables associated with survival in 35 patients with natalizumab-associated PML.

Methods: Physicians provided Karnofsky scores and narrative descriptions of clinical status.

Upgrading time domain FLIM using an adaptive Monte Carlo data inflation algorithm.

Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging Microscopy (FLIM) is a powerful technique to investigate the local environment of fluorophores in living cells. To correctly estimate all lifetime parameters, time domain FLIM imaging requires a high number of photons and consequently long laser exposure times. This is an issue because long exposure times are incompatible with the observation of dynamic molecular events and induce cellular stress.

Reading action word affects the visual perception of biological motion.

In the present study, we investigate whether reading an action-word can influence subsequent visual perception of biological motion. The participant's task was to perceptually judge whether a human action identifiable in the biological motion of a point-light display embedded in a high density mask was present or not in the visual sequence, which lasted for 633 ms on average. Prior to the judgement task, participants were exposed to an abstract verb or an action verb for 500 ms, which was related to the human action according to a congruent or incongruent semantic relation.

EMBO workshop on immunology and metabolism.

Recent findings have identified roles for the immune system in what were previously considered to be prototypic metabolic diseases, and metabolic control has emerged as an important determinant of immune function. Giovanna Chimini, Lee Leserman, Diane Mathis and Philippe Naquet organized the EMBO Workshop on Immunology & Metabolism, which took place in January 2011 at the Centre d'Immunologie de Marseille-Luminy (CIML) in Marseille, France. The meeting brought together approximately 100 scientists to discuss interactions between metabolism and inflammation.

The conservative management of severe caustic gastric injuries.

Objective: To determine the safety of a conservative approach to treating severe caustic injury in patients lacking clinical and biochemical signs of transmural necrosis.

Background: Esophagogastrectomy is thought to limit the progression of severe caustic injury in the upper gastrointestinal tract observed upon initial endoscopic examination. However, endoscopic evaluation of the depth and spread of necrosis is challenging and may lead to unnecessary gastrectomy.

Physical activity patterns in French youth--from childhood to adolescence--monitored with high-frequency accelerometry.

Objectives: To investigate changes in time spent in light (LPA), moderate (MPA), vigorous (VPA), very high physical activity (VHPA) from childhood to adolescence, according to age and sex, when measured with high frequency accelerometry.

Methods: Three hundred and sixty-one children, 94 preschoolers (Ps), 156 from primary schools (PS) and 111 from junior high schools (JHS)) were involved in this study. The children's physical activity was assessed with a uniaxial accelerometer over a seven-day period.

Pancreatic serous cystadenoma with compression of the main pancreatic duct: an unusual entity.

Serous cystadenoma is a common benign neoplasm that can be managed without surgery in asymptomatic patients provided that the diagnosis is certain. We describe a patient, whose pancreatic cyst exhibited a radiological appearance distinct from that of typical serous cystadenoma, resulting in diagnostic difficulties. CT and MRI showed a 10 cm-polycystic tumor with upstream dilatation of the main pancreatic duct (MPD), suggestive of intraductal papillary mucinous tumor (IPMT).

Preparative enantiomeric separation of new selective CB2 receptor agonists by liquid chromatography on polysaccharide-based chiral stationary phases: determination of enantiomeric purity and assignment of absolute stereochemistry by X-ray structure analysis.

The development of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) methods using derivatized amylose chiral stationary phases has permitted preparative enantioseparations of substituted 4-oxo-1,4-dihydroquinoline-3-carboxamide derivatives with satisfactory yields. These compounds constitute new potent selective agonists of the cannabinoid CB(2) receptor. Analytical enantioseparation methods using UV detection were validated to determine the enantiomeric purity of these compounds.

Impaired recognition of fear in voices and reduced anxiety after unilateral temporal lobe resection.

It has been reported that bilateral amygdala damage in humans compromises the recognition of fear and anger in nonverbal vocalizations (Scott et al., 1997). We addressed the possibility that unilateral temporal lobe damage might be sufficient to impair fear recognition in voices.

Bile acid sequestrants: glucose-lowering mechanisms.

Bile acids are not only intestinal detergents, but also act as signaling molecules to control bile acid and metabolic homeostasis. By binding to the nuclear receptor farnesoid X receptor (FXR) or the membrane receptor TGR5, bile acids regulate lipid, glucose, and energy metabolism. The removal of bile acids from the enterohepatic cycle by orally administered sequestrants, nonabsorbable resins that complex bile acids in the intestinal lumen, is an effective treatment to reduce plasma cholesterol concentrations in dyslipidemia.

The effect of musical experience on emotional self-reports and psychophysiological responses to dissonance.

To study the influence of musical education on emotional reactions to dissonance, we examined self-reports and physiological responses to dissonant and consonant musical excerpts in listeners with low (LE: n=15) and high (HE: n=13) musical experience. The results show that dissonance induces more unpleasant feelings and stronger physiological responses in HE than in LE participants, suggesting that musical education reinforces aversion to dissonance. Skin conductance (SCR) and electromyographic (EMG) signals were analyzed according to a defense cascade model, which takes into account two successive time windows corresponding to orienting and defense responses.

Nuclear receptors linking circadian rhythms and cardiometabolic control.

Many behavioral and physiological processes, including locomotor activity, blood pressure, body temperature, sleep (fasting)/wake (feeding) cycles, and metabolic regulation display diurnal rhythms. The biological clock ensures proper metabolic alignment of energy substrate availability and processing. Studies in animals and humans highlight a strong link between circadian disorders and altered metabolic responses and cardiovascular events.

Reproducibility of measurement of muscle deoxygenation in children during exercise.

This study was designed to test the reproducibility of muscle oxygenation by NIRS in children during exercise. Twelve healthy non-obese and non-trained children performed one maximal graded test, and four 6-min constant load cycle exercises. Deoxy-hemoglobin (Hb/Mb- H+) data were averaged every 1, 5, 10, 20 and 30s.

Recognising haemorrhagic rash in children with fever: a survey of parents' knowledge.

Background: Early recognition and treatment of meningococcal disease improves its outcome. Haemorrhagic rash is one of the most specific signs that parents can learn to recognise.

Objective: To determine the percentage of parents able to recognise a haemorrhagic rash and perform the tumbler test.

Frequency of abdominal aortic aneurysm in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting.

The aims of this study were to clarify the prevalence and the risk factors for unsuspected abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) in patients who underwent coronary artery bypass grafting for severe coronary artery disease and to identify the most at risk patients for AAA. Among 217 patients (189 men, mean age 64 +/- 11 years), asymptomatic AAAs, as prospectively identified by echocardiography, were found in 15 patients (6.9%).