Suchergebnisse

Intravesical instillation of bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) is used to treat superficial bladder cancer, either papillary tumors (after transurethral resection) or high-grade flat carcinomas (carcinoma in situ), reducing recurrence in about 70% of patients. Initially, BCG was proposed to work through an inflammatory response, mediated by phagocytic uptake of mycobacterial antigens and cytokine release. More recently, other immune effectors such as monocytes, natural killer (NK), and NKT cells have been suggested to play a role in this immune response. Here, we provide a comprehensive study of multiple bladder cancer cell lines as putative targets for immune cells and evaluated their recognition by NK cells in the presence and absence of BCG. We describe that different bladder cancer cells can express multiple activating and inhibitory ligands for NK cells. Recognition of bladder cancer cells depended mainly on NKG2D, with a contribution from NKp46. Surprisingly, exposure to BCG did not affect the immune phenotype of bladder cells nor increased NK cell recognition of purified IL-2-activated cell lines. However, NK cells were activated efficiently when BCG was included in mixed lymphocyte cultures, suggesting that NK activation after mycobacteria treatment requires the collaboration of various immune cells. We also analyzed the percentage of NK cells in peripheral blood of a cohort of bladder cancer patients treated with BCG. The total numbers of NK cells did not vary during treatment, indicating that a more detailed study of NK cell activation in the tumor site will be required to evaluate the response in each patient. ; This work was supported by grants from Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria [PI11/00298] [PS09/00181]; from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity (MINECO) [SAF2012-32293], and from the Regional Government of Madrid [grant number S2010/BMD-2326 INMUNOTHERCAN]; EG-C was a recipient from a fellowship from Fundación La Caixa and received the Immunotools IT-special-Award 2014; SL-C was a recipient from a fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Education, partially supported by CSIC [grant 201020E086 (to MV-G)] and received the Immunotools IT-BOX-139 award 2012; GR-C was a recipient of a JAE-predoc fellowship from CSIC; RC-C was supported by a BBSRC studentship; MR was funded by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Spanish Cancer Foundation (AECC). ; Peer reviewed ; Peer Reviewed

[Background] The European mink (Mustela lutreola, L. 1761) is a critically endangered mustelid, which inhabits several main river drainages in Europe. Here, we assess the genetic variation of existing populations of this species, including new sampling sites and additional molecular markers (newly developed microsatellite loci specific to European mink) as compared to previous studies. Probabilistic analyses were used to examine genetic structure within and between existing populations, and to infer phylogeographic processes and past demography. ; [Results] According to both mitochondrial and nuclear microsatellite markers, Northeastern (Russia, Estonia and Belarus) and Southeastern (Romania) European populations showed the highest intraspecific diversity. In contrast, Western European (France and Spain) populations were the least polymorphic, featuring a unique mitochondrial DNA haplotype. The high differentiation values detected between Eastern and Western European populations could be the result of genetic drift in the latter due to population isolation and reduction. Genetic differences among populations were further supported by Bayesian clustering and two main groups were confirmed (Eastern vs. Western Europe) along with two contained subgroups at a more local scale (Northeastern vs. Southeastern Europe; France vs. Spain). ; [Conclusions] Genetic data and performed analyses support a historical scenario of stable European mink populations, not affected by Quaternary climate oscillations in the Late Pleistocene, and posterior expansion events following river connections in both North- and Southeastern European populations. This suggests an eastern refuge during glacial maxima (as already proposed for boreal and continental species). In contrast, Western Europe was colonised more recently following either natural expansions or putative human introductions. Low levels of genetic diversity observed within each studied population suggest recent bottleneck events and stress the urgent need for conservation measures to counteract the demographic decline experienced by the European mink. ; This work was partially funded by three LIFE projects ("Conservación del visón europeo (Mustela lutreola) en "Castilla León" LIFE 00/NAT/E7229, La Rioja" LIFE 00/NAT/E7331 and "Álava" LIFE 00/NAT/E7335), and grants from the Diputación Foral de Álava and the University of the Basque Country (GIU 06/09) awarded to BJGM. The Basque Government (BG) also financed this study (project numbers IT317-10; IT575-13). ; We acknowledge support of the publication fee by the CSIC Open Access Publication Support Initiative through its Unit of Information Resources for Research (URICI). ; Peer Reviewed

Thosea asigna virus (TaV), an insect virus belonging to the Permutatetraviridae family, has a positive-sense single-stranded RNA (ssRNA) genome with two overlapping open reading frames, encoding for the replicase and capsid proteins. The particular TaV replicase includes a structurally unique RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRP) with a sequence permutation in the palm sub-domain, where the active site is anchored. This non-canonical arrangement of the RdRP palm is also found in double-stranded RNA viruses of the Birnaviridae family. Both virus families also share a conserved VPg sequence motif at the polymerase N-terminus which in birnaviruses appears to be used to covalently link a fraction of the replicase molecules to the 5'-end of the genomic segments. Birnavirus VPgs are presumed to be used as primers for replication initiation. Here we have solved the crystal structure of the TaV RdRP, the first non-canonical RdRP of a ssRNA virus, in its apo- form and bound to different substrates. The enzyme arranges as a stable dimer maintained by mutual interactions between the active site cleft of one molecule and the flexible N-terminal tail of the symmetrically related RdRP. The latter, partially mimicking the RNA template backbone, is involved in regulating the polymerization activity. As expected from previous sequence-based bioinformatics predictions, the overall architecture of the TaV enzyme shows important resemblances with birnavirus polymerases. In addition, structural comparisons and biochemical analyses reveal unexpected similarities between the TaV RdRP and those of Flaviviruses. In particular, a long loop protruding from the thumb domain towards the central enzyme cavity appears to act as a platform for de novo initiation of RNA replication. Our findings strongly suggest an unexpected evolutionary relationship between the RdRPs encoded by these distant ssRNA virus groups. ; Work in Barcelona was supported by grant BIO2011-24333 from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and by the SILVER Large Scale Collaborative Project, grant agreement number 260644, of the European Union 7th Framework. Work in Madrid was supported by grant AGL2011-24758 from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness. X-ray data were collected at the ESRF (Grenoble, France) within a Block Allocation Group (BAG Barcelona) and at the SLS (Villigen, Switzerland). Financial support was provided by the ESRF and SLS. DSF was supported by a pre-doctoral fellowship from fundació "La Caixa" ; Peer Reviewed

International audience ; We present Geometric Data Analysis applied to a barometer data survey in order to construct the French "trust space", define groups of French citizens as regards trust and study the evolution of trust over time.The data source stems from the survey entitled "Le baromètre de la confiance politique" ("Barometer of political trust") carried out by the CEVIPOF (Center for political studies in Science Po, Paris). The data have been collected since 2009 on a yearly basis. The samples (about 1,500 persons) are designed to be representative of the French citizens registered to vote.A set of 22 questions that are relevant to 5 themes (trust in political and non-political institutions, economic institutions, interpersonal and personal trust) is selected for this study. The questions are bipolar (19 are coded on a Likert scale with 4 or 5-point and 3 are dichotomous).For constructing the space, we perform correspondence analysis (CA) after doubling the data and we weight the questions in order to balance the importance of themes. Individuals of Wave 1 (2009) are put as active individuals (reference wave), the ones of other waves are supplementary elements. Then, for studying the evolution of each question, we compute the weighted mean of the principal coordinates of individuals of each wave.For defining groups of individuals, we proceed to Euclidean clustering (AHC, Ward's method) using the same distance between individuals than the one used in CA. The clustering is performed on the individuals of Wave 1; individuals of the other waves (2012, 2013 and 2014) are assigned to clusters. We propose a strategy for assigning supplementary objects to clusters stemming from an AHC. The assignment will be made downwards based upon the superior hierarchy at the local level of a node to one of its two successors until a cluster of the partition under study is reached. For each node, we define an assignment criterion based on the ratio of distances from the object-point to barycenters of both clusters that make up the node. The distances refer to the Mahalanobis distances associated with each cluster. This ranking rule enables us to take the shape of clusters into account.The methods are implemented in R that can be invoked from SPAD Software.

IntroductionNucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI) is associated with endothelial dysfunction and proinflammatory effects. Maraviroc (MVC) is an antagonist of CCR5 receptor. CCR5 is the receptor of RANTES (Regulated on Activation, Normal T Cell Expressed and Secreted), a mediator of chronic inflammation and endothelial function. Our aim was to evaluate the maintenance of viral suppression and improvement of endothelial function in virologically suppressed HIV‐infected patients switched to an NRTI‐sparing combined antiretroviral therapy (cART) with MVC.Materials and MethodsThis observational, non‐interventional, multicenter study was performed at the Infectious Diseases Service of Santa Lucia, Morales Meseguer, Virgen de la Arrixaca and Reina Sofía University Hospital (Murcia, Spain). The selection criteria were to be asymptomatic on a regimen with undetectable viral load (<50 HIV‐RNA copies/mL) for at least six months, no previous treatment with R5 antagonists, no evidence of previous protease inhibitor (PI) failure and available R5 tropism test. Twenty‐one HIV‐infected patients were selected after the treatment regimen was changed to Maraviroc 150 mg/once daily plus ritonavir‐boosted PI therapy. Endothelial function was prospectively evaluated through flow‐mediated dilatation (FMD) of the brachial artery at baseline and at weeks 24.ResultsWe included 21 patients on treatment with PI in combination with 2 NRTI. The mean cART exposition was 133±68.9 months. Fourteen (66.6%) were males, aged 49±9 years, 15 (71.4%) smokers, 4 (19.04%) family history of coronary heart disease, 1 (5.76%) type 2 diabetes and 3 (14.28%) hypertensive, mean total cholesterol was 185.5±35 mg/dL, c‐LDL 100.2±37 mg/dL, tryglicerides 170.42±92.03 mg/dL, cHDL 52.6±15.5 mg/dL, CD4 779,5±383.28 cells/mL, nadir CD4 187,96±96 cells/mL. After 24 weeks of follow‐up of a switch to an NRTI‐sparing regimen, 95.2% of HIV‐patients on viral suppressive cART maintained viral suppression and CD4+ T cell count. This cART switch improve endothelial function in patients with lower baseline FMD levels after 24 weeks (baseline FMD −1.19±4.84 % to 24 weeks FMD 11.32±7.27%; p=0.002).ConclusionsThe results of our study show that a switch to an NRTI‐sparing bi‐therapy with MVC improves endothelial function and maintained the immune‐virologic efficacy. This regimen emphasizes the needs for further clinical studies to associate these achievements with the incidence of non‐AIDS‐defining illnesses.

Urban governance as a concept has been evolving in the urban policy discourse in the last decades in the context of developing countries, from emphasising the role of formal government to the myriad of arrangements in urban development and management. Even though the outcomes are varied among countries in coping with rapid urbanisation, governments of developing countries maintain conventional planning and development system. As a result, urban space is subsequently produced by part of the urban population who have little concern and interest with formal planning rules, and by implication are excluded from such rules and regulations. Recent planning literature confirms that urban informality is now a major mode of urbanisation. Rapid urban growth experienced by Indonesia during the last decades has resulted in an imbalanced growth among islands in this country. Urbanisation has contributed to a widening disparity between megacities in Java and outer islands, with Papua Province the least developed province in Indonesia. Furthermore, Indonesia has to deal with problems of "unplanned areas" or "urban informality" in which formal planning system has operated ineffectively. Capital of Papua, Jayapura, in contrast, has experienced significant urban growth since 1990s with annual growth higher than provincial and national levels. However, issues of limited resources, limited implementation of formal spatial plans and policies in Jayapura, and rapid urban growth lead this city to problems in controlling urbanisation, including the rise of urban informality. This paper is aimed at exploring the outcomes of formal planning system in urban service provision, based on case study of mid-sized city Jayapura, including the role of stakeholders involved inside and outside the formal system. An analysis on proportion of resource allocation deployed by the city government as well as spatial analysis on distribution of urban service provision are utilised to provide an understanding about how the formal and informal mechanisms have been evolving in shaping the city. This paper concludes that in the both planned and unplanned areas, there are a variety of methods and mechanisms in used in urban service provision that enabling access and flexibility for the urban population in fulfilling their basic urban needs. ; Eje 3: Derecho a la ciudad: mutaciones, recomposiciones, adaptaciones, reformulaciones. ; Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo

Understanding long-term fire ecology is essential for current day interpretation of ecosystem fire responses. However palaeoecology of fire is still poorly understood, especially at high-altitude mountain environments, despite the fact that these are fire-sensitive ecosystems and their resilience might be affected by changing fire regimes. We reconstruct wildfire occurrence since the Lateglacial (14.7. cal. ka BP) to the Mid-Holocene (6. cal. ka BP) and investigate the climate-fuel-fire relationships in a sedimentary sequence located at the treeline in the Central Spanish Pyrenees. Pollen, macro- and micro-charcoal were analysed for the identification of fire events (FE) in order to detect vegetation post-fire response and to define biomass-fire interactions. mean fire intervals (mfi) reduced since the Lateglacial, peaking at 9-7.7. cal. ka BP while from 7.7 to 6. cal. ka BP no fire is recorded. We hypothesise that Early Holocene maximum summer insolation, as climate forcing, and mesophyte forest expansion, as a fuel-creating factor, were responsible for accelerating fire occurrence in the Central Pyrenees treeline. We also found that fire had long-lasting negative effects on most of the treeline plant communities and that forest contraction from 7.7. cal. ka BP is likely linked to the ecosystem's threshold response to high fire frequencies. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. ; This research has been funded by the projects DINAMO (CGL2009-07992) (funding EGPF — grant ref. BES-2010-038593 and MSC), DINAMO2 (CGL2012-33063), ARAFIRE (2012 GA LC 064), GRACCIE-CONSOLIDER (CSD2007-00067). GGR was funded by the Juan de la Cierva Program (grant ref. JCI2009-04345) and JAE-Doc CSIC Program, LLM was supported by a postdoctoral MINT fellowship funded by the Institute for the Environment (Brunel University), AMC is a Ramón y Cajal fellow (ref: RYC-2008-02431), APS holds a grant funded by the Aragon Government (ref. 17030G/5423/480072/14003) and JAE holds a grant funded by the Basque Country Government (BFI-2010-5). We are indebted to Beatriz Bueno and Aida Adsuar for sampling processing and laboratory analyses and to César Morales del Molino for productive discussions on the ideas of this paper. We are grateful to Steven M. Holland for providing the free software to calculate rarefaction (Analytic Rarefaction), which is available at http://strata.uga.edu/software/. ; Peer Reviewed

The injection of supercritical carbon dioxide (CO2) in deep saline aquifers leads to the formation of a CO2 rich phase plume that tends to float over the resident brine. As pressure builds up, CO2 density will increase because of its high compressibility. Current analytical solutions do not account for CO2 compressibility and consider a volumetric injection rate that is uniformly distributed along the whole thickness of the aquifer, which is unrealistic. Furthermore, the slope of the CO2 pressure with respect to the logarithm of distance obtained from these solutions differs from that of numerical solutions. We develop a semianalytical solution for the CO2 plume geometry and fluid pressure evolution, accounting for CO2 compressibility and buoyancy effects in the injection well, so CO2 is not uniformly injected along the aquifer thickness. We formulate the problem in terms of a CO2 potential that facilitates solution in horizontal layers, with which we discretize the aquifer. Capillary pressure is considered at the interface between the CO2 rich phase and the aqueous phase. When a prescribed CO2 mass flow rate is injected, CO2 advances initially through the top portion of the aquifer. As CO2 is being injected, the CO2 plume advances not only laterally, but also vertically downwards. However, the CO2 plume does not necessarily occupy the whole thickness of the aquifer. We found that even in the cases in which the CO2 plume reaches the bottom of the aquifer, most of the injected CO2 enters the aquifer through the layers at the top. Both CO2 plume position and fluid pressure compare well with numerical simulations. This solution permits quick evaluations of the CO2 plume position and fluid pressure distribution when injecting supercritical CO2 in a deep saline aquifer. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. ; This work has been funded by Fundación Ciudad de la Energía (Spanish Government) (www.ciuden.es) and 35 by the European Union through the "European Energy Programme for Recovery" and the Compostilla OXYCFB300 project. We also want to acknowledge the financial support received from the 'MUSTANG' (www.co2mustang.eu) and 'PANACEA' (www.panacea-co2.org) projects (from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreements nº 227286 and nº 282900, respectively). ; Peer Reviewed

Polybromodiphenyl ethers (PBDEs), including the decabromodiphenyl congener (BDE-209), were determined in the serum of 731 individuals from a general adult population (18-74. years) collected in 2002 in Catalonia (north-eastern Spain). The BDE-209 was the predominant congener (median 3.7. ng/g lipid) followed by BDE-47 (2.6. ng/g lipid) and BDE-99 (1.2. ng/g lipid). PBDEs in this population (median 15.4. ng/g lipid) ranked amongst the highest of previously described concentrations in populations in Europe, Asia, New Zealand and Australia, yet it was lower than those found in North American reports. Age was clearly the socio-demographic factor of highest influence on the PBDE distributions. However, unlike usual trends of higher accumulation of POPs through age, the higher concentrations were found in young individuals (< 30. years) rather than in adults (≥ 30. years), with differences of 14%, 31% and 46% in the most abundant congeners (i.e. BDE-209, BDE-99 and BDE-47, respectively). This age-dependent distribution of PBDEs (including the case for BDE-209, which is shown for the first time in this study) is explained by the higher and widespread use of these compounds since the 1980s. In view that these compounds remain highly used, this accumulation pattern is likely to evolve, anticipating an increasing level of PBDE concentrations in future general population surveys, yet probably assuming an age-dependent increase pattern. Socio-economic level was also a determinant of BDE-47 concentrations, but only relevant for the least affluent class, suggesting that lifestyle and environmental conditions in the dwelling place may also contribute to exposure. Nonetheless, gender, body mass index, place of birth, parity and education level did not show any statistically significant influence on the observed PBDE distributions. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ; This study was funded by the Department of Health of the Government of Catalonia, the Foundation La Marató de TV3 (grant No. 090431), the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (Consolider Ingenio GRACCIE, CSD2007-00067) and the EU funded project ArcRisk (FP7-ENV-2008-1-226534). The paper was also sponsored by the research group 2009SGR1178 from the Government of Catalonia. M.C. is grateful for a grant from the JAE Predoctoral program (CSIC). R. Chaler, D. Fanjul and M. Comesaña are thanked for their kind support with the GC–MS analyses. ; Peer Reviewed

Starting from the Mexican state´s and capitalism´s overall performance in democracy and development, this study addresses two types of social relationships that have shaped the country´s evolution over the twentieth century: those unleashed from the Constitution of 1917 to now, which are called the historical or postrevolutionary relationships, and those just rising at the turn to the twentieth- first century, named as the emerging or post-postrevolutionary relationships. Both relationships take place through a series of state and capitalist processes overlapping in the spheres of politics, production and policymaking. The historical relationships are identified as two national productive restructurings, eight processes and two phenomena. The two productive restructurings are those undertaken by Presidents Cárdenas and De La Madrid in 1935 and 1983 respectfully. The eight processes are those of (i) presidentialism, (ii) corporatism, (iii) statism, (iv) democratism as well as (v) free-marketism, (vi) urban-regional-rural unbalances, (vii) technological lag, and (viii) human development. As for the two phenomena, they are arbitralism and developmentalism and work superimposed on the two restructurings and the eight processes, thereby controlling the configuration and action of the postrevolutionary stage. The emerging relationships are taking shape in the last years as a path-dependent succession of historical and current trends, oligarchic disputes, state/market incapacities and "failures", socioproductive struggles and sociopolitical movements, all of them profiling the evolution of domestic capitalism and regularizing the making of democracy and development in Mexico. Based on both historical and emerging relationships, an exercise of interpretation, conceptualization and prospection of the national unfolding is made, in order to comprehend the dynamics of continuity and change underlying Mexico´s course. Then it is stated that the phenomena of arbitralism and developmentalism engendered a (postrevolutionary) Regime of Political Capitalism and Subcapitalism, which exhaustion is generating a (post-postrevolutionary) new Regime of Balancing Capitalism and Balanced Development. The transition between both regimes is profiling a pathway for a (national) political order of Demdevelopment as a superior dimension of achieving growth, wellbeing, governance and progress in Mexico. Tellingly, this pathway is endowed with a policymaking choice to undertake a demdevelopmental Third Restructuring of national capitalism and state, as a first re-organizational step towards demdevelopment.

International audience ; BACKGROUND:Salmonella enterica is a major global food-borne pathogen, causing life-threatening infections. Ciprofloxacin and extended-spectrum cephalosporins (ESCs) are the drugs of choice for severe infections. We previously reported a ciprofloxacin-resistant S. enterica serotype Kentucky (S Kentucky) ST198-X1 strain that emerged in Egypt and spread throughout Africa and the Middle East from 2002 to 2008. We aimed to monitor recent trends in the location of transmission and antimicrobial resistance of this strain.METHODS:We analysed isolates of S Kentucky collected by the French national surveillance system for salmonellosis in France from Jan 1, 2000, to Dec 31, 2011, and at two sites in Casablanca, Morocco, between Jan 1, 2003, and Dec 31, 2011. We analysed patterns of travel of patients infected with a ciprofloxacin-resistant strain of S Kentucky. We identified isolates showing resistance to ESCs or decreased susceptibility to carbapenems, characterised isolates by XbaI-pulsed field gel electrophoresis and multilocus sequence typing, and assessed mechanisms of bacterial resistance to antimicrobial drugs.FINDINGS:954 (1%) of 128,836 serotyped Salmonella spp isolates in France were identified as S Kentucky, as were 30 (13%) of 226 Salmonella spp isolates from Morocco. During 2000-08, 200 (40%) of 497 subculturable isolates of S Kentucky obtained in France were resistant to ciprofloxacin, compared with 376 (83%) of 455 isolates in 2009-11, suggesting a recent increase in ciprofloxacin resistance in France. Travel histories suggested S Kentucky infections originated predominantly in east Africa, north Africa, west Africa, and the Middle East, but also arose in India. We report several occurrences of acquisition of extended-spectrum β-lactamase (CTX-M-1, CTX-M-15), plasmid-encoded cephalosporinase (CMY-2), or carbapenemase (OXA-48, VIM-2) genes by ciprofloxacin-resistant isolates of S Kentucky ST198-X1 from the Mediterranean area since 2009. Many of these highly drug-resistant isolates were also resistant to most aminoglycosides, to co-trimoxazole (trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole), and to azithromycin.INTERPRETATION:The potential risk to public health posed by ciprofloxacin-resistant S Kentucky ST198-X1 warrants its inclusion in national programmes for the control of S. enterica in food-producing animals, in particular in poultry.FUNDING:Institut Pasteur, Institut de Veille Sanitaire, Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale, French Government Investissement d'Avenir programme.

Clear understanding of coupled hydromechanical effects, such as ground deformation, induced microseismicity and fault reactivation, will be crucial to convince the public that geologic carbon storage is secure. These effects depend on hydromechanical properties, which are usually determined at metric scale. However, their value at the field scale may differ in orders of magnitude. To address this shortcoming, we propose a hydromechanical characterization test to estimate the hydromechanical properties of the aquifer and caprock at the field scale. We propose injecting water at high pressure and, possibly, low temperature while monitoring fluid pressure and rock deformation. Here, we analyze the problem and perform numerical simulations and a dimensional analysis of the hydromechanical equations to obtain curves for overpressure and vertical displacement as a function of the volumetric strain term. We find that these curves do not depend much on the Poisson ratio, except for the dimensionless vertical displacement at the top of the caprock, which does. We can then estimate the values of the Young's modulus and the Poisson ratio of the aquifer and the caprock by introducing field measurements in these plots. Hydraulic parameters can be determined from the interpretation of fluid pressure evolution in the aquifer. Reverse-water level fluctuations are observed, i.e. fluid pressure drops in the caprock as a result of the induced deformation that undergoes the aquifer-caprock system when injecting in the aquifer. We find that induced microseismicity is more likely to occur in the aquifer than in the caprock and depends little on their stiffness. Monitoring microseismicity is a useful tool to track the opening of fractures. The propagation pattern depends on the stress regime, i.e. normal, strike slip or reverse faulting. The onset of microseismicity in the caprock can be used to define the maximum sustainable injection pressure to ensure a permanent CO2 storage. ; This work has been funded by Fundación Ciudad de la Energía (Spanish Government) (www.ciuden.es) through the project ALM/09/018 and by the European Union through the "European Energy Programme for Recovery" and the Compostilla OXYCFB300 project. We also want to acknowledge the financial support received from the 'MUSTANG' (www.co2mustang.eu) and 'PANACEA' (www.panacea-co2.org) projects (from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013 under grant agreements n° 227286 and n° 282900, respectively). ; Peer reviewed

19 Pags. The definitive version, with 2 Tabls. and 6 Figs., is available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-1085 ; The correct use of the tension disc infiltrometer requires the membrane of the disc base to be completely in contact with the soil surface. To achieve this contact, a thick layer of sand is commonly placed between the soil surface and the disc base. This paper presents an alternative disc (MDB), which, by incorporating a malleable membrane, allows direct infiltration measurements without using a contact sand layer. Infiltration curves obtained with this new design in a soil under three different tillage management treatments were compared with the corresponding curves obtained with a conventional disc (CDB) that uses a contact sand layer. The cumulative infiltration curves measured with CDB were analysed by the differentiated linearization (DL) method, and the corresponding curves obtained with MDB were analysed using both the DL and the cumulative linearization (CL) models. The values of hydraulic conductivity (K0) and sorptivity (S0) estimated with CDB were also compared with those obtained with MDB. Finally, the cumulative infiltration curves measured with CDB and MDB were compared with the corresponding modelled function for the respective K0 and S0 values calculated with the CL and DL models. The results show that, compared with CDB without a contact sand layer, MDB allows complete soil surface wetting even when non-smoothed soil surfaces are used. The CDB, which yielded average K0 values 18% lower than those estimated with MDB, gave the highest values of standard error for the hydraulic parameters calculated. Furthermore, the subjective method employed in the CDB-DL technique, which requires the first points of the differential infiltration line corresponding to the sand layer to be manually removed, introduces additional uncertainties in estimating S0 and K0. Comparison between the modelled and measured infiltration curves demonstrates that the DL or CL methods applied to MDB gave excellent estimates of S0 and K0. ; This research was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación of Spain (grant AGL2010-22050-C03-02) and by the Aragón regional government and La Caixa (grant GA-LC020/2010). ; Peer reviewed

International audience ; BACKGROUND:Salmonella enterica is a major global food-borne pathogen, causing life-threatening infections. Ciprofloxacin and extended-spectrum cephalosporins (ESCs) are the drugs of choice for severe infections. We previously reported a ciprofloxacin-resistant S. enterica serotype Kentucky (S Kentucky) ST198-X1 strain that emerged in Egypt and spread throughout Africa and the Middle East from 2002 to 2008. We aimed to monitor recent trends in the location of transmission and antimicrobial resistance of this strain.METHODS:We analysed isolates of S Kentucky collected by the French national surveillance system for salmonellosis in France from Jan 1, 2000, to Dec 31, 2011, and at two sites in Casablanca, Morocco, between Jan 1, 2003, and Dec 31, 2011. We analysed patterns of travel of patients infected with a ciprofloxacin-resistant strain of S Kentucky. We identified isolates showing resistance to ESCs or decreased susceptibility to carbapenems, characterised isolates by XbaI-pulsed field gel electrophoresis and multilocus sequence typing, and assessed mechanisms of bacterial resistance to antimicrobial drugs.FINDINGS:954 (1%) of 128,836 serotyped Salmonella spp isolates in France were identified as S Kentucky, as were 30 (13%) of 226 Salmonella spp isolates from Morocco. During 2000-08, 200 (40%) of 497 subculturable isolates of S Kentucky obtained in France were resistant to ciprofloxacin, compared with 376 (83%) of 455 isolates in 2009-11, suggesting a recent increase in ciprofloxacin resistance in France. Travel histories suggested S Kentucky infections originated predominantly in east Africa, north Africa, west Africa, and the Middle East, but also arose in India. We report several occurrences of acquisition of extended-spectrum β-lactamase (CTX-M-1, CTX-M-15), plasmid-encoded cephalosporinase (CMY-2), or carbapenemase (OXA-48, VIM-2) genes by ciprofloxacin-resistant isolates of S Kentucky ST198-X1 from the Mediterranean area since 2009. Many of these highly drug-resistant isolates were also resistant to most aminoglycosides, to co-trimoxazole (trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole), and to azithromycin.INTERPRETATION:The potential risk to public health posed by ciprofloxacin-resistant S Kentucky ST198-X1 warrants its inclusion in national programmes for the control of S. enterica in food-producing animals, in particular in poultry.FUNDING:Institut Pasteur, Institut de Veille Sanitaire, Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale, French Government Investissement d'Avenir programme.

El pdf del artículo es la versión pre-print. ; Tensile strength (TS) of soil aggregates is recognized as a useful parameter to detect structural changes associated with soil management. Although conservation tillage has been encouraged as a management alternative to preserve soil and water resources in semiarid Aragon (NE Spain), little information concerning soils on which these techniques are applied is available for this region. The main objective of this study was to assess the effect of long-term no tillage (NT) on TS, rupture energy (E) and organiccarbon (OC) of soil surface aggregates (0–5 cm depth) in five different cereal production areas of Aragon. In four of the sites, the study was conducted under on-farm conditions where pairs of adjacent fields under NT and conventional tillage (CT) were compared. In the last site, the study was carried out in research plots from a long-term tillage experiment where a third tillage treatment was also considered (reduced tillage). In all cases, a nearby undisturbed soil under native vegetation was included. Results indicate that NT reduced aggregate TS and E with respect to CT systems through lower soil disturbance and higher OC content. Aggregate size (16–8, 8–4, 4–2 and 2–1 mm in diameter) and aggregate-associated OC explained 70–80% of the variation in TS and E. Strength properties varied with OC in quadratic way with minimum values at about 20 g kg− 1 of OC. This behavior can be explained by the significant interactions found between clay and OC in such a way that in the soils with the highest values of clay and OC, aggregate strength increased considerably. This study shows that, under the rainfed conditions of semiarid Aragon, NT improves soil physical conditions by reducing aggregatestrength at the soil surface. This means, for example, that NT could provide a more favorable environment for seedling emergence and root growth than the traditional practices in the area. ; This research was supported by the Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología of Spain (grants AGL2010-22050-CO3-02/AGR and AGL2007-66320-C02-02/AGR) and the European Union (FEDER funds). N. Blanco-Moure was awarded with a FPI fellowship by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. ; Peer reviewed