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French Guiana (FG), a French overseas territory in South America, is susceptible to tropical diseases, including arboviruses. The tropical climate supports the proliferation and establishment of vectors, making it difficult to control transmission. In the last ten years, FG has experienced large outbreaks of imported arboviruses such as Chikungunya and Zika, as well as endemic arboviruses such as dengue, Yellow fever, and Oropouche virus. Epidemiological surveillance is challenging due to the differing distributions and behaviors of vectors. This article aims to summarize the current knowledge of these arboviruses in FG and discuss the challenges of arbovirus emergence and reemergence. Effective control measures are hampered by the nonspecific clinical presentation of these diseases, as well as the Aedes aegypti mosquito’s resistance to insecticides. Despite the high seroprevalence of certain viruses, the possibility of new epidemics cannot be ruled out. Therefore, active epidemiological surveillance is needed to identify potential outbreaks, and an adequate sentinel surveillance system and broad virological diagnostic panel are being developed in FG to improve disease management.

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) mission is to deliver high-quality global medium-range numerical weather predictions and monitoring of the Earth system to its member states. The modelling and forecasting of natural hazards are an important part of this mission. Challenges in this area include the integration of innovative observations into the Earth system; realistic representations of water, energy and carbon cycles; coupling and initialisation of all Earth system components; adequate representation of uncertainties; supporting the development of user-specific products to enable optimal decision-making under uncertainties; and advances in software engineering. The new ECMWF strategy identified three pillars to sustain its future development (ECMWF, 2021a): science and technology (world-leading weather and Earth system science, cutting-edge technology and computational science), impact (high-quality products fit for purpose, efficient and easy access to products), and people (inspiring and hiring the best experts). Progress in all these areas will need enhanced collaboration with member states and partners across Europe and beyond.

Abstract Although captive breeding programs are valuable for conservation, they have been shown to be associated with genetic changes, such as adaptation to captivity or inbreeding. In addition, reproductive performance is strongly age-dependent in most animal species. These mechanisms that potentially impact reproduction have often been studied separately, while their interactions have rarely been addressed. In this study, using a large dataset of nine male and female reproductive parameters measured for 12,295 captive houbara bustards (Chlamydotis undulata undulata) over 24 years, we investigated the relative and interactive effects of age, inbreeding and number of generations in captivity on reproduction. We clearly identified (1) senescence patterns in all parameters studied; (2) negative effects of inbreeding on sperm characteristics, display behavior, egg weight, egg volume and hatching probability; and (3) changes in phenotypic values for seven parameters according to number of generations in captivity. However, the effect sizes associated with age were substantially greater than those associated with inbreeding and number of generations in captivity. Beyond the independent effects of these three factors on reproductive parameters, the results highlighted their interactive effects and thus the importance of integrating them in the design of genetic management plans for conservation breeding programs.

BackgroundAlthough the simplification of antiretroviral (AVR) treatment regimens and follow-up has led to fewer constraints for patients with HIV, their follow-up remains of paramount importance to optimize AVR therapy, to detect and prevent HIV-related morbidity, and prevent secondary infections. The problem of follow-up interruption in French Guiana has been persistent and seemingly impervious to efforts to alleviate it.ObjectiveThe objective was to follow the trend of follow-up interruptions and to test the hypothesis that an increasing number of patients was, in fact, followed by private practitioners.MethodUsing the complementary lenses of the hospital HIV cohort and the health insurance information system, we looked at the incidence of follow-up interruption and the proportion of patients followed by private practitioners.ResultsWe tallied 803 persons that were not known to have died and who were lost to follow-up. Over time, hospital outpatients were lost to follow-up significantly sooner. By contrast, there was a significant trend with more and more patients exclusively followed by private practitioners.ConclusionWhile hospital outpatient care remains by far the most common mode of patient care, there seems to be a gradual erosion of this model in favor of private practice.

While anxiety as a category is often used to designate a bodily sensation of discomfort peculiar to the individual, this issue of Tracés proposes to look at anxiety as a regime of experience in the face of uncertainty, no longer using the tools of psychoanalysis but those of the human and social sciences. The articles in the issue thus address the logics underlying the modes of manifestation of anxiety, taking into account their dimensions, which are at once corporeal, discursive and aesthetic, in original articles, an interview and a graphic work. The editorial returns in particular to the question of the socially situated nature of the expression of anguish, depending both on an institutional context and individual dispositions, but also their gendered aspect. However, analysing the manifestations of anxiety implies first of all questioning the conditions of its objectivation in medical discourse but also by the human and social sciences in all their diversity. If psychoanalytical discourse has imposed itself throughout the 20th century as the main vector for thinking of anguish as ontological and in this respect fundamentally different from fear (which is always linked to an object), the contribution of existentialist philosophy (Kierkegaard, in particular) allows us to think of anguish as man’s experimentation with the infinity of possibilities. As a learned category, anguish is also an ordinary category designating an emotion that can be considered as founding as much of a social group as of political modes of action. While anguish tends to be reduced to a process specific to the subject, the bias of our issue has therefore been to rethink this emotion in the light of the collective, that is to say, to make it the sign of a shared emotional regime in a given space and at a given time. If “experiencing anguish” comes out more from the body and the incorporated, to call oneself anguished would be to benefit from categories of understanding of the social world, notably those coming from psychoanalysis, which contribute not only to qualify its relationship to the world as pathological, but rather to affirm in the public space (after the private space) the legitimacy of the tortuous and painful singularity of this relationship.

Application of biostimulant in the form of a spraying requires appropriate selection of technical parameters. One of the key factors in ensuring that the liquid is sprayed correctly is the choice of suitable spray nozzles. This study investigated selected technical parameters of seaweed biostimulant spray applications as a factor for plant biometrics, crop quality and yield, and the economic viability of production. This objective was achieved by conducting a two-year field experiment involving spraying soybean plants with a biostimulant containing seaweed extract. The spraying was carried out with two types of nozzles (standard and air-injector), for which the droplet size and the degree of plant coverage were tested at 4.0 MPa. The surface tension of the spray liquid and the area and volume of the droplets were tested. The height of soybean plants, the height and the position of the first pod, the number of pods, seed yield, and the weight of 1000 seeds were measured. The physical properties of the liquid sprayed on the plants and the type of nozzles used were factors affecting the height of the first pods, plant height, and protein content. The application of biostimulants using standard nozzles is more economically advantageous compared to nozzles with an air-injector.

Research funding institutions in Europe have recently requested a “Data Management Plan” (DMP) from their candidates. In light of this new requirement, the article discusses the history of researchers and their “data”, e.g. the archive of ordinary research work. It analyses the practices of curating research material over time and the evolution of the administrative framework of conservation in the light of digitisation. Considering forms and practices of self-archive, archive donation or bequest, it argues that archives constitute at once the traces, source and background of research practices. While it belongs to this larger history of research archiving, the DMP model introduces changes that are both occupational, economic and political. Accordingly, it may impact the logics at stake in the voluntary making of archival collections in humanities and social sciences.

Background: ICIs have dramatically improved patient outcomes in different malignancies. However, the impact of liver metastases (LM) and number of metastatic sites (MS) remains unclear in patients treated with single-agent anti-PD(L)1. Methods: We aimed to assess the prognostic impact of LM and MS number on progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) in a large single-arm retrospective multicentric cohort (IMMUCARE) of patients treated with anti-PD(L)-1 for different solid tumors. Results: A total of 759 patients were enrolled from January 2012 to October 2018. The primary tumor types were non-small cell lung cancer (71%), melanoma (19%), or urologic cancer (10%). At the time of ICI initiation, 167 patients (22%) had LM and 370 patients (49%) had more than MS. LM was associated with a shorter median PFS of 1.9 months (95% CI: 1.8–2.5) vs. 4.0 months (95% CI: 3.6–5.4) in patients without LM (p < 0.001). The median OS of patients with LM was of 5.2 months (95% CI: 4.0–7.7) compared with 12.8 months (95% CI: 11.2–15.1) (p < 0.001). Interestingly, LM were not associated with shorter PFS, or OS compared to other MS types (brain, bone, or lung) in patients with only one MS. Patients with multiple MS also had poor clinical outcomes compared to patients with only one MS. The presence of LM and MS number were independent prognostic factors on overall survival. Conclusion: The presence of LM or multiple MS were associated with poorer survival outcomes in patients treated with anti-PD(L)-1.

For various species, high quality sequences and complete genomes are nowadays available for many individuals. This makes data analysis challenging, as methods need not only to be accurate, but also time efficient given the tremendous amount of data to process. In this article, we introduce an efficient method to infer the evolutionary history of individuals under the multispecies coalescent model in networks (MSNC). Phylogenetic networks are an extension of phylogenetic trees that can contain reticulate nodes, which allow to model complex biological events such as horizontal gene transfer, hybridization and introgression. We present a novel way to compute the likelihood of biallelic markers sampled along genomes whose evolution involved such events. This likelihood computation is at the heart of a Bayesian network inference method called SnappNet, as it extends the Snapp method inferring evolutionary trees under the multispecies coalescent model, to networks. SnappNet is available as a package of the well-known beast 2 software. Recently, the MCMC_BiMarkers method, implemented in PhyloNet, also extended Snapp to networks. Both methods take biallelic markers as input, rely on the same model of evolution and sample networks in a Bayesian framework, though using different methods for computing priors. However, SnappNet relies on algorithms that are exponentially more time-efficient on non-trivial networks. Using simulations, we compare performances of SnappNet and MCMC_BiMarkers. We show that both methods enjoy similar abilities to recover simple networks, but SnappNet is more accurate than MCMC_BiMarkers on more complex network scenarios. Also, on complex networks, SnappNet is found to be extremely faster than MCMC_BiMarkers in terms of time required for the likelihood computation. We finally illustrate SnappNet performances on a rice data set. SnappNet infers a scenario that is consistent with previous results and provides additional understanding of rice evolution.

Sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL), a rare audiological condition that accounts for 1% of all cases of sensorineural hearing loss, can cause permanent hearing damage. Soon after the launch of global COVID-19 vaccination campaigns, the World Health Organization released a signal detection about SSNHL cases following administration of various COVID-19 vaccines. Post-marketing studies have been conducted in different countries using either pharmacovigilance or medico-administrative databases to investigate SSNHL as a potential adverse effect of COVID-19 vaccines. Here, we examine the advantages and limitations of each type of post-marketing study available. While pharmacoepidemiological studies highlight the potential association between drug exposure and the event, pharmacovigilance approaches enable causality assessment. The latter objective can only be achieved if an expert evaluation is provided using internationally validated diagnostic criteria. For a rare adverse event such as SSNHL, case information and quantification of hearing loss are mandatory for assessing seriousness, severity, delay onset, differential diagnoses, corrective treatment, recovery, as well as functional sequelae. Appropriate methodology should be adopted depending on whether the target objective is to assess a global or individual risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background The aim of this study was to estimate the mean cost per caregiver of informal care during the first year after myocardial infarction event in France. Methods We used the Handicap-Santé French survey carried out in 2008 to obtain data about MI survivors and their caregivers. After obtaining the total number of informal care hours provided by caregiver during the first year after MI event, we estimated the value of informal care using the proxy good method and the contingent valuation method. Results For MI people receiving informal care, an annual mean cost was estimated at €12,404 (SD = 13,012) with the proxy good method and €12,798 (SD = 13,425) with the contingent valuation method per caregiver during the first year after myocardial infarction event. Conclusions The present study suggests that informal care should be included more widely in economic evaluations in order not to underestimate the cost of diseases which induce disability.

We report here the case of a Prosthetic Joint Infection (PJI) associated with Coxiella burnetii in a 62-year-old man with a revised total hip arthroplasty. The diagnosis was performed first by 16S rDNA sequencing on hip fluid aspirate, and confirmed by specific qPCR. Q fever has been reported in few cases of Prosthetic Joint Infections, often associated with chronic evolution and iterative surgeries. This case report alerts about such an unexpected diagnosis in a patient with no known risk factors. Keywords: Prosthetic Joint Infection, Coxiella burnetii, PCR, 16s rDNA sequencing, Persistent infection