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Motor inhibition is considered to be an important process of executive control and to be implicated in numerous activities in order to cancel prepared actions and, supposedly, to suppress ongoing ones. Usually, it is evaluated using a "stop-signal task" in which participants have to inhibit prepared discrete movements. However, it is unknown whether other movement types involve the same inhibition process. We therefore investigated whether the inhibition process for discrete movements is involved in stopping ongoing rhythmic movements as well. Twenty healthy adults performed two counterbalanced tasks. The first task was used to estimate the stop-signal reaction time (SSRTd) needed to inhibit prepared discrete key-pressing movements. In the second task, participants drew graphic patterns on a tablet and had to stop the movement when a stop-signal occurred. We calculated the rhythmic stop signal-reaction time as the time needed to initiate stopping such ongoing rhythmic movement (SSRTr) and the same latency relative to the period of the rhythmic movement (relSSRTr). We measured these delays under different movement frequencies and motor coordination conditions and further investigated whether they varied as a function of several parameters of the rhythmic movements (speed, mean and variance of the relative phase, and movement phase at several time events). We found no correlation between inhibition measures in the two tasks. In contrast, generalized linear models showed a moderate yet significant influence of the motion parameters on the inhibition of ongoing rhythmic movements. We therefore conclude that the motor inhibition processes involved in cancelling prepared discrete movements and stopping ongoing rhythmic movements are dissimilar., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Objective: We evaluated in a prospective study microcomputer nutritional teaching games and their contribution to the children's acquisition of nutritional knowledge and improvement of eating habits., Material and Methods: One thousand eight hundred seventy-six children aged 7-12 years took part in this study at school. All 16 schools of the same school district were randomized into two groups: games group and control group, both receiving conventional nutritional teaching by their teachers. The children in the games group played computer games during the conventional nutritional teaching period (2 hours a week for 5 weeks). At completion of the study, dietetic knowledge and dietary records were evaluated in both groups., Results: Dietary knowledge tests results were better in the games group (p<0.001). The children in the games group had a significantly better balanced diet for an energy intake of about 1900 kilocalories: more carbohydrate (46.4 +/- 0.2% vs 45.7 +/- 0.2%, p<0.05), less fat (37.1 +/- 0.1% vs 37.6 +/- 0.2%, p<0.05), less protein (16.5 +/- 0.1% vs 16.7 +/- 0.1%, p<0.05), less saccharose (11.5 +/- 0.1% vs 12.2 +/- 0.2%, p<0.001), more calcium (p<0.001) and more fiber (p<0.05). The games group had a better snack at 10 a.m., a less copious lunch and less nibbling (p<0.001)., Conclusion: The children in the games group had slightly but significantly better nutritional knowledge and dietary intake compared to children in the control group. Using our micro computer nutritional teaching games at school provides an additional and modern support to conventional teaching.

Objective: To study the efficacy of the nutritional education software, Nutri-Expert, in the management of obese adult patients., Material and Methods: Two groups of obese patients were followed up over one year in a randomized study: the first group received close traditional management (seven nutritional visits over the year, with physicians and dietitians conjointly) and the second one also used at home by Minitel the Nutri-Expert system. 557 patients were enrolled in the study by 16 French centers of diabetology and nutrition. Body mass index (BMI), tests of dietetic knowledge, dietary records and centralized biological measurements were assessed at inclusion, 6 and 12 months. 341 patients were evaluable at the end of the year., Results: The group using Nutri-Expert scored significantly better in the tests of dietetic knowledge than the control group. For all patients, nutritional education led to a significant improvement in BMI, dietary records and biological measurements, without significant difference between the two groups. Five years after the end of the study, the weight of 148 patients was recorded; mean BMI was significantly lower than the initial value but there was no significant difference between the two groups., Conclusion: In the management of obese patients, Nutri-Expert system has a role to play in reinforcing nutritional knowledge; if regular follow-up is not possible, or if a large series of obese patients is to be treated, Nutri-Expert could partly replace traditional management, for example between visits.

In order to determine the specificities of PCR-based assays used for detecting Cryptosporidium parvum DNA, eight pairs of previously described PCR primers targeting six distinct regions of the Cryptosporidium genome were evaluated for the detection of C. parvum, the agent of human cryptosporidiosis, and C. muris, C. baileyi, and C. meleagridis, three Cryptosporidium species that infect birds or mammals but are not considered to be human pathogens. The four Cryptosporidium species were divided into two groups: C. parvum and C. meleagridis, which gave the same-sized fragments with all the reactions, and C. muris and C. baileyi, which gave positive results with primer pairs targeting the 18S rRNA gene only. In addition to being genetically similar at each of the eight loci analyzed by DNA amplification, C. parvum and C. meleagridis couldn't be differentiated even after restriction enzyme digestion of the PCR products obtained from three of the target genes. This study indicates that caution should be exercised in the interpretation of data from water sample analysis performed by these methods, since a positive result does not necessarily reflect a contamination by the human pathogen C. parvum.