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There was a time when science still had to 'hatch'. An era during which man often extrapolated existing knowledge to a level beyond reality. That period is not as far behind us as we would like to believe. Breeding of animals has always stimulated man's fantasy. Out of this, a very interesting myth - or is it a mystery? - was born: the existence of a hybrid between horse and cow, 'Le Jumart'. On top of the very well-known hybrids between horses and donkeys, the French 'capitaine des haras' Francois Alexandre de Garsault (1692-1778) describes the procedure of how to create a hybrid between a cow and a horse in his widespread and well known 'Nouveau Parfait Marechal', first published in 1741. In depth research showed that he was far from being the only one who believed in the existence of such a crossover species. Other well-respected contemporary scientists even dedicate chapters in their textbooks on this animal, such as the French naturalist and medical doctor Jean-Pierre Buchoz (1731-1807) in his 'Traite Economique et Physique de Gros Menu Betail' published in 1778. Even opinion leaders Charles Bonnet (1720-1793) and Lazzarro Spallanzani (1729-99) were convinced that these animals really roamed around in France during the 18th century. Finally, even the founder of the first 'Ecole Veterinaire' in the world, Claude Bourgelat (1712-1779) testified in a letter to Bonnet to have admired the product of a stallion and a cow with his own eyes. Fortunately, the debate could count on important disbelievers as well, with Albrecht von Haller taking the lead by publishing a paper in the 'Supplement a l'Encyclopedie ou Dictionnaire Raisonne des Sciences, des Arts et Metiers' (1777), in which he calls the existence of the Jumart a 'fable'. It would take another century for Andre Suchetet (1849-1910) to publish an 'Extrait des Memoires de la Societe Zoologique de France' with the title 'La Fable des Jumarts' (1889). Extremely interested in hybridization, this 19th century politician and member of several scientific societies, faces the challenge to finally steer the scientific community to a general conclusion on this enigma. This paper describes in a chronological order the rise and fall of one of the most intriguing 'fabula' in reproductive medicine and how it took emerging modern science about 200 years to decide on 'myth' or 'mystery'.

Resume But de l’etude. – Les sarcomes des tissus mous thoraciques regroupent les sarcomes parietaux, pulmonaires et mediastinaux. Il s’agit de tumeurs rares pour lesquelles les indications therapeutiques et les facteurs pronostiques sont mal connus. Le but de ce travail etait de rapporter une serie de 40 patients atteints de sarcomes des tissus mous thoraciques en analysant les caracteristiques anatomocliniques, la prise en charge et les facteurs pronostiques. Methodes et patients. – Les dossiers de 40 patients pris en charge de 1994 a 2001 ont ete analyses a partir d’une base de donnees constituee de facon prospective. Les survies etaient analysees selon la methode de Kaplan-Meier et comparees par un test du log-rank. Les facteurs pronostiques etaient identifies par un modele de Cox. Resultats. – L’âge median des patients etait de 48 ans et le sex-ratio de 15 hommes/25 femmes. Le type histologique principal etait l’histiocytofibrome malin (11 cas). Vingt et une lesions etaient de haut grade de malignite. La paroi thoracique representait la localisation principale (26 cas). Trente-deux tumeurs ont ete traitees chirurgicalement, dont 22 par une exerese radicale (marges saines). Les traitements associes etaient une chimiotherapie neo-adjuvante (8 cas) ou adjuvante (8 cas) et/ou une radiotherapie postoperatoire (17 cas). La survie a 5 ans etait de 45 %. En analyse univariee, les facteurs pronostiques etaient l’âge (p = 0,05), l’index de Karnofsky (p = 0,008), l’absence de metastases d’emblee (p = 0,003), une exerese radicale (p = 0,043) et une chimiotherapie adjuvante (p = 0,04). La localisation tumorale n’avait pas de valeur pronostique. Conclusions. – La prise en charge des sarcomes des tissus mous thoraciques est multidisciplinaire et reposent avant tout sur une exerese si possible radicale. Le pronostic des sarcomes pulmonaires, parietaux et mediastinaux est comparable.

We present the first monolithic photonic integration in the electronic frontend of a high-performance BiCMOS technology. 10Gbit/sec operation of a Silicon Mach-Zehnder modulator device with 8dB extinction in dual-drive is demonstrated.

We initiated a pilot study of adjuvant hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy (AHAIC) using 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and leucovorin. Hepatic arterial infusion ports were placed in 15 consecutive patients undergoing curative resection of colorectal liver metastases. The chemotherapy regimen consisted of a weekly infusion of 5-FU (12 mg m 2 per day) and leucovorin (200 mg m 2 per day) for 12 months. The mean follow-up was 22 months (range 3-62 months, SD 21-37 months). There were no clinical or biological complications related to chemotherapy, except for sharp epigastric burns in four patients immediately after 5-FU infusions. Catheter irreversible occlusions led to early cessation of the treatment in three patients. Four of the 15 evaluable patients developed recurrent disease. The site of relapse was the liver in two patients and extra-hepatic sites in the two remaining patients. Three of these four patients died of their recurrent disease. These results suggest that 5-FU and leucovorin can be combined for AHAIC in a long duration regimen with a very low rate of side-effects. This protocol could be safely employed in a prospective randomized study in combination with 5-FU systemic infusions.

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This paper presents the implementation of a real-time electronic polarization tracking algorithm which enables robust optical polarization-multiplexed synchronous quadrature phase shift keying transmission with DFB lasers. The achieved BER at a data rate of 2.8 Gbit/s is well below the FEC threshold.