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Abstract: Diets high in soy are neuroprotective in experimental stroke. This protective effect is hypothesized to be mediated by phytoestrogens contained in soy, because some of these compounds have neuroprotective effects in in vitro models of cell death. We tested the ability of the soy phytoestrogens genistein, daidzein, and the daidzein metabolite equol to protect embryonic rat primary cortical neurons from ischemic-like injury in vitro at doses typical of circulating concentrations in human populations (0.1–1 μM). All three phytoestrogens inhibited lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) release from cells exposed to glutamate toxicity or the calcium-ATPase inhibitor, thapsigargin. In cells exposed to hypoxia or oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD), pretreatment with the phytoestrogens inhibited cell death in an estrogen receptor (ER) dependent manner. Although OGD results in multiple modes of cell death, examination of α-spectrin cleavage and caspase-3 activation revealed that the phytoestrogens were able to inhibit apoptotic cell death in this model. In addition, blockade of phosphoinositide 3-kinase prevented the protective effects of genistein and daidzein, and blockade of mitogen-activated protein kinase prevented genistein-dependent neuroprotection. These results suggest that pretreatment with dietary levels of soy phytoestrogens can mimic neuroprotective effects observed with estrogen and appear to use the same ER-kinase pathways to inhibit apoptotic cell death. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A series of 219 patients who died within five years of histological diagnosis of their melanoma is reported. One hundred and fifty-eight died of melanoma and in three melanoma contributed to death. Male to female ratio was about 2 : 1. There was a progressive increase of deaths in each cohort in males with aging, but in females only after 60 years of age. Fatal melanomas arose most commonly on the back. Face and thigh lesions were responsible for an approximately equal number of deaths and thigh lesions were shown to have a worse outlook than melanoma of the leg. This series contained a large proportion of patients with melanomas bigger than 2 cm. and of the 13 patients with lesions larger than 3 cm., 10 had metastases on registration with the Queensland Melanoma Project. The presence of only three flat melanomas would indicate a generally better outlook for this type of lesion. Ulceration and bleeding suggested a poor prognosis. The large number of patients (78) who had microscopic evidence of metastases on registration contributed to the poor survival in this series. Of the 78, 30 patients presented with metastatic disease and no primary melanoma was found. The findings from 29 autopsies indicated the ability of melanoma to disseminate widely. Fifty-one patients died from causes other than melanoma, the more common being cardio-vascular and cerebro-vascular disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cette contribution se situe à l’interface de la linguistique et de la didactique des langues secondes; elle a pour objectif de démontrer les apports d’une analyse de la polysémie verbale à la didactique du français langue seconde. Notre premier objectif est de décrire la polysémie du verbe prendre au moyen d’une analyse sémantique lexicale dans une approche cognitive. Notre second objectif est d’évaluer l’incidence de la polysémie du verbe prendre sur les connaissances qu’ont les apprenants de ce verbe et d’isoler les différentes acceptions de prendre mises au jour par notre analyse sémantique, qui s’avèrent problématiques pour les apprenants du français L2. Pour atteindre le second objectif de notre travail, nous avons mené une étude empirique auprès de 191 apprenants du français langue seconde. Les résultats montrent non seulement que l’analyse sémantique que nous avons proposée permet de prédire la connaissance des différentes acceptions du verbe par les apprenants du français L2, mais aussi que les apprenants anglophones et allophones ont un comportement différent par rapport aux types d’acceptions du verbe prendre, comportement que nous avons pu expliquer par l’influence translangagière chez les participants anglophones. Nous discutons des résultats au regard de ceux des études antérieures, en mettant l’accent sur les variables linguistiques réputées prédire l’acquisition des différents sens d’un mot polysémique.