University of Paris

About: University of Paris is a education organization based out in Paris, France. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Transplantation. The organization has 102426 authors who have published 174180 publications receiving 5041753 citations. The organization is also known as: Sorbonne.

Transfer of a foreign gene into the brain using adenovirus vectors.

Abstract: The ability of a replication-deficient adenovirus vector to transfer a foreign gene into neural cells of adult rats in vivo has been analysed. A large number of neural cells (including neurons, astrocytes and ependymal cells) expressed an E. coli lacZ transgene for at least 45 days after inoculation of various brain areas. Injecting up to 3 x 10(5) pfu in 10 microliters did not result in any detectable cytopathic effects--these were only observed for very high titres of infection (> 10(7) pfu 10 microliters-1). Adenovirus vectors therefore appear to be a promising means for in vivo transfer of therapeutic genes into the central nervous system.

Identification of an anti-inflammatory protein from Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, a commensal bacterium deficient in Crohn’s disease

Abstract: Background Crohn’s disease (CD)-associated dysbiosis is characterised by a loss of Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, whose culture supernatant exerts an anti-inflammatory effect both in vitro and in vivo. However, the chemical nature of the anti-inflammatory compounds has not yet been determined. Methods Peptidomic analysis using mass spectrometry was applied to F. prausnitzii supernatant. Anti-inflammatory effects of identified peptides were tested in vitro directly on intestinal epithelial cell lines and on cell lines transfected with a plasmid construction coding for the candidate protein encompassing these peptides. In vivo, the cDNA of the candidate protein was delivered to the gut by recombinant lactic acid bacteria to prevent dinitrobenzene sulfonic acid (DNBS)-colitis in mice. Results The seven peptides, identified in the F. prausnitzii culture supernatants, derived from a single microbial anti-inflammatory molecule (MAM), a protein of 15 kDa, and comprising 53% of non-polar residues. This last feature prevented the direct characterisation of the putative anti-inflammatory activity of MAM-derived peptides. Transfection of MAM cDNA in epithelial cells led to a significant decrease in the activation of the nuclear factor (NF)-κB pathway with a dose-dependent effect. Finally, the use of a food-grade bacterium, Lactococcus lactis, delivering a plasmid encoding MAM was able to alleviate DNBS-induced colitis in mice. Conclusions A 15 kDa protein with anti-inflammatory properties is produced by F. prausnitzii, a commensal bacterium involved in CD pathogenesis. This protein is able to inhibit the NF-κB pathway in intestinal epithelial cells and to prevent colitis in an animal model.

The Economics of Codification and the Diffusion of Knowledge

Abstract: The process by which knowledge or information evolves and spreads through the economy evolves changing its nature between tacit and codified forms The process of codification includes three aspects: model building, language creation and the writing of messages Recent technical changes in several technologies have impinged on these three activities and changed the costs and benefits from each of them, generally lowering the costs of codification Technical changes have also facilitated the diffusion of codified knowledge, which has increased its value Due to the temporal relations among the three aspects of codification, the ongoing process in which codification takes place may be path-dependent Copyright 1997 by Oxford University Press

SAPS 3-From evaluation of the patient to evaluation of the intensive care unit. Part 1. Objectives, methods and cohort description

Abstract: Objective Risk adjustment systems now in use were developed more than a decade ago and lack prognostic performance. Objective of the SAPS 3 study was to collect data about risk factors and outcomes in a heterogeneous cohort of intensive care unit (ICU) patients, in order to develop a new, improved model for risk adjustment.

Cognition and artifacts: a contribution to the study of though in relation to instrumented activity

Abstract: This paper addresses from a theoretical point of view a once much debated issue which is brought back to the fore in psychology as a result of a growing attention to the effects of technology and of technological change on the way we live, learn and work. This issue concerns the relationships between cognition and the artifactual nature of many of the objects on which it is brought to bear in everyday, work and school situations. If cognition evolves, as genetic epistemology has shown, through interaction with the environment, then it can be expected, in the course of its genesis, to have to accomodate to the particular specific functional and structural features which characterize artifacts. Does this have an effect on cognitive development, on knowledge construction and processing, on the nature itself of the knowledge generated? If so, through what macro and microgenetic processes can this effect be thought to be actuated? These questions are of particular relevance in the fields of technology and vocational education, but, in theory, they concern all situations in which activity is instrumented by some sort of technology including technology not habitually considered as such: symbols, numbers, graphics, etc. They also constitute an important dimension in the study of situated cognition. Discussion focuses first on the way past and present models of human cognition have related to instrumented activity and, subsequently, a model and concepts are suggested. These points are then illustrated through observational data relating to situations in which children were confronted with tasks involving designing artifacts and utilizing unfamiliar machines, i.e. a lathe and a robot. Finally areas for future research within this problematic are sketched out.