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Return to work (RTW) is a marker of functional recovery in cancer patients, with quality of life, financial and social implications. We investigated frequency and factors associated with RTW in a cohort of patients younger than 66 years, with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma (MM), uniformly treated with a bortezomib-based induction followed by autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT). Socio-economic and working status data were collected by a self-administered questionnaire. One hundred and eighty-six patients entered the study. Of whom, 145 (78%) where employed at diagnosis, which was more frequent in younger (median 55 vs. 60 years, p < 0.001), men (59.3% vs. 34.2%, p = 0.004), and with college studies (44.8% vs. 24.4%, p = 0.008). Forty-three (30%) of the 145 patients who had a job at diagnosis, RTW after ASCT in a median of 5 (range 1-27) months. Factors independently associated with RTW were having three or more children (HR 2.87, 95% CI 1.33-6.18), college studies (HR 2.78, 95% CI 1.21-6.41), and a family income >40 × 10(3)€/year (HR 2.31, 95% CI 1.12-4.78). In conclusion, the frequency of RTW herein reported in MM patients seems lower than reported in other malignancies. The risk factors observed may guide the design RTW programs.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most leading symptom of neurodegenerative dementia; AD is defined now as one of the most costly chronic diseases. For that automatic diagnosis and control of Alzheimer’s disease may have a significant effect on society along with patient well-being. Language disorder is regarded to be among the most common symptoms of AD, as a direct and natural result of cognitive impairment. Hence, the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease using speech-based features is gaining growing attention. The aim of this study is to extract linguistic features following a proposed taxonomy of language impairment of AD patients. Obtained results indicate that the proposed taxonomy of the linguistic features extracted from the speech samples can be used to differentiate between Alzheimer’s disease patients and the healthy control group. Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier obtained classification accuracy over 90 percent.

Purpose Information systems (IS) strategic alignment is a significant chief information officers (CIO) and top management issue because of its impact on a firm’s performance and profitability. Previous studies have primarily examined informal dimension’s influence on IS strategic alignment. Nevertheless, a few research works have emphasised cultural dimension’s effect. The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate and bring out organisational culture’s influence on IS strategic alignment. Notably, it highlights the most significant culture types, according to the Competing Value Framework (Cameron et al., 2006). Design/methodology/approach Empirical setting comprises a quantitative approach using a survey based on a sample of 160 business managers (BMs) of 53 large companies located in Tunisia with international activities and being in the post-implementation operational use phase of their enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. The partial least square (PLS) method has been used for data analysis. Findings The results provide an empirical evidence supporting a positive and significant organisational culture’s influence on the IS strategic alignment. The findings also show that “Clan Culture” (Internal/Flexibility-oriented culture) positively influences IS alignment along with the strategic priorities. These findings provide guidance and help understand how, through clan culture, the company can contribute significantly to the success of its ERP systems strategic alignment during the most critical phase, namely, post-implementation. Originality/value Despite abundant work related to IS alignment topic, little research, to the authors’ knowledge, has been undertaken in considering organisational culture’s influence. Thus, this research aims to fill this gap and to raise new questions about IS alignment. First, this study puts together organisational culture (through the Competing values Framework) and strategic alignment (through the IS use dimension) in a single research model to analyse four culture types’ direct effect on IS alignment. Second, this study is innovative in its use of the ERP post-implementation as an empirical framework. The post-implementation phase is often played down in research work in favour of the upstream pre-implementation phases. Furthermore, the findings bring together theoretical and practical insights on both IS-business strategic alignment and ERP post-implementation. Thus, future research could emphasise the role of clan culture in the efficiency of ERP systems strategic alignment during the usage phase. Building on these findings, BM, CIO and top management are advised to promote this culture type based on communication, information sharing and the spirit of internal partnership – so that their ERP systems are used appropriately and aligned with the company’s strategic priorities.

SARS-CoV-2 vaccination is the most effective strategy to protect individuals with haematologic malignancies against severe COVID-19, while eliciting limited vaccine responses. We characterized the humoral responses following 3 mo after mRNA-based vaccines in individuals at different plasma-cell disease stages: monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS), smoldering multiple myeloma (SMM), and multiple myeloma on first-line therapy (MM), compared with a healthy population. Plasma samples from uninfected MM patients showed lower SARS-CoV-2-specific antibody levels and neutralization capacity compared with MGUS, SMM, and healthy individuals. Importantly, COVID-19 recovered MM individuals presented significantly higher plasma neutralization capacity compared with their uninfected counterparts, highlighting that hybrid immunity elicit stronger immunity even in this immunocompromised population. No differences in the vaccine-induced humoral responses were observed between uninfected MGUS, SMM and healthy individuals. In conclusion, MGUS and SMM patients could be SARS-CoV-2 vaccinated following the vaccine recommendations for the general population, whereas a tailored monitoring of the vaccine-induced immune responses should be considered in uninfected MM patients. This work was partially funded by Grifols, the Departament de Salut of the Generalitat de Catalunya (grant DSL0016 to J Blanco and Grant DSL015 to J Carrillo), the Spanish Health Institute Carlos III (Grant PI17/01518 and PI20/00093 to J Blanco and PI18/01332 to J Carrillo), Fundació Gloria Soler, and the crowdfunding initiatives https://www.yomecorono.com, BonPreu/Esclat and Correos. M Trigueros was supported by a doctoral fellowship from the Departament de Salut from Generalitat de Catalunya (SLT017/20/000095). F Muñoz-Lopez is supported by a doctoral grant from Sorigué Foundation. E Pradenas was supported by a doctoral grant from ANID, Chile: Grant 72180406. M Massanella was granted with RYC2020-028934-I/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 from Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and State Research Agency, MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and the European Social Fund “investing in your future.”

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a recurrent malignancy with a high impact on quality of life. Improved survival relies on the combination of drugs and extended duration of therapy, raising concerns on its toxicity burden in elderly patients. Health-related quality of life measurements attent to capture health aspects relevant to patients other than efficacy. This prospective study aimed to understand the relationship between MM-related symptomatology and other quality of life dimensions using the EORTC QLQ-MY20 questionnaire in individuals with relapsed or refractory MM. Irrespective of treatment modality, over 50% of patients who responded to treatment had significant omprovements of reported scores in all domains. Conversely, disease progression was associated with score deterioration not only in the MM-related symptoms domain but also in all other domains. HRQoL adds valuable information to the established efficacy endpoints but an adequate interpretation of HRQoL outcomes in randomized trials should require stratification according to response.

Automatic diagnosis and monitoring of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) can have a significant impact on society as well as the well-being of patients. It is known that Alzheimer’s disease (AD) influences the language abilities of affected peoples. Hence, the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease using speech-based features is gaining growing attention. The purpose of this article is extracting a set of acoustic features from Dementia Bank conversations from subjects with and without Alzheimer’s disease. Extracted features will be trained with Machine Learning (ML) algorithms to testing the detection accuracy.

This work is conducted to study the mineralogical, petrographic and geochemical aspects of the basic volcanic Neogene rocks (hawaiites) as persistent in the Nefza region (northern Tunisia), and their alteration outcomes. The outcrops, as studied in the area, are those belonging to Moktaa El Hadid. These rocks appear to display argilization associated with weathering and significant hydrothermal circulation [1]. Among the magnetic minerals, titanomagnetites are the most abundant and represent the major spinel in basalts.

The Oued Belif 48 borehole samples have been analyzed in order to reveal the mineralogical composition of the Triassic successions and their alteration outcomes, namrly, chlorite, phlogopite and talc. Clay minerals from Oued Belif borehole were studied via XRD, SEM, TEM, CL and AEM. In this work, we are interested in the petrographic, mineralogical and geochemical characterization of these materials to understand, firstl, how they are set up and, secondly, the thermal impact of the intrusive acid magmatism affecting them. Chemical composition of chlorite, as determined through electron microprobe, underline the chlorites’ magnesian character as persisting in the OB48 borehole. The evaporitic and carbonate mineralization associated with these phyllosilicates were also studied due to their predominance in the OB 48 borehole.

La loi Sarbanes-Oxley (abregee en Sox), en vigueur aux Etats-Unis depuis 2002, fait l’objet de nombreuses controverses depuis plus d’une dizaine d’annees. Plusieurs des effets et des consequences de cette loi ont ete identifies par la litterature. Toutefois, ses effets et ses consequences au niveau des directions des systemes d’information (DSI) des petites et moyennes entreprises n’ont pas encore ete mis en evidence. Cet article a pour objet de comprendre ces effets a travers l’etude du cas de la DSI d’une PME francaise cotee au New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Les resultats de notre analyse nous ont permis d’identifier quatre types de difficulte : des difficultes organisationnelles, techniques, economiques et culturelles.

The 2ZB-1.8 model planting barrier seeder was designed by combining the serious soil desertification and difficulties during desert controlling in northern farming-pastoral areas of China. The structure and dimension of rack were determined by combining the working width of machine and structure distribution of all parts. The statics analysis and optimization of rack were analyzed by applying finite element software ANSYS. The result shows that the stability, rigidity and strength will be better when dimension and material of rack are 100mm×80mm×5 mm and 45# square steel, respectively. The stress and strain of machine after loading could meet with the demand of working performance.

In this paper, we consider the problem of the existence of conformal metrics with prescribed scalar curvature on the standard sphere S n, n ≥ 3. We give new existence and multiplicity results based on a new Euler-Hopf formula type. Our argument also has the advantage of extending well known results due to Y. Li [16].

Snake venoms constitute a very promising resource for the development of new medicines. They are mainly composed of very complex peptide and protein mixtures, which composition may vary significantly from batch to batch. This latter consideration is a challenge for routine quality control (QC) in the pharmaceutical industry. In this paper, we report the use of capillary zone electrophoresis for the development of an analytical fingerprint methodology to assess the quality of snake venoms. The analytical fingerprint concept is being widely used for the QC of herbal drugs but rarely for venoms QC so far. CZE was chosen for its intrinsic efficiency in the separation of protein and peptide mixtures. The analytical fingerprint methodology was first developed and evaluated for a particular snake venom, Lachesis muta. Optimal analysis conditions required the use of PDADMAC capillary coating to avoid protein and peptide adsorption. Same analytical conditions were then applied to other snake venom species. Different electrophoretic profiles were obtained for each venom. Excellent repeatability and intermediate precision was observed for each batch. Analysis of different batches of the same species revealed inherent qualitative and quantitative composition variations of the venoms between individuals.

International audience; The Nefza mining district in Northern Tunisia comprises late Miocene (Serravallian to Messinian) magmatic rocks belonging to the post-collisional magmatism of the Mediterranean Maghreb margin. They are mainly made up of Serravallian granodiorite (Oued Belif massif), Tortonian rhyodacites (Oued Belif and Haddada massifs) and cordierite-bearing rhyodacites (Ain Deflaia massif) in addition to rare Messinian basalts. They are all characterized by LILE and LREE enrichment and strong enrichment in Pb and W. The Messinian basalts, which are also enriched in LILE, exhibit transitional characteristics between calc-alkaline and alkaline basalts. Geochemical (major and trace elements) and Sr, Nd and Pb isotopic compositions indicate that: (1) granodiorite is linked to the differentiation of a metaluminous calc-alkaline magma derived from a lithospheric enriched mantle source and contaminated by old crustal materials; (2) rhyodacites result from the mixing of the same metaluminous calc-alkaline magma with variable proportions of melted continental crust. Cordierite-bearing rhyodacite, characterized by the highest Sr-87/Sr-86 isotopic ratios, is the magma comprising the highest crustal contribution in the metaluminous-peraluminous mixing and is close to the old crustal end-member; (3) late hasalts, transitional between the calc-alkaline and alkaline series, originated from an enriched mantle source at the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary. In the Nefza mining district, magmatic rock emplacement has enhanced hydrothermal fluid circulation, leading to the deposition of polymetallic mineralizations (belonging to the Iron-Oxide-Copper-Gold and the sedimentary exhalative class of deposits, among others). Magmatic rocks are also a source for the formation of lead (and probably other metals) in these deposits, as suggested by their Pb isotopic compositions. Magmatic rock emplacement and connected mineralization events can be related to the Late Mio-Pliocene reactivation of shear zones and associated lineaments inherited from the Variscan orogeny.

The purpose of this work is to discuss some new results on the scalar curvature problem in dimension n ≥ 3 . We give precise estimates on the losses of compactness and we prove the existence of at least a solution under the assumption that the prescribed function is flat near its critical points.

Three main roads lead to senescence: telomere-dependent replicative senescence, oncogene-induced senescence and stress-induced (premature) senescence. This latter type of senescence appears after exposure of normal, immortalized or transformed cells to stress of chemical or physical nature inducing oxidative stress and/or DNA damage. After these exposures, chronic or acute, single or multiple, stressed cells developed a “senescence-like” phenotype. This “senescence-like” phenotype presents several biomarkers of cellular senescence such as irreversible growth arrest, morphological change, senescence-associated s-galactosidase (SA-sgal) activity and senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP). However, large-scale studies of transcriptome and proteome of cells in replicative senescence or in stress-induced senescence show that although they share similarities, the two phenotypes are not identical. Different signaling pathways involved in the development of stress-induced senescence are presented as those dependent on TGF-s1, p38MAPK, IGF-R1 and DNA damage. The possible induction of this type of senescence in vivo and in cancer treatment is discussed.

The Oued Belif 48 and Koudiat El Halfa 5 borehole samples have been analysed in order to reveal the mineralogical composition of the Triassic successions and their burial history within the geological evolution of the Tethysian southern margin. Oued Belif 48 borehole belongs to Nefza district which is a part of the “Nappe zone” (Tellian unit, north-western Tunisia). Koudiat El Halfa 5 borehole crosses the Koudiat El Halfa diapir (north–west of the north–south axis, Central Atlas). In this paper, the burial degree of evaporitic Triassic samples was determined by the “illite crystallinity” index and by the evolution of the other phyllosilicates, essentially chlorite, talc and illite/chlorite and illite/smectite mixed layers. The studied samples of the two boreholes are characterized by the presence of abundant clay minerals. The

In this Note, we consider the problem of the existence of conformal metrics with prescribed scalar curvature on the standard sphere Sn, n⩾3. We give new existence and multiplicity results based on a new Euler–Hopf formula type. Our argument also has the advantage of extending the well known results due to Y. Li (1995) [10].

In this paper we consider the problem of existence of conformal metrics with prescribed scalar curvature on n-dimensional Riemannian manifolds, $n \geq 5 $. Using precise estimates on the losses of compactness, we characterize the critical points at infinity of the associated variational problem and we prove existence results for curvatures satisfying an assumption of Bahri-Coron type.

More and more patients worldwide suffer from end-stagerenal disease which often is secondary to diabetes (e.g.36.9% of all US patients with end-stage renal disease havea diabetic nephropathy [1]). Indeed, both types of diabetesare burdened by long-term complications, including retin-opathy and nephropathy. Nephropathy occurs in 25–40%of type 1 and type 2 diabetic patients [2], and is character-izedbythepresenceofabnormalamountsofproteinsintheurine, a sign of alteration in the renal filtration capabilitiesof the nephron. In many patients, diabetic nephropathy(DN) progresses to end-stage renal disease. However, it iscurrently impossible to reliably predict which and whendiabetic patients will develop nephropathy and progressto kidney failure. The persistent presence of albumin inthe urine is considered predictive of the subsequent devel-opment and clinical progression of DN [3,4]. Currently,microalbuminuria (MA) is considered the first clinicalevidence of incipient diabetic nephropathy. It is definedas an urinary albumin excretion of 30–300 mg/day andcharacterizes the stage III of diabetic nephropathy accord-ing to Mogensen’s classification [5]. However, despite itscapacity to highlight nephron damage, MA is a non-spe-cific marker of DN especially in subjects with type 2 dia-betes. Indeed, only 30–45% of microalbuminuric type 2diabetic patients will develop overt proteinuria over morethan 10 years [6], and MA is also proposed as a markerof high cardiovascular risk in diabetic and non-diabeticpatients [7], as recently highlighted [8]. Thus, MA shouldnot be considered an early and specific marker of DN.Urineandplasmaproteomicshavegainedmuchattentionas tools for the identification of diagnostic and prognosticbiomarkers of renal diseases. For many years now, it hasbeen hoped that proteomic methods would unveil earlierandmorespecificbiomarkersthanMA[9].Someprevious-ly published reviews have focused on the methodologicalaspects of proteomics [10,11] or on the approaches for dis-coveringandvalidatingdiagnosticmarkers[12,13].Aspro-teomics studies devoted to DN biomarker discovery begantobepublishedin2004[14],inthisarticle,wewillcompre-hensively review the available information published sincethen.Targeting DN biomarkers: an overview of the experimentalmethodsTable 1 summarizes the key information available from theanalysis of the literature. Urine is the biological fluid thatattracted most of the interest in the proteomic quest of DNbiomarkers. This makes sense because the protein compos-ition of urine might correctly reflect the renal functionalabnormalities associated with DN [15]. Moreover, urinehas some unique advantages such as its availability in largequantities as well as the solubility and stability of its pro-tein content [16]. Nevertheless, serum from type 2 diabeticpatients (four studies) [17–20] and pooled haemofiltratesfrom patients suffering from chronic renal insufficiency(most of them were also diabetics) (one work) [21] werealso analysed.Concerning the choice of separation and identificationtechniques (Table 1), two-dimensional gel electrophoresis(2D-GE) was frequently employed (however in differentexperimental set-ups). This is likely due to the fact that2D-GE easily provides a semi-quantitative estimation ofthe amount of each separated protein (spot intensity) andsome qualitative information about the size and the post-translational modifications of such proteins. These positivefeatures compensate for the limitations of 2D-GE such aslow throughput and a possible lack of sensitivity. Profilingmethods were chosen for several studies (indicated inTable 1). They generate a list of mass peaks which needthen to be assigned to a specific peptidic/protein se-quence. Surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionizationtime-of-flight (SELDI-TOF) mass spectrometry (a prote-omic method that enables mass fingerprinting of proteinsretained onto an affinity chip) was used in four differentstudies [18,22–24]. Interestingly, in each work, a differentseparationsurface(ProteinChip)wasconsideredasthemost

In this study Plackett–Burman designs have been used to find the optimum conditions for separation of 15 phenolic compounds by LC. The responses used were the minimum resolution between two peaks and the analysis time. The adopted factors and experimental field were organic modifier (MeOH or ACN), percentage of acetic acid in the aqueous phase, flow rate, gradient with ten steps of percentage increase of the organic component of the mobile phase, and ten factors representing the duration of the steps. Use of Plackett–Burman designs achieved separation of the phenolic compounds within 45 min.

International audience; The characterization of the normal urinary proteome is steadily progressing and represents a major interest in the assessment of clinical urinary biomarkers. To estimate quantitatively the variability of the normal urinary proteome, urines of 20 healthy people were collected. We first evaluated the impact of the sample conservation temperature on urine proteome integrity. Keeping the urine sample at RT or at +4 degrees C until storage at -80 degrees C seems the best way for long-term storage of samples for 2D-GE analysis. The quantitative variability of the normal urinary proteome was estimated on the 20 urines mapped by 2D-GE. The occurrence of the 910 identified spots was analysed throughout the gels and represented in a virtual 2D gel. Sixteen percent of the spots were found to occur in all samples and 23% occurred in at least 90% of urines. About 13% of the protein spots were present only in 10% or less of the samples, thus representing the most variable part of the normal urinary proteome. Twenty proteins corresponding to a fraction of the fully conserved spots were identified by mass spectrometry. In conclusion, a "public" urinary proteome, common to healthy individuals, seems to coexist with a "private" urinary proteome, which is more specific to each individual.

The study investigates the direct effect of Epstein-Barr virus infection on the oxidative profile of in vitro cultivated human cells. For this purpose, a panel of human EBV target cells presenting heterogeneity in their cellular and culture types (epithelial cells or lymphocytes; primary culture or continuous cell culture) was selected. These cells are purified human B lymphocytes, DG75, 293, and HepG2 cell lines. The oxidative stress was evaluated during the early stages of infection (2, 12, and 24 h) by measuring malondialdehyde, the end product of the lipid peroxidation, as well as the activities of two antioxidant enzymes: catalase and superoxide dismutase. The obtained results were compared with those of the untreated cells and the K562 cell line which has no interaction with EBV. The incubation of the different target cells with EBV induced an oxidative stress in the purified B lymphocytes, DG75, and 293, but not in HepG2 and K562. This oxidative stress was highlighted by an increase in MDA level (P < 0.05), which began 2 h after the addition of the virus and persisted after 12 and 24 h. Simultaneously, a decrease in catalase and superoxide dismutase activities was observed (P < 0.05), suggesting an alteration of the molecular mechanisms promoting cellular resistance to reactive oxygen species (ROS). The efficiency of EBV infection, assessed by viral DNA PCR amplification, was confirmed in 293 and DG75 but not in HepG2, which was in total concordance with their oxidative profiles. In conclusion, the EBV infection of B and epithelial cells leads to the establishment of an oxidative stress which can play a key role during the viral transformation.