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Dans ce livre au style très personnel, Jacynthe Tremblay relate la manière dont sa vie a été profondément marquée par sa rencontre avec le philosophe japonais Nishida Kitarō (1870-1945) au fil de son histoire quotidienne longue de deux décennies au Japon et en Chine. On y retrouvera des détails de la vie du philosophe, des exemples tirés de la culture japonaise ou encore des réflexions sur la musique de Bach, qui forment un cadre cohérent pour appréhender la pensée nishidienne. C'est ainsi que l'on pourra comprendre les concepts, déterminants, du «lieu» et de l'«altérité absolue», qui ont pour fonction de montrer comme l'être humain - dégagé d'une subjectivité autocentrée - peut entrer en relation avec les autres. Ainsi abordée, la philosophie de Nishida, selon l'interprétation simple mais très audacieuse qu'en fait l'auteur, devient accessible à tous et rejoint la densité de la vie. Jacynthe Tremblay est titulaire d'une double spécialisation en philosophie de la religion et en philosophie japonaise. Elle habite au Japon depuis une vingtaine d'années, où elle poursuit ses travaux de recherche concernant Nishida Kitarō, de même que la traduction française de ses œuvres, dont De ce qui agit à ce qui voit (PUM, 2015). Elle a aussi dirigé plusieurs ouvrages collectifs en philosophie japonaise.

Abstract Currently, there are no harmonized guidelines which govern skin banking in the Asia Pacific region. Therefore, skin banks are either unregulated or rely on their nation’s legislation or international accreditation to uphold their quality standards. A new set of skin banking guidelines was developed through a comprehensive review and collation of best international practices for the Asia Pacific Burn Association (APBA) members, from donor screening and testing, to skin recovery, processing, storage and distribution, and quality assurance. National regulatory requirements reviewed include the European directives, Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration and Singapore’s tissue banking standards. Further technical and quality management recommendations are referenced from the American Association of Tissue Banks (AATB), the United States Food and Drug Administration standards and guidance documents, various relevant European guides, Japanese Society of Tissue Transplantation guidelines and the Asia Pacific Association of Surgical Tissue Banking. Adapted mainly from the AATB standards, the new Asia Pacific Burn Association Guidelines for Skin Banking in Therapeutic Applications offer a comprehensive manual, addressing: governance and contracts; staff responsibilities; quality management; facilities, equipment and supplies management; donor consent and testing; and recommendations of good practices pertaining to skin recovery, processing, storage and distribution. Besides complementing current generic regulations, they provide technical specifications of major aspects unaddressed in most legislations. This inaugural set of new regional skin banking guidelines would be a start for regional members of the APBA to adopt, and will hopefully culminate in a set of standards so that, in the long run, skin allografts from this region can be of similar quality, which can simplify import process and facilitate the exchange of allografts between members.

Cet ouvrage a pour objectif de faire découvrir l’importance de la philosophie japonaise du XXe siècle et d’en cerner les enjeux sur la scène contemporaine. Il est articulé autour de cinq grands thèmes, dont le point commun est la recherche d’un nouveau type de subjectivité, non centrée sur elle-même, mais située au sein du monde, comme partie prenante de ce monde. Les meilleurs spécialistes dans le domaine adoptent ici une approche ouvertement multidisciplinaire pour montrer les implications d’une telle subjectivité. Ils s’intéressent notamment aux thématiques du corps, de l’altérité, de la société et du milieu. Leur démarche fait écho à celle des philosophes japonais du siècle dernier, chez qui on retrace un effort constant pour inscrire la différence au cœur de l’identité et se réapproprier les traditions intellectuelles nationales tout en s’ouvrant à la philosophie occidentale. Jacynthe Tremblay a obtenu un doctorat en sciences de la religion de l’Université de Montréal en 1990 et a poursuivi des études post-doctorales à la faculté des lettres de l’Université de Tokyo sous la direction de Sakabe Megumi. Elle est l’auteure, entre autres, de Finitude et devenir. Fondements philosophiques du concept de révélation chez Karl Rahner (Fides, 1992) et de Nishida Kitaro. Le jeu de l’individuel et de l’universel (CNRS Éditions, 2000).

Impaired post-thaw CD34 cell (postCD34) viability in autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplant (ASCT) could indicate delayed engraftment where multiple factors might complicate the relationship. Despite of a couple of unconfirmed reports of a negative correlation of platelet concentration with postCD34 viability, how platelets might be involved in the relationship is largely unknown. Therefore, this question was addressed in this retrospective study of 82 ASCT patients with a total of 150 collections of peripheral blood stem cells in New Zealand. A significant negative correction between platelet concentration and postCD34 recovery (r = −0.18, p = 0.028) was observed overall, but upon further analysis only confirmed in the subset with graft platelets 1500–2000 ×109/L. Importantly, the postCD34 recovery was clearly reduced in the subgroups with either the lowest or the highest platelet concentration. The lowest subgroup was enriched with collections from patients with Hodgkin or non-Hodgkin lymphoma, whereas the highest subgroup from patients with multiple myeloma, both with clearly male preponderance. We hypothesized that graft platelet concentrations probably indicated CD34 cell state (e.g. cell cycle and cell adhesion highly related to platelet functions) that sustained when platelet concentrations were within a niche range but went out of kilter otherwise.HighlightsThe first comprehensive analysis of the roles of platelets in post-thaw CD34 recovery.Platelet counts varied widely across peripheral blood stem cell collections.Post-thaw CD34 recovery reduced when graft platelet counts were very low or high.Patient gender, age and cancer type all influenced the reduction of CD34 recovery.

Musculoskeletal allografts are typically disinfected using antibiotics, irradiation or chemical methods but protocols vary significantly between tissue banks. It is likely that different disinfection protocols will not have the same level of microorganism kill; they may also have varying effects on the structural integrity of the tissue, which could lead to significant differences in terms of clinical outcome in recipients. Ideally, a disinfection protocol should achieve the greatest bioburden reduction with the lowest possible impact on tissue integrity. A systematic review of three databases found 68 laboratory and clinical studies that analyzed the microbial bioburden or contamination rates of musculoskeletal allografts. The use of peracetic acid–ethanol or ionizing radiation was found to be most effective for disinfection of tissues. The use of irradiation is the most frequently published method for the terminal sterilization of musculoskeletal allografts; it is widely used and its efficacy is well documented in the literature. However, effective disinfection results were still observed using the BioCleanse™ Tissue Sterilization process, pulsatile lavage with antibiotics, ethylene oxide, and chlorhexidine. The variety of effective methods to reduce contamination rate or bioburden, in conjunction with limited high quality evidence provides little support for the recommendation of a single bioburden reduction method.

Cardiovascular allografts are usually disinfected using antibiotics, but protocols vary significantly between tissue banks. It is likely that different disinfection protocols will not have the same level of efficacy; they may also have varying effects on the structural integrity of the tissue, which could lead to significant differences in terms of clinical outcome in recipients. Ideally, a disinfection protocol should achieve the greatest bioburden reduction with the lowest possible impact on tissue integrity. We conducted a systematic review of methods applied to disinfect cardiovascular tissues. The use of multiple broad spectrum antibiotics in conjunction with an antifungal agent resulted in the greatest reduction in bioburden. Antibiotic incubation periods were limited to less than 24 h, and most protocols incubated tissues at 4 °C, however one study demonstrated a greater reduction of microbial load at 37 °C. None of the reviewed studies looked at the impact of these disinfection protocols on the risk of infection or any other clinical outcome in recipients.

Heart valve allografts are typically processed at 4°C in North America, including the step of antibiotic decontamination. In our own experience with heart valve banking, we often observe persistent positive cultures following decontamination at wet ice temperature. We hypothesized that warmer temperatures of incubation might increase the efficacy of the decontamination procedure. In a first series of experiments, 12 different bacterial species were grown overnight, frozen in standardized aliquots and used directly to inoculate antibiotic cocktail aliquots at 10 5  colony-forming units (CFU)/ml. The antibiotic cocktail contains vancomycin (50 μg/ml), gentamicin (80 μg/ml) and cefoxitin (240 μg/ml) in Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle’s Medium. Inoculated aliquots were incubated at 4, 22 and 37°C and CFUs were determined at regular intervals up to 24 h post-inoculation. In a second set of experiments, 10 heart valves were spiked with 5000 CFU/ml and incubated with antibiotics at 4 and 37°C for 24 h. The final rinse solutions of these heart valves were filtered and tested for bacterial growth. After 24 h of incubation, CFUs of all 12 bacterial species were reduced by a factor of only one to two logs at 4°C whereas log reductions of 3.7 and 5.0 or higher were obtained at 22 and 37°C, respectively. Most microorganisms, including Staphylococcus   epidermidis , Lactococcus   lactis   lactis and Propionibacterium   acnes survived well the 24-h antibiotic treatment at 4°C (<1 Log reduction). All 10 heart valves that were spiked with microorganisms had positive final rinse solutions after antibiotic soaking at 4°C, whereas 8 out of 10 cultures were negative when antibiotic decontamination was done at 37°C. These experiments show that a wet ice temperature greatly reduces the efficacy of the allograft decontamination process as microorganisms survived well to a 24-h 4°C antibiotic treatment. This could explain the high rate of positive post-processing cultures obtained with our routine tissue decontamination procedure. Increasing the decontamination temperature from 4 to 37°C may significantly reduce the incidence of post-disinfection bacterial contamination of heart valves.