Capnocytophaga canimorsus, formerly designated Dysgonic fermenter 2 (DF-2) was first described in 1976; it is a commensal bacterium of dogs and cats saliva, which can be transmitted to man by bite (54% of cases), scratch (8.5%), or mere exposure to animals (27%). We present a review of the clinical and microbiological characteristics of the Capnocytophaga canimorsus infections and 12 cases of infection in France. Over 100 cases of human infections have been reported, mainly septicemia in patients with diminished defences, due to splenectomy (33%), alcohol abuse (24%), immunosuppression (5%). However 40% of septicemia occur in patients with no predisposing conditions. Other infections are less frequent: meningitis, endocarditis, arthritis, pleural and localized eye infections. These infections range from mild to fulminating disease, with shock, respiratory distress, disseminated intravascular coagulation. Dermatological lesions (macular or maculopapular rash, purpura) or gangrene are common. This fastidious Gram-negative bacterium grows slowly on chocolate agar or on heart infusion agar with 5% rabbit blood incubated in 5% CO2. In spite of a great susceptibility of bacteria to antibiotics, the mortality is of 30%. Because of the severity of these infections, taking into account this organism in the management of bites is necessary, especially in patients with predisposing factors.

The Lyon-Turin rail link project is a major part of the European Corridor no. 5, Lisbon-Kiev. The management and use of the excavated materials have been identified as one of the major issues concerning project approval since the very first stage of the study. The following paper describes the methods chosen by the French and Italian authorities to improve the use of some 20 million t resulting from the excavation of 150 km of tunnels, representing 60 million t of materials. The presentation mainly focuses on two tunnels, the Chartreuse tunnel -24.7 km, two tubes -and the base tunnel Maurienne-Ambin -approx. 53 km, two tubes -under the Alps between France and Italy. All the tools today available are being used by the designer in order to prepare the tender documents, including industrial test production of concrete aggregates. The important role of the owner of the project is also mentioned with the aim of optimising the management and recycling of the excavated materials.

Cryomicrotomy has been used as a new technique for removing gastric mucosae from adult guinea pigs for the study of amoxicillin secretion across gastric mucosae. This method allowed a very regular thickness of the removed surface layer of mucosa to be obtained with good reproducibility. Gastric superficial mucosa concentrations and gastric juice concentrations of amoxicillin were determined 1, 2, and 4 h after intramuscular administration (50 mg/kg) in 21 guinea pigs by a microbiological method. No antibiotic was detected in gastric samples at 4 h, except for a low-level mucosal concentration in one animal, thus indicating the short time that amoxicillin is present in gastric samples.Gastric human biopsies may be used to study the diffusion of drugs, such as antibiotics in the stomach (1,8). These biopsies may include deep vascularized layers of the gastric wall and therefore be inadequate for the determination of antibiotic concentrations in the superficial gastric mucosa. On the contrary, the guinea pig is a more convenient model for pharmacological studies since it permits the superficial luminal portion of the mucosa of the whole stomach, free of blood contamination, to be obtained (14). For this purpose, Westblom et al. (14) used glass slide scraping. We propose to modify this technique by using cryomicrotomy, which we have applied to the study of amoxicillin gastric diffusion after parenteral administration.Each adult male guinea pig, after an overnight fast, was given a single intramuscular (i.m.) dose of amoxicillin (50 mg/ kg) or saline (controls) in the thigh. Blood samples were collected on citrate at 1, 2, and 4 h after i.m. administration by intracardiac puncture, and plasma was obtained by centrifugation. Animals were then immediately sacrificed with chloroform and autopsied. After clamping, a total gastrectomy was performed and gastric juice was aspirated. Then the whole stomach was opened by cutting through larger and smaller curvatures and was thoroughly rinsed in citrate buffer.The superficial gastric mucosa was removed by standardized cryomicrotomy (Cryo-microtome Leitz; Frigomat Jung, Nussloch, Germany) of the whole stomach and controlled each time by histological examination. First, tangential sections of mucosae from five guinea pigs at depths from 50 to 800 m were obtained. A depth of 400 m was retained for this study as it permitted the removal of the superficial mucosa. Under these conditions, the muscularis mucosa was always at least 100 m from the section plane (Fig. 1). The weight of each superficial mucosal specimen obtained was 400 Ϯ 50 mg, and samples were always devoid of vascular structures.Mucosae were ground in citrate buffer. Homogenate was centrifuged at 3,000 rpm (GR 412 centrifuge; Jouan) for 10 min, and the supernatant was recovered. All specimens were stored at Ϫ80ЊC until assayed.The concentrations of amoxicillin in plasma, gastric mucosae, and gastric juice were measured by a microbiological method. Gastric juice pH was determined with a pHmeter 28 (Radiometer, Copenhag...

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The tunneling industry is flourishing around the world. But what about the spoil material? This paper presents the different steps achieved towards an automation of rock selection and aggregate quality assessment for tunnelling to reduce environmental impacts and maximize the use of excavation materials by analyzing and processing TBM muck on‐line, inside the tunnel, on the tunnel boring machine.

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