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  • Book cover of The ABCs of French Culture An Unconventional Guide to French Behavior

    Do you love the land of macarons, baguettes and Matisse but find yourself perplexed, annoyed, ignored or outraged by the French? Whether you're already living in France or planning to work, visit or study there, this book is for you: Avoid cultural pitfalls when interacting with the French. Know what to expect when invited into a French home. Decipher French body language and other enigmatic French mannerisms. Navigate the dreaded French administration. Forge friendships with the French in the community

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    Do you love the land of macarons, baguettes and Matisse but find yourself perplexed, annoyed, ignored or outraged by the French? Whether you're already living in France or planning to work, visit or study there, this book is for you: Avoid cultural pitfalls when interacting with the French. Know what to expect when invited into a French home. Decipher French body language and other enigmatic French mannerisms. Navigate the dreaded French administration. Forge friendships with the French

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    Abstract: Introduction: Anti-glomerular basement membrane (GBM) antibodies are pathogenic antibodies first detected in renal-limited anti-GBM disease and in Goodpasture disease, the latter characterized by rapidly progressive crescentic glomerulonephritis combined with intra-alveolar hemorrhage. Studies have suggested that anti-GBM antibody positivity may be of interest in lupus nephritis (LN). Moreover, severe anti-GBM vasculitis cases in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) have been described in the literature, but few studies have assessed the incidence of anti-GBM antibodies in SLE patients. Objective: The main study objective was to determine if positive anti-GBM antibodies were present in the serum of SLE patients with or without proliferative renal damage and compared to a healthy control group. Methodology: This retrospective study was performed on SLE patients' sera from a Franco-German European biobank, developed between 2011 and 2014, from 17 hospital centers in the Haut-Rhin region. Patients were selected according to their renal involvement, and matched by age and gender. The serum from healthy voluntary blood donors was also tested. Anti-GBM were screened by fluorescence enzyme immunoassay (FEIA), and then by indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) in case of low reactivity detection (titer >6 U/ml). Results: The cohort was composed of 100 SLE patients with proliferative LN (27% with class III, 67% with class IV, and 6% with class V), compared to 100 SLE patients without LN and 100 controls. Patients were mostly Caucasian and met the ACR 1997 criteria and/or the SLICC 2012 criteria. Among the 300 tested sera, no significant levels of anti-GBM antibodies were detected (>10 U/ml) by the automated technique, three sera were found "ambivalent" (>7 U/ml): one in the SLE with LN group and two in the SLE without LN group. Subsequent IIF assays did not detect anti-GBM antibodies. Conclusion: Anti-GBM antibodies were not detected in the serum of Caucasian patients with SLE, even in case of renal involvement, a situation favoring the antigenic exposure of glomerular basement membranes. Our results reaffirm the central role of anti-GBM antibodies as a specific diagnostic biomarker for Goodpasture vasculitis and therefore confirm that anti-GBM antibody must not be carried out in patients with SLE (with or without LN) in the absence of disease-suggestive symptoms

  • Book cover of The ABCs of French Culture An Unconventional Guide to French Behavior

    Do you love the land of macarons, baguettes and Matisse but find yourself perplexed, annoyed, ignored or outraged by the French? Whether you're already living in France or planning to work, visit or study there, this book is for you: Avoid cultural pitfalls when interacting with the French. Know what to expect when invited into a French home. Decipher French body language and other enigmatic French mannerisms. Navigate the dreaded French administration. Forge friendships with the French in the community