Water uptake is a critical issue for postharvest physiology of cut flowers. After harvest, cut flowers lose access to water from roots and sometimes develop emboli inside the xylem, which can disrupt ...water uptake and undermine flower longevity. The duration of dry storage (desiccation) before flowers are placed in a vase may affect rehydration capability. Despite the appreciated importance of desiccation time on water balance, the duration of desiccation that might cause irreversible damage in Lilium sp. L. is unknown. Therefore, we investigated effects of pre-vase dehydration on water uptake and postharvest quality of cut lilies. Stems of Lilium ‘Nashville’, ‘Santander’, and ‘Sorbonne’ were subjected to 0, 8, 24, or 48 hours of dehydration at 20 °C, then rehydrated in a solution containing 2% sucrose and a biocide. Water uptake in the first 24 hours of rehydration was significantly greater in dehydrated stems than in control (0 hour) stems. Although dehydration treatments increased water uptake in the first 24 hours after rehydration, total water uptake in dehydrated stems over the ensuing 9- to 10-day vase period was significantly less than in controls. In the vase, 48 hours of dehydration reduced the total water uptake in ‘Nashville’ by 27% and in ‘Sorbonne’ by 48%. Individual flower life and stem vase life were not affected significantly by dehydration treatment; however, ‘Sorbonne’ stems dehydrated for 24 or 48 hours had smaller flowers than controls and those that underwent the 8-hour dehydration treatment. ‘Nashville’ stems dehydrated for 24 hours showed visible leaf yellowing 3 days earlier than controls; ‘Sorbonne’ dehydrated for 48 hours showed leaf yellowing 2 days earlier. We conclude cut lilies have an ability to recover partially from significant dehydration and can restore water uptake initially, but pre-vase dehydration reduces total water uptake and affects some postharvest attributes negatively.
•Lynch syndrome is an autosomal dominant disease characterized by a germline mutation in mismatch repair genes resulting in microsatellite instability and high mutational burden.•Lynch syndrome is ...responsible for 2% to 4% of all colorectal cancer cases and is associated with an up to 80% increase in the lifetime risk of colorectal cancer.•Thanks to better screening and earlier diagnosis, prognosis of patients with Lynch syndrome is improving, but also leading to the emergence of unusual presentations and histopathological variants.•Squamous cell colorectal carcinomas are extremely rare with only one previously reported case in association with Lynch syndrome.•There is lack of data regarding the best management for squamous cell cancers in the colon and rectum and treatment has been historically based on that for adenocarcinomas.•Evidence supporting the use of immunotherapy in mismatch repair deficient tumors is rapidly growing and has led to the first FDA molecular guided, tissue/site agnostic approval.•It can be argued that the management approach for patients with Lynch syndrome should be based on genetic and molecular factors regardless of tumor site or histology.
When some individuals are screen-detected before the beginning of the study, but otherwise would have been diagnosed symptomatically during the study, this results in different case-ascertainment ...probabilities among screened and unscreened participants, referred to here as lead-time-biased case-ascertainment (LTBCA). In fact, this issue can arise even in risk-factor studies nested within a randomized screening trial; even though the screening intervention is randomly allocated to trial arms, there is no randomization to potential risk-factors and uptake of screening can differ by risk-factor strata. Under the assumptions that neither screening nor the risk factor affects underlying incidence and no other forms of bias operate, we simulate and compare the underlying cumulative incidence and that observed in the study due to LTBCA. The example used will be constructed from the randomized Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian cancer screening trial. The derived mathematical model is applied to simulating two nested studies to evaluate the potential for screening bias in observational lung cancer studies. Because of differential screening under plausible assumptions about preclinical incidence and duration, the simulations presented here show that LTBCA due to chest x-ray screening can significantly increase the estimated risk of lung cancer due to smoking by 1% and 50%. Traditional adjustment methods cannot account for this bias, as the influence screening has on observational study estimates involves events outside of the study observation window (enrollment and follow-up) that change eligibility for potential participants, thus biasing case ascertainment.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
To describe the clinical, neuropsychological, and imaging features of five patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) who acquired new artistic skills in the setting of dementia.
Creativity in the ...setting of dementia has recently been reported. We describe five patients who became visual artists in the setting of FTD.
Sixty-nine FTD patients were interviewed regarding visual abilities. Five became artists in the early stages of FTD. Their history, artistic process, neuropsychology, and anatomy are described.
On SPECT or pathology, four of the five patients had the temporal variant of FTD in which anterior temporal lobes are involved but the dorsolateral frontal cortex is spared. Visual skills were spared but language and social skills were devastated.
Loss of function in the anterior temporal lobes may lead to the "facilitation" of artistic skills. Patients with the temporal lobe variant of FTD offer a window into creativity.
Abstract
An objective of salt marsh conservation, restoration, and creation is to reduce global carbon dioxide levels and offset emissions. This strategy hinges on measurements of salt marsh carbon ...accumulation rates, which vary widely creating uncertainty in monetizing carbon credits. Here, we show the 14–323 g C m
−2
yr
−1
range of carbon accumulation rates, derived from cores collected at seven sites in North Carolina U.S.A., results from the landward or basinward trajectory of salt marsh colonization and the intertidal space available for accretion. Rates increase with accelerating sea-level rise and are highest at young and expanding marsh edges. The highest carbon densities are near the upland, highlighting the importance of this area for building a rich stock of carbon that would be prevented by upland development. Explaining variability in carbon accumulation rates clarifies appraisal of salt marsh restoration projects and landscape conversion, in terms of mitigating green-house gas emissions.
Analysis systems incorporating atmospheric observations could provide a powerful tool for validating fossil fuel CO2 (ffCO2) emissions reported for individual regions, provided that fossil fuel ...sources can be separated from other CO2 sources or sinks and atmospheric transport can be accurately accounted for. We quantified ffCO2 by measuring radiocarbon (14C) in CO2, an accurate fossil-carbon tracer, at nine observation sites in California for three months in 2014-15. There is strong agreement between the measurements and ffCO2 simulated using a high-resolution atmospheric model and a spatiotemporally-resolved fossil fuel flux estimate. Inverse estimates of total in-state ffCO2 emissions are consistent with the California Air Resources Board's reported ffCO2 emissions, providing tentative validation of California's reported ffCO2 emissions in 2014-15. Continuing this prototype analysis system could provide critical independent evaluation of reported ffCO2 emissions and emissions reductions in California, and the system could be expanded to other, more data-poor regions.
Abstract This phase I clinical trial assessed the safety and immunogenicity of a native outer membrane vesicle (NOMV) vaccine prepared from an lpxL1 (−) synX (−) mutant of strain ...8570(B:4:P1.19,15:L8-5) of Neisseria meningitidis . Additional mutations enhance the expression of factor H binding protein variant 1 (fHbp v.1), stabilize expression of OpcA and introduce a second PorA (P1.22,14). Thirty-six volunteers were assigned to one of four dose groups (10, 25, 50 and 75 mcg, based on protein content) to receive three intramuscular injections at six week intervals with aluminum hydroxide adjuvant. Specific local and systemic adverse events were solicited by diary and at visits on days 2, 7, and 14 after each vaccination. Blood chemistries, complete blood count, and coagulation studies were measured on each vaccination day and again 2 and 14 days later. Blood for ELISA and serum bactericidal assays was drawn two and six weeks after each vaccination. The proportion of volunteers who developed a fourfold or greater increase in bactericidal activity to the wild type parent of the vaccine strain at two weeks after the third dose was 27 out of 34 (0.79, 95% C.I. 0.65–0.93). Against four other group B strains the response rate ranged from 41% to 82% indicating a good cross reactive antibody response. Depletion assays show contributions to bactericidal activity from antibodies to lipooligosaccharide (LOS), fHbp v.1 and OpcA.
Viewing self-video during videoconferences potentially causes negative self-focused attention that contributes to virtual meeting (VM) or "Zoom" fatigue. The present research examines this ...proposition, focusing on facial dissatisfaction-feeling unhappy about one's own facial appearance-as a potential psychological mechanism of VM fatigue. A study of survey responses from a panel of 613 adults found that VM fatigue was 14.9 percent higher for women than for men, and 11.1 percent higher for Asian than for White participants. These gender and race/ethnicity differences were found to be mediated by facial dissatisfaction. This study replicates earlier VM fatigue research, extends the theoretical understanding of facial dissatisfaction as a psychological mechanism of VM fatigue, and suggests that practical approaches to mitigating VM fatigue could include implementing technological features that reduce self-focused attention during VMs (e.g., employing avatars).
Activated microglia are implicated in the pathogenesis of disease‐, trauma‐ and toxicant‐induced damage to the CNS, and strategies to modulate microglial activation are gaining impetus. A novel ...action of the tetracycline derivative minocycline is the ability to inhibit inflammation and free radical formation, factors that influence microglial activation. Minocycline is therefore being tested as a neuroprotective agent to alleviate CNS damage, although findings so far have yielded mixed results. Here, we showed that administration of a single low dose of 1‐methyl‐4‐phenyl‐1,2,3,6‐tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) or methamphetamine (METH), a paradigm that causes selective degeneration of striatal dopaminergic nerve terminals without affecting the cell body in substantia nigra, increased the expression of mRNAs encoding microglia‐associated factors F4/80, interleukin (IL)‐1α, IL‐6, monocyte chemoattractant protein‐1 (MCP‐1, CCL2) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)‐α. Minocycline treatment attenuated MPTP‐ or METH‐mediated microglial activation, but failed to afford neuroprotection. Lack of neuroprotection was shown to be due to the inability of minocycline to abolish the induction of TNF‐α and its receptors, thereby failing to modulate TNF signaling. Thus, TNF‐α appeared to be an obligatory component of dopaminergic neurotoxicity. To address this possibility, we examined the effects of MPTP or METH in mice lacking genes encoding IL‐6, CCL2 or TNF receptor (TNFR)1/2. Deficiency of either IL‐6 or CCL2 did not alter MPTP neurotoxicity. However, deficiency of both TNFRs protected against the dopaminergic neurotoxicity of MPTP. Taken together, our findings suggest that attenuation of microglial activation is insufficient to modulate neurotoxicity as transient activation of microglia may suffice to initiate neurodegeneration. These findings support the hypothesis that TNF‐α may play a role in the selective vulnerability of the nigrostriatal pathway associated with dopaminergic neurotoxicity and perhaps Parkinson's disease.
Previous studies identified two mammalian prion protein (PrP) polybasic domains that bind the disease-associated conformer PrP(Sc), suggesting that these domains of cellular prion protein (PrP(C)) ...serve as docking sites for PrP(Sc) during prion propagation. To examine the role of polybasic domains in the context of full-length PrP(C), we used prion proteins lacking one or both polybasic domains expressed from Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells as substrates in serial protein misfolding cyclic amplification (sPMCA) reactions. After ∼5 rounds of sPMCA, PrP(Sc) molecules lacking the central polybasic domain (ΔC) were formed. Surprisingly, in contrast to wild-type prions, ΔC-PrP(Sc) prions could bind to and induce quantitative conversion of all the polybasic domain mutant substrates into PrP(Sc) molecules. Remarkably, ΔC-PrP(Sc) and other polybasic domain PrP(Sc) molecules displayed diminished or absent biological infectivity relative to wild-type PrP(Sc), despite their ability to seed sPMCA reactions of normal mouse brain homogenate. Thus, ΔC-PrP(Sc) prions interact with PrP(C) molecules through a novel interaction mechanism, yielding an expanded substrate range and highly efficient PrP(Sc) propagation. Furthermore, polybasic domain deficient PrP(Sc) molecules provide the first example of dissociation between normal brain homogenate sPMCA seeding ability from biological prion infectivity. These results suggest that the propagation of PrP(Sc) molecules may not depend on a single stereotypic mechanism, but that normal PrP(C)/PrP(Sc) interaction through polybasic domains may be required to generate prion infectivity.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
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