This study aimed to analyze the determinants of quality of life (QoL) in older people in three European countries (Portugal, Spain and Sweden). A sample of 7589 participants in waves 4 (2011) and 6 ...(2015) of the Survey on Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) project, aged 50 and over and living in Portugal, Spain and Sweden, was included. The CASP-12 scale was used to measure QoL. A principal component analysis was performed to group preselected variables related to active and healthy ageing into the dimensions of health, social participation, and lifelong learning. A linear regression model was built using the change in CASP-12 scores over the 4-year follow-up as the dependent variable, including the interactions between country and each independent variable in the model. After four years, the average QoL increased in Portugal (difference = 0.8,
< 0.001), decreased in Spain (-0.8,
< 0.001), and remained constant in Sweden (0.1,
= 0.408). A significant country-participation component interaction (
= 0.039) was found. In Spain, a higher participation (β = 0.031,
= 0.002) was related to a higher QoL improvement at 4 years, but not in Sweden or Portugal. Physical health and emotional components (β = 0.099,
< 0.001), functional ability (β = 0.044,
= 0.023), and cognitive and sensory ability (β = 0.021,
= 0.026) were associated with QoL changes over time in all countries. The country-specific associations between health, social participation and QoL should be taken into account when developing public health policies to promote QoL among European older people.
•A battery of high-affinity monoclonal antibodies to cyprodinil has been generated.•Two immunoassays in different formats have been characterized and developed.•QuEChERS-based strawberry extracts ...were diluted in water and analyzed by cELISA.•Deming regression showed good agreement between immunoassays and UPLC–MS/MS.
Cyprodinil is among the most common agrochemical residues found in highly perishable fruits, such as strawberries. In the present study, high-affinity monoclonal antibodies to this anilinopyrimidine fungicide were raised for the first time with the aim to produce valuable immunochemical analytical assays. Cyprodinil bioconjugates and the generated novel monoclonal antibodies were employed for sensitive competitive immunoassay development in two different formats. The limits of detection of the optimized assays were 20 and 30ngL−1 for the indirect and direct assay, respectively. Influence over assay parameters of different physicochemical factors was studied. Strawberry samples were extracted following the recommended QuEChERS procedure for pesticide residues in food, and analyzed by the optimized immunoassays. Recoveries and coefficients of variation from fortified samples were within standard values. In addition, the obtained immunochemical results with naturally contaminated samples were statistically comparable, according to Deming regression analysis, to those of a reference chromatographic method.
The European Cooperative Trial in Operable breast cancer (ECTO) randomly tested whether efficacy of adjuvant doxorubicin followed by i.v. cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, and fluorouracil (CMF; ...doxorubicin-->CMF, arm A) could be improved by adding paclitaxel (doxorubicin/paclitaxel-->CMF) as adjuvant (arm B) or primary systemic therapy (PST, arm C). We report here feasibility, tolerability, locoregional antitumor activity, and breast conservation rate.
A total of 1,355 women entered the study. Feasibility and safety were compared in arm A versus arms B plus C. Surgical findings were compared in arms A plus B versus arm C.
Grade 3 or 4 National Cancer Institute toxicities were low (<5%) in all arms. Neuropathy was more frequent in the paclitaxel-containing arms (grade 2, 20.5% versus 5.0%; grade 3, 1.3% versus 0.2%). At 31 months of follow-up, asymptomatic drop of left ventricular ejection fraction was similar in all arms, whereas symptomatic cardiotoxicity was recorded in three patients (0.5%) in A and in three patients (0.3%) in B plus C. PST induced clinical complete plus partial remission in 78%, with an in-breast pathologic complete response rate of 23% and an in-breast plus axilla pathologic complete response rate of 20%. In the multivariate analysis, only estrogen receptor (ER) status was significantly associated with pathologic complete response (odds ratio for ER negative, 5.77; 95% confidence interval, 3.49-9.52; P<0.0001). PTS induced a significant axillary downstaging (P<0.001), and breast sparing surgery was feasible in 65% versus 34% (P<0.001).
Doxorubicin/paclitaxel-->CMF is feasible, safe, and well tolerated. Given as PST, it is markedly active, allowing for breast-sparing surgery in a large fraction of patients.
The mechanical behavior and microstructure of bioinspired fibers spun from solutions of recombinant spidroin-like proteins were extensively characterized, and compared with those of natural spider ...silk fibers. It is confirmed that high performance bioinspired fibers indistinguishable from natural spider silk up to large strains can be produced through genetic engineering and conventional spinning technologies. It is also found that fibers spun from spidroin-like proteins that contain different motifs of sequence exhibit variations in their microstructure in terms of crystallinity and chain alignment, but these differences are not reflected in distinct tensile properties. This similarity in terms of their mechanical behavior indicates that bioinspired fibers are largely independent of their exact sequence of recombinant proteins and, in particular, of their proline content. Finally, it is shown that the largest differences between natural and bioinspired fibers are found at very large deformations, marking the ultimate challenge in the synthesis of silk-like fibers.
•High-affinity monoclonal antibodies to boscalid are described.•Antibodies specific for boscalid and its metabolite were generated.•Two competitive ELISA were validated for boscalid determination in ...strawberries.•Occurrence of boscalid in commercial strawberry samples was 15%.
Boscalid is an agrochemical recently developed for crop protection and the most significant member of the succinate dehydrogenase inhibitor group of fungicides. In this study, a collection of high-affinity monoclonal antibodies was generated to boscalid. By using a series of haptens with a linker at alternative tethering sites of the boscalid framework, specific antibodies were isolated as well as antibodies that also recognized the main boscalid metabolite. Two immunoassays were developed using different ELISA formats. Optimized assays displayed very high sensitivities (limits of detection were near 0.01µg/L). Trueness and precision for the determination of the target analyte in strawberry samples was evaluated. Moreover, immunoassay performance was validated with a reference chromatographic method using QuEChERS extracts of fruits from fungicide-treated crops. A monitoring study with strawberry samples from local markets was carried out by immunoassay, showing an occurrence of boscalid of 15% with a maximum residue concentration of 43µg/kg.
Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Olivier; Coleoptera: Dryophthoridae) is a pest of many crop and ornamental palm tree species in subtropical regions worldwide. Larvae tunnel and feed unseen in the trunks, ...ultimately causing irreparable harm and killing the palm. Beauveria bassiana (Balsamo-Crivelli; Hypocreales: Clavicipitaceae) Vuillemin is under evaluation as a biological control agent for R. ferrugineus management but its effects are difficult to monitor under field conditions except by acoustic methods. Older (>30 d) larvae treated with B. bassiana display statistically significant reductions in acoustic activity in semi-field studies, but activity of younger larvae has been more difficult to analyze due to their short-duration cycles of increasingly active and then less active feeding and movement, followed by inactive molting. A procedure was developed to characterize effects of B. bassiana treatments by subdividing long-term recording periods into activity cycles. Treatment effects were compared within and across cycles. The procedure demonstrated statistically significant differences among acoustic activity rates over time for 15-d-old larvae exposed to control, 104, or 108 conidia ml–1B. bassiana treatments. The results suggest that acoustic technology has considerable utility for monitoring of larval development and for evaluating efficacy of pest management treatments in environments where the targeted insect pests are hidden from view.
Immunoassays are nowadays being employed for rapid contaminant analysis in clinical, environmental, and agrochemical samples. A thorough characterization of the antibody‒antigen interaction can bring ...light to the immunoreagent selection process in order to develop sensitive and robust tests. Thus, determination of equilibrium and reaction rate constants is usually recommendable. However, this can be quite tricky for low molecular weight compounds, and competitive strategies are commonly followed to estimate apparent affinity values. In the present study, a collection of monoclonal antibodies to penthiopyrad was raised for the first time, and apparent equilibrium constants were assessed by the Langmuir model using three different competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay formats. The obtained KD values from antibody-coated assays were quite close to the corresponding KD values calculated from surface plasmon resonance (SPR) evaluation. These studies were employed to select a pair of immunoreagents for immunoassay development. The KD value for penthiopyrad of the selected antibody obtained by SPR was 0.28 nM. The optimized direct assay showed an IC50 value for penthiopyrad of 0.42 nM (0.15 ng mL−1) in buffer. The limit of quantification for grape, must, and wine samples was 10 ng mL−1. An excellent correlation was found when immunochemical results were compared with those from LC-MS/MS. As an application case, it was determined that 58% of penthiopyrad was still found in wine after fermentation.
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•The first monoclonal antibodies to penthiopyrad are herein reported.•Antibody-antigen reaction rate constants were determined by SPR.•Thermodynamic constants were estimated by different formats of competitive ELISA.•ELISA IC50 values approach KD values under limiting immunoreagent concentrations.•A direct immunoassay was validated to measure penthiopyrad in grapes and wine.
Spectral direct UV–visible normal solar irradiance (DNI) has been measured with an EKO MS-711 grating spectroradiometer, which has a spectral range of 300–1100 nm, and 0.4 nm step, at the Izaña ...Atmospheric Observatory (IZO, Spain). It has been used to determine aerosol optical depth (AOD) at several wavelengths (340, 380, 440, 500, 675, and 870 nm) between April and September 2019, which has been compared with synchronous AOD measurements from a reference Cimel and Aerosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) sun photometer. The EKO MS-711 has been calibrated at the Izaña Atmospheric Observatory by using the Langley plot method during the study period. Although this instrument has been designed for spectral solar DNI measurements, and therefore has a field of view (FOV) of 5∘ that is twice the recommended amount in solar photometry for AOD determination, the AOD differences compared to the AERONET–Cimel reference instrument (FOV ∼1.2∘) are fairly small. A comparison of the results from the Cimel AOD and EKO MS-711 AOD presents a root mean square (rms) of 0.013 (24.6 %) at 340 and 380 nm, and 0.029 (19.5 %) for longer wavelengths (440, 500, 675, and 870 nm). However, under relatively high AOD, near-forward aerosol scattering might be significant because of the relatively large circumsolar radiation (CSR) due to the large EKO MS-711 FOV, which results in a small but significant AOD underestimation in the UV range. The AOD differences decrease considerably when CSR corrections, estimated from libRadtran radiative transfer model simulations, are performed and obtain an rms of 0.006 (14.9 %) at 340 and 380 nm, and 0.005 (11.1 %) for longer wavelengths. The percentage of 2 min synchronous EKO AOD–Cimel AOD differences within the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) traceability limits were ≥96 % at 500, 675, and 870 nm with no CSR corrections. After applying the CSR corrections, the percentage of AOD differences within the WMO traceability limits increased to >95 % for 380, 440, 500, 675, and 870 nm, while for 340 nm the percentage of AOD differences showed a poorer increase from 67 % to a modest 86 %.
Immunoreagents and Competitive Assays to Fludioxonil Abad-Fuentes, Antonio; Agulló, Consuelo; Esteve-Turrillas, Francesc A ...
Journal of agricultural and food chemistry,
04/2014, Letnik:
62, Številka:
13
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Fludioxonil is a new-generation fungicide widely used for postharvest fruit protection. The aim of this study was to produce hitherto unreported immunoreagents for Fludioxonil analysis by ...immunoassay. Derivatives of this agrochemical were synthesized with different linker tethering sites. Those functionalized haptens were activated, and the purified active esters were efficiently conjugated to different carrier proteins for immunogen and assay antigen preparation. Antibodies to Fludioxonil were raised in rabbits, and their selectivity and affinity were characterized, revealing the significance of the linker. Those antibodies were evaluated using homologous and heterologous conjugates by direct and indirect competitive ELISA formats. Finally, a pair of immunoreagents was identified showing an IC50 value for Fludioxonil of 5.7 μg/L.
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