Summary
Plant trait variation drives plant function, community composition and ecosystem processes. However, our current understanding of trait variation disproportionately relies on aboveground ...observations. Here we integrate root traits into the global framework of plant form and function. We developed and tested an overarching conceptual framework that integrates two recently identified root trait gradients with a well‐established aboveground plant trait framework. We confronted our novel framework with published relationships between above‐ and belowground trait analogues and with multivariate analyses of above‐ and belowground traits of 2510 species. Our traits represent the leaf and root conservation gradients (specific leaf area, leaf and root nitrogen concentration, and root tissue density), the root collaboration gradient (root diameter and specific root length) and the plant size gradient (plant height and rooting depth). We found that an integrated, whole‐plant trait space required as much as four axes. The two main axes represented the fast–slow ‘conservation’ gradient on which leaf and fine‐root traits were well aligned, and the ‘collaboration’ gradient in roots. The two additional axes were separate, orthogonal plant size axes for height and rooting depth. This perspective on the multidimensional nature of plant trait variation better encompasses plant function and influence on the surrounding environment.
The development of high-resolution, label-free, noninvasive, and subsurface microscopy methods of living cells remains a formidable problem. Force-microscopy-based stiffness measurements contribute ...to our understanding of single-cell nanomechanics. The elastic properties of the cell’s outer structures, such as the plasma membrane and actin cytoskeleton, dominate stiffness measurements, which in turns prevents the imaging of intracellular structures. We propose that the above limitation could be overcome by combining 2D sections of the cell’s viscoelastic properties. We show the simultaneous imaging of the outer cell’s cytoskeleton and the organelles inside the nucleus. The elastic component of interaction force carries information on the cell’s outer elements as the cortex and the actin cytoskeleton. The inelastic component is sensitive to the hydrodynamic drag of the inner structures such the nucleoli.
Plasma is an ionised gas that is typically generated in high-temperature laboratory conditions. However, recent progress in atmospheric plasmas has led to the creation of cold plasmas with ion ...temperature close to room temperature.
Both in-vitro and in-vivo studies revealed that cold plasmas selectively kill cancer cells.
We show that: (a) cold plasma application selectively eradicates cancer cells in vitro without damaging normal cells; and (b) significantly reduces tumour size in vivo. It is shown that reactive oxygen species metabolism and oxidative stress responsive genes are deregulated.
The development of cold plasma tumour ablation has the potential of shifting the current paradigm of cancer treatment and enabling the transformation of cancer treatment technologies by utilisation of another state of matter.
White matter hyperintensities (WMH) are a feature of sporadic small vessel disease also frequently observed in magnetic resonance images (MRI) of healthy elderly subjects. The accurate assessment of ...WMH burden is of crucial importance for epidemiological studies to determine association between WMHs, cognitive and clinical data; their causes, and the effects of new treatments in randomized trials. The manual delineation of WMHs is a very tedious, costly and time consuming process, that needs to be carried out by an expert annotator (e.g. a trained image analyst or radiologist). The problem of WMH delineation is further complicated by the fact that other pathological features (i.e. stroke lesions) often also appear as hyperintense regions. Recently, several automated methods aiming to tackle the challenges of WMH segmentation have been proposed. Most of these methods have been specifically developed to segment WMH in MRI but cannot differentiate between WMHs and strokes. Other methods, capable of distinguishing between different pathologies in brain MRI, are not designed with simultaneous WMH and stroke segmentation in mind. Therefore, a task specific, reliable, fully automated method that can segment and differentiate between these two pathological manifestations on MRI has not yet been fully identified. In this work we propose to use a convolutional neural network (CNN) that is able to segment hyperintensities and differentiate between WMHs and stroke lesions. Specifically, we aim to distinguish between WMH pathologies from those caused by stroke lesions due to either cortical, large or small subcortical infarcts. The proposed fully convolutional CNN architecture, called uResNet, that comprised an analysis path, that gradually learns low and high level features, followed by a synthesis path, that gradually combines and up-samples the low and high level features into a class likelihood semantic segmentation. Quantitatively, the proposed CNN architecture is shown to outperform other well established and state-of-the-art algorithms in terms of overlap with manual expert annotations. Clinically, the extracted WMH volumes were found to correlate better with the Fazekas visual rating score than competing methods or the expert-annotated volumes. Additionally, a comparison of the associations found between clinical risk-factors and the WMH volumes generated by the proposed method, was found to be in line with the associations found with the expert-annotated volumes.
•Robust, fully automatic white matter hyperintensity and stroke lesion segmentation and differentiation•A novel patch sampling strategy used during CNN training that avoids the introduction of erroneous locality assumptions•Improved segmentation accuracy in terms of Dice scores when compared to well established state-of-the-art methods
Nailfold capillaroscopy in diabetes mellitus Maldonado, G; Guerrero, R; Paredes, C ...
Microvascular research,
July 2017, 2017-Jul, 2017-07-00, 20170701, Letnik:
112
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Diabetes mellitus (DM) is characterized by chronic hyperglycemia states and the development of specific microvascular disorders such as retinopathy and nephropathy. Conventional methods are used to ...study the vascular compromise of this entity, however, the use of capillaroscopy for the evaluation of capillary microarchitecture is not frequently used.
Observational and descriptive study of 65 patients with an established diagnosis of DM and a control group that underwent an initial capillaroscopy examination. The parameters considered were: Capillary diameter (ectasia and giant capillaries), cross-linked, tortuous, arborified capillaries, avascular zones, haemorrhages, dominant morphology, visibility of the subpapillary venous plexus (SPVP), cuticulitis and SD pattern.
Capillaroscopy was performed in 65 patients, the findings were: tortous capillaries (63%), crosslinked capillaries (59%), avascular areas (48%), ectasias (39%), giant capillaries (11%). The capillaroscopic findings were evident in the majority of the studied population, 83%, compared to 17% who did not have capillaroscopic alterations.
Significant capillaroscopic changes were demonstrated in patients with DM, in turn, we described a specific pattern consisting of: capillary dilatation, avascular zones and tortuous capillaries. Patients with more comorbidities and evolution of the disease showed greater microvascular damage.
•Capillaroscopy is a non-invasive, reproducible and reliable technique for the evaluation of vascular microarchitecture in diabetes mellitus.•It was found that most of the diabetic patients presented capillaroscopic abnormalities.•We described a specific pattern consisting of capillary dilatation, avascular zones, and tortuous capillaries.•Patients with more comorbidities and evolution of the disease showed greater microvascular damage.•Capillaroscopy can be used as a tool for the examination of early vascular damage and progression in Diabetes Mellitus.
Treatments for symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhage (sICH) are based on expert opinion, with limited data available on efficacy.
To better understand the natural history of thrombolysis-related sICH, ...with a focus on the efficacy of various treatments used.
Multicenter retrospective study between January 1, 2009, and April 30, 2014, at 10 primary and comprehensive stroke centers across the United States. Participants were all patients with sICH, using the definition by the Safe Implementation of Thrombolysis in Stroke-Monitoring Study (SITS-MOST), which included a parenchymal hematoma type 2 and at least a 4-point increase in the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score.
The primary outcome was in-hospital mortality, and the secondary outcome was hematoma expansion, defined as a 33% increase in the hematoma volume on follow-up imaging.
Of 3894 patients treated with intravenous recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rtPA) within 4½ hours after symptom onset of ischemic stroke, 128 (3.3%) had sICH. The median time from initiation of rtPA therapy to sICH diagnosis was 470 minutes (range, 30-2572 minutes), and the median time from diagnosis to treatment of sICH was 112 minutes (range, 12-628 minutes). The in-hospital mortality rate was 52.3% (67 of 128), and 26.8% (22 of 82) had hematoma expansion. In the multivariable models, code status change to comfort measures after sICH diagnosis was the sole factor associated with increased in-hospital mortality (odds ratio, 3.6; 95% CI, 1.2-10.6). Severe hypofibrinogenemia (fibrinogen level, <150 mg/dL) was associated with hematoma expansion, occurring in 36.3% (8 of 22) of patients without hematoma expansion vs in 25.0% (15 of 60) of patients with hematoma expansion (P = .01), highlighting a role for cryoprecipitate in reversing rtPA coagulopathy.
In this study, treatment of postthrombolysis sICH did not significantly reduce the likelihood of in-hospital mortality or hematoma expansion. Shortening the time to diagnosis and treatment may be a key variable in improving outcomes of patients with sICH.
A novel horizontal mixed anoxic-aerobic fixed-bed reactor configuration based on nitrification coupled with autotrophic denitrification using hydrogen sulfide as an electron donor was developed. The ...nitrification removal efficiency (RE) reached values greater than 99% but was slightly affected by the accumulation of dissolved sulfur species in the liquid phase. The denitrification RE reached 99% with a H2S inlet load of 28.6 g S m−3 h−1, although the use of aluminum polychloride (PAC) as a sulfur coagulant in the anoxic zone affected the buffering capacity of the system and resulted in a decrease in the RE. The performance of the reactor was primarily affected by the buffering capacity of the system, and this effect could be controlled with an increase in the NaHCO3 concentration. The recovery of biogenic elemental sulfur was possible using PAC as a coagulant, although the solid collected at the bottom of the settling tank contained only 1.5% S0.
•An innovative horizontal mixed anoxic-aerobic fixed-bed reactor was evaluated.•Nitrifiers and denitrifiers were developed on different sides of the same reactor.•The reactor exhibited high nitrification and denitrification removal efficiencies.•The denitrification RE was dependent of the buffer capacity.•Biogenic elemental sulfur was recovered using PAC as a coagulant.
Anthropogenic global change alters the activity and functional composition of soil communities that are responsible for crucial ecosystem functions and services. Two of the most pervasive global ...change drivers are drought and nutrient enrichment. However, the responses of soil organisms to interacting global change drivers remain widely unknown. We tested the interactive effects of extreme drought and fertilization on soil biota ranging from microbes to invertebrates across seasons. We expected drought to reduce the activity of soil organisms and fertilization to induce positive bottom-up effects via increased plant productivity. Furthermore, we hypothesized fertilization to reinforce drought effects through enhanced plant growth, resulting in even drier soil conditions. Our results revealed that drought had detrimental effects on soil invertebrate feeding activity and simplified nematode community structure, whereas soil microbial activity and biomass were unaffected. Microbial biomass increased in response to fertilization, whereas invertebrate feeding activity substantially declined. Notably, these effects were consistent across seasons. The dissimilar responses suggest that soil biota differ vastly in their vulnerability to global change drivers. Thus, important ecosystem processes like decomposition and nutrient cycling, which are driven by the interdependent activity of soil microorganisms and invertebrates, may be disrupted under future conditions.
Spatio-temporal variability of turbidity in the Río de la Plata (RdP) estuary (Argentina) at seasonal and inter-annual timescales is analyzed from 15 years (2000–2014) of MODIS data and explained in ...terms of river discharges and the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Satellite estimates were first validated using in situ turbidity measurements and then the time series of monthly averages were analyzed to assess the seasonal and inter-annual variability of turbidity. A strong seasonal variability was found in the upper and middle estuary with high turbidity from March to May and low turbidity from June to January. It was found that this variability is highly correlated to the seasonal cycle of the water discharge of the Bermejo river with a one-month delay between its peak and turbidity in the upper RdP estuary. On inter-annual time scales the influence of ENSO shows low turbidity amplitudes in the upper and middle estuary during moderate El Niño years, while the opposite pattern is observed in some La Niña years. A dilution effect during El Niño years is observed given that the main tributaries, which provide ∼92% of the liquid discharge, show water discharge increases due to excess in rain, while the Bermejo river, which provides ∼70% of the solid discharge and only 2% of the liquid discharge to the RdP, does not show this inter-decadal periodicity. In turn, increased turbidities are observed when negative RdP water discharge anomalies occurred, but this is not always related to La Niña events, since these events are not the only predictor for drought in this region.
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•MODIS Aqua & Terra turbidity agree well with field measurements in Río de la Plata.•Seasonal variability in turbidity is highly correlated to Bermejo river discharge.•Interannual variability in turbidity is related to ENSO cycle: low T during El Niño.•Long time series of remote sensing data are useful to monitor sediment dynamics.•Developed methodology can be used in other estuaries and river plumes.
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