Plant photosynthetic traits may be indicative of stress tolerance and performance in the field, making their accurate assessment critical in phenotyping trials. The maximum rate of carboxylation ...(Vcmax) is a key parameter for estimating CO2 assimilation (A), as it controls the CO2 fixation rate. This study demonstrates the utility of combining airborne-based solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) and hyperspectral imagery through the inversion of the Soil-Canopy Observation of Photosynthesis and Energy (SCOPE) model to estimate Vcmax, using sensor resolutions available in precision agriculture technologies. Vcmax was quantified in three wheat phenotyping experimental fields during the 2015–2018 growing seasons, comprising both rainfed and irrigated conditions. Airborne campaigns were carried out with two hyperspectral sensors, covering the 400–850 nm (20 cm resolution) and 950–1750 nm (70 cm resolution) spectral regions, and with a thermal camera (25 cm resolution) in the 8–14 μm region. Validation between model-estimated and field-measured Vcmax was statistically significant (r2 = 0.77; p-value ≤2.2e−16), and Vcmax was reliably associated with net assimilation both in irrigated and rainfed conditions (r2 = 0.65 and 0.5, respectively). By contrast, simulated chlorophyll content (Cab) and airborne-derived structural and chlorophyll indicators (NDVI and PSSRb) lacked significant correlations with assimilation rate in irrigated plots, while the relationship between assimilation rate and the crop water stress index (CWSI) was not significant in rainfed plots. The superior sensitivity of remotely-sensed Vcmax under irrigated conditions was likely related to its robustness to distortions from high canopy densities observed in other indices. The remote sensing retrieval of Vcmax, and the methodology demonstrated in this study is directly relevant for high-throughput plant phenotyping and for precision agriculture applications.
•Airborne Vcmax as a photosynthetic trait in two water regimes was assessed.•Vcmax was estimated combining SIF from hyperspectral images and SCOPE inversions.•Vcmax yielded a strong link with net assimilation in non-water limited conditions.•Under water stress, Vcmax, NDVI, Cab and PSSRb were well related to CO2 assimilation.
Summary Background Vaginal self-sampling for human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing could increase rates of screening participation. In clinic-based settings, vaginal HPV testing is at least as ...sensitive as cytology for detecting cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) grade 2 or worse; however, effectiveness in home settings is unknown. We aimed to establish the relative sensitivity and positive predictive value for HPV screening of vaginal samples self-collected at home as compared with clinic-based cervical cytology. Methods We did a community-based, randomised equivalence trial in Mexican women of low socioeconomic status aged 25–65 years. Participants came from 540 medically underserved, predominantly rural communities in Morelos, Guerrero, and the state of Mexico. Our primary endpoint was CIN 2 or worse, detected by colposcopy. We used a computer-generated randomisation sequence to randomly allocate patients to HPV screening or cervical cytology. Eight community nurses who were masked to patient allocation received daily lists of the women's names and addresses, and did the assigned home visits. We referred women with positive results in either test to colposcopy. We did per-protocol and intention-to-screen analyses. This trial was registered with the Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública, Mexico, INSP number 590. Findings 12 330 women were randomly allocated to HPV screening and 12 731 to cervical cytology; 9202 women in the HPV screening group adhered to the protocol, as did 11 054 in the cervical cytology group. HPV prevalence was 9·8% (95% CI 9·1–10·4) and abnormal cytology rate was 0·38% (0·23–0·45). HPV testing identified 117·4 women with CIN 2 or worse per 10 000 (95·2–139·5) compared with 34·4 women with CIN 2 or worse per 10 000 (23·4–45·3) identified by cytology; the relative sensitivity of HPV testing was 3·4 times greater (2·4–4·9). Similarly, HPV testing detected 4·2 times (1·9–9·2) more invasive cancers than did cytology (30·4 per 10 000 19·1–41·7 vs 7·2 per 10 000 2·2–12·3). The positive predictive value of HPV testing for CIN 2 or worse was 12·2% (9·9–14·5) compared with 90·5% (61·7–100) for cytology. Interpretation Despite the much lower positive predictive value for HPV testing of self-collected vaginal specimens compared with cytology, such testing might be preferred for detecting CIN 2 or worse in low-resource settings where restricted infrastructure reduces the effectiveness of cytology screening programmes. Because women at these sites will be screened only a few times in their lives, the high sensitivity of a HPV screen is of paramount importance. Funding Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública, the Health Ministry of Mexico, QiAGEN Corp
Species distribution models should provide conservation practioners with estimates of the spatial distributions of species requiring attention. These species are often rare and have limited known ...occurrences, posing challenges for creating accurate species distribution models. We tested four modeling methods (Bioclim, Domain, GARP, and Maxent) across 18 species with different levels of ecological specialization using six different sample size treatments and three different evaluation measures. Our assessment revealed that Maxent was the most capable of the four modeling methods in producing useful results with sample sizes as small as 5, 10 and 25 occurrences. The other methods compensated reasonably well (Domain and GARP) to poorly (Bioclim) when presented with datasets of small sample sizes. We show that multiple evaluation measures are necessary to determine accuracy of models produced with presence-only data. Further, we found that accuracy of models is greater for species with small geographic ranges and limited environmental tolerance, ecological characteristics of many rare species. Our results indicate that reasonable models can be made for some rare species, a result that should encourage conservationists to add distribution modeling to their toolbox.
Glioblastoma stands as the most frequent primary brain tumor. Despite the multimodal therapy for glioblastoma patients, the survival rate is very low, highlighting the need for novel therapies that ...improve patient outcomes. Immune checkpoint blockade strategies are achieving promising results in a myriad of tumors and several studies have reported its efficacy in glioblastoma at a preclinical level. ILT2 is a novel immune checkpoint that exerts an inhibitory effect via the interaction with classical and non‐classical HLA class‐I molecules. Herein, we report that ILT2 blockade promotes antitumor responses against glioblastoma. In silico and immunohistochemical analyses revealed that the expression of ILT2 and its ligands HLA‐A, ‐B, ‐C, and ‐E are highly expressed in patients with glioblastoma. Disruption of ILT2 with blocking monoclonal antibodies increased natural killer cell‐mediated IFN‐γ production and cytotoxicity against glioblastoma, partially reverting the immunosuppression linked to this malignancy. In addition, co‐treatment with temozolomide strengthened the antitumor capacity of anti‐ILT2‐treated immune cells. Collectively, our results establish the basis for future studies regarding the clinical potential of ILT2 blockade alone or in combination regimens in glioblastoma.
The inhibitory immune checkpoint ILT2 is highly expressed in glioblastoma. Its blockade partially restores antitumor responses in this tumor and combination with temozolomide enhances this anti‐glioblastoma effect.
The transcriptional landscape of polyploid wheat Ramírez-González, R H; Borrill, P; Lang, D ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
08/2018, Letnik:
361, Številka:
6403
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The coordinated expression of highly related homoeologous genes in polyploid species underlies the phenotypes of many of the world's major crops. Here we combine extensive gene expression datasets to ...produce a comprehensive, genome-wide analysis of homoeolog expression patterns in hexaploid bread wheat. Bias in homoeolog expression varies between tissues, with ~30% of wheat homoeologs showing nonbalanced expression. We found expression asymmetries along wheat chromosomes, with homoeologs showing the largest inter-tissue, inter-cultivar, and coding sequence variation, most often located in high-recombination distal ends of chromosomes. These transcriptionally dynamic genes potentially represent the first steps toward neo- or subfunctionalization of wheat homoeologs. Coexpression networks reveal extensive coordination of homoeologs throughout development and, alongside a detailed expression atlas, provide a framework to target candidate genes underpinning agronomic traits in wheat.
The see-saw portal at future Higgs Factories Barducci, Daniele; Bertuzzo, Enrico; Caputo, Andrea ...
The journal of high energy physics,
03/2021, Letnik:
2021, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
A
bstract
We consider an extension of the Standard Model with two right-handed singlet fermions with mass at the electroweak scale that induce neutrino masses, plus a generic new physics sector at a ...higher scale Λ. We focus on the effective operators of lowest dimension
d
= 5, which induce new production and decay modes for the singlet fermions. We assess the sensitivity of future Higgs Factories, such as FCC-ee, CLIC-380, ILC and CEPC, to the coefficients of these operators for various center of mass energies. We show that future lepton colliders can test the cut-off of the theory up to Λ ≃ 500–1000 TeV, surpassing the reach of future indirect measurements of the Higgs and
Z
boson widths. We also comment on the possibility of determining the underlying model flavor structure should a New Physics signal be observed, and on the impact of higher dimensional
d
= 6 operators on the experimental signatures.
Leptogenesis from oscillations and dark matter Caputo, Andrea; Hernandez, Pilar; Rius, Nuria
The European physical journal. C, Particles and fields,
07/2019, Letnik:
79, Številka:
7
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
An extension of the Standard Model with Majorana singlet fermions in the 1–100 GeV range can explain the light neutrino masses and give rise to a baryon asymmetry at freeze-in of the heavy states, ...via their CP-violating oscillations. In this paper we consider extending this scenario to also explain dark matter. We find that a very weakly coupled
B
-
L
gauge boson, an invisible QCD axion model, and the singlet majoron model can simultaneously account for dark matter and the baryon asymmetry.
Minimal flavor violation in the see-saw portal Barducci, Daniele; Bertuzzo, Enrico; Caputo, Andrea ...
The journal of high energy physics,
06/2020, Letnik:
2020, Številka:
6
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
A
bstract
We consider an extension of the Standard Model with two singlet leptons, with masses in the electroweak range, that induce neutrino masses via the see-saw mechanism, plus a generic new ...physics sector at a higher scale, Λ. We apply the minimal flavor violation (MFV) principle to the corresponding Effective Field Theory (
ν
SMEFT) valid at energy scales
E
≪ Λ. We identify the irreducible sources of lepton flavor and lepton number violation at the renormalizable level, and apply the MFV ansätz to derive the scaling of the Wilson coefficients of the
ν
SMEFT operators up to dimension six. We highlight the most important phenomenological consequences of this hypothesis in the rates for exotic Higgs decays, the decay length of the heavy neutrinos, and their production modes at present and future colliders. We also comment on possible astrophysical implications.
Vicarious resilience has been defined as the positive impact on and personal growth of therapists resulting from exposure to their clients’ resilience. This review provides a comprehensive summary of ...the qualitative and quantitative research conducted in the past 10 years, and offers suggestions for future research.
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