Abscisic acid (ABA) deficient mutants, such as notabilis and flacca, have helped elucidating the role of ABA during plant development and stress responses in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.). ...However, these mutants have only moderately decreased ABA levels. Here we report on plant and fruit development in the more strongly ABA-deficient notabilis/flacca (not/flc) double mutant. We observed that plant growth, leaf-surface area, drought-induced wilting and ABA-related gene expression in the different genotypes were strongly correlated with the ABA levels and thus most strongly affected in the not/flc double mutants. These mutants also had reduced fruit size that was caused by an overall smaller cell size. Lower ABA levels in fruits did not correlate with changes in auxin levels, but were accompanied by higher ethylene evolution rates. This suggests that in a wild-type background ABA stimulates cell enlargement during tomato fruit growth via a negative effect on ethylene synthesis.
Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) is a procedure that delivers a single large radiation dose to a well‐defined target. Here, we describe a frameless SRS technique suitable for intracranial targets in ...canines. Medical records of dogs diagnosed with a primary intracranial tumour by imaging or histopathology that underwent SRS were retrospectively reviewed. Frameless SRS was used successfully to treat tumours in 51 dogs with a variety of head sizes and shapes. Tumours diagnosed included 38 meningiomas, 4 pituitary tumours, 4 trigeminal nerve tumours, 3 gliomas, 1 histiocytic sarcoma and 1 choroid plexus tumour. Median survival time was 399 days for all tumours and for dogs with meningiomas; cause‐specific survival was 493 days for both cohorts. Acute grade III central nervous system toxicity (altered mentation) occurred in two dogs. Frameless SRS resulted in survival times comparable to conventional radiation therapy, but with fewer acute adverse effects and only a single anaesthetic episode required for therapy.
Contents
The objective of this study was to describe efficiency of reproduction of purebred dogs in field breeding conditions, from mating to weaning in France. Data were collected between 2010 and ...2014 in 5,667 French breeding kennels via a reproduction management software (Breeding Management System, Royal Canin, Aimargues, France). Effect of breed size (Mini: adult body weight <10 kg; Medium: 10–25 kg; Maxi: 25–40 kg; Giant: >40 kg), age of dam and male on pregnancy rate, abortion rate and litter size were evaluated by multivariable models. Data on 45,913 heats (all with mating), from 27,221 bitches from 248 breeds, were analysed. At mating, mean age (±SD) was 3.1 ± 1.8 years for bitches and 3.3 ± 2.0 for males. Males originated from the same kennel as the females in 88.5% of the matings. Based on breeder's evaluation of the pregnancy status, pregnancy rate (number of pregnant females based on breeders declaration/number of heats) was 87.8% and abortion rate was 6.8%. Finally, 81.9% of the mated females gave birth to a litter. On 37,946 litters (204,537 puppies), mean litter size was 5.4 ± 2.8 puppies (range 1–24), which was influenced by breed size and dam age (p < .0001). Stillbirth rate was 7.4% and puppy mortality rate (stillbirth + mortality until 2 months of age) was 13.4%. Prolificacy and puppy mortality rates were affected by breed size and within a breed size, by breed. Despite probable approximations (as data originate from breeders declaration), this large‐scale analysis provides reference values on reproductive performance in dogs.
Background and purpose
Drugs with anticholinergic properties might have a negative impact on cognition, but findings are still conflicting. The association was evaluated between anticholinergic drugs ...and cognitive performance in primary care patients with first cognitive complaints.
Methods
From April 2013 to March 2014, 353 general practitioners administered the Mini‐Mental State Examination (MMSE) to patients presenting with first cognitive complaints. Drug history was collected and the anticholinergic cognitive burden (ACB) was scored and categorized as ACB 0, ACB 1 and ACB 2+. A mixed effect linear regression model was used to assess the association between ACB and MMSE score.
Results
Of 4249 subjects entering the study (mean age 77 ± 8.2 years, 66.4% women and mean years of schooling 8.9 ± 4.5), 25.8% received at least one drug with anticholinergic action. According to multivariate analysis, and after adjustment for several confounders, subjects with ACB 2+ had a statistically significant lower MMSE score compared with those with ACB 0 (β −0.63; 95% confidence interval −1.19; −0.07). Subjects with ACB 1 had a non‐statistically significant lower MMSE score than those with ACB 0 (β −0.11; 95% confidence interval −0.37; 0.15).
Conclusions
Anticholinergic medication might affect cognitive function in people with first cognitive complaints. Alternatives should be taken into account when possible, balancing the benefits and harms of these medications.
CHANDLER R&D status Huber, P.; Link, J. M.; Mariani, C. ...
Journal of physics. Conference series,
04/2019, Letnik:
1216, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Reactor antineutrino fluxes can be measured to investigate neutrino oscillations including the possible existence of sterile neutrinos and conversely, the measurement of the neutrino spectrum and its ...composition over time indicates the makeup of the fissile material in the reactor. In view of this dual use potential, the CHANDLER technology has been proposed to realize ton-scale devices for the surface detection of reactor antineutrinos. Particular advantages of CHANDLER-type detectors are their excellent energy resolution, fine spatial granularity and a no-liquids design. During the initial R&D phase, a small prototype, called microCHANDLER, has been built and studied thoroughly using cosmic rays and radioactive sources. The outcome of these initial performance studies is presented here.
•Surface states at the graphene/Ir(111) interface.•Optical Bloch Equations for a two levels system have been employed to estimate the depopulation and the dephasing time from the experimental ...results.•Dependence of the lmage State depopulation time on the excitation channel.•The depopulation time of the Image State becomes four times longer when it is resonantly populated from the surface state.
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The image potential state lifetime at the graphene/Ir(111) interface has been measured by tuning the pump photon energy on- and off-resonance for the optical transition between the surface state and the image state. By a joint effort of time resolved non-linear photoemission measurements and Optical Bloch Equations results, we astonishingly show that the depopulation time of the image state becomes four times longer when it is resonantly populated from the surface state.
Dementia is one of the main causes of disability later in life. Interventions in support of patients with dementia aim at granting the highest level of independence in activities of daily living and ...at delivering the required facilities; formal and informal caregivers represent the interface between patients and health services. The aims of our study were to assess caregivers’ perceived needs and to relate them to their own socio-cultural features and to patients’ clinical characteristics. During three consecutive months, 50 caregivers of patients with dementia were interviewed about their needs in the assistance of subjects with dementia by means of three structured questionnaires (Caregiver Needs Assessment CNA, Zarit Burden Inventory ZBI, Neuropsychiatric Inventory–Questionnaire NPI-Q) and of two open-ended questions. Higher scores of CNA (suggestive of more needs) were associated with a major burden in caregiving and were related to a more severe behavioral and psychological profile of patients with dementia. ZBI was highly correlated with NPI distress score. Among caregivers, the children of patients reported more needs, particularly about information on disease and how to cope with it. CNA emerged as a complete and reliable instrument, with need for safety being the only item missing from the questionnaire and identified by means of the open-ended questions. Our results showed how the use of simple and brief instruments can increase the communication between health operators and caregivers and could thus improve the quality of formal and informal assistance.
In this work, we investigated the prognosis of three medical data specifically, breast cancer, heart disease, and prostate cancer by using 10 machine learning models. We applied all 10 models to each ...dataset to identify patterns in them. Furthermore, we use the models to diagnose risk factors that increases the chance of these diseases. All the statistical learning techniques discussed were grouped into linear and nonlinear models based on their similarities and learning styles. The models performances were significantly improved by selecting models while taking into account the bias-variance tradeoffs and using cross-validation for selecting the tuning parameter. Our results suggests that no particular class of models or learning style dominated the prognosis and diagnosis for all three medical datasets. However nonlinear models gave the best predictive performance for breast cancer data. Linear models on the other hand gave the best predictive performance for heart disease data and a combination of linear and nonlinear models for the prostate cancer dataset.
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