Sore throat and hoarseness are common complications, but these have not been studied after total i.v. anaesthesia.
We prospectively studied 418 surgical patients, aged 15–92 yr, after total i.v. ...anaesthesia with propofol, fentanyl and ketamine to assess possible factors associated with sore throat and hoarseness.
We found sore throat in 50% and hoarseness in 55% of patients immediately after surgery. This decreased to 25% for sore throat and 24% for hoarseness on the day after surgery. Both sore throat and hoarseness were more common in females and when lidocaine spray had been used. Cricoid pressure during laryngoscopy was inversely associated with the risk of sore throat.
Knowledge of these factors may reduce postoperative throat complications, and improve patient satisfaction.
•Global imbalances in climate change knowledge production and exchange exist.•The production of knowledge is biased towards richer regions with cooler climates.•Knowledge is structured into modules ...of countries by geographic, climatic, political variables.•Knowledge exchange between modules of countries with common research interests is weak.•The imbalanced production of knowledge affects adaptation and policymaking.
Studies on scientific production of climate change knowledge show a geographical bias against the developing and more vulnerable regions of the world. If there is limited knowledge exchange between regions, this may deepen global knowledge divides and, thus, potentially hamper adaptive capacities. Consequently, there is a need to further understand this bias, and, particularly, link it with the exchange of knowledge across borders. We use a world-wide geographical distribution of author affiliations in >15,000 scientific climate change publications to show that (1) research production mainly takes place in richer, institutionally well-developed countries with cooler climates and high climate footprints, and (2) the network of author affiliations is structured into distinct modules of countries with strong common research interests, but with little knowledge exchange between modules. These modules are determined mainly by geographical proximity, common climates, and similar political and economic characteristics. This indicates that political-economic, social and educational-scientific initiatives targeted to enhance local research production and collaborations across geographical-climate module borders may help diminish global knowledge divides. We argue that this could strengthen adaptive capacity in the most vulnerable regions of the world.
Globally, human activities impose threats to nature and the provision of ecosystem services, such as pollination. In this context, ecological restoration provides opportunities to create managed ...landscapes that maximize biodiversity conservation and sustainable agriculture, e.g., via provision of pollination services. Managing pollination services and restoration opportunities requires the engagement of distinct stakeholders embedded in diverse social institutions. Nevertheless, frameworks toward sustainable agriculture often overlook how stakeholders interact and access power in social arenas. We present a perspective integrating pollination services, ecological restoration, and public engagement for biodiversity conservation and agricultural production. We highlight the importance of a comprehensive assessment of pollination services, restoration opportunities identification, and a public engagement strategy anchored in institutional analysis of the social arenas involved in restoration efforts. Our perspective can therefore guide the implementation of practices from local to country scales to enhance biodiversity conservation and sustainable agriculture.
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Environmental science; Ecology; Social sciences
1. Virtually all empirical ecological interaction networks to some extent suffer from undersampling. However, how limitations imposed by sampling incompleteness affect our understanding of ecological ...networks is still poorly explored, which may hinder further advances in the field. 2. Here, we use a plant–hummingbird network with unprecedented sampling effort (2716 h of focal observations) from the Atlantic Rainforest in Brazil, to investigate how sampling effort affects the description of network structure (i.e. widely used network metrics) and the relative importance of distinct processes (i.e. species abundances vs. traits) in determining the frequency of pairwise interactions. 3. By dividing the network into time slices representing a gradient of sampling effort, we show that quantitative metrics, such as interaction evenness, specialization (H2'), weighted nestedness (wNODF) and modularity (Q; QuanBiMo algorithm) were less biased by sampling incompleteness than binary metrics. Furthermore, the significance of some network metrics changed along the sampling effort gradient. Nevertheless, the higher importance of traits in structuring the network was apparent even with small sampling effort. 4. Our results (i) warn against using very poorly sampled networks as this may bias our understanding of networks, both their patterns and structuring processes, (ii) encourage the use of quantitative metrics little influenced by sampling when performing spatio-temporal comparisons and (iii) indicate that in networks strongly constrained by species traits, such as plant–hummingbird networks, even small sampling is sufficient to detect their relative importance for the frequencies of interactions. Finally, we argue that similar effects of sampling are expected for other highly specialized subnetworks.
Orexin is a hypothalamic neuropeptide that is implicated in the regulation of feeding behaviour and the sleep‐wakefulness cycle in mammals. However, in spite of a growing body of knowledge concerning ...orexin in mammals, the orexin system and its function have not been well studied in lower vertebrates. In the present study, we first examined the effect of feeding status on the orexin‐like immunoreactivity (orexin‐LI) and the expression of orexin mRNA in the goldfish brain. The number of cells showing orexin‐LI in the hypothalamus of goldfish brain showed a significant increase in fasted fish and a significant decrease in glucose‐injected fish. The expression level of orexin mRNA in the brains of fasted fish increased compared to that of fed fish. We also examined the effect of an i.c.v. injection of orexin or an anti‐orexin serum on food intake and locomotor activity in the goldfish. Administration of orexin by i.c.v. injection induced a significant increase of food intake and locomotor activity, whereas i.p. injection of glucose or i.c.v. injection of anti‐orexin serum decreased food consumption. These results indicate that the orexin functions as an orexigenic factor in the goldfish brain.
Complex networks of species interactions might be determined by species traits but also by simple chance meetings governed by species abundances. Although the idea that species traits structure ...mutualistic networks is appealing, most studies have found abundance to be a major structuring mechanism underlying interaction frequencies. With a well‐resolved plant–hummingbird interaction network from the Neotropical savanna in Brazil, we asked whether species morphology, phenology, nectar availability and habitat occupancy and/or abundance best predicted the frequency of interactions. For this, we constructed interaction probability matrices and compared them to the observed plant‐hummingbird matrix through a likelihood approach. Furthermore, a recently proposed modularity algorithm for weighted bipartite networks was employed to evaluate whether these factors also scale‐up to the formation of modules in the network. Interaction frequencies were best predicted by species morphology, phenology and habitat occupancy, while species abundances and nectar availability performed poorly. The plant–hummingbird network was modular, and modules were associated to morphological specialization and habitat occupancy. Our findings highlight the importance of traits as determinants of interaction frequencies and network structure, corroborating the results of a previous study on a plant–hummingbird network from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. Thus, we propose that traits matter more in tropical plant–hummingbird networks than in less specialized systems. To test the generality of this hypothesis, future research could employ geographic or taxonomic cross‐system comparisons contrasting networks with known differences in level of specialization.
The purpose of this study was to determine the usefulness of transferrin (TF)-pendant-type polyethyleneglycol (PEG)-liposomes (TF-PEG-liposomes), in which TF was covalently linked to the distal ...terminal of PEG chains on the external surface of PEG-liposomes as a carrier for in vivo cytoplasmic targeting to tumor cells.
Small unilamellar TF-PEG-liposomes (100-140 nm in diameter) were prepared from DSPC, CH, DSPE-PEG, and DSPE-PEG-COOH (2:1:0.11:0.021, molar ratio), and were conjugated to TF via the carboxyl residue of DSPE-PEG-COOH. The intracellular targeting ability of TF-PEG-liposomes to tumor cells was examined in vitro and in Colon 26 tumor-bearing mice.
TF-PEG-liposomes, bearing approximately 25 TF molecules per liposome, readily bound to mouse Colon 26 cells in vitro and were internalized by receptor-mediated endocytosis. TF-PEG-liposomes showed a prolonged residence time in the circulation and low RES uptake in Colon 26 tumor-bearing mice, resulting in enhanced extravasation of the liposomes into the solid tumor tissue. Electron microscopic studies in Colon 26 tumor-bearing mice revealed that the extravasated TF-PEG-liposomes were internalized into tumor cells by receptor-mediated endocytosis.
TF-PEG-liposomes had the capabilities of specific receptor binding and receptor-mediated endocytosis to target cells after extravasation into solid tumors in vivo. Such liposomes should be useful for in vivo cytoplasmic targeting of chemotherapeutic agents or plasmid DNAs to target cells.
1. The temporal dynamics of plant phenology and pollinator abundance across seasons should influence the structure of plant-pollinator interaction networks. Nevertheless, such dynamics are seldom ...considered, especially for diverse tropical networks. 2. Here, we evaluated the temporal variation of four plant-pollinator networks in two seasonal ecosystems in Central Brazil (Cerrado and Pantanal). Data were gathered on a monthly basis over 1 year for each network. We characterized seasonal and temporal shifts in plant-pollinator interactions, using temporally discrete networks. We predicted that the greater floral availability in the rainy season would allow for finer partitioning of the floral niche by the pollinators, i.e. higher specialization patterns as previously described across large spatial gradients. Finally, we also evaluated how sampling restricted to peak flowering period may affect the characterization of the networks. 3. Contrary to our expectations, we found that dry season networks, although characterized by lower floral resource richness and abundance, showed higher levels of network-wide interaction partitioning (complementary specialization and modularity). For nestedness, though, this between-seasons difference was not consistent. Reduced resource availability in the dry season may promote higher interspecific competition among pollinators leading to reduced niche overlap, thus explaining the increase in specialization. 4. There were no consistent differences between seasons in species-level indices, indicating that higher network level specialization is an emergent property only seen when considering the entire network. However, bees presented higher values of specialization and species strength in relation to other groups such as flies and wasps, suggesting that some plant species frequently associated with bees are used only by this group. 5. Our study also indicates that targeted data collection during peak flowering generates higher estimates of network specialization, possibly because species activity spans longer periods than the targeted time frame. Hence, depending on the period of data collection, different structural values for the networks of interactions may be found. 6. Synthesis. Plant-pollinator networks from tropical environments have structural properties that vary according to seasons, which should be taken into account in the description of the complex systems of interactions between plants and their pollinators in these areas.
Abstract Previously, we have demonstrated that prostamide/PGF synthase, which catalyzes the reduction of prostaglandin (PG) H2 to PGF2α , is constitutively expressed in myelin sheaths and cultured ...oligodendrocytes, suggesting that PGF2α has functional significance in myelin-forming oligodendrocytes. To investigate the effects of PGF2α /FP receptor signaling on demyelination, we administrated FP receptor agonist and antagonist to cuprizone-exposed mice, a model of multiple sclerosis. Mice were fed a diet containing 0.2% cuprizone for 5 weeks, which induces severe demyelination, glial activation, proinflammatory cytokine expression, and motor dysfunction. Administration of the FP receptor antagonist AL-8810 attenuated cuprizone-induced demyelination, glial activation, and TNFα expression in the corpus callosum, and also improved the motor function. These data suggest that during cuprizone-induced demyelination, PGF2α /FP receptor signaling contributes to glial activation, neuroinflammation, and demyelination, resulting in motor dysfunction. Thus, FP receptor inhibition may be a useful symptomatic treatment in multiple sclerosis.
A large collection of full-length cDNAs is essential for the correct annotation of genomic sequences and for the functional analysis of genes and their products. We obtained a total of 39 936 soybean ...cDNA clones (GMFL01 and GMFL02 clone sets) in a full-length-enriched cDNA library which was constructed from soybean plants that were grown under various developmental and environmental conditions. Sequencing from 5′ and 3′ ends of the clones generated 68 661 expressed sequence tags (ESTs). The EST sequences were clustered into 22 674 scaffolds involving 2580 full-length sequences. In addition, we sequenced 4712 full-length cDNAs. After removing overlaps, we obtained 6570 new full-length sequences of soybean cDNAs so far. Our data indicated that 87.7% of the soybean cDNA clones contain complete coding sequences in addition to 5′- and 3′-untranslated regions. All of the obtained data confirmed that our collection of soybean full-length cDNAs covers a wide variety of genes. Comparative analysis between the derived sequences from soybean and Arabidopsis, rice or other legumes data revealed that some specific genes were involved in our collection and a large part of them could be annotated to unknown functions. A large set of soybean full-length cDNA clones reported in this study will serve as a useful resource for gene discovery from soybean and will also aid a precise annotation of the soybean genome.
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