Prediction of streamflow regimes over large geographical areas: interpolated flow–duration curves for the Danube region

ABSTRACTFlow–duration curves (FDCs) are essential to support decisions on water resources management, and their regionalization is fundamental for the assessment of ungauged basins. In comparison with calibrated rainfall–runoff models, statistical methods provide data-driven estimates representing a useful benchmark. The objective of this work is the interpolation of FDCs from ~500 discharge gauging stations in the Danube. To this aim we use total negative deviation top-kriging (TNDTK), as multi-regression models are shown to be unsuitable for representing FDCs across all durations and sites. TNDTK shows a high accuracy for the entire Danube region, with overall Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency values computed in a leave-p-out cross-validation scheme (p equal to one site, one-third and half of the sites), all above 0.88. A reliability measure based on kriging variance is attached to each interpolated FDC at ~4000 prediction nodes. The GIS layer of regionalized FDCs is made available for broader use in the region

Streamflow data availability in Europe: a detailed dataset of interpolated flow-duration curves

For about 24 000 river basins across Europe, we provide a continuous representation of the stream-flow regime in terms of empirical flow-duration curves (FDCs), which are key signatures of the hydrological behaviour of a catchment and are widely used for supporting decisions on water resource management as well as for assessing hydrologic change. In this study, FDCs are estimated by means of the geostatistical procedure termed total negative deviation top-kriging (TNDTK), starting from the empirical FDCs made available by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (DG-JRC) for about 3000 discharge measurement stations across Europe. Consistent with previous studies, TNDTK is shown to provide high accuracy for the entire study area, even with different degrees of reliability, which varies significantly over the study area. In order to provide this kind of information site by site, together with the estimated FDCs, for each catchment we provide indicators of the accuracy and reliability of the performed large-scale geostatistical prediction. The dataset is freely available at the PANGAEA open-access library (Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science) at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.938975 (Persiano et al., 2021b)

Idiopathic calcium nephrolithiasis with pure calcium oxalate composition: clinical correlates of the calcium oxalate dihydrate/monohydrate (COD/COM) stone ratio

Pure calcium oxalate is the most frequent type of idiopathic kidney stone composition. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) allows to detect the ratio of calcium oxalate dihydrate (COD) and monohydrate (COM) crystals in stones, but the clinical significance of this parameter remains uncertain. The objective of this observational study was to verify the association of clinical and laboratory parameters of kidney stone disease with COD/COM ratio in a group of 465 (322 M, age 46 ± 14) patients suffering from idiopathic calcium nephrolithiasis with pure calcium oxalate stones (≥ 97%). Each participant underwent a complete clinical examination, serum chemistry, 24-h urine collection for the determination of the profile of lithogenic risk, and had stones analyzed by FT-IR. Most (62%) of the stones had a COD/COM ratio ≤ 0.25, and the urine chemistry of the corresponding patients showed a low prevalence of urinary metabolic abnormalities. With increasing COD/COM ratio intervals (0–0.25, 0.26–0.50, 0.51–0.75, 0.76–1), a significant association was observed for the number of urological procedures, serum calcium, 24-h urinary calcium excretion, prevalence of hypercalciuria and relative calcium oxalate supersaturation, and a negative trend was detected for the age of the first stone episode (all p values < 0.05). A linear regression model showed that the only parameters significantly associated with COD/COM ratio were 24-h urinary calcium excretion (standardized β = 0.464, p < 0.001) and urine pH (standardized β = 0.103, p = 0.013). In pure calcium oxalate idiopathic stones, COD/COM ratio may reflect the presence of urinary metabolic risk factors, and represent a guide for the prescription of urinary analyses

The Clinical Significance of Procalcitonin Elevation in Patients over 75 Years Old Admitted for COVID-19 Pneumonia

Aim. To investigate the clinical significance of procalcitonin (PCT) elevation on hospital admission for coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) and its association with mortality in oldest old patients (age>75 years). Methods. The clinical records of 1074 patients with chest high-resolution computed-tomography (HRCT) positive for interstitial pneumonia and symptoms compatible for COVID-19, hospitalized in medical wards during the first pandemic wave in a single academic center in Northern Italy, were retrospectively analyzed. All patients had serum PCT testing performed within six hours from admission. Information on COVID-19-related symptoms, comorbidities, drugs, autonomy in daily activities, respiratory exchanges, other routine lab tests, and outcomes were collected. Clinical characteristics were compared across different admission PCT levels and ages. The association of admission PCT with mortality was tested separately in participants aged>75 and ≤75 years old by stepwise multivariate Cox regression model with forward selection. Results. With increasing classes of PCT levels (<0.05, 0.05-0.49, 0.5-1.99, and ≥2 ng/ml), there was a significant trend (P<0.0001) towards older age, male gender, wider extension of lung involvement on HRCT, worse respiratory exchanges, and several other laboratory abnormalities. Each incremental PCT class was associated with increased risk of hospital death at multivariate models in subjects older than 75 (hazard ratio for PCT≥2 vs. <0.05 ng/ml: 30.629, 95% confidence interval 4.176-224.645, P=0.001), but not in subjects aged 75 or younger. Conclusions. In patients admitted for COVID-19, PCT elevation was associated with several clinical, radiological, and laboratory characteristics of disease severity. However, PCT elevation was strongly associated with hospital mortality only in oldest old subjects (age>75)

A multidisciplinary expert opinion on CINV and RINV, unmet needs and practical real-life approaches

Introduction: A range of combination chemotherapy regimens are currently used in clinical practice. However, international antiemetic guidelines often only categorize the emetogenic potential of single agents rather than the emetogenicity of combination chemotherapy regimens. To manage the nausea and vomiting induced by antineoplastic combinations, guidelines suggest antiemetics that are appropriate for the component drug with the highest emetogenic potential. Furthermore, antiemetic guidelines generally do not consider the influence of other factors, including individual patient characteristics, on the emetic effects of cancer treatments. Similarly, the emetogenic potential of radiotherapy is stratified only according to the site of radiation, while other factors contributing to emetic risk are overlooked. Areas covered: An Expert Panel was convened to examine unresolved issues and summarize the current clinical research on managing nausea and vomiting associated with combination chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Expert opinion: The panel identified the incidence of nausea and vomiting induced by multi-drug combination therapies currently used to treat cancer at different anatomic sites and by radiotherapy in the presence of other risk factors. Based on these data and the clinical experience of panel members, several suggestions are made for a practical approach to prevent or manage nausea and vomiting due to chemotherapy regimens and radiation therapy

Defined tau phosphospecies differentially inhibit fast axonal transport through activation of two independent signaling pathways

© The Author(s), 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Morris, S. L., Tsai, M., Aloe, S., Bechberger, K., Konig, S., Morfini, G., & Brady, S. T. Defined tau phosphospecies differentially inhibit fast axonal transport through activation of two independent signaling pathways. Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience, 13, (2021): 610037, https://doi.org/10.3389/fnmol.2020.610037.Tau protein is subject to phosphorylation by multiple kinases at more than 80 different sites. Some of these sites are associated with tau pathology and neurodegeneration, but other sites are modified in normal tau as well as in pathological tau. Although phosphorylation of tau at residues in the microtubule-binding repeats is thought to reduce tau association with microtubules, the functional consequences of other sites are poorly understood. The AT8 antibody recognizes a complex phosphoepitope site on tau that is detectable in a healthy brain but significantly increased in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other tauopathies. Previous studies showed that phosphorylation of tau at the AT8 site leads to exposure of an N-terminal sequence that promotes activation of a protein phosphatase 1 (PP1)/glycogen synthase 3 (GSK3) signaling pathway, which inhibits kinesin-1-based anterograde fast axonal transport (FAT). This finding suggests that phosphorylation may control tau conformation and function. However, the AT8 includes three distinct phosphorylated amino acids that may be differentially phosphorylated in normal and disease conditions. To evaluate the effects of specific phosphorylation sites in the AT8 epitope, recombinant, pseudophosphorylated tau proteins were perfused into the isolated squid axoplasm preparation to determine their effects on axonal signaling pathways and FAT. Results from these studies suggest a mechanism where specific phosphorylation events differentially impact tau conformation, promoting activation of independent signaling pathways that differentially affect FAT. Implications of findings here to our understanding of tau function in health and disease conditions are discussed.This research was funded by NIH grants R21NS096642 (GM); 1R01NS118177-01A1 (GM), R01 NS082730 (SB), a Zenith Award from the Alzheimer’s Association (SB), and a grant from the Tau Consortium/Rainwater Foundation (SB)

Nerve growth factor is an autocrine survival factor for memory B lymphocytes

AbstractProduction of nerve growth factor (NGF) was assessed in cultures of human T and B lymphocytes and macrophages. NGF was constitutively produced by B cells only, which also expressed surface p140trk-A and p75NGFR molecules and hence efficiently bound and internalized the cytokine. Neutralization of endogenous NGF caused disappearance of Bcl-2 protein and apoptotic death of resting lymphocytes bearing surface IgG or IgA, a population comprising memory cells, while surface IgM/IgD “virgin” B lymphocytes were not affected. In vivo administration of neutralizing anti-NGF antibodies caused strong reduction in the titer of specific IgG in mice immunized with tetanus toxoid, nitrophenol, or arsonate and reduced numbers of surface IgG or IgA B lymphocytes. Thus, NGF is an autocrine survival factor for memory B lymphocytes

Bioelectrical impedance analysis in patients with posterior vitreous detachment

OBJECTIVE: the purpose of the study is to assess body hydration in patients with posterior vitreous detachment (PVD) by bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA). PVD, one of the most common eye diseases, is associated in both research and the collective image with reduced daily water intake, but this finding is not supported by strong evidence in the literature. PATIENTS AND METHODS: based on spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) evaluation, different PVD stages are identified: absent posterior vitreous detachment, partial posterior vitreous detachment (P-PVD), or complete posterior vitreous detachment (C-PVD). BIA is a simple, non-invasive bedside method used to assess body composition. patients underwent BIA and completed a floaters symptoms. 30 patients were enrolled and divided into two groups according to the degree of vitreous detachment, in P-PVD (n=12) and C-PVD (n=18). patients underwent BIA and completed a floaters symptoms questionnaire. BIA measured the resistance (R), reactance (Xc), phase angle (PhA), total body water (TBW), extracellular water (ECW), fat mass (FM), fat-free mass (FFM), and body cell mass Index (BCMI). finally, patients received a test to assess adherence to the mediterranean diet (mediterranean diet test score, MDTS) with the addition of daily water intake. RESULTS: relevant data were obtained from the BIA evaluation: the values of R and Xc were lower in the P-PVD group than C-PVD group (respectively 417.08±58.12 Ω vs. 476.94±51.29 Ω p=0.006 and 41.33±8.23 Ω vs. 50.61±7.98 Ω p=0.004). instead, patients in the P-PVD group reported higher values of TBW and ECW than C-PVD group (respectively 44.13±7.57 L vs. 37.96±6.27 L p=0.021 and 21.03±4.06 L vs. 17.24±2.63 L p=0.004). CONCLUSIONS: In the present study, we reported a significant correlation between vitreous pathology and anthropometric and BIA measurements