Improvement of the quality of propagation material for organic farming system

The use of organic propagation material is obligatory according to the current EU regulations for organic production. However, frequently difficulties are en-countered regarding the availability, the costs or the quality. In the Netherlands a national research program aims at developing solutions, needed for improving the production of high quality organic propagation material. The main emphasis in the pro-gram is on the model crops cabbage, onion, wheat and potato. Individual projects within the program include epidemiological studies of seed borne dis-eases to develop disease prevention strategies, meth-ods to improve resistance of seeds and seedlings towards pathogens and methods to control silver scurf in seed potatoes, development of multi-spectral analysis and sorting techniques and methods for analysis and improvement of seed vigour. Active involvement of producers and users of the seeds or seed potatoes ensures that the results will be imple-mented in practice. The program also aims at strengthening the international collaboration, amongst others through involvement in international research projects

Comments on "global and regional comparison of daily 2-m and 1000-hPa maximum and minimum temperatures in three global reanalyses"

Pitman and Perkins claimed that instantaneous 2-m air temperatures from different reanalysis products largely disagree over widespread regions of the globe and that, because of their much smaller differences, temperatures at 1000 hPa should be preferably used. This comment shows that this claim is based on erroneous results. © 2012 American Meteorological Society.S.B. would like to thank the 'Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas' (CSIC) pre- doctoral program 'JAE-PREDOC' for funding.Peer Reviewe

Lifestyle factors and hand eczema: A systematic review and meta‐analysis of observational studies

Evidence regarding the association between lifestyle factors and hand eczema is limited.To extensively investigate the association between lifestyle factors (smoking, alcohol consumption, stress, physical activity, body mass index, diet, and sleep) and the prevalence, incidence, subtype, severity, and prognosis of hand eczema, a systematic review and meta‐analysis were conducted in accordance with the Meta‐analysis Of Observational Studies in Epidemiology consensus statement. MEDLINE, Embase, and Web of Science were searched up to October 2021. The (modified) Newcastle‐Ottawa Scale was used to judge risk of bias. Quality of the evidence was rated using the Grades of Recommendation, Assessment, Development and Evaluation approach. Eligibility and quality were blindly assessed by two independent investigators; disagreements were resolved by a third investigator. Data were pooled using a random‐effects model, and when insufficient for a meta‐analysis, evidence was narratively summarized. Fifty‐five studies were included. The meta‐analysis (17 studies) found very low quality evidence that smoking is associated with a higher prevalence of hand eczema (odds ratio 1.18, 95% confidence interval 1.09‐1.26). No convincing evidence of associations for the other lifestyle factors with hand eczema were found, mostly due to heterogeneity, conflicting results, and/or the limited number of studies per outcome

Supplemented Alkaline Phosphatase Supports the Immune Response in Patients Undergoing Cardiac Surgery: Clinical and Computational Evidence

Alkaline phosphatase (AP) is an enzyme that exhibits anti-inflammatory effects by dephosphorylating inflammation triggering moieties (ITMs) like bacterial lipopolysaccharides and extracellular nucleotides. AP administration aims to prevent and treat peri- and post-surgical ischemia reperfusion injury in cardiothoracic surgery patients. Recent studies reported that intravenous bolus administration and continuous infusion of AP in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting with cardiac valve surgery induce an increased release of liver-type “tissue non-specific alkaline phosphatase” (TNAP) into the bloodstream. The release of liver-type TNAP into circulation could be the body's way of strengthening its defense against a massive ischemic insult. However, the underlying mechanism behind the induction of TNAP is still unclear. To obtain a deeper insight into the role of AP during surgery, we developed a mathematical model of systemic inflammation that clarifies the relation between supplemented AP and TNAP and describes a plausible induction mechanism of TNAP in patients undergoing cardiothoracic surgery. The model was validated against clinical data from patients treated with bovine Intestinal AP (bIAP treatment) or without AP (placebo treatment), in addition to standard care procedures. We performed additional in-silico experiments adding a secondary source of ITMs after surgery, as observed in some patients with complications, and predicted the response to different AP treatment regimens. Our results show a strong protective effect of supplemented AP for patients with complications. The model provides evidence of the existence of an induction mechanism of liver-type tissue non-specific alkaline phosphatase, triggered by the supplementation of AP in patients undergoing cardiac surgery. To the best of our knowledge this is the first time that a quantitative and validated numerical model of systemic inflammation under clinical treatment conditions is presented

Early start of enzyme replacement therapy in pediatric male patients with classical Fabry disease is associated with attenuated disease progression

Background Enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) slows disease progression of Fabry disease (FD), especially when initiated before the onset of irreversible organ damage. However, with the clinically asymptomatic progression of renal, cardiac and cerebral disease manifestations spanning decades, optimal timing of ERT initiation remains unclear. Methods In this cross-sectional retrospective study, seven male FD patients with a classical disease phenotype (cFD) who started treatment with agalsidase-beta in childhood were evaluated after 10 years of treatment (median age at evaluation 24 years, range 14–26). Cardiac imaging (echocardiography and MRI), electrophysiological and biochemical data of these patients were compared to those of untreated male cFD patients (n = 23, median age 22 years, range 13–27). Results Albuminuria was less common and less severe in treated patients (albumin to creatinine ratio, ACR 0–8.8 mg/mmol, median 0.4) compared to untreated patients (ACR 0–248 mg/mmol, median 3.7, p = 0.02). The treated group had a lower left ventricular mass, measured using echocardiography (median 80 g/m2 versus 94 g/m2, p = 0.02) and MRI (median 53 g/m2 versus 68 g/m2, p = 0.02). Myocardial fibrosis was absent in all included patients. eGFR was normal in all treated patients whereas 7/23 (30%) of untreated patients had abnormal eGFR. Cerebral manifestations did not differ. Conclusions Start of treatment with ERT before age 16, in male cFD patients is associated with reduced occurrence of renal and cardiac manifestations of FD, as assessed by intermediate endpoints. Confirmation that this approach delays or even prevents renal failure and cardiac events requires another decade of follow-up.publishedVersio

Empirical mass-loss rates and clumping properties of Galactic early-type O supergiants

International audienceAims. We investigate the impact of optically thick clumping on spectroscopic stellar wind diagnostics in O supergiants and constrain wind parameters associated with porosity in velocity space. This is the first time the effects of optically thick clumping have been investigated for a sample of massive hot stars, using models which include a full optically thick clumping description. Methods. We re-analyse existing spectroscopic observations of a sample of eight O supergiants previously analysed with the non-local-thermodynamic-equilibrium (NLTE) atmosphere code CMFGEN. Using a genetic algorithm wrapper around the NLTE atmosphere code FASTWIND we obtain simultaneous fits to optical and ultraviolet spectra and determine photospheric properties, chemical surface abundances and wind properties. Results. We provide empirical constraints on a number of wind parameters including the clumping factors, mass-loss rates and terminal wind velocities. Additionally, we establish the first systematic empirical constraints on velocity filling factors and interclump densities. These are parameters that describe clump distribution in velocity-space and density of the interclump medium in physical-space, respectively. We observe a mass-loss rate reduction of a factor of 3.6 compared to theoretical predictions from Vink et al. (2000), and mass-loss rates within a factor 1.4 of theoretical predictions from Björklund et al. (2021). Conclusions. We confirm that including optically thick clumping allows simultaneous fitting of optical recombination lines and ultraviolet resonance lines, including the unsaturated ultraviolet phosphorus lines (P v λλ1118-1128), without reducing the phosphorus abundance. We find that, on average, half of the wind velocity field is covered by dense clumps. We also find that these clumps are 25 times denser than the average wind, and that the interclump medium is 3-10 times less dense than the mean wind. The former result agrees well with theoretical predictions, the latter suggests that lateral filling-in of radially compressed gas might be critical for setting the scale of the rarefied interclump matter

Активные фильтры аналогового тракта построителя сейсмических разрезов

Secure, anonymous and unobservable communication is becoming increasingly important due to the gradual erosion of privacy in many aspects of everyday life. This prompts the need for various anonymity- and privacy-enhancing techniques, e.g., group signatures, anonymous e-cash and secret handshakes. In this paper, we investigate an interesting and practical cryptographic construct Oblivious Signature-Based Envelopes (OS-BEs) recently introduced in [15]. OSBEs are very useful in anonymous communication since they allow a sender to communicate information to a receiver such that the receiver s rights (or roles) are unknown to the sender. At the same time, a receiver can obtain the information only if it is authorized to access it. This makes OSBEs a natural fit for anonymity-oriented and privacy-preserving applications, such as Automated Trust Negotiation and Oblivious Subscriptions. Previous results yielded three OSBE constructs: one based on RSA and two based on Identity-Based Encryption (IBE). Our work focuses on the ElGamal signature family: we succeed in constructing practical and secure OSBE schemes for several well-known signature schemes, including: Schnorr, Nyberg-Rueppel, ElGamal and DSA. As experiments with the prototype implementation il-lustrate, our schemes are more efficient than previous techniques. Furthermore, we show that some OSBE schemes, despite offering affiliation privacy for the receiver, introduce no additional cost over schemes that do not offer this feature

On the use of reanalysis data for downscaling

In this study, a worldwide overview on the expected sensitivity of downscaling studies to reanalysis choice is provided. To this end, the similarity of middle-tropospheric variables—which are important for the development of both dynamical and statistical downscaling schemes—from 40-yr European Centre for Medium- Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Re-Analysis (ERA-40) and NCEP–NCAR reanalysis data on a daily time scale is assessed. For estimating the distributional similarity, two comparable scores are used: the twosample Kolmogorov–Smirnov statistic and the probability density function (PDF) score. In addition, the similarity of the day-to-day sequences is evaluated with the Pearson correlation coefficient. As the most important results demonstrated, the PDF score is found to be inappropriate if the underlying data follow a mixed distribution. By providing global similarity maps for each variable under study, regions where reanalysis data should not assumed to be ‘‘perfect’’ are detected. In contrast to the geopotential and temperature, significant distributional dissimilarities for specific humidity are found in almost every region of the world. Moreover, for the latter these differences not only occur in the mean, but also in higher-order moments. However, when considering standardized anomalies, distributional and serial dissimilarities are negligible overmost extratropical land areas. Since transformed reanalysis data are not appropriate for regional climate models—in opposition to statistical approaches—their results are expected to be more sensitive to reanalysis choice

Slow relaxation in the two dimensional electron plasma under the strong magnetic field

We study slow relaxation processes in the point vortex model for the two-dimensional pure electron plasma under the strong magnetic field. By numerical simulations, it is shown that, from an initial state, the system undergoes the fast relaxation to a quasi-stationary state, and then goes through the slow relaxation to reach a final state. From analysis of simulation data, we find (i) the time scale of the slow relaxation increases linearly to the number of electrons if it is measured by the unit of the bulk rotation time, (ii) during the slow relaxation process, each electron undergoes an superdiffusive motion, and (iii) the superdiffusive motion can be regarded as the Levy flight, whose step size distribution is of the power law. The time scale that each electron diffuses over the system size turns out to be much shorter than that of the slow relaxation, which suggests that the correlation among the superdiffusive trajectories is important in the slow relaxation process.Comment: 11pages, 19 figures. Submitted to J. Phys. Soc. Jp