Effects of drip irrigation on the yield of strawberry plants grown under arable conditions

ArticleThe study investigated the effects of drip irrigation on the yield of ‘Honeoye’ strawberry plants for commercial purposes grown under arable conditions throughout the harvest season. The plants were irrigated at irregular intervals depending on natural precipitation. Crop yields and fruit parameters (diameter, length, individual weight, count per plant) were compared on several harvest dates. Statistical analysis has shown that irrigation has a significant impact on yield and fruit parameters. The irrigated plants yielded more strawberries, which also had a larger diameter, length, and individual weight

Association between diabetes, diabetes treatment and risk of developing endometrial cancer.

BackgroundA growing body of evidence suggests that diabetes is a risk factor for endometrial cancer incidence. However, most of these studies used case-control study designs and did not adjust for obesity, an established risk factor for endometrial cancer. In addition, few epidemiological studies have examined the association between diabetes treatment and endometrial cancer risk. The objective of this study was to assess the relationships among diabetes, diabetes treatment and endometrial cancer risk in postmenopausal women participating in the Women's Health Initiative (WHI).MethodsA total of 88 107 postmenopausal women aged 50-79 years who were free of cancer and had no hysterectomy at baseline were followed until date of endometrial cancer diagnosis, death, hysterectomy or loss to follow-up, whichever came first. Endometrial cancers were confirmed by central medical record and pathology report review. Multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) (95% confidence interval (CI)) for diagnosis of diabetes and metformin treatment as risk factors for endometrial cancer.ResultsOver a mean of 11 years of follow-up, 1241 endometrial cancers developed. In the primary analysis that focused on prevalent diabetes at enrolment, compared with women without diabetes, women with self-reported diabetes, and the subset of women with treated diabetes, had significantly higher risk of endometrial cancer without adjusting for BMI (HR=1.44, 95% CI: 1.13-1.85 for diabetes, HR=1.57, 95% CI: 1.19-2.07 for treated diabetes). However after adjusting for BMI, the associations between diabetes, diabetes treatment, diabetes duration and the risk of endometrial cancer became non-significant. Elevated risk was noted when considering combining diabetes diagnosed at baseline and during follow-up as time-dependent exposure (HR=1.31, 95% CI: 1.08-1.59) even after adjusting for BMI. No significant association was observed between metformin use and endometrial cancer risk.ConclusionsOur results suggest that the relationship observed in previous research between diabetes and endometrial cancer incidence may be largely confounded by body weight, although some modest independent elevated risk remains

Association between body condition and production parameters of dairy cows in the experiment with use of BCS camera

Dairy production effectiveness in the farm depends on many technical, technological and biological factors. State of the dairy cow condition constitutes one of the most important element in the assessment of dairy herd and production indices. Including access to modern technical solution to assess body condition of dairy cows, i.e. BCS camera, some results of observation in the herd with 362 cows were collected to find any relationship between BCS index and milk yield per cow including 5 lactation groups and cows differed in age as well as four seasons. Basing on data collected in the period of 11 months it was found that cows with the BCS index lower than 2.9 showed the highest daily milk production. Increase in BCS index was associated with decrease in amount of produced milk per day. The statistical analysis showed significant effect of lactation period, age of animals and season on BCS results in the considered dairy cow production cycle

Evolutionary synthesis models of starbursts IV. Soft X-ray emission

In this work we investigate the evolution of the X-ray emission of a cluster of single young massive stars with different metallicities. We have considered the X-ray contribution originated by the diffuse gas heated by the mechanical energy released by stellar winds and SN explosions as well as the X-ray contribution from SN remnants. The resulting ionizing spectrum (i.e. lambda < 912 A) has been used to compute the expected intensity of the nebular He II 4686 A. The observational ratio He II/Hbeta could be reproduced by the models assuming that a fraction of the mechanical energy produced by the star-formation episode is reprocessed by interaction with the ISM as soft X-ray radiation, contributing to the He ionization. However, the discreteness of the stellar populations affects the ionizing flux and may be responsible for the observed dispersion of the ratio. We have finally used the synthesis models to estimate the contribution of circumnuclear star-forming regions to the multiwavelength energy distribution in Active Galactic Nuclei, finding that the UV to soft X-ray continuum in many Seyfert 2 galaxies seems to be dominated by star-formation processes.Comment: 14 pages, 10 fig, A&A accepte

Hard X-ray emission from Eta Carinae

Context : If relativistic particle acceleration takes place in colliding-wind binaries, hard X-rays and gamma-rays are expected through inverse Compton emission, but to date these have never been unambiguously detected. Aims : To detect this emission, observations of Eta Carinae were performed with INTEGRAL, leveraging its high spatial resolution. Methods : Deep hard X-ray images of the region of Eta Car were constructed in several energy bands. Results : The hard X-ray emission previously detected by BeppoSax around Eta Car originates from at least 3 different point sources. The emission of Eta Car itself can be isolated for the first time, and its spectrum unambiguously analyzed. The X-ray emission of Eta Car in the 22-100 keV energy range is very hard (photon index around 1) and its luminosity is 7E33 erg/s. Conclusions : The observed emission is in agreement with the predictions of inverse Compton models, and corresponds to about 0.1% of the energy available in the wind collision. Eta Car is expected to be detected in the GeV energy range.Comment: 5 pages with 2 figures. Accepted as a Letter in Astronomy & Astrophysic

An XMM-Newton view of the young open cluster NGC 6231 -- II. The OB star population

In this second paper, we pursue the analysis of the 180 ks XMM-Newton campaign towards the young open cluster NGC 6231 and we focus on its rich OB star population. We present a literature-based census of the OB stars in the field of view with more than one hundred objects, among which 30% can be associated with an X-ray source. All the O-type stars are detected in the X-ray domain as soft and reasonably strong emitters. In the 0.5-10.0 keV band, their X-ray luminosities scale with their bolometric luminosities as $\log L_\mathrm{X} - \log L_\mathrm{bol}=-6.912\pm0.153$. Such a scaling law holds in the soft (0.5-1.0 keV) and intermediate (1.0-2.5 keV) bands but breaks down in the hard band. While the two colliding wind binaries in our sample clearly deviate from this scheme, the remaining O-type objects show a very limited dispersion (40% or 20% according to whether `cool' dwarfs are included or not), much smaller than that obtained from previous studies. At our detection threshold and within our sample, the sole identified mechanism that produces significant modulations in the O star X-ray emission is related to wind interaction. The intrinsic X-ray emission of non-peculiar O-type stars seems thus constant for a given star and the level of its X-ray emission is accurately related to the its luminosity or, equivalently, to its wind properties. Among B-type stars, the detection rate is only about 25% in the sub-type range B0-B4 and remains mostly uniform throughout the different sub-populations while it drops significantly at later sub-types. The associated X-ray spectra are harder than those of O-type stars. Our analysis points towards the detected emission being associated with a physical PMS companion >... [see paper for the complete abstract]Comment: 21 pages, 14 figures, Table 2 and Figs 2 to 5 will be available through the CDS only, accepted for publication by MNRAS, Fig 1 not included in the present preprint because of size limitation

Vitamin D Status and its Association with Morbidity including Wasting and Opportunistic Illnesses in HIV-Infected Women in Tanzania.

Vitamin D has a potential role in preventing HIV-related complications, based on its extensive involvement in immune and metabolic function, including preventing osteoporosis and premature cardiovascular disease. However, this association has not been examined in large studies or in resource-limited settings. Vitamin D levels were assessed in 884 HIV-infected pregnant women at enrollment in a trial of multivitamin supplementation (excluding vitamin D) in Tanzania. Information on HIV related complications was recorded during follow-up (median, 70 months). Proportional hazards models and generalized estimating equations were used to assess the relationship of vitamin D status with these outcomes. Women with low vitamin D status (serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D<32 ng/mL) had 43% higher risk of reaching a body mass index (BMI) less than 18 kg/m(2) during the first 2 years of follow-up, compared to women with adequate vitamin D levels (hazard ratio [HR]: 1.43; 95% confidence intervals: [1.03-1.99]). The relationship between continuous vitamin D levels and risk of BMI less than 18 kg/m(2) during follow-up was inverse and linear (p=0.03). Women with low vitamin D levels had significantly higher incidence of acute upper respiratory infections (HR: 1.27 [1.04-1.54]) and thrush (HR: 2.74 [1.29-5.83]) diagnosed during the first 2 years of follow-up. Low vitamin D status was a significant risk factor for wasting and HIV-related complications such as thrush during follow-up in this prospective cohort in Tanzania. If these protective associations are confirmed in randomized trials, vitamin D supplementation could represent a simple and inexpensive method to improve health and quality of life of HIV-infected patients, particularly in resource-limited settings

Estrogen and progesterone-related gene variants and colorectal cancer risk in women

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Observational studies and randomized trials have suggested that estrogens and/or progesterone may lower the risk for colorectal cancer. Inherited variation in the sex-hormone genes may be one mechanism by which sex hormones affect colorectal cancer, although data are limited.</p> <p>Method</p> <p>We conducted a comprehensive evaluation of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in genes encoding 3 hormone receptors (<it>ESR1, ESR2, PGR</it>) and 5 hormone synthesizers (<it>CYP19A1 and CYP17A1, HSD17B1, HSD17B2, HSD17B4</it>) among 427 women with incident colorectal cancer and 871 matched controls who were Caucasians of European ancestry from 93676 postmenopausal women enrolled in the Women's Health Initiative Observational cohort. A total of 242 haplotype-tagging and functional SNPs in the 8 genes were included for analysis. Unconditional logistic regression with adjustment for age and hysterectomy status was used to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We observed a weak association between the <it>CYP17A1 </it>rs17724534 SNP and colorectal cancer risk (OR per risk allele (A) = 1.39, 95% CI = 1.09-1.78, corrected p-value = 0.07). In addition, a suggestive interaction between rs17724534 and rs10883782 in 2 discrete LD blocks of <it>CYP17A1 </it>was observed in relation to colorectal cancer (empirical p value = 0.04). Moreover, one haplotype block of <it>CYP19A1 </it>was associated with colorectal cancer (corrected global p value = 0.02), which likely reflected the association with the tagging SNP, rs1902584, in the block.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our findings offer some support for a suggestive association of <it>CYP17A1 </it>and <it>CYP19A1 </it>variants with colorectal cancer risk.</p