1,001 research outputs found
Species-specific responses to ocean acidification should account for local adaptation and adaptive plasticity
Global stressors, such as ocean acidification, constitute a rapidly emerging and significant problem for marine organisms, ecosystem functioning and services. The coastal ecosystems of the Humboldt Current System (HCS) off Chile harbour a broad physicalâchemical latitudinal and temporal gradient with considerable patchiness in local oceanographic conditions. This heterogeneity may, in turn, modulate the specific tolerances of organisms to climate stress in species with populations distributed along this environmental gradient. Negative response ratios are observed in species models (mussels, gastropods and planktonic copepods) exposed to changes in the partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) far from the average and extreme pCO2 levels experienced in their native habitats. This variability in response between populations reveals the potential role of local adaptation and/or adaptive phenotypic plasticity in increasing resilience of species to environmental change. The growing use of standard ocean acidification scenarios and treatment levels in experimental protocols brings with it a danger that inter-population differences are confounded by the varying environmental conditions naturally experienced by different populations. Here, we propose the use of a simple index taking into account the natural pCO2 variability, for a better interpretation of the potential consequences of ocean acidification on species inhabiting variable coastal ecosystems. Using scenarios that take into account the natural variability will allow understanding of the limits to plasticity across organismal traits, populations and species
A rare cause of lower abdominal and pelvic mass, primary tuberculous psoas abscess: a case report
Top quark anomalous tensor couplings in the two-Higgs-doublet models
We compute the one loop right and left anomalous tensor couplings (g(R) and g(L), respectively) for the top quark, in the aligned two-Higgs-doublet model. They are the magnetic-like couplings in the most general parameterization of the tbW vertex. We find that the aligned two-Higgs doublet model, that includes as particular cases some of the most studied extensions of the Higgs sector, introduces new electroweak contribution's and provides theoretical predictions that are very sensitive to both new scalar masses and the neutral scalar mixing angle. For a largo area in the parameters space we obtain significant deviations in both the real and the imaginary parts of the couplings gR and gL, compared to the predictions given by the electroweak sector of the Standard Model. The most important ones are those involving the imaginary part of the left coupling g(L) and the real part of the right coupling gR. The real part of g(L), and the imaginary part of gR also show an important sensitivity to new physics scenarios. The model can also account for new CP violation effects via the introduction of complex alignment parameters that have important consequences on the values for the imaginary parts of the couplings. The top anomalous tensor couplings will be measured at the LHC and at future colliders providing a complementary insight on new physics, independent from the bounds in top decays coming from B physics and b -> s gamma
The IGNITE Pharmacogenetics Working Group: An Opportunity for Building Evidence with Pharmacogenetic Implementation in a RealâWorld Setting
Pain control after total knee arthroplasty: a randomized trial comparing local infiltration anesthesia and continuous femoral block
Local infiltration analgesia (LIA) is a new multimodal wound infiltration method. It
has attracted growing interest in recent years and is widely used all over the world for
treating postoperative pain after knee and hip arthroplasty. This method is based on
systematic infiltration of a mixture of ropivacaine, a long acting local anesthetic,
ketorolac, a cyclooxygenase inhibitor (NSAID), and adrenalin around all structures
subject to surgical trauma inknee and hip arthroplasty.
Two patient cohorts of 40 patients scheduled for elective total knee arthroplasty
(TKA) and 15 patients scheduled for total hip arthroplasty (THA) contributed to the
work presented in this thesis. In a randomized trial the efficacy of LIA in TKA with
regard to pain at rest and upon movement was compared to femoral block. Both
methods result in a high quality pain relief and similar morphine consumption, but
fewer patients in the LIA group reported pain of 7/10 on any occasion during the 24 h
monitoring period (paper I).
In the same patient cohort the maximal total plasma concentration of ropivacaine was
below the established toxic threshold for most patients although a few reached
potentially toxic concentrations of 1.4-1.7 mg/L. The time to maximal detected
plasma concentration was around 4-6 h after release of tourniquet in TKA (paper II).
All patients in the THA cohort were subjected to the routine LIA protocol. In these
patients both the total and unbound plasma concentration of ropivacaine was
determined. The concentration was below the established toxic threshold. As
ropivacaine binds to a-1 acid glycoprotein(AAG) we assessed the possibility that
increased AAG may decrease the unbound concentration of ropivacaine. A40 %
increase in AAG was detected during the first 24 h after surgery, however the
fraction of unbound ropivacaine remained the same. There was a trend towards
increased C max of ropivacaine with increasing age and decreasing creatinine
clearance but the statistical power was too low to draw any conclusion (paper III).
Administration of 30mg ketorolac according to the LIA protocol both in TKA and
THA resulted in a similar Cmax as previously reported after 10 mg intramuscular
ketorolac (paper II, paper IV). Neither age, nor body weight or BMI, nor creatinine
clearance, correlates to maximal ketorolac plasma concentration or total exposure to
ketorolac (AUC) (paper IV).
In conclusion, LIA provides good postoperative analgesia which is similar to femoral
block after total knee arthroplasty. The plasma concentration of ropivacaine seems to
be below toxic levels in most TKA patients. The unbound plasma concentration of
ropivcaine in THA seems to be below the toxic level.
The use of ketorolac in LIA may not be safer than other routes of administration, and
similar restrictions should be applied in patients at risk of developing side effects
Sensitivity of RT-PCR method in samples shown to be positive for Zika virus by RT-qPCR in vector competence studies
Abstract Tissue samples from mosquitoes artificially infected with Zika virus and shown to be positive by RT-qPCR were reexamined by RT-PCR. Using these samples we compared the two methods employed in virus RNA detection for vector competence studies. Results demonstrated that, albeit useful, RT-PCR gave false negatives with low viral loads (< 106 RNA copies/ml)
Mycobacterium massiliense BRA100 strain recovered from postsurgical infections: resistance to high concentrations of glutaraldehyde and alternative solutions for high level disinfection
Normosmic Congenital Hypogonadotropic Hypogonadism Due to TAC3/TACR3 Mutations: Characterization of Neuroendocrine Phenotypes and Novel Mutations
CONTEXT: TAC3/TACR3 mutations have been reported in normosmic congenital hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (nCHH) (OMIM #146110). In the absence of animal models, studies of human neuroendocrine phenotypes associated with neurokinin B and NK3R receptor dysfunction can help to decipher the pathophysiology of this signaling pathway. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the prevalence of TAC3/TACR3 mutations, characterize novel TACR3 mutations and to analyze neuroendocrine profiles in nCHH caused by deleterious TAC3/TACR3 biallelic mutations. RESULTS: From a cohort of 352 CHH, we selected 173 nCHH patients and identified nine patients carrying TAC3 or TACR3 variants (5.2%). We describe here 7 of these TACR3 variants (1 frameshift and 2 nonsense deleterious mutations and 4 missense variants) found in 5 subjects. Modeling and functional studies of the latter demonstrated the deleterious consequence of one missense mutation (Tyr267Asn) probably caused by the misfolding of the mutated NK3R protein. We found a statistically significant (p<0.0001) higher mean FSH/LH ratio in 11 nCHH patients with TAC3/TACR3 biallelic mutations than in 47 nCHH patients with either biallelic mutations in KISS1R, GNRHR, or with no identified mutations and than in 50 Kallmann patients with mutations in KAL1, FGFR1 or PROK2/PROKR2. Three patients with TAC3/TACR3 biallelic mutations had an apulsatile LH profile but low-frequency alpha-subunit pulses. Pulsatile GnRH administration increased alpha-subunit pulsatile frequency and reduced the FSH/LH ratio. CONCLUSION: The gonadotropin axis dysfunction associated with nCHH due to TAC3/TACR3 mutations is related to a low GnRH pulsatile frequency leading to a low frequency of alpha-subunit pulses and to an elevated FSH/LH ratio. This ratio might be useful for pre-screening nCHH patients for TAC3/TACR3 mutations
Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV
The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS
has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions
at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection
criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined.
For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a
muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the
whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4,
while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The
efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than
90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall
momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The
transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity
for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be
better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions
of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO
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