Oxinium femoral head damage generated by a metallic foreign body within the polyethylene cup following recurrent dislocation episodes

SummaryOxinium femoral heads are supposed to be more scratch-resistant thanks to their oxidized layer. However, damages to this thin layer can jeopardize implant's properties. Following revision total hip arthroplasty performed for recurrent posterior dislocations, the Oxinium femoral head initially implanted was observed to be dramatically damaged. A metallic foreign body from a trochanteric fixation wire was found within the polyethylene cup. Only few cases of damaged Oxinium femoral heads have been reported and all were related to either dislocation or reduction of THA. The aim of this report is to describe a non-reported mechanism of damaged Oxinium femoral head due to a broken trochanteric fixation wire device. Any broken metallic wire from a transtrochanteric approach should be carefully followed to detect migration within the polyethylene cup. If such a migration occurs, revision surgery should be rapidly scheduled

Integrated hybrid multi-regional input-output for assessing life cycle air emissions of the Italian power system

The air emissions of the Italian power system, as well as national emissions between 2010 and 2017 and projections to 2040, have been assessed from a lifecycle perspective, using an integrated hybrid two-region input-output model of Italy versus the rest of the world. The Italian economy is divided into 42 sectors, including electricity, which is further disaggregated into seven technologies. Detailed electricity sector data, from Istat, are fed into the EXIOBASE input-output database. NAMEA tables represent overall air emissions, while the Ecoinvent database is used for the electricity sector. Electricity transition scenarios from Terna and Snam have been integrated into input-output and air emission databases. Demand and emissions were tracked within the electricity sector over medium-term, and the findings showed a sharp decrease between 2017 and 2025, from 97.5 MtCO2 to 32.6 MtCO2. By 2040, air emissions from the electricity sector are expected to grow gradually, compared to those of 2030, from 22.2 MtCO2 to 25.9 MtCO2, suggesting that the demand between 2030 and 2040 grows faster than the decarbonization effort during the same period. There is an overall, gradual downtrend between 2010 and 2040, with all air emission categories declining by half from both production and consumption-based perspectives in this period

Modelling and simulating change in reforesting mountain landscapes using a social-ecological framework

Natural reforestation of European mountain landscapes raises major environmental and societal issues. With local stakeholders in the Pyrenees National Park area (France), we studied agricultural landscape colonisation by ash (Fraxinus excelsior) to enlighten its impacts on biodiversity and other landscape functions of importance for the valley socio-economics. The study comprised an integrated assessment of land-use and land-cover change (LUCC) since the 1950s, and a scenario analysis of alternative future policy. We combined knowledge and methods from landscape ecology, land change and agricultural sciences, and a set of coordinated field studies to capture interactions and feedback in the local landscape/land-use system. Our results elicited the hierarchically-nested relationships between social and ecological processes. Agricultural change played a preeminent role in the spatial and temporal patterns of LUCC. Landscape colonisation by ash at the parcel level of organisation was merely controlled by grassland management, and in fact depended on the farmer's land management at the whole-farm level. LUCC patterns at the landscape level depended to a great extent on interactions between farm household behaviours and the spatial arrangement of landholdings within the landscape mosaic. Our results stressed the need to represent the local SES function at a fine scale to adequately capture scenarios of change in landscape functions. These findings orientated our modelling choices in the building an agent-based model for LUCC simulation (SMASH - Spatialized Multi-Agent System of landscape colonization by ASH). We discuss our method and results with reference to topical issues in interdisciplinary research into the sustainability of multifunctional landscapes

Xeml Lab: a tool that supports the design of experiments at a graphical interface and generates computer-readable metadata files, which capture information about genotypes, growth conditions, environmental perturbations and sampling strategy

Data mining depends on the ability to access machine-readable metadata that describe genotypes, environmental conditions, and sampling times and strategy. This article presents Xeml Lab. The Xeml Interactive Designer provides an interactive graphical interface at which complex experiments can be designed, and concomitantly generates machine-readable metadata files. It uses a new eXtensible Mark-up Language (XML)-derived dialect termed XEML. Xeml Lab includes a new ontology for environmental conditions, called Xeml Environment Ontology. However, to provide versatility, it is designed to be generic and also accepts other commonly used ontology formats, including OBO and OWL. A review summarizing important environmental conditions that need to be controlled, monitored and captured as metadata is posted in a Wiki (http://www.codeplex.com/ XeO) to promote community discussion. The usefulness of Xeml Lab is illustrated by two meta-analyses of a large set of experiments that were performed with Arabidopsis thaliana during 5 years. The first reveals sources of noise that affect measurements of metabolite levels and enzyme activities. The second shows that Arabidopsis maintains remarkably stable levels of sugars and amino acids across a wide range of photoperiod treatments, and that adjustment of starch turnover and the leaf protein content contribute to this metabolic homeostasis

Agricultural land-use change and ash (Fraxinus excelsior L.) colonization in Pyrenean landscapes: an interdisciplinary case study

 ONLINE FIRSTInternational audienceChanges in agricultural land use are responsible for significant modifications in mountain landscapes. This study is part of an interdisciplinary research on the processes and consequences of spontaneous afforestation of Pyrenean landscapes by ash, and the possibilities for its management. We address the relationships between vegetation dynamics and land-use change from the combination of an agricultural study of change in farm management and an ecological study of grassland colonization by ash. In the framework of a village case study, we characterized parcels management and land-use histories, and analyzed the dynamics of the composition of grassland vegetation communities. From a joint analysis of the results obtained in each discipline, we discuss the limitations and comple-mentarities of the two approaches for the interdisciplinary assessment of the afforestation process

Successful ageing : perceptions of adults aged between 70 and 101 years

In this research, content analysis was employed to investigate older adults\u27 perceptions of successful aging and the relationship of these perceptions to definitions given in the literature to date. Participants were 18 males and 42 females between the ages of 70 and 101 years. Analyses revealed older adults mentioned only 1 or 2 criteria of successful aging if asked for a definition; however, when prompted, they rated almost all the criteria emerging from the literature as highly important. Participants reported adjusting to the situations they were in by compensating for losses that occurred and selecting activities that best suited their capabilities. Overall, older adults\u27 perceptions of successful aging were similar to aspects identified in the literature. Not all aspects, however, were seen as important by all participants, and only low to moderate correlations were found between some aspects of successful aging. (Contains 3 figures and 4 tables.)<br /

Stress-Induced GSK3 Regulates the Redox Stress Response by Phosphorylating Glucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase in Arabidopsis.

Diverse stresses such as high salt conditions cause an increase in reactive oxygen species (ROS), necessitating a redox stress response. However, little is known about the signaling pathways that regulate the antioxidant system to counteract oxidative stress. Here, we show that a Glycogen Synthase Kinase3 from Arabidopsis thaliana (ASKα) regulates stress tolerance by activating Glc-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD), which is essential for maintaining the cellular redox balance. Loss of stress-activated ASKα leads to reduced G6PD activity, elevated levels of ROS, and enhanced sensitivity to salt stress. Conversely, plants overexpressing ASKα have increased G6PD activity and low levels of ROS in response to stress and are more tolerant to salt stress. ASKα stimulates the activity of a specific cytosolic G6PD isoform by phosphorylating the evolutionarily conserved Thr-467, which is implicated in cosubstrate binding. Our results reveal a novel mechanism of G6PD adaptive regulation that is critical for the cellular stress response

PageMan: An interactive ontology tool to generate, display, and annotate overview graphs for profiling experiments

BACKGROUND: Microarray technology has become a widely accepted and standardized tool in biology. The first microarray data analysis programs were developed to support pair-wise comparison. However, as microarray experiments have become more routine, large scale experiments have become more common, which investigate multiple time points or sets of mutants or transgenics. To extract biological information from such high-throughput expression data, it is necessary to develop efficient analytical platforms, which combine manually curated gene ontologies with efficient visualization and navigation tools. Currently, most tools focus on a few limited biological aspects, rather than offering a holistic, integrated analysis. RESULTS: Here we introduce PageMan, a multiplatform, user-friendly, and stand-alone software tool that annotates, investigates, and condenses high-throughput microarray data in the context of functional ontologies. It includes a GUI tool to transform different ontologies into a suitable format, enabling the user to compare and choose between different ontologies. It is equipped with several statistical modules for data analysis, including over-representation analysis and Wilcoxon statistical testing. Results are exported in a graphical format for direct use, or for further editing in graphics programs. PageMan provides a fast overview of single treatments, allows genome-level responses to be compared across several microarray experiments covering, for example, stress responses at multiple time points. This aids in searching for trait-specific changes in pathways using mutants or transgenics, analyzing development time-courses, and comparison between species. In a case study, we analyze the results of publicly available microarrays of multiple cold stress experiments using PageMan, and compare the results to a previously published meta-analysis. PageMan offers a complete user's guide, a web-based over-representation analysis as well as a tutorial, and is freely available at . CONCLUSION: PageMan allows multiple microarray experiments to be efficiently condensed into a single page graphical display. The flexible interface allows data to be quickly and easily visualized, facilitating comparisons within experiments and to published experiments, thus enabling researchers to gain a rapid overview of the biological responses in the experiments