Empathic accuracy and oxytocin after tryptophan depletion in adults at risk for depression

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The Evaluation of More Lymph Nodes in Colon Cancer Is Associated with Improved Survival in Patients of All Ages

BACKGROUND:Improvement in survival of patients with colon cancer is reduced in elderly patients compared to younger patients. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the removal of ≥ 12 lymph nodes can explain differences in survival rates between elderly and younger patients diagnosed with colon cancer. METHODS:In a population-based cohort study, all patients (N = 41,074) diagnosed with colon cancer stage I to III from 2003 through 2010 from the Netherlands Cancer Registry were included. Age groups were defined as < 66, 66-75 and > 75 years of age. Main outcome measures were overall and relative survival, the latter as a proxy for disease specific survival. RESULTS:Over an eight years time period there was a 41.2% increase in patients with ≥ 12 lymph nodes removed, whereas the percentage of patients with the presence of lymph node metastases remained stable (35.7% to 37.5%). After adjustment for patient and tumour characteristics and adjuvant chemotherapy, it was found that for patients in which ≥ 12 lymph nodes were removed compared to patients with < 12 lymph nodes removed, there was a statistically significant higher overall survival (< 66: HR: 0.858 (95% CI, 0.789-0.933); 66-75: HR: 0.763 (95% CI, 0.714-0.814); > 75: HR: 0.734 (95% CI, 0.700-0.771)) and relative survival (< 66: RER: 0.783 (95% CI, 0.708-0.865); 66-75: RER: 0.672 (95% CI, 0.611-0.739); > 75: RER: 0.621 (95% CI, 0.567-0.681)) in all three age groups. CONCLUSIONS:The removal of ≥ 12 lymph nodes is associated with an improvement in both overall and relative survival in all patients. This association was stronger in the elderly patient. The biology of this association needs further clarification

First data set of H&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt;O/HDO columns from the Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI)

Global measurements of atmospheric water vapour isotopologues aid to better understand the hydrological cycle and improve global circulation models. This paper presents a new data set of vertical column densities of H2O and HDO retrieved from short-wave infrared (2.3 µm) reflectance measurements by the Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) onboard the Sentinel-5 Precursor satellite. TROPOMI features daily global coverage with a spatial resolution of up to 7 km×7 km. The retrieval utilises a profile-scaling approach. The forward model neglects scattering, and strict cloud filtering is therefore necessary. For validation, recent ground-based water vapour isotopologue measurements by the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) are employed. A comparison of TCCON δD with ground-based measurements by the Multi-platform remote Sensing of Isotopologues for investigating the Cycle of Atmospheric water (MUSICA) project for data prior to 2014 (where MUSICA data are available) shows a bias in TCCON δD estimates. As TCCON HDO is currently not validated, an overall correction of recent TCCON HDO data is derived based on this finding. The agreement between the corrected TCCON measurements and co-located TROPOMI observations is good with an average bias of (−0.2±3)×10$^{21}$ molec cm$^{-2}$ ((1.1±7.2) %) in H$_{2}$O and (−2±7)×10$^{17}$ molec cm$^{-2}$ ((−1.1±7.3) %) in HDO, which corresponds to a mean bias of (−14±17) ‰ in a posteriori δD. The bias is lower at low- and mid-latitude stations and higher at high-latitude stations. The use of the data set is demonstrated with a case study of a blocking anticyclone in northwestern Europe in July 2018 using single-overpass data

Repeated, low-dose oral esketamine in patients with treatment-resistant depression:pilot study

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Measuring empathy in schizophrenia:The Empathic Accuracy Task and its correlation with other empathy measures

Introduction: Empathy is an interpersonal process impaired in schizophrenia. Past studies have mainly used questionnaires or performance-based tasks with static cues to measure cognitive and affective empathy. We used the Empathic Accuracy Task (EAT) designed to capture dynamic aspects of empathy by using videoclips in which perceivers continuously judge emotionally charged stories. We compared individuals with schizophrenia with a healthy comparison group and assessed correlations among EAT and three other commonly used empathy measures. Method: Patients (n = 92) and a healthy comparison group (n = 42) matched for age, gender and education completed the EAT, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, Questionnaire of Cognitive and Affective Empathy and Faux Pas. Differences between groups were analyzed and correlations were calculated between empathy measurement instruments. Results: The groups differed in EAT performance, with the comparison group outperforming patients. A moderating effect was found for emotional expressivity of the target: while both patients and the comparison group scored low when judging targets with low expressivity, the comparison group performed better than patients with more expressive targets. Though there were also group differences on the empathy questionnaires, EAT performance did not correlate with questionnaire scores. Conclusions: Individuals with schizophrenia benefit less from the emotional expressivity of other people than the comparison group, which contributes to their impaired empathic accuracy. The lack of correlation between the EAT and the questionnaires suggests a distinction between self-report empathy and actual empathy performance. To explore empathic difficulties in real life, it is important to use instruments that take the interpersonal perspective into account. (C) 2019 Published by Elsevier B.V

Interaksi Genotipe X Lingkungan Untuk Hasil Gabah Padi Sawah

Grain yield of rice is determined by genotype (G), environment (E), and interaction between genotype x environment (G x E). Variety can achieve its maximum yield potential if it is grown in suitable environments. This study was aimed to determine the adaptability and the yield stability of rice genotypes grown in different environments. Sixteen rice genotypes were tested using RBD in 16 sites during the wet season of 2010/2011, and dry season of 2011. The tested rice lines were developed for resistance to pest and diseases. The experiment unit was 4 m x 5 m of plot, plants were fertilized with urea, SP36, and KCl at rates of 250 kg/ha, 100 kg/ha, and 100 kg/ha, respectively. Variable observed was grain yield per plot. Combined analyses of variance showed that there was no lines yielded higher than did check variety Conde. The AMMI analysis showed that the largest variation was contributed by the environment factors (76.49%), genotype x environment interactions (17.55%), and the smallest was contributed by the genotypes (5.97%). Data exploration using boxplot method indicated that the low contribution of the genotype x environment interaction variance in this study was due to the high degree of similarity of yield potentials among the genotypes, and due to high similarity of environmental conditions of the sites.Based on the analysis of AMMI 2, lines B12743 - MR-18-2-3-8, IPB107-F-82-2-1, and Conde was each classified as widely adapted genotypes, while G8, IPB107-F-27-6-1, and BIO111-2-BC-PIR-3714, each was considered as genotype having a specific adaptation

Improving the TROPOMI CO data product: update of the spectroscopic database and destriping of single orbits

On 13 October 2017, the Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) was launched on the Copernicus Sentinel-5 Precursor satellite in a sun-synchronous orbit. One of the mission's operational data products is the total column concentration of carbon monoxide (CO), which was released to the public in July 2018. Using HITRAN 2008 spectroscopic data with an updated water vapor spectroscopy, the CO data product is compliant with the mission requirement of 10 % precision and 15 % accuracy for single soundings. Comparison with ground-based CO observations of the Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) show systematic differences of about 6.4 ppb and single orbit observations are superimposed by a significant striping pattern along the flight path exceeding 5 ppb. In this study, we discuss possible improvements of the CO data product. We found that the molecular spectroscopic data used in the retrieval plays a key role for the data quality where the use of the Scientific Exploitation of Operational Missions – Improved Atmospheric Spectroscopy Databases (SEOM-IAS) and the HITRAN 2012 and 2016 releases reduce the bias between TROPOMI and TCCON due to improved CH4 spectroscopy. SEOM-IAS achieves the best spectral fitting quality and reduces the bias between TROPOMI and TCCON to 3.3 ppb while HITRAN 2012 and HITRAN 2016 decrease the bias even further below 1.1 ppb. Here, HITRAN 2012 worsens the fitting quality and furthermore introduces an artificial bias to the TROPOMI CO data product in the tropics caused by the H2O spectroscopic data. Moreover, analyzing one year of TROPOMI CO observations, we identified increased striping patterns by about 16 % percent from November 2017 to November 2018. To mitigate this effect, we discuss two destriping methods applied to the CO data a posteriori. A destriping mask calculated per orbit by median filtering of the data in the cross-track direction significantly improves the data quality. However, still better quality is achieved by a Fourier analysis and filtering of the data, which corrects not only for stripe patterns in cross-track direction but also accounts for the variability of stripes along the flight path