Innovation behaviour and the use of research and extension services in small-scale agricultural holdings

[EN] Farmers¿ views on research and extension services (RES) included in the Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System are rarely investigated. This study analyses the relationship between key factors of innovation behaviour (market orientation, learning orientation, and innovation attitude) and the use of RES through structural equation modelling, focusing on small-scale agricultural holdings. Market orientation and learning orientation appear to be positively correlated, confirming that synergies between both factors provide a background for innovativeness. Learning orientation and farm-holders¿ education level, improve knowledge exchange and make the agriculture innovation process more inclusive. However, farmers¿ innovation attitude is not clearly correlated with the use of RES. Motivations about ¿the will to do innovations¿ are represented by a construct that does not appear to have a determinant effect as a mediator in farmer¿s decisions about using RES.Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Project AGL2015-65897-C3-3-R "Knowledge innovation services and agri-food systems. Innovation and transfer networks.")Ramos-Sandoval, R.; García Alvarez-Coque, JM.; Mas Verdú, F. (2016). Innovation behaviour and the use of research and extension services in small-scale agricultural holdings. Spanish Journal of Agricultural Research. 14(4):1-14. https://doi.org/10.5424/sjar/2016144-8548S114144García Álvarez-Coque, J. M., Alba, M. F., & López-García Usach, T. (2012). Innovation and sectoral linkages in the agri-food system in the Valencian Community. Spanish Journal of Agricultural Research, 10(1), 18. doi:10.5424/sjar/2012101-207-11Alfranca, O. (2005). Private R&D and Spillovers in European Agriculture. 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Stability analysis of the Randall-Sundrum braneworld in presence of bulk scalar

The stability problem of Randall-Sundrum braneworld is readdressed in the light of stabilizing bulk scalar fields. It is shown that in such scenario the instability persists because of back-reaction even when an arbitrary potential is introduced for a canonical scalar field in the bulk. It is further shown that a bulk scalar field can indeed stabilize the braneworld when it has a tachyon-like action. The full back-reacted metric in such model is derived and a proper resolution of the hierarchy problem (for which the Randall Sundrum scenario was originally proposed) is found to exist by suitable adjustments of the parameters of the scalar potential.Comment: 4 pages, No figures, Revte

Measurable residual disease, FLT3-ITD mutation, and disease status have independent prognostic influence on outcome of allogeneic stem cell transplantation in NPM1-mutated acute myeloid leukemia

Nucleophosmin-1 (NPM1) mutations in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) confer a survival advantage in the absence of FLT3-internal tandem duplication (FLT3-ITD). Here, we investigated the main predictors of outcome after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HCT). We identified 1572 adult (age &gt;= 18 year) patients with NPM1-mutated AML in first complete remission (CR1:78%) or second complete remission (CR2:22%) who were transplanted from matched sibling donors (30.8%) or unrelated donors (57.4%) between 2007 and 2019 at EBMT participating centers. Median follow-up for survivors was 23.7 months. FLT3-ITD was present in 69.3% of patients and 39.2% had detectable minimal/measurable residual disease (MRD) at transplant. In multivariate analysis, relapse incidence (RI) and leukemia-free survival (LFS) were negatively affected by concomitant FLT3-ITD mutation (HR 1.66 p = 0.0001, and HR 1.53, p &lt; 0.0001, respectively), MRD positivity at transplant (HR 2.18, p &lt; 10(-5) and HR 1.71, p &lt; 10(-5), respectively), and transplant in CR2 (HR 1.36, p = 0.026, and HR 1.26, p = 0.033, respectively), but positively affected by Karnofsky score &gt;= 90 (HR 0.74, p = 0.012, and HR 0.7, p = 0.0002, respectively). Overall survival (OS) was also negatively influenced by concomitant FLT3-ITD (HR 1.6, p = 0.0001), MRD positivity at transplant (HR 1.61, p &lt; 10(-5)), and older age (HR 1.22 per 10 years, p &lt; 0.0001), but positively affected by matched sibling donor (unrelated donor: HR 1.35, p = 0.012; haploidentical donor: HR 1.45, p = 0.037) and Karnofsky score &gt;= 90 (HR 0.73, p = 0.004). These results highlight the independent and significant role of FLT3-ITD, MRD status, and disease status on posttransplant outcomes in patients with NPM1-mutated AML allowing physicians to identify patients at risk of relapse who may benefit from posttransplant prophylactic interventions.</p

Gravitational Lorentz Violations and Adjustment of the Cosmological Constant in Asymmetrically Warped Spacetimes

We investigate spacetimes in which the speed of light along flat 4D sections varies over the extra dimensions due to different warp factors for the space and the time coordinates (``asymmetrically warped'' spacetimes). The main property of such spaces is that while the induced metric is flat, implying Lorentz invariant particle physics on a brane, bulk gravitational effects will cause apparent violations of Lorentz invariance and of causality from the brane observer's point of view. An important experimentally verifiable consequence of this is that gravitational waves may travel with a speed different from the speed of light on the brane, and possibly even faster. We find the most general spacetimes of this sort, which are given by AdS-Schwarzschild or AdS-Reissner-Nordstrom black holes, assuming the simplest possible sources in the bulk. Due to the gravitational Lorentz violations these models do not have an ordinary Lorentz invariant effective description, and thus provide a possible way around Weinberg's no-go theorem for the adjustment of the cosmological constant. Indeed we show that the cosmological constant may relax in such theories by the adjustment of the mass and the charge of the black hole. The black hole singularity in these solutions can be protected by a horizon, but the existence of a horizon requires some exotic energy densities on the brane. We investigate the cosmological expansion of these models and speculate that it may provide an explanation for the accelerating Universe, provided that the timescale for the adjustment is shorter than the Hubble time. In this case the accelerating Universe would be a manifestation of gravitational Lorentz violations in extra dimensions.Comment: 28 pages, LaTeX, 4 figures included. v2: references added, added comment on experimental observations, and clarified comment on Lorentz violations in non-commutative theories. v3: typos fixed, eqs. 2.30 and 2.31 correcte

BM-MSCs alleviate diabetic nephropathy in male rats by regulating ER stress, oxidative stress, inflammation, and apoptotic pathways

Introduction: Diabetic nephropathy (DN), a chronic kidney disease, is a major cause of end-stage kidney disease worldwide. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have become a promising option to mitigate several diabetic complications.Methods: In this study, we evaluated the therapeutic potential of bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs) in a rat model of STZ-induced DN. After the confirmation of diabetes, rats were treated with BM-MSCs and sacrificed at week 12 after treatment.Results: Our results showed that STZ-induced DN rats had extensive histopathological changes, significant upregulation in mRNA expression of renal apoptotic markers, ER stress markers, inflammatory markers, fibronectin, and intermediate filament proteins, and reduction of positive immunostaining of PCNA and elevated P53 in kidney tissue compared to the control group. BM-MSC therapy significantly improved renal histopathological changes, reduced renal apoptosis, ER stress, inflammation, and intermediate filament proteins, as well as increased positive immunostaining of PCNA and reduced P53 in renal tissue compared to the STZ-induced DN group.Conclusion: In conclusion, our study indicates that BM-MSCs may have therapeutic potential for the treatment of DN and provide important insights into their potential use as a novel therapeutic approach for DN

The Pre-Big Bang Scenario in String Cosmology

We review physical motivations, phenomenological consequences, and open problems of the so-called pre-big bang scenario in superstring cosmology.Comment: 250 pages, latex, 34 figures included using epsfi

AI is a viable alternative to high throughput screening: a 318-target study

: High throughput screening (HTS) is routinely used to identify bioactive small molecules. This requires physical compounds, which limits coverage of accessible chemical space. Computational approaches combined with vast on-demand chemical libraries can access far greater chemical space, provided that the predictive accuracy is sufficient to identify useful molecules. Through the largest and most diverse virtual HTS campaign reported to date, comprising 318 individual projects, we demonstrate that our AtomNet® convolutional neural network successfully finds novel hits across every major therapeutic area and protein class. We address historical limitations of computational screening by demonstrating success for target proteins without known binders, high-quality X-ray crystal structures, or manual cherry-picking of compounds. We show that the molecules selected by the AtomNet® model are novel drug-like scaffolds rather than minor modifications to known bioactive compounds. Our empirical results suggest that computational methods can substantially replace HTS as the first step of small-molecule drug discovery