Examining approaches for modeling individual tree growth response to thinning in Norway spruce

Using periodic measurements from permanent plots in non-thinned and thinned Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) H. Karst.) stands in Norway, individual-tree growth models were developed to predict annual diameter increment, height increment, and height to crown base increment. Based on long-term data across a range of thinning regimes and stand conditions, alternative approaches for modeling response to treatment were assessed. Dynamic thinning response functions in the form of multiplicative modifiers that predict no effect at the time of thinning, a rapid increase followed by an early maximum before the effect gradually declines to zero could not be fitted to initially derived baseline models without thinning related predictors. However, alternative approaches were used and found to perform well. Specifically, indicator variables representing varying time periods after thinning were statistically significant and behaved in a robust manner as well as consistent with general expectations. In addition, they improved overall prediction accuracy when incorporated as fixed effects into the baseline models for diameter and height to crown base increment. Further, more simply, including exponentially decreasing multiplicative thinning response functions improved prediction accuracy for height increment and height to crown base increment. Irrespective of studied attribute and modelling approach, improvement in performance of these extended models was relatively limited when compared to the corresponding baseline models and more pronounced in trees from thinned stands. We conclude that the largely varying and often multi-year measurement intervals of the periodic data used in this study likely prevented the development of more sophisticated thinning response functions. However, based on the evaluation of the final models’ overall performance such complex response functions may not to be necessary to reliably predict individual tree growth after thinning for certain conditions or species, which should be further considered in future analyses of similar nature.publishedVersio

Spores of Clostridium engineered for clinical efficacy and safety cause regression and cure of tumors in vivo.

Spores of some species of the strictly anaerobic bacteria Clostridium naturally target and partially lyse the hypoxic cores of tumors, which tend to be refractory to conventional therapies. The anti-tumor effect can be augmented by engineering strains to convert a non-toxic prodrug into a cytotoxic drug specifically at the tumor site by expressing a prodrug-converting enzyme (PCE). Safe doses of the favored prodrug CB1954 lead to peak concentrations of 6.3 μM in patient sera, but at these concentration(s) known nitroreductase (NTR) PCEs for this prodrug show low activity. Furthermore, efficacious and safe Clostridium strains that stably express a PCE have not been reported. Here we identify a novel nitroreductase from Neisseria meningitidis, NmeNTR, which is able to activate CB1954 at clinically-achievable serum concentrations. An NmeNTR expression cassette, which does not contain an antibiotic resistance marker, was stably localized to the chromosome of Clostridium sporogenes using a new integration method, and the strain was disabled for safety and containment by making it a uracil auxotroph. The efficacy of Clostridium-Directed Enzyme Prodrug Therapy (CDEPT) using this system was demonstrated in a mouse xenograft model of human colon carcinoma. Substantial tumor suppression was achieved, and several animals were cured. These encouraging data suggest that the novel enzyme and strain engineering approach represent a promising platform for the clinical development of CDEPT

Simultaneous and interleaved acquisition of NMR signals from different nuclei with a clinical MRI scanner.

Modification of a clinical MRI scanner to enable simultaneous or rapid interleaved acquisition of signals from two different nuclei. A device was developed to modify the local oscillator signal fed to the receive channel(s) of an MRI console. This enables external modification of the frequency at which the receiver is sensitive and rapid switching between different frequencies. Use of the device was demonstrated with interleaved and simultaneous <sup>31</sup> P and <sup>1</sup> H spectroscopic acquisitions, and with interleaved <sup>31</sup> P and <sup>1</sup> H imaging. Signal amplitudes and signal-to-noise ratios were found to be unchanged for the modified system, compared with data acquired with the MRI system in the standard configuration. Interleaved and simultaneous <sup>1</sup> H and <sup>31</sup> P signal acquisition was successfully demonstrated with a clinical MRI scanner, with only minor modification of the RF architecture. While demonstrated with <sup>31</sup> P, the modification is applicable to any detectable nucleus without further modification, enabling a wide range of simultaneous and interleaved experiments to be performed within a clinical setting. Magn Reson Med 76:1636-1641, 2016. © 2015 The Authors. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Single Shot Temporal Action Detection

Temporal action detection is a very important yet challenging problem, since videos in real applications are usually long, untrimmed and contain multiple action instances. This problem requires not only recognizing action categories but also detecting start time and end time of each action instance. Many state-of-the-art methods adopt the "detection by classification" framework: first do proposal, and then classify proposals. The main drawback of this framework is that the boundaries of action instance proposals have been fixed during the classification step. To address this issue, we propose a novel Single Shot Action Detector (SSAD) network based on 1D temporal convolutional layers to skip the proposal generation step via directly detecting action instances in untrimmed video. On pursuit of designing a particular SSAD network that can work effectively for temporal action detection, we empirically search for the best network architecture of SSAD due to lacking existing models that can be directly adopted. Moreover, we investigate into input feature types and fusion strategies to further improve detection accuracy. We conduct extensive experiments on two challenging datasets: THUMOS 2014 and MEXaction2. When setting Intersection-over-Union threshold to 0.5 during evaluation, SSAD significantly outperforms other state-of-the-art systems by increasing mAP from 19.0% to 24.6% on THUMOS 2014 and from 7.4% to 11.0% on MEXaction2.Comment: ACM Multimedia 201

Minimally invasive management of vital teeth requiring root canal therapy

The present study aimed to investigate the possible use of a non-instrumentation technique including blue light irradiation for root canal cleaning. Extracted human single rooted teeth were selected. Nine different groups included distilled water, NaOCl, intra-canal heated NaOCl, and NaOCl + EDTA irrigation after either instrumentation or non-instrumentation, and a laser application group following non-instrumentation technique. The chemical assessment of the root canal dentine was evaluated using EDS and FT-IR. Surface microstructural analyses were performed by using SEM. The antimicrobial efficacy of different preparation techniques was evaluated using microbial tests. Laser application didn’t change the Ca/P, carbonate/phosphate and amide I/phosphate ratios of the root canal dentin the root canal dentin preserved its original form after light application. The instrumentation decreased the carbonate/phosphate and amide I/phosphate ratios of the root canal dentin regardless of the irrigation solution or technique (p < 0.05). According to the microbiological tests, the light application could not provide antibacterial efficacy as much as NaOCl irrigation. The NaOCl irrigation both in the non-instrumentation and instrumentation groups significantly reduced the number of bacteria (p < 0,05). Minimally invasive root canal preparation techniques where the root canal is not instrumented and is disinfected by laser irradiation followed by obturation with a hydraulic cement sealer may be an attractive treatment option for management of vital teeth needing root canal therapy and does not have any detrimental effects on the chemical structure of dentin

Directed transport of neutrophil-derived extracellular vesicles enables platelet-mediated innate immune response

The innate immune response to bacterial infections requires the interaction of neutrophils and platelets. Here, we show that a multistep reciprocal crosstalk exists between these two cell types, ultimately facilitating neutrophil influx into the lung to eliminate infections. Activated platelets adhere to intravascular neutrophils through P-selectin/P-selectin glycoprotein ligand-1 (PSGL-1)-mediated binding, a primary interaction that allows platelets glycoprotein Ib alpha (GPIb alpha)-induced generation of neutrophil-derived extracellular vesicles (EV). EV production is directed by exocytosis and allows shuttling of arachidonic acid into platelets. EVs are then specifically internalized into platelets in a Mac1-dependent fashion, and relocated into intracellular compartments enriched in cyclooxygenase1 (Cox1), an enzyme processing arachidonic acid to synthesize thromboxane A(2) (TxA(2)). Finally, platelet-derived-TxA(2) elicits a full neutrophil response by inducing the endothelial expression of ICAM-1, intravascular crawling, and extravasation. We conclude that critical substrate-enzyme pairs are compartmentalized in neutrophils and platelets during steady state limiting non-specific inflammation, but bacterial infection triggers regulated EV shuttling resulting in robust inflammation and pathogen clearance.The authors would like to thank Nadja Giesbrecht and Mareike Schluter for expert technical support. This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (ZA428/6-1 and ZA428/8-1 to A.Z., RO 4537/2-1 to J.R.) and Cells-in-Motion Cluster of Excellence EXC 1003-CiM (University of Munster, Germany; to A.Z.). Grant SAF2012-31142 from MINECO (to A.H.). Grant HL107386 from the NHLBI (to M.R.L.). The Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC) is supported by the MINECO and the Pro-CNIC Foundation.S

Midwall Fibrosis and Cardiac Mechanics: Rigid Body Rotation Is a Novel Marker of Disease Severity in Pediatric Primary Dilated Cardiomyopathy

Background: Midwall fibrosis (MWF) detected by late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) predicts adverse outcome in adults with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). Its relevance in children and adolescents is relatively unknown. Left ventricular (LV) strain, rotation and twist are important parameters of cardiac function; yet, their role in pediatric heart failure is understudied. This study aimed to evaluate MWF and cardiac mechanics in pediatric DCM. Methods: Patients ≤21 years with primary DCM were prospectively enrolled and underwent standardized CMR including LGE. All participants were categorized according to the presence or absence of MWF (MWF+ vs. MWF–). Cardiac mechanics were assessed using CMR feature tracking. Impaired LV twist with apex and base rotating in the same direction was termed rigid body rotation (RBR). Results: In total, 17 patients (median age 11.2 years) were included. MWF was present in seven patients (41%). Median N-terminal pro brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) was higher (5,959 vs. 242 pg/ml, p = 0.887) and LV ejection fraction (LVEF) lower (28 vs. 39%, p = 0.536) in MWF+ vs. MWF– patients, yet differences were not statistically significant. MWF+ patients had reduced global longitudinal (GLS), circumferential (GCS) and radial strain (GRS), again without statistical significance (p = 0.713, 0.492 and 1.000, respectively). A relationship between MWF and adverse outcome was not seen (p = 0.637). RBR was more common in MWF+ (67 vs. 50%), and was associated with the occurrence of adverse events (p = 0.041). Patients with RBR more frequently were in higher New York Heart Association classes (p = 0.035), had elevated NT-proBNP levels (p = 0.002) and higher need for catecholamines (p = 0.001). RBR was related to reduced GLS (p = 0.008), GCS (p = 0.031), GRS (p = 0.012), LV twist (p = 0.008), peak apical rotation (p < 0.001), and LVEF (p = 0.001), elevated LV end-diastolic volume (p = 0.023) and LV end-systolic volume (p = 0.003), and lower right ventricular stroke volume (p = 0.023). Conclusions: MWF was common, but failed to predict heart failure. RBR was associated with clinical and biventricular functional signs of heart failure as well as the occurrence of adverse events. Our findings suggest that RBR may predict outcomes and may serve as a novel marker of disease severity in pediatric DCM. Clinical Trial Registration: https://clinicaltrials.gov/, identifier: NCT03572569

Prophylactic and therapeutic recombinant factor VIIa administration to patients with Glanzmann's thrombasthenia: results of an international survey

n/

Rock phosphate-P enhances biomass and nitrogen accumulation by legumes in upland crop production systems in humid West Africa

Experiments were conducted during 1996-1998 in screen house and in the field in the humid forest zone of Côte d'Ivoire, to evaluate the effects of phosphorus (P) from phosphate rock (PR) on the performance of the root nodulating legume Crotalaria micans grown for 8 weeks. The experimental soils were acid Ultisols with <4 mg/kg extractable Bray-1 P. Tilemsi PR from Mali and triple superphosphate (TSP) were applied at 60 kg P ha-1 (screen house) and 90 kg P ha-1 (field) to the legume. Legume N-fixed (BNF) was estimated by the 15N-isotope dilution and δ15N natural abundance methods, using Cassia obtusifolia L. as a non-fixing legume reference plant. Without P supply, and under the field conditions, C. micans produced less than 1 tonne of biomass and accumulated 29 kg N/ha. The application of PR-P enhanced legume N by about fourfold over the unfertilised control. There was no significant difference between the effects of TSP and PR. Phosphorus application mainly affected the total amount of N accumulated rather than the percentage derived from the atmosphere (%N dfa) per se. Furthermore, the cumulative effects of PR-P on the performance of C. micans greatly improved with time in the screen house. This study confirms that Tilemsi PR is an agronomically effective source of P for short-duration legume green manure (GM) even in the first year of its application to acid P-deficient soils in the West African humid zon