435 research outputs found

    Stroke etiologies in patients with COVID-19: the SVIN COVID-19 multinational registry

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    Background and purpose: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is associated with a small but clinically significant risk of stroke, the cause of which is frequently cryptogenic. In a large multinational cohort of consecutive COVID-19 patients with stroke, we evaluated clinical predictors of cryptogenic stroke, short-term functional outcomes and inhospital mortality among patients according to stroke etiology. Methods: We explored clinical characteristics and short-term outcomes of consecutively evaluated patients 18 years of age or older with acute ischemic stroke (AIS) and laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 from 31 hospitals in 4 countries (3/1/20–6/16/20). Results:Of the 14.483 laboratory-confirmed patients with COVID-19, 156 (1.1%) were diagnosed with AIS. Sixty-one (39.4%) were female, 84 (67.2%) white, and 88 (61.5%) were between 60 and 79 years of age. The most frequently reported etiology of AIS was cryptogenic (55/129, 42.6%), which was associated with significantly higher white blood cell count, c-reactive protein, and D-dimer levels than non-cryptogenic AIS patients (p Conclusions: Our findings suggest that cryptogenic stroke among COVID-19 patients carries a significant risk of early mortality

    Patchiness and Demographic Noise in Three Ecological Examples

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    Understanding the causes and effects of spatial aggregation is one of the most fundamental problems in ecology. Aggregation is an emergent phenomenon arising from the interactions between the individuals of the population, able to sense only -at most- local densities of their cohorts. Thus, taking into account the individual-level interactions and fluctuations is essential to reach a correct description of the population. Classic deterministic equations are suitable to describe some aspects of the population, but leave out features related to the stochasticity inherent to the discreteness of the individuals. Stochastic equations for the population do account for these fluctuation-generated effects by means of demographic noise terms but, owing to their complexity, they can be difficult (or, at times, impossible) to deal with. Even when they can be written in a simple form, they are still difficult to numerically integrate due to the presence of the "square-root" intrinsic noise. In this paper, we discuss a simple way to add the effect of demographic stochasticity to three classic, deterministic ecological examples where aggregation plays an important role. We study the resulting equations using a recently-introduced integration scheme especially devised to integrate numerically stochastic equations with demographic noise. Aimed at scrutinizing the ability of these stochastic examples to show aggregation, we find that the three systems not only show patchy configurations, but also undergo a phase transition belonging to the directed percolation universality class.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures. To appear in J. Stat. Phy

    Mycorrhiza induced resistance against pests: from the lab to the field

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    1 página - Conferencia invitada presentada en Iberian Plant Biology 2023. XVIII Portuguese-Spanish Congress on Plant Biology and the XXV Meeting of the Spanish Society of Plant Biology. 9-12 Julio 2023, Braga, PortugalArbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) can prime plant defences increasing their resistance against pathogens and insect herbivores. Using tomato as a model, we have shown that inoculation with different AMF reduces the performance of the chewing herbivore Spodoptera exigua and the leaf miner Tuta absoluta. Transcriptomic and metabolomics analyses revealed that this Mycorrhiza Induced Resistance (MIR) is associated to boosted activation of plant direct and indirect defences in response to the attackers. We found primed accumulation in attacked leaves of antiherbivore metabolites, including alkaloids and polyamine conjugates, and functional analyses demonstrated that some of the identified compounds significantly inhibit herbivore development. In addition, the symbiosis altered the volatile blends released by the plant, and enhanced the attraction of natural enemies of the pests (Nesidiocoris tenuis, commonly used in biocontrol programs). Finally, networks analyses allowed the identification of key regulators of the primed response within the jasmonic acid and ethylene signalling pathways. Despite the many studies showing induced resistance by microorganisms in different plant‐pest systems, the variability in the protection achieved under agronomic settings is hindering the application of this strategy in agriculture. Plant‐microbe‐herbivore interactions are highly context dependent, with multiple biotic and abiotic factors influencing the final output. Identifying such factors is essential to optimize the application of microbial inoculants for crop protection in agriculture. We found that the plant genotype and nutrient availability are important drivers of the context dependency of MIR in tomato. Despite of the variability, comparisons across different experimental scales, from controlled lab set‐ups to commercial production conditions, confirmed that MIR can be achieved under crop production conditions and is compatible with other biocontrol methods. Accordingly, MIR can be a relevant addition to current Integrated Pest Management Programs

    Physical activity and resilience during the pandemic in a sample of medical students

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    Introduction: Some previous evidence supports the fact that physical activity is associated with resilience in different populations; however, the results are inconsistent. Objective: To determine the prevalence of resilience; and the association between physical activity and resilience during the pandemic in a sample of medical students. Methods: Cross-sectional study in 508 medical students. Resilience was categorized as adequate and low, while physical activity was categorized as low, medium and high. To assess the strength and magnitude of association, Poisson regression with robust variance was used. The results were presented in crude and adjusted prevalence ratios (aPR) with their 95% confidence intervals (95% CI). The confounding variables were sex, academic year; having been diagnosed with COVID-19 and having relatives diagnosed with COVID-19. Results: The prevalence of adequate resilience was 40.35%. In the multivariable regression analysis, the presence of those who performed high physical activity increased the prevalence of adequate resilience by 1.56 times (aPR=1.56; 95% CI 1.23-1.97) compared to those who performed low physical activity. No association with moderate physical activity was found. Conclusions: Less than half of the medical students presented an adequate level of resilience. At the same time, an association was found with high physical activity

    Izaña Atmospheric Research Center. Activity Report 2015-2016

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    This report is a summary of the many activities at the Izaña Atmospheric Research Center to the broader community. The combination of operational activities, research and development in state-of-the-art measurement techniques, calibration and validation and international cooperation encompass the vision of WMO to provide world leadership in expertise and international cooperation in weather, climate, hydrology and related environmental issues

    Dependence on plasma shape and plasma fueling for small ELM regimes in TCV and ASDEX Upgrade

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    Within the EUROfusion MST1 Work Package, a series of experiments has been conducted on AUG and TCV devices to disentangle the role of plasma fueling and plasma shape for the onset of small ELM regimes. On both devices, small ELM regimes with high confinement are achieved if and only if two conditions are fulfilled at the same time. Firstly, the plasma density at the separatrix must be large enough (ne,sep/nG ∼ 0.3), leading to a pressure profile flattening at the separatrix, which stabilizes type-I ELMs. Secondly, the magnetic configuration has to be close to a Double Null (DN), leading to a reduction of the magnetic shear in the extreme vicinity of the separatrix. As a consequence, its stabilizing effect on ballooning modes is weakened.EURATOM 63305

    A DERL3-associated defect in the degradation of SLC2A1 mediates the Warburg effect

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    Cancer cells possess aberrant proteomes that can arise by the disruption of genes involved in physiological protein degradation. Here we demonstrate the presence of promoter CpG island hypermethylation-linked inactivation of DERL3 (Derlin-3), a key gene in the endoplasmic reticulum-associated protein degradation pathway, in human tumours. The restoration of in vitro and in vivo DERL3 activity highlights the tumour suppressor features of the gene. Using the stable isotopic labelling of amino acids in cell culture workflow for differential proteome analysis, we identify SLC2A1 (glucose transporter 1, GLUT1) as a downstream target of DERL3. Most importantly, SLC2A1 overexpression mediated by DERL3 epigenetic loss contributes to the Warburg effect in the studied cells and pinpoints a subset of human tumours with greater vulnerability to drugs targeting glycolysis
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