Measurements of KL Branching Fractions and the CP Violation Parameter |eta+-|

We present new measurements of the six largest branching fractions of the KL using data collected in 1997 by the KTeV experiment (E832) at Fermilab. The results are B(KL -> pi e nu) = 0.4067 +- 0.0011 B(KL -> pi mu nu) = 0.2701 +- 0.0009 B(KL -> pi+ pi- pi0) = 0.1252 +- 0.0007 B(KL -> pi0 pi0 pi0) = 0.1945 +- 0.0018 B(KL -> pi+ pi-) = (1.975 +- 0.012)E-3, and B(KL -> pi0 pi0) = (0.865 +- 0.010)E-3, where statistical and systematic errors have been summed in quadrature. We also determine the CP violation parameter |eta+-| to be (2.228 +- 0.010)E-3. Several of these results are not in good agreement with averages of previous measurements.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. D; 20 pages, 22 figure

Интерферон-γ и опухолевый рост

Purpose of the study: to analyze published data on the mechanisms of action of interferon gamma (IFN-γ) in tumor growth and to evaluate the possibility of its use in the treatment of solid tumors. Material and Methods. More than 200 publications were found in the Scopus, Pubmed, eLibrary and other databases, the search keywords were: interferon gamma, tumor growth, cancer therapy. This review includes 54 papers. Results. IFN-γ is a pleiotropic cytokine with antiviral, antitumor, and immunomodulatory functions and plays an important role in coordinating the innate and adaptive immune response. The success of immuno-oncology drugs and chemotherapy in the treatment of malignant tumors depends on the stimulation of the production and adequate signaling of IFN-γ. Suppression and loss of IFN-γ receptor and downstream signaling mediators, and amplifcation of molecules that inhibit the IFN-γ signaling pathway are common mechanisms for tumor cells to escape from the immune system. The development of malignant processes is accompanied by a change, more often a decrease, in the secretion of IFN-γ, which attracts the attention of researchers to its exogenous administration. Determination of the IFN-γ signature may be a predictive marker of clinical response to anticancer drug therapy. The antitumor properties of IFN-γ are largely dose-dependent, which has been clearly shown in clinical and experimental studies. Low doses of the drug often promote tumor growth. On the contrary, the use of high doses is usually accompanied by an antitumor effect. IFN-γ or its inducers remain promising agents for cancer therapy. Combinatorial strategies involving IFN-γ may be a rational option to overcome tumor resistance to blockade of immune checkpoints. Conclusion. It is necessary to continue fundamental and applied research to study the feasibility of using interferon gamma as a therapeutic agent in tumor growth.Цель исследования – проанализировать опубликованные данные о механизмах действия интерферона гамма (IFN-γ) при опухолевом росте и оценить возможности его применения для лечения солидных опухолей. Материал и методы. По теме найдено более 200 зарубежных и российских публикаций, представленных в базах данных Scopus, Pubmed, eLibrary и других; ключевые слова поиска: интерферон гамма, опухолевый рост, терапия рака. В данный обзор включено 54 работы. Результаты. IFN-γ – плейотропный цитокин, обладающий противовирусной, противоопухолевой и иммуномодулирующей функциями и играющий важную роль в координации врожденного и адаптивного иммунного ответа. Успешность применения в лечении злокачественных опухолей иммуноонкологических препаратов и химиотерапии зависит, в том числе, от стимулирования выработки и адекватной передачи сигналов IFN-γ. Подавление и потеря рецептора IFN-γ и нижестоящих сигнальных медиаторов, амплификация молекул, ингибирующих сигнальный путь IFN-γ, являются обычными механизмами ускользания опухолевых клеток от иммунной системы. Развитие злокачественных процессов сопровождается изменением (чаще снижением), секреции IFN-γ, что привлекает внимание исследователей к его экзогенному введению. Определение сигнатуры IFN-γ может являться прогностическим маркером клинического ответа на противоопухолевую лекарственную терапию. Противоопухолевые свойства IFN-γ во многом дозозависимы, что наглядно показано в клинических и экспериментальных исследованиях. Низкие дозы препарата чаще способствуют росту опухоли, напротив, использование высоких доз обычно сопровождается противоопухолевым действием. IFN-γ или его индукторы остаются многообещающими агентами для терапии злокачественных новообразований. Комбинаторные стратегии с включением IFN-γ могут быть рациональным вариантом для преодоления резистентности опухолей к блокаде иммунных контрольных точек. Заключение. Необходимо продолжать фундаментальные и прикладные исследования по изучению возможностей применения интерферона гамма в качестве лечебного агента при опухолевом росте

Think globally, measure locally: The MIREN standardized protocol for monitoring plant species distributions along elevation gradients

Climate change and other global change drivers threaten plant diversity in mountains worldwide. A widely documented response to such environmental modifications is for plant species to change their elevational ranges. Range shifts are often idiosyncratic and difficult to generalize, partly due to variation in sampling methods. There is thus a need for a standardized monitoring strategy that can be applied across mountain regions to assess distribution changes and community turnover of native and non-native plant species over space and time. Here, we present a conceptually intuitive and standardized protocol developed by the Mountain Invasion Research Network (MIREN) to systematically quantify global patterns of native and non-native species distributions along elevation gradients and shifts arising from interactive effects of climate change and human disturbance. Usually repeated every five years, surveys consist of 20 sample sites located at equal elevation increments along three replicate roads per sampling region. At each site, three plots extend from the side of a mountain road into surrounding natural vegetation. The protocol has been successfully used in 18 regions worldwide from 2007 to present. Analyses of one point in time already generated some salient results, and revealed region-specific elevational patterns of native plant species richness, but a globally consistent elevational decline in non-native species richness. Non-native plants were also more abundant directly adjacent to road edges, suggesting that disturbed roadsides serve as a vector for invasions into mountains. From the upcoming analyses of time series, even more exciting results can be expected, especially about range shifts. Implementing the protocol in more mountain regions globally would help to generate a more complete picture of how global change alters species distributions. This would inform conservation policy in mountain ecosystems, where some conservation policies remain poorly implemented

Случай успешного хирургического лечения разрыва гигантской аневризмы инфраренального отдела аорты у пациентки старческого возраста

Today, abdominal aortic aneurysm surgery is a fairly well-studied area of medicine. Nevertheless, some questions remain rather debatable. No clear criteria for giant aneurysms have been developed so far. The available foreign and domestic literature reports about 40 cases of surgical treatment of giant abdominal aortic aneurysms, 16 of which are cases of aneurysm rupture. Open surgery remains the method of choice in the treatment of giant aneurysms due to the pronounced technical difficulties of endovascular intervention. The authors present a case of successful surgical treatment of a giant aneurysm rupture in an elderly patient. The peculiarity of this patient's condition is the occurrence of aneurysm rupture after hospital admission. The patient refused surgical treatment for two years after aneurysm detection. On examination after admission, multispiral computed tomography revealed an aneurysm size of 101 mm. On the eve of surgery, pain syndrome in the left abdomen and tachycardia appeared. Aneurysm rupture was suspected and the patient was urgently admitted to the operating room. The surgery was performed under the conditions of machine reinfusion of autoblood. The patient underwent abdominal aortic aneurysm resection with linear prosthesis and retroperitoneal hematoma removal. The postoperative period had no peculiarities. On the 10th day after the operation the patient was discharged in satisfactory condition to the outpatient treatment. This clinical case demonstrates the possibility of successful surgical treatment of giant aneurysm rupture in elderly patients.Сегодня хирургия аневризмы брюшного отдела является достаточно хорошо изученным разделом медицины. Тем не менее некоторые вопросы остаются довольно дискутабельными. До сих пор не выработано четких критериев гигантских аневризм. В доступной зарубежной и отечественной литературе сообщается о 40 случаях хирургического лечения гигантских аневризм брюшного отдела аорты, 16 из которых – в состоянии разрыва аневризмы. Методом выбора при лечении гигантских аневризм остается открытая операция в связи с выраженными техническими трудностями эндоваскулярного вмешательства. В статье авторы приводят случай успешного хирургического лечения разрыва гигантской аневризмы пациентки старческого возраста. Особенностью течения состояния данной пациентки является возникновение разрыва аневризмы после поступления в стационар. Пациентка в течение двух лет после обнаружения аневризмы отказывалась от оперативного лечения. При обследовании после поступления в стационар по данным мультиспиральной компьютерной томографии размер аневризмы достигал 101 мм. Накануне операции появились болевой синдром в левых отделах живота, тахикардия. Был заподозрен разрыв аневризмы, пациентка экстренно подана в операционную. Операция проводилась в условиях аппаратной реинфузии аутокрови. Больной выполнены резекция аневризмы брюшного отдела аорты с линейным протезированием и удаление забрюшинной гематомы. Течение послеоперационного периода проходило без особенностей. На 10-е сутки после операции пациентка в удовлетворительном состоянии выписана на амбулаторный этап лечения. Данный клинический случай свидетельствует о возможности успешного хирургического лечения разрыва гигантской аневризмы у пациентов старческой возрастной группы

The global naturalized Alien Flora (GloNAF) database

This dataset provides the Global Naturalized Alien Flora (GloNAF) database, ver-sion 1.2. Glo NAF represents a data compendium on th e occurrence and identit y of naturalizedalien vascular plant taxa across geographic regions (e.g. countries, states, provinces, districts,islands) around the globe. The dataset includes 13,939 taxa and covers 1,029 regions (including381 islands). The dataset is based on 210 data sources. For each ta x on-b y-region combination, wepr ovide information on whether the tax on is consider ed to be naturalized in the specific region(i.e. has established self-sustaining popula tions in the wild). Non-native taxa are marked as“alien”, when it is not clear whether they are naturalized. To facilitate alignment with other plantdatabases, we pro v ide f or each taxon the name as given in the original data source and the stan-dardized taxon and family names used by The Plant List Version 1.1 (http://www.theplantlist.org/). We pro vide an ESRI shapefile including polygons f or each region and informa tion on whetherit is an island or a mainland region, the country and the Taxonomic Databases Working Group(TDWG) regions it is part of (TDWG levels 1–4). We also provide several variables that can beused to filter the data according to quality and completeness of alien taxon lists, which varyamong the combinations of regions and da ta sources. A pre vious version of the GloNAF dataset(version 1.1) has already been used in several studies on, for example, historical spatial flows oftaxa between continents and geographical patterns and determinants of naturalization across dif-ferent taxonomic groups. We intend the updated and expanded GloNAF version presented hereto be a global resource useful for studying plant inv asions and changes in biodiversity from regio-nal to global scales. We release these data into the public domain under a Crea ti ve CommonsZer o license waiver (https://creati v ecommons.org/share-y our -work/public-domain/cc0/). Wheny ou use the da ta in your publication, we request that y ou cite this da ta paper. If GloN AF is amajor part of the data analyzed in your study, you should consider inviting the GloNAF coreteam (see Metadata S1: Originators in the Overall project description) as collaborators. If youplan to use the GloNAF dataset, we encourage y ou to contact the GloNAF core team to checkwhether there have been recent updates of the dataset, and whether similar analyses are already ongoing

Reading tea leaves worldwide: Decoupled drivers of initial litter decomposition mass‐loss rate and stabilization

The breakdown of plant material fuels soil functioning and biodiversity. Currently, process understanding of global decomposition patterns and the drivers of such patterns are hampered by the lack of coherent large-scale datasets. We buried 36,000 individual litterbags (tea bags) worldwide and found an overall negative correlation between initial mass-loss rates and stabilization factors of plant-derived carbon, using the Tea Bag Index (TBI). The stabilization factor quantifies the degree to which easy-to-degrade components accumulate during early-stage decomposition (e.g. by environmental limitations). However, agriculture and an interaction between moisture and temperature led to a decoupling between initial mass-loss rates and stabilization, notably in colder locations. Using TBI improved mass-loss estimates of natural litter compared to models that ignored stabilization. Ignoring the transformation of dead plant material to more recalcitrant substances during early-stage decomposition, and the environmental control of this transformation, could overestimate carbon losses during early decomposition in carbon cycle models

Reading tea leaves worldwide: decoupled drivers of initial litter decomposition mass-loss rate and stabilisation

The breakdown of plant material fuels soil functioning and biodiversity. Currently, process understanding of global decomposition patterns and the drivers of such patterns are hampered by the lack of coherent large-scale datasets. We buried 36,000 individual litterbags (tea bags) worldwide and found an overall negative correlation between initial mass-loss rates and stabilization factors of plant-derived carbon, using the Tea Bag Index (TBI). The stabilization factor quantifies the degree to which easy-to-degrade components accumulate during early-stage decomposition (e.g. by environmental limitations). However, agriculture and an interaction between moisture and temperature led to a decoupling between initial mass-loss rates and stabilization, notably in colder locations. Using TBI improved mass-loss estimates of natural litter compared to models that ignored stabilization. Ignoring the transformation of dead plant material to more recalcitrant substances during early-stage decomposition, and the environmental control of this transformation, could overestimate carbon losses during early decomposition in carbon cycle models

Reading tea leaves worldwide: decoupled drivers of initial litter decomposition mass‐loss rate and stabilization

The breakdown of plant material fuels soil functioning and biodiversity. Currently, process understanding of global decomposition patterns and the drivers of such patterns are hampered by the lack of coherent large‐scale datasets. We buried 36,000 individual litterbags (tea bags) worldwide and found an overall negative correlation between initial mass‐loss rates and stabilization factors of plant‐derived carbon, using the Tea Bag Index (TBI). The stabilization factor quantifies the degree to which easy‐to‐degrade components accumulate during early‐stage decomposition (e.g. by environmental limitations). However, agriculture and an interaction between moisture and temperature led to a decoupling between initial mass‐loss rates and stabilization, notably in colder locations. Using TBI improved mass‐loss estimates of natural litter compared to models that ignored stabilization. Ignoring the transformation of dead plant material to more recalcitrant substances during early‐stage decomposition, and the environmental control of this transformation, could overestimate carbon losses during early decomposition in carbon cycle models