Species- and organ-specificity of secretory proteins derived from human prostate and seminal vesicles

Polyclonal antibodies against semenogelin (SG) isolated from human seminal vesicle secretion and acid phosphatase (PAP), β‐microseminoprotein (β‐MSP), and Prostate‐Specific Antigen (PSA) derived from human prostatic fluid, as well as a monoclonal antibody against β‐MSP were used for immunocytochemical detection of the respective antigens in different organs from different species. SG immunoreactivity was detected in the epithelium of the pubertal and adult human and in monkey seminal vesicle, ampulla of the vas deferens, and ejaculatory duct. PAP, β‐MSP, and PSA immunoreactivities were detected in the pubertal and adult human prostate and the cranial and caudal monkey prostate. With the exception of a weak PSA immunoreactivity in the proximal portions of the ejaculatory duct, none of the latter antisera reacted with seminal vesicle, ampullary, and ejaculatory duct epithelium. Among the non‐primate species studied (dog, bull, rat, guinea pig) only the canine prostatic epithelium displayed a definite immunoreactivity with the PAP antibody and a moderate reaction with the PSA antibody. No immunoreaction was seen in bull and rat seminal vesicle and canine ampulla of the vas deferens with the SG antibody. The same was true for the (ventral) prostate of rat, bull, and dog for β‐MSP. The epithelium of the rat dorsal prostate showed a slight cross‐reactivity with the monoclonal antibody against β‐MSP and one polyclonal antibody against PSA. The findings indicate a rather strict species‐dependent expression of human seminal proteins which show some similarities in primates, but only marginal relationship to species with different physiology of seminal fluid

Participatory Research and Gender Analysis in Agricultural and Natural Resource Management Research

This selected bibliography provides a snapshot of reported research in participatory research and gender analysis, and as a prototype for an ongoing resource for researchers

Reconciling biodiversity conservation and agricultural expansion in the sub-arctic environment of Iceland

Intensified agricultural practices have driven biodiversity loss throughout the world and, although many actions aimed at halting and reversing these declines have been developed, their effectiveness depends greatly on the willingness of stakeholders to take part in conservation management. Knowledge of the willingness and capacity of landowners to engage with conservation can therefore be key to designing successful management strategies in agricultural land. In Iceland, agriculture is currently at relatively low intensity but is very likely to expand in the near future. At the same time, Iceland supports internationally important breeding populations of many ground-nesting birds which could be seriously impacted by further expansion of agricultural activities. To understand the views of Icelandic farmers towards bird conservation, given the current potential for agricultural expansion, 62 farms across Iceland were visited and farmers were interviewed, using a structured questionnaire survey in which respondents indicated a series of future actions. Most farmers intend to increase the area of cultivated land in the near future and, despite considering having rich birdlife on their land to be very important, most also report they are unlikely to specifically consider bird conservation in their management, even if financial compensation were available. However, as no agri-environment schemes are currently in place in Iceland, this concept is highly unfamiliar to Icelandic farmers. Nearly all respondents were unwilling, and thought it would be impossible, to delay harvest, but many were willing to consider sparing important patches of land and/or maintaining existing pools within fields (a key habitat feature for breeding waders). Farmers’ views on the importance of having rich birdlife on their land and their willingness to participate in bird conservation provide a potential platform for the co-design of conservation management with landowners before further substantial changes in the extent of agriculture take place in this sub-arctic landscape

A measurement of the differential cross section for the two-body photodisintegration of 3He at theta_LAB = 90deg using tagged photons in the energy range 14 -- 31 MeV

The two-body photodisintegration of 3He has been investigated using tagged photons with energies from 14 -- 31 MeV at MAX-lab in Lund, Sweden. The two-body breakup channel was unambiguously identified by the (nonsimultaneous) detection of both protons and deuterons. This approach was made feasible by the over-determined kinematic situation afforded by the tagged-photon technique. Proton- and deuteron-energy spectra were measured using four silicon surface-barrier detector telescopes located at a laboratory angle of 90deg with respect to the incident photon-beam direction. Average statistical and systematic uncertainties of 5.7% and 6.6% in the differential cross section were obtained for 11 photon-energy bins with an average width of 1.2 MeV. The results are compared to previous experimental data measured at comparable photon energies as well as to the results of two recent Faddeev calculations which employ realistic potential models and take into account three-nucleon forces and final-state interactions. Both the accuracy and precision of the present data are improved over the previous measurements. The data are in good agreement with most of the previous results, and favor the inclusion of three-nucleon forces in the calculations.Comment: 12 pages, 13 figures; further Referee comments addresse

Preoperative fasting: Instructions to patients and length of fasting – a prospective, descriptive survey

To access publisher's full text version of this article, please click on the hyperlink in Additional Links field or click on the hyperlink at the top of the page marked Files. This article is open access.Inngangur: Fasta sjúklinga er mikilvæg öryggisráðstöfun fyrir skurðað- gerð. Rannsóknir sýna þó að sjúklingar fasta mun lengur en leiðbeiningar kveða á um. Ástæður þess, þar með talinn þáttur sjúklingafræðslu, eru ekki kunnar. Tilgangur þessarar rannsóknar var að kanna hversu lengi sjúklingar fasta fyrir skurðaðgerð og hvaða leiðbeiningar þeir fengu varðandi föstu, þegar eitt ár var liðið frá innleiðingu nýrra leiðbeininga til starfsfólks og sjúklinga. Efniviður og aðferðir: Lýsandi rannsókn var gerð á Landspítala árið 2011. Gögnum var safnað úr sjúkraskrám og með spurningalista. Úrtakið náði yfir alla fullorðna sjúklinga sem gengust undir aðgerð í svæfingu eða slævingu á 5 daga tímabili. Niðurstöður: Þátttökuskilyrði uppfylltu 193 sjúklingar, þar af fóru 161 (83%) í valaðgerð. Útfylltir spurningalistar bárust frá 166 sjúklingum, eða 86% af þeim sem uppfylltu þátttökuskilyrði. Meðallengd föstu á mat var 13,6 (±3,0) klukkustundir og 8,8 (±4,5) klukkustundir á tæra drykki. Lið- lega fjórðungur sjúklinga (27%) fékk ráðleggingar um föstu í samræmi við leiðbeiningar og 45% var ráðlagt að fasta frá miðnætti. Upplýsingar voru veittar ýmist skriflega (18%), munnlega (37%) eða hvort tveggja (45%). Upplýsingar um tilgang föstu fengu 46% sjúklinga. Sjúklingar sem fóru í aðgerð að morgni föstuðu skemur en sjúklingar sem fóru í aðgerð eftir hádegi (p<0,05). Sjúklingar sem fengu bæði skriflegar og munnlegar upplýsingar föstuðu skemur á drykki en aðrir (p<0,001). Ályktanir: Skurðsjúklingar fasta mun lengur en nauðsynlegt er og fá mismunandi upplýsingar frá heilbrigðisstarfsfólki. Þörf er á að kanna frekar ástæðurnar fyrir þessu. Starfsfólk þarf að samræma starfshætti sína, virkja sjúklinga meira í eigin umönnun, veita samræmda og fullnægjandi sjúklingafræðslu og aðstoða sjúklinga við að stytta vökvaföstu eftir komu á sjúkrahúsiIntroduction: Fasting is an important safety precaution for patients before surgery but studies indicate that excessive fasting is common. Explanations for this, including patient education related factors, are not well known. The aim of this study was to explore how long patients fast before surgery and what instructions they received, one year after the introduction of new guidelines for patients and professionals. Material and methods: This descriptive study was undertaken in a national, 660-bed university hospital in 2011. Data was collected from patient records and with questionnaires. Included were adult surgical patients having anaesthesia during a 5day period. Results: The sample consisted of 193 patients: 83% were scheduled for elective surgery and 86% returned questionnaires. Average fasting time was 13,6 (±3.0) hours for solid food and 8,8 (±4.5) hours for clear fluids. A quarter (27%) had received instructions according to guidelines and 45% were instructed to fast from midnight. Information was either written (18%), verbal (37%) or both (45%) and 46% of patients received information on the importance of fasting. Patients scheduled for morning surgery fasted for a shorter time than afternoon patients (p<0.05). Patients who received both verbal and written information fasted shorter on clear fluids (p<0.001) than others. Conclusions: The fasting of surgical patients before their operation is unnecessarily long and they do not get uniform instructions. This warrants further exploration. There is a need for staff to coordinate instructional practices, to involve patients more in their own care with consistent information and comprehensive education and assist them in reducing fasting on clear fluids after hospital admission

Uncertainty Analysis and Order-by-Order Optimization of Chiral Nuclear Interactions

Chiral effective field theory (chi EFT) provides a systematic approach to describe low-energy nuclear forces. Moreover, chi EFT is able to provide well-founded estimates of statistical and systematic uncertainties-although this unique advantage has not yet been fully exploited. We fill this gap by performing an optimization and statistical analysis of all the low-energy constants (LECs) up to next-to-next-to-leading order. Our optimization protocol corresponds to a simultaneous fit to scattering and bound-state observables in the pion-nucleon, nucleon-nucleon, and few-nucleon sectors, thereby utilizing the full model capabilities of chi EFT. Finally, we study the effect on other observables by demonstrating forward-error-propagation methods that can easily be adopted by future works. We employ mathematical optimization and implement automatic differentiation to attain efficient and machine-precise first-and second-order derivatives of the objective function with respect to the LECs. This is also vital for the regression analysis. We use power-counting arguments to estimate the systematic uncertainty that is inherent to chi EFT, and we construct chiral interactions at different orders with quantified uncertainties. Statistical error propagation is compared with Monte Carlo sampling, showing that statistical errors are, in general, small compared to systematic ones. In conclusion, we find that a simultaneous fit to different sets of data is critical to (i) identify the optimal set of LECs, (ii) capture all relevant correlations, (iii) reduce the statistical uncertainty, and (iv) attain order-by-order convergence in chi EFT. Furthermore, certain systematic uncertainties in the few-nucleon sector are shown to get substantially magnified in the many-body sector, in particular when varying the cutoff in the chiral potentials. The methodology and results presented in this paper open a new frontier for uncertainty quantification in ab initio nuclear theory

Heterozygous TYROBP deletion (PLOSLFIN) is not a strong risk factor for cognitive impairment

Biallelic loss-of-function mutations in TYROBP and TREM2 cause a rare disease that resembles early-onset frontotemporal dementia with bone lesions called polycystic lipomembranous osteodysplasia with sclerosing leukoencephalopathy (PLOSL). Some PLOSL-causing variants in TREM2 have also been associated with Alzheimer's disease when heterozygous. Here, we studied the PLOSLFIN TYROBP deletion that covers 4 of the gene's 5 exons. We genotyped 3220 older Finns (mean age 79, range 58-104) and found 11 deletion carriers (mean age 78, range 60-94). The carrier prevalence was 0.0034 (1 in 293) that matches previous findings in younger cohorts suggesting no significant early mortality. By comparing Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores and diagnoses of dementia, we did not find any significant differences between TYROBP deletion carriers and noncarriers (all p-values >0.5). Neuropathological analysis of 2 deletion carriers (aged 89 and 94 years) demonstrated only minimal beta amyloid pathology (Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease (CERAD) score 0). Collectively these results suggest that heterozygous carriership of the TYROBP deletion is not a major risk factor of cognitive impairment. (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe