Plant height and hydraulic vulnerability to drought and cold

Understanding how plants survive drought and cold is increasingly important as plants worldwide experience dieback with drought in moist places and grow taller with warming in cold ones. Crucial in plant climate adaptation are the diameters of water-transporting conduits. Sampling 537 species across climate zones dominated by angiosperms, we find that plant size is unambiguously the main driver of conduit diameter variation. And because taller plants have wider conduits, and wider conduits within species are more vulnerable to conduction-blocking embolisms, taller conspecifics should be more vulnerable than shorter ones, a prediction we confirm with a plantation experiment. As a result, maximum plant size should be short under drought and cold, which cause embolism, or increase if these pressures relax. That conduit diameter and embolism vulnerability are inseparably related to plant size helps explain why factors that interact with conduit diameter, such as drought or warming, are altering plant heights worldwide

Clathrin-dependent and independent endocytic pathways in tobacco protoplasts revealed by labelling with charged nanogold

Positively charged nanogold was used as a probe to trace the internalization of plasma membrane (PM) domains carrying negatively charged residues at an ultrastructural level. The probe revealed distinct endocytic pathways within tobacco protoplasts and allowed the morphology of the organelles involved in endocytosis to be characterized in great detail. Putative early endosomes with a tubulo-vesicular structure, similar to that observed in animal cells, are described and a new compartment, characterized by interconnected vesicles, was identified as a late endosome using the Arabidopsis anti-syntaxin family Syp-21 antibody. Endocytosis dissection using Brefeldin A (BFA), pulse chase, temperature- and energy-dependent experiments combined with quantitative analysis of nanogold particles in different compartments, suggested that recycling to the PM predominated with respect to degradation. Further experiments using ikarugamycin (IKA), an inhibitor of clathrin-dependent endocytosis, and negatively charged nanogold confirmed that distinct endocytic pathways coexist in tobacco protoplasts

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

High metastatic efficiency of human sarcoma cells in Rag2/gamma c double knockout mice provides a powerful test system for antimetastatic targeted therapy

Immunodeficient animal models are invaluable tools to investigate the metastatic propensity of human tumours. However residual immune responses, in particular natural killer (NK) cells, severely hamper the traffic and growth of human tumour cells. We studied whether a genetically modified mouse host lacking T, B and NK immunity allowed an improved expression of the metastatic phenotype of malignant human tumours. Metastatic spread of a panel of human sarcoma cell lines was studied in double knockout Rag2\u2013/\u2013;\u3b3c\u2013/\u2013 mice in comparison with NK-depleted nude mice. Rag2\u2013/\u2013;\u3b3c\u2013/\u2013 mice receiving intravenous (i.v.) or subcutaneous (s.c.) human sarcoma cell lines developed extensive multiorgan metastases. Metastatic efficiency in Rag2\u2013/\u2013;\u3b3c\u2013/\u2013 was superior than in nude mice in terms of both metastatic sites and metastasis number. Metastatic growth in Rag2\u2013/\u2013;\u3b3c\u2013/\u2013 mice was faster than that in nude mice, thus allowing an earlier metastasis evaluation. Most human sarcomas metastasised in the liver of Rag2\u2013/\u2013;\u3b3c\u2013/\u2013 mice, a kind of organ preference undetectable in nude mice and specific of sarcomas, as several carcinoma cell lines failed to colonise the liver of Rag2\u2013/\u2013;\u3b3c\u2013/\u2013 mice, independently of their metastatic spread to other sites. In vitro analysis of the molecular mechanisms of liver metastasis of sarcomas implicated liver-produced growth and motility factors, in particular the insulin-like growth factor (IGF) axis. NVP-BEZ235, a specific inhibitor of downstream signal transduction targeting PI3K and mTOR, strongly inhibited liver metastasis of human sarcoma cells. In conclusion, the Rag2\u2013/\u2013;\u3b3c\u2013/\u2013 mouse model allowed the expression of human metastatic phenotypes inapparent in conventional immunodeficient mice and the preclinical testing of appropriate targeted therapies

Recomendaciones para el dise\uf1o y ejecuci\uf3n de programas educativos en el marco del aprendizaje a lo largo de la vida. Experiencias de las universidades socias del Proyecto TRALL (programa ALFAIII de la Comisi\uf3n Europea).

The publication contains a compilation of lifelong learning innovations. Sharing of experiences and strategies on lifelong learnings integral to UIL\u92s mission and in line with this spirit, the three year TRALL project has shown the importance of promoting synergies instead of the usual dispersion of efforts in the Latin American region. Such projects as TRALL and the resulting publicationare an important way to add value to the many learning reforms different actors are conducting in the different countries in the Latin American region. Imparting and taking on board good practices lead to common understanding and convergence in outlook. At the same time, learning from different country contexts is considered to be relevant for promoting the idea of social diversity. The report Learning to Be commissioned by UNESCO in 1972 (Faure et al., 1972) advocated lifelong education in both developed and developing countries, recognising education as universal and lifelong, and open to all. The UNESCO Report Learning: the Treasure Within (Delors et al., 1996), acknowledged lifelong learning as one of the guiding and organising principles of educational action and reform that underlines the essential role learning plays for both society and individuals.Despite the integrative understanding lifelong learning promoted since 1972, today most education systems are still not in a position to offer quality lifelong learning opportunities for all. Making it a reality implies holistic and sector-wide educational reform involving all sub-sectors and education levels of the education system to ensure the creation of learning opportunities in all settings or delivery modalities (formal, non-formal and informal) for people of all ages, and meeting a wide range of learning needs. Recent developments have reinforced the relevance of lifelong learning. These include an increasingly globalised world, the need for maintain peace and security, the introduction of new technologies, the exponential growth and changing nature of information, demographic shifts and social transformations, climate change and sustainable development, and the need of citizens to upgrade competences to meet labour market, social and environmental demands. Lifelong learning policies in the Latin American region need to be supported by broad social consensus,legislative instruments and coordination mechanism. As lifelong learning activities no longer fall exclusively within the domain of Ministries of Education, a mechanism for facilitating collaboration among various sectors and stakeholder is indispensable. Certain support structures are needed to facilitate lifelong learning. These include on the one hand, a full range of provision of education and learning opportunities, including guidance and counselling; as well as effective information and communication tools, and conducive learning environments and resources. To facilitate lifelong learning and provide incentives for learners, a learning outcomes-based qualifications framework and a coordinated approach to assessment and recognition of learning outcomes in non-formal and informal settings are required

Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science

One of the central goals in any scientific endeavor is to understand causality. Experiments that seek to demonstrate a cause/effect relation most often manipulate the postulated causal factor. Aarts et al. describe the replication of 100 experiments reported in papers published in 2008 in three high-ranking psychology journals. Assessing whether the replication and the original experiment yielded the same result according to several criteria, they find that about one-third to one-half of the original findings were also observed in the replication study

The PREDICTS database: a global database of how local terrestrial biodiversity responds to human impacts.

Biodiversity continues to decline in the face of increasing anthropogenic pressures such as habitat destruction, exploitation, pollution and introduction of alien species. Existing global databases of species' threat status or population time series are dominated by charismatic species. The collation of datasets with broad taxonomic and biogeographic extents, and that support computation of a range of biodiversity indicators, is necessary to enable better understanding of historical declines and to project - and avert - future declines. We describe and assess a new database of more than 1.6 million samples from 78 countries representing over 28,000 species, collated from existing spatial comparisons of local-scale biodiversity exposed to different intensities and types of anthropogenic pressures, from terrestrial sites around the world. The database contains measurements taken in 208 (of 814) ecoregions, 13 (of 14) biomes, 25 (of 35) biodiversity hotspots and 16 (of 17) megadiverse countries. The database contains more than 1\% of the total number of all species described, and more than 1\% of the described species within many taxonomic groups - including flowering plants, gymnosperms, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, beetles, lepidopterans and hymenopterans. The dataset, which is still being added to, is therefore already considerably larger and more representative than those used by previous quantitative models of biodiversity trends and responses. The database is being assembled as part of the PREDICTS project (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems - http://www.predicts.org.uk). We make site-level summary data available alongside this article. The full database will be publicly available in 2015

Risk factors for unfavourable postoperative outcome in patients with Crohn's disease undergoing right hemicolectomy or ileocaecal resection. An international audit by ESCP and S-ECCO

Aim: Patient- and disease-related factors, as well as operation technique, all have the potential to impact on postoperative outcome in Crohn's disease. The available evidence is based on small series and often displays conflicting results. The aim was to investigate the effect of preoperative and intra-operative risk factors on 30-day postoperative outcome in patients undergoing surgery for Crohn's disease. Method: This was an international prospective snapshot audit including consecutive patients undergoing right hemicolectomy or ileocaecal resection. The study analysed a subset of patients who underwent surgery for Crohn's disease. The primary outcome measure was the overall Clavien\u2013Dindo postoperative complication rate. The key secondary outcomes were anastomotic leak, reoperation, surgical site infection and length of stay in hospital. Multivariable binary logistic regression analyses were used to produce odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals. Results: In all, 375 resections in 375 patients were included. The median age was 37 and 57.1% were women. In multivariate analyses, postoperative complications were associated with preoperative parenteral nutrition (OR 2.36, 95% CI 1.10\u20134.97), urgent/expedited surgical intervention (OR 2.00, 95% CI 1.13\u20133.55) and unplanned intra-operative adverse events (OR 2.30, 95% CI 1.20\u20134.45). The postoperative length of stay in hospital was prolonged in patients who received preoperative parenteral nutrition (OR 31, 95% CI 1.08\u20131.61) and those who had urgent/expedited operations (OR 1.21, 95% CI 1.07\u20131.37). Conclusion: Preoperative parenteral nutritional support, urgent/expedited operation and unplanned intra-operative adverse events were associated with unfavourable postoperative outcome. Enhanced preoperative optimization and improved planning of operation pathways and timings may improve outcomes for patients