Dredged sediment for agriculture: Lake Paradise

Lake Paradise, a water supply lake for Mattoon, Illinois, has lost much of its capacity due to sediment. This was a study to determine the agricultural benefit of Lake Paradise sediment when applied to farmland on the lake watershed. About 170 cubic yards of sediment were hauled to a demonstration site. While this method is probably not practical economically on an agricultural scale, it did provide a way to evaluate the sediment productivity during the short (one year) term of this project. About 2100 yards of sediment were also pumped to the demonstration site using a hydraulic dredge. This was stored behind agricultural terraces and is being dewatered using three subsurface drainage methods. A study was also conducted of the water chemistry of Lake Paradise during the dredging operation. Results showed a significant yield increase of corn yields on the hauled sediment plots compared to the original farmland. About $100 per acre increased net returns resulted which would help defray some costs of lake reclamation. It was found that the costs of lake reclamation by applying dredged sediment to farmland using terraces is directly related to the steepness of the land slope. Spray irrigating sediment was found to be comparable in cost to storing behind terraces with the disadvantage that spray irrigation is limited to soils or special soil management practices where erosion can be controlled. A study was conducted of the water chemistry of Lake Paradise during the dredging operation. Results showed that the project had a minimal effect on lake water quality.U.S. Geological SurveyU.S. Department of the InteriorOpe

Software Process Accessibility in Practice: A Case Study

AbstractSoftware processes are recognized as fundamental assets in development organizations since they support the capability to pro- duce better products. A means for handling the complexity of these processes is through models, and software process modeling languages (SPMLs) are languages to express those processes. Different requirements for SPMLs have been identified by some authors, but accessibility is not one of them. There is little empirical evidence of the use of software processes by people with accessibility difficulties in software organizations. The goal of this case study is to investigate what are the requirements to make software processes become accessible. The subjects are users of a methodology called NDT and its support tools, and who have a kind of disability. The objective is to know the main requirements in order to read and execute software processes and become a process engineer. Conclusions and future work in this field are also presented to improve this area

Genetics and genetic counseling in psychiatry : Results from an opinion survey of professionals and users

Background: The heritability of several psychiatric disorders is high, and specific at-risk variants have been identified. Therefore, genetic counseling and genetic testing can be prescribed to some psychiatric patients, but these services are not standardized for most of the population. The aims of the study were to gather opinions from mental health professionals and users regarding (a) the genetics of psychiatric disorders and (b) the usefulness of a genetic counseling unit in psychiatry. Methods: The survey was conducted in the province of Tarragona (Spain), and we analyzed 152 valid questionnaires from professionals and 959 from users. Results: Sixty-one percent of professionals strongly believed that psychiatric disorders have a genetic basis, and 59% rated a genetic counseling unit in psychiatry as very or extremely useful. However, only a few professionals reported that patients asked them about the genetics of their diseases (12%) or the possibility of transmitting the disease to offspring (19%). Forty-seven percent of users strongly believed that psychiatric disorders have a genetic basis, 30% responded that they talked with their families about the genetics of their diseases, and 43% were worried about transmitting the disease to offspring; however, only 14% reported that their psychiatrist had talked to them about this topic. Remarkably, 80% of users would consider a genetic counseling unit very or extremely useful. Conclusions: The present study showed that mental health professionals were more aware of the genetic basis of psychiatric disorders than users, and both considered the implementation of a genetic counseling service very useful

ABCB1 Genetic Variants as Predictors of Irinotecan-Induced Severe Gastrointestinal Toxicity in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer Patients

Irinotecan is widely used in the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) despite its severe toxicities. Toxicity is often associated with the UGT1A1*28/*28 genotype. An explanation for idiopathic toxicity beyond the UGT1A1 biomarker, however, remains a major concern for clinicians. One of the main irinotecan transporters is P-glycoprotein (P-gp), which is a hepatic efflux pump encoded by ABCB1. P-gp is involved in the biliary excretion of irinotecan and its active metabolite SN-38. We aimed to assess whether functional variants in ABCB1 also contribute to identifying patients at risk of toxicity. A cohort of 308 mCRC patients treated with irinotecan-based regimens were genotyped for polymorphisms in ABCB1 (rs1128503, rs2032582, and rs1045642). The effect of these variants and their haplotypes on irinotecan-induced severe toxicity (diarrhea, neutropenia, asthenia, nausea, and mucositis) was assessed. After adjusting for the relevant clinical and pathological parameters in the multivariate analysis, we found rs1128503 was significantly associated with severe diarrhea and mucositis (P=0.014 and P=0.002, respectively). Additionally, rs2032582 was associated with severe mucositis (P<0.001). Our results show that rs1128503 genotyping could help to predict severe gastrointestinal toxicity induced by irinotecan

STANDARDIZED CATCH RATES OF ALBACORE (THUNNUS ALALUNGA BONNATERRE, 1788) IN THE SPANISH SURFACE LONGLINE FISHERY IN THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN IN THE PERIOD 2009-2019

Standardized relative abundance indices of albacore (Thunnus alalunga Bonnaterre, 1788) caught by the Spanish surface longline (LLALB) in the western Mediterranean Sea were estimated for the period 2009-2019. Yearly standardized CPUE were estimated through Generalized Linear Mixed Effects Models (GLMM) under a negative binomial error distribution assumption. The main factors in the standardization analysis were year and season (quarter). The index shows an increasing trend from the beginning of the series (2009) to a maximum in 2011; following a decrease up to 2013, and a relatively stable trend fluctuating around a level three and a half times lower compared to the maximum abundance for the period 2013-2019.En prens

Epigenetic regulation of Gfi1 in endocrine-related cancers: a role regulating tumor growth

Prostate and breast cancer constitute the most common cancers among men and women worldwide. The aging population is one of the main risk factors for prostate and breast cancer development and accumulating studies link aging with epigenetic changes. Growth factor independence-1 (Gfi1) is a transcriptional repressor with an important role in human malignancies, including leukemia, colorectal carcinoma, and lung cancer, but its role in prostate and breast cancer is unknown. We have found that Gfi1 epigenetic silencing is a common event in prostate and breast cancer. Gfi1 re-expression in prostate and breast cancer cell lines displaying Gfi1 epigenetic silencing decreases cell proliferation, reduced colony formation density, and tumor growth in nude mice xenografts. In addition, we found that Gfi1 repress alpha 1-anti-trypsin (AAT) and alpha 1-anti-chymotrypsin (ACT) expression, two genes with important functions in cancer development, suggesting that Gfi1 silencing promotes tumor growth by increasing AAT and ACT expression in our system. Finally, Gfi1 epigenetic silencing could be a promising biomarker for prostate cancer progression because it is associated with shorter disease-free survival. In conclusion, our findings strongly indicate that Gfi1 epigenetic silencing in prostate and breast cancer could be a crucial step in the development of these two-well characterized endocrine related tumors

North Atlantic oscillation affects the physical condition of migrating bullet tuna Auxis rochei (Risso, 1810) from the Western Mediterranean Sea

Climate oscillations exert direct control over the environment in which they occur and may influence the physical condition of migratory marine species, such as tuna, as reported by several authors. The main aim of thisstudywastoexploretheassociationbetweenthepotentialeffectsoftheNorthAtlanticOscillation(NAO)on thefitness condition of bullet tuna (Auxis rochei) migrating to the Spanish Mediterranean Sea. A total of 2357 length-weight pairs of data obtained from individuals collected on the Spanish Mediterranean coast were analysed. A non-parametric Spearman test was used to investigate correlations between the atmospheric oscillation indexes and two physical condition indexes. The results suggest that, in general, positive phases of the NAO index improve the physical condition offish migrating to spawning grounds in the Mediterranean Sea. These results could be explained by changes in the dominant winds, which could favour pre-spawning migration, and by nutrients availability, which guarantees their recovery after the spawning period.En prens

DNA methylation loss promotes immune evasion of tumours with high mutation and copy number load

Mitotic cell division increases tumour mutation burden and copy number load, predictive markers of the clinical benefit of immunotherapy. Cell division correlates also with genomic demethylation involving methylation loss in late-replicating partial methylation domains. Here we find that immunomodulatory pathway genes are concentrated in these domains and transcriptionally repressed in demethylated tumours with CpG island promoter hypermethylation. Global methylation loss correlated with immune evasion signatures independently of mutation burden and aneuploidy. Methylome data of our cohort (n = 60) and a published cohort (n = 81) in lung cancer and a melanoma cohort (n = 40) consistently demonstrated that genomic methylation alterations counteract the contribution of high mutation burden and increase immunotherapeutic resistance. Higher predictive power was observed for methylation loss than mutation burden. We also found that genomic hypomethylation correlates with the immune escape signatures of aneuploid tumours. Hence, DNA methylation alterations implicate epigenetic modulation in precision immunotherapy

A pharmacogenetic intervention for the improvement of the safety profile of antipsychotic treatments

Antipsychotic drugs fail to achieve adequate response in 30-50% of treated patients and about 50% of them develop severe and lasting side effects. Treatment failure results in poorer prognosis with devastating repercussions for the patients, carers and broader society. Our study evaluated the clinical benefits of a pharmacogenetic intervention for the personalisation of antipsychotic treatment. Pharmacogenetic information in key CYP polymorphisms was used to adjust clinical doses in a group of patients who started or switched treatment with antipsychotic drugs (PharmG+, N = 123), and their results were compared with those of a group of patients treated following existing clinical guides (PharmG−, N = 167). There was no evidence of significant differences in side effects between the two arms. Although patients who had their antipsychotic dose adjusted according to CYPs polymorphisms (PharmG+) had a bigger reduction in side effects than those treated as usual (PharmG−), the difference was not statistically significant (p > 0.05 for all comparisons). However, PharmG+ patients treated with CYP2D6 substrates that were carriers of CYP2D6 UMs or PMs variants showed a significantly higher improvement in global, psychic and other UKU side effects than PharmG− patients (p = 0.02, p = 0.05 and p = 0.01, respectively). PharmG+ clozapine treated patients with CYP1A2 or CYP2C19 UM and PMs variants also showed higher reductions in UKU scores than PharmG− clozapine patients in general. However, those differences were not statistically significant. Pharmacogenetic interventions may improve the safety of antipsychotic treatments by reducing associated side effects. This intervention may be particularly useful when considering treatment with antipsychotics with one major metabolic pathway, and therefore more susceptible to be affected by functional variants of CYP enzymes

SEOM clinical guidelines on nutrition in cancer patients (2018)

Nutritional deficiency is a common medical problem that affects 15-40% of cancer patients. It negatively impacts their quality of life and can compromise treatment completion. Oncological therapies, such as surgery, radiation therapy, and drug therapies are improving survival rates. However, all these treatments can play a role in the development of malnutrition and/or metabolic alterations in cancer patients, induced by the tumor or by its treatment. Nutritional assessment of cancer patients is necessary at the time of diagnosis and throughout treatment, so as to detect nutritional deficiencies. The Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment method is the most widely used tool that also evaluates nutritional requirements. In this guideline, we will review the indications of nutritional interventions as well as artificial nutrition in general and according to the type of treatment (radiotherapy, surgery, or systemic therapy), or palliative care. Likewise, pharmacological agents and pharmaconutrients will be reviewed in addition to the role of regular physical activity