Synthesis and biological properties of palladium(II) cyclometallated compounds derived from ( E )-2-((4-hydroxybenzylidene)amino)phenol

( E )-2-((4-hydroxybenzylidene)amino)phenol (iminophenol a ) reacted with Pd(OAc) 2 giving place to com- pound 1a , in which the iminophenol was bonded to palladium(II) in a κ3 - C ortho ,N,O ortho tridentate chelat- ing mode. Thus, 1a was formed by neutral mononuclear units of schematic formula Pd(C,N,O), consisting of two fused five-membered metallacycles. Self-assembly of the Pd(C,N,O) units gave place to the polynu- clear structure of 1a . Treatment of 1a with PPh 3 or PPh 2 CH 2 CH 2 PPh 2 in molar ratio Pd(II)/PPh 3 = 1/1 or Pd(II)/PPh 2 CH 2 CH 2 PPh 2 = 2/1 produced the mononuclear or dinuclear compound of schematic formula [Pd(C,N,O)(PPh 3 )] ( 2a ) or {[P d (C,N,O)] 2 ( μ2 -PPh 2 CH 2 CH 2 PPh 2 )} ( 3a ), respectively. Compounds a were char- acterized by elemental analysis, high resolution ESI-( + ) mass spectrometry, IR, and NMR. In addition, the crystal structure of the adducts 2a ·2(CH 2 Cl-CH 2 Cl) and 3a ·5(dmso) was determined by single crystal X- ray diffraction analysis. Most compounds a were noncytotoxic or poorly cytotoxic. Nonetheless, 2a was moderately cytotoxic against the MCF-7 breast and HCT-116 colon human cancer cell lines, and presented very low cytotoxicity towards normal skin human BJ cells. Compounds a showed moderate antibacterial activity against some Gram-positive ( B. subtilis and S. aureus ) and Gram-negative ( E. coli ) bacterial strains, and displayed also moderate antioxidant activity, producing 3a the best antioxidant activity. 1a changed the electrophoretic mobility of the pBluescript SK + plasmid DNA. This change followed the pattern of cisplatin , but it started at a concentration twenty times higher than with cisplatin . Moreover, compounds 1a - 3a inhibited topoisomerase IIα at concentrations of 10, 50 and 25 μM, respectively

Comparison of SPECT bone scintigraphy with MRI for diagnosis of meniscal tears

BACKGROUND: Scintigraphy has been considered as competitive to MRI, but limited data are available on the accuracy of single photon emission tomography (SPECT) compared with MRI for the assessment of meniscal tears. Our objective was to assess the value of SPECT in comparison to MRI. METHODS: Between January 2003 and March 2004, sixteen patients were studied with both modalities and the accuracy rates of SPECT scan results, and MRI findings in the diagnosis of meniscal tears were compared. Arthroscopy was the gold standard. RESULTS: The respective sensitivity rate, specificity rate, and positive and negative predictive accuracies of MRI were 89%, 94%, 93%, and 79% and for SPECT those were 78%, 94%, 94%, and 88%. There was good agreement on the presence or absence of tears between two modalities (κ statistic = 0.699). CONCLUSION: SPECT and MRI are both valuable imaging techniques. SPECT is a useful alternative when MRI is unavailable or unsuitable and it is beneficial when more possible accuracy is desired (such as when MRI results are either inconclusive or conflict with other clinical data)

Single-nucleotide polymorphism discovery by high-throughput sequencing in sorghum

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Eight diverse sorghum (<it>Sorghum bicolor </it>L. Moench) accessions were subjected to short-read genome sequencing to characterize the distribution of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Two strategies were used for DNA library preparation. Missing SNP genotype data were imputed by local haplotype comparison. The effect of library type and genomic diversity on SNP discovery and imputation are evaluated.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Alignment of eight genome equivalents (6 Gb) to the public reference genome revealed 283,000 SNPs at ≥82% confirmation probability. Sequencing from libraries constructed to limit sequencing to start at defined restriction sites led to genotyping 10-fold more SNPs in all 8 accessions, and correctly imputing 11% more missing data, than from semirandom libraries. The SNP yield advantage of the reduced-representation method was less than expected, since up to one fifth of reads started at noncanonical restriction sites and up to one third of restriction sites predicted <it>in silico </it>to yield unique alignments were not sampled at near-saturation. For imputation accuracy, the availability of a genomically similar accession in the germplasm panel was more important than panel size or sequencing coverage.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>A sequence quantity of 3 million 50-base reads per accession using a <it>Bsr</it>FI library would conservatively provide satisfactory genotyping of 96,000 sorghum SNPs. For most reliable SNP-genotype imputation in shallowly sequenced genomes, germplasm panels should consist of pairs or groups of genomically similar entries. These results may help in designing strategies for economical genotyping-by-sequencing of large numbers of plant accessions.</p

A new test of the construct validity of the CarerQol instrument: measuring the impact of informal care giving

Purpose: Most economic evaluations of health care programmes do not consider the effects of informal care, while this could lead to suboptimal policy decisions. This study investigates the construct validity of the CarerQol instrument, which measures and values carer effects, in a new population of informal caregivers. Methods: A questionnaire was distributed by mail (n = 1,100, net response rate = 21%) to regional informal care support centers throughout the Netherlands. Two types of construct validity, i.e., convergent and clinical validity, have been analyzed. Convergent validity was assessed with Spearman's correlation coefficients and multivariate correlation between the burden dimensions (CarerQol-7D) and the valuation component (CarerQol-VAS) of the CarerQol. Additionally, convergent validity was analyzed with Spearman's correlation coefficients between the CarerQol and other measures of subjective caregiver burden (SRB, PU). Clinical validity was evaluated with multivariate correlation between CarerQol-VAS and CarerQol-7D, characteristics of caregivers, care recipients and care situation among the whole sample of caregivers and subgroups. Results: The positive (negative) dimensions of CarerQol-7D were positively (negatively) related to CarerQol-VAS, and almost all had moderate strength of convergent validity. CarerQol-VAS was positively associated with PU and negatively with SRB. The CarerQol-VAS reflects differences in important background characteristics of informal care: type of relationship, age of the care recipient and duration of care giving were associated with higher CarerQol-VAS scores. These results confirmed earlier tests of the construct validity of the CarerQol. Furthermore, the dimensions of CarerQol-7D significantly explained differences in CarerQol-VAS scores among subgroups of carers. Conclusion: Notwithstanding the limitations of our study, such as the low response rate, this study shows that the CarerQol provides a valid means to measure carer effects for use in economic evaluations. Future research should derive a valuation set for the CarerQol and further address the instrument's content validity, sensitivity and reliability

An Autotetraploid Linkage Map of Rose (Rosa hybrida) Validated Using the Strawberry (Fragaria vesca) Genome Sequence

Polyploidy is a pivotal process in plant evolution as it increase gene redundancy and morphological intricacy but due to the complexity of polysomic inheritance we have only few genetic maps of autopolyploid organisms. A robust mapping framework is particularly important in polyploid crop species, rose included (2n = 4x = 28), where the objective is to study multiallelic interactions that control traits of value for plant breeding. From a cross between the garden, peach red and fragrant cultivar Fragrant Cloud (FC) and a cut-rose yellow cultivar Golden Gate (GG), we generated an autotetraploid GGFC mapping population consisting of 132 individuals. For the map we used 128 sequence-based markers, 141 AFLP, 86 SSR and three morphological markers. Seven linkage groups were resolved for FC (Total 632 cM) and GG (616 cM) which were validated by markers that segregated in both parents as well as the diploid integrated consensus map

Sugarcane (Saccharum X officinarum): A Reference Study for the Regulation of Genetically Modified Cultivars in Brazil

Global interest in sugarcane has increased significantly in recent years due to its economic impact on sustainable energy production. Sugarcane breeding and better agronomic practices have contributed to a huge increase in sugarcane yield in the last 30 years. Additional increases in sugarcane yield are expected to result from the use of biotechnology tools in the near future. Genetically modified (GM) sugarcane that incorporates genes to increase resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses could play a major role in achieving this goal. However, to bring GM sugarcane to the market, it is necessary to follow a regulatory process that will evaluate the environmental and health impacts of this crop. The regulatory review process is usually accomplished through a comparison of the biology and composition of the GM cultivar and a non-GM counterpart. This review intends to provide information on non-GM sugarcane biology, genetics, breeding, agronomic management, processing, products and byproducts, as well as the current technologies used to develop GM sugarcane, with the aim of assisting regulators in the decision-making process regarding the commercial release of GM sugarcane cultivars

A multivariant secure framework for smart mobile health application

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Wiley in Transactions on Emerging Telecommunications Technologies, available online: https://doi.org/10.1002/ett.3684 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.Wireless sensor network enables remote connectivity of technological devices such as smart mobile with the internet. Due to its low cost as well as easy availability of data sharing and accessing devices, the Internet of Things (IoT) has grown exponentially during the past few years. The availability of these devices plays a remarkable role in the new era of mHealth. In mHealth, the sensors generate enormous amounts of data and the context-aware computing has proven to collect and manage the data. The context aware computing is a new domain to be aware of context of involved devices. The context-aware computing is playing a very significant part in the development of smart mobile health applications to monitor the health of patients more efficiently. Security is one of the key challenges in IoT-based mHealth application development. The wireless nature of IoT devices motivates attackers to attack on application; these vulnerable attacks can be denial of service attack, sinkhole attack, and select forwarding attack. These attacks lead intruders to disrupt the application's functionality, data packet drops to malicious end and changes the route of data and forwards the data packet to other location. There is a need to timely detect and prevent these threats in mobile health applications. Existing work includes many security frameworks to secure the mobile health applications but all have some drawbacks. This paper presents existing frameworks, the impact of threats on applications, on information, and different security levels. From this line of research, we propose a security framework with two algorithms, ie, (i) patient priority autonomous call and (ii) location distance based switch, for mobile health applications and make a comparative analysis of the proposed framework with the existing ones.Published onlin

Exploitation of Feedback in Enzyme-catalysed Reactions

Some cellular systems, such as yeast, bacteria and slime mould, display dynamic behavior including switches and rhythms driven by feedback in enzyme-catalysed reactions. The mechanisms of these processes have been well investigated and recent attention has turned to generating similar responses in synthetic biocatalytic systems, with a view to creating bioinspired analogues for applications. Here we discuss how feedback arises in the reaction mechanisms of some enzyme-catalyzed reactions invitro, the behaviour obtained and the emerging applications. These autocatalytic reactions may provide insights into behaviour in cellular systems as well as new methods for drug delivery, sensing and repair that can be exploited in living systems

Global Retinoblastoma Presentation and Analysis by National Income Level.

Importance: Early diagnosis of retinoblastoma, the most common intraocular cancer, can save both a child's life and vision. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that many children across the world are diagnosed late. To our knowledge, the clinical presentation of retinoblastoma has never been assessed on a global scale. Objectives: To report the retinoblastoma stage at diagnosis in patients across the world during a single year, to investigate associations between clinical variables and national income level, and to investigate risk factors for advanced disease at diagnosis. Design, Setting, and Participants: A total of 278 retinoblastoma treatment centers were recruited from June 2017 through December 2018 to participate in a cross-sectional analysis of treatment-naive patients with retinoblastoma who were diagnosed in 2017. Main Outcomes and Measures: Age at presentation, proportion of familial history of retinoblastoma, and tumor stage and metastasis. Results: The cohort included 4351 new patients from 153 countries; the median age at diagnosis was 30.5 (interquartile range, 18.3-45.9) months, and 1976 patients (45.4%) were female. Most patients (n = 3685 [84.7%]) were from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Globally, the most common indication for referral was leukocoria (n = 2638 [62.8%]), followed by strabismus (n = 429 [10.2%]) and proptosis (n = 309 [7.4%]). Patients from high-income countries (HICs) were diagnosed at a median age of 14.1 months, with 656 of 666 (98.5%) patients having intraocular retinoblastoma and 2 (0.3%) having metastasis. Patients from low-income countries were diagnosed at a median age of 30.5 months, with 256 of 521 (49.1%) having extraocular retinoblastoma and 94 of 498 (18.9%) having metastasis. Lower national income level was associated with older presentation age, higher proportion of locally advanced disease and distant metastasis, and smaller proportion of familial history of retinoblastoma. Advanced disease at diagnosis was more common in LMICs even after adjusting for age (odds ratio for low-income countries vs upper-middle-income countries and HICs, 17.92 [95% CI, 12.94-24.80], and for lower-middle-income countries vs upper-middle-income countries and HICs, 5.74 [95% CI, 4.30-7.68]). Conclusions and Relevance: This study is estimated to have included more than half of all new retinoblastoma cases worldwide in 2017. Children from LMICs, where the main global retinoblastoma burden lies, presented at an older age with more advanced disease and demonstrated a smaller proportion of familial history of retinoblastoma, likely because many do not reach a childbearing age. Given that retinoblastoma is curable, these data are concerning and mandate intervention at national and international levels. Further studies are needed to investigate factors, other than age at presentation, that may be associated with advanced disease in LMICs