Discrimination against agriculture in developing countries?.

Agrarprotektionismus; Agrarpolitik; Wechselkurspolitik; Wirtschaftspolitische Wirkungsanalyse; Entwicklungsländer; Malaysia; Peru; Simbabwe;

Supportive treatment using a compression garment vest of painful sternal instability following deep surgical wound infection: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Sternal dehiscence and instability poses a significant cause of persistent pain and limited quality of life following hospital discharge for 0.2% to 5% of patients who have undergone median sternotomy for open heart surgery. We report a successful, conservative, supportive long-term therapy of painful sternal non-union using a customized compression garment vest.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We report a case of painful sternal instability following open heart surgery in a 74-year-old Caucasian man. The complicating factors of obesity (body mass index of 40), renal failure, insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and absolute arrhythmia with atrial fibrillation were present.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>A number of studies have demonstrated the efficacy of surgical interventions for secondary sternal stabilization, but individual patients may reject this option or may be, for other reasons, no longer operable. The task of primary care physicians and other health care providers is to offer this group of patients an alternative option for pragmatic, inexpensive and effective supportive therapy, of which compression garments are an example.</p

Functional significance of sequences following the TATA box of an immunoglobulin promoter studied by random mutagenesis

AbstractWe have investigated the importance of sequences downstream to the TATA box or an immunoglobulin promoter by transfection and in vitro transcription assays. A sequence from −11 to +10 with respect to the transcriptional start site was synthsised by a procedure allowing for random misincorporation of nucleotides. The pool of mutant oligonucleotides was cloned into the respective position of a vector carrying a fusion of a synthetic immunoglobulin heavy chain promoter with the human growth hormone gene. From 200 clones sequenced, 115 were mutants with at least one nucleotide exchange in every position. Whereas most mutations are of minor functional importance, changes at or near the transcriptional start site reduce the promoter activity considerably

Evaluierung praxisorientierter Ökolandbauforschung

Evaluierung praxisorientierter Ökolandbauforschung soll die Praxisrelevanz/-wirkung und die Beiträge für eine Weiterentwicklung des Ökolandbaus bewerten. Dabei ist sowohl der besondere Aufwand praxisorientierter Forschung als auch der Erfolg in der Praxis zu berücksichtigen. Die Kombination aus einer Selbstdokumentation der Wissenschaftler und einer externen Qualitätskontrolle auf Basis breiter Praxisbeteiligung, stellt das geeignete Instrumentarium dar, muss jedoch noch weiter operationalisiert werden

Mobile Crowd Sensing in Clinical and Psychological Trials – A Case Study

Many highly prevalent diseases (e.g., tinnitus, migraine, chronic pain) are difficult to treat and universally effective treatments are missing. Available treatments are only effective in patient subgroups; i.e., medical doctors and patients have to figure out which therapy might be helpful in the patient’s situation. Sufficiently large and qualitative longitudinal data sets, however, would be desirable to facilitate evidence-based treatment decisions for individual patients. On one hand, traditional sensing techniques (i.e., clinical trials) have many merits enabling evidence-based medicine. On the other, they have inherent limitations. First, clinical trials are very cost- and labour-intensive. Second, the traditional approach aims at reducing ecological heterogeneity to enable the investigation of homogeneous subsamples. Recently, a new paradigm emerged that offers promising perspectives for collecting large amounts of longitudinal patient data – Mobile Crowd Sensing. By utilizing smart mobile devices of a large number of patients, health information can be gathered from large patient collections as well as at many different time points and in various real life environmental situations. In the TrackYourTinnitus project, we implemented such a mobile crowd sensing platform to reveal new medical aspects about tinnitus with a particular focus on the variability of tinnitus over time depending on the environmental situation. In this paper, the current project status as well as first lessons learned from running the mobile application for twelve months are presented. In turn, the lessons learned are discussed in the context of the new perspectives offered by mobile crowd sensing in the medical field

Moment-to-moment variability of the auditory phantom perception in chronic tinnitus

With a prevalence of about 70%, the majority of patients that undergo cochlear implantation also report a perception of tinnitus prior to operation. Following implantation, some patients report an improvement of tinnitus while the tinnitus worsens in other cases. Subjective tinnitus, in general, is defined as an auditory perception in the absence of any physically identifiable source for it. The patients typically report a constant ringing, buzzing or hissing in the ear, which can lead to serious psychological distress including depression, insomnia and anxiety. Several evidence exists, that the perception of tinnitus is not constant during the everyday life and rather fluctuations from one moment to the other and that the amount of fluctuation relates to the generally perceived tinnitus-related distress. For example, electrical stimulation of the cochlea can change this perceptual variability leading to longer and more episodes where the tinnitus is 'off'. In order to measure this moment-to-moment variability of tinnitus perception, we developed an experience sampling application running on smartphones that is able to track the individual tinnitus perception and distress during the day under real world conditions. The longitudinal data collected by the app might also be helpful for the adjustment of the CI settings. Additionally, we assessed the moment-to-moment variability of brain activity in the auditory cortex using magnetoencephalography. Chronic tinnitus is usually associated with a decrease of the alpha frequency oscillatory power in temporal areas. Here we show, that also the moment-to-moment variability of the alpha activity is largely reduced in chronic tinnitus. Most importantly, it can be shown that this neuronal variability is associated with the tinnitus duration. Subjects with a longer history of tinnitus show less alpha variability in auditory regions. Whether these changes in neuronal variability relate to the perceptual variability remains to be seen

How dynamic is the continuous tinnitus percept?

Objective: Subjective tinnitus is defined as an auditory perception in the absence of any physically identifiable source for it. About 5-10% of the population report a continuous perception of the tinnitus sound – but how continuous is this perception? Is the tinnitus constantly “on”, or are there also periods were the tinnitus is perceived less? Indeed, more than 60% of the chronic tinnitus subjects report a variability of the tinnitus perception between days. The heterogeneity of this variability is currently largely unexplored. Results: Chronic tinnitus is usually associated with a decrease of the alpha frequency oscillatory power in temporal areas. Here we show, that also the moment-to-moment variability of the alpha activity is largely reduced in chronic tinnitus. Most importantly, it can be shown that this neuronal variability is associated with the tinnitus duration. Subjects with a longer history of tinnitus show less alpha variability in auditory regions. Preliminary data on the variability of the tinnitus perception will be presented

Analyse der zeitlichen und räumlichen Dynamik der Herbizidresistenz gegenüber ACCase- und ALS-Inhibitoren und deren Ursachen bei Alopecurus myosuroides Huds.

A.myosuroides is a key weed in many agricultural areas of Western Europe with cases of resistance to ACCase-inhibitor and ALS-inhibitor constantly increasing. A case control study was conducted to assess the resistance situation at a local landscape level with the aim to 1) assess the resistance status at a given location, 2) characterize the spread and temporal development of resistance, 3) analyze factors contributing to resistance and 4) attempt to predict resistance development at the field level to manage resistance evolution before the occurrence of a problem. 1225 fields were sampled for between one and six years. The infestation level in the field was estimated and the remaining efficacy of seeds from field survivors on ACCase and ALS-inhibitors were tested using whole plant greenhouse bioassays together with laboratory analysis. At harvest time only 6% of all samples collected showed infestation levels reducing yields. Resistance to the ACCase-inhibitors of the FOP and DEN class was found to be established with >83% of the samples showing low efficacy. Resistance to ALS-inhibitors was found to remain under development with 83% der Proben gefunden, gegenüber ALS-Inhibitoren in <32% der Proben. Dies zeigt, dass Resistenzen gegenüber ACCase-Inhibitoren etabliert sind. Bei den Resistenzmechanismen wurden alle bisher bekannten Punktmutationen bei beiden Wirkmechanismen gefunden. Die Analyse der Resistenzstruktur ergab aber kein Muster zwischen den Feldern. Die Resistenzstruktur ist deshalb als feldspezifisch anzusehen. Die Beobachtungen der Felder wurden in resistente (R), beginnend resistente (I) und sensitive (S) Proben eingeteilt. Bewirtschaftungsmaßnahmen und Bodendaten wurden analysiert, um die Ursachen der Resistenz zu bestimmen. Felder mit einer höheren Diversität der Maßnahmen gegen A.myosuroides durch die Anwendung integrierter Bekämpfungsmaßnahmen sind weniger wahrscheinlich von Resistenz betroffen. Böden mit einem höheren Potential für A.myosuroides spielen aber auch eine wichtige Rolle in der Unterscheidung von R- und S- Fällen bei gleicher Bewirtschaftung. Ein Simulationsmodell und ein „machine learning“-Algorithmus (Random Forest) wurden verwendet, um den Resistenzstatus zu bestimmen. In 15 von 16 Fällen konnten beide Ansätze den korrekten Resistenzstatus vorhersagen. Beide zeigten jedoch unabhängig voneinander auch falsche Vorhersagen (12% bei Random Forest, 19% bei dem Simulationsmodell)