Low-Level Laser Application in the Early Myocardial Infarction Stage Has No Beneficial Role in Heart Failure

Low-level laser therapy (LLLT) has been targeted as a promising approach that can mitigate post infarction cardiac remodeling. There is some interesting evidence showing that the beneficial role of the LLLT could persist long-term even after the end of the application, but it remains to be systematically evaluated. Therefore, the present study aimed to test the hypothesis that LLLT beneficial effects in the early post-infarction cardiac remodeling could remain in overt heart failure even with the disruption of irradiations. Female Wistar rats were subjected to the coronary occlusion to induce myocardial infarction or Sham operation. A single LLLT application was carried out after 60 s and 3 days post-coronary occlusion, respectively. Echocardiography was performed 3 days and at the end of the experiment (5 weeks) to evaluate cardiac function. After the last echocardiographic examination. LV hemodynamic evaluation was performed at baseline and on sudden afterload increases. Compared with the Sham group, infarcted rats showed increased systolic and diastolic internal diameter as well as a depressed shortening fraction of LV. The only benefit of the LLLT was a higher shortening fraction after 3 days of infarction. However, treated-LLLT rats show a lower shortening fraction in the 5th week of study when compared with Sham and non-irradiated rats. A worsening of cardiac function was confirmed in the hemodynamic analysis as evidenced by the higher LV end-diastolic pressure and lower +dP/dt and dP/dt with five weeks of study. Cardiac functional reserve was also impaired by infarction as evidenced by an attenuated response of stroke work index and cardiac output to a sudden afterload stress, without LLLT repercussions. No significant differences were found in the myocardial expression of Akti NEGF pathway. Collectively, these findings illustrate that LLLT improves LV systolic function in the early post-infarction cardiac remodeling. However, this beneficial effect may be dependent on the maintenance of phototherapy. Long-term studies with LLLT application are needed to establish whether these effects ultimately translate into improved cardiac remodeling.Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e TecnologicoFAPESPNove de Julho Univ, Lab Biophoton, Sao Paulo, SP, BrazilUniv Fed Sao Paulo, Lab Cardiac Physiol, Sao Paulo, SP, BrazilNove de Julho Univ, Program Med, Sao Paulo, BrazilUniv Sao Judas Tadeu, Brazil Phys Educ & Aging Sci Program, Translat Physiol Lab, Sao Paulo, BrazilUniv Fed Sao Paulo, Lab Cardiac Physiol, Sao Paulo, SP, BrazilCNPq: 4400851/2014-8FAPESP: 09-54225/8FAPESP: 15/11028-9Web of Scienc

The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment

The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) has been in operation since July 2014. This paper describes the second data release from this phase, and the fourteenth from SDSS overall (making this, Data Release Fourteen or DR14). This release makes public data taken by SDSS-IV in its first two years of operation (July 2014-2016). Like all previous SDSS releases, DR14 is cumulative, including the most recent reductions and calibrations of all data taken by SDSS since the first phase began operations in 2000. New in DR14 is the first public release of data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS); the first data from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE-2), including stellar parameter estimates from an innovative data driven machine learning algorithm known as "The Cannon"; and almost twice as many data cubes from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) survey as were in the previous release (N = 2812 in total). This paper describes the location and format of the publicly available data from SDSS-IV surveys. We provide references to the important technical papers describing how these data have been taken (both targeting and observation details) and processed for scientific use. The SDSS website (www.sdss.org) has been updated for this release, and provides links to data downloads, as well as tutorials and examples of data use. SDSS-IV is planning to continue to collect astronomical data until 2020, and will be followed by SDSS-V.Comment: SDSS-IV collaboration alphabetical author data release paper. DR14 happened on 31st July 2017. 19 pages, 5 figures. Accepted by ApJS on 28th Nov 2017 (this is the "post-print" and "post-proofs" version; minor corrections only from v1, and most of errors found in proofs corrected

Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV: Mapping the Milky Way, Nearby Galaxies, and the Distant Universe

We describe the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV), a project encompassing three major spectroscopic programs. The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment 2 (APOGEE-2) is observing hundreds of thousands of Milky Way stars at high resolution and high signal-to-noise ratios in the near-infrared. The Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (MaNGA) survey is obtaining spatially resolved spectroscopy for thousands of nearby galaxies (median $z\sim 0.03$). The extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) is mapping the galaxy, quasar, and neutral gas distributions between $z\sim 0.6$ and 3.5 to constrain cosmology using baryon acoustic oscillations, redshift space distortions, and the shape of the power spectrum. Within eBOSS, we are conducting two major subprograms: the SPectroscopic IDentification of eROSITA Sources (SPIDERS), investigating X-ray AGNs and galaxies in X-ray clusters, and the Time Domain Spectroscopic Survey (TDSS), obtaining spectra of variable sources. All programs use the 2.5 m Sloan Foundation Telescope at the Apache Point Observatory; observations there began in Summer 2014. APOGEE-2 also operates a second near-infrared spectrograph at the 2.5 m du Pont Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory, with observations beginning in early 2017. Observations at both facilities are scheduled to continue through 2020. In keeping with previous SDSS policy, SDSS-IV provides regularly scheduled public data releases; the first one, Data Release 13, was made available in 2016 July

Photography-based taxonomy is inadequate, unnecessary, and potentially harmful for biological sciences

The question whether taxonomic descriptions naming new animal species without type specimen(s) deposited in collections should be accepted for publication by scientific journals and allowed by the Code has already been discussed in Zootaxa (Dubois & Nemésio 2007; Donegan 2008, 2009; Nemésio 2009a–b; Dubois 2009; Gentile & Snell 2009; Minelli 2009; Cianferoni & Bartolozzi 2016; Amorim et al. 2016). This question was again raised in a letter supported by 35 signatories published in the journal Nature (Pape et al. 2016) on 15 September 2016. On 25 September 2016, the following rebuttal (strictly limited to 300 words as per the editorial rules of Nature) was submitted to Nature, which on 18 October 2016 refused to publish it. As we think this problem is a very important one for zoological taxonomy, this text is published here exactly as submitted to Nature, followed by the list of the 493 taxonomists and collection-based researchers who signed it in the short time span from 20 September to 6 October 2016