Posterior Arthroscopic Subtalar Arthrodesis: Clinical and Radiologic Review of 19 Cases

Arthroscopic subtalar arthrodesis has recently gained popularity in the treatment of primary subtalar or post-traumatic arthritis, coalition, or inflammatory diseases with subtalar arthritis. The present study reports the clinical and radiologic results of 19 patients (19 feet) who underwent posterior arthroscopic subtalar arthrodesis using 2 posterior portals. A total of 19 posterior arthroscopic subtalar arthrodeses (minimum follow-up of 24 months) performed without a bone graft and with 2 parallel screws were prospectively evaluated. The fusion rate was 94% (mean time to fusion 9.8 weeks). Modified American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society ankle-hindfoot scale score (maximum 94 points) improved significantly from 43 to 80 points and the visual analog scale for pain score improved from 7.6 to 1.2. The 12-item short-form physical and mental scores at the last follow-up point were 52.5 and 56.4, respectively. One (5.3%) patient underwent open repeat fusion for nonunion, 2 (10.5%) patients required a second procedure for implant removal, and 1 (5.3%) experienced reversible neuropraxia. In conclusion, posterior arthroscopic subtalar arthrodesis is a safe technique with a good union rate and a small number of complications in patients with no or very little hindfoot deformity.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Characterization of grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) cultivars from northern Portugal using RAPD and microsatellite markers

Twelve grapevine cultivars from northern Portugal were characterized with RAPD and microsatellites. Nine primers were used in the RAPD analysis; 8 of the varieties showed monotypic patterns. With the 6 microsatellite loci a total of 38 alleles was obtained. Relationships among the studied varieties were observed. Both types of molecular markers have proved useful for identification. Existence of synonymies is discussed.

A comparative analysis of genetic diversity in Portuguese grape germplasm from ampelographic collections fit for quality wine production

Grapevine cultivars diversity is vast and full of synonyms and homonyms. Up to few decades ago characterization of grapevine was based on morphological characters. In the last decades, molecular markers were developed and have been used as tools to study genetic diversity in a range of different plant species. Fifty-six Portuguese accessions representative of ‘Vinhos Verdes’ and ‘Douro’ Controlled Designations of Origin (DOC) were analysed through DNA fingerprints generated by Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and Inter Simple Sequence Repeat (ISSR). The study aimed to compare the effectiveness of RAPD and ISSR molecular techniques in the detection of synonyms, homonyms and misnames. RAPD and ISSR analysis enabled the detection of 36 different band patterns, reducing in about 36% the initial material. Several accessions grown under different names, between and within collections, were confirmed as the same genotype, namely Gouveio/Verdelho, Sousão Douro/Vinhão and Arinto Oeste/Pedernã. Similarly, some homonyms/misnames were also identified, namely within Azal Tinto and Rabigato accessions. RAPD and ISSR markers revealed to be adequate molecular techniques for grapevine varieties fingerprinting with advantages over other molecular procedures, contributing for a good management of grapevine collections

The Portuguese grapevine cultivar 'Amaral': synonymies, homonymies and misnames

Within Western Europe, Portugal is the country with highest diversity of grapevine cultivars. As the Iberian Peninsula has been considered a domestication centre of grapevines, the interest on Portuguese grapevine cultivars diversity has increased in the last years.Using twelve SSR markers scattered across twelve grape chromosomes, thirty-three accessions collected on Vinhos Verdes and Lafões Controlled Designations of Origin (DOC) and supposedly of the grapevine cultivar 'Amaral', were analysed. Names of the accessions ranged from 'Amaral' and 'Azal Tinto' to 'Sousão Galego'. Eight different genotypes were detected. The majority of accessions had the genotype attributed to 'Amaral'. However, three accessions were identified as misnaming cases and four genotypes were considered unknown, as no cultivar identification was achieved. Nevertheless, not only the misnamed cultivars, 'Vinhão', 'Melhorio' and 'Touriga Nacional', but also the four unknown genotypes, 'Azal Tinto' (AT2203 and AT2206), 'Amaral-1', 'Amaral-2' and 'Sousão Galego', share at least one allele in each of the 12 SSR loci analysed.The accessions AT2203 and AT2206 were found as possible offspring of 'Amaral' and 'Folgasão' and the accession 'Amaral-2' is likely result of a cross between 'Amaral' and 'Pedral'.The high number of synonym names that are attributed to 'Amaral', like 'Azal Tinto', 'Azar', 'Cainho' or 'Susão Galego' and the fact that it probably has parent-offspring relations with many cultivars, suggests that 'Amaral' is an ancient cultivar in the Northwest of the Iberian Peninsula and was a very important cultivar in the past.

Identification of minority grapevine cultivars from Vinhos Verdes Portuguese DOC Region

The Portuguese Vinhos Verdes DOC Region retains a considerable biodiversity in grapevine varieties. Unfortunately, regional grapevine patrimony is in danger of disappearing. The present study was carried out in order to genotype, using 12 microsatellite loci, a group of 39 accessions of Vinhos Verdes DOC region, including underuse and minor varieties included in the wine list of varieties and also several unknown accessions with regional designations. The accessions analyzed were identified and grouped into 34 different genotypes, nine of them referred as new genotypes. Some new synonyms were detected, namely between Spanish and Portuguese cultivars. Misidentifications and wrong designations were also detected

Prospection and identification of grapevine varieties cultivated in north Portugal and northwest Spain

A broad prospection of grapevine plants was carried out in northwest Spain and north of Portugal during the period from 2002 to 2009. It included zones located in Galicia as well as in the provinces of León, Zamora and Salamanca in Spain and the region delimited by the right side of the Douro river and the spanish border in Portugal. A total of 669 accessions were sampled, studied and identified, both by using the six microsatellite loci included in the OIV descriptors list, plus ampelographic characters. As a result of the study a total of 53 different grapevine varieties were identified. Most of them correspond to minor varieties that are present in the zone. In many cases the same variety was detected in both countries, although denominated with different names that are synonymous. The molecular markers that were analyzed are those included in the OIV 801 to 806 descriptors, and correspond to the following loci: VVS2, VVMD5, VVMD7, VVMD27, ssrVrZAG62 and ssrVrZAG79. Allele sizes of the studied varieties are recorded. Relationships among these varieties seem to be possible. Recommended priority names for the studied varieties both in Spain and in Portugal are listed, in order to avoid misidentifications and reduce the incidence of homonymies.

Learning Scheduling Algorithms for Data Processing Clusters

Efficiently scheduling data processing jobs on distributed compute clusters requires complex algorithms. Current systems, however, use simple generalized heuristics and ignore workload characteristics, since developing and tuning a scheduling policy for each workload is infeasible. In this paper, we show that modern machine learning techniques can generate highly-efficient policies automatically. Decima uses reinforcement learning (RL) and neural networks to learn workload-specific scheduling algorithms without any human instruction beyond a high-level objective such as minimizing average job completion time. Off-the-shelf RL techniques, however, cannot handle the complexity and scale of the scheduling problem. To build Decima, we had to develop new representations for jobs' dependency graphs, design scalable RL models, and invent RL training methods for dealing with continuous stochastic job arrivals. Our prototype integration with Spark on a 25-node cluster shows that Decima improves the average job completion time over hand-tuned scheduling heuristics by at least 21%, achieving up to 2x improvement during periods of high cluster load

Influence of annealing conditions on formation of regular lattices of voids and Ge quantum dots in amorphous alumina matrix

In this work, the influence of air pressure during the annealing of Ge quantum dot (QD) lattices embedded in an amorphous Al2O3 matrix on the structural, morphological and compositional properties of the film is studied. The formation of a regularly ordered void lattice after performing a thermal annealing process is explored. Our results show that both the Ge desorption from the film and the regular ordering of the QDs are very sensitive to the annealing parameters. The conditions for the formation of a void lattice, a crystalline Ge QD lattice and a disordered QD lattice are presented. The observed effects are explained in terms of oxygen interaction with the Ge present in the film.This study has been partially funded through the projects (i) FEDER funds through the COMPETE program ‘Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade’ and by Portuguese funds through the Portuguese foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) in the frame of the project PTDC/FIS/70194/2006 and PEst-C-FIS/UI607/2011–2012; (ii) ELETTRA Synchrotron Radiation Center through the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under grant agreement no 226716. SRCP is grateful for financial support through the FCT grant SFRH/BPD/73548/2010 and JMS is grateful for financial support through the Spanish CSIC JAE-DOC program. MB acknowledges support from the Croatian Ministry of Science, Higher Education and Sport (project number 098-0982886-2859).We thank Dr Anabela Rolo and Engineer Jos´e Santos for all the valuable discussions and the sample preparation

No evidence that wild red deer (Cervus elaphus) on the Iberian Peninsula are a reservoir of Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis infection

The potential role of red deer (Cervus elaphus) as a reservoir of Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) infection is largely unknown. A total of 332 wild red deer were investigated using post-mortem examination, bacteriology and serology. Only three animals (1.12%) were found to have lesions on histopathological examination and no MAP bacteria were recovered on culture. The results suggest it is unlikely that wild red deer make a significant contribution to the maintenance of MAP infection in the region. The cross-reactivity of the ELISAs used indicates this diagnostic modality is ineffective in the detection of MAP infection in this species. The implications of these results for the control of this important pathogen in both livestock and wildlife are discussed

The SOPHIE search for northern extrasolar planets. V. Follow-up of ELODIE candidates: Jupiter-analogs around Sun-like stars

We present radial-velocity measurements obtained in a programs underway to search for extrasolar planets with the spectrograph SOPHIE at the 1.93-m telescope of the Haute-Provence Observatory. Targets were selected from catalogs observed with ELODIE, mounted previously at the telescope, in order to detect long-period planets with an extended database close to 15 years. Two new Jupiter-analog candidates are reported to orbit the bright stars HD150706 and HD222155 in 16.1 and 10.9 yr at 6.7 (+4.0,-1.4) and 5.1(+0.6,-0.7) AU and to have minimum masses of 2.71 (+1.44,-0.66) and 1.90 (+0.67,-0.53) M_Jup, respectively. Using the measurements from ELODIE and SOPHIE, we refine the parameters of the long-period planets HD154345b and HD89307b, and publish the first reliable orbit for HD24040b. This last companion has a minimum mass of 4.01 +/- 0.49 M_Jup orbiting its star in 10.0 yr at 4.92 +/- 0.38 AU. Moreover, the data provide evidence of a third bound object in the HD24040 system. With a surrounding dust debris disk, HD150706 is an active G0 dwarf for which we partially corrected the effect of the stellar spot on the SOPHIE radial-velocities. HD222155 is an inactive G2V star. On the basis of the previous findings of Lovis and collaborators and since no significant correlation between the radial-velocity variations and the activity index are found in the SOPHIE data, these variations are not expected to be only due to stellar magnetic cycles. Finally, we discuss the main properties of this new population of long-period Jupiter-mass planets, which for the moment, consists of fewer than 20 candidates. These stars are preferential targets either for direct-imaging or astrometry follow-up to constrain the system parameters and for higher precision radial-velocity to search for lower mass planets, aiming to find a Solar System twin.Comment: accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic