Sustainable use of winter Durum wheat landraces under Mediterranean conditions

This research expected to determine new durum wheat germplasm resistant to biotic and abiotic stress factors. Eighty durum wheat lines selected from eighteen diverse landraces were tested together with eight durum wheat cultivars under reliable yellow rust epidemic during two successive years. Average infection coefficient of populations and cultivars was 32.44 in 2003 and 26.24 in 2004, showing severe epidemic condition which occurred at adult plant stage in 2003. Because of this the number of selected resistant and moderately resistant plant material greatly reduced. According to the yield trial study in which twenty resistant lines selected out of 30 resistant and moderately from sixteen populations were included, only two checks outperformed grand mean (2.48 t ha -1) and two lines selected from landrace population followed these with slightly lower yield difference. On the other hand, there were several lines which performed better than the grand mean of protein content (13.24%), SDS sedimentation (28.40 ml) and semolina color (24.35) and they ranked in the first group including the two checks cultivars. Bi- plot analysis showed that some promising lines with reasonable grain yields, good quality parameters, winter hardiness and drought tolerances among yellow rust resistance durum wheat landraces can be selected for semiarid conditions of Mediterranean countries for sustainable production

Bilateral Electroconvulsive Therapy For Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Comorbid to Depression

DergiPark: 1020975tmsjAims: We aim to present a patient who was suffering from treatment-resistant depression along with psychotic features and comorbid post-traumatic stress disorder and was treated by bilateral electroconvulsive therapy. Case Report: A 58-year-old female patient was transferred to the University Hospital Münster with the diagnosis of treatment-refractory depression with psychotic features and post-traumatic stress disorder. The patient was non-responsive to unilateral electroconvulsive therapy and multiple antidepressant agents during several inpatient treatments. After initiating bilateral electroconvulsive therapy, the patient’s symptoms improved significantly. Conclusion: After ruling out conventional treatment algorithms for psychotic depression comorbid to post-traumatic stress disorder, physicians can consider bilateral electroconvulsive therapy to treat complicated cases

Intermolecular forces in 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide + ethanol mixtures

The characteristics of intermolecular forces in 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide + ethanol mixtures were studied in the full composition range using a combined experimental and theoretical approach. Molecular clusters were used to model the short-range interactions between the ionic liquid and the primary alcohol, studied using density functional theory calculations, inferring preferred interaction sites, strength of interactions and topological characteristics of intermolecular forces. Dynamic viscosity and refraction index were measured as a function of mixture composition and temperature and analysed in terms of evolution of intermolecular forces. Raman IR studies were carried out and the analysis of selected spectral regions allowed to characterize hydrogen bonding evolution for all the possible interacting sites.Junta de Castilla y León (Spain, project BU324U14

Covid-19 financial consequences in United States hospitals

Introduction: Since the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, United States (U.S.) hospitals have struggled to stay financially afloat amid the constant battle with unprecedented circumstances and financial consequences from the pandemic. The purpose of this research was to analyze the financial consequences of COVID-19 for U.S. hospitals to determine the impact on the number of inpatient cases, length of stay (LOS), surgeries performed, and operating expenses. The hypothesis was that U.S. hospitals were financially affected by the consequences of COVID-19, having more inpatient cases, increased LOS, fewer surgeries performed, and higher operating expenses. Methodology: The methodology for this qualitative study was a literature review following systematic reviews and a semi-structured interview. The references used for this research were located using Marshall University’s EbscoHost, CINAHL, ProQuest, and PubMed research databases. The inclusion criteria were articles published in the English language and studies conducted in the United States between 2012 and 2022. Results: The results of this study show that the inequalities in the distribution of CARES Act funding increased financial vulnerability for many hospital markets across the country. The results also show that, in all U.S. children’s hospitals, the number of inpatient stays was lower since the onset of the pandemic, as well as the number of emergency department visits and surgeries. Additionally, study findings show that the pandemic resulted in significant net income losses for all U.S. hospitals. Discussion: This investigation indicated that Covid-19 has caused a huge financial burden in U.S hospitals, causing an increase of LOS, more impatient cases, fewer surgeries, and higher operating expenses. Conclusion: Study findings point to the need for increased funding for U.S. hospitals to more effectively manage the number of inpatient cases, LOS, surgeries performed, and operating expenses, ensuring future sustainability and better health outcomes. Although previous findings indicated that CARES Act funding improved U.S. hospital outcomes amid the pandemic, our study followed a greater number of hospitals, both urban and rural, than those in studies conducted previously. Future researchers should consider investigating the impact of COVID-19 financial consequences on U.S. hospitals from beginning to end since the pandemic is still ongoing

Improved induction of anti-melanoma T cells by adenovirus-5/3 fiber modification to target human DCs

To mount a strong anti-tumor immune response, non T cell inflamed (cold) tumors may require combination treatment encompassing vaccine strategies preceding checkpoint inhibition. In vivo targeted delivery of tumor-associated antigens (TAA) to dendritic cells (DCs), relying on the natural functions of primary DCs in situ, represents an attractive vaccination strategy. In this study we made use of a full-length MART-1 expressing C/B-chimeric adenoviral vector, consisting of the Ad5 capsid and the Ad3 knob (Ad5/3), which we previously showed to selectively transduce DCs in human skin and lymph nodes. Our data demonstrate that chimeric Ad5/3 vectors encoding TAA, and able to target human DCs in situ, can be used to efficiently induce expansion of functional tumor-specific CD8⁺ effector T cells, either from a naïve T cell pool or from previously primed T cells residing in the melanoma-draining sentinel lymph nodes (SLN). These data support the use of Ad3-knob containing viruses as vaccine vehicles for in vivo delivery. "Off-the-shelf" DC-targeted Ad vaccines encoding TAA could clearly benefit future immunotherapeutic approaches

Supervised Nonparametric Image Parcellation

Author Manuscript 2010 August 25. 12th International Conference, London, UK, September 20-24, 2009, Proceedings, Part IISegmentation of medical images is commonly formulated as a supervised learning problem, where manually labeled training data are summarized using a parametric atlas. Summarizing the data alleviates the computational burden at the expense of possibly losing valuable information on inter-subject variability. This paper presents a novel framework for Supervised Nonparametric Image Parcellation (SNIP). SNIP models the intensity and label images as samples of a joint distribution estimated from the training data in a non-parametric fashion. By capitalizing on recently developed fast and robust pairwise image alignment tools, SNIP employs the entire training data to segment a new image via Expectation Maximization. The use of multiple registrations increases robustness to occasional registration failures. We report experiments on 39 volumetric brain MRI scans with manual labels for the white matter, cortex and subcortical structures. SNIP yields better segmentation than state-of-the-art algorithms in multiple regions of interest.NAMIC (NIHNIBIBNAMICU54-EB005149)NAC (NIHNCRRNACP41-RR13218)mBIRN (NIHNCRRmBIRNU24-RR021382)NIH NINDS (Grant R01-NS051826)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (CAREER Grant 0642971)NCRR (P41-RR14075)NCRR (R01 RR16594-01A1)NIBIB (R01 EB001550)NIBIB (R01EB006758)NINDS (R01 NS052585-01)Mind Research InstituteEllison Medical FoundationSingapore. Agency for Science, Technology and Researc

Insights on the water effect on deep eutectic solvents properties and structuring: The archetypical case of choline chloride + ethylene glycol

The effect of water on the properties and nanostructuring of the prototypical choline chloride: ethylene glycol deep eutectic solvent is studied using a combined experimental and theoretical approach. The reported results showed large hydrophilic character of the solvent, which is based on the ability of water molecules to be hydrogen bonded to the different components of the eutectic in a efficient way. The effect of water on the studied fluid is largely dependent on the concentration range but the properties of the eutectic solvent can be maintained up to reasonably large water content. Therefore, the water content in these solvents may be used for tuning and controlling their properties but maintaining properties and features.Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (Spain, project RTI2018-101987-B-I00). We also acknowledge SCAYLE (Supercomputación Castilla y León, Spain) for providing supercomputing facilities

Stability of Scalar Fields in Warped Extra Dimensions

This work sets up a general theoretical framework to study stability of models with a warped extra dimension where N scalar fields couple minimally to gravity. Our analysis encompasses Randall-Sundrum models with branes and bulk scalars, and general domain-wall models. We derive the Schrodinger equation governing the spin-0 spectrum of perturbations of such a system. This result is specialized to potentials generated using fake supergravity, and we show that models without branes are free of tachyonic modes. Turning to the existence of zero modes, we prove a criterion which relates the number of normalizable zero modes to the parities of the scalar fields. Constructions with definite parity and only odd scalars are shown to be free of zero modes and are hence perturbatively stable. We give two explicit examples of domain-wall models with a soft wall, one which admits a zero mode and one which does not. The latter is an example of a model that stabilizes a compact extra dimension using only bulk scalars and does not require dynamical branes.Comment: 25 pages, 2 figures; v2: minor changes to text, references added, matches published versio