Advances in the phylogenetic study of the tribe Cinchoneae (Rubiaceae) with emphasis on the genus Cinchona and Ladenbergia

In its current circumscription, the Cinchoneae tribe includes 9 genera of neotropical distribution. Its species occur mostly in the Andes in South America, with few reaching Central America. Preliminary phylogenetic studies have suggested the monophyly of Cinchoneae but intrageneric relationships are still debatable. In this study, we sampled 8 genera of Cinchoneae (with ca 50% of species for Cinchona and Ladenbergia) and obtained multiple single-copy nuclear loci (ca 207 genes) by using the “Angiosperm353 universal probe set”, which was complemented with a taxonomic review of Cinchoneae. Phylogenetic inferences were realized with multispecies pseudo-coalescent (ASTRAL III) and gene concatenation analysis (ML). Our results strongly support the monophyly of the tribe and most of the genera, except for Ladenbergia. Furthermore, Ciliosemina, Ladenbergia, and Remijia formed a clade, although the position of Ciliosemina (= Remijia pedunculata) and Ladenbergia muzonensis is still elusive. The position of Ladenbergia muzonensis is intriguing due to its intermedíate floral morphology, which resembles both Remijia and Ladenbergia species. Additionally, our phylogeny also supports the recognition of a new species in Cinchona. Finally, our results show that sequencing data using the probe set designed for multiple gene capture is a useful tool for phylogenetic reconstructions in taxonomically complex groups

Plan de negocio para la implementaci?n de un nuevo canal de distribuci?n para el mercado mayorista N? 2 de frutas

El objetivo de esta investigaci?n es desarrollar un plan de negocios para la comercializaci?n de frutas a trav?s de la implementaci?n de un nuevo canal de distribuci?n para el Mercado Mayorista N? 2 de Frutas, sirviendo como intermediario entre los vendedores mayoristas y los consumidores

Neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio predicts chemotherapy outcomes in patients with advanced colorectal cancer

BACKGROUND: Advances in the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) in the last decade have significantly improved survival; however, simple biomarkers to predict response or toxicity have not been identified, which are applicable to all community oncology settings worldwide. The use of inflammatory markers based on differential white-cell counts, such as the neutrophil/ lymphocyte ratio (NLR), may be simple and readily available biomarkers. METHODS: Clinical information and baseline laboratory parameters were available for 349 patients, from two independent cohorts, with unresectable mCRC receiving first-line palliative chemotherapy. Associations between baseline prognostic variables, including inflammatory markers such as the NLR and tumour response, progression and survival were investigated. RESULTS: In the training cohort, combination-agent chemotherapy (P ¼ 0.001) and NLRp5 (P ¼ 0.003) were associated with improved clinical benefit. The ECOG performance status X1 (P ¼ 0.002), NLR45 (P ¼ 0.01), hypoalbuminaemia (P ¼ 0.03) and single-agent chemotherapy (Po0.0001) were associated with increased risk of progression. The ECOG performance status X1 (P ¼ 0.004) and NLR45 (P ¼ 0.002) predicted worse overall survival (OS). The NLR was confirmed to independently predict OS in the validation cohort (Po0.0001). Normalisation of the NLR after one cycle of chemotherapy in a subset of patients resulted in improved progression-free survival (P ¼ 0.012). CONCLUSION: These results have highlighted NLR as a potentially useful clinical biomarker of systemic inflammatory response in predicting clinically meaningful outcomes in two independent cohorts. Results of this study have also confirmed the importance of a chronic systemic inflammatory response influencing clinical outcomes in patients with mCRC

Displaying centre of pressure location by electrotactile stimulation using phantom sensation

Amputees not only lack motor function, but also sensory feedback of the missing limb. It has been shown that lower limb amputees can improve certain gait characteristics when they perceive additional information about the kinematics and kinetics of their prosthetic leg. In this paper, we address the question whether it is feasible to provide centre of pressure location information via electrotactile displays by exploiting the phantom sensation phenomenon, where relative intensity of two electrode pairs is used to encode position between them, creating a single illusory stimulus. Four healthy subjects were asked to identify different locations or movement patterns of the illusory stimulus on a discrete scale under static and dynamic conditions. These stimuli resembled CoP patterns in different locomotor activities. An average recognition accuracy of 73% (std. dev. 17%) was achieved under static conditions, and of 71% (std. dev. 11%) under dynamic conditions. This indicates that the proposed display and mapping can be used to present centre of pressure location, and future work will focus on evaluation with patients