Topological Defects as Seeds for Eternal Inflation

We investigate the global structure of inflationary universe both by analytical methods and by computer simulations of stochastic processes in the early Universe. We show that the global structure of the universe depends crucially on the mechanism of inflation. In the simplest models of chaotic inflation the Universe looks like a sea of thermalized phase surrounding permanently self-reproducing inflationary domains. In the theories where inflation occurs near a local extremum of the effective potential corresponding to a metastable state, the Universe looks like de Sitter space surrounding islands of thermalized phase. A similar picture appears even if the state $\phi = 0$ is unstable but the effective potential has a discrete symmetry $\phi \to =-\phi$. In this case the Universe becomes divided into domains containing different phases. These domains will be separated from each other by domain walls. However, unlike ordinary domain walls, these domain walls will inflate, and their thickness will exponentially grow. In the theories with continuous symmetries inflation generates exponentially expanding strings and monopoles surrounded by thermalized phase. Inflating topological defects will be stable, and they will unceasingly produce new inflating topological defects. This means that topological defects may play a role of indestructible seeds for eternal inflation.Comment: 21 pages, 17 figures (not included), Stanford University preprint SU--ITP--94--

Global agricultural intensification during climate change: A role for genomics

Summary: Agriculture is now facing the 'perfect storm' of climate change, increasing costs of fertilizer and rising food demands from a larger and wealthier human population. These factors point to a global food deficit unless the efficiency and resilience of crop production is increased. The intensification of agriculture has focused on improving production under optimized conditions, with significant agronomic inputs. Furthermore, the intensive cultivation of a limited number of crops has drastically narrowed the number of plant species humans rely on. A new agricultural paradigm is required, reducing dependence on high inputs and increasing crop diversity, yield stability and environmental resilience. Genomics offers unprecedented opportunities to increase crop yield, quality and stability of production through advanced breeding strategies, enhancing the resilience of major crops to climate variability, and increasing the productivity and range of minor crops to diversify the food supply. Here we review the state of the art of genomic-assisted breeding for the most important staples that feed the world, and how to use and adapt such genomic tools to accelerate development of both major and minor crops with desired traits that enhance adaptation to, or mitigate the effects of climate change. &gt

Application of genomicsassisted breeding for generation of climate resilient crops: progress and prospects

CCAFS Climat

A home and ambulatory artificial nutrition (NADYA) group report, home parenteral nutrition in Spain, 2013

Aim: to communicate the results of the Spanish Home Parenteral Nutrition (HPN) registry of the NADYA-SENPE group for the year 2013. Material and methods: data was recorded online by NADYA group collaborators that were responsible of the HPN follow-up from 1st January to 31st December 2013. Results: a total of 197 patients and 202 episodes of HPN were registered from 35 hospitals that represents a rate of 4,22 patients/million habitants/year 2013. The median age was 53 years (IQR 40 – 64) for 189 adult patients and 7 months (IQR 6 – 35,5) for children. The most frequent disease in adults was neoplasm (30,7%) followed by other diseases (20,1%) and mesenteric ischemia (12,7%). Short bowel syndrome and intestinal obstruction (25,9%) were in 35.7% cases the indications for HPN

The delivery of personalised, precision medicines via synthetic proteins

Introduction: The design of advanced drug delivery systems based on synthetic and su-pramolecular chemistry has been very successful. Liposomal doxorubicin (Caelyx®), and liposomal daunorubicin (DaunoXome®), estradiol topical emulsion (EstrasorbTM) as well as soluble or erodible polymer systems such as pegaspargase (Oncaspar®) or goserelin acetate (Zoladex®) represent considerable achievements. The Problem: As deliverables have evolved from low molecular weight drugs to biologics (currently representing approximately 30% of the market), so too have the demands made of advanced drug delivery technology. In parallel, the field of membrane trafficking (and endocytosis) has also matured. The trafficking of specific receptors i.e. material to be recycled or destroyed, as well as the trafficking of protein toxins has been well characterized. This, in conjunction with an ability to engineer synthetic, recombinant proteins provides several possibilities. The Solution: The first is using recombinant proteins as drugs i.e. denileukin diftitox (Ontak®) or agalsidase beta (Fabrazyme®). The second is the opportunity to use protein toxin architecture to reach targets that are not normally accessible. This may be achieved by grafting regulatory domains from multiple species to form synthetic proteins, engineered to do multiple jobs. Examples include access to the nucleocytosolic compartment. Herein the use of synthetic proteins for drug delivery has been reviewed

Consenso colombiano de atención, diagnóstico y manejo de la infección por SARS-COV-2/COVID-19 en establecimientos de atención de la salud Recomendaciones basadas en consenso de expertos e informadas en la evidencia

The “Asociación Colombiana de Infectología” (ACIN) and the “Instituto de Evaluación de Nuevas Tecnologías de la Salud” (IETS) created a task force to develop recommendations for Covid 19 health care diagnosis, management and treatment informed, and based, on evidence. Theses reccomendations are addressed to the health personnel on the Colombian context of health services. © 2020 Asociacion Colombiana de Infectologia. All rights reserved

RICORS2040 : The need for collaborative research in chronic kidney disease

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a silent and poorly known killer. The current concept of CKD is relatively young and uptake by the public, physicians and health authorities is not widespread. Physicians still confuse CKD with chronic kidney insufficiency or failure. For the wider public and health authorities, CKD evokes kidney replacement therapy (KRT). In Spain, the prevalence of KRT is 0.13%. Thus health authorities may consider CKD a non-issue: very few persons eventually need KRT and, for those in whom kidneys fail, the problem is 'solved' by dialysis or kidney transplantation. However, KRT is the tip of the iceberg in the burden of CKD. The main burden of CKD is accelerated ageing and premature death. The cut-off points for kidney function and kidney damage indexes that define CKD also mark an increased risk for all-cause premature death. CKD is the most prevalent risk factor for lethal coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the factor that most increases the risk of death in COVID-19, after old age. Men and women undergoing KRT still have an annual mortality that is 10- to 100-fold higher than similar-age peers, and life expectancy is shortened by ~40 years for young persons on dialysis and by 15 years for young persons with a functioning kidney graft. CKD is expected to become the fifth greatest global cause of death by 2040 and the second greatest cause of death in Spain before the end of the century, a time when one in four Spaniards will have CKD. However, by 2022, CKD will become the only top-15 global predicted cause of death that is not supported by a dedicated well-funded Centres for Biomedical Research (CIBER) network structure in Spain. Realizing the underestimation of the CKD burden of disease by health authorities, the Decade of the Kidney initiative for 2020-2030 was launched by the American Association of Kidney Patients and the European Kidney Health Alliance. Leading Spanish kidney researchers grouped in the kidney collaborative research network Red de Investigación Renal have now applied for the Redes de Investigación Cooperativa Orientadas a Resultados en Salud (RICORS) call for collaborative research in Spain with the support of the Spanish Society of Nephrology, Federación Nacional de Asociaciones para la Lucha Contra las Enfermedades del Riñón and ONT: RICORS2040 aims to prevent the dire predictions for the global 2040 burden of CKD from becoming true