Agricultural land use disrupts biodiversity mediation of virus infections in wild plant populations

Human alteration of natural habitats may change the processes governing species interactions in wild communities. Wild populations are increasingly impacted by agricultural intensification, yet it is unknown whether this alters biodiversity mediation of disease dynamics. We investigated the association between plant diversity (species richness, diversity) and infection risk (virus richness, prevalence) in populations of Plantago lanceolata in natural landscapes as well as those occurring at the edges of cultivated fields. Altogether, 27 P. lanceolata populations were surveyed for population characteristics and sampled for PCR detection of five recently characterized viruses. We find that plant species richness and diversity correlated negatively with virus infection prevalence. Virus species richness declined with increasing plant diversity and richness in natural populations while in agricultural edge populations species richness was moderately higher, and not associated with plant richness. This difference was not explained by changes in host richness between these two habitats, suggesting potential pathogen spill‐over and increased transmission of viruses across the agro‐ecological interface. Host population connectivity significantly decreased virus infection prevalence. We conclude that human use of landscapes may change the ecological laws by which natural communities are formed with far reaching implications for ecosystem functioning and disease

An Approach to Construct Dynamic Service Mashups using Lightweight Semantics

Thousands of Web services have been available online, and mashups built upon them have been creating added value. However, mashups are mostly developed with a predefined set of services and components. The extensions to them always involve programming work. Furthermore, when a service is unavailable, it is challenging for mashups to smoothly switch to an alternative that others similar functionalities. To address these problems, this paper presents a novel approach to enable mashups to select and invoke semantic Web services on they. To extend a mashup with new semantic services, developers are only required to register and publish them as Linked Data. By refining the strategies of service selection, mashups can behave more adaptively and other higher fault-tolerance

Exactitud de la punción aspiración con aguja fina en el diagnóstico de cáncer diferenciado de tiroides

La importancia clínica de los nódulos tiroideos (NT) radica en la necesidad de excluircáncer de tiroides (7 al 15% de los casos). En Argentina representa el 2,2% y 0,5% de los cánceres queocurren anualmente en mujeres y hombres respectivamente. La citología por punción aspiración con agujafina (PAAF) de NT estima el riesgo de malignidad y es la prueba confirmatoria de elección para eldiagnóstico, con una especificidad reportada del 94%.OBJETIVO: Determinar la exactitud diagnóstica de los criterios citopatológicos del Sistema Bethesda (SB)obtenidos por PAAF de NT para el diagnóstico de cáncer de tiroides. Establecer la frecuencia de cadacategoría del SB en nuestra población. Calcular el porcentaje de malignidad para cada categoría del SB ennuestra población.PACIENTES Y MÉTODOS: Estudio observacional, retrospectivo, de pruebas diagnósticas. Se incluyeronpacientes adultos con NT sospechosos de malignidad por ecografía y PAAF. Se analizaron las historiasclínicas de pacientes de ambos sexos intervenidos mediante cirugía tiroidea entre el 1 de enero de 2012 yel 31 de diciembre de 2018 en la Clínica Universitaria Reina Fabiola de la Ciudad de Córdoba. Se evaluóla sensibilidad, especificidad, valores predictivos positivo y negativo de los criterios citopatológicos del SBobtenidos por PAAF de NT tomando como estándar de oro el resultado anatomopatológico.RESULTADOS: Se incluyeron 191 pacientes. De ellos el 82,20% eran de sexo femenino y la media deedad fue 43,45 ± 13,29. Presentaron diagnóstico de cáncer de tiroides 89 pacientes, correspondiendo latotalidad a CDT. Las tasas de malignidad para las categorías del SB II, III, IV y V fueron del 18,5; 31,6;62,8 y 90,5%, respectivamente. Al analizar la utilidad del SB como prueba de screening encontramos unasensibilidad para detectar malignidad del 84,6%, con una especificidad del 72,6%, un VPP del 76,7%, unVPN del 81,5% y una exactitud diagnóstica global del 78,8%. Este análisis, en punciones altamentesospechosas, aumentó la exactitud diagnóstica de la prueba hasta el 85,2%, sensibilidad 76,5%,especificidad 93%, VPP 90,7% y VPN 81,5%.CONCLUSIONES: La exactitud diagnóstica de los criterios citopatológicos del Sistema Bethesda (SB)obtenidos por PAAF de nódulos tiroideos para el diagnóstico de cáncer de tiroides es buena, por lo cual esuno de los métodos recomendados en el algoritmo diagnóstico de cáncer de tiroides

Validation of a tearing mode locking model using a database of disruptive plasmas at ASDEX Upgrade

An exploratory study is presented that aims at validating a model for mode locking on the basis of a large set of ASDEX Upgrade (AUG) discharges. Not discriminating between plasma configurations, the model allows to estimate the duration of the deceleration phase, as well as the critical mode width for locking. Both quantities are important for the design of disruption avoidance algorithms that aim to affect the MHD mode rotation. It was found that the model successfully described locking of large modes in those cases where the deceleration started in a quasi-stationary phase of the discharge (i.e. with low variability of the global plasma angular momentum prior to mode seeding) and where deceleration took place over temporal intervals comparable to the momentum confinement time. Theoretical braking curves and locking durations predicted with the model were in good quantitative agreement with the experiment. On the other hand, the model failed to reproduce the braking curves of modes appearing towards the end of a transient phase, e.g. during an impurity influx or when approaching the disruptive density limit. It can be concluded that the modes were not the primary cause of the plasma momentum losses within the scope of the model. A modified mode equation of motion is proposed, which accounts for transient variation of the plasma density, e.g. during the development of a MARFE, and its impact on braking predictions is discussed. Furthermore, it was observed that a substantial fraction of modes was rotating at the onset of a major disruptive event. Consequences of this observation on disruption prediction schemes in AUG are examined

Impacts of climate change on plant diseases – opinions and trends

There has been a remarkable scientific output on the topic of how climate change is likely to affect plant diseases in the coming decades. This review addresses the need for review of this burgeoning literature by summarizing opinions of previous reviews and trends in recent studies on the impacts of climate change on plant health. Sudden Oak Death is used as an introductory case study: Californian forests could become even more susceptible to this emerging plant disease, if spring precipitations will be accompanied by warmer temperatures, although climate shifts may also affect the current synchronicity between host cambium activity and pathogen colonization rate. A summary of observed and predicted climate changes, as well as of direct effects of climate change on pathosystems, is provided. Prediction and management of climate change effects on plant health are complicated by indirect effects and the interactions with global change drivers. Uncertainty in models of plant disease development under climate change calls for a diversity of management strategies, from more participatory approaches to interdisciplinary science. Involvement of stakeholders and scientists from outside plant pathology shows the importance of trade-offs, for example in the land-sharing vs. sparing debate. Further research is needed on climate change and plant health in mountain, boreal, Mediterranean and tropical regions, with multiple climate change factors and scenarios (including our responses to it, e.g. the assisted migration of plants), in relation to endophytes, viruses and mycorrhiza, using long-term and large-scale datasets and considering various plant disease control methods