Mosses from the Mascarenes : 3

37 species of mosses are reported from the Mascarenes. Of these 19 belong to the genus Campylopus and 8 to Leucoloma. Three are new to the Mascarenes i.e. Campylopus leucochlorus (C.Müll.) Par., C. paludicola Broth. and C. subperichaetialis Biz. & Kilb., two are new to Mauritius i.e. Bryum truncorum (Brid.) Brid. and Leucoloma cinclidotioides Besch. and four are new to Réunion i.e. Campylopus incacorralis Herz. C. praetermissus J.-P. Frahm, C. trachyblepharon (C. Müll.) Mitt. ssp. comatus (Ren. & Card.) J.- P. Frahm and Leucoloma rutenbergii (Geh.) Wright var. elatum Ren. The variety is new to the Mascarenes

New and interesting Campylopus records from South Africa

New records are presented based on a collection of Campylopus specimens made by the second author in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. The austral species Campylopus clavatus (R. Brown) Wils. in Hook. and Campylopus vesticaulis Mitt. are reported for the first time for Africa, and Campylopus acuminatus Mitt. var. kirkii (Mitt.) J.-P. Frahm is recorded for the second time for Africa. Campylopus arctocarpus (Hornsch.) Mitt. ssp. madegassus (Besch.) J.-P. Frahm is reported for the first time for the Republic of South Africa, and this is the southernmost record of this species. Campylopus simii Schelpe is not synonymous with C. julaceus Jaeg. ssp. arbogastii (Ren. & Card.) J.-P. Frahm but combined here as new as a variety of C. pilifer Brid

Sotatercept safety and effects on hemoglobin, bone, and vascular calcification

Introduction: Patients with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) exhibit anemia, chronic kidney disease‒mineral bone disorder (CKD-MBD), and cardiovascular disease. The REN-001 and REN-002 phase II, multicenter, randomized studies examined safety, tolerability, and effects of sotatercept, an ActRIIA-IgG1 fusion protein trap, on hemoglobin concentration; REN-001 also explored effects on bone mineral density (BMD) and abdominal aortic vascular calcification. Methods: Forty-three patients were treated in REN-001 (dose range: sotatercept 0.3‒0.7 mg/kg or placebo subcutaneously [s.c.] for 200 days) and 50 in REN-002 (dose range: 0.1‒0.4 mg/kg i.v. and 0.13‒0.5 mg/kg s.c. for 99 days). Results: In REN-001, frequency of achieving target hemoglobin response (\u3e10 g/dl [6.21 mmol/l]) with sotatercept was dose-related and greater than placebo (0.3 mg/kg: 33.3%; 0.5 mg/kg: 62.5%; 0.7 mg/kg: 77.8%; 0.7 mg/kg [doses 1 and 2]/0.4 mg/kg [doses 3‒15]: 33.3%; placebo: 27.3%). REN-002 hemoglobin findings were similar (i.v.: 16.7%-57.1%; s.c.: 11.1%‒42.9%). Dose-related achievement of ≥2% increase in femoral neck cortical BMD was seen among only REN-001 patients receiving sotatercept (0.3‒0.7 mg/kg: 20.0%‒57.1%; placebo: 0.0%). Abdominal aortic vascular calcification was slowed in a dose-related manner, with a ≤15% increase in Agatston score achieved by more REN-001 sotatercept versus placebo patients (60%‒100% vs. 16.7%). The most common adverse events during treatment were hypertension, muscle spasm, headache, arteriovenous fistula site complication, and influenza observed in both treatment and placebo groups. Conclusion: In patients with ESKD, sotatercept exhibited a favorable safety profile and was associated with trends in dose-related slowing of vascular calcification. Less-consistent trends in improved hemoglobin concentration and BMD were observed

FMNL1 promotes growth and metastasis of breast cancer by inhibiting BRCA1 via upregulation of HMGA1

In the earlier published article, “Herbei Province” included in the affiliation of the second author is incorrect. “Chongqing” is a municipality directly under the Central Government and does not belong to "Hebei Province”. At the request of the author, the correct affiliation is provided above. New citation: Zhang Q, Yang H, Tang C, Wang Q, Ren L, Jia C, et al. FMNL1 promotes growth and metastasis of breast cancer by inhibiting BRCA1 via upregulation of HMGA1. Trop J Pharm Res 2021; 20(8):1559-1564 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v20i8.2. Erratum: 2022; 21(8): 1807 doi: 10.4314/ tjpr.v 21i8.31 Earlier citation: Zhang Q, Yang H, Tang C, Wang Q, Ren L, Jia C, et al. FMNL1 promotes growth and metastasis of breast cancer by inhibiting BRCA1 via upregulation of HMGA1. Trop J Pharm Res 2021; 20(8):1559-1564 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v20i8.

Predation in the reindeer husbandry area in Finland during 1976-86

During the years 1976-86 predators killed a total of 11 295 reindeer in the Finnish reindeer husbandry area. Predators killed mostly calves and hinds. With the exception of the Kåsivarsi and Muotkatun-turi reindeer herding cooperatives, kills of predators were concentrated in the reindeer herding areas on the eastern border. During 1976-86 predators killed most reindeer in April - June, and the majority of preys were calves. Most reindeer were killed by wolves (26.9%), bears (24.7%), wolverines (22.6%) and eagles (15.9%). Wolves, bears, wolverines and lynxes killed mainly adult reindeer, eagles killed mainly calves. Wolves killed reindeer mainly during October - January, lynxes during January - April, wolverines during February - April, eagles during May - July and bears during May - October. During the last years the number of reindeer killed by lynxes has increased in Finland.Petovahingot Suomen poronhoitoalueella vuosina 1976-86.Abstract in Finnish / Yhteenveto: Viimeisen kymmenen vuoden aikana porojen måårå on lisååntynyt suuresti Suomessa. Vuosina 1976-86 pedot tappoivat Suomen poronhoitoalueella yhteenså 11 295 poroa. Pedot tappoivat pååasiassa vasoja ja vaatimia. Käsivarren ja Muotkatunturin paliskuntia lukuunottamatta petovahingot kohdistuivat lhinn poronhoitoalueen itrajalla oleviin paliskuntiin. Vuosina 1976-86 pedot tappoivat poroja eniten huhti-kesåkuun aikana. Eniten pedot tappoivat tuolloin vasoja. Eniten poroja tappoivat sudet (26.9%), karhut (24.7%), ahmat (22.6%) ja kotkat (15.9%). Sudet, karhut, ahmat ja ilvekset tappoivat pååasiassa aikuisia poroja, kotkat vasoja. Sudet tappoivat poroja låhinnå loka-tammikuussa, ilvekset tammi-huhtikuussa, ahmat helmi-heinåkuussa ja karhut touko-lokakuussa. Viime vuosina ilvesten tappamien porojen måårå on kas vanut Suomessa.Rovdjursskador inom det finska renskotselsområdet under åren 1976-86.Abstract in Swedish / Sammandrag: Under de senaste tio åren har antalet tamrenar ökat betydligt i Finland. Under åren 1976-86 dodade rovdjur totalt 11 295 renar i finska renskotselområdet. Kalvar och vajor utgjorde huvuddelen av dessa. Med undantag av Kåsivarsi och Muotkatunturi renbeteslag, var rovdjursrivningarna konsentrerade i renbeteslagen nårmast ostra grånsen. Under åren 1976-86 blev de fiesta renar rivna i april-juni. Av dessa var det flest kalvar. Varg tog flest renar (26,9%), bjorn 24,7%, jårv 22,6%, och orn 15,9%. Varg, bjorn, jårv och lo dodade mestadels vuxna renar, medan orn i huvudsak tog kalvar. Varg dodade ren våsentligen i månaderna oktober-januari, lo i januari-april, jårv i februari-april, orn i mai-juli och bjorn genom må-naderna mai-oktober. De senaste åren har antalet renar rivna av lodjur okat i Finland

Shot boundary detection in MPEG videos using local and global indicators

Shot boundary detection (SBD) plays important roles in many video applications. In this letter, we describe a novel method on SBD operating directly in the compressed domain. First, several local indicators are extracted from MPEG macroblocks, and AdaBoost is employed for feature selection and fusion. The selected features are then used in classifying candidate cuts into five sub-spaces via pre-filtering and rule-based decision making. Following that, global indicators of frame similarity between boundary frames of cut candidates are examined using phase correlation of dc images. Gradual transitions like fade, dissolve, and combined shot cuts are also identified. Experimental results on the test data from TRECVID'07 have demonstrated the effectiveness and robustness of our proposed methodology. * INSPEC o Controlled Indexing decision making , image segmentation , knowledge based systems , video coding o Non Controlled Indexing AdaBoost , MPEG videos , feature selection , global indicator , local indicator , rule-based decision making , shot boundary detection , video segmentation * Author Keywords Decision making , TRECVID , shot boundary detection (SBD) , video segmentation , video signal processing References 1. J. Yuan , H. Wang , L. Xiao , W. Zheng , J. L. F. Lin and B. Zhang "A formal study of shot boundary detection", IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol., vol. 17, pp. 168 2007. Abstract |Full Text: PDF (2789KB) 2. C. Grana and R. Cucchiara "Linear transition detection as a unified shot detection approach", IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol., vol. 17, pp. 483 2007. Abstract |Full Text: PDF (505KB) 3. Q. Urhan , M. K. Gullu and S. Erturk "Modified phase-correlation based robust hard-cut detection with application to archive film", IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol., vol. 16, pp. 753 2006. Abstract |Full Text: PDF (3808KB) 4. C. Cotsaces , N. Nikolaidis and I. Pitas "Video shot detection and condensed representation: A review", Proc. IEEE Signal Mag., vol. 23, pp. 28 2006. 5. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), pp. [online] Available: http://www-nlpir.nist.gov/projects/trecvid/ 6. J. Bescos "Real-time shot change detection over online MPEG-2 video", IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol., vol. 14, pp. 475 2004. Abstract |Full Text: PDF (1056KB) 7. H. Lu and Y. P. Tan "An effective post-refinement method for shot boundary detection", IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol., vol. 15, pp. 1407 2005. Abstract |Full Text: PDF (3128KB) 8. G. Boccignone , A. Chianese , V. Moscato and A. Picariello "Foveated shot detection for video segmentation", IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol., vol. 15, pp. 365 2005. Abstract |Full Text: PDF (2152KB) 9. Z. Cernekova , I. Pitas and C. Nikou "Information theory-based shot cut/fade detection and video summarization", IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol., vol. 16, pp. 82 2006. Abstract |Full Text: PDF (1184KB) 10. L.-Y. Duan , M. Xu , Q. Tian , C.-S. Xu and J. S. Jin "A unified framework for semantic shot classification in sports video", IEEE Trans. Multimedia, vol. 7, pp. 1066 2005. Abstract |Full Text: PDF (2872KB) 11. H. Fang , J. M. Jiang and Y. Feng "A fuzzy logic approach for detection of video shot boundaries", Pattern Recogn., vol. 39, pp. 2092 2006. [CrossRef] 12. R. A. Joyce and B. Liu "Temporal segmentation of video using frame and histogram space", IEEE Trans. Multimedia, vol. 8, pp. 130 2006. Abstract |Full Text: PDF (864KB) 13. A. Hanjalic "Shot boundary detection: Unraveled and resolved", IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol., vol. 12, pp. 90 2002. Abstract |Full Text: PDF (289KB) 14. S.-C. Pei and Y.-Z. Chou "Efficient MPEG compressed video analysis using macroblock type information", IEEE Trans. Multimedia, vol. 1, pp. 321 1999. Abstract |Full Text: PDF (612KB) 15. C.-L. Huang and B.-Y. Liao "A robust scene-change detection method for video segmentation", IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. Video Technol., vol. 11, pp. 1281 2001. Abstract |Full Text: PDF (241KB) 16. Y. Freund and R. E. Schapire "A decision-theoretic generalization of online learning and an application to boosting", J. Comput. Syst. Sci., vol. 55, pp. 119 1997. [CrossRef] On this page * Abstract * Index Terms * References Brought to you by STRATHCLYDE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY * Your institute subscribes to: * IEEE-Wiley eBooks Library , IEEE/IET Electronic Library (IEL) * What can I access? Terms of Us

Incorporating Remote Electrical Neuromodulation (REN) Into Usual Care Reduces Acute Migraine Medication Use: An Open-Label Extension Study

© Copyright © 2020 Marmura, Lin, Harris, Ironi and Rosen. Background: A recent randomized controlled study showed that 66.7% (66/99) and 37.4% (37/99) of people undergoing remote electrical neuromodulation (REN), a novel non-pharmacological migraine treatment, achieve pain relief and pain freedom, respectively, at 2 h post-treatment. The participants who completed the 6-weeks double-blind phase of this study were offered to participate in an open-label extension (OLE) with an active REN device. Objective: This study investigated the clinical use of REN, focusing on its potential in reducing the use of acute migraine medications. Methods: The parent study for this open-label extension (OLE) was a randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled study of acute treatment conducted on 296 participants enrolled at 12 sites in the USA and Israel. This study included a run-in phase, in which migraine attacks were treated with usual care, and an 8-weeks double-blind treatment phase. One hundred sixty participants continued in an 8-weeks OLE phase in which they could incorporate a REN device into their usual care. Medication use rate (percentage of participants who treated their attacks only with REN and avoided medications in all their attacks) and pain outcomes at 2 h post-treatment were compared between the OLE and the run-in phase in a within-subject design. Results: The analyses were performed on 117 participants with episodic migraine. During the OLE, 89.7% of the participants treated their attacks only with REN and avoided medications in all their attacks compared with 15.4% in the run-in phase (p \u3c 0.0001). The rates of pain relief and pain-free in at least 50% of the treatments at 2 h post-treatment were comparable (pain relief: 58.1% in the run-in phase and 57.3% in the OLE, p = 0.999; pain-free: 23.1% in the run-in vs. 30.8% in the OLE, p = 0.175). Conclusions: REN may reduce the use of acute migraine medications. Thus, incorporating REN into usual care may reduce the risk for medication overuse headache (MOH). Future studies should evaluate whether REN reduces the use of acute migraine medications in a population at risk for MOH

Some mosses (Pottiales) new or rarely collected in tropical Asia

Barbula zennoskeana Tan is reported new for Malaysia. Didymodon maschalogena (Ren. & Card.) Broth. (replaces Didymodon michiganensis (Steere) K. Saito) is reported new for the Philippines. Barbula murina C. Muell. nom. nud. is considered as synonymous with Barbula indica (Hook.) Spreng

Viral Isolates Derived from Simian Varicella Epizootics Are Genetically Related but Are Distinct from Other Primate Herpesviruses

AbstractEpizootics of a natural varicella-like disease occur in populations of nonhuman primates. Several primate herpesviruses have been isolated from these epizootics, but the relatedness of these isolates to each other is not well-defined. In this study, we demonstrated that the restriction endonuclease (REn) profiles of four epidemiologically distinct isolates were similar, although not identical, indicating that simian varicella epizootics are caused by various strains of simian varicella virus (SVV). The genetic variation among the isolates did not map to a specific region of the SVV genome and REn differences were detected within the SVV DNA long component and the inverted repeat region. Southern blot hybridization demonstrated that SVV is more closely related to varicella-zoster virus than to other primate herpesviruses. The study indicates that the current herpesvirus classification scheme should be changed to include SVV as a single taxonomic group within theVaricellovirusgenus of alphaherpesviruses. In addition, REn profiles of SVV isolates, derived from primary and secondary episodes of simian varicella in the same monkey, were identical, providing evidence for SVV reactivation in a latently infected monkey