Influence of damaging and wilting red clover on lipid metabolism during ensiling and in vitro rumen incubation

This paper describes the relationship between protein-bound phenols in red clover, induced by different degrees of damaging before wilting and varying wilting duration, and in silo lipid metabolism. The ultimate effect of these changes on rumen biohydrogenation is the second focus of this paper For this experiment, red clover, damaged to different degrees (not damaged (ND), crushing or frozen/thawing (FT)) before wilting (4 or 24 h) was ensiled. Different degrees of damaging and wilting duration lead to differences in polyphenol oxidase (PPO) activity, measured as increase in protein-bound phenols. Treatment effects on fatty acid (FA) content and composition, lipid fractions (free FAs, membrane lipids (ML) and neutral fraction) and lipolysis were further studied in the silage. In FT, red clover lipolysis was markedly lower in the first days after ensiling, but this largely disappeared after 60 days of ensiling, regardless of wilting duration. This suggests an inhibition of plant lipases in FT silages. After 60 days of ensiling no differences in lipid fractions could be found between any of the treatments and differences in lipolysis were caused by reduced FA proportions in ML of wilted FT red clover Fresh, wilted (24 h) after damaging (ND or FT) and ensiled (4 or 60 days; wilted 24 h; ND or FT) red clover were also incubated in rumen fluid to study the biohydrogenation of C18:3n-3 and C18:2n-6 in vitro. Silages (both 60 days and to a lower degree 4 days) showed a lower biohydrogenation compared with fresh and wilted forages, regardless of damaging. This suggests that lipids in ensiled red clover were more protected, but this protection was not enhanced by a higher amount of protein-bound phenols in wilted FT compared with ND red clover The reduction of rumen microbial biohydrogenation with duration of red clover ensiling seems in contrast to what is expected, namely a higher biohydrogenation when a higher amount of FFA is present. This merits further investigation in relation to strategies to activate PPO toward the embedding of lipids in phenol protein complexes

"The Practical Perforator Flap": the sural artery flap for lower extremity soft tissue reconstruction in wounds of war

Background: Sural artery perforator flaps have been described for use as both local flaps and in free tissue transfer. We present the use of this flap for compound soft tissue defects of the lower limb in civilian casualties of armed conflict in Afghanistan. Methods/results: Detailed description of the management of blast and high-velocity projectile wounds of the lower extremity with the use of local sural perforator flaps and a review of literature. Conclusions: Sural artery perforator flaps may be harvested to cover complex lower limb defects. The use of this technique is not limited

Treatment of rectal war wounds

Treatment strategies for penetrating rectal injuries (PRI) in civilian settings are still not uniformly agreed, in part since high-energy transfer PRI, such as is frequently seen in military settings, are not taken into account. Here, we describe three cases of PRI, treated in a deployed combat environment, and outline the management strategies successfully employed. We also discuss the literature regarding PRI management. Whe

Measuring and assessing typing skills in writing research

In keyboard writing, typing skills are considered an important prerequisite of proficient text production. We describe the design, implementation, and application of a standardized copy-typing task in order to measure and assess individual typing fluency. A test-retest analysis indicates the instrument’s reliability. While the task has been developed across eleven different languages and the related keyboard layouts, we here refer to a corpus of Dutch copy tasks (n = 1682). Analyses show that copying speed non-linearly varies with age. Bayesian analyses reveal differences in the typing performance and the underlying distributions of inter-key intervals between the different task components (e.g., lexical vs. non-lexical materials; high-frequent vs. lowfrequent bigrams). Based on these findings it is strongly recommended to include copy-task measures in the analysis of keystroke logging data in writing studies. This supports a better comparability and interpretability of keystroke data from more complex or communicatively-embedded writing tasks across individuals. Further potential applications of the copy task for writing research are explained and discussed

Modelling typing disfluencies as finite mixture process

To writing anything on a keyboard at all requires us to know first what to type, then to activate motor programmes for finger movements, and execute these. An interruption in the information flow at any of these stages leads to disfluencies. To capture this combination of fluent typing and typing hesitations, researchers calculate different measures from keystroke-latency data – such as mean inter-keystroke interval and pause frequencies. There are two fundamental problems with this: first, summary statistics ignore important information in the data and frequently result in biased estimates; second, pauses and pause-related measures are defined using threshold values which are, in principle, arbitrary. We implemented a series of Bayesian models that aimed to address both issues while providing reliable estimates for individual typing speed and statistically inferred process disfluencies. We tested these models on a random sample of 250 copy-task recordings. Our results illustrate that we can model copy typing as a mixture process of fluent and disfluent key transitions. We conclude that mixture models (1) map onto the information cascade that generate keystrokes, and (2) provide a principled approach to detect disfluencies in keyboard typing

Systems biology-defined NF-κB regulons, interacting signal pathways and networks are implicated in the malignant phenotype of head and neck cancer cell lines differing in p53 status

Detailed analysis of NFκB regulons in 1,265 genes differentially expressed in head and neck cancer cell lines differing in p53 status revealed a cross talk between NFkB and specific signaling pathways

Management of penetrating injuries of the upper extremities

Background: Routine surgical exploration after penetrating upper extremity trauma (PUET) to exclude arterial injury leads to a large number of negative explorations and iatrogenic injuries. Selective non-operative mana

Integrated transcriptional profiling and genomic analyses reveal RPN2 and HMGB1 as promising biomarkers in colorectal cancer

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a heterogeneous disease that is associated with a gradual accumulation of genetic and epigenetic alterations. Among all CRC stages, stage II tumors are highly heterogeneous with a high relapse rate in about 20-25 % of stage II CRC patients following surgery. Thus, a comprehensive analysis of gene signatures to identify aggressive and metastatic phenotypes in stage II CRC is desired for a more accurate disease classification and outcome prediction. By utilizing a Cancer Array, containing 440 oncogenes and tumor suppressors to profile mRNA expression, we identified a larger number of differentially expressed genes in poorly differentiated stage II colorectal adenocarcinoma tissues, compared to their matched normal tissues. Ontology and Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) indicated that these genes are involved in functional mechanisms associated with several transcription factors. Genomic alterations of these genes were also investigated through The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, utilizing 195 published CRC specimens. The percentage of genomic alterations in these genes was ranked based on their mRNA expression, copy number variations and mutations. This data was further combined with published microarray studies from a large set of CRC tumors classified based on prognostic features. This led to the identification of eight candidate genes including RPN2, HMGB1, AARS, IGFBP3, STAT1, HYOU1, NQO1 and PEA15 that were associated with the progressive phenotype. In particular, RPN2 and HMGB1 displayed a higher genomic alteration frequency in CRC, compared to eight other major solid cancers. Immunohistochemistry was performed on additional 78 stage I-IV CRC samples, where RPN2 protein immunostaining exhibited a significant association with stage III/IV tumors, distant metastasis, and poor differentiation, indicating that RPN2 expression is associated with poor prognosis. Further, our study revealed significant transcriptional regulatory mechanisms, networks and gene signatures, underlying CRC malignant progression and phenotype warranting future clinical investigations.published_or_final_versio