Control of common scab without the use of water

The most effective way to control common scab is by irrigating a potato crop at tuber initiation. With the introduction of legislation such as the Water Framework Directive this will become increasingly difficult. In this field experiment, we assessed the potential of a number of non-water measures for controlling this disease. Common scab on daughter tubers at harvest was reduced by applying rapeseed meal at 1 t ha-1 to the beds and then incorporating it into the soil, and adding a mixture of Trichoderma viride isolates into the furrow at planting. None of these treatments was as effective as using water

Athermal colorless C-band optical transmitter system for passive optical networks

This paper reports an uncooled transmitter system using a digital super-mode (DS) distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) tunable laser, which is able to act as an athermal, wavelength agnostic transmitter suitable for wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) passive optical network (PON) applications. An open-loop laser current control algorithm is designed to compensate autonomously for wavelength drift, thus allowing constant operating wavelength to be achieved regardless of ambient temperature. An improved wavelength accuracy of ±3 GHz is achieved when using low bandwidth feedback from the central office using information from a centralized shared wavelength locker. The entire laser start-up, channel selection and subsequent wavelength control is autonomous and has been implemented on micro-controllers and field programmable gate arrays. We demonstrate a three channel WDM-PON system comprising an uncooled packaged DS-DBR laser in the presence of two neighboring interfering channels. Error free transmission over 40 km single mode fiber of 10 Gb/s externally modulated NRZ data, is achieved for each of 48 C-band channels on the 100 GHz ITU grid. Successful athermal operation is demonstrated by sweeping the ambient temperature of the laser from 15 to 70 °C with a maximum wavelength deviation for any channel of no more than 0.1 nm.This work has been supported by the Technology Strategy Board, UK and by the German ministry for education and research, through the EU ERA-NET+ projects PIANO+ IMPACT (BMBF grant: 13N11434) and TUCAN (BMBF grant: 13N11573). We also acknowledge the support of the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council via the INTERNET project.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from IEEE via http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/JLT.2014.235405

Evaluation of andrological indices and testicular histology following administration of varied doses of nicotine

This study is aimed at determining the effect of Nicotine on male fertility by evaluating some andrological parameters of male Wistar rat such as sperm parameters (spermatozoa count and motility), serum concentration of testosterone and testicular weight. Histopathology of the testis was also carried out on the effect of nicotine on testicular microstructure. 20 adult male rats were randomly divided into four groups, the test groups were administered with 0.2mg/100g, 0.4/100g and 0.6/100g body weight daily for 30 days while the control were administered with 2mls 0.9% physiological saline. Nicotine caused a significant reduction (P < 0.05) and (P< 0.01) in the mean values of sperm count, serum testosterone concentration and testicular weight in the test when compared with the control. Also, in the test group, the deleterious effect of nicotine on the sperm parameters and testosterone concentration was corroborated by histopathology which revealed a marked degeneration of germ cell layers in the seminiferous tubule and disruption of interstitial cells of the testis thereby interfering with spermatogenesis and testosterone secretion while there was no visible change in the control group. It was concluded that nicotine exerted toxic effect on the germ cell layers in seminiferous tubule with concomitant reduction in reproductive potentials of the male rat whilst showing no significant change in sperm motility. Nicotine and nicotine based products should therefore be taken with caution in cases of infertility. Key words: germ cells, testes, testosterone, fertility, spermatogenesis

Sterilisations at delivery or after childbirth: addressing continuing abuses in the consent process

Non-consensual sterilisation is not only a historic abuse. Cases of unethical treatment of women around the time of a pregnancy continue in the Twenty-First Century in five continents. Sterilisation is being carried out by some healthcare professionals at the time of delivery, or soon afterwards, without valid consent. A range of contemporary examples of such practices is given. Respecting women's autonomy should be the touchstone of the consent process. Avoidance of force, duress, deception and manipulation should go without saying. Ethnic minority communities and women living with HIV, in particular, are being targeted for this kind of abuse. Attempts have been made in various countries and by international professional organisations to introduce clinical guidelines to steer health professionals away from this malpractice. Survivors have sought justice in domestic and international courts. This paper critically assesses the evidence on the practical, ethical and legal issues around the handling of consent for these procedures. Suggestions are made about possible regulatory responses that address abuse, whilst maintaining access for those individuals who freely elect to undergo these procedures

Field demonstration of a tunable WDM-PON system with novel SFP+ modules and centralized wavelength control

We report on a demonstration of a novel tunable WDM-PON system over 25km of field deployed fiber. We show error-free operation at 1 GbE with sensitivity better than -30dBm and centralized control of the ONU wavelengths.This work has been supported by the EU ERA-NET+ projects PIANO+ IMPACT and PIANO+ TUCAN co-funded by the German BMBF, the UK Technology Strategy Board and the Austrian FFG. Also support from the UK EPSRC INTERNET project is acknowledged.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from OAS Publishing via http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/OFC.2015.M2A.

Randomised Controlled Trial of Particles Used in Uterine fibRoid Embolisation (PURE): Non-Spherical Polyvinyl Alcohol Versus Calibrated Microspheres.

PURPOSE: The PURE study is a randomised controlled trial (RCT) comparing the clinical and MRI outcomes of patients treated with non-spherical polyvinyl alcohol, ns-PVA (Contour PVA-Boston Scientific-355-500 & 500-700 microns) versus calibrated hydrogel microspheres (Embozene-Varian Inc-700 & 900 microns) for symptomatic uterine fibroids. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Prospective, ethically approved non-sponsored RCT in 84 patients in a single UK tertiary IR unit, ISRCTN registry trial number ISRCTN18191539 in 2013 and 2014. All patients with symptomatic fibroid disease were eligible. UAE followed a standardised protocol with UFS-QOL and contrast-enhanced MRI before and 6 months post UAE. Outcome measures included: (1) Uterine Fibroid Symptom and Quality of Life questionnaire (UFS-QOL). (2) Percentage total and dominant fibroid infarction. (3) Uterine and dominant fibroid volume reduction. (4) Volume of embolics. RESULTS: Sixty-three patients completed the QOL follow-up (33 ns-PVA vs 30 Embozenes), the groups were equivalent at baseline. Patients were followed up for 6 months following UAE. There was no significant difference in symptom scores or HR-QOL between ns-PVA and Embozenes, p = 0.67 and 0.21, respectively. 92.7% of patients treated with ns-PVA achieved > 90% dominant fibroid infarction versus 61.8% treated with Embozenes (p = 0.0016). 66% of patients treated with ns = PVA achieved > 90% total fibroid percentage infarction compared with 35% in the Embozene group (p = 0.011). The mean vials/syringes used were 5.2 with Embozenes versus 4.1 using PVA (p = 0.08). CONCLUSION: The PURE study informs IRs regarding the efficacy of embolic agents in UAE, with superior fibroid infarction on MRI using ns-PVA versus Embozenes however no significant difference in clinical outcomes at 6 months after UAE

Increased noise levels have different impacts on the anti-predator behaviour of two sympatric fish species.

types: Journal ArticleCopyright: © 2014 Voellmy et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Animals must avoid predation to survive and reproduce, and there is increasing evidence that man-made (anthropogenic) factors can influence predator-prey relationships. Anthropogenic noise has been shown to have a variety of effects on many species, but work investigating the impact on anti-predator behaviour is rare. In this laboratory study, we examined how additional noise (playback of field recordings of a ship passing through a harbour), compared with control conditions (playback of recordings from the same harbours without ship noise), affected responses to a visual predatory stimulus. We compared the anti-predator behaviour of two sympatric fish species, the three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) and the European minnow (Phoxinus phoxinus), which share similar feeding and predator ecologies, but differ in their body armour. Effects of additional-noise playbacks differed between species: sticklebacks responded significantly more quickly to the visual predatory stimulus during additional-noise playbacks than during control conditions, while minnows exhibited no significant change in their response latency. Our results suggest that elevated noise levels have the potential to affect anti-predator behaviour of different species in different ways. Future field-based experiments are needed to confirm whether this effect and the interspecific difference exist in relation to real-world noise sources, and to determine survival and population consequences.University of BristolBasler Stiftung für Biologische ForschungDefr

Identifying Compound-Target Associations by Combining Bioactivity Profile Similarity Search and Public Databases Mining

Molecular target identification is of central importance to drug discovery. Here, we developed a computational approach, named bioactivity profile similarity search (BASS), for associating targets to small molecules by using the known target annotations of related compounds from public databases. To evaluate BASS, a bioactivity profile database was constructed using 4296 compounds that were commonly tested in the US National Cancer Institute 60 human tumor cell line anticancer drug screen (NCI-60). Each compound was used as a query to search against the entire bioactivity profile database, and reference compounds with similar bioactivity profiles above a threshold of 0.75 were considered as neighbor compounds of the query. Potential targets were subsequently linked to the identified neighbor compounds by using the known targets o

Diagnostic accuracy of magnetic resonance enterography and small bowel ultrasound for the extent and activity of newly diagnosed and relapsed Crohn's disease (METRIC): a multicentre trial

Magnetic resonance enterography (MRE) and ultrasound are used to image Crohn's disease, but their comparative accuracy for assessing disease extent and activity is not known with certainty. Therefore, we did a multicentre trial to address this issue. We recruited patients from eight UK hospitals. Eligible patients were 16 years or older, with newly diagnosed Crohn's disease or with established disease and suspected relapse. Consecutive patients had MRE and ultrasound in addition to standard investigations. Discrepancy between MRE and ultrasound for the presence of small bowel disease triggered an additional investigation, if not already available. The primary outcome was difference in per-patient sensitivity for small bowel disease extent (correct identification and segmental localisation) against a construct reference standard (panel diagnosis). This trial is registered with the International Standard Randomised Controlled Trial, number ISRCTN03982913, and has been completed. 284 patients completed the trial (133 in the newly diagnosed group, 151 in the relapse group). Based on the reference standard, 233 (82%) patients had small bowel Crohn's disease. The sensitivity of MRE for small bowel disease extent (80% [95% CI 72-86]) and presence (97% [91-99]) were significantly greater than that of ultrasound (70% [62-78] for disease extent, 92% [84-96] for disease presence); a 10% (95% CI 1-18; p=0·027) difference for extent, and 5% (1-9; p=0·025) difference for presence. The specificity of MRE for small bowel disease extent (95% [85-98]) was significantly greater than that of ultrasound (81% [64-91]); a difference of 14% (1-27; p=0·039). The specificity for small bowel disease presence was 96% (95% CI 86-99) with MRE and 84% (65-94) with ultrasound (difference 12% [0-25]; p=0·054). There were no serious adverse events. Both MRE and ultrasound have high sensitivity for detecting small bowel disease presence and both are valid first-line investigations, and viable alternatives to ileocolonoscopy. However, in a national health service setting, MRE is generally the preferred radiological investigation when available because its sensitivity and specificity exceed ultrasound significantly. National Institute of Health and Research Health Technology Assessment. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 license. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Diagnostic accuracy for the extent and activity of newly diagnosed and relapsed Crohn’s disease: a multicentre prospective comparison of magnetic resonance enterography and small bowel ultrasound –The METRIC Trial

Background Magnetic resonance enterography (MRE) and ultrasound (US) are used to image Crohn’s disease, but comparative accuracy for disease extent and activity is not known with certainty. We undertook a prospective multicentre cohort trial to address this Methods We recruited from 8 UK hospitals. Eligible patients were 16 years or older, newly diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, or had established disease with suspected relapse. Consecutive patients underwent MRE and US in addition to standard investigations. Discrepancy between MRE and US for small bowel (SB) disease presence triggered an additional investigation, if not already available. The primary outcome was difference in per patient sensitivity for SB disease extent (correct identification and segmental localisation) against a construct reference standard (panel diagnosis). Accuracy for SB and colonic disease presence and activity were secondary outcomes. The trial is completed (ISRCTN03982913). Findings 284 patients completed the trial (133 new diagnosis, 151 relapse). MRE sensitivity (n=233) for SB disease extent (80% [95%CI 72 to 86]) and presence (97% [91 to 99]) were significantly greater than US (70% [62 to 78], 92% [84 to 96]); a 10% (1 to 18; p=0.027), and 5% (1 to 9), difference respectively. MRE specificity for SB disease extent (95% [85 to 98]) was significantly greater than US (81% [64 to 91]). Sensitivity for active SB disease was significantly greater for MRE than US (96% [92 to 99] vs. 90% [82 to 95]), difference 6% (2 to 11). Overall, there were no significant accuracy differences for colonic disease presence. Accuracy in newly diagnosed and relapse patients was similar, although US had significantly greater sensitivity for colonic disease than MRE in newly diagnosed patients (67% [49 to 81) vs. 47% [31 to 64]), difference 20% (1 to 39). There were no serious adverse events. Interpretation MRE has higher diagnostic accuracy for the extent and activity of SB Crohn’s disease than US when tested in a prospective multi centre cohort trial setting