Influence of Glomus etunicatum/Zea mays mycorrhiza on atrazine degradation, soil phosphatase and dehydrogenase activities, and soil microbial community structure

The effects of an arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungus (Glomus etunicatum) on atrazine dissipation, soil phosphatase and dehydrogenase activities and soil microbial community structure were investigated. A compartmented side-arm ('cross-pot') system was used for plant cultivation. Maize was cultivated in the main root compartment and atrazine-contaminated soil was added to the side-arms and between them 650 or 37 mu m nylon mesh was inserted which allowed mycorrhizal roots or extraradical mycelium to access atrazine in soil in the side-arms. Mycorrhizal roots and extraradical mycelium increased the degradation of atrazine in soil and modified the soil enzyme activities and total soil phospholipid fatty acids (PLFAs). Atrazine declined more and there was greater stimulation of phosphatase and dehydrogenase activities and total PLFAs in soil in the extraradical mycelium compartment than in the mycorrhizal root compartment when the atrazine addition rate to soil was 5.0 mg kg(-1). Mycelium had a more important influence than mycorrhizal roots on atrazine degradation. However, when the atrazine addition rate was 50.0 mg kg(-1). atrazine declined more in the mycorrhizal root compartment than in the extraradical mycelium compartment, perhaps due to inhibition of bacterial activity and higher toxicity to AM mycelium by atrazine at higher concentration. Soil PLFA profiles indicated that the AM fungus exerted a pronounced effect on soil microbial community structure. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

A comprehensive TALEN-based knockout library for generating human induced pluripotent stem cell-based models for cardiovascular diseases

Rationale: Targeted genetic engineering using programmable nucleases such as transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) is a valuable tool for precise, site-specific genetic modification in the human genome. Objective: The emergence of novel technologies such as human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and nuclease-mediated genome editing represent a unique opportunity for studying cardiovascular diseases in vitro. Methods and Results: By incorporating extensive literature and database searches, we designed a collection of TALEN constructs to knockout (KO) eighty-eight human genes that are associated with cardiomyopathies and congenital heart diseases. The TALEN pairs were designed to induce double-strand DNA break near the starting codon of each gene that either disrupted the start codon or introduced a frameshift mutation in the early coding region, ensuring faithful gene KO. We observed that all the constructs were active and disrupted the target locus at high frequencies. To illustrate the general utility of the TALEN-mediated KO technique, six individual genes (TNNT2, LMNA/C, TBX5, MYH7, ANKRD1, and NKX2.5) were knocked out with high efficiency and specificity in human iPSCs. By selectively targeting a dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM)-causing mutation (TNNT2 p.R173W) in patient-specific iPSC-derived cardiac myocytes (iPSC-CMs), we demonstrated that the KO strategy ameliorates the DCM phenotype in vitro. In addition, we modeled the Holt-Oram syndrome (HOS) in iPSC-CMs in vitro and uncovered novel pathways regulated by TBX5 in human cardiac myocyte development. Conclusions: Collectively, our study illustrates the powerful combination of iPSCs and genome editing technology for understanding the biological function of genes and the pathological significance of genetic variants in human cardiovascular diseases. The methods, strategies, constructs and iPSC lines developed in this study provide a validated, readily available resource for cardiovascular research

New Results for the Correlation Functions of the Ising Model and the Transverse Ising Chain

In this paper we show how an infinite system of coupled Toda-type nonlinear differential equations derived by one of us can be used efficiently to calculate the time-dependent pair-correlations in the Ising chain in a transverse field. The results are seen to match extremely well long large-time asymptotic expansions newly derived here. For our initial conditions we use new long asymptotic expansions for the equal-time pair correlation functions of the transverse Ising chain, extending an old result of T.T. Wu for the 2d Ising model. Using this one can also study the equal-time wavevector-dependent correlation function of the quantum chain, a.k.a. the q-dependent diagonal susceptibility in the 2d Ising model, in great detail with very little computational effort.Comment: LaTeX 2e, 31 pages, 8 figures (16 eps files). vs2: Two references added and minor changes of style. vs3: Corrections made and reference adde

Identification of alpha-enolase as an autoantigen in lung cancer: Its overexpression is associated with clinical outcomes

Purpose: Although existence of humoral immunity has been previously shown in malignant pleural effusions, only a limited number of immunogenic tumor-associated antigens (TAA) have been identified and associated with lung cancer. In this study, we intended to identify more TAAs in pleural effusion-derived tumor cells. Experimental Design: Using morphologically normal lung tissues as a control lysate in Western blotting analyses, 54 tumor samples were screened with autologous effusion antibodies. Biochemical purification and mass spectrometric identification of TAAs were done using established effusion tumor cell lines as antigen sources. We identified a p48 antigen as of-enolase (ENO1). Semiquantitative immunohistochemistry was used to evaluate expression status of ENO1 in the tissue samples of 80 patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and then correlated with clinical variables. Results: Using ENO1-specifc antiserum, up-regulation of ENO1 expression in effusion tumor cells from 11 of 17 patients was clearly observed compared with human normal lung primary epithelial and non-cancer-associated effusion cells. Immunohistochemical studies consistently showed high level of ENO1 expression in all the tumors we have examined thus far. Log-rank and Cox's analyses of ENO1 expression status revealed that its expression level in primary tumors was a key factor contributing to overall- and progression-free survivals of patients (P < 0.05). The same result was also obtained in the early stage of NSCLC patients, showing that tumors expressing relatively higher ENO1 level were tightly correlated with poorer survival outcomes. Conclusions: Our data strongly support a prognostic role of ENO1 in determining tumor malignancy of patients with NSCLC

Keeping It Real: Revisiting a Real-Space Approach to Running Ensembles of Cosmological N-body Simulations

In setting up initial conditions for ensembles of cosmological N-body simulations there are, fundamentally, two choices: either maximizing the correspondence of the initial density field to the assumed fourier-space clustering or, instead, matching to real-space statistics and allowing the DC mode (i.e. overdensity) to vary from box to box as it would in the real universe. As a stringent test of both approaches, I perform ensembles of simulations using power law and a "powerlaw times a bump" model inspired by baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO), exploiting the self-similarity of these initial conditions to quantify the accuracy of the matter-matter two-point correlation results. The real-space method, which was originally proposed by Pen 1997 and implemented by Sirko 2005, performed well in producing the expected self-similar behavior and corroborated the non-linear evolution of the BAO feature observed in conventional simulations, even in the strongly-clustered regime (sigma8 >= 1). In revisiting the real-space method championed by Sirko 2005, it was also noticed that this earlier study overlooked an important integral constraint correction to the correlation function in results from the conventional approach that can be important in LambdaCDM simulations with Lbox == Lbox / 10. Rectifying this shows that the fourier space and real space methods are about equally accurate and efficient for modeling the evolution and growth of the correlation function, contrary to previous claims. An appendix provides a useful independent-of-epoch analytic formula for estimating the importance of the integral constraint bias on correlation function measurements in LambdaCDM simulations.Comment: 28 pages, 7 figures, substantial improvements throughou

HEALTHCARE PROCESS OF THE PATIENT WITH ACUTE PANCREATITIS

Akutni pankreatitis je nagla upala gušterače koja se može javiti u blagom ili teškom obliku. Ova nagla upala se u gotovo 80% prijema u bolnicu pripisuje postojanju žučnih kamenaca ili konzumaciji alkohola. Žučni kamenci kao uzrok budu 1,5 puta češći kod žena, dok se alkohol kao uzrok u muškaraca pojavljuje šest puta više nego kod žena. Žučni kamenci najčešće začepe otvor pankreatičnog voda ili se na neko vrijeme zaustave u Oddijevu sfinkteru uzrokujući time upalu dok svakodnevna konzumacija alkohola također može dovesti do začepljenja malih vodova. Jaki bolovi se javljaju najčešće naglo nakon konzumacije prekomjerne količine obroka ili alkohola u gornjem srednjem dijelu abdomena. Osim što je bol nagla, pacijenti je opisuju kao probadajuću bol koja se širi u leđa. Može se javiti mučnina kao i nagon na povraćanje, u većini slučajeva popratnu uz temperaturu. Bolesnik se javlja u hitni trakt radi jakih bolova koji se ne smanjuju te se podvrgava daljnjoj dijagnostici. Laboratorijskim pretragama ne može se potvrditi dijagnoza akutnog pankreatitisa ali povišenom razinom enzima gušterače tu dijagnozu možemo potkrijepiti. Daljnjim radiološkim pretragama (rendgen abdomena, kompjutorizirana tomografija) dokazuje se mogućnost postojanja žučnih kamenaca kao i promjene u veličini i strukturi gušterače. Sa utvrđenom dijagnozom akutnog pankreatitisa, osoba se zaprima na odjel gdje se prekida daljnji unos hrane i pića kako bi se smanjila daljnja proizvodnja enzima u gušterači. Svu potrebnu tekućinu i ostale hranjive tvari nadoknađuju se intravenskim putem. U cijelom procesu liječenja ključna je i medicinska sestra koja najprije može uočiti eventualne promjene koje se mogu javiti kod pacijenta, kao što su primjerice smanjeno mokrenje, otežano disanje te stagniranje ili pogoršavanje intenziteta boli unatoč primijenjenoj analgetskoj terapiji.Acute pancreatitis is a sudden pancreatic inflammation occurring in mild or severe form. This sudden inflammation in almost 80% of admission to the hospital is attributed to the existence of gallstones or drinking alcohol. The gallstones as a cause of Acute pancreatitis are 1.5 times more common in women, while alcohol as a cause is present men appears six times more than in women. Gallstones usually close the pancreatic opening or stop for a while in Oddies sphincter causing it to inflate ,while daily alcohol consumption also leads to clogging of small lines. Strong pain usually are occurring suddnely after eating excessive meals or presence of alcohol in the upper mid-section of the abdomen. Apart pain is acute, patients are describeing as a stabbing kind of pain that is spreading in their back. There can be nausea and vomiting, in most cases accompanied by temperature. The patient is coming to an emergency with severe pain that does not diminish and undergoes further diagnosis. Laboratory examinations can not confirm the diagnosis of acute pancreatitis but elevated pancreatic enzyme levels can be supported by this diagnosis. Further radiological examinations (X-ray abdomena, computerized tomography) are proveing the possibility of gallstones as well as changes in the size and structure of the pancreas. With established diagnosis of acute pancreatitis, a person is hospitalized in intensice care where further food and drink intake is discontinued in order to reduce further enzyme production in the pancreas. All the necessary fluid and other nutrients are compensated by the intravenous. Throughout the process of treatment, role of nurse is also crucial to notice possible changes that may occur in the patient, such as decreased urination, difficulty breathing and stagnation or aggravation of pain intensity despite analgesic therapy

Search for Gravitational Waves Associated with Gamma-Ray Bursts Detected by Fermi and Swift during the LIGO-Virgo Run O3b

We search for gravitational-wave signals associated with gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) detected by the Fermi and Swift satellites during the second half of the third observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo (2019 November 1 15:00 UTC-2020 March 27 17:00 UTC). We conduct two independent searches: A generic gravitational-wave transients search to analyze 86 GRBs and an analysis to target binary mergers with at least one neutron star as short GRB progenitors for 17 events. We find no significant evidence for gravitational-wave signals associated with any of these GRBs. A weighted binomial test of the combined results finds no evidence for subthreshold gravitational-wave signals associated with this GRB ensemble either. We use several source types and signal morphologies during the searches, resulting in lower bounds on the estimated distance to each GRB. Finally, we constrain the population of low-luminosity short GRBs using results from the first to the third observing runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. The resulting population is in accordance with the local binary neutron star merger rate. © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society