Preliminary Economic Feasibility Analysis of High Fructose Corn Syrup Processing in the United States with Emphasis on North Dakota

This prefeasibility analysis directed at the HFCS industry was carried out under a short-term turnaround basis with the intent of accomplishing two objectives. First, provide a current economic overview of the United States HFCS industry; secondly, to develop some major HFCS processing plant operating benchmarks in an effort to provide a timely informational base for state economic development interests.Agribusiness,

The Economic Feasibility of Establishing Value-Added Dry Edible Bean Processing Plants in North Dakota

Agribusiness,

MINNESOTA PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION FORECAST OF MAJOR FEED GRAINS BY MINNESOTA COUNTY FOR 1990 AND 2000

Crop Production/Industries,

1984 BARGE RATES FOR UPPER MISSISSIPPI RIVER COMMODITIES

Marketing,

Feasibility of Establishing Small Livestock Slaughter Plants in North Dakota

Agribusiness,

Circadian profiles in young people during the early stages of affective disorder

Although disturbances of the circadian system are strongly linked to affective disorders, no known studies have examined melatonin profiles in young people in early stages of illness. In this study, 44 patients with an affective disorder underwent clinical and neuropsychological assessments. They were then rated by a psychiatrist according to a clinical staging model and were categorized as having an ‘attenuated syndrome' or an ‘established disorder'. During the evening, salivary melatonin was sampled under dim light conditions over an 8-h interval and for each patient, the time of melatonin onset, total area under the curve and phase angle (difference between time of melatonin onset and time of habitual sleep onset) were computed. Results showed that there was no difference in the timing of melatonin onset across illness stages. However, area under the curve analyses showed that those patients with ‘established disorders' had markedly reduced levels of melatonin secretion, and shorter phase angles, relative to those with ‘attenuated syndromes'. These lower levels, in turn, were related to lower subjective sleepiness, and poorer performance on neuropsychological tests of verbal memory. Overall, these results suggest that for patients with established illness, dysfunction of the circadian system relates clearly to functional features and markers of underlying neurobiological change. Although the interpretation of these results would be greatly enhanced by control data, this work has important implications for the early delivery of chronobiological interventions in young people with affective disorders

A Randomized Trial Evaluating Prosaptide™ for HIV-Associated Sensory Neuropathies: Use of an Electronic Diary to Record Neuropathic Pain

Objectives: To examine the efficacy and safety of Prosaptide™ (PRO) for the treatment of painful HIV-associated sensory neuropathies (HIV-SN). Design: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter study in participants with sensory neuropathy. Pain modulating therapy was discontinued prior to baseline. Participants were stratified by sural sensory nerve action potential (SNAP) amplitude. Participants were trained to use an electronic diary (ED) to record pain. Setting: Peripheral neuropathies are common complications of HIV infection. The pathogenesis is unknown and currently treatments are restricted to symptomatic measures. We examined PRO against placebo (PBO) for treatment of painful HIV-SN and performed a post-hoc evaluation of an electronic diary (ED) to record HIV-associated neuropathic pain. Participants: Eligible participants included adults with neurologist-confirmed painful HIV-SN.Interventions 2, 4, 8, or 16 mg/d PRO or PBO administered via subcutaneous (SC) injection for six weeks. Neurotoxic antiretroviral drug usage was held constant.Outcome Measures Changes from baseline in the weekly average of evaluable daily random prompts measuring pain using the Gracely pain scale and adverse events. Results: 237 participants were randomized. The study was stopped after a planned futility analysis. There were no between-group differences in the frequency of adverse events or laboratory toxicities. The 6-week mean (sd) Gracely pain scale changes were −0.12 (0.23), −0.24 (0.35), −0.15 (0.32), −0.18 (0.34), and −0.18 (0.32) for the 2, 4, 8, 16 mg, and PBO arms respectively. A similar variability of pain changes recorded using the ED were noted compared to previous trials that used paper collection methods.Conclusions 6-week treatment with PRO was safe but not effective at reducing HIV-associated neuropathic pain. Use of an ED to record neuropathic pain is novel in HIV-SN, resulted in reasonable compliance in recording pain data, but did not decrease the variability of pain scores compared to historical paper collection methods. Trial Registration: Current Controlled Trials NCT0028637

Speed breeding is a powerful tool to accelerate crop research and breeding

The growing human population and a changing environment have raised significant concern for global food security, with the current improvement rate of several important crops inadequate to meet future demand1. This slow improvement rate is attributed partly to the long generation times of crop plants. Here, we present a method called ‘speed breeding’, which greatly shortens generation time and accelerates breeding and research programmes. Speed breeding can be used to achieve up to 6 generations per year for spring wheat (Triticum aestivum), durum wheat (T. durum), barley (Hordeum vulgare), chickpea (Cicer arietinum) and pea (Pisum sativum), and 4 generations for canola (Brassica napus), instead of 2–3 under normal glasshouse conditions. We demonstrate that speed breeding in fully enclosed, controlled-environment growth chambers can accelerate plant development for research purposes, including phenotyping of adult plant traits, mutant studies and transformation. The use of supplemental lighting in a glasshouse environment allows rapid generation cycling through single seed descent (SSD) and potential for adaptation to larger-scale crop improvement programs. Cost saving through light-emitting diode (LED) supplemental lighting is also outlined. We envisage great potential for integrating speed breeding with other modern crop breeding technologies, including high-throughput genotyping, genome editing and genomic selection, accelerating the rate of crop improvement

The use of EORTC measures in daily clinical practice-A synopsis of a newly developed manual.

Cancer has increasingly become a chronic condition and the routine collection of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) like quality of life is widely recommended for clinical practice. Nonetheless, the successful implementation of PROs is still a major challenge, although common barriers to and facilitators of their beneficial use are well known. To support health care professionals and other stakeholders in the implementation of the EORTC PRO measures, the EORTC Quality of Life Group provides guidance on issues considered important for their use in daily clinical practice. Herein, we present an outline of the newly developed "'Manual for the use of EORTC measures in daily clinical practice", covering the following issues: * a rationale for using EORTC measures in routine care *selection of EORTC measures, timing of assessments, scoring and presentation of results * aspects of a strategic implementation * electronic data assessment and telemonitoring, and * further use of EORTC measures and ethical considerations. Next to an extensive overview of currently available literature, the manual specifically focuses on knowledge about EORTC measures to give evidence-based recommendations whenever possible and to encourage readers and end-users of EORTC measures to contribute to further needed high-quality research. The manual will be accessible on the EORTC Quality of Life Group website's homepage and will be periodically updated to take into account any new knowledge due to medical, technical, regulatory and scientific advances

Matched-pair analysis of patients with female and male breast cancer: a comparative analysis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Male breast cancer (MBC) is a rare disease accounting for approximately 1% of all breast carcinomas. Presently treatment recommendations are derived from the standards for female breast cancer. However, those approaches might be inadequate because of distinct gender specific differences in tumor biology of breast cancer. This study was planned in order to contrast potential differences between female and male breast cancer in both tumor biological behavior and clinical management.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>MBC diagnosed between 1995-2007 (region Chemnitz/Zwickau, Saxony, Germany) was retrospectively analyzed. Tumor characteristics, treatment and follow-up of the patients were documented. In order to highlight potential differences each MBC was matched with a female counterpart (FBC) that showed accordance in at least eight tumor characteristics (year of diagnosis, age, tumor stage, nodal status, grade, estrogen- and progesterone receptors, HER2 status).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>108 male/female matched-pairs were available for survival analyses. In our study men and women with breast cancer had similar disease-free (DFS) and overall (OS) survival. The 5-years DFS was 53.4% (95% CI, range 54.1-66.3) in men respectively 62.6% (95% CI, 63.5-75.3) in women (p > 0.05). The 5-years OS was 71.4% (95% CI, 62.1-72.7%) and 70.3% (95% CI, 32.6-49.6) in women (p > 0.05). In males DFS analyses revealed progesterone receptor expression as the only prognostic relevant factor (p = 0.006). In multivariate analyses for OS both advanced tumor size (p = 0.01) and a lack of progesterone receptor expression were correlated (p = 0.01) with poor patients outcome in MBC.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our comparative study revealed no survival differences between male and female breast cancer patients and gives evidence that gender is no predictor for survival in breast cancer. This was shown despite of significant gender specific differences in terms of frequency and intensity of systemic therapy in favor to female breast cancer.</p