The importance of screening in children who snore

It is important to screen for OSAS in children who snore, as early treatment of OSAS can prevent neurocognitive, behavioural, cardiovascular and metabolic consequences. Paediatricians should always investigate sleep habits and the possible presence of snoring, respiratory efforts or pauses during routine examination of children. These instruments may be effectively used to identify patients with OSAS, and the specificity and positive predictive value may be increased by adding other screening instruments such as nocturnal pulse oximetry [10]. The sleep questionnaires are instruments that can be used to screen patient candidates for a PSG study for suspected OSAS, and to identify those with a mild form of SDB, enabling early treatment

The monotonicity results and sharp inequalities for some power-type means of two arguments

For $a,b>0$ with $a\neq b$, we define M_{p}=M^{1/p}(a^{p},b^{p})\text{if}p\neq 0 \text{and} M_{0}=\sqrt{ab}, where $M=A,He,L,I,P,T,N,Z$ and $Y$ stand for the arithmetic mean, Heronian mean, logarithmic mean, identric (exponential) mean, the first Seiffert mean, the second Seiffert mean, Neuman-S\'{a}ndor mean, power-exponential mean and exponential-geometric mean, respectively. Generally, if $M$ is a mean of $a$ and $b$, then $M_{p}$ is also, and call "power-type mean". We prove the power-type means $P_{p}$, $T_{p}$, $N_{p}$, $Z_{p}$ are increasing in $p$ on $\mathbb{R}$ and establish sharp inequalities among power-type means $A_{p}$, $He_{p}$, $L_{p}$, $I_{p}$, $P_{p}$, $N_{p}$, $Z_{p}$, $Y_{p}$% . From this a very nice chain of inequalities for these means L_{2}<P<N_{1/2}<He<A_{2/3}<I<Z_{1/3}<Y_{1/2} follows. Lastly, a conjecture is proposed.Comment: 11 page

Identification and expression analysis of CBF/DREB1 and COR15 genes in mutants of Brassica oleracea var. botrytis with enhanced proline production and frost resistance.

Frost resistant mutants of Brassica oleracea var. botrytis were investigated for the presence of CBF/DREB1 and COR15a gene products and induced frost resistance. Total RNA of clones was isolated after 3 h, 6 h, 24 h and 14 d acclimation at 4 °C and proteins and free proline were isolated after 14 d acclimation. cDNA was produced using RT-PCR and the first CBF gene in B. oleracea detected and did quantify. Through SDS-PAGE and Western blotting, the COR15a protein was detected for the first time in B. oleracea. The results confirmed the first report of the presence of BoCBF/DREB1 in B. oleracea and this only appeared under cold acclimation. The sequence analysis of predicted amino acids revealed a very high homology (90%) with CBF sequences of other Brassica species (BnCBF5/DREB1, BrDREB1 and BjDREB1B) and homology reduced to 67% when compared to plants other than Brassicas. BoCBF/DREB1 transcript levels increased up to 24 h acclimation and then declined. Some mutants showed BoCBF/DREB1 expression at 3 h while others only after 6 h and 24 h acclimation. The genotypes showed positive significant correlation between BoCBF/DREB1 expression and frost resistance (R(2) = 0.9343). The proline level under acclimation increased about 8 fold and demonstrated positive and significant correlation with BoCBF/DREB1 expression. Proline also showed positive and significant correlation with frost resistance under cold acclimation but very not under non-acclimation. All clones were positive for COR15a protein after 14 d cold acclimation and expression correlated with frost resistance. Under non-acclimation COR15a was constitutively expressed in 3 mutants

The Production of Cauliflower Microshoots using Curd Meristematic Tissues and Hypocotyl–derived Callus.

The capacity for microshoot production from cauliflower was investigated applying two different protocols. In the first, cauliflower curd meristematic tissue was used as a source of explants. The meristematic layer was shaved off and the clusters produced were homogenised using a commercial blender. In terms of its effect on the number and viability of microshoots, the use of 30 s blending duration treatment was found to be optimal between several treatments tested in the range 15 to 120 sec. Explants were cultivated in agitated S23 (MS (Murashige and Skoog, 1962) + 3 % sucrose) liquid media supplemented with different combinations of plant growth regulators. The use of 2 mg/L kinetin and 1 mg/L IBA gave the optimal results in terms of the number and viability of microshoots. The second protocol was designed to investigate the regeneration potential of hypocotyl explants of cauliflower via callus culture. The callus tissue was initiated from hypocotyl explants in callus induction medium (CIM), which consisted of S23 supplemented with 2,4-D at 1 mg/L and kinetin at 1.5 mg/L. The highest number of shoots was obtained after 28 days from sub-cultured hypocotyl derived callus on S23 basal media containing 0.5 mg/L of kinetin. This study demonstrated the ability of producing microshoots using various parts of cauliflower through both callus and without callus formation which can be useful in the later applications of cauliflower tissue culture such as the production of artificial seeds

Dancing with loneliness in later life: A pilot study mapping seasonal variations

Temporal variations in loneliness at the individual and population level have long been reported in longitudinal studies. Although the evidence is limited due to methodological distinctions among studies, we broadly know that loneliness as one ages is a dynamic experience with people becoming more or less lonely or staying the same over time. There is, however, less evidence to understand individual variations in loneliness over shorter periods of time. This paper reports on one element of a small mixed method pilot study to investigate seasonal variations in loneliness over the course of one year and to test the effectiveness of tools used to collect data at repeated short intervals. Our findings confirm that loneliness is dynamic even over shorter periods of time with participants reporting to be lonelier in the evenings, weekends and spring-summer period. Data measures were at times problematic due to language and/or interpretation and reinforce the relevance of reviewing the more common approaches to studying loneliness to more effectively capture the complex and individual nature of the experience.Brunel University Londo

Gastrointestinal neuromuscular apparatus: An underestimated target of gut microbiota

Over the last few years, the importance of the resident intestinal microbiota in the pathogenesis of several gastro- intestinal diseases has been largely investigated. Growing evidence suggest that microbiota can influence gastro- intestinal motility. The current working hypothesis is that dysbiosis-driven mucosal alterations induce the production of several inflammatory/immune mediators which affect gut neuro-muscular functions. Besides these indirect mucosal-mediated effects, the present review highlights that recent evidence suggests that microbiota can directly affect enteric nerves and smooth muscle cells functions through its metabolic products or bacterial molecular components translocated from the intestinal lumen. Toll- like receptors, the bacterial recognition receptors, are expressed both on enteric nerves and smooth muscle and are emerging as potential mediators between microbiota and the enteric neuromuscular apparatus. Furthermore, the ongoing studies on probiotics support the hypothesis that the neuromuscular apparatus may represent a target of intervention, thus opening new physiopathological and therapeutic scenarios

Gaussian process domain experts for model adaptation in facial behavior analysis

We present a novel approach for supervised domain adaptation that is based upon the probabilistic framework of Gaussian processes (GPs). Specifically, we introduce domain-specific GPs as local experts for facial expression classification from face images. The adaptation of the classifier is facilitated in probabilistic fashion by conditioning the target expert on multiple source experts. Furthermore, in contrast to existing adaptation approaches, we also learn a target expert from available target data solely. Then, a single and confident classifier is obtained by combining the predictions from multiple experts based on their confidence. Learning of the model is efficient and requires no retraining/reweighting of the source classifiers. We evaluate the proposed approach on two publicly available datasets for multi-class (MultiPIE) and multi-label (DISFA) facial expression classification. To this end, we perform adaptation of two contextual factors: where (view) and who (subject). We show in our experiments that the proposed approach consistently outperforms both source and target classifiers, while using as few as 30 target examples. It also outperforms the state-of-the-art approaches for supervised domain adaptation

Artificial Seed Production from Encapsulated Microshoots of Cauliflower (Brassica oleraceae var botrytis)

A cost effective protocol for the production of cauliflower microshoots suitable for encapsulation was designed. Microshoots were encapsulated in sodium chloride matrices. The use of 2% of sodium alginate and 15 g/L of dehydrate calcium chloride produced the optimal quality of artificial seeds (rigidity, conversion rate and viability). Of the various plant growth regulator combinations used with the microshoot liquid culture medium, the use of 1 mg/L of IBA (indole butyric acid) and 1 mg/L Kinetin was found to be optimal in terms of the conversion rate and viability of artificial seeds. To standardize a medium composition of artificial endosperm of synthetic seeds, different concentrations and combinations of plant growth regulators with S23 (4.4 MS + 30 g/L sucrose) medium were used in the beads to achieve optimum conversion rate and viability on an in-vitro medium. Whilst several combinations of plant growth regulators gave a conversion rate up to 100% (for example (0.5 mg/L Kinetin + 0.5 mg/L IBA), (1 mg/L Kinetin + 0.5 mg/L NAA (naphthaleneacetic acid)) and (1 mg/L Kinetin + 1 mg/L IAA (indole-3-acetic acid)), no significant effect on the viability of artificial seeds was found when these combinations were used. Artificial seeds were cultivated in a semi-solid medium containing several types and concentrations of auxin, 2 mg/L of IBA gave the best results in terms of artificial seed viability. However, artificial seed conversion rate was not significantly affected by the auxins and full conversion rate was obtained using many different treatments. This research indicated the feasibility of using artificial seeds as a promising alternative to seeds produced by traditional methodology