Delivering Cornell Grape and Tree Fruit Extension Education Resources on www.fruit.cornell.edu

The Cornell Fruit Resources website,was thoroughly upgraded and re-organized to place fruit information at the fingertips of growers and Extension educators. A steering committee consisting of Juliet Carroll, Marvin Pritts, Timothy Martinson, Catherine Heidenreich, and Craig Cramer guided the direction of the upgrades and selection of featured content. Coordination of effort was also achieved with the Tree Fruit and Berry Program Work Team (PWT) and the Viticulture and Enology PWT. The three major commodity-specific sections are Tree Fruit, Grapes, and Berries. Content within each commodity section is grouped under three sub-sections: Production, IPM, and Post Harvest. There are six common sections: Food Safety, Value-Added, Enology, Business Management, Marketing, and Labor Management & Worker Safety. “News & Events”, features statewide and regional events and provides newsworthy briefs about new fruit resources. “Newsletters”, provides a listing of all the fruit-farming-related newsletters published by Cornell University and Cornell Cooperative Extension. “More Cornell Websites”, provides easy access to other Cornell University Resources of interest to our fruit growers and extension personnel, such as diagnostic and analytical laboratories. Collaborating with the New York State Horticultural Society, we created and linked to over 200 individual articles from the New York Fruit Quarterly journal, published online since 2000. Special emphasis was spent on sourcing and organizing organic production and organic pest management information for fruit crops. We coordinated efforts with extension viticulture to develop web-based resources for new growers. Interest in growing vineyards and orchards has increased among people who have no prior experience in agriculture. This clientele poses a unique challenge to our regional and county-based fruit extension educators. Presentations about the Cornell Fruit Resources website were given at the Great Lakes Fruit Workers Conference, the Canada, New England & New York Fruit IPM Meeting, and the Cornell Summer Fruit Tour to showcase the expanded website as a source of information for growers, extension educators and crop consultants, and to increase interest in the site and its resources. Widespread promotion of the website is planned for January 2012

Ischemic post-conditioning to counteract intestinal ischemia/reperfusion injury

Intestinal ischemia is a severe disorder with a variety of causes. Reperfusion is a common occurrence during treatment of acute intestinal ischemia but the injury resulting from ischemia/reperfusion (IR) may lead to even more serious complications from intestinal atrophy to multiple organ failure and death. The susceptibility of the intestine to IR-induced injury (IRI) appears from various experimental studies and clinical settings such as cardiac and major vascular surgery and organ transplantation. Whereas oxygen free radicals, activation of leukocytes, failure of microvascular perfusion, cellular acidosis and disturbance of intracellular homeostasis have been implicated as important factors in the pathogenesis of intestinal IRI, the mechanisms underlying this disorder are not well known. To date, increasing attention is being paid in animal studies to potential pre- and post-ischemia treatments that protect against intestinal IRI such as drug interference with IR-induced apoptosis and inflammation processes and ischemic pre-conditioning. However, better insight is needed into the molecular and cellular events associated with reperfusion-induced damage to develop effective clinical protection protocols to combat this disorder. In this respect, the use of ischemic post-conditioning in combination with experimentally prolonged acidosis blocking deleterious reperfusion actions may turn out to have particular clinical relevance

Video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery for acute thoracic trauma

Background: Operative intervention for thoracic trauma typically requires thoracotomy. We hypothesized that thoracoscopy may be safely and effectively utilized for the acute management of thoracic injuries. Materials and Methods: The Trauma Registry of a Level I trauma center was queried from 1999 through 2010 for all video-assisted thoracic procedures within 24 h of admission. Data collected included initial vital signs, operative indication, intraoperative course, and postoperative outcome. Results: Twenty-three patients met inclusion criteria: 3 (13%) following blunt injury and 20 (87%) after penetrating trauma. Indications for urgent thoracoscopy included diaphragmatic/esophageal injury, retained hemothorax, ongoing hemorrhage, and open/persistent pneumothorax. No conversions to thoracotomy were required and no patient required re-operation. Mean postoperative chest tube duration was 2.9 days and mean length of stay was 5.6 days. Conclusion: Video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery is safe and effective for managing thoracic trauma in hemodynamically stable patients within the first 24 h post-injury

Intestinal ischemia-reperfusion injury: reversible and irreversible damage imaged in vivo

The early events in an intestinal ischemic episode have been difficult to evaluate. Using in vivo microscopy we have analyzed in real-time the effects of short (15 min) and long (40–50 min) ischemia with subsequent reperfusion (IR), evaluating structure, integrity, and functioning of the mouse jejunal mucosa while monitoring blood flow by confocal microscopy. IR was imposed by inflation/deflation of a vascular occluder, and blood flow was monitored and confirmed with scanning confocal imaging. After short ischemia, villus tip cells revealed a rapid increase (23%) in the intracellular NAD(P)H concentration (confocal autofluorescence microscopy), and the pH-sensitive probe BCECF showed a biphasic response of the intracellular pH (pHi), quickly alkalinizing from the resting value of 6.8 ± 0.1 to 7.1 ± 0.1 but then strongly acidifying to 6.3 ± 0.1. Upon reperfusion, values returned toward control. In contrast, results were heterogeneous after long IR. During long ischemia, one-third of the epithelial cells remained viable with reversible changes upon reperfusion, but remaining cells lost membrane integrity (Lucifer Yellow uptake, LY) and had membrane blebs during ischemia. These effects became more pronounced as the reperfusion interval progressed when cells exhibited more severely affected NAD(P)H and pHi values, larger blebs, and more LY uptake and eventually were shed from the villus. Results from stereo microscopy suggest that these irreversible effects of IR may have occurred as a result of incomplete restorations of local blood flow, especially at the antimesenteric side of the intestine. We conclude that the adverse effects of short ischemia on the jejunum epithelium are fully reversible during the reperfusion interval. However, after long ischemia, reperfusion cannot restore normal structure and functioning of a majority of cells, which deteriorate further. Our results provide a basis for defining the cellular events that cause tissue to transit from reversible to irreversible damage during IR