The Transformation of Hungarian Production Cooperatives and Future Consequences

This research examines the transformation of Hungarian agricultural production cooperatives. In contrast to early expectations, cooperatives did not experience much membership loss. Rather, the enterprises held together, although they downsized. The distribution of collective assets occurred quickly and created much tension. The sector experienced a severe decapitalization, and the efficiency of the sector fell. There was a sharp rise in unemployment. Sales and marketing were disrupted. Thus, the cooperatives transformed in a very hostile situation. They survived, and some prospered, yet, in general, they remain vulnerable to adverse economic developments. Healthy cooperatives will be vital to the success of smaller private farms.Agribusiness,

Rectus sheath haematoma following exercise testing: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Exercise testing is a safe diagnostic procedure which is widely used in the evaluation of patients suspected of having coronary heart disease or for the assessment of the prognosis in patients with established disease. Its complications are mainly cardiac disorders. Here, we report a rectus sheath haematoma as a complication of this procedure in a patient with acute coronary syndrome. To our knowledge, this is the first case report of rectus sheath haematoma in association with exercise testing.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A 72-year-old Caucasian woman was admitted for acute coronary syndrome. She received conservative treatment including low molecular weight heparin and anti-platelet agents. On the fifth day of her hospital stay, she underwent an exercise test, where no ischaemic response occurred. Several hours later, she experienced pain in the left side of her abdomen. Subsequent investigations revealed a rectus sheath haematoma. The patient underwent surgical haematoma evacuation. A few days later, re-operation was performed for recurrent bleeding in the abdominal wall. The patient had several characteristics known to increase the risk of bleeding during treatment for acute coronary syndrome.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Awareness of this possible consequence of exercise testing is important for preventing and treating it correctly. For prevention, an assessment of the bleeding risk of the individual patient is necessary before the test, and excessive anticoagulation must be avoided.</p

Expression of a Grapevine NAC Transcription Factor Gene Is Induced in Response to Powdery Mildew Colonization in Salicylic Acid-Independent Manner

Tissue colonization by grape powdery mildew (PM) pathogen Erysiphe necator (Schw.) Burr triggers a major remodeling of the transcriptome in the susceptible grapevine Vitis vinifera L. While changes in the expression of many genes bear the signature of salicylic acid (SA) mediated regulation, the breadth of PM-induced changes suggests the involvement of additional regulatory networks. To explore PM-associated gene regulation mediated by other SA-independent systems, we designed a microarray experiment to distinguish between transcriptome changes induced by E. necator colonization and those triggered by elevated SA levels. We found that the majority of genes responded to both SA and PM, but certain genes were responsive to PM infection alone. Among them, we identified genes of stilbene synthases, PR-10 proteins, and several transcription factors. The microarray results demonstrated that the regulation of these genes is either independent of SA, or dependent, but SA alone is insufficient to bring about their regulation. We inserted the promoter-reporter fusion of a PM-responsive transcription factor gene into a wild-type and two SA-signaling deficient Arabidopsis lines and challenged the resulting transgenic plants with an Arabidopsis-adapted PM pathogen. Our results provide experimental evidence that this grape gene promoter is activated by the pathogen in a SA-independent manner

Multi-modal magnetic resonance imaging in the acute and sub-acute phase of mild traumatic brain injury: can we see the difference?

Advanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) methods were shown to be able to detect the subtle structural consequences of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). The objective of this study was to investigate the acute structural alterations and recovery after mTBI, using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to reveal axonal pathology, volumetric analysis, and susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI) to detect microhemorrhage. Fourteen patients with mTBI who had computed tomography with negative results underwent MRI within 3 days and 1 month after injury. High resolution T1-weighted imaging, DTI, and SWI, were performed at both time points. A control group of 14 matched volunteers were also examined following the same imaging protocol and time interval. Tract-Based Spatial Statistics (TBSS) were performed on DTI data to reveal group differences. T1-weighted images were fed into Freesurfer volumetric analysis. TBSS showed fractional anisotropy (FA) to be significantly (corrected p<0.05) lower, and mean diffusivity (MD) to be higher in the mTBI group in several white matter tracts (FA=40,737; MD=39,078 voxels) compared with controls at 72 hours after injury and still 1month later for FA. Longitudinal analysis revealed significant change (i.e., normalization) of FA and MD over 1 month dominantly in the left hemisphere (FA=3408; MD=7450 voxels). A significant (p<0.05) decrease in cortical volumes (mean 1%) and increase in ventricular volumes (mean 3.4%) appeared at 1 month after injury in the mTBI group. SWI did not reveal microhemorrhage in our patients. Our findings present dynamic micro- and macrostructural changes occurring in the acute to sub-acute phase in mTBI, in very mildly injured patients lacking microhemorrhage detectable by SWI. These results underscore the importance of strictly defined image acquisition time points when performing MRI studies on patients with mTBI

Metagenomics Reveals Bacterial and Archaeal Adaptation to Urban Land-Use : N Catabolism, Methanogenesis, and Nutrient Acquisition

Urbanization results in the systemic conversion of land-use, driving habitat and biodiversity loss. The "urban convergence hypothesis" posits that urbanization represents a merging of habitat characteristics, in turn driving physiological and functional responses within the biotic community. To test this hypothesis, we sampled five cities (Baltimore, MD, United States; Helsinki and Lahti, Finland; Budapest, Hungary; Potchefstroom, South Africa) across four different biomes. Within each city, we sampled four land-use categories that represented a gradient of increasing disturbance and management (from least intervention to highest disturbance: reference, remnant, turf/lawn, and ruderal). Previously, we used amplicon sequencing that targeted bacteria/archaea (16S rRNA) and fungi (ITS) and reported convergence in the archaeal community. Here, we applied shotgun metagenomic sequencing and QPCR of functional genes to the same soil DNA extracts to test convergence in microbial function. Our results suggest that urban land-use drives changes in gene abundance related to both the soil N and C metabolism. Our updated analysis found taxonomic convergence in both the archaeal and bacterial community (16S amplicon data). Convergence of the archaea was driven by increased abundance of ammonia oxidizing archaea and genes for ammonia oxidation (QPCR and shotgun metagenomics). The proliferation of ammonia-oxidizers under turf and ruderal land-use likely also contributes to the previously documented convergence of soil mineral N pools. We also found a higher relative abundance of methanogens (amplicon sequencing), a higher relative abundance of gene sequences putatively identified as Ni-Fe hydrogenase and nickel uptake (shotgun metagenomics) under urban land-use; and a convergence of gene sequences putatively identified as contributing to the nickel transport function under urban turf sites. High levels of disturbance lead to a higher relative abundance of gene sequences putatively identified as multiple antibiotic resistance protein marA and multidrug efflux pump mexD, but did not lead to an overall convergence in antibiotic resistance gene sequences.Peer reviewe

GOTRIPLE:a user-centric process to develop a discovery platform

Social sciences and humanities (SSH) research is divided across a wide array of disciplines, sub-disciplines and languages. While this specialization makes it possible to investigate the extensive variety of SSH topics, it also leads to a fragmentation that prevents SSH research from reaching its full potential. The TRIPLE project brings answers to these issues by developing an innovative discovery platform for SSH data, researchers’ projects and profiles. Having started in October 2019, the project has already three main achievements that are presented in this paper: (1) the definition of main features of the GOTRIPLE platform; (2) its interoperability; (3) its multilingual, multicultural and interdisciplinary vocation. These results have been achieved thanks to different methodologies such as a co-design process, market analysis and benchmarking, monitoring and co-building. These preliminary results highlight the need for respecting diversity of practices and communities through coordination and harmonization

Addendum: Dumouchel, S., et al. GOTRIPLE: A User-Centric Process to Develop a Discovery Platform. Information 2020, 11, 563

The authors would like to add the following reference to the “Reference” section of their paper [...

Clinical sequencing identifies potential actionable alterations in a high rate of urachal and primary bladder adenocarcinomas.

OBJECTIVE Administration of targeted therapies provides a promising treatment strategy for urachal adenocarcinoma (UrC) or primary bladder adenocarcinoma (PBAC); however, the selection of appropriate drugs remains difficult. Here, we aimed to establish a routine compatible methodological pipeline for the identification of the most important therapeutic targets and potentially effective drugs for UrC and PBAC. METHODS Next-generation sequencing, using a 161 cancer driver gene panel, was performed on 41 UrC and 13 PBAC samples. Clinically relevant alterations were filtered, and therapeutic interpretation was performed by in silico evaluation of drug-gene interactions. RESULTS After data processing, 45/54 samples passed the quality control. Sequencing analysis revealed 191 pathogenic mutations in 68 genes. The most frequent gain-of-function mutations in UrC were found in KRAS (33%), and MYC (15%), while in PBAC KRAS (25%), MYC (25%), FLT3 (17%) and TERT (17%) were recurrently affected. The most frequently affected pathways were the cell cycle regulation, and the DNA damage control pathway. Actionable mutations with at least one available approved drug were identified in 31/33 (94%) UrC and 8/12 (67%) PBAC patients. CONCLUSIONS In this study, we developed a data-processing pipeline for the detection and therapeutic interpretation of genetic alterations in two rare cancers. Our analyses revealed actionable mutations in a high rate of cases, suggesting that this approach is a potentially feasible strategy for both UrC and PBAC treatments

The Transformation of Hungarian Production Cooperatives and Future Consequences

This research examines the transformation of Hungarian agricultural production cooperatives. In contrast to early expectations, cooperatives did not experience much membership loss. Rather, the enterprises held together, although they downsized. The distribution of collective assets occurred quickly and created much tension. The sector experienced a severe decapitalization, and the efficiency of the sector fell. There was a sharp rise in unemployment. Sales and marketing were disrupted. Thus, the cooperatives transformed in a very hostile situation. They survived, and some prospered, yet, in general, they remain vulnerable to adverse economic developments. Healthy cooperatives will be vital to the success of smaller private farms