Understanding the consequences of poor chelation compliance is crucial given the enormous burden of post-transfusional iron overload complications. We systematically reviewed iron-chelation therapy (ICT) compliance, and the relationship between compliance with health outcome and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in thalassaemia patients. Several reviewers performed systematic search strategy of literature through PubMed, Scopus, and EBSCOhost. The preferred reporting items of systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines were followed. Of 4917 studies, 20 publications were included. The ICT compliance rate ranges from 20.93% to 75.3%. It also varied per agent, ranging from 48.84-85.1% for desferioxamine, 87.2-92.2% for deferiprone and 90-100% for deferasirox. Majority of studies (N=10/11, 90.91%) demonstrated significantly negative correlation between compliance and serum ferritin, while numerous studies revealed poor ICT compliance linked with increased risk of liver disease (N=4/7, 57.14%) and cardiac disease (N=6/8, 75%), endocrinologic morbidity (N=4/5, 90%), and lower HRQoL (N=4/6, 66.67%). Inadequate compliance with ICT therapy is common. Higher compliance is correlated with the lower serum ferritin, lower risk of complications, and higher HRQoL. These findings should be interpreted with caution given the few numbers of evidence.

BACKGROUND: About 8,800-34,200 Gender Dysphoria (GD)- and 39,000-650,800 Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH)-patients undergo vaginoplasty annually. Various procedures are available, but comparisons are lacking. OBJECTIVES: To highlight information gaps, weaknesses and strengths of vaginoplasty techniques, to aid well-informed decision making by patients and healthcare professionals. SEARCH STRATEGY: A systematic search in Medline, EMBASE, Web of Science and Scopus until October 6, 2022, by PICO method and PROSPERO registration. SELECTION CRITERIA: Original retrospective studies on complete neovaginal creation in adult GD- and MRKH-patients and discussing anatomy, Quality of Life (QoL), satisfaction, sexual function, complications or complaints. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: The 95% confidence intervals were calculated with DerSimonian and Laird random-effects. Methodological quality and potential bias were assessed. MAIN RESULTS: In total, 35 GD- and 16 MRKH-studies were eligible. Vagina length was 11.6 and 9.5 cm, respectively. In GD-patients, Hemorrhage (6%), prolapse (1%), gastrointestinal complications (1%), revisions (26%), pain (6%), regret (1%), fecal- (11%) and urinary issues (17%) were reported. Necrosis, stenosis, dyspareunia and revisions decreased, while duration increased with higher graft quantity. Intestinal-vaginoplasty reported 100% sensation. MRKH-patients reported more necrosis (17%) [McIndoe] and average satisfaction with sexual function (91%) and vaginal discharge (32%). They were more sexually active (86%) and had 100% anatomical satisfaction. Only Intestinal-vaginoplasty reported overall dissatisfaction. CONCLUSIONS: For GD- and MRKH-patients, multiple safe vaginoplasty techniques demonstrated acceptable outcomes, with significantly improved QoL and self-image. However, standardized validation tools are needed for well-informed decision-making. Direct technique comparisons per patient-cohort and exploration of tissue-engineering methods are critical for future surgical advancements.

Interrupted sampling repeater jamming (ISRJ) is a novel intra-pulse coherent jamming based on digital radio frequency memory (DRFM). By repeatedly sampling and retransmitting the radar transmitting signal fragments, a series of false targets can be formed after pulse compression (PC), posing a severe threat to modern radar systems. Inspired by the energy function method and histogram analysis in image processing, an adaptive time-frequency (TF) filtering method is proposed in this letter. The ISRJ-contaminated regions can be accurately determined in the TF image after histogram analysis and subsequent energy accumulation. Guided by the energy function, the proposed method can automatically adjust the intensity threshold in TF image histogram analysis and therefore reveals better robustness compared with other competing methods. Simulations have verified the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method against ISRJ under various circumstances.

A high speed and low power input/output buffer for time interleaving circuit is proposed in this letter. The buffer can be applied to high speed circuits operating at 20GS/s. This novel two-stage buffer is employed with bandwidth expansion and slew-rate enhanced techniques. An improved common-mode feedback circuit stabilizes the output common-mode voltage. This prototype buffer is fabricated in 45nm COMS process, and achieves 7.2bit ENOB at 10GHz input frequency with power consumption of 20.4mW, load of 0.3fF.

Although BERT has achieved excellent results in various natural language processing tasks, it does not exhibit the same high performance in cross-lingual tasks, especially machine translation tasks. We propose a BERT enhanced neural machine translation (BE-NMT) model to improve the use of the information that is contained in BERT by NMT. The model consists of three aspects: (1) A MASKING strategy is applied to alleviate the knowledge forgetting that is caused by the fine-tuning of BERT on the NMT task.(2) Serial and parallel processing are combined for the multi-attention models when incorporating BERT into the NMT model. (3) The multiple hidden layer outputs of BERT are fused to supplement the missing linguistic information of its final hidden layer output. Experiments demonstrate that our method achieves good improvements in various NMT tasks compared with the baseline model.

This paper presents a range of methods to improve the accuracy of equation-based thermal models of PV modules at second-to-minute timescales. We present an RC-equivalent conceptual model for PV modules, where wind effects are captured. We show how the thermal time constant τ of PV modules can be determined from measured data, and subsequently used to make static thermal models dynamic by applying the Exponential Weighted Mean (EWM) approach to irradiance and wind signals. On average, τ is (6 .3±1 .0) min for fixed-mount PV systems. Based on this conceptual model, the Filter- EWM - Mean Bias Error correction (FEM) methodology is developed. We propose two thermal models, WM1 and WM2, and compare these against the models of Ross, Sandia, and Faiman on twenty-four datasets of fifteen sites, with time resolutions ranging from 1s to 1h, the majority of these at 1 min resolution. The FEM methodology is shown to reduce model errors (RMSE and MAE) on average for all sites and models versus the standard steady-state equivalent by −1 .1K and −0 .75K respectively.

Macrophytes are critical primary producers in freshwater ecosystem and provide potential crop output to feed the expanding human population, they also have been used to mitigate eutrophication and upgrade the water quality. Aquatic plants adapt themselves to the more complicated, changeable and unstable conditions compared to terrestrial plants, especially the fluctuated nutrient environments. Nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) are the key nutrient elements for plants, and their cycles have been massively altered by anthropogenic activities in diverse ecosystems. However, there is still a lack of comprehensive understanding about the adapt mechanisms of N and P stress in aquatic plants. Therefore, we investigated the response mechanisms at the molecular, physiological, and morphological levels in the macrophyte Spirodela polyrhiza under N deficiency, P deficiency, combined N and P deficiency, and total nutrient deficiency using RNA-seq, physiological, and biochemical measurements in this study. We found that the similar response mechanisms are shared between terrestrial plants and this tiny aquatic plant, such as nutrient deficiency-induced root system architecture (RSA) changes and photosynthetic inhibition, interacting of N/P signaling networks and uptake, and the consistent changes of gene expression profiles at transcriptional level. Encouragingly, novel findings have been found in S. polyrhiza. The dramatic accumulation of starch or protein without significantly growth inhibition under nutrient deficiencies, improve the crop output of S. polyrhiza. It has a more complex P-signaling network, which is made up of miR399, PHO2, PHT1 and lncRNAs, and miR399 should be a dual-function regulator in Pi homeostasis of S. polyrhiza. The N assimilation process explained the prioritizing usage of ammonium (NH 4 +)-N in duckweed, enhancing its application to phytoremediation of NH 4 + waste water.

Texas horned lizards (Phrynosoma cornutum) have disappeared from many areas in Texas, especially from urbanized areas, probably in large part due to loss of suitable habitat. Our previous studies have found that horned lizards persist and occur at high densities in some small towns in southern Texas. Nevertheless, this species has continued to decline and disappear from these towns. Long-term data from Kenedy and Karnes City indicate that when study sites experienced significant shrub and vegetation removal horned lizards declined by 79%. We hypothesize this may in part be due to the degradation of the thermal landscape for these lizards. We determined the preferred temperature range (Tset25 −Tset75) of lizards at our study sites and took field measurements of body temperature (Tb). Temperature loggers were also placed in three microhabitats across our study sites. Shrubs and vegetation provided the highest quality thermal environment, especially for about 5 hours midday when temperatures in the open and buried under the surface exceeded the lizards’ critical maximum temperature (CTmax) or were above their preferred temperature range. Horned lizard density was positively related to the thermal quality of the habitat across our sites. Texas horned lizards in these towns require a heterogenous mix of closely spaced microhabitats and especially thermal refugia, such as shrubs and vegetation along fence lines and in open fields. Maintaining thermal refugia is one of the most important and practical conservation actions that can be taken to help small ectotherms persist in human modified landscapes and cope with increasing temperatures due to climate change.

Mucormycosis is a serious and relatively rare invasive fungal infection. The rhino-orbito-cerebral localization is the most frequent. Mucormycosis of external ear with facial palsy is extremely rare. We describe a case of auricular mucormycosis complicated by parotid abscess and facial palsy in a diabetic patient.

Mild hypophosphatemia can be reported in some cases of acute pancreatitis, especially in alcohol-induced pancreatitis (AIP), but severe hypophosphatemia (0.33 mmol/L) is rarely reported, even in cases with AIP. Here we have a case report of a 43-year-old male with alcohol-related pancreatitis associated with a critical value of hypophosphatemia.

Amanita Phalloides is a poisonous mushroom belonging to Amanitaceae family. It is one of the most dangerous mushrooms known to date and the ingestion of its part leads to death in 70/80% of cases if not treated. Here we presented a case of a patient with amanita intoxication treated with CRRT + CytoSorb before liver transplantation. The therapy seems to be effective in the patient’s haemodynamics stabilization and reducing serum amanitin levels. Unfortunately, the patient died as a result of post-operative complications.

Mechanistic studies have demonstrated that apoptosis is key to the pathogenesis of spinal cord ischemia/reperfusion injury (SCIRI), and that endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress-associated apoptosis contributes to SCIRI. Importantly, strong evidence has shown that xenon (Xe) has neuroprotective effects. This study investigated whether Xe postconditioning had beneficial effects on SCIRI by inhibiting ER stress-associated neuronal apoptosis. A spinal cord I/R rat model was induced by abdominal artery occlusion for 85 min and reperfusion. Subsequently, Xe postconditioning (50% Xe) was administered 1 h after 1 h of reperfusion. We showed that after SCIRI, rats displayed obvious serious spinal cord damage after reperfusion for 4 h, morphological changes, and neuronal damage associated with ER stress-induced apoptosis. However, spinal cord damage above was attenuated in response to Xe treatment. Furthermore, administration of the ER stress inhibitor sodium 4-phenylbutyrate strongly decreased ER stress-induced apoptosis following SCIRI. This study highlights that Xe postconditioning inhibits ER stress activation, which contributes to alleviate SCIRI by suppressing neuronal apoptosis.

Editorial Comment on: „Short-acting β 2 -agonist use and asthma exacerbations in Swedish children: A SABINA Junior study.”Boccabella C. 1, Kalayci O. 2, Eigenmann P. 3Affiliations1Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Sciences, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario “A Gemelli” - IRCCS, University of the Sacred Heart, Rome, Italy2Pediatric Allergy and Asthma Unit, Hacettepe University School of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey3Pediatric Allergy Unit, Department of Women-Children-Teenagers, University Hospitals of Geneva, Geneva, SwitzerlandAsthma is one of the most common chronic lung diseases with major public health consequences for both children and adults, including high morbidity and even mortality (1). For years, standard asthma treatment for mild asthma has been as needed short acting beta agonist (SABA). Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) guidelines have questioned this approach suggesting that the use of SABAs should always be accompanied by inhaled corticosteroids (ICSs) (2). Recently, Papi et al. have shown that in adolescents and adults with uncontrolled moderate-to-severe asthma receiving inhaled glucocorticoid-containing maintenance therapies, the risk of severe asthma exacerbation was significantly lower with as-needed use of a fixed-dose combination of albuterol and budesonide than with as-needed use of albuterol alone (3). In children, on the other hand, even though many years ago Martinez et al. have shown that inhaled corticosteroids as rescue medication with albuterol might be an effective step-down strategy for children aged 5-18 years with well controlled mild asthma , SABA has remained to be the only reliever option recommended for those under 6 years of age (4).The SABA use IN Asthma (SABINA) program in adults and adolescents with asthma reported that SABA overuse (≥3 canisters/year) is prevalent in Sweden and is associated with poor asthma-related outcomes (5). Melen et al and the SABINA Junior investigators have attempted to investigate the same question in the paediatric population (6). This retrospective cohort study conducted in Sweden, has included patients with physician-diagnosed asthma (aged 0-17 years) in secondary care. Patients have been categorized by the number of SABA canisters collected (dichotomized as 0-2 vs ≥3, based on evidence from studies in adults and adolescents) from pharmacies at baseline and followed up over 12 months (5,7). During the baseline year, SABA overuse (≥3 canisters) has been registered for the majority of the study population, particularly for those aged 0-5 years. A strong correlation between SABA overuse and increased risk of exacerbation episodes has been observed. This result confirms what has been already seen among adult patients, that is strongly connected to the inflammatory nature of asthma disease. SABAs can resolve the immediate bronchospasm but have no anti-inflammatory actions and no effect on the late phase of inflammation. Furthermore, chronic and long-term use of SABAs seems also to contribute to a decreased response to SABA therapy as a reliever (8,9). SABINA investigators have also conducted a post-hoc analysis, stratifying study population based on the presence of atopic comorbidity. Interestingly, increased SABA use has been associated with a higher exacerbation risk also in nonatopic patients with asthma. This may be due to the lack of response to ICSs that is a distinctive aspect of non-atopic population who may in turn resort to the use SABA reliever treatment.There are still several questions that remain unanswered in children mainly due to the difficulties in obtaining data in this specific population. First, recruitment of paediatric patients especially those <6 years old into randomized controlled trials (RCTs) can be a challenge due to ethical issues. In addition, diagnosis of asthma in this age group is often problematic. Despite all the limits of a retrospective study, SABINA study provides extremely useful data in a population where there are hardly any solid data. These results emphasize the need for a better understanding of childhood asthma endotypes and the response to different drugs and disease behaviour over time. Avoiding asthma exacerbations and consequent disease progression should be the principal aim of clinical management in children. This may only be possible by linking the underlying pathophysiology with the clinical response to anti-asthma treatment.References1. Asher MI, Rutter CE, Bissell K, Chiang CY, El Sony A, Ellwood E, et al. Worldwide trends in the burden of asthma symptoms in school-aged children: Global Asthma Network Phase I cross-sectional study. Lancet. 2021;398(10311):1569–80.2. GINA committee. Global Strategy for Asthma Management and Prevention 2022 Update [Internet]. Global Initiative for Asthma. 2022. p. 225. Available from: http://www.ginasthma.org3. Alberto Papi, M.D., Bradley E. Chipps, M.D., Richard Beasley, D.Sc., Reynold A. Panettieri, Jr., M.D., Elliot Israel, M.D., Mark Cooper, M.Sc., Lynn Dunsire, M.Sc., Allison Jeynes-Ellis, M.D., Eva Johnsson, M.D., Robert Rees, Ph.D., Christy Cappelletti, P MD. Albuterol–Budesonide Fixed-Dose Combination Rescue Inhaler for Asthma. N Engl J Med [Internet]. 2022 Aug 17;387(7):662–3. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMc22091894. Martinez L, Handel A, Shen Y, Chakraburty S, Quinn FD, Stein CM, et al. detect tuberculosis in child contacts are urgently needed in Sub-Saharan Africa to improve case detection. n. 2018;197(9):2016–9.5. Nwaru BI, Ekström M, Hasvold P, Wiklund F, Telg G, Janson C. Overuse of short-acting β2-agonists in asthma is associated with increased risk of exacerbation and mortality: A nationwide cohort study of the global SABINA programme. Eur Respir J [Internet]. 2020;55(4). Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1183/13993003.01872-20196. Melen E., Nwaaru B., Wiklund F., Licht S., Telg G., Maslova E., Valk R., Tran TN, Ekstrom M. JC. Short-acting β 2 -agonist use and asthma exacerbations in Swedish children: A SABINA Junior study. Pediatr Allergy Immunol Manuscr.7. Bloom CI, Cabrera C, Arnetorp S, Coulton K, Nan C, van der Valk RJP, et al. Asthma-Related Health Outcomes Associated with Short-Acting β2-Agonist Inhaler Use: An Observational UK Study as Part of the SABINA Global Program. Adv Ther [Internet]. 2020;37(10):4190–208. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12325-020-01444-58. Lohse MJ, Benovic JL, Caron MG, Lefkowitz RJ. Multiple pathways of rapid β2-adrenergic receptor desensitization. Delineation with specific inhibitors. J Biol Chem. 1990;265(6):3202–11.9. Gauvreau GM, Jordana M, Watson RM, Cockcroft DW, O’Byrne PM. Effect of regular inhaled albuterol on allergen-induced late responses and sputum eosinophils in asthmatic subjects. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 1997;156(6):1738–45.

In this paper, we consider a weakly coupled system consisting of a viscoelastic Kirchhoff plate equation involving free boundary conditions and the viscoelastic wave equation with Dirichlet boundary conditions in a bounded domain. By assuming a more general type of relaxation functions, we establish explicit and general decay rate results, using the multiplier method and some properties of the convex functions.

Background Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a composite disease characterized by derangement of the skin permeability barrier (SPB), altered immune defence, and dysbiosis. Little is known on the role played by the sebaceous gland (SG) activity in the SPB integrity and in the AD pathomechanisms. Objectives To investigate profiles of sebaceous and epidermal free fatty acids (FFAs), squalene, cholesterol, triglycerides (TGs), and wax esters (WEs) in sebum and stratum corneum (SC) from seborrheic and non-seborrheic areas, in healthy subjects and patients with AD. To simultaneously acquire aminoacidome in SC. Methods In healthy controls and patients with AD, sebum and SC were sampled consecutively from facial areas (forehead, and cheeks). SC was sampled also from non sebaceous areas (arm) in healthy controls and from the non lesional and lesional areas on the arm in AD. Sampling was preceded by assessments of skin biophysics, i.e. TEWL and corneometry. Results Disruption of the SBP was associated with decreased levels of lipids of both sebaceous and epidermal type. Extent of lipid derangement in the SG and the SC was correlated with the AD severity. Relative composition of natural moisturizing factors was altered in the SC of patients with AD. Conclusions The SG activity is compromised in adult AD. Aminoacidome is deranged in the facial areas in AD. Lipid signatures in association with aminoacidome, and skin physical properties may serve the definition of phenotype clusters that associate with AD severity.

Objective: To investigate the association between the local renin-angiotensin system (RAS) in human follicular fluid (hFF) and age, ovarian function, in vitro fertilization (IVF) outcome. Design: Study on the correlation of non-intervention. Setting: Reproductive Medicine Center, First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University. Sample: hFF of 139 women who received IVF simply because of their husband’s factors from January 2021 to February 2022. Methods: The correlation between age and RAS in hFF was analyzed by simple linear regression, and multivariate linear regression was used to further analyze the correlation between the RAS and IVF outcome. Main Outcome Measures: The levels of RAS components in hFF were measured, including Renin, ACE, ACE2, AngⅡ and Ang(1-7). Results: ①The influence of age on ACE-AngⅡ-AT1/2R axis was more significant than that on ACE2-Ang(1-7)-MAS axis in hFF; ②Provides evidence that gonadotropins mediate RAS activation of local ovarian follicles; ③It is still impossible to prove the effect of RAS on steroid hormone production, at least in ovarian follicles RAS cannot affect steroid hormones in the systemic circulation; ④Age and the level of RAS components in hFF have certain clinical value in predicting the number of oocyte retrieval and the rate of MⅡ maturation. Conclusions: The local RAS in ovarian follicles is affected by age and correlated with ovarian function and IVF outcome.

Abstract Objective To assess the quality of neonatal resuscitation (NR) through video recordings and identify potential areas for improvement. Design Prospective cohort study. Setting From September to December 2019, at four district hospitals in Pemba, Tanzania. Population All labouring women and their newborns were eligible for participation. Main Outcome Measures Videos were analysed for quality-of-care indicators based on the NR algorithm. Questionnaires on quality-of-care indicators were answered by health workers (HW) and mothers. Risk factors for neonatal mortality were analysed in a binomial logistic regression model. Results A total of 1440 newborns were enrolled. Within the neonatal period, 34 newborns died (23.6 per 1000 live births). During the study period, 90 neonatal resuscitations were performed, of which 20 were recorded. Meantime to initiate positive pressure ventilation (PPV) with bag-and-mask was 98 seconds (10 – 416 s), it was inadequately performed in 15 cases (75%). Half (10/20) did not have PPV initiated within the first minute, and in 1 case (5.0%) no PPV was performed. PPV was initiated but not sustained in 16/20 (80%) newborns. Of the 20 infants with videos, 10 died: Eight after failed resuscitation and two in the first 24 hours. The majority of HW 49/56 (87.5%) had received training in NR. Conclusions Despite nearly 90% of HW being trained in NR, video analysis revealed significant deviations from guidelines, provided direct evidence of gaps in the quality of care and identified areas for future education, particularly effective bag- and mask ventilation. Keywords PERINATAL NEONATAL MORTALITY RESUSCITATION VIDEO RECORDIN

Background: Long QT Syndrome (LQTS) is a rare familial ion channelopathy that may result in syncope, cardiac arrest and sudden death. Ion channel gene variants have been implicated in neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), however the link between LQTS and NDDs in children is not well characterized. Methods: This retrospective observational cohort study included patients diagnosed with LQTS at <19 years of age with an NDD diagnosis, prospectively enrolled in an inherited arrhythmia registry at a tertiary hospital between April 2015- June 2021. Patients with hypoxic ischemic injury were excluded. Demographics, genetics, therapy and outcomes were evaluated. Results: Among 106 LQTS patients in the registry, we identified 15 (14%) with NDDs. Eleven (73%) of 15 patients were male compared with 4 (27%) females (p=0.02). Thirteen (87%) were KCNQ1-positive, with mean age at LQTS diagnosis of 6.6 years (SD: 4.3) and baseline QTc of 446ms (SD: 24). Eight (53%) patients had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, followed by 4 (27%) with learning/communication disorder, 3 (20%) with autism spectrum disorder and 2 (13%) with motor disorder. Nine of 15 (60%) patients received an NDD diagnosis 4.4 (SD: 2.1) years post-LQTS diagnosis; 4 (27%) pre-LQTS diagnosis, and 2 (13%) were unknown. Thirteen (87%) patients were treated with Nadolol monotherapy, 1 (7%) with flecainide and 1 (7%) with lifestyle modifications only. Five (33%) patients were taking a concomitant psychostimulant for their NDD, and none experienced arrhythmic events on therapy. LQTS-related event was experienced by 1 (7%) patient over a mean follow-up of 5.7 (SD: 3.9) years. Conclusion: The prevalence of NDD in LQTS patients (14%) was higher compared to the general population (4.5-9%). Larger studies investigating the link between KCNQ1, other LQTS-related genes and NDDs are warranted.

In this paper, stabilization and control of linear time-invariant systems with two unstable poles and time delay are looked at. It is well known that time delays make it harder to analyze stability and come up with good control strategies. Because of this, suggest a simple control strategy based on “dynamic optimization” to stabilize this type of system. In this work, dynamic optimization (DO) to figure out the PID controller parameters for a process that is unstable in second order plus time delay (SOPTD). In particular, the process model is used to figure out the controller parameters so that integral performance criteria and controller variations are kept to a minimum (such as ISE, IAE and TV). The controller responses looked at both the set-point following the load disturbance rejection. Robustness studies have been carried out for uncertainties in the process parameters. Lastly, some examples are given to demonstrate the controller performance and robustness.

This study evaluates a hyperspectral imaging (HSI) technique to identify herbicide-resistant kochia (Bassia scoparia) biotypes to support weed management in cropping systems. The experiment was conducted under controlled-environment where glyphosate was applied to six different kochia populations. For each population (72 cell tray of plants), half of the plants were sprayed with Glyphosate 900 g ae ha-1 , while the other half remained an untreated control. Hyperspectral images were acquired over five time points spanning from glyphosate treatment to 15 days after treatment (DAT) using a proximal HSI system (Specim-IQ) with 204 spectral bands from 397nm to 1003nm. The average reflectances were extracted from plants that were characterized as glyphosate-resistant or-susceptible. We first analyzed the temporal variations of the spectra with and without the application of herbicide. The spectral profile exploits the advantages of temporal features in biotype discrimination. Random forest algorithms were used to classify the glyphosate-resistant and-susceptible populations, by using reflectance at optimal wavelengths (near-infrared) and various vegetation indices with high correlations with visual ratings. Based on the classification accuracy, the most important wavebands and vegetation indices were determined to classify the weed biotypes. Preliminary results show that 1) For the untreated plants, the reflectance at red-edge to near-infrared reached the highest level on 8 DAT, revealing the highest chlorophyll content in the leaves. Then, the reflectance declined until 15 DAT. 2) In contrast, strong effects of glyphosate were captured on 8 DAT for the three herbicide-susceptible populations. For the three glyphosate-resistant populations, reflectance at red-edge to near-infrared did not increase from 1 to 8 DAT, which was opposite of the controlled plants.

Thorough Assessment of Pain is the key to diagnosis and Management: Letter to Editor

In the Flora of China account (Pan et al. 2001) of Saxifraga mengtzeana Engl. & Irmsch., eight synonyms were attributed to it and one variant, recognised as S. epiphylla Gornall & Ohba, was split from it. This study re-evaluates the taxonomic status of some of the synonyms and of the segregated species in the light of new evidence presented here. Morphological and molecular evidence demonstrate that populations from north-western Yunnan and Sichuan are genetically differentiated from those in south-eastern Yunnan and neighbouring Guangxi. Observations in the field and in cultivation show that the peltate petiole attachment diagnostic of S. mengtzeana var. peltifolia Engl. & Irmsch. is developmentally labile. Similar observations combined with molecular data show that viviparous phenotypes, formerly treated as S. epiphylla, although largely under genetic control, occur sporadically throughout the ranges of both northern and southern taxa. Populations from north-western Yunnan and Sichuan are best recognised as S. geifolia Balf.f., whereas those from south-eastern Yunnan and neighbouring Guangxi are S. mengtzeana. Peltate-leaved variants of the latter are given no status and are relegated to complete synonymy. Viviparous phenotypes of S. mengtzeana are demoted to the rank of forma, as f. epiphylla; analogous phenotypes of S. geifolia are newly described as f. vivipara. Keywords China, Saxifragaceae, Phylogeny, Morphology, Taxonomy

Background: To develop a model that could automatically predict treatment response (pathologic complete response (pCR or non-pCR) for patients with locally advanced cervical cancer (LACC) based on T2-weighted MR images and clinical parameters. Methods: A total of 138 patients were en-rolled, T2-weighted MR images and clinical information of the patients before treatment were collected. Clinical information includes age, stage, pathological type, squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) level, and lymph node status. A hybrid model extracted the domain specific features from computational radiomics system, the abstract features from deep learning network and the clinical parameters, and employed an ensemble learning classifier to predict pCR. The area under curve (AUC), accuracy (ACC), true positive rate (TPR), true negative rate (TNR) and precision were used as evaluation metrics. Results: Among 138 LACC patients, 74 were in the pCR group and 64 were in the non-pCR group. There was no significant difference between the two cohorts in terms of tumor diameter, lymph node and stage before radiotherapy, p=0.787, 0.068, 0.846, respectively. The average AUC, ACC, TPR, TNR and precision of the proposed hybrid model was about 0.80, 0.71, 0.75, 0.66 and 0.71, while The AUC values of using clinical parameters, domain specific features, abstract features alone were 0.61, 0.67 and 0.76, respectively. The AUC value of model without ensemble learning classifier was 0.76. Conclusions: The proposed hybrid model could predict well the treatment response of patients with LACC, which might help radiation oncologist to make personalized treatment plans for patients.

Linear infrastructure stands as one of the main culprits of anthropogenically caused biodiversity decline. As it fragments landscapes, it ultimately results in a myriad of direct and indirect ecological consequences for wildlife. As transportation networks will continue to grow under increasing human population growth, biodiversity will continue to decline making the need to understand and mitigate their impact on species an urgent need for conservation worldwide. The implementation of mitigation measures to alleviate the barrier effect produced by linear transport infrastructure on local fauna is not new, and research has shown that their effectiveness has been shown to be influenced by their design, their placement and the biology of the impacted species. Our understanding of their effectiveness in preventing the longer-term impacts of linear transport infrastructure on habitat connectivity via gene flow, however, remains poorly understood. Here, we used a pre- and post-habitat fragmentation genetic dataset collected as part of an extensive Koala Management Program to ask questions about the immediate and predicted longer-term genetic consequences of linear transport infrastructure on the impacted species. Importantly, using forward migration simulations, we show that to preserve connectivity would need to result in around 20% of the population mixing to avoid long-term genetic drift. These results have important consequences for the management of species at the forefront of linear infrastructure. In particular, the study shows the importance of considering gene flow in our assessment of the effectiveness of fauna crossings.