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Background One of the main effectors on the quality of life of living-kidney donors is postoperative fatigue. Caloric restriction (CR) and short-term fasting (STF) are associated with improved fitness and increased resistance to acute stress. CR/STF increases the expression of cytoprotective genes, increases immunomodulation via increased anti-inflammatory cytokine production, and decreases the expression of pro-inflammatory markers. As such, nutritional preconditioning by CR or STF represents a non-invasive and cost-effective method that could mitigate the effects of acute surgery-induced stress and postoperative fatigue. To investigate whether preoperative STF contributes to a reduction in fatigue after living-kidney donation, a randomized clinical trial is indicated. Methods We aim to determine whether 2.5 days of fasting reduces postoperative fatigue score in subjects undergoing living-kidney donation. In this randomized study, the intervention group will follow a preoperative fasting regime for 2.5 days with a low-dose laxative, while the control group will receive standard care. The main study endpoint is postoperative fatigue, 4 weeks after living-kidney donation. Secondary endpoints include the effect of preoperative fasting on postoperative hospital admission time, the feasibility of STF, and the postoperative recovery of donor and recipient kidney function. This study will provide us with knowledge of the feasibility of STF and confirm its effect on postoperative recovery. Discussion Our study will provide clinically relevant information on the merits of caloric restriction for living-kidney donors and recipients. We expect to reduce the postoperative fatigue in living-kidney donors and improve the postoperative recovery of living-kidney recipients. It will provide evidence on the clinical merits and potential caveats of preoperative dietary interventions. Trial registration Netherlands Trial Register NL9262. EudraCT 2020-005445-16. MEC Erasmus MC MEC-2020-0778. CCMO NL74623.078.21

Orientational movement of chloroplasts was induced by a brief irradiation with red light (R) or blue light (B) in dark-adapted prothallial cells ofAdiantum, whose chloroplasts had gathered along the cell dividing wall (i.e., the anticlinal wall). When the whole dark-adapted prothallia were irradiated from a horizontal direction (i.e., from their lobes) with horizontally vibrating polarized R (H pol. R) for 10 or 3 min, the chloroplast left the anticlinal walls and spread over the prothallial surface (i.e., the periclinal walls) within 1–2 hr after the onset of irradiation, returning to the anticlinal wall (dark-position) within 10 hr. However, vertically vibrating polarized R (V pol. R) for 10 min did not induce the movement towards periclinal walls. The R effect was cancelled by non-polarized far-red light (FR) irradiation just after the R irradiation. Irradiation with H pol. B for 10 or 3 min but not with V pol. B could also induce a similar movement of chloroplasts, although the chloroplasts returned within 4 hr. The effect of H pol. B, however, was not cancelled by the subsequent FR irradiation.

Two field experiments were performed during 2010/2011 and 2011/2012 seasons to evaluate the effects of seven growth regulators treatments (IAA 100 ppm, IAA 200 ppm, IAA 300 ppm, GA3 100 ppm, GA3 200 ppm, GA3 300 ppm and control) on quantitative and qualitative attributes of three sugarcane varieties (Phil. 8013, G. 98-28 and G.T. 54-9). Such trials were carried out at Shandaweel Agricultural Research Station, Sohag, Egypt using a randomized complete block in split plot design with four replicates. Sugarcane varieties and growth regulators treatments were randomly distributed in the main and split plots, respectively. Results revealed that commercial variety G.T. 54-9 gave the highest values of stalk thickness, number of valid stalks per ha, stalk yield, brix value, pol %, sugar % cane and sugar yield per ha. Among the seven growth regulators treatments, GA3 at 300 ppm gave the highest values of above mentioned traits and stalk height. On the other hand, juice purity was unaffected by varieties or growth regulators treatments. The interaction effect of variety × plant growth regulators was not significant for all measured traits. Correlation coefficient values of different yield and quality characters with sugar yield were positive and highly significant. The highest values of correlation coefficients with sugar yield were exhibited from sugar % cane (r = 0.931), pol % (r = 0.829) and stalk cane yield (r = 0.636).

Weakly n-dimensional spaces were first distinguished by Karl Menger. In this note we shall discuss three topics concerning this class of spaces: universal spaces, products, and the sum theorem. We prove that there is a universal space for the class of all weakly n-dimensional spaces, present a simpler proof of Tomaszewski's result about the dimension of a product of weakly n-dimensional spaces, and show that there is an n-dimensional space which admits a pairwise disjoint countable closed cover by weakly n-dimensional subspaces but is not weakly n-dimensional itself.