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ABSTRACTStudies in a broad range of animal species have revealed phenotypes that are caused by ancestral life experiences, including stress and diet. Ancestral dietary macronutrient composition and quantity (over- and under-nutrition) have been shown to alter descendent growth, metabolism and behaviour. Molecules have been identified in gametes that are changed by ancestral diet and are required for transgenerational effects. However, there is less understanding of the developmental pathways altered by inherited molecules during the period between fertilization and adulthood. To investigate this non-genetic inheritance, we exposed great grand-parental and grand-parental generations to defined protein to carbohydrate (P:C) dietary ratios. Descendent developmental timing was consistently faster in the period between the embryonic and pupal stages when ancestors had a higher P:C ratio diet. Transcriptional analysis revealed extensive and long-lasting changes to the MAPK signalling pathway, which controls growth rate through the regulation of ribosomal RNA transcription. Pharmacological inhibition of both MAPK and rRNA pathways recapitulated the ancestral diet-induced developmental changes. This work provides insight into non-genetic inheritance between fertilization and adulthood.

Context/Objective:to investigate the usefulness of classical homeopathy for the prevention of recurrent urinary tract infections (UTI) in patients with spinal cord injury (SCI).Design:prospective study.Setting:rehabilitation center in Switzerland.Participants:patients with chronic SCI and ≥3 UTI/year.Interventions:Participants were treated either with a standardized prophylaxis alone or in combination with homeopathy.Outcome measures:The number of UTI, general and specific quality of life (QoL), and satisfaction with homeopathic treatment were assessed prospectively for one year.Results:Ten patients were in the control group; 25 patients received adjunctive homeopathic treatment. The median number of self-reported UTI in the homeopathy group decreased significantly, whereas it remained unchanged in the control group. The domain incontinence impact of the KHQ improved significantly (P = 0.035), whereas the general QoL did not change. The satisfaction with homeopathic care was high.Conclusions:Adjunctive homeopathic treatment lead to a significant decrease of UTI in SCI patients. Therefore, classical homeopathy could be considered in SCI patients with recurrent UTI.Trial registration:ClinicalTrials.gov. (NCT01477502).

It is frequently observed that the implementation of green policies is delayed compared to the initial announcement. Considering a setting with a representative monopolist extracting a nonrenewable resource, we demonstrate that announcing a green policy, but then delaying its implementation, is associated with a larger cumulative extraction at any point in time than announcing a late implementation of this policy at the outset.

Objectives: Pulmonary Embolism has been frequently reported in Acute Exacerbations of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (AE-COPD). The study aimed to determine whether COPD patients who receive anticoagulant (AC) therapy have a reduced risk of hospitalization due to AE-COPD and death.Methods: This nationwide population-based study was based on data from the Danish Register of COPD (DrCOPD), which contains complete data on COPD outpatients between 1st January 2010 and 31st December 2018. National registers were used to obtain information regarding comorbidities and vital status. Propensity-score matching and Cox proportional hazards models were used to assess AE-COPD and death after one year.Results: The study cohort consisted of 58,067 patients with COPD. Of these, 5194 patients were on AC therapy. The population was matched 1:1 based on clinical confounders and AC therapy, resulting in two groups of 5180 patients. We found no association between AC therapy and AE-COPD or all-cause mortality in the propensity-score matched population (HR 1.03, 95% CI 0.96-1.10, p= 0.37). These findings were confirmed in a competing risk analysis. In the sensitivity analysis, we performed an adjusted analysis of the complete cohort and found a slightly increased risk of AE-COPD or death in patients treated with AC therapy. This study found a low incidence of pulmonary embolisms and deep venous thrombosis in both groups.Conclusions: AC therapy was not associated with the risk of hospitalization due to AE-COPD or all-cause mortality.

The comparison of the sleep pattern of aged, long-term schizophrenic patients never biologically treated with an age-matched group of normal controls has shown that significant differences were present only in the mean number of REM periods, mean duration of each REM period, mean REM latency, the number of awakenings during the REM period or immediately after it, and mean sleep latency between both groups. The role of several factors that could account for these significant differences is discussed and an increased REM-period vulnerability in long-term schizophrenic patients is hypothesized.

In our former research on the alterations of consciousness in petit mal (Jus and Jus, 1960) we were interested in different kinds of anterograde amnesia in petit mal and also devoted some attention to the problem of amnesia. In the present study we have made a more precise analysis of retrograde amnesia in petit mal.We made a comparative analysis of the results of polygraphic registration and introspection. We found this procedure very useful in studying certain psychopathological phenomena. Its value consists in the fact that these psychopathological phenomena explored by introspection can be compared with simultaneously present pathophysiological phenomena explored by polygraphic registration.This method, which may be called introspective-polygraphic phenomenology, can be applied in different experimental variants. They are principally based on reactivity studies. For the analysis of memory alterations in petit mal we carried out some simple experiments which indicated factors deter

This paper aims to study occupational gender segregation in Slovenia as one of the indicators of social equity, which is one of the bottom lines of sustainable development, and to compare it to other EU countries. Females in Slovenia are still in an unfavourable position and the process towards a market economy has not solved the issue. The historical effects of declarative equality in Slovenia have resulted in a higher rate of female employees in industrial sectors. However, content equality as measured by the number of female legislators, senior officials, managers and female members of parliament, the gender pay gap and contributing family workers indicates that real equality has not yet been reached. Though occupational gender segregation exists in Slovenia, research shows that females in Slovenia are in a better position regarding occupational segregation than their counterparts in the observed countries and that higher economic development results in higher occupational gender specialisation.

Automatic control has become one of the standard engineering fields and is inherently part of electrical engineering. Industrial controllers in any form are only a part of the hardware necessary for the control of industrial processes in, e.g., the process industry or manufacturing. The design of an industrial control system is greatly facilitated by an auto-tuning system, if it is available as part of the controller. Since the majority of control hardware for industry is of the proportional-integral-derivative (PID) type, most of the patents relating to auto-tuning are also about this type of control, though other patented methods and systems for control are available. In this paper, a survey of patents for autotuning methods and systems for industrial control is given. The patents are grouped into methods and systems based on model-based tuning with non-parametric and parametric models, relay tuning, multiple controllers for nonlinear processes, and other approaches. More stress is put on recent patents, but a wider survey of auto-tuning patents published in the past two decades is also given in the paper. The methods being patented are becoming more sophisticated and more universal and consequently they provide better assistance to the work of control-design engineers.

The first structural characterisation of ruthenium and rhodium complexes of the 1,1′‐bis(phosphetano)ferrocenes 1(FerroTANEs) − namely [{(S,S)‐iPr‐1}RuCl2Py2] and [{(S,S)‐iPr‐1}Rh(COD)OTf] − is reported. X‐ray data show that the ruthenium complex and the rhodium chelate complex both adopt δ conformations, as a result of the (S,S) configuration of the phosphetane moiety. The ruthenium complexes promote the catalytic hydrogenation of β‐keto esters with moderate to high enantioselectivities. The behaviour of the rhodium complexes of 1 is compared with that of other phosphetane‐based catalysts in the hydrogenation of methyl N‐acetamidocinnamate. (© Wiley‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 69451 Weinheim, Germany, 2003)

The synthesis of chiral, C2-symmetric 1,2-bis(phosphetano)benzenes 2has been extended to the benzyl-substituted derivative 2c(R=CH2Ph). Stable ruthenium and palladium complexes containing ligands 2have been isolated. X-Ray diffraction studies have been performed on the monoborane adduct of 2a(R=i-Pr) and on a palladium(II) complex of 2b(R=Me).

The bis-phosphetanes 1and 2have been used as chiral ligands in the rhodium-catalysed hydrogenations of dehydroamino acid derivatives. An unusual increase of the optical yields at high hydrogen pressures has been noticed. Mechanistic implications are discussed.

Novel,C2‐symmetric 1,2‐bis(phosphetano)benzene ligands(see figure) are readily synthesized from the corresponding diol cyclic sulfates. When complexed to ruthenium, they form powerful catalysts for highly selective hydrogenation of β‐diketones.

The CD4 antigen has long been used as a surface marker for the indentification of a subset of T cells. CD4 acts also as the receptor for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus 1 HIV-1 and as a signal transducing molecule. Recently CD4 positive cells have been shown to release a soluble form of CD4 (sCD4). This molecule can interact with free gp 120 viral antigen and with serum immunoglobulins.Because of the importance of CD4 in the natural history of HIV-1 infection, we decided to monitor it's serum levels in HIV-1 seropositive subjects. sCD4 increases, on a per cell basis, in the late stages of infection, when CD4 cell counts dramatically fall and antigenemia is frequently found. Asymptomatic patients had a mean of 6 Units/ml of sCD4 every 100 CD4 T cells, while in AIDS patients we found a mean of 51 Units/ml every 100 CD4 T cells.These data suggest that sCD4 may be of value in monitoring the involvement of CD4 T cells during a pathological event.

At control system implementation some trial-and-error on-line tuning of the controller is often necessary for performance improvement. This procedure is unfortunately difficult to pursue in some cases due to a high degree of controller complexity and therefore a large number of possible tuning parameters. The problem can be obviated through the implementation of a tuning technique based on sensitivity functions. Systematic adjustments are made on the basis of responses obtained from measurements on the system being tuned. No plant model is needed, in fact only the output responses to certain input signals, in our case step signals, must be available. The approach is illustrated by the aid of the DC motor generator pilot plant.

We consider the axial resolution of confocal optical systems employing high numerical aperture objective lenses for the cases when the specimen refractive index is both higher and lower than that of the immersion medium. In the latter case a spherical aberration-like phase shift is introduced when the objective lens numerical aperture is greater than the refractive index of the specimen which leads, inter alia, to an asymmetrical axial response with higher side lobe levels. Theoretical and experimental results are presented.

We consider the form of the interference term image in scanning interference microscopes employing finite sized coherent and incoherent detectors. We show, inter alia, that for the case of incoherent photodetectors the interference term image in scanning confocal and scanning conventional systems behave identically in all respects including optical sectioning.

A compact novel form of confocal scanning microscope using a semiconductor laser is described. Confocal operation is ensured by the use of a singlemode optical fibre for both launching the light into the microscope and collecting the signal from the object. The collected light is allowed to reenter the laser and the image is detected as a modulation on the signal from the laser power monitor diode.

A phase sensitive scanning fibre-optic microscope designed to be used as an endoscope is described. Confocal operation with single mode fibre acting as a spatial filter is demonstrated; 0.8μm lateral resolution is achieved.

La prise en charge ambulatoire est en développement constant depuis plusieurs années, mais peut être à l’origine d’une anxiété de la part du patient ou des praticiens réalisant l’acte. L’hypnose permet de centrer la prise en charge du patient sur son confort, diminue l’anxiété et la quantité de médicaments nécessaires pour réaliser un acte chirurgical ou endoscopique. Notre équipe propose depuis fin 2013 l’hypnosédation et nous avons souhaité évaluer la faisabilité de l’hypnose au bloc opératoire et le confort des patients qui en ont bénéficié.

The article presents the poem "Just This," by Justin Evans. First Line: When I think back to November; Last Line: of ancient, sloping mountains.

The cover picture showsthe X‐ray crystal structures of ruthenium and rhodium complexes of chiral 1,1′‐bis(phosphetano)ferrocenes. These diphosphanes rank among the ligands inducing excellent enantioselectivities in rhodium‐promoted hydrogenations of prochiral olefins. X‐ray crystal structures of their metal complexes afford information about their coordinating behaviour and preferred conformations in catalytically active species. Details are discussed in the article by A. Marinetti et al. on p. 2583 ff.

ChemInform is a weekly Abstracting Service, delivering concise information at a glance that was extracted from about 100 leading journals. To access a ChemInform Abstract of an article which was published elsewhere, please select a “Full Text” option. The original article is trackable via the “References” option.

ChemInform is a weekly Abstracting Service, delivering concise information at a glance that was extracted from about 100 leading journals. To access a ChemInform Abstract of an article which was published elsewhere, please select a “Full Text” option. The original article is trackable via the “References” option.