Search

Genome or gene editing includes several new techniques to help scientists precisely modify genome sequences. The techniques also enables us to alter the regulation of gene expression patterns in a pre-determined region and facilitates novel insights into the functional genomics of an organism. Emergence of genome editing has brought considerable excitement especially among agricultural scientists because of its simplicity, precision and power as it offers new opportunities to develop improved crop varieties with clear-cut addition of valuable traits or removal of undesirable traits. Research is underway to improve crop varieties with higher yields, strengthen stress tolerance, disease and pest resistance, decrease input costs, and increase nutritional value. Genome editing encompasses a wide variety of tools using either a site-specific recombinase (SSR) or a site-specific nuclease (SSN) system. Both systems require recognition of a known sequence. The SSN system generates single or double strand DNA breaks and activates endogenous DNA repair pathways. SSR technology, such as Cre/loxP and Flp/FRT mediated systems, are able to knockdown or knock-in genes in the genome of eukaryotes, depending on the orientation of the specific sites (loxP, FLP, etc.) flanking the target site. There are 4 main classes of SSN developed to cleave genomic sequences, mega-nucleases (homing endonuclease), zinc finger nucleases (ZFNs), transcriptional activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs), and the CRISPR/Cas nuclease system (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat/CRISPR-associated protein). The recombinase mediated genome engineering depends on recombinase (sub-) family and target-site and induces high frequencies of homologous recombination. Improving crops with gene editing provides a range of options: by altering only a few nucleotides from billions found in the genomes of living cells, altering the full allele or by inserting a new gene in a targeted region of the genome. Due to its precision, gene editing is more precise than either conventional crop breeding methods or standard genetic engineering methods. Thus this technology is a very powerful tool that can be used toward securing the world's food supply. In addition to improving the nutritional value of crops, it is the most effective way to produce crops that can resist pests and thrive in tough climates. There are 3 types of modifications produced by genome editing; Type I includes altering a few nucleotides, Type II involves replacing an allele with a pre-existing one and Type III allows for the insertion of new gene(s) in predetermined regions in the genome. Because most genome-editing techniques can leave behind traces of DNA alterations evident in a small number of nucleotides, crops created through gene editing could avoid the stringent regulation procedures commonly associated with GM crop development. For this reason many scientists believe plants improved with the more precise gene editing techniques will be more acceptable to the public than transgenic plants. With genome editing comes the promise of new crops being developed more rapidly with a very low risk of off-target effects. It can be performed in any laboratory with any crop, even those that have complex genomes and are not easily bred using conventional methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zusammenfassung Bei posterioren Schulterschmerzen sollte an eine Pathologie im Bereich des N. suprascapularis gedacht werden. Der Nerv kann in seinem Verlauf an der Incisura scapulae eingeklemmt werden oder durch eine Ruptur der Rotatorenmanschette von seinem anatomischen Verlauf abweichen und unter Zug geraten. Dies kann ein Grund für persistierende Schmerzen auch nach erfolgreicher Rotatorenmanschettennaht sein. Diagnostisch ist die klinische und neurologische Untersuchung wegweisend, während die diagnostische, radiologisch kontrollierte Testinfiltration (Sonographie oder Durchleuchtung) den aktuellen Goldstandard darstellt. Die arthroskopische Dekompression an der Incisura scapulae ist eine sichere und zuverlässige Methode, den Nerv zu befreien. Verschiedene Studien zeigen eine Verbesserung der Muskelfunktion und führen zu einer Schmerzreduktion. Pain in the posterior area of the shoulder can be caused by pathologies of the suprascapular nerve. Pain may be due to neural entrapment while the nerve is passing through the suprascapular notch. A tear of the rotator cuff may cause traction, resulting in shoulder pain. This might be one of the reasons for persisting pain after successful rotator cuff repair. Neurological and clinical examinations are the most important elements of diagnosis while ultrasound or fluoroscopic diagnostic infiltration remains the current gold standard. Arthroscopic decompression in the area of the suprascapular notch is a safe and reliable procedure of releasing the nerve from entrapment. Various studies show an improvement of muscular function and pain relief after this procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: For a parabolic obstacle problem two equivalent -FEM discretization methods based on interior penalty discontinuous Galerkin in space and discontinuous Galerkin in time are presented. The first approach is based on a variational inequality (VI) formulation and the second approach on a mixed method in which the non-penetration condition is resolved by a Lagrange multiplier. The discrete Lagrange multiplier is a linear combination of biorthogonal basis functions, allowing to write the discrete VI-constraints as a set of complementarity problems. Employing a penalized Fischer–Burmeister non-linear complementarity function, the discrete mixed problem can be solved by a locally Q-quadratic converging semi-smooth Newton (SSN) method. The hierarchical a posteriori error estimator for the VI-formulation, which under the saturation assumption is both efficient and reliable, allows -adaptivity. The numerical experiments show improved convergence compared to uniform and -adaptive meshes. Furthermore, an a priori error estimate is given for the VI-formulation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Parasympathetic preganglionic neurons of the superior salivatory nucleus (SSN), which projects to the pterygopalatine ganglion (PPG), modulate salivation, lacrimation, and cerebrovascular tone. Our previous studies suggest that excitatory projections from the nucleus tractus solitarii modulate cerebrovascular tone by actions on SSN neurons. In this study we sought to test the hypothesis that N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) type glutamate receptors and vesicular glutamate transporters (VGLUT) are present in the SSN and that SSN neurons receive glutamatergic input. In six rats we injected tetramethylrhodamine dextran (TRD), a fluorescent tracer, unilaterally into the PPG to label SSN neurons. Four days later, rats were perfused and brain stem sections containing the SSN were processed for fluorescent immunohistochemistry for N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor subunit 1 (NMDAR1) and vesicular glutamate transporters (VGLUT1 and VGLUT2). Confocal laser scanning microscopy showed that 88±3% of TRD-labeled SSN neurons contained NMDAR1-immunoreactivity (IR). The surrounding neuropil contained numerous fibers labeled for VGLUT2-IR, but not VGLUT1-IR. Double fluorescent immunohistochemistry for NMDAR1 and VGLUT2 revealed that fibers containing VGLUT2-IR were often in close proximity to cell bodies or proximal dendrites of TRD-labeled SSN neurons that were positive for NMDAR1-IR. These studies support our hypothesis that NMDA receptors and VGLUT are present in the SSN. They further provide support for the suggestion that there are glutamatergic inputs to SSN neurons and would be consistent with an excitatory input that could regulate cerebrovascular tone. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Dynamic impacts on sunspot number (SSN), solar radio flux at 10.7 cm (F10.7) and amplitude antipodal (aa) index influencing long-term trends of total column ozone (TCO) obtained from three stations; Xianghe (39.975°N, 116.37 ° E), Linan (30.3°N, 119.73 ° E), and Kunming (25.03°N, 102.683 ° E) over China have been studied. Descriptive, regression and neural network training techniques are used from 1980 to 2018. The annual mean TCO concentrations are 333.61 ± 1.15 DU, 280.87 ± 0.58 DU, and 260.33 ± 0.49 DU at Xianghe, Linan, and Kunming stations, respectively. The mean monthly peak TCO values are ~417.13 DU (March), 316.79 DU (April), and 291.03 DU (April) at Xianghe, Linan, and Kunming, respectively. Irrespective of the decreasing seasonal trend during spring at Xianghe, the springtime TCO amount is greater than the TCO values in other seasons at all stations. Our analyses show direct forcing of SSN, F10.7, and aa on TCO changes throughout the different periods considered. At Xianghe, the value of r ranges between 0.09 and 0.48 and the p-value < 0.05 whereas the most contributing factor is aa index (about 40 %) to ozone enhancement. There is a dramatic improvement of the impact of the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO)-modulated (70 hPa and 50 hPa) SSN, F10.7, and aa on TCO during winter in all the stations particularly the aa, which appreciated from ~40 % to 66 %. Ozone is affected negatively during descending and low solar cycle (SC) phases whereas it enhances during ascending and high SC phases with 30 hPa QBO as the most active force of enhancement. Our finding is a profitable tool for atmospheric model development, which could be used to predict future phenomena. • At the higher latitude station, the springtime ozone is greater than the values in other seasons at all stations. • Analyses show direct forcing of SSN, F10.7, and Aa on TCO changes. • Improved impact of QBO-modulated SSN, F10.7 and Aa on TCO during winter particularly Aa which appreciated from ~40 % to 66 %. • Ozone is affected negatively during descending and low SC phases whereas it enhances during ascending and high phases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper summarizes the concept of privacy, reviews some of its underlying tenets and axioms, illustrates the drift toward a national counterprivacy posture in terms of events involving the Social Security number (SSN), and discusses new faces in terms of three case histories: the California action to require SSNs on driver's licenses, the effort by telephone companies to introduce calling number identification, and the aggregation of public records into dossier databases. Remedial actions by government and legislators are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Policymakers everywhere struggle to introduce therapeutic innovation while controlling costs, a particular challenge for the universal Italian National Healthcare System (SSN), which spends only 8.8% of GDP to care for one of the world's oldest populations. Oncology provides a telling example, where innovation has dramatically improved care and survival, transforming cancer into a chronic condition. However, innovation has also increased therapy duration, adverse event management, and service demand. The SSN risks collapse unless centralized cancer planning changes gear, particularly with Covid-19 causing treatment delays, worsening patient prognosis and straining capacity. In view of the 750 billion Euro "Next Generation EU", released by the European Union to relieve Member States hit by the pandemic, the SSN tapped a multidisciplinary research team to identify key strategies for equitable uptake of innovations in treatment and delivery, with emphasis on data-driven technological and managerial advancements - and lessons from Covid-19., Competing Interests: The authors report no declarations of interest., (© 2021 The Author(s).)

Background: Lifestyle diseases, because of adverse health behavior, are the foremost cause of death worldwide. An eCoach system may encourage individuals to lead a healthy lifestyle with early health risk prediction, personalized recommendation generation, and goal evaluation. Such an eCoach system needs to collect and transform distributed heterogenous health and wellness data into meaningful information to train an artificially intelligent health risk prediction model. However, it may produce a data compatibility dilemma. Our proposed eHealth ontology can increase interoperability between different heterogeneous networks, provide situation awareness, help in data integration, and discover inferred knowledge. This "proof-of-concept" study will help sensor, questionnaire, and interview data to be more organized for health risk prediction and personalized recommendation generation targeting obesity as a study case. Objective: The aim of this study is to develop an OWL-based ontology (UiA eHealth Ontology/UiAeHo) model to annotate personal, physiological, behavioral, and contextual data from heterogeneous sources (sensor, questionnaire, and interview), followed by structuring and standardizing of diverse descriptions to generate meaningful, practical, personalized, and contextual lifestyle recommendations based on the defined rules. Methods: We have developed a simulator to collect dummy personal, physiological, behavioral, and contextual data related to artificial participants involved in health monitoring. We have integrated the concepts of "Semantic Sensor Network Ontology" and "Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine—Clinical Terms" to develop our proposed eHealth ontology. The ontology has been created using Protégé (version 5.x). We have used the Java-based "Jena Framework" (version 3.16) for building a semantic web application that includes resource description framework (RDF) application programming interface (API), OWL API, native tuple store (tuple database), and the SPARQL (Simple Protocol and RDF Query Language) query engine. The logical and structural consistency of the proposed ontology has been evaluated with the "HermiT 1.4.3.x" ontology reasoner available in Protégé 5.x. Results: The proposed ontology has been implemented for the study case "obesity." However, it can be extended further to other lifestyle diseases. "UiA eHealth Ontology" has been constructed using logical axioms, declaration axioms, classes, object properties, and data properties. The ontology can be visualized with "Owl Viz," and the formal representation has been used to infer a participant's health status using the "HermiT" reasoner. We have also developed a module for ontology verification that behaves like a rule-based decision support system to predict the probability for health risk, based on the evaluation of the results obtained from SPARQL queries. Furthermore, we discussed the potential lifestyle recommendation generation plan against adverse behavioral risks. Conclusions: This study has led to the creation of a meaningful, context-specific ontology to model massive, unintuitive, raw, unstructured observations for health and wellness data (eg, sensors, interviews, questionnaires) and to annotate them with semantic metadata to create a compact, intelligible abstraction for health risk predictions for individualized recommendation generation. J Med Internet Res 2021;23(4):e24656 doi:10.2196/24656 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While global warming has been evolving over several decades, in particular years there have been considerable deviations of global temperature from the underlying trend. These could be explained by climate variability patterns and, in particular, by the major interplays of atmospheric and oceanic processes that generate variations in the global climatic system. Here we show, in a simple and straightforward way, that a rhythm of the major ocean-atmosphere oscillations, such as the ENSO and IPO in the Pacific as well as the AMO in the Atlantic, is indeed meaningfully influencing the global mean annual temperature. We construct time series of residuals of the global temperature from the medium-term (5-year) running averages and show that these largely follow the rhythm of residuals of three basic ocean-atmosphere oscillation modes (ENSO, IPO and AMO) from the 5-year running averages. We find meaningful correlations between analyzed climate variability and deviations of global mean annual temperature residuals that are robust across various datasets and assumptions and explain over 70% of the annual temperature variability in terms of residuals from medium-term averages. Unlabelled Image • The rhythm of ocean-atmosphere oscillation influences global temperature. • Atmosphere-ocean interplay explains deviations of global temperature from trend. • Correlation with ENSO and AMO indices explains 70% of global temperature variability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]