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Abstract Purkinje cells in the cerebellum are among the largest neurons in the brain and have been extensively investigated in rodents. However, their morphological and physiological properties remain poorly understood in humans. In this study, we utilized high-resolution morphological reconstructions and unique electrophysiological recordings of human Purkinje cells ex vivo to generate computational models and estimate computational capacity. An inter-species comparison showed that human Purkinje cell had similar fractal structures but were larger than those of mouse Purkinje cells. Consequently, given a similar spine density (2/μm), human Purkinje cell hosted approximately 7.5 times more dendritic spines than those of mice. Moreover, human Purkinje cells had a higher dendritic complexity than mouse Purkinje cells and usually emitted 2–3 main dendritic trunks instead of one. Intrinsic electro-responsiveness was similar between the two species, but model simulations revealed that the dendrites could process ~6.5 times (n = 51 vs. n = 8) more input patterns in human Purkinje cells than in mouse Purkinje cells. Thus, while human Purkinje cells maintained spike discharge properties similar to those of rodents during evolution, they developed more complex dendrites, enhancing computational capacity.

Objective: To document the recovery of vascular services in Europe following the first COVID-19 pandemic peak. Methods: An online structured vascular service survey with repeated data entry between 23 March and 9 August 2020 was carried out. Unit level data were collected using repeated questionnaires addressing modifications to vascular services during the first peak (March – May 2020, “period 1”), and then again between May and June (“period 2”) and June and July 2020 (“period 3”). The duration of each period was similar. From 2 June, as reductions in cases began to be reported, centres were first asked if they were in a region still affected by rising cases, or if they had passed the peak of the first wave. These centres were asked additional questions about adaptations made to their standard pathways to permit elective surgery to resume. Results: The impact of the pandemic continued to be felt well after countries’ first peak was thought to have passed in 2020. Aneurysm screening had not returned to normal in 21.7% of centres. Carotid surgery was still offered on a case by case basis in 33.8% of centres, and only 52.9% of centres had returned to their normal aneurysm threshold for surgery. Half of centres (49.4%) believed their management of lower limb ischaemia continued to be negatively affected by the pandemic. Reduced operating theatre capacity continued in 45.5% of centres. Twenty per cent of responding centres documented a backlog of at least 20 aortic repairs. At least one negative swab and 14 days of isolation were the most common strategies used for permitting safe elective surgery to recommence. Conclusion: Centres reported a broad return of services approaching pre-pandemic “normal” by July 2020. Many introduced protocols to manage peri-operative COVID-19 risk. Backlogs in cases were reported for all major vascular surgeries.

Abstract One Health recognises the interdependence between the health of humans, animals, plants and the environment. With the increasing inclusion of One Health in multiple global health strategies, the One Health workforce must be prepared to protect and sustain the health and well-being of life on the planet. In this paper, a review of past and currently accepted One Health core competencies was conducted, with competence gaps identified. Here, the Network for Ecohealth and One Health (NEOH) propose updated core competencies designed to simplify what can be a complex area, grouping competencies into three main areas of: Skills; Values and Attitudes; and Knowledge and Awareness; with several layers underlying each. These are intentionally applicable to stakeholders from various sectors and across all levels to support capacity-building efforts within the One Health workforce. The updated competencies from NEOH can be used to evaluate and enhance current curricula, create new ones, or inform professional training programs at all levels, including students, university teaching staff, or government officials as well as continual professional development for frontline health practitioners and policy makers. The competencies are aligned with the new definition of One Health developed by the One Health High-Level Expert Panel (OHHLEP), and when supported by subjectspecific expertise, will deliver the transformation needed to prevent and respond to complex global challenges. One Health Impact Statement Within a rapidly changing global environment, the need for practitioners competent in integrated approaches to health has increased substantially. Narrow approaches may not only limit opportunities for global and local solutions but, initiatives that do not consider other disciplines or social, economic and cultural contexts, may result in unforeseen and detrimental consequences. In keeping with principles of One Health, the Network for Ecohealth and One Health (NEOH) competencies entail a collaborative effort between multiple disciplines and sectors. They focus on enabling practitioners, from any background, at any level or scale of involvement, to promote and support a transformation to integrated health approaches. The updated competencies can be layered with existing disciplinary competencies and used to evaluate and enhance current education curricula, create new ones, or inform professional training programs at all levels-including for students, teachers and government officials as well as continual professional development for frontline health practitioners and policymakers. The competencies outlined here are applicable to all professionals and disciplines who may contribute to One Health, and are complimentary to, not a replacement for, any discipline-specific competencies. We believe the NEOH competencies meet the need outlined by the Quadripartite’s (Food and Agriculture Organisation, United Nations Environment Programme, World Health Organisation, World Organisation for Animal Health) Joint Plan of Action on One Health which calls for cross-sectoral competencies.

Traditional methods used for real estate project valuation, such as the static Net Present Value, have some limitations, as these methods do not consider the possibility of a change in the initial conditions of the project or during its development. On the other hand, the real options approach allows for flexibility in evaluating a real estate project, improving the decision-making process as it helps identify the optimal strategy and timing for the construction phases. The paper deals with evaluating an actual real estate project in La Rioja (Spain) using different options to estimate its final Net Present Value. The results show that the real estate project would be profitable under several scenarios, although the valuations can vary significantly among the different types of options. This is because some options add more value to the project than others, depending on their cost and the uncertainty they eliminate. In contrast, the results obtained using the traditional static method would have led a real estate developer to discard the project completely, as its Net Present Value would have been negative. This confirms that the introduction of flexibility in real estate developments creates additional value by allowing developers and investors to dynamically react to changes in the market, thus making better investment decisions and finding real estate investment opportunities that otherwise would not be considered at all.

Este documento deve ser referenciado citando também a versão original em Inglês: Björck M, Earnshaw JJ, Acosta S, Bastos Gonçalves F, Cochennec F, Debus ES, Hinchliffe R, Jongkind V, Koelemay MJW, Menyhei G, Svetlikov AV, Tshomba Y, Van Den Berg JC, Esvs Guidelines Committee, de Borst GJ, Chakfé N, Kakkos SK, Koncar I, Lindholt JS, Tulamo R, Vega de Ceniga M, Vermassen F, Document Reviewers, Boyle JR, Mani K, Azuma N, Choke ETC, Cohnert TU, Fitridge RA, Forbes TL, Hamady MS, Munoz A, Müller-Hülsbeck S, Rai K. Editor's Choice - European Society for Vascular Surgery (ESVS) 2020 Clinical Practice Guidelines on the Management of Acute Limb Ischaemia. Eur J Vasc Endovasc Surg. 2020 Feb;59(2):173-218. Epub 2019 Dec 31. PMID: 31899099. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of European Society for Vascular Surgery. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejvs.2019.09.006

Abstract Background Dissecting the neurobiology of dance would shed light on a complex, yet ubiquitous, form of human communication. In this experiment, we sought to study, via mobile electroencephalography (EEG), the brain activity of five experienced dancers while dancing butoh, a postmodern dance that originated in Japan. Results We report the experimental design, methods, and practical execution of a highly interdisciplinary project that required the collaboration of dancers, engineers, neuroscientists, musicians, and multimedia artists, among others. We explain in detail how we technically validated all our EEG procedures (e.g., via impedance value monitoring) and minimized potential artifacts in our recordings (e.g., via electrooculography and inertial measurement units). We also describe the engineering details and hardware that enabled us to achieve synchronization between signals recorded at different sampling frequencies, along with a signal preprocessing and denoising pipeline that we used for data re-sampling and power line noise removal. As our experiment culminated in a live performance, where we generated a real-time visualization of the dancers’ interbrain synchrony on a screen via an artistic brain-computer interface, we outline all the methodology (e.g., filtering, time-windows, equation) we used for online bispectrum estimations. Additionally, we provide access to all the raw EEG data and codes we used in our recordings. We, lastly, discuss how we envision that the data could be used to address several hypotheses, such as that of interbrain synchrony or the motor theory of vocal learning. Conclusions Being, to our knowledge, the first study to report synchronous and simultaneous recording from five dancers, we expect that our findings will inform future art-science collaborations, as well as dance-movement therapies.

Abstract The financial manager faces two basic problems: first, the firm's investment or capital budgeting decision, and second, the financing decision. Capital investment and financing decisions are typically analyzed independently. [...]

Abstract Understanding the mechanisms involved in colonic epithelial differentiation is key to unraveling the alterations causing inflammatory conditions and cancer. Organoid cultures provide an unique tool to address these questions but studies are scarce. We report a differentiation system toward enterocytes and goblet cells, the two major colonic epithelial cell lineages, using colon organoids generated from healthy tissue of colorectal cancer patients. Culture of these organoids in medium lacking stemness agents resulted in a modest ultrastructural differentiation phenotype with low-level expression of enterocyte (KLF4, KRT20, CA1, FABP2) and goblet cell (TFF2, TFF3, AGR2) lineage markers. BMP pathway activation through depletion of Noggin and addition of BMP4 resulted in enterocyte-biased differentiation. Contrarily, blockade of the Notch pathway using the γ-secretase inhibitor dibenzazepine (DBZ) favored goblet cell differentiation. Combination treatment with BMP4 and DBZ caused a balanced strong induction of both lineages. In contrast, colon tumor organoids responded poorly to BMP4 showing only weak signals of cell differentiation, and were unresponsive to DBZ. We also investigated the effects of 1α,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (calcitriol) on differentiation. Calcitriol attenuated the effects of BMP4 and DBZ on colon normal organoids, with reduced expression of differentiation genes and phenotype. Consistently, in normal organoids, calcitriol inhibited early signaling by BMP4 as assessed by reduction of the level of phospho-SMAD1/5/8. Our results show that BMP and Notch signaling play key roles in human colon stem cell differentiation to the enterocytic and goblet cell lineages and that calcitriol modulates these processes favoring stemness features.

Abstract The rock glaciers of the Swiss National Park were the first in the world where in-situ measurements of surface displacement were undertaken, starting with the pioneering work of Chaix in 1918. Our research is focused on the four rock glaciers described by Chaix, bridging the historical data gap that existed between their early 20th-century measurements and the most recent observations. Through the application of photogrammetric techniques, we geomorphologically analyze the spatiotemporal evolution of rock glaciers in the region, and disentangle the interplay with their adjacent glaciers. We show that these rock glaciers are in different phases of degradation with a general trend of deceleration and loss of volume. Our findings reveal historical kinematic changes influenced by the hydrological contributions of adjacent glaciers, which were closely connected since the Little Ice Age but are now severely degraded. The observed hydrological control, suggests that ongoing climate-induced glacier degradation will likely result in a future scenario with limited new accelerations. Instead, a steady water flow from adjacent glaciers may sustain a gradual secondary creep, progressively slowing as permafrost degradation continues, driven by predicted warming and dry climatic conditions in the Alps.

Abstract The aim of this study was to evaluate the changes in the serum and salivary inflammatory markers induced by Diabetes mellitus (DM) in dogs and to assess the possible confounding effect of gingivitis. A panel of 13 cytokines was measured in the serum and saliva of dogs diagnosed with DM and compared with healthy dogs without gingivitis (control group 1; CG1) and dogs with gingivitis but otherwise healthy (control group 2; CG2). The results of the present study showed statistically significantly higher levels of IL-8, KC-like and MCP1 in the serum of dogs with DM compared to CG1 dogs. In the case of saliva, the DM group presented statistically higher GM-CSF, IL6, IL15, and MCP1 levels compared to CG1, and lower KC-like chemokine compared to CG2. Finally, gingivitis produced changes in saliva, with salivary levels of GM-CSF, IL-6, IL-7, IL-15, IP-10, KC-like, IL-10, IL-18, MCP1, TNFα being statistically significantly higher in the saliva of CG2 dogs compared to CG1. The results of the present study indicate that dogs with DM have altered cytokine levels in serum and saliva compared to healthy dogs. In addition, this study highlights the importance of taking oral health into account when determining cytokines in dogs, as gingivitis can significantly alter their concentrations. .

Obesity is defined as the excessive accumulation of adipose tissue and is currently the most common disease in cats. Similarly to humans, obesity negatively impacts the health and welfare of cats, predisposing them to many other disorders. The objective of this study was to compare the serum proteomes of normal-weight and overweight/obese cats, aiming to gain insights into the physiopathology of feline obesity and potentially identify new biomarkers. For this, serum samples from a total of 20 adult neutered domestic shorthair client-owned cats, ten normal weight and ten overweight/obese, were submitted to tandem mass tags labelling and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) analysis. A total of 288 proteins were detected in the serum samples. Out of these, 12 proteins showed statistically significant differences in abundance between control cats and cats with obesity, namely Ig-like domain-containing protein, Alpha-2-HS-glycoprotein, Complement C8 gamma chain, An-tithrombin-III, Serpin family A member 1, Complement factor H, C3-beta-c, Albumin, C4b-binding protein alpha chain, Alpha-1-B glycoprotein, Solute carrier family 12 member 4, and Fibronectin. Overall this report identifies new proteins involved and provides additional knowledge about the physiopathological changes related to feline obesity.

Equine Gastric Ulcer Syndrome (EGUS) is a widespread disease with a very high prevalence and importance in horses. It includes two conditions: Equine squamous gastric disease (ESGD), linked to acid disturbances, and Equine Glandular Gastric Disease (EGGD), associated with inflammation and immune system issues. In saliva, increased levels of immunological markers have been observed in this disease, indicating immune system involvement. In addition, changes in biomarkers of oxidative stress have been described. In horses, IgG and IgA are proteins that appear in saliva and serum and are considered to be the major proteins in specific immunity; however, their levels in horses with EGUS have not been previously studied. This report aims to evaluate IgG and IgA concentrations in the saliva and serum of horses with EGUS, measured by automated assays, and compare them with other biomarkers of the immune and oxidative stress system. This work validated the IgG and IgA assays in saliva and showed that IgA significantly increased in the saliva of horses with EGUS. When the correlation between IgG and IgA and other biomarkers of immune system issues and oxidative stress such as ADA, S100 A8-A9 (calprotectin), S100 A12 (calgranulin), uric acid, FRAS, and AOPP was studied, IgA in saliva showed a significant moderate correlation with adenosine deaminase, indicating its possible involvement in the immune reaction occurring in EGUS.