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Many proponents of organic farming claim that it is a sustainable alternative to conventional agriculture due to its reliance on natural agro-inputs, such as manure based fertilizers and organic pesticides. However, in this analysis we argue that although particular organic farming practices clearly benefit ecosystems and human consumers, the social context in which some organic farms develop, limit the potential environmental benefits of organic agriculture. Specifically, we argue that certified organic farming’s increased reliance on agro-inputs, such as organic fertilizers and pesticides, reduces its ability to decrease global water pollution. We review recent research that demonstrates the environmental consequences of specific organic practices, as well as literature showing that global organic farming is increasing its reliance on agro-inputs, and contend that organic farming has its own metabolic rift with natural water systems similar to conventional agriculture. We use a fixed-effects panel regression model to explore how recent rises in certified organic farmland correlate to water pollution (measured as biochemical oxygen demand). Our findings indicate that increases in the proportion of organic farmland over time increases water pollution. We conclude that this may be a result of organic farms increasing their reliance on non-farm agro-inputs, such as fertilizers.

PDF file - 64K, Gene expression levels of EMT-TFs in the tested cell lines (HMLE, HMLE-TWIST, MCF-7, BT-474, SKBR-3, MDA-MB-231)

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Currently, there is extensive information about circulating tumor cells (CTC) and their prognostic value; however, little is known about other characteristics of these cells. In this prospective study, we assessed the gene transcripts of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition—inducing transcription factors (EMT-TF) and cancer stem cell (CSC) features in patients with HER2+ metastatic breast cancer (MBC). Epithelial cells were enriched from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) using antibody-coated anti-CD326 antibody (CD326+) magnetic beads, and the residual CD326− PBMCs were further depleted of leukocytes using anti-CD45 antibody-coated magnetic beads (CD326−CD45−). RNA was extracted from all cell fractions, reverse transcribed to cDNA, and subjected to quantitative reverse transcription PCR to detect EMT-TFs (TWIST1, SNAIL1, ZEB1, and TG2) as a measure of CTCs undergoing EMT (EMT-CTCs). In addition, PBMCs were analyzed using multiparameter flow cytometry for ALDH activity and CSCs that express CD24, CD44, and CD133. Twenty-eight patients were included in this study. At least one EMT-TF mRNA was elevated in the CTCs of 88.2% of patients and in the CD326−CD45− cell fraction of 60.7% of patients. The CD326−CD45− fraction of patients with elevated SNAIL1 and ZEB1 transcripts also had a higher percentage of ALDH+/CD133+ cells in their blood than did patients with normal SNAIL1 and ZEB1 expression (P = 0.038). Our data indicate that patients with HER2+ MBCs have EMT-CTCs. Moreover, an enrichment of CSCs was found in CD326−CD45− cells. Additional studies are needed to determine whether EMT-CTCs and CSCs have prognostic value in patients with HER2+ MBCs treated with trastuzumab-based therapy. Mol Cancer Ther; 11(11); 2526–34. ©2012 AACR.

Purpose: We used a clinical next-generation sequencing (NGS) hotspot mutation panel to investigate clonal evolution in paired primary and metastatic tumors.Experimental Design: A total of 265 primary and metastatic tumor pairs were sequenced using a 46-gene cancer mutation panel capable of detecting one or more single-nucleotide variants as well as small insertions/deletions. Mutations were tabulated together with tumor type and percentage, mutational variant frequency, time interval between onset of primary tumor and metastasis, and neoadjuvant therapy status.Results: Of note, 227 of 265 (85.7%) tumor metastasis pairs showed identical mutation calls. Of the tumor pairs with identical mutation calls, 160 (60.4%) possessed defining somatic mutation signatures and 67 (25.3%) did not exhibit any somatic mutations. There were 38 (14.3%) cases that showed at least one novel mutation call between the primary and metastasis. Metastases were almost two times more likely to show novel mutations (n = 20, 7.5%) than primary tumors (n = 12, 4.5%). TP53 was the most common additionally mutated gene in metastatic lesions, followed by PIK3CA and SMAD4. PIK3CA mutations were more often associated with metastasis in colon carcinoma samples.Conclusions: Clinical NGS hotspot panels can be useful in analyzing clonal evolution within tumors as well as in determining subclonal mutations that can expand in future metastases. PIK3CA, SMAD4, and TP53 are most often involved in clonal divergence, providing potential targets that may help guide the clinical management of tumor progression or metastases. Clin Cancer Res; 21(11); 2644–51. ©2015 AACR.

Supplemental Tables 1 and 2. Table 1. Germline single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) concordance between matched primary/metastasis pairs. Table 2. Mutations seen in tumor/metastasis pairs with identical signatures (non-divergent) for the two most common cancers studied: breast and colon carcinoma.

Communities of color and poor neighborhoods are disproportionately exposed to more air pollution—a pattern known as environmental injustices. Environmental injustices increase susceptibility to negative health outcomes among residents in affected communities. The structural mechanisms distributing environmental injustices in the USA are understudied. Bridging the literatures on the social determinants of health and environmental justice highlights the importance of the environmental conditions for health inequalities and sheds light on the institutional mechanisms driving environmental health inequalities. Employing a critical quantitative methods approach, we use data from an innovative state racism index to argue that systematic racialized inequalities in areas from housing to employment increase outdoor airborne environmental health risks in neighborhoods. Results of a multilevel analysis in over 65,000 census tracts demonstrate that tracts in states with higher levels of state-level Black–white gaps report greater environmental health risk exposure to outdoor air pollution. The state racism index explains four-to-ten percent of county- and state-level variation in carcinogenic risk and noncarcinogenic respiratory system risks from outdoor air toxics. The findings suggest that the disproportional exposure across communities is tied to systematic inequalities in environmental regulation and other structural elements such as housing and incarceration. Structural racism is an environmental justice issue.

This paper presents the deduction of a phenomenological-based semi-physical model (PBSM) for the gas humidification in a fuel-cell assembly. Unlike previously published models, the one proposed here includes the momentum transfer effects and their influences over simultaneous heat and mass transfers occurring into the process as a whole. These effects strongly affect the model precision due to the compressible characteristics of the air. High sensitivity of gas properties regarding changes in both pressure and temperature are also included by modelling the gas as a compressible fluid. The model reproduces the air–water vapour mixture behaviour from the compressor discharge to the fuel-cell inlet port. Since the air humidity and temperature conditions must be maintained at their set-points to guarantee an optimal fuel-cell performance, a model such as the one presented here can be used for designing any model-based control strategy towards achieving desirable operative conditions taking also into account the operational context of the considered assembly. The comparative assessment done with experimental data from a real test bench has shown the effectiveness of the proposed model in accurately reproduce the behaviour of such complex systems.

The capacity of a heat-treated sludge (HTS) to produce hydrogen from the mono- and co-digestion of corn (NW, pH 13.1) and brewery (BW, pH 3.8) wastewater was evaluated. The co-digestion of NW and BW was conducted with ratios (NW/BW) from 40/60 to 80/20 (vol/vol) at pH 6 and under different initial pH values (from 5.8 to 12.3) according to the substrates mixtures. With the initial pH adjusted to 6, the highest production (302 mL) occurred for the mono-digestion of NW, but hydrogen was produced in all incubations. For incubations under variable pH values, the highest hydrogen production was obtained with the ratio 60/40 (270 mL), followed by the ratio 65/35 (260 mL) with pH values of 10.8 and 10.4, respectively. The initial pH influenced the kinetic parameters, especially on maximum production and lag phase. For the ratio 60/40, with an alkaline pH value (10.4), the lag phase was delayed up to 122 h, but the highest volume of hydrogen was obtained with this condition. The Clostridium genus, present in all samples, could be associated as the main responsible for hydrogen production. Besides, the presence of Burkholderia genus, previously related to hydrogen production, was identified as the main involved in the culture at pH 10.8.

The NEXT collaboration: et al., The Neutrino Experiment with a Xenon TPC (NEXT) searches for the neutrinoless double-beta (0νββ) decay of 136Xe using high-pressure xenon gas TPCs with electroluminescent amplification. A scaled-up version of this technology with about 1 tonne of enriched xenon could reach in less than 5 years of operation a sensitivity to the half-life of 0νββ decay better than 1027 years, improving the current limits by at least one order of magnitude. This prediction is based on a well-understood background model dominated by radiogenic sources. The detector concept presented here represents a first step on a compelling path towards sensitivity to the parameter space defined by the inverted ordering of neutrino masses, and beyond., The NEXT Collaboration acknowledges support from the following agencies and institutions: the European Research Council (ERC) under the Advanced Grant 339787-NEXT; the European Union’s Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 (2014–2020) under the Grant Agreements No. 674896, 690575 and 740055; the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad and the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades of Spain under grants FIS2014-53371-C04, RTI2018-095979, the Severo Ochoa Program grants SEV-2014-0398 and CEX2018-000867-S, and the María de Maeztu Program MDM2016-0692; the Generalitat Valenciana of Spain under grants PROMETEO/2016/120 and SEJI/2017/011; the Portuguese FCT under project PTDC/FIS-NUC/2525/2014 and under projects UID/FIS/04559/2020 to fund the activities of LIBPhys-UC; the Pazy Foundation (Israel) under grants 877040 and 877041; the US Department of Energy under contracts number DE-AC02-06CH11357 (Argonne National Laboratory), DE-AC02-07CH11359 (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory), DE-FG02-13ER42020 (Texas A&M) and DE-SC0019223 / DE-SC0019054 (University of Texas at Arlington); and the University of Texas at Arlington. DGD acknowledges support from the Ramón y Cajal program (Spain) under contract number RYC-2015-18820. JM-A acknowledges support from Fundación Bancaria la Caixa (ID 100010434), grant code LCF/BQ/PI19/11690012, and from the Plan GenT program of the Generalitat Valenciana, grant code CIDEGENT/2019/049.

Placement of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) in obese patients has been challenging; however, cannulation risk in obese patients has not been clearly investigated. We therefore explored ECMO cannulation complications in this obese population. Data were reviewed from adult ECMO database from 2010 to 2019. Patients were stratified by body mass index (BMI) (normal weight [NW] [BMI 18.5-24.9], overweight [BMI 25-29.9], class I [BMI 30-34.9], class II [BMI 35-39.9], class III [BMI >40]). Patients with central cannulation were excluded from this study. Combined ECMO cannulation complications and survival data were retrospectively analyzed. There were 233 patients, 156 venoarterial (VA) ECMO patients (45 [28%] NW, 51 [33%] overweight, 37 [24%] class I, 12 [8%] class II, and 11 [7.0%] class III) and 77 venovenous (VV) ECMO patients (14 [18%] NW, 13 [17%] overweight, 17 [22%] class I, 11 [14%] class II, and 22 [29%] class III). There were significantly more cannulation site bleeds in VA class III (55%) patients compared with VA NW patients (22%), p = 0.006. There was no significant difference in cannulation site bleeding between BMI groups for VV ECMO. There was no difference in 30 day mortality, ECMO survival for all BMI groups in both VA and VV ECMO. There is significant increased risk of bleeding with peripheral VA cannulation of obese patients with BMI > 35. Cannulating surgeon should be aware of this bleeding risk in morbidly obese patient who undergo VA ECMO.

Background To review and discuss the current literature regarding socio-economic and racial disparities in the treatment of early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).Background: Lung cancer is the most lethal solid organ malignancy in the United States, with the second-highest incidence of new malignances for both men and women. While overall survival for lung cancer is improving, significant socioeconomic and racial disparities in outcomes for lung cancer persist. Methods Narrative review of peer reviewed literature synthesizing findings retrieved from searches of computerized databases, primary article reference lists, authoritative texts and expert options. Results The current incidence of lung cancer appears to be similar between White and Black patients. However, Black patients are substantially less likely to receive curative intent surgery. Mitigation strategies do exist to narrow this inequity. Lower socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with a higher incidence of lung cancer, lower utilization of surgery and poorer outcomes after surgery. Conclusions Race and SES remain closely linked to outcomes in lung cancer. Outcomes are still worse when controlling for stage and specifically, in early-stage disease, surgical therapy is consistently underused in Black patients and patients of low SES.

International audience; Mean values of the number of protons and neutrons of the primary fission fragments at scission are determined for the asymmetric fission of 16 fissioning isotopes, from Ac219 up to Np238. Our results confirm that the main asymmetric fission mode around the heavier uranium isotopes is indeed characterized by an average atomic number around 〈ZH〉=54 in the heavy fission fragments. However, they also unambiguously show a stabilization effect in the light fission fragments around 〈NL〉=52–54 in the neutron-deficient thorium and actinium isotopes. This is a clear signature that these deformed proton and neutron shell closures around 54 play a major role in the nuclear fission process. The evolution along the thorium chain shows that the neutron shell appears to be dominant in the asymmetric fission of the lighter thorium isotopes, in contrast to the heavier thorium isotopes for which the stabilization originates from the proton shell.

Thermal conduction of composites made from Kevlar® fabric and polyurethane (PU) mineral-filled elastomers was studied. Contact heat conduction was measured according to ISO 12127 standard (which measures the threshold time required for a 10°C increase throughout the sample). PU elastomer filled with TiO2 did not show significant differences in the threshold time for heat conduction as compared to neat PU elastomer although the values tended to be lower. The maximal threshold time was obtained for PU elastomer with TiO2 (125 s for a sample 8 mm wide). No significant differences in the threshold time were observed for other PU elastomers with either TiO2 filler or two added organic fire retardants. Composites made of both Kevlar® fabric/PU and Kevlar®/PU/Kevlar® complied with ISO 15538:2001 standard for firefighter clothing. The aim was to determine if recycled Kevlar® fabric could replace Nomex®, poly(m-phenylene isophthalamide), a costly material of choice in the textile industry for firefighter structural suits.

Background: Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is a rescue procedure used for cardiac and pulmonary dysfunction. Patients on ECMO often require blood transfusions to maintain oxygen delivery and recover from bleeding complications. Goals of the current study were to determine transfusion requirements while on ECMO, and incidence and transfusion requirements for bleeding complications. Methods: Packed red blood cell (PRBC) transfusions and bleeding complications were identified by retrospective chart review of patients on ECMO from 2010 to 2018 at our institution. Patients were categorized into those who did not bleed (group A) and those who bled (group B). Incidence, sites of bleed, and transfusion requirement for each bleeding were analyzed. Results: Among 217 patients including veno-arterial (VA) ( n = 148) and veno-venous (VV) ( n = 69) ECMO, we identified 62 patients without bleeding complications (group A) and 155 patients with bleeding complications (group B). In group A, transfusion requirement was 0.6 PRBC/day for VA-ECMO ( n = 42) and 0.2 PRBC/day for VV-ECMO ( n = 20) (p = 0.0015). In group B, number of PRBC given per event per day for bleeding complications during ECMO was mediastinal/thoracic bleed (83 events, 4.7 PRBC/event/day), gastrointestinal bleed (59 events, 4.8 PRBC/event/day), cannulation site bleed (88 events, 3.6 PRBC/event/day), and nasopharyngeal bleed (103 events, 2.8 PRBC/event/day). Thirty-day hospital mortality rate was co-related to transfusion requirement (area under ROC curve: 0.70). Conclusion: Patients without clinical bleeding still required transfusion, with higher rates observed with VA- than VV-ECMO. Transfusion requirements dramatically increased when patients developed various bleeding complications and had a significant impact on 30-day mortality rate.

Translation engineering and bioinformatics have accelerated the rate at which gene sequences can be improved to generate multi-epitope proteins. Strong antigenic proteins for tuberculosis diagnosis include individual ESAT6 and CFP10 proteins or derived peptides. Obtention of heterologous multi-component antigens in E. coli without forming inclusion bodies remain a biotechnological challenge. The gene sequence for ESAT6-CFP10 fusion antigen was optimized by codon bias adjust for high-level expression as a soluble protein. The obtained fusion protein of 23.7 kDa was observed by SDS-PAGE and Western blot analysis after Ni-affinity chromatography and the yield of expressed soluble protein reached a concentration of approximately 67 mg/L in shake flask culture after IPTG induction. Antigenicity was evaluated at 4 μg/mL in whole blood cultures from bovines, and protein stimuli were assessed using a specific in vitro IFN-γ release assay. The hybrid protein was able to stimulate T-cell specific responses of bovine TB suspects. The results indicate that improved E. coli codon usage is a good and cost-effective strategy to potentialize large scale production of multi-epitope proteins with sustained antigenic properties for diagnostic purposes.

[EN] Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are widely used state-of-the-art computer vision tools that are becoming increasingly popular in high-energy physics. In this paper, we attempt to understand the potential of CNNs for event classification in the NEXT experiment, which will search for neutrinoless double-beta decay in Xe-136. To do so, we demonstrate the usage of CNNs for the identification of electron-positron pair production events, which exhibit a topology similar to that of a neutrinoless double-beta decay event. These events were produced in the NEXT-White high-pressure xenon TPC using 2.6 MeV gamma rays from a Th-228 calibration source. We train a network on Monte Carlo-simulated events and show that, by applying on-the-fly data augmentation, the network can be made robust against differences between simulation and data. The use of CNNs offers significant improvement in signal efficiency and background rejection when compared to previous non-CNN-based analyses, This study used computing resources from Artemisa, co-funded by the European Union through the 2014-2020 FEDER Operative Programme of the Comunitat Valenciana, project DIFEDER/2018/048. This research used resources of the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported under Contract DE-AC02-06CH11357. The NEXT collaboration acknowledges support from the following agencies and institutions: Xunta de Galicia (Centro singularde investigacion de Galicia accreditation 2019-2022), by European Union ERDF, and by the "Maria de Maeztu" Units of Excellence program MDM-2016-0692 and the Spanish Research State Agency"; the European Research Council (ERC) under the Advanced Grant 339787-NEXT; the European Union's Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 (2014-2020) under the Grant Agreements No. 674896, 690575 and 740055; the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad and the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades of Spain under grants FIS2014-53371-C04, RTI2018-095979, the Severo Ochoa Program grants SEV-20140398 and CEX2018-000867-S; the GVA of Spain under grants PROMETEO/2016/120 and SEJI/2017/011; the Portuguese FCT under project PTDC/FIS-NUC/2525/2014 and under projects UID/FIS/04559/2020 to fund the activities of LIBPhys-UC; the U.S. Department of Energy under contracts number DE-AC02-07CH11359 (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory), DE-FG02-13ER42020 (Texas A&M) and DE-SC0019223/DE SC0019054 (University of Texas at Arlington); and the University of Texas at Arlington. DGD acknowledges Ramon y Cajal program (Spain) under contract number RYC-2015 18820. JMA acknowledges support from Fundacion Bancaria "la Caixa" (ID 100010434), grant code LCF/BQ/PI19/11690012. We also warmly acknowledge the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) and the Dark Side collaboration for their help with TPB coating of various parts of the NEXT-White TPC. Finally, we are grateful to the Laboratorio Subterraneo de Canfranc for hosting and supporting the NEXT experiment.

The Targeted Agent and Profiling Utilization Registry (TAPUR) Study, a phase II basket study, evaluates anti-tumor activity of commercially available targeted agents in patients with advanced cancers harboring genomic alterations known as drug targets. With no known genomic targets predictive of sensitivity to cetuximab, cetuximab was evaluated in patients with breast cancer (BC), non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and ovarian cancer (OC), without KRAS, NRAS, or BRAF mutations. Eligible patients with advanced BC, NSCLC, and OC received a cetuximab loading dose, then weekly infusions (250 mg/m2 over 60 min). A Simon two-stage design, requiring ten patients in stage I, was employed per each disease-specific cohort. The primary endpoint was disease control (objective response or stable disease for at least 16 weeks). If two or more patients in stage I achieved disease control, the cohort would enroll 18 more patients in stage II. Power and alpha of the design are 85% and 10%, respectively. Secondary endpoints included progression-free survival, overall survival, and safety. Patients with BC (n = 10), NSCLC (n = 10), and OC (n = 29) were enrolled between June 2016 and September 2018. No objective responses or stable disease for at least 16 weeks were observed in the BC and NSCLC cohorts. No objective responses and four patients with stable disease for at least 16 weeks were observed in the OC cohort. Six of 49 patients reported grade 3 or higher adverse events or serious adverse events at least possibly related to cetuximab. Cetuximab does not have clinical activity in patients with advanced BC, NSCLC, and OC without KRAS, NRAS, or BRAF mutations. NCT02693535 (26 February, 2016).