Search

The harmfulness of Alternaria leaf blight on potatoes has increased significantly in recent years in the North-West of Russia. For effective protection of potato plantings from the disease it is extremely important to detect it promptly. For that purpose the ground-based portable spectroradiometer PSR-1100 with a measurement range from 320 to 1100 nm was used. The study was conducted at the experimental station of Menkovo branch of Agrophysical research institute located in Gatchina district of Leningrad region. The result of the study revealed that even in case with a slight damage of potato plants with Alternaria leaf blight (less than 10% of the leaf surface) there were significant changes in the values of the reflectivity of potato leaves were recorded by the device in the near infrared part of the spectrum especially with severe damage to the leaf surface (25-50% of the leaf surface). At the same time there were no significant differences in the entire measured wavelength range (320-1100 nm) in plants with Alternaria leaf blight damage to 25% of the leaf surface. Thus, the detection of Alternaria leaf blight in potato plantings is practicable by means of ground-based hyperspectral measurements.

Current trends in climate change associated with the growth of heat supply contribute to the growth of bioclimatic potential and the increase in productivity of grain crops in the North-West of Russia. In such conditions, research is relevant aimed at clarifying the contribution of weather conditions and anthropogenic activity in the formation of the crop. The research was conducted on the crops of winter rye, spring barley, winter wheat, and spring wheat of the experimental landfill of the Menkovsky branch of the Agrophysical Research Institute. We studied various factors of anthropogenic activity, such as the level of mineral or nitrogen nutrition, an integrated plant protection system, seeding rates, and the size of seed material. Variance analysis was used in statistical processing. According to the results obtained, weather conditions were the most significant factor of productivity for winter cereals, and mineral nutrition was crucial for spring crops. The integrated protection system was less important than both the weather conditions of the growing season and the background of mineral nutrition of cultivated plants. This factor appeared to be the least significant for winter rye, which often has a favorable phytosanitary situation. The novelty of the data obtained lies in determining the predominant value in varying the yield of nitrogen fertilizers and herbicide treatment for spring wheat. A little less critical were the seeding rate and the size of the seed material.

For effective control of the phytosanitary state of agrocenoses, it is important to have knowledge of the influence of abiotic and anthropogenic factors on the population density of pests, weeds and the development of diseases. Among all the factors influencing the development of Alternaria leaf spot in potato planting in the North-West of Russia, the most significant was the influence of weather conditions (55.5%). The intense development of this illness occurred in the years with the high average diurnal temperatures in the second and third decades of June along with the high level of precipitation in the first decade of July. The contribution of mineral nutrition and the integrated plant protection system turned out to be unequal, which accounted for 9.6 and 0.9%. At the same time, in some years, the application of mineral fertilizers determined the development of potato Alternaria leaf spot by 11.6–87.5%, and the implementation of protective measures – by 1.2–17.6%. The strong development of Alternaria leaf spot was influenced by the increased air temperatures in the second and third decades of June, combined with abundant humidity in the first decade of July. The introduction of complete mineral fertilization led to a significant decrease in the development of Alternaria leaf spot in potato plantings, while the effectiveness of fungicidal treatments was not high enough.

Data on the influence of abiotic and anthropogenic factors on the formation of crop productivity are important for the productive process management system. This work examines the results of a long-term study of the influence of abiotic (weather conditions) and anthropogenic (mineral fertilizers, an integrated plant protection system) factors on the formation of potato productivity in the North-West region of the Russian Federation. Weather conditions were the most significant (23.6%) among all the factors affecting the potato yield in the North-West region of the Russian Federation. Integrated plant protection and mineral nutrition had approximately equal contribution to the yield, i.e. 16.6% and 18.6% accordingly. In 2012–2020, additional potato yield reached 56–65% on average under the influence of mineral fertilizers, depending on their dose, and 37–56% under the influence of integrated plant protection Program. The combined influence of these two factors, taking into account the effect of interaction, led to an increase of the potato yield by 114-157% as compared with the actual yield on unfertilized and unprotected control (143 centners per hectare).

Objective: Demographic and disease factors are associated with cognitive deficits and postoperative cognitive declines in adults with pharmacoresistant temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), but the role of genetic factors in cognition in TLE is not well understood. Polygenic scores (PGS) for neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders and IQ have been associated with cognition in patient and healthy populations. In this exploratory study, we examined the relationship between PGS for Alzheimer's disease (AD), depression, and IQ and cognitive outcomes in adults with TLE., Methods: 202 adults with pharmacoresistant TLE had genotyping and completed neuropsychological evaluations as part of a presurgical work-up. A subset (n = 116) underwent temporal lobe resection and returned for postoperative cognitive testing. Logistic regression was used to determine if PGS for AD, depression, and IQ predicted baseline domain-specific cognitive function and cognitive phenotypes as well as postoperative language and memory decline., Results: No significant findings survived correction for multiple comparisons. Prior to correction, higher PGS for AD and depression (i.e., increased genetic risk for the disorder), but lower PGS for IQ (i.e., decreased genetic likelihood of high IQ) appeared possibly associated with baseline cognitive impairment in TLE. In comparison, higher PGS for AD and IQ appeared as possible risk factors for cognitive decline following temporal lobectomy, while the possible relationship between PGS for depression and post-operative cognitive outcome was mixed., Significance: We did not observe any relationships of large effect between PGS and cognitive function or postsurgical outcome; however, results highlight several promising trends in the data that warrant future investigation in larger samples better powered to detect small genetic effects., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Variants in monogenic epilepsy genes can cause phenotypes of varying severity. For example, pathogenic variants in the SCN1A gene can cause the severe, sporadic, and drug-resistant Dravet syndrome or the milder familiar GEFS + syndrome. We hypothesized that coding variants in epilepsy-associated genes could lead to other disease-related phenotypes in the general population. We selected 127 established monogenic epilepsy genes and explored rare loss-of-function (LoF) variant associations with 3700 phenotypes across 281,850 individuals from the UK Biobank with whole-exome sequencing data. For 5.5% of epilepsy genes, we found significant associations of LoF variants with non-epilepsy phenotypes, mostly related to mental health. These findings suggest that LoF variants in epilepsy genes are associated with neurological or psychiatric phenotypes in the general population. The evidence provided may warrant further research and genetic screening of patients with atypical presentation and inform clinical care of comorbid disorders in individuals with monogenic epilepsy forms., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to European Society of Human Genetics.)

Epilepsy surgery is an effective treatment option for drug-resistant focal epilepsy patients with associated structural brain lesions. However, little epidemiological data are available regarding the number of patients with these lesions. We reviewed data regarding (1) the prevalence and incidence of epilepsy; (2) the proportion of epilepsy patients with focal epilepsy, drug-resistant epilepsy, and drug-resistant focal epilepsies; and (3) the number of epilepsy presurgical evaluations and surgical resections. We also assessed the relative proportion of brain lesions using post-surgical histopathological findings from 541 surgical patients from the Cleveland Clinic and 9,523 patients from a European multi-center cohort. Data were combined to generate surgical candidate incidence and prevalence estimates and the first lesion-specific estimates for hippocampal sclerosis (HS), low-grade epilepsy-associated brain tumors (LEAT), malformations of cortical development (MCD), glial scars, vascular malformations, and encephalitis. The most frequently diagnosed brain lesions were HS (incidence = 2.32 ± 0.26 in 100,000, prevalence = 19.40 ± 2.16 in 100,000) for adults and MCD (incidence = 1.15 ± 0.34 in 100,000, prevalence = 6.52 ± 1.89 in 100,000) for children. Our estimates can guide patient advocacy groups, clinicians, researchers, policymakers in education, development of health care strategy, resource allocation, and reimbursement schedules., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2022 The Authors.)