The drought-induced plasticity of mineral nutrients contributes to drought tolerance discrimination in durum wheat.

Drought is a major challenge for the cultivation of durum wheat, a crucial crop for global food security. Plants respond to drought by adjusting their mineral nutrient profiles to cope with water scarcity, showing the importance of nutrient plasticity for plant acclimation and adaptation to diverse environments. Therefore, it is essential to understand the genetic basis of mineral nutrient profile plasticity in durum wheat under drought stress to select drought-tolerant varieties.

Optimizing semen cryopreservation in Calomys laucha: a step forward in rodent reproductive research.

Background: Examining semen cryopreservation in Calomys laucha offers valuable insights for reproductive research and species conservation.

Objective: To determine the most effective sugar for the cryopreservation of C. laucha semen.

Cultural differences, intergenerational contacts, and the spread of Covid-19: Evidence from Swiss language regions.

The Covid-19 pandemic displayed large variations between and within countries in the speed of contagion and in observed fatality rates. This work sheds light on the role of social ties in old age, exploiting the high cultural variation between German-speaking and Latin- (French- and Italian-) speaking regions in Switzerland. We show that older adults in Latin-speaking regions exhibit a larger social network and more intergenerational contacts than their German-speaking counterparts.

Changes in the Phytochemical Profile and Antioxidant Properties of Fruits after the Application of a Commercial Biostimulant Based on Seaweed and Yeast Extract.

Plant biostimulants are formulations that are experiencing great success from the perspective of sustainable agriculture. In this work, we evaluated the effect derived from the application of a biostimulant based on algae and yeast extracts (Expando) on the agronomic yield and nutraceutical profile of two different cultivars ("Sugar Time" and "West Rose") of (peach). Although, at the agronomic level, significant effects on production yields were not recorded, the biostimulant was able to reduce the ripening time, increase the fruit size, and make the number of harvestable fruits homogeneous.

Combination of Poly(ε-Caprolactone) Biomaterials and Essential Oils to Achieve Anti-Bacterial and Osteo-Proliferative Properties for 3D-Scaffolds in Regenerative Medicine.

Biomedical implants, an essential part of the medical treatments, still suffer from bacterial infections that hamper patients' recovery and lives. Antibiotics are widely used to cure those infections but brought antibiotic resistance. Essential oils (EOs) demonstrate excellent antimicrobial activity and low resistance development risk.

Bioactive Compounds and Antioxidant Properties with Involved Mechanisms of DC Fruits.

In this study, the phytochemical profile and the antioxidative properties of fruits were evaluated. Spectrophotometric assays indicated that these berries are a rich source of polyphenols with very high radical-scavenging and metal-reducing activities. High-performance liquid chromatography-Orbitrap analysis was able to carry out the annotation of 36 different compounds, mainly belonging to the flavonol, flavan-3-ol, and anthocyanin families.

Saving lives during the COVID-19 pandemic: the benefits of the first Swiss lockdown.

The implementation of a lockdown to control the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a strong economic and political debate in several countries. This makes it crucial to shed light on the actual benefits of such kind of policy. To this purpose, we focus on the Swiss lockdown during the first wave of COVID-19 infections and estimate the number of potentially saved lives.

Nanocarried antioxidants in freezing extenders for boar spermatozoa.

Post-thawing cryoinjuries in boar spermatozoa due to oxidative stress may be reduced by adding nanoencapsulated antioxidants to freezing extenders. This study evaluated post-thawing kinetics, structural and biochemical functions of boar spermatozoa frozen with extenders including resveratrol and vitamin E loaded into polymeric nanocapsules. Resveratrol was added at 0 (control), 5, 10, 20, 40 and 80 µg/ml, whereas Vitamin E was added at 0 (control), 50, 100, 200 and 400 µg/ml.

Dimethylacetamide in Rooster Semen Cryopreservation.

Background: Sperm cryopreservation of cockerels is a major challenge, and so far there is no adequate information to enable commercial use of frozen semen.

Objective: To test the toxicity of dimethylacetamide (DMA).

Materials And Methods: DMA was added at 3%, 6%, 9% and 12% to the freezing diluent, and maintained for equilibration with the semen sample for 1 min, 3 min, 5 min, 7 min and 9 min prior to freezing.

Revisiting spontaneous Raman scattering for direct oxygen atom quantification.

In this Letter, the counterintuitive and largely unknown Raman activity of oxygen atoms is evaluated for its capacity to determine absolute densities in gases with significant O-density. The study involves ${\rm CO}_2$ microwave plasma to generate a self-calibrating mixture and establish accurate cross sections for the $^3{\!P_2}{\leftrightarrow ^3}{\!P_1}$ and $^3{\!P_2}{\leftrightarrow ^3}{\!P_0}$ transitions. The approach requires conservation of stoichiometry, confirmed within experimental uncertainty by a 1D fluid model.

Quercetin in equine frozen semen.

Unlabelled: 　　BACKGROUND: Supplementation of sperm diluents to reduce the damage caused by the freeze-thaw cycle is broadly used in equine semen cryopreservation.

Objective: The present study aimed at determining the most appropriate quercetin supplementation in equine freezing extender.

Materials And Methods: Quercetin at four different concentrations (0.

Non-equilibrium Microwave Plasma for Efficient High Temperature Chemistry.

A flowing microwave plasma based methodology for converting electric energy into internal and/or translational modes of stable molecules with the purpose of efficiently driving non-equilibrium chemistry is discussed. The advantage of a flowing plasma reactor is that continuous chemical processes can be driven with the flexibility of startup times in the seconds timescale. The plasma approach is generically suitable for conversion/activation of stable molecules such as CO2, N2 and CH4.

Optimization of the THP-1 activation assay to detect pharmaceuticals with potential to cause immune mediated drug reactions.

Despite important impacts of systemic hypersensitivity induced by pharmaceuticals, for such endpoint no reliable preclinical approaches are available. We previously established an in vitro test to identify contact and respiratory allergens based on interleukin-8 (IL-8) production in THP-1 cells. Here, we challenged it for identification of pharmaceuticals associated with systemic hypersensitivity reactions, with the idea that drug sensitizers share common mechanisms of cell activation.

Parallel Markov chain Monte Carlo - bridging the gap to high-performance Bayesian computation in animal breeding and genetics.

Background: Most Bayesian models for the analysis of complex traits are not analytically tractable and inferences are based on computationally intensive techniques. This is true of Bayesian models for genome-enabled selection, which uses whole-genome molecular data to predict the genetic merit of candidate animals for breeding purposes. In this regard, parallel computing can overcome the bottlenecks that can arise from series computing.

A primer on high-throughput computing for genomic selection.

High-throughput computing (HTC) uses computer clusters to solve advanced computational problems, with the goal of accomplishing high-throughput over relatively long periods of time. In genomic selection, for example, a set of markers covering the entire genome is used to train a model based on known data, and the resulting model is used to predict the genetic merit of selection candidates. Sophisticated models are very computationally demanding and, with several traits to be evaluated sequentially, computing time is long, and output is low.

Thalidomide in the treatment of chronic hepatitis C unresponsive to alfa-interferon and ribavirin.

Immunomodulation of thalidomide is represented by the antiinflammatory effect through inhibition of tumor necrosis factor alpha and costimulatory effect on human CD8+ T cells. We investigated the efficacy and safety of a 24-wk course of thalidomide at a dosage of 200 mg/day in eight patients with HCV chronic hepatitis nonresponders to interferon alpha plus ribavirin. We observed a significant mean decrease of serum aminotransferases and gamma-glutamyltransferases of 39% and 61%, respectively (p = 0.

Combining rate-adaptive cardiac pacing algorithms via multiagent negotiation.

Simulating and controlling physiological phenomena are notoriously complex tasks to tackle and require accurate models of the phenomena of interest. Currently, most physiological processes are described by a set of partial models capturing specific aspects of the phenomena, and usually their composition does not produce effective comprehensive models. A current open issue is thus the development of techniques able to effectively describe a phenomenon starting from partial models.

[13C]Methionine breath test: a novel method to detect antiretroviral drug-related mitochondrial toxicity.

Objectives: A major side effect of antiretroviral drugs is nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI)-related mitochondrial toxicity, the in vivo diagnosis of which is difficult and not yet standardized. We used the [(13)C]methionine breath test to investigate hepatic mitochondrial oxidation in HIV-1-infected patients receiving antiretroviral therapy.

Patients And Methods: The [(13)C]methionine breath test was performed in healthy subjects (n=10), HIV-infected patients on antiretroviral therapy with (n=6) and without (n=15) hyperlactataemia and naive HIV-infected patients (n=11).

Anthropic agency: a multiagent system for physiological processes.

Multiagent systems are powerful and flexible tools for modelling and regulating complex phenomena. In fact, a way to manage the complexity of a phenomenon is to decompose it in such a way that each agent embeds the control model for a portion of the phenomenon. In this perspective, the cooperative interaction among the agents results in the controller for the whole phenomenon.