Towards diverse agricultural land uses: socio-ecological implications of European agricultural pathways for a Swiss orchard region.

Unlabelled: Diverse agricultural land uses are a typical feature of multifunctional landscapes. The uncertain change in the drivers of global land use, such as climate, market and policy technology and demography, challenges the long-term management of agricultural diversification. As these global drivers also affect smaller scales, it is important to capture the traits of regionally specific farm activities to facilitate adaptation to change.

Percutaneous coronary intervention in stable angina (ORBITA): a double-blind, randomised controlled trial.

Background: Symptomatic relief is the primary goal of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in stable angina and is commonly observed clinically. However, there is no evidence from blinded, placebo-controlled randomised trials to show its efficacy.

Methods: ORBITA is a blinded, multicentre randomised trial of PCI versus a placebo procedure for angina relief that was done at five study sites in the UK.

Non-destructive measurement of soybean leaf thickness via X-ray computed tomography allows the study of diel leaf growth rhythms in the third dimension.

Present-day high-resolution leaf growth measurements provide exciting insights into diel (24-h) leaf growth rhythms and their control by the circadian clock, which match photosynthesis with oscillating environmental conditions. However, these methods are based on measurements of leaf area or elongation and neglect diel changes of leaf thickness. In contrast, the influence of various environmental stress factors to which leaves are exposed to during growth on the final leaf thickness has been studied extensively.

Automatic detection of end-diastolic and end-systolic frames in 2D echocardiography.

Background: Correctly selecting the end-diastolic and end-systolic frames on a 2D echocardiogram is important and challenging, for both human experts and automated algorithms. Manual selection is time-consuming and subject to uncertainty, and may affect the results obtained, especially for advanced measurements such as myocardial strain.

Methods And Results: We developed and evaluated algorithms which can automatically extract global and regional cardiac velocity, and identify end-diastolic and end-systolic frames.

Open-source, vendor-independent, automated multi-beat tissue Doppler echocardiography analysis.

Current guidelines for measuring cardiac function by tissue Doppler recommend using multiple beats, but this has a time cost for human operators. We present an open-source, vendor-independent, drag-and-drop software capable of automating the measurement process. A database of ~8000 tissue Doppler beats (48 patients) from the septal and lateral annuli were analyzed by three expert echocardiographers.

Armin von Tschermak-Seysenegg (1870-1952): Physiologist and Co-'Rediscoverer' of Mendel's laws.

The 'rediscovery' of Mendel's laws in 1900 was a turning point in modern research of heredity/genetics. According to the traditional view, adopted and fostered by many textbooks of genetics, Mendel's principles were presented in the first half of 1900 simultaneously and independently by three biologists (H. de Vries, C.

Frame rate required for speckle tracking echocardiography: A quantitative clinical study with open-source, vendor-independent software.

Objectives: To determine the optimal frame rate at which reliable heart walls velocities can be assessed by speckle tracking.

Background: Assessing left ventricular function with speckle tracking is useful in patient diagnosis but requires a temporal resolution that can follow myocardial motion. In this study we investigated the effect of different frame rates on the accuracy of speckle tracking results, highlighting the temporal resolution where reliable results can be obtained.

Frequency of discrepancies in retracted clinical trial reports versus unretracted reports: blinded case-control study.

Objectives: To compare the frequency of discrepancies in retracted reports of clinical trials with those in adjacent unretracted reports in the same journal.

Design: Blinded case-control study.

Setting: Journals in PubMed.

Difficulty in detecting discrepancies in a clinical trial report: 260-reader evaluation.

Background: Scientific literature can contain errors. Discrepancies, defined as two or more statements or results that cannot both be true, may be a signal of problems with a trial report. In this study, we report how many discrepancies are detected by a large panel of readers examining a trial report containing a large number of discrepancies.

Discrepancies in autologous bone marrow stem cell trials and enhancement of ejection fraction (DAMASCENE): weighted regression and meta-analysis.

Objective: To investigate whether discrepancies in trials of use of bone marrow stem cells in patients with heart disease account for the variation in reported effect size in improvement of left ventricular function.

Design: Identification and counting of factual discrepancies in trial reports, and sample size weighted regression against therapeutic effect size. Meta-analysis of trials that provided sufficient information.

Non-invasive measurement of frog skin reflectivity in high spatial resolution using a dual hyperspectral approach.

Background: Most spectral data for the amphibian integument are limited to the visible spectrum of light and have been collected using point measurements with low spatial resolution. In the present study a dual camera setup consisting of two push broom hyperspectral imaging systems was employed, which produces reflectance images between 400 and 2500 nm with high spectral and spatial resolution and a high dynamic range.

Methodology/principal Findings: We briefly introduce the system and document the high efficiency of this technique analyzing exemplarily the spectral reflectivity of the integument of three arboreal anuran species (Litoria caerulea, Agalychnis callidryas and Hyla arborea), all of which appear green to the human eye.

Diel leaf growth of soybean: a novel method to analyze two-dimensional leaf expansion in high temporal resolution based on a marker tracking approach (Martrack Leaf).

Background: We present a novel method for quantitative analysis of dicot leaf expansion at high temporal resolution. Image sequences of growing leaves were assessed using a marker tracking algorithm. An important feature of the method is the attachment of dark beads that serve as artificial landmarks to the leaf margin.

Autologous bone marrow-derived stem cell therapy in heart disease: discrepancies and contradictions.

Background: Autologous bone marrow stem cell therapy is the greatest advance in the treatment of heart disease for a generation according to pioneering reports. In response to an unanswered letter regarding one of the largest and most promising trials, we attempted to summarise the findings from the most innovative and prolific laboratory.

Method And Results: Amongst 48 reports from the group, there appeared to be 5 actual clinical studies ("families" of reports).

High-to-low CO2 acclimation reveals plasticity of the photorespiratory pathway and indicates regulatory links to cellular metabolism of Arabidopsis.

Background: Photorespiratory carbon metabolism was long considered as an essentially closed and nonregulated pathway with little interaction to other metabolic routes except nitrogen metabolism and respiration. Most mutants of this pathway cannot survive in ambient air and require CO(2)-enriched air for normal growth. Several studies indicate that this CO(2) requirement is very different for individual mutants, suggesting a higher plasticity and more interaction of photorespiratory metabolism as generally thought.

The leaf reticulate mutant dov1 is impaired in the first step of purine metabolism.

A series of reticulated Arabidopsis thaliana mutants were previously described. All mutants show a reticulate leaf pattern, namely green veins on a pale leaf lamina. They have an aberrant mesophyll structure but an intact layer of bundle sheath cells around the veins.

Diel time-courses of leaf growth in monocot and dicot species: endogenous rhythms and temperature effects.

Diel (24 h) leaf growth patterns were differently affected by temperature variations and the circadian clock in several plant species. In the monocotyledon Zea mays, leaf elongation rate closely followed changes in temperature. In the dicotyledons Nicotiana tabacum, Ricinus communis, and Flaveria bidentis, the effect of temperature regimes was less obvious and leaf growth exhibited a clear circadian oscillation.

Transmission electron microscopic studies of stages of Histomonas meleagridis from clonal cultures.

Histomonas meleagridis is a 10-20 microm-sized flagellated protozoan, causing histomoniasis in gallinaceous birds. Different strains of H. meleagridis from different origins were used to establish clonal cultures, which can be traced back to a single cell.