Composition, ileal amino acid digestibility and nutritive value of organically grown legume seeds and conventional rapeseed cakes for pigs

Selostus: Palkoviljojen ja rypsipuristeiden koostumus, aminohappojen ohutsuolisulavuus sekä rehuarvo sikojen ruokinnassa

Slits in container wall improve root structure and stem straightness of outplanted Scots pine seedlings

Abstract

The Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (version 4.0) factorial structure and its sensitivity in the treatment of outpatients with unipolar depression.

The 24-item Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS, version 4.0) enables the rater to measure psychopathology severity. Still, little is known about the BPRS's reliability and validity outside of the psychosis spectrum. The aim of this study was to examine the factorial structure and sensitivity to change of the BPRS in patients with unipolar depression. Two hundred and forty outpatients with unipolar depression were administered the 24-item BPRS. Assessments were conducted at intake and at post-treatment in a Crisis Intervention Centre. An exploratory factor analysis of the 24-item BPRS produced a six-factor solution labelled "Mood disturbance", "Reality distortion", "Activation", "Apathy", "Disorganization", and "Somatization". The reduction of the total BPRS score and dimensional scores, except for "Activation", indicates that the 24-item BPRS is sensitive to change as shown in patients that appeared to have benefited from crisis treatment. The findings suggest that the 24-item BPRS could be a useful instrument to measure symptom severity and change in symptom status in outpatients presenting with unipolar depression.

Stimulus-induced rhythmic, periodic or ictal discharges (SIRPIDs) in comatose survivors of cardiac arrest: Characteristics and prognostic value.

OBJECTIVES: To analyze the prevalence of stimulus-induced rhythmic, periodic or ictal discharges (SIRPIDs) in patients with coma after cardiac arrest (CA) and therapeutic hypothermia (TH) and to examine their potential association with outcome. METHODS: We studied our prospective cohort of adult survivors of CA treated with TH, assessing SIRPIDs occurrence and their association with 3-month outcome. Only univariated analyses were performed. RESULTS: 105 patients with coma after CA who underwent electroencephalogram (EEG) during TH and normothermia (NT) were studied. Fifty-nine patients (56%) survived, and 48 (46%) had good neurological recovery. The prevalence of SIRPIDs was 13.3% (14/105 patients), of whom 6 occurred during TH (all died), and 8 in NT (3 survived, 1 with good neurological outcome); none had SIRPIDs at both time-points. SIRPIDs were associated with discontinuous or non-reactive EEG background and were a robustly related to poor neurological outcome (p<0.001). CONCLUSION: This small series provides preliminary univariate evidence that in patients with coma after CA, SIRPIDs are associated with poor outcome, particularly when occurring during in therapeutic hypothermia. However, survival with good neurological recovery may be observed when SIRPIDs arise in the post-rewarming normothermic phase. SIGNIFICANCE: This study provides clinicians with new information regarding the SIRPIDs prognostic role in patients with coma after cardiac arrest.

Crustal structure and reflectivity of the Swiss Alps from 3-Dimensional seismic modeling. 2. Penninic Nappes

Surface geological mapping, laboratory measurements of rock properties, and seismic reflection data are integrated through three-dimensional seismic modeling to determine the likely cause of upper crustal reflections and to elucidate the deep structure of the Penninic Alps in eastern Switzerland. Results indicate that the principal upper crustal reflections recorded on the south end of Swiss seismic line NFP20-EAST can be explained by the subsurface geometry of stacked basement nappes. In addition, modeling results provide improvements to structural maps based solely on surface trends and suggest the presence of previously unrecognized rock units in the subsurface. Construction of the initial model is based upon extrapolation of plunging surface. structures; velocities and densities are established by laboratory measurements of corresponding rock units. Iterative modification produces a best fit model that refines the definition of the subsurface geometry of major structures. We conclude that most reflections from the upper 20 km can be ascribed to the presence of sedimentary cover rocks (especially carbonates) and ophiolites juxtaposed against crystalline basement nappes. Thus, in this area, reflections appear to be principally due to first-order lithologic contrasts. This study also demonstrates not only the importance of three-dimensional effects (sideswipe) in interpreting seismic data, but also that these effects can be considered quantitatively through three-dimensional modeling.

Prognostic and predictive value of centrally reviewed Ki-67 labeling index in postmenopausal women with endocrine-responsive breast cancer: results from Breast International Group Trial 1-98 comparing adjuvant tamoxifen with letrozole.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the prognostic and predictive value of Ki-67 labeling index (LI) in a trial comparing letrozole (Let) with tamoxifen (Tam) as adjuvant therapy in postmenopausal women with early breast cancer. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Breast International Group (BIG) trial 1-98 randomly assigned 8,010 patients to four treatment arms comparing Let and Tam with sequences of each agent. Of 4,922 patients randomly assigned to receive 5 years of monotherapy with either agent, 2,685 had primary tumor material available for central pathology assessment of Ki-67 LI by immunohistochemistry and had tumors confirmed to express estrogen receptors after central review. The prognostic and predictive value of centrally measured Ki-67 LI on disease-free survival (DFS) were assessed among these patients using proportional hazards modeling, with Ki-67 LI values dichotomized at the median value of 11%. RESULTS: Higher values of Ki-67 LI were associated with adverse prognostic factors and with worse DFS (hazard ratio [HR; high:low] = 1.8; 95% CI, 1.4 to 2.3). The magnitude of the treatment benefit for Let versus Tam was greater among patients with high tumor Ki-67 LI (HR [Let:Tam] = 0.53; 95% CI, 0.39 to 0.72) than among patients with low tumor Ki-67 LI (HR [Let:Tam] = 0.81; 95% CI, 0.57 to 1.15; interaction P = .09). CONCLUSION: Ki-67 LI is confirmed as a prognostic factor in this study. High Ki-67 LI levels may identify a patient group that particularly benefits from initial Let adjuvant therapy.

Diagnostic and prognostic value of antibodies against chimeric fibrin/filaggrin citrullinated synthetic peptides in rheumatoid arthritis

Introduction: Evidence suggests that citrullinated fibrin(ogen) may be a potential in vivo target of anticitrullinated protein/peptide antibodies (ACPA) in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We compared the diagnostic yield of three enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) tests by using chimeric fibrin/filaggrin citrullinated synthetic peptides (CFFCP1, CFFCP2, CFFCP3) with a commercial CCP2-based test in RA and analyzed their prognostic values in early RA. Methods: Samples from 307 blood donors and patients with RA (322), psoriatic arthritis (133), systemic lupus erythematosus (119), and hepatitis C infection (84) were assayed by using CFFCP- and CCP2-based tests. Autoantibodies also were analyzed at baseline and during a 2-year follow-up in 98 early RA patients to determine their prognostic value. Results: With cutoffs giving 98% specificity for RA versus blood donors, the sensitivity was 72.1% for CFFCP1, 78.0% for CFFCP2, 71.4% for CFFCP3, and 73.9% for CCP2, with positive predictive values greater than 97% in all cases. CFFCP sensitivity in RA increased to 80.4% without losing specificity when positivity was considered as any positive anti-CFFCP status. Specificity of the three CFFCP tests versus other rheumatic populations was high (> 90%) and similar to those for the CCP2. In early RA, CFFCP1 best identified patients with a poor radiographic outcome. Radiographic progression was faster in the small subgroup of CCP2-negative and CFFCP1-positive patients than in those negative for both autoantibodies. CFFCP antibodies decreased after 1 year, but without any correlation with changes in disease activity. Conclusions: CFFCP-based assays are highly sensitive and specific for RA. Early RA patients with anti-CFFCP1 antibodies, including CCP2-negative patients, show greater radiographic progression.

Structure and function of RecA-DNA complexes.

While the E. coli RecA protein has been the most intensively studied enzyme of homologous recombination, the unusual RecA-DNA filament has stood alone until very recently. It now appears that this protein is part of a universal family that spans all of biology, and the filament that is formed by the protein on DNA is a universal structure. With RecA's role in recombination given new and greatly increased significance, we focus in this review on the energetics of the RecA-mediated strand exchange and the relation between the energetics and recombination spanning heterologous inserts.

Bayesian Networks and the Value of the Evidence for the Forensic Two-Trace Transfer Problem

Forensic scientists face increasingly complex inference problems for evaluating likelihood ratios (LRs) for an appropriate pair of propositions. Up to now, scientists and statisticians have derived LR formulae using an algebraic approach. However, this approach reaches its limits when addressing cases with an increasing number of variables and dependence relationships between these variables. In this study, we suggest using a graphical approach, based on the construction of Bayesian networks (BNs). We first construct a BN that captures the problem, and then deduce the expression for calculating the LR from this model to compare it with existing LR formulae. We illustrate this idea by applying it to the evaluation of an activity level LR in the context of the two-trace transfer problem. Our approach allows us to relax assumptions made in previous LR developments, produce a new LR formula for the two-trace transfer problem and generalize this scenario to n traces.