Prevalence and risk of Down syndrome in monozygotic and dizygotic multiple pregnancies in Europe: implications for prenatal screening.

OBJECTIVE: To determine risk of Down syndrome (DS) in multiple relative to singleton pregnancies, and compare prenatal diagnosis rates and pregnancy outcome. DESIGN: Population-based prevalence study based on EUROCAT congenital anomaly registries. SETTING: Eight European countries. POPULATION: 14.8 million births 1990-2009; 2.89% multiple births. METHODS: DS cases included livebirths, fetal deaths from 20 weeks, and terminations of pregnancy for fetal anomaly (TOPFA). Zygosity is inferred from like/unlike sex for birth denominators, and from concordance for DS cases. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Relative risk (RR) of DS per fetus/baby from multiple versus singleton pregnancies and per pregnancy in monozygotic/dizygotic versus singleton pregnancies. Proportion of prenatally diagnosed and pregnancy outcome. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: Poisson and logistic regression stratified for maternal age, country and time. RESULTS: Overall, the adjusted (adj) RR of DS for fetus/babies from multiple versus singleton pregnancies was 0.58 (95% CI 0.53-0.62), similar for all maternal ages except for mothers over 44, for whom it was considerably lower. In 8.7% of twin pairs affected by DS, both co-twins were diagnosed with the condition. The adjRR of DS for monozygotic versus singleton pregnancies was 0.34 (95% CI 0.25-0.44) and for dizygotic versus singleton pregnancies 1.34 (95% CI 1.23-1.46). DS fetuses from multiple births were less likely to be prenatally diagnosed than singletons (adjOR 0.62 [95% CI 0.50-0.78]) and following diagnosis less likely to be TOPFA (adjOR 0.40 [95% CI 0.27-0.59]). CONCLUSIONS: The risk of DS per fetus/baby is lower in multiple than singleton pregnancies. These estimates can be used for genetic counselling and prenatal screening.

EuroPhenome: a repository for high-throughput mouse phenotyping data.

The broad aim of biomedical science in the postgenomic era is to link genomic and phenotype information to allow deeper understanding of the processes leading from genomic changes to altered phenotype and disease. The EuroPhenome project (http://www.EuroPhenome.org) is a comprehensive resource for raw and annotated high-throughput phenotyping data arising from projects such as EUMODIC. EUMODIC is gathering data from the EMPReSSslim pipeline (http://www.empress.har.mrc.ac.uk/) which is performed on inbred mouse strains and knock-out lines arising from the EUCOMM project. The EuroPhenome interface allows the user to access the data via the phenotype or genotype. It also allows the user to access the data in a variety of ways, including graphical display, statistical analysis and access to the raw data via web services. The raw phenotyping data captured in EuroPhenome is annotated by an annotation pipeline which automatically identifies statistically different mutants from the appropriate baseline and assigns ontology terms for that specific test. Mutant phenotypes can be quickly identified using two EuroPhenome tools: PhenoMap, a graphical representation of statistically relevant phenotypes, and mining for a mutant using ontology terms. To assist with data definition and cross-database comparisons, phenotype data is annotated using combinations of terms from biological ontologies.

Probabilidade de resposta da cana-de-açúcar à adubação potássica em razão da relação K+ (Ca2++Mg2+ )-0,5 do solo

O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar a probabilidade de resposta da produção de cana-de-açúcar à adubação potássica, em razão da relação K+ (Ca2++Mg2+ )-0,5 no solo. Foram compilados dados de 106 experimentos de adubação potássica na cana-de-açúcar. Em cada experimento foi registrado o ciclo de cultivo (cana-planta ou cana-soca), os teores de K, Ca e Mg do solo antes da adubação potássica, a relação K+ (Ca2++Mg2+ )-0,5, e se houve, ou não, resposta estatisticamente significativa da produção à adubação potássica. Foi utilizado o método estatístico de regressão logística, efetuado pelo procedimento CATMOD do Statistical Analysis System. A característica ciclo de cultivo foi eliminada do modelo, pois esta se apresentou como não-significativa no ajuste estatístico. A relação K+ (Ca2++Mg2+ )-0,5 do solo influenciou a probabilidade de resposta da produção de cana-de-açúcar à adubação potássica. À medida que a relação K+ (Ca2++Mg2+ )-0,5 aumentou, a probabilidade de resposta da produção de cana-de-açúcar à adubação potássica diminuiu. A relação K+ (Ca2++Mg2+ )-0,5 no solo foi classificada em baixa (<0,2547), média (0,2547 a 0,3349) e alta (>0,3349). A relação K+ (Ca2++Mg2+ )-0,5 no solo deve ser usada como mais um critério para orientar a adubação potássica na cultura da cana-de-açúcar.

Reduction of the bull: cow ratio in the Brazilian Pantanal

This work was conducted to study alternatives for reduction of the bull:cow ratio in the Brazilian lowland and, therefore, lower the production costs for the local beef cattle industry. The ratios 1:10, 1:25, and 1:40 were used in native pastures with a mean stocking rate of 0.27 mature animal unit per hectare over two consecutive breeding seasons. Statistical analysis did not show any effect (P>0.05) of year (P = 0.2097), animal category (P = 0.0773), bull:cow ratio (0.8134) on reproductive performance. However, the pregnancy rate in a multiple bull system was higher (P = 0.0228) than in the individual bull system. An evaluation of the economic impact of this management system in the extensive Lowland herds showed that at the ratio of 1:10 the bulls were sub utilized.