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BACKGROUND Ultrasound-guided transthoracic core needle biopsy (US-TCNB) is a promising method for establishing the correct diagnosis of mediastinal masses. However, the existing studies in this area are scant and with small samples. PURPOSE To evaluate the diagnostic value and the complication rate of US-TCNB, particularly large bore cutting biopsy in patients with mediastinal lesions. MATERIAL AND METHODS This retrospective study includes 566 patients with mediastinal lesions suspicious of malignancy evaluated between March 2004 and December 2018. Inclusion criteria 1. Patients with mediastinal lesions detected on thoracic CT scan; 2. Lesions more than 15 mm; 3. Negative histological diagnosis after bronchoscopic biopsy; 4. Normal coagulation status; 5. Cooperative patient; 6. Written informed consent. US visualization of the mediastinal lesions was successful in 308 (54.4%). In all of them, US-TCNB was performed. All patients with mediastinal lesions unsuitable for US visualization were evaluated for a CT-guided transthoracic needle biopsy (CT-TTNB), which was done if the presence of a safe trajectory was available (n = 41, 7.2%). All patients inappropriate for image-guided TTNB were referred to primary surgical diagnostic procedures (n = 217, 38.3%). RESULTS The US-TCNB is a highly effective (accuracy 96%, sensitivity 95%) and safe tool (2.6% complications) in the diagnosis of all subgroups mediastinal lesions. It is non-inferior to CT-TTNB (90%) and comes close to the effectiveness of surgical biopsy techniques (98.4%), but is less invasive and with a lower complication rate. CONCLUSION US-TCNB of mediastinal lesions is highly effective and safe tool which is particularly helpful in critically ill patients.In tropical dry forests, although seed germination and seedling establishment are in general limited by the seasonal availability of water, high interspecific variability, nonetheless, exists in terms of seedling traits and germination dynamics. Differences among species in seed germination and seedling traits may be related to other plant life-history traits, such that assessing these relationships may increase our understanding of factors influencing plant establishment, which would affect the regeneration pathways of tropical dry forest communities. In this study, taking into consideration the effect species' phylogeny, we evaluated the relationships of seed germination metrics (percentage, lag time, and rate of germination) and seedling types (i.e. cotyledons functional morphology), with plant life-history traits (growth form, seed mass, dispersal syndrome and dispersal phenology) for 110 species in a Neotropical dry forest in Mexico. A total of 92% of the species studied disperse their seeds during the dry season, mainly at the beginning of this season (66%), a strategy mostly associated with autochorous herbs. Seed germination was more frequent in species that dispersed seeds at the end of the dry season. Germination percentage was not related to any of the traits studied. However, germination lag time and rate were negatively related to seed mass, a trait that in turn depended on growth form and dispersal syndrome. The dominant seedling type in the community was phanerocotylar epigeal with foliaceous cotyledons (56%), which was mostly associated with small seed mass and herbaceous growth form. Our results provide evidence that several plant life-history traits explain an important part of the variation in seed germination and seedling characteristics observed among species. Therefore, these plant life-history traits may be useful for grouping species in terms of their establishment strategies and roles on the regeneration of tropical dry communities.PURPOSE The Polar OH1 is an optical heart rate (HR) sensor which can be used on different parts of the body. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the validity of the OH1 as well as a wrist worn heart rate device (Polar M600) during swimming. METHODS Twenty-six well-trained competitive swimmers performed a regular training session including different swimming intensities. During the training the swimmers wore a H10 HR sensor with Polar Pro strap (H10) underneath the swim suit, a Polar OH1 optical HR sensor (OH1) underneath the swimming cap at the temple, and a sports watch with optical HR sensor, Polar M600 smart watch (M600) on the wrist. RESULTS No difference in HRmax, HRmean and HRmin between H10 and OH1 were evident. The HRmax and HRmean obtained by the M600 was significantly lower than the obtained by H10 and OH1 (p less then 0.05). The ICC showed mostly excellent agreements between H10 and OH1 and poor to good agreements between H10 and M600. Bland-Altmann plot for M600 vs. H10 indicates upper and lower limits of agreement of -53.0 to 33.9 beats per minute. For OH1 vs. H10 the upper and lower limits of agreement were -26.9 to 24.7 beats per minute. Exarafenib solubility dmso CONCLUSION The Polar OH1 optical HR sensor is a valid tool to monitor HR of different intensities during swimming whereas the Polar M600 smart watch as a wrist worn device is less accurate.Molecular-based taxonomy, specifically DNA barcoding, has streamlined organism identification. For land plants, the recommended 2-locus barcode of rbcL and matK is not suitable for all groups, thus the second subunit of the nuclear internal transcribed spacer (ITS2) has received attention as a possible alternative. To date, evaluations of ITS2 have mostly been limited in scope to specific plant orders/families and single source material. Prior to using ITS2 to routinely characterize land plants present in environmental samples (i.e., DNA metabarcoding), a wet lab protocol optimized for bulk sample types is needed. To address this gap, in this study we determined the broad recoverability across land plants when using published ITS2 primer pairs, and subsequently optimized the PCR reaction constituents and cycling conditions for the best two performing primer pairs (ITS2F/ITSp4 and ITSp3/ITSu4). Using these conditions, both primer pairs were used to characterize land plants present in 17 diverse soils collecteduch as soil use a multiple primer pair approach.