Thompsonbunn9972

OBJECTIVES Existing surgical sealants fail to combine design requirements, such as sealing performance, on-demand activation and biocompatibility. The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness and safety of the SETALIUM™ Vascular Sealant (SVS), a novel, on-demand activatable sealant, with the commercial sealant, BioGlue®, for the repair of vascular defects. METHODS In an in vivo porcine model, the use of SVS was compared with BioGlue, for sealing 2-mm defects of the carotid artery and jugular vein. Animals were followed for 7 days and 5 weeks (each time point and per experimental group, n = 4), respectively. The degree of stenosis and flow velocity was determined, and the local tissue response was evaluated. RESULTS In vivo incision closure succeeded in all cases, and SVS was superior in clinical usability, enabled by its on-demand activation. Unlike BioGlue, SVS use did not induce stenosis and was associated with physiological blood flow in all cases. Moreover, closure with SVS was associated with a low inflammatory reaction and no thrombus formation or intima proliferation, in contrast to BioGlue. CONCLUSIONS SVS demonstrated effective and rapid sealing of 2-mm vascular defects, with favourable biocompatibility compared to BioGlue. Thus, SVS seems to be an effective and safe vascular sealant. © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery. All rights reserved.The establishment and spread of non-native species often results in negative impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem function. Several species of saltcedar, Tamarix spp. L., have been recently naturalized in large portions of the United States where they have altered plant and animal communities. To test the prediction that saltcedar negatively affects invertebrates, we measured ant genera diversity and the activity density of the exotic isopod Armadillidium vulgare Latrielle (Isopoda Oniscoidea) for 2 yr using pitfall traps located within 30 5-m2 plots with or without saltcedar at a south-central Nebraska reservoir. From 2005 to 2006, we collected 10,837 ants representing 17 genera and 4,953 A. vulgare. Per plot, the average number of ant genera was not different between saltcedar (x̅ = 3.9) and non-saltcedar areas ( x̅ = 3.9); however, saltcedar plots were compositionally different and more similar from plot to plot (i.e., they had lower beta diversity than control plots) in 2005, but not in 2006. Isopods were likewise temporally affected with higher activity density (+89%) in control plots in 2005, but higher activity density (+27%) in saltcedar plots in 2006. The observed temporal differences occurred as the drought that initially enabled the saltcedar invasion became less severe in 2006. Combined, our results suggest that invertebrate groups like ants, which are generally omnivorous, may be better equipped than more specialized taxa like detritivores to withstand habitat changes due to invasions by non-native species, especially during extreme weather events such as prolonged droughts. © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail journals.permissions@oup.com.Importance More older adults are undergoing major surgery despite the greater risk of postoperative mortality. Although measures, such as functional, cognitive, and psychological status, are known to be crucial components of health in older persons, they are not often used in assessing the risk of adverse postoperative outcomes in older adults. Objective To determine the association between measures of physical, cognitive, and psychological function and 1-year mortality in older adults after major surgery. Design, Setting, and Participants Retrospective analysis of a prospective cohort study of participants 66 years or older who were enrolled in the nationally representative Health and Retirement Study and underwent 1 of 3 types of major surgery. Exposures Major surgery, including abdominal aortic aneurysm repair, coronary artery bypass graft, and colectomy. Main Outcomes and Measures Our outcome was mortality within 1 year of major surgery. Our primary associated factors included functional, cognitive, and p of 1-year mortality increased within the increasing risk factors present (0 factors 10.0%; 1 factor 16.2%; 2 factors 27.8%). Conclusions and Relevance In this older adult cohort, 223 participants (17%) who underwent major surgery died within 1 year and poor function, cognition, and psychological well-being were significantly associated with mortality. Measures in function, cognition, and psychological well-being need to be incorporated into the preoperative assessment to enhance surgical decision-making and patient counseling.Temperature is a critical abiotic factor impacting all aspects of the biology of organisms, especially in ectotherms. As such, it is an important determinant of the potential invasive ability of organisms and may limit population expansion unless organisms can physiologically respond to changes in temperature either through plasticity or by adapting to their novel environment. Here, we studied the African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis, which has become invasive on a global scale. We compared adults from an invasive population of western France to individuals from two populations in the native range in South Africa. We measured the thermal dependence of locomotor performance in adults given its relevance to dispersal, predator escape, and prey capture. Our results show significant differences in the limits of the 80% performance breadth interval for endurance with the French population showing a left shift in its limits congruent with the colder climate experienced in France. The French invasive population was introduced only about 40 years ago suggesting a rapid shift in the thermal physiology. Given that all individuals were acclimated under laboratory conditions at 23 °C for two months this suggests that the invasive frogs have adapted to their new environment. These data may allow the refinement of physiologically informed species distribution models permitting better estimates of future ranges at risk of invasion. Liraglutide clinical trial © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. All rights reserved. For permissions please email journals.permissions@oup.com.Plantations of non-native trees for commercial use are common practice in Europe. They are known to have severe ecological impacts on arthropod fauna by altering microclimatic conditions and reducing microhabitat diversity. However, the effect of plantation tree species on winter-active fauna is relatively unknown. Spiders are a diverse predatory arthropod taxon with strong effect on their prey populations. The composition of spider communities sensitively indicates changes in habitat structure. We established 40 sampling sites in five non-native pine and five native poplar plantations and collected spiders with pitfall traps for two winters in the Southern part of Hungary. We assessed the average height of vegetation and percentage cover of leaf litter, mosses, herbaceous vegetation, and shrubs to characterize habitat structure. We found species richness and activity density of spiders in the non-native compared to the native plantations, presumably due to the more temperate microclimate in pine than in poplar plantations. However, there was no significant effect of habitat structure and its interaction with forest type on species richness and activity density of spiders. Species composition of non-native and native plantation forests differed significantly. Furthermore, we identified six characteristic spider species of non-native plantations with preference for relatively moist habitat conditions. The single characteristic species, (Agroeca cuprea Menge, 1873) for the native plantations preferred dry and partly shaded habitats. We conclude that the effect of microclimatic differences and prey availability presumably overrides the effect of habitat structure on winter-active spiders. © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail journals.permissions@oup.com.Evolve and re-sequencing (E&R) studies investigate the genomic responses of adaptation during experimental evolution. Because replicate populations evolve in the same controlled environment, consistent responses to selection across replicates are frequently used to identify reliable candidate regions that underlie adaptation to a new environment. However, recent work demonstrated that selection signatures can be restricted to one or a few replicate(s) only. These selection signatures frequently have weak statistical support, and given the difficulties of functional validation, additional evidence is needed before considering them as candidates for functional analysis. Here, we introduce an experimental procedure to validate candidate loci with weak or replicate-specific selection signature(s). Crossing an evolved population from a primary E&R experiment to the ancestral founder population reduces the frequency of candidate alleles that have reached a high frequency. We hypothesize that genuine selection targets will experience a repeatable frequency increase after the mixing with the ancestral founders if they are exposed to the same environment (secondary E&R experiment). Using this approach, we successfully validate two overlapping selection targets, which showed a mutually exclusive selection signature in a primary E&R experiment of Drosophila simulans adapting to a novel temperature regime. We conclude that secondary E&R experiments provide a reliable confirmation of selection signatures that are either not replicated or show only a low statistical significance in a primary E&R experiment unless epistatic interactions predominate. Such experiments are particularly helpful to prioritize candidate loci for time-consuming functional follow-up investigations. © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution.Importance Detection, prognosis, and indicated interventions in individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR-P) are key components of preventive psychiatry. Objective To provide a comprehensive, evidence-based systematic appraisal of the advancements and limitations of detection, prognosis, and interventions for CHR-P individuals and to formulate updated recommendations. Evidence Review Web of Science, Cochrane Central Register of Reviews, and Ovid/PsychINFO were searched for articles published from January 1, 2013, to June 30, 2019, to identify meta-analyses conducted in CHR-P individuals. MEDLINE was used to search the reference lists of retrieved articles. Data obtained from each article included first author, year of publication, topic investigated, type of publication, study design and number, sample size of CHR-P population and comparison group, type of comparison group, age and sex of CHR-P individuals, type of prognostic assessment, interventions, quality assessment (using AMSTAR [Assessing the Methodological Quality of Systematic Reviews]), and key findings with their effect sizes.