Greater Weight Research Articles

Pesticide exposure and asthma morbidity in children residing in urban, multi-family housing.

Children are potentially more susceptible to the adverse effects of pesticides due to more sensitive organ systems and lower capacity to metabolize and eliminate chemicals compared to adults. The health risks are particularly concerning children with asthma, living in low-income neighborhoods in multi-family housing because of their impaired respiratory health, and factors associated with low-income, multi-family environments. To assess the association between pesticide exposure and asthma morbidity among children 7-12 years residing in low-income, multi-family housing. The concentrations of seven urinary pesticide biomarkers: 3,5,6-trichloro-2-pyridinol (TCPy), 2-isopropyl-4-methyl-6-hydroxypyrimidine, para-nitrophenol (PNP), 3-phenoxybenzoic acid (3-PBA), 4-fluoro-3-phenoxybenzoic acid, trans-3-(2,2-dichlorovinyl)-2,2-dimethyl-cyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid, and 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) were measured. Children (n = 162) were followed for one year with three measures of pesticides biomarkers. Associations between individual biomarkers and asthma attack, asthma related health care utilization, and fraction of exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO), adjusting for demographic and household factors were examined with Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE). Weighted Quantile Sum (WQS) regression was used to examine the effect of pesticide mixture on asthma attacks and asthma-related health care utilization (HCU). In adjusted GEE models, positive non-significant associations were found between PNP and HCU (adjusted Odds Ratio(aOR):2.05 95% CI:0.76-5.52) and null associations for 3-PBA and HCU (aOR:1.07 95% CI: 0.88-1.29). Higher concentrations of PNP and 2,4-D were associated with significantly lower FeNO levels (PNP: -17.4%; 2,4-D:-19.74%). The mixture was positively associated with HCU in unadjusted (OR: 1.56 97.5% CI: 1.08-2.27) but not significant in adjusted models (aOR: 1.40 97.5% CI: .86-2.29). The non-specific pyrethroid biomarker 3-PBA at baseline contributed the greatest weight to the index (45%). There were non-significant associations between pesticide biomarkers and respiratory outcomes in children with asthma. There was a suggestive association between urinary pesticide biomarkers and HCU. Further studies with larger sample sizes could help to confirm these findings. Pesticide exposure among children in the urban environment is ubiquitous and there is a dearth of information on the impact of low-level chronic exposure in vulnerable populations. This study suggested that pesticide exposure at concentrations below the national average may not affect asthma morbidity in children. However, different biomarkers of pesticides showed different effects, but the mixture suggested increasing pesticide exposure results in asthma related HCU. The results may show that children with asthma may be at risk for negative health outcomes due to pesticides and the need to further examine this relationship.

Privacy, bias and the clinical use of facial recognition technology: A survey of genetics professionals.

Facial recognition technology (FRT) has been adopted as a precision medicine tool. The medical genetics field highlights both the clinical potential and privacy risks of this technology, putting the discipline at the forefront of a new digital privacy debate. Investigating how geneticists perceive the privacy concerns surrounding FRT can help shape the evolution and regulation of the field, and provide lessons for medicine and research more broadly. Five hundred and sixty-two genetics clinicians and researchers were approached to fill out a survey, 105 responded, and 80% of these completed. The survey consisted of 48 questions covering demographics, relationship to new technologies, views on privacy, views on FRT, and views on regulation. Genetics professionals generally placed a high value on privacy, although specific views differed, were context-specific, and covaried with demographic factors. Most respondents (88%) agreed that privacy is a basic human right, but only 37% placed greater weight on it than other values such as freedom of speech. Most respondents (80%) supported FRT use in genetics, but not necessarily for broader clinical use. A sizeable percentage (39%) were unaware of FRT's lower accuracy rates in marginalized communities and of the mental health effects of privacy violations (62%), but most (76% and 75%, respectively) expressed concern when informed. Overall, women and those who self-identified as politically progressive were more concerned about the lower accuracy rates in marginalized groups (88% vs. 64% and 83% vs. 63%, respectively). Younger geneticists were more wary than older geneticists about using FRT in genetics (28% compared to 56% "strongly" supported such use). There was an overall preference for more regulation, but respondents had low confidence in governments' or technology companies' ability to accomplish this. Privacy views are nuanced and context-dependent. Support for privacy was high but not absolute, and clear deficits existed in awareness of crucial FRT-related discrimination potential and mental health impacts. Education and professional guidelines may help to evolve views and practices within the field.

Patterns of mental healthcare provision in rural areas: A demonstration study in Australia and Europe.

Mental healthcare systems are primarily designed to urban populations. However, the specific characteristics of rural areas require specific strategies, resource allocation, and indicators which fit their local conditions. This planning process requires comparison with other rural areas. This demonstration study aimed to describe and compare specialized rural adult mental health services in Australia, Norway, and Spain; and to demonstrate the readiness of the healthcare ecosystem approach and the DESDE-LTC mapping tool (Description and Evaluation of Services and Directories of Long Term Care) for comparing rural care between countries and across areas. The study described and classified the services using the DESDE-LTC. The analyses included context analysis, care availability, placement capacity, balance of care, and diversity of care. Additionally, readiness (Technology Readiness Levels - TRL) and impact analyses (Adoption Impact Ladder - AIL) were also assessed by two independent raters. The findings demonstrated the usability of the healthcare ecosystem approach and the DESDE-LTC to map and identify differences and similarities in the pattern of care of highly divergent rural areas. Day care had a greater weight in the European pattern of care, while it was replaced by social outpatient care in Australian areas. In contrast, care coordination was more common in Australia, pointing to a more fragmented system that requires navigation services. The share between hospital and community residential care showed no differences between the two regions, but there were differences between catchment areas. The healthcare ecosystem approach showed a TRL 8 (the tool has been demonstrated in a real-world environment and it is ready for release and general use) and an AIL of 5 (the target public agencies provided resources for its completion). Two experts evaluated the readiness of the use of DESDE-LTC in their respective regional studies. All of them were classified using the TRL. In conclusion, this study strongly supports gathering data on the provision of care in rural areas using standardized methods to inform rural service planning. It provides information on context and service availability, capacity and balance of care that may improve, directly or through subsequent analyses, the management and planning of services in rural areas.

Virginia Museum of History & Culture. Jamie O. Bosket

<i>Virginia Museum of History &amp; Culture. Jamie O. Bosket</i>

Determining Alternative Crops with Multi Criteria Decision Making Methods within the Framework of Land Risk Criteria

Natural, societal, and economic hazards have a negative impact on agricultural production. In the field of agriculture, productivity studies are common, but election studies are rare. The goal of the study was to figure out which product to plant based on the region’s characteristics by anticipating risk factors in advance. The most appropriate crop kind to grow based on the risk variables faced in agricultural production was explored in this study. The nine risk factors in the Çukurova region, as well as three alternative crops, were determined for this study. Input costs, changes in climatic conditions, changes in yield loss due to pests, agricultural tools and machinery failure, theft, fire, crop damage due to excessive water, crop loss due to drought and lack of technical information were chosen as criteria. Citrus, cereal, and legume were chosen as alternative crops. First, using the Analytical Hierarchy Process method, the weights of the score were determined. As a consequence of the weighing, the input costs criterion had the greatest weight value of 0.29. The criterion with the lowest score was a lack of technical information (0.01). Then, using the steps of the Elimination and Choice Translating Reality English method, which is one of the Multi Criteria Decision Making methods, the best relevant alternative ranking was determined. The comparison was also done using the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solutions method. The cereal alternative was the best in both methodologies as a result of their application. In the first method, legumes and citrus were chosen, however in the second method, the opposite outcome was obtained.

A Comparative Study on Pre- and Post-operative Quality of life of Hernia patients

Hernia repair is one of the common surgical procedures performed all over the world. Sociodemographic factors as well as lifestyle do have a greater weight on the development of hernia. Open and laparoscopic techniques are available for hernia repair, although most of the patients prefer laparoscopic techniques to open surgical procedure due to its minimum invasive capacity, reduced wound infection, shorter hospital stays etc. While considering the risk involved with surgery, evaluating the patient’s quality of life both before and after surgery is critical. This study was conducted among 104 eligible hernia patients and their data were collected by interviewing them. The pre- operative quality of life eligible candidates is compared to post-operative quality of life using a scale called European Registry for Abdominal Wall Hernias Quality of life (QOL) assessment scale (EuraHS) consist of 9 questions, for an interval of 6 months for each patient. The most common hernia type, risk factors, causes and post-operative complications were also noted. It was found out that there was a significant hike in QOL of hernia patients after surgery. This study shows the effectiveness of EuraHS-QOL Score in QOL Assessment of hernia patients. This scale has an excellent reliability and applicability in both ventral and groin hernias.

Waitlist and posttransplantation outcomes of lean individuals with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

Lean individuals with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) represent a subset of patients with a distinct risk factor profile. We assessed the association between body mass index (BMI) on waitlist and postliver transplantation (LT) outcomes among these patients. We retrospectively analyzed the United Network for Organ Sharing data, including adult patients with NAFLD listed for LT between February 27, 2002, and June 30, 2020. We first used competing risk analyses to estimate the association of BMI with waitlist removal due to death or clinical deterioration. We then conducted Kaplan-Meier estimates and Cox regression models to determine the impact of weight change during the waiting list on all-cause mortality and graft failure after LT. Patients with normal weight (BMI 18.5-24.9 kg/m 2 ) suffered higher waitlist removal (adjusted subdistribution hazard ratio 1.26, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.10-1.43; p =0.001) compared with patients with obesity class I (BMI 30-34.9 kg/m 2 ). Those who remained at normal weight had higher all-cause mortality (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] 1.61, 95% CI 1.32-1.96; p <0.001) and graft failure (aHR 1.57, 95% CI 1.32-1.88; p <0.001) than patients with stable obesity. Among patients with normal weight, those with the greatest weight increase (BMI gain ≥3 kg/m 2 ) had lower all-cause mortality (aHR 0.55, 95% CI 0.33-0.93; p =0.03) and graft failure (aHR 0.49, 95% CI 0.30-0.81; p =0.01) compared with patients with stable weight (BMI change ≤1 kg/m 2 ). Patients with NAFLD with normal weight have increased waitlist removal and those who remained at normal weight during the waitlist period have worse posttransplantation outcomes. Identifying and addressing factors influencing apparent healthy weight prior to LT are crucial to mitigate poor outcomes.

Investigating the components of fintech ecosystem for distributed energy investments with an integrated quantum spherical decision support system

This study aimed to evaluate the components of a fintech ecosystem for distributed energy investments. A new decision-making model was created using multiple stepwise weight assessment ratio analysis and elimination and choice translating reality techniques based on quantum spherical fuzzy sets. First, in this model, the criteria for distributed energy investment necessities were weighted. Second, we ranked the components of the fintech ecosystem for distributed energy investments. The main contribution of this study is that appropriate strategies can be presented to design effective fintech ecosystems to increase distributed energy investments, by considering an original fuzzy decision-making model. Capacity is the most critical issue with respect to distributed energy investment necessities because it has the greatest weight (0.261). Pricing is another significant factor for this condition, with a weight of 0.254. Results of the ranking of the components of the fintech ecosystem indicate that end users are of the greatest importance for the effectiveness of this system. It is necessary to develop new techniques for the energy storage process, especially with technological developments, to prevent disruptions in energy production capacity. In addition, customers’ expectations should be considered for the development of effective and user-friendly financial products that are preferred by a wider audience. This would have a positive effect on fintech ecosystem performance.

Real-time determination of flowering period for field wheat based on improved YOLOv5s model.

The flowering period is one of the important indexes of wheat breeding. The early or late flowering affects the final yield and character stability of wheat. In order to solve the problem that it is difficult to accurately and quickly detect the flowering period of a large number of wheat breeding materials, a determination method of flowering period for field wheat based on the improved You Only Look Once (YOLO) v5s model was proposed. Firstly, a feature fusion (FF) method combing RGB images and corresponding comprehensive color features was proposed to highlight more texture features and reduce the distortion caused by light on the extracted feature images. Second, the YOLOv5s model was selected as a base version of the improved model and the convolutional block attention model (CBAM) was adopted into the feature fusion layer of YOLOV5s model. Florets and spikelets were given greater weight along the channel and spatial dimensions to further refine their effective feature information. At the same time, an integrated Transformer small-target detection head (TSDH) was added to solve the high miss rate of small targets in wheat population images. The accurate and rapid detection of florets and spikelets was realized, and the flowering period was determined according to the proportion of florets and spikelets. The experimental results showed that the average computing time of the proposed method was 11.5ms, and the average recognition accuracy of florets and spikelets was 88.9% and 96.8%, respectively. The average difference between the estimated flowering rate and the actual flowering rate was within 5%, and the determination accuracy of the flowering period reached 100%, which met the basic requirements of the flowering period determination of wheat population in the field.

Effect of probiotic lactobacilli supplementation on growth parameters, blood profile, productive performance, and fecal microbiology in feedlot cattle

Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) selected on the basis of probiotic characteristics were administered to beef feedlot catlle and the effect on body condition/growth and nutritional-metabolic status as well as on E. coli O157:H7 fecal shedding, were investigated. A feeding trials involving 126 steers were used to evaluate the effects of Lactobacillus acidophilus CRL2074, Limosilactobacillus fermentum CRL2085 and Limosilactobacillus mucosae CRL2069 and their combinations (5 different probiotic groups and control) when 107-108 CFU/animal of each probiotic group were in-feed supplemented. Cattle were fed a high energy corn-based diet (16 to 88%) and samples from each animal were taken at 0, 40, 104 and 163 days. In general, animals body condition and sensorium state showed optimal muscle-skeletal development and behavioral adaption to confinement; no nasal/eye discharges and diarrheic feces were observed. The nutritional performance of the steers revealed a steady increase of biometric parameters and weight. Animals supplied with L. mucosae CRL2069 for 104 days reached the maximum mean live weight (343.2 kg), whereas the greatest weight daily gain (1.27 ± 0.16 Kg/day) was obtained when CRL2069 and its combination with L. fermentum CRL2085 (1.26 ± 0.11 kg/day) were administered during the complete fattening cycle. With several exceptions, bovine cattle blood and serum parameters showed values within referential ranges. As a preharvest strategy to reduce Escherichia coli O157:H7 in cattle feces, CRL2085 administered during 40 days decreased pathogen shedding with a reduction of 43% during the feeding period. L. fermentum CRL2085 and L. mucosae CRL2069 show promise for feedlot cattle feeding supplementation to improve metabolic-nutritional status, overall productive performance and to reduce E. coli O157:H7 shedding, thus decreasing contamination chances of meat food products.

Differences by socioeconomic and school level in food acquisition of Mexican population

social or school factors influence the acquisition and selection of foods to be consumed. identifying the socioeconomic or school level that has the greatest weight in the acquisition of food in Mexican households. cross-sectional, retrospective and comparative study based on the database of the 2018 National Household Expenditure-Income Survey of Mexico. We worked with the national total of 73,274 Mexican households. The variables considered were: expenditure module of food and beverages, school grade of the head of the family and socioeconomic status to which the household belongs. For the statistical analysis, the following tests were used: linear regression analysis, as well as variance analysis, Snedecor's F test, post-hoc test and Schefé's confirmatory test. socioeconomic status has a greater weight (p < .001) for food acquisition. Sugary drinks were the most widely acquired in all social and school levels. The lowest social level is the one who acquires the most cereals, fats, sugars and legumes, while for high school levels animal foods and processed meats are the ones most frequently acquired. the socioeconomic level has a great weight in the acquisition and variety of foods, although this does not mean that foods obtained are the healthiest. Therefore, public policies are urgently required in favor of nutritional education at all school levels, which promote the purchase of healthy foods and compete with commercial advertising strategies.

Italian Bankers in France and Italian Wars

At the last stage of the Italian Wars (1494—1559), the military, political and, most importantly, financial superiority of the Habsburgs over the Valois became quite obvious. The Spanish king could make use of silver which was already coming quite regularly and in large quantities from the mines of the New World. He controlled the old (Augsburg — Ulm) and new (Besançon — Piacenza) centres of banking capital, as well as the commercial and financial heart of the emerging world economic system — Antwerp. But King Henry II of France (1547—1559) launched a series of daring reforms, sometimes far ahead of his time. The king could rely on a more developed bureaucracy than in other countries, on a state system that had reached an advanced level of centralization, and on the economy that was still on the rise, the ‘heart’ of which were the Lyon fairs that acquired international significance. In order to continue an active foreign policy, an unprecedented step was taken — not a royal official, but a Lyon banker of Italian origin, Albizzi Del Bene (Albisse Delbeyne), was appointed to the post of surintendent des finances. Thus, the government was able to use the experience and capability of the banking world for its own purposes. Under the conditions of the war, which was fought at a great distance from the borders of the kingdom, the circulation of money was greatly simplified and became more predictable. The surintendent, closely associated with the most powerful trading and banking house Gadagni (Gadagne) of Lyon, had great weight among Italian bankers who operated not only in Lyon, but also in Venice, Rome, and Tuscany. The reformers’ plans and the progress of reform can be fully appreciated by studying documents from the Lamoignon Collection (Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts, Moscow). Providing fairly clear guarantees based on the income from the Lyon fairs, the king, with the help of his surintendent and people from his entourage who were responsible for financing French policy in Italy (Constable Anne de Montmorency, royal secretary Jean Duthier), managed to attract huge sums (about 12 million Tours livres) which made it possible to resist a powerful enemy. A flexible combination of bills of exchange, clearing and other mechanisms allowed to transfer this amount of money to Italy. The crowning success of Del Bene was the creation of the Grand Parti de Lyon — a consortium of creditors to the French king. Some researchers claimed that its principles were quite comparable to the achievements of the 19th-century banking system. If there had been peace, the Grand Parti de Lyon could well have contributed to the repayment of the principal amount of borrowings and the dissolution of the accumulated interest debt. But politics had once again interfered with the economy. A new war, in which France was drawn against the will of the royal entourage, a chain of military defeats (the capture of Montmorency, the main patron of Del Bene, in 1557) and, finally, the unexpected death of Henry II shortly after the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559) put an end to bold economic reforms.

TECHNOLOGICAL FEATURES OF RESTORATION OF RIMS OF SUPPORT ROLLERS FOR TRACKED VEHICLES

The use of tracked (caterpillar) vehicles enables us to meet the requirements concerning harmless impact upon the environment, the considerable amounts of work to be fulfilled being saved. In particular, as compared to wheeled vehicles, there is less pressure upon the ground; there is also the opportunity to work in specific conditions of marshy, sandy, and low-bearing soils; stable performance in hard climatic conditions, etc. is also possible there. A necessary and important part of the tracked vehicle is its special suspension. Such a suspension contributes to smoother motion of the mechanism, it also cushions shocks, and ensures transmission of motion from the engine to the tracks. Independently of the design of the suspension, there are always several couples of support rollers. These rollers make up the intermediate link between the mover and the carrier frame, they transmit not only great weight but also the created loading, they guide the tractor’s caterpillars, etc. In the course of their work, the support rollers of tracked vehicles experience intensive wear and tear of the outer surface of their rims. As a result, changing them is necessary; dismounted ones are to be repaired. The use of restorative technology through overlaying (building up) by means of the electric arc is considered in this paper. This enables us to ensure cost savings and to repair support rollers of hardly loaded track vehicles. It is also possible to increase their serviceability by optimizing the overlayed metal; in particular, by increasing the hardness of the overlayed layer and increasing its resistance against impact and abrasive wear. The weldability of the main metal of a support roller has been analyzed. It is shown that the use of high-carbon material complicates the conditions for overlaying the outer rim. It is necessary to use pre-heating to high temperatures. This reduces the tendency of the material to form hardening structures and cracks after the overlaying. Investigations of peculiarities of overlaying a cylindrical surface of the rim of a tractor’s roller have been conducted. In particular, the limit values of the length of a weld pool depending on the diameter (value of wear) of the overlayed rim of a roller have been determined. It is shown that it is necessary to carry out the displacement of the arc from the zenith. This ensures the necessary formation of the weld-pool and the absence of spreading of the metal overlayed on the rim. The determination of the value of heat input of overlaying a roller has been carried out, the heat input is considered as a function of parameters of the electrode wire. Verification calculation of the obtained values of specific power for the permissible length of the weld-pool has been conducted. Concretization of the obtained results was carried out by taking into account the optimal range and permissible rate of cooling in overlaying the main material of a support roller. According to special nomograms, the dependence between the rate of cooling and the heat input of overlaying has been established. Especially, there were investigated the temperature conditions during overlaying the weld beads. It is shown that heating the roller takes place at the expense of neighboring weld beads. It is established that in overlaying at the determined values of heat input (per unit length) there can be achieved the temperature of auto heating is sufficient for the pre-heating of a roller.

Difficulties with emotion regulation and weight/shape concerns as predictors of eating disorder behaviors among adolescents.

Difficulties with emotion regulation are a proposed key transdiagnostic factor of mental health difficulties, including eating disorders. However, it remains unclear whether difficulties with emotion regulation prospectively predict engagement in eating disorder behaviors. The current study examined whether difficulties with emotion regulation were associated with eating disorder behaviors after 1 year, in addition to weight and shape concerns. A community sample of high school students (n = 3,074; 53.2% girls) completed self-report measures of eating behaviors, weight/shape concerns, and difficulties with emotion regulation at two timepoints, 1 year apart. Findings indicated that greater difficulties with emotion regulation were uniquely associated with engaging in binge eating, fasting, and purging after 1 year. However, only greater weight and shape concerns, not difficulties with emotion regulation, were uniquely associated with engaging in driven exercise. Limited associations were detected for the frequency of eating disorder behaviors. Additionally, exploratory analyses were conducted to examine potential onset and persistence of eating disorder behaviors. Few gender differences were observed across analyses, with the exception of driven exercise, which was linked to difficulties with emotion regulation only among adolescent boys, but not girls. Findings suggest that difficulties with emotion regulation are a distinct factor in the occurrence of some eating disorder behaviors among adolescents. Exploratory findings further suggest that difficulties with emotion regulation appear to be particularly involved in the persistence of these behaviors in adolescents. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Remaining Useful Life Prediction for Circuit Breaker Based on SM-CFE and SA-BiLSTM

Targeting at the uncertainty of the degradation of conventional circuit breakers (CCBs) and the perfect mechanical degradation characterization by vibration signals, a remaining useful life (RUL) prediction method based on similarity measure (SM), comprehensive features extraction (CFE) and self-attention bidirectional long short-term memory network (SA-BiLSTM) is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the degradation-sensitive intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) of the vibration signals are separated by the SM method, and the reconstructed signals are divided into intervals based on the working process of CCBs to obtain the vibration signals for life prediction. Secondly, the explicit parametric features (EPFs) are obtained based on the vibration events and waveform features, and the implicit parametric features (IPFs) are extracted using the multi-scale convolutional auto-encoder (MSCAE). Next, the comprehensive features are obtained by combination of the EPFs and IPFs. On this basis, the degradation mode judgment method is formed by using the least square method (LSM) linear fitting of the EPFs. Finally, a quantitative life prediction model based on SA-BiLSTM is constructed, and greater weights are assigned to the important time steps. The proposed method is proved to show high prediction accuracy and good stability, which is more advantageous compared with other hybrid prediction models.

Agrometeorological conditions in western Pará compared to agricultural production variables using principal component analysis

Description of the subject. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, soybean cultivation areas have been expanding in the Legal Amazon. Among the factors that contribute to the process of expansion of cultivation of grains in the Amazon, favorable climate conditions are one of the most important, and these include high rainfall indices and good thermal regimes during the cultivation period. Objectives. In this context, the objective of this study was to describe responses of soybean production as a function of climate variables, considering data from an important grain production center in the Amazon. Method. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used including the following response variables: rainfall (R), air temperature (T), real evapotranspiration, water stress (WST) and surplus, soybean area harvested (HVA), quantity produced (PD), occurrence of El Niño and La Niña (LAN). Results. Production variables were negatively correlated with precipitation and water surplus. There was also a negative correlation between El Niño, temperature and water stress. The variables that had greater weight in component 1 were R, T and WST. Considering component 2, the variables that most contributed to the variation were HVA, PD and LAN. Conclusions. The strong or severe occurrence of La Niña influences the soybean production in the region of Belterra-PA, due to the high rainfall index causing excess water in the soil, leading the plants to stress. The moderate occurrence of La Niña positively influences soybean production in the region to maintain the water supply at adequate levels for the plants. These results show the importance of monitoring climate variables for agriculture in the region.

What variables should inform needle length choice for deltoid intramuscular injection? A systematic review

Objectives(1) Assess the distribution of skin-to-deltoid-muscle distance (SDMD) at the deltoid intramuscular (IM) injection site; (2) its relationship with demographic and anthropometric variables and (3) Consider the findings in relation...

Parâmetros genéticos e seleção de linhagens de feijão-carioca resistentes à murcha-de-fusário

Abstract The objective of this work was to estimate genetic parameters and to select lines of carioca commercial bean group with high yield, great 100-seed weight, good grain appearance, and good resistance to fusarium wilt, disease caused by the fungus Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. phaseoli that inhabits the soil. A total of 114 lines coming from two populations were evaluated together with seven control genotypes in the winter crop season in the years/generations of 2015/F5:7 and 2016/F5:8. There is a genetic variability among the carioca common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) lines for all the traits evaluated, and the estimates of the genetic parameters show a possible successful selection for reaction to fusarium wilt, yield, grain appearance, and 100-seed weight. Twenty-four lines of carioca common bean that were selected combine high resistance to fusarium wilt, yield, 100-seed weight, and good grain appearance. CNFC 19126, CNFC 19205, and CNFC 19131 show a better performance than the control genotypes with the highest level of resistance, so their evaluation in multiple environments is recommended, aiming at new resistant cultivars to Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. phaseoli.

Prevention of Esophageal Stricture after Endoscopic Submucosal Dissection with an Autologous Esophageal Epithelial Cell Suspension: An Animal Study.

Severe esophageal stricture decreases patient's quality of life after circumferential endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD). We aimed to evaluate the efficacy of autologous esophageal epithelial cell suspensions in preventing esophageal stricture after circumferential ESD. Twelve male mini-pigs underwent circumferential ESD and were randomized into four groups: G1 (control), G2 (esophageal stent), G3 (autologous esophageal epithelial cell suspension), and G4 (autologous esophageal epithelial cell suspension combined with esophageal stent). Post-ESD status was observed in each group, and endoscopy was performed weekly. Esophageal stents were removed 3 weeks after ESD. The esophageal stricture rates and histologic characteristics were assessed 4 weeks after ESD. G1 showed the greatest weight loss (p < 0.05). Dysphagia scores were not significantly different among the groups. The esophageal mucosal stricture rates were 77.7 ± 2.9%, 74.2 ± 1.9%, 69.2 ± 3.8% and 65.9 ± 1.9% in G1-4, respectively; with the highest in G1 (G1 vs. G3, p = 0.005; G1 vs. G4, p = 0.001). The regenerated epithelium lengths were 4.408 ± 1.980 mm, 8.319 ± 0.857 mm, 11.801 ± 2.455 mm and 12.353 ± 1.111 mm in G1-4, respectively. The lowest degree of re-epithelialization was observed in G1, followed by G2, with the highest degrees in G3 and G4 (G1 vs. G3, p = 0.001; G1 vs. G4, p = 0.000). The maximum wound fibrosis thicknesses were 2.546 ± 0.389 mm, 2.136 ± 0.231 mm, 1.126 ± 0.211 mm and 1.131 ± 0.438 mm in G1-4, respectively, with higher degrees in G1 and G2 than in G3 and G4 (G1 vs. G3, p = 0.001; G1 vs. G4, p = 0.001). Autologous esophageal epithelial cell suspensions can promote re-epithelialization and reduce fibrosis, thus decreasing esophageal stricture severity after ESD.

ОСОБЕННОСТИ ВОСПРОИЗВОДСТВА И ПРОДУКТИВНОСТЬ СВИНОМАТОК ПРИ ПРОМЫШЛЕННОМ СКРЕЩИВАНИИ

It has been established that the breeding stock of swine on the farm complex is competed with the purebred Yorkshire animals, crossbreeds (Yorkshire × Landrace), for insemination of which the sperm production of boars of the Yorkshire, Landrace, Duroc breeds is used. The average fertilization rate of sows in the herd was 83.6%, including the combinations: Y × Y – 84.3%, Y × L – 84.6, YL × Y – 82.9 and YL × D – 81.2%. The highest prolificacy rate (12.43 heads) and the greatest number of piglets by the weaning time (10.81 heads) was in purebred sows of the Yorkshire breed when crossed with boars of the Landrace breed. The greatest weight of the litter at weaning (82.4 kg) and the safety rate of suckling piglets (92%) were in the crossbred (Yorkshire × Landrace) sows when crossed with the Duroc.