Diversity of value-determining compounds in Daucus carota L.

Es wurden 100 Genotypen (Sorten) Kulturmöhren und 104 Genotypen Wildmöhren auf die Carotinoide alpha- und beta-Carotin, Lycopin und Lutein sowie auf die Polyacetylene Falcarinol, Falcarindiol und Falcarindiol-3-Acetat untersucht. Für die – wirtschaftlich sinnvolle - gleichzeitige Extraktion der Carotinoide und Polyacetylene aus den Karotten wurde ein neues Verfahren entwickelt. Durch beschleunigte Lösungsmittelextraktion (ASE) aus gefriergetrocknetem Karottenpulver wurden in einer ersten und einzigen Extraktion etwa 60 % bis 70 % der gesuchten Inhaltsstoffe aus der Probe gelöst. Damit ist das neu entwickelte Extraktionsverfahren gegenüber herkömmlichen Verfahren der Extraktion von Carotinoiden und Polyacetylenen aus Karotten um ein Mehrfaches schneller und effizienter. Polyacetylene konnten in signifikanter Konzentration nicht nur in Wildmöhren gemessen werden. Ein Zusammenhang zwischen hohen Polyacetylenkonzentrationen und hohen Zuckergehalten konnte in Kulturmöhren festgestellt werden. Die Gehalte an Carotinoiden und Polyacetylenen sind in Kulturmöhren im Wesentlichen sortenspezifisch und kaum von äußeren Bedingungen abhängig. Auch die unterschiedlichen Reaktionen der verschiedenen Genotypen auf die konkreten Standortbedingungen sind maßgeblich genetisch determiniert. Eine Korrelation zwischen den flüchtigen Inhaltsstoffen des Blattwerks der untersuchten Kulturmöhren und den untersuchten nicht-flüchtigen Inhaltsstoffen der Wurzeln besteht nicht. Ein Schnelltest des Blattwerks für Vorernteuntersuchungen von Karottenwurzeln kann daher nicht entwickelt werden. Ontogeneseversuche an je zwei Genotypen Wild- und Kulturmöhren bestätigten den maßgeblichen Einfluss der genetischen Disposition auf Zeitpunkt und Ausmaß der Bildung von Carotinoiden und Polyacetylenen. Bei Kulturmöhren zeigte Kältestress demgegenüber keine signifikanten Auswirkungen auf den Gehalt der untersuchten Carotinoide und Polyacetylene.The content of the non-volatile compounds in carrot including carotenoids, polyacetylenes and sugars were screened in 100 genotypes of cultivated carrots and 104 genotypes of wild carrots. Carotenoids included alpha- and beta-carotene as well as lutein and lycopene. As key compounds of the polyacetylenegroup falcarinol (FaOH), falcarindiol (FaDOH) and falcarindiol-3-acetate (FaDOH-3-acetate) were detected. For simultaneous extraction of the non-volatile carotenoids and polyacetylenes a new accelerated extraction method was developed. Using accelerated solvent extraction (ASE), 60 % to 70 % of carotenoids and polyacetylenes could be simultaneously extracted from lyophilised carrot powder during the first extraction. For this reason this newly developed extraction process linked with a fast HPLC-DAD and HPLC-MS analysis is faster and more efficient than the established methods. Significant polyacetylene contents were detected not only in wild carrot genotypes but also in the cultivated carrots. A positive correlation between polyacetylenes and sucrose contents in cultivated carrots could be detected. The carotenoid and polyacetylene contents in cultivated carrots are mostly influenced by the genetic background of the plant; environmental factors have only minor influence. In this study it was found that the genetic background has the main influence on the contents of the non-volatile compounds in the carrots in contrast to the influence of the growing place. An analysis of the volatile and non-volatile compounds in the roots of 100 cultivated carrot genotypes showed that there is no correlation between volatile and non-volatile compounds in the carrot root. Therefore, a rapid test for early selection of carrot roots is not possible. Ontogenesis studies confirmed the thesis that the content of carotenoids and polyacetylenes is mainly genetically controlled. An influence of cold stress on the contents of non-volatile compounds in cultivated carrots has not been found

Stabilization of cat-state manifolds using nonlinear reservoir engineering

We introduce a novel reservoir engineering approach for stabilizing multi-component Schr\"odinger's cat manifolds. The fundamental principle of the method lies in the destructive interference at crossings of gain and loss Hamiltonian terms in the coupling of an oscillator to a zero-temperature auxiliary system, which are nonlinear with respect to the oscillator's energy. The nature of these gain and loss terms is found to determine the rotational symmetry, energy distributions, and degeneracy of the resulting stabilized manifolds. Considering these systems as bosonic error-correction codes, we analyze their properties with respect to a variety of errors, including both autonomous and passive error correction, where we find that our formalism gives straightforward insights into the nature of the correction. We give example implementations using the anharmonic laser-ion coupling of a trapped ion outside the Lamb-Dicke regime as well as nonlinear superconducting circuits. Beyond the dissipative stabilization of standard cat manifolds and novel rotation symmetric codes, we demonstrate that our formalism allows for the stabilization of bosonic codes linked to cat states through unitary transformations, such as quadrature-squeezed cats. Our work establishes a design approach for creating and utilizing codes using nonlinearity, providing access to novel quantum states and processes across a range of physical systems.Comment: 31 pages, 14 figures. Comments welcom

Case Report: Acute myocarditis and cerebral infarction following Bothrops lanceolatus envenomation in Martinique: a case series

Bothrops lanceolatus (Bl), a snake endemic to Martinique, is responsible for numerous envenomations annually, leading to severe complications such as thrombosis, necrosis, and hemorrhage. This case series investigates the link between Bothrops lanceolatus envenomation and acute myocarditis, utilizing cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to enhance management strategies. In both cases, cardiac MRI confirmed myocarditis with edema, and subsequent cerebral MRI revealed bilateral infarcts. Elevated troponin levels further supported the myocarditis diagnosis. Multiple doses of Bothrofav® antivenom facilitated recovery without clinical after effects.These cases represent the first documented instances of myocarditis due to Bl envenomation confirmed via cardiac MRI. Prompt administration of antivenom and the use of advanced imaging techniques were crucial in achieving favorable outcomes

Unheard and unused: why students reject teacher and peer feedback

BackgroundIn higher education, feedback has become a significant focus of study over the years. Despite established high-quality feedback criteria, the issue of students not utilizing feedback from instructors and peers persists. This study identifies key barriers to feedback utilization and offers insights that can inform more responsive and student-centered feedback practices.AimsThis study investigated specific reasons behind feedback rejections in higher education and how individual characteristics (college students' gender, ethnicity, and academic level) predicted the reasons to reject teacher and peer feedback.MethodsUndergraduate and graduate students (N = 200, 67.7% women) from various colleges within a large public university in the northeast of the USA were asked to describe possible reasons why they did not use feedback provided by their instructors and peers' feedback on an academic assignment. Students' responses were analyzed using a deductive approach with a coding system based on the Student-Feedback Interaction Framework.ResultsStudents tend not to use or reject teacher feedback due to ambiguous or unclear messages, negative tone, lack of respect or trust in the teacher, and confidence in their performance. Peer feedback is commonly rejected because of a perceived lack of peer expertise, ambiguous messages, and negative emotional responses. Multiple logistic regressions found that gender and educational level are significant predictors of reasons for not utilizing feedback, with distinct patterns observed among male students and undergraduates.ConclusionThis study underscores the need for feedback strategies addressing individual student characteristics and contextual factors. Recommendations include fostering positive teacher-student relationships, enhancing the clarity of feedback, and improving students' skills in peer feedback provision and utilization

Decline in seasonal influenza vaccine effectiveness with vaccination program maturation: A systematic review and meta-analysis

ObjectivesEvidence suggests repeated influenza vaccination may reduce vaccine effectiveness (VE). Using influenza vaccination program maturation (number of years since program inception) [PM] as proxy for population-level repeated vaccination, we assessed the impact on pooled adjusted end-season VE estimates from outpatient test-negative design studies.MethodsWe systematically searched and selected full-text publications from January 2011 to February 2020 (PROSPERO: CRD42017064595). We obtained influenza vaccination program inception year for each country and calculated PM as the difference between the year of deployment and year of program inception. We categorized PM into halves (cut at the median), tertiles, and quartiles, and calculated pooled VE using an inverse variance, random effects model. The primary outcome was pooled VE against all influenza.ResultsWe included 72 articles from 11,931 unique citations. Across the three categorizations of PM, a lower pooled VE against all influenza for all patients was observed with PM. Substantially higher reductions were observed in older adults (≥65 years). We observed similar results for A(H1N1)pdm09, A(H3N2) and influenza B.ConclusionsThe evidence suggests influenza VE declines with vaccination PM. This study forms the basis for further discussions and examinations of the potential impact of vaccination PM on seasonal VE

Computer Vision for Primate Behavior Analysis in the Wild

Advances in computer vision as well as increasingly widespread video-based behavioral monitoring have great potential for transforming how we study animal cognition and behavior. However, there is still a fairly large gap between the exciting prospects and what can actually be achieved in practice today, especially in videos from the wild. With this perspective paper, we want to contribute towards closing this gap, by guiding behavioral scientists in what can be expected from current methods and steering computer vision researchers towards problems that are relevant to advance research in animal behavior. We start with a survey of the state-of-the-art methods for computer vision problems that are directly relevant to the video-based study of animal behavior, including object detection, multi-individual tracking, individual identification, and (inter)action recognition. We then review methods for effort-efficient learning, which is one of the biggest challenges from a practical perspective. Finally, we close with an outlook into the future of the emerging field of computer vision for animal behavior, where we argue that the field should develop approaches to unify detection, tracking, identification and (inter)action recognition in a single, video-based framework