Emergent molecular traits of lettuce and tomato grown under wavelength-selective solar cells

The integration of semi-transparent organic solar cells (ST-OSCs) in greenhouses offers new agrivoltaic opportunities to meet the growing demands for sustainable food production. The tailored absorption/transmission spectra of ST-OSCs impacts the power generated as well as crop growth, development and responses to the biotic and abiotic environments. To characterize crop responses to ST-OSCs, we grew lettuce and tomato, traditional greenhouse crops, under three ST-OSC filters that create different light spectra. Lettuce yield and early tomato development are not negatively affected by the modified light environment. Our genomic analysis reveals that lettuce production exhibits beneficial traits involving nutrient content and nitrogen utilization while select ST-OSCs impact regulation of flowering initiation in tomato. These results suggest that ST-OSCs integrated into greenhouses are not only a promising technology for energy-neutral, sustainable and climate-change protected crop production, but can deliver benefits beyond energy considerations.

Curvilinear soft electronics by micromolding of metal nanowires in capillaries

Soft electronics using metal nanowires have attracted notable attention attributed to their high electrical conductivity and mechanical flexibility. However, high-resolution complex patterning of metal nanowires on curvilinear substrates remains a challenge. Here, a micromolding-based method is reported for scalable printing of metal nanowires, which enables complex and highly conductive patterns on soft curvilinear and uneven substrates with high resolution and uniformity. Printing resolution of 20 μm and conductivity of the printed patterns of ~6.3 × 10⁶ S/m are achieved. Printing of grid structures with uniform thickness for transparent conductive electrodes (TCEs) and direct printing of pressure sensors on curved surfaces such as glove and contact lens are also realized. The printed hybrid soft TCEs and smart contact lens show promising applications in optoelectronic devices and personal health monitoring, respectively. This printing method can be extended to other nanomaterials for large-scale printing of high-performance soft electronics.

ClioQuery : Interactive Query-Oriented Text Analytics for Comprehensive Investigation of Historical News Archives

Historians and archivists often find and analyze the occurrences of query words in newspaper archives, to help answer fundamental questions about society. But much work in text analytics focuses on helping people investigate other textual units, such as events, clusters, ranked documents, entity relationships, or thematic hierarchies. Informed by a study into the needs of historians and archivists, we thus propose ClioQuery , a text analytics system uniquely organized around the analysis of query words in context. ClioQuery  applies text simplification techniques from natural language processing to help historians quickly and comprehensively gather and analyze all occurrences of a query word across an archive. It also pairs these new NLP methods with more traditional features like linked views and in-text highlighting to help engender trust in summarization techniques. We evaluate ClioQuery  with two separate user studies, in which historians explain how ClioQuery ’s novel text simplification features can help facilitate historical research. We also evaluate with a separate quantitative comparison study, which shows that ClioQuery  helps crowdworkers find and remember historical information. Such results suggest possible new directions for text analytics in other query-oriented settings.

Treatment Emergent Suicidal Ideation in depressed older adults

BACKGROUND

Treatment-Emergent Suicidal Ideation (TESI) in older adults is poorly understood. We characterized TESI in older depressed adults during treatment with venlafaxine and explored whether TESI is related to antidepressant exposure versus dimensions of the psychiatric illness. We examined the relationship among medication exposure, onset of TESI, and clinical characteristics.

METHODS

We analyzed data on 233 clinical trial participants with major depression and no baseline suicidal ideation who were treated for up to 12 weeks with venlafaxine XR (target dose: 150-300 mg/day). Suicidal ideation was assessed weekly with the Scale for Suicide Ideation. A Kaplan-Meier curve displayed the time course of TESI. Differences in baseline demographic and clinical variables between the TESI and Non-TESI groups were assessed with analyses of covariance or logistic regression. A final multivariate logistic regression model indicated baseline predictors of TESI. Depression treatment outcomes in subjects developing TESI versus those who did not were examined with a mixed effects model.

RESULTS

TESI occurred in 10% of participants, typically with onset within 4 weeks of the start of treatment. Anxiety, and depression severity at baseline were predictors of TESI. Most TESI was mild and transient, with 6/233 participants having TESI considered clinically meaningful. TESI was not associated with venlafaxine blood levels or side effects.

CONCLUSIONS

In older depressed adults, TESI is relatively uncommon and it is likely related to the underlying illness rather than to a medication adverse effect. This suggests that TESI requires continuing rather than discontinuing antidepressant treatment. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Extent of resection for curable colorectal cancer in young patients: A 27-year experience at a tertiary care centre

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Background: Patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer (CRC) under the age of 50 have an increased lifetime risk of developing metachronous primary tumours. Some familial GI cancer experts have recommended that younger patients with curable CRC undergo definitive subtotal colectomy at initial presentation. We sought to determine the compliance with these recommendations at our institution, the factors predictive of subtotal/total colectomy, and the influence of resection extent on survival. Methods: A case- control study utilised a prospective CRC database at Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto. All patients under 50 who underwent initial resection of CRC with curative intent from 1979–2007 were included. Patients 50 or over were identified as controls. Type of resection was classified as complete (total/subtotal colectomy, proctocolectomy) or segmental. Results: From the database of over 1400 CRC cases, 201 patients were under age 50. 1182 controls were identified. The young patients had significantly higher rates of identifiable risk factors for CRC (IBD, FAP/HNPCC, family history of cancer) and were significantly more likely to undergo complete resection (23.38% vs 6.01%, OR 4.78). Interestingly, rectum was the primary site in 54.73% of young patients. Factors contributing to complete resection were site of disease (colon), IBD, and family history of CRC (Table). Four patients (2.6%) who underwent segmental resection developed metachronous disease at a median of 66.38 months post resection. No significant change in practice was noted over time. Conclusions: The majority of young patients with curable CRC underwent segmental resection only. Factors predictive of a complete resection included IBD, family history of CRC, and colonic primary site. Overall survival was not influenced by extent of resection. The authors support this pragmatic approach while more sophisticated estimates of tumor biology are being developed to guide the decision for more extensive prophylactic resection.

[Table: see text]

No significant financial relationships to disclose.