Europe PMC in 2020.

Europe PMC (https://europepmc.org) is a database of research articles, including peer reviewed full text articles and abstracts, and preprints - all freely available for use via website, APIs and bulk download. This article outlines new developments since 2017 where work has focussed on three key areas: (i) Europe PMC has added to its core content to include life science preprint abstracts and a special collection of full text of COVID-19-related preprints. Europe PMC is unique as an aggregator of biomedical preprints alongside peer-reviewed articles, with over 180 000 preprints available to search. (ii) Europe PMC has significantly expanded its links to content related to the publications, such as links to Unpaywall, providing wider access to full text, preprint peer-review platforms, all major curated data resources in the life sciences, and experimental protocols. The redesigned Europe PMC website features the PubMed abstract and corresponding PMC full text merged into one article page; there is more evident and user-friendly navigation within articles and to related content, plus a figure browse feature. (iii) The expanded annotations platform offers ∼1.3 billion text mined biological terms and concepts sourced from 10 providers and over 40 global data resources.

Smart Farming Revolution: Portable and Real-Time Soil Nitrogen and Phosphorus Monitoring for Sustainable Agriculture.

Precision agriculture is crucial for ensuring food security in a growing global population. Nutrients, their presence, concentration, and effectiveness, are key components in data-driven agriculture. Assessing macro and micro-nutrients, as well as factors such as water and pH, helps determine soil fertility, which is vital for supporting healthy plant growth and high crop yields. Insufficient soil nutrient assessment during continuous cropping can threaten long-term agricultural viability. Soil nutrients need to be measured and replenished after each harvest for optimal yield. However, existing soil testing procedures are expensive and time-consuming. The proposed research aims to assess soil nutrient levels, specifically nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations, to provide critical information and guidance on restoring optimal soil fertility. In this research, a novel chip-level colorimeter is fabricated to detect the N and P elements of soil onto a handheld colorimeter or spectrophotometer. Chemical reaction with soil solution generates color in the presence of nutrients, which are then quantitatively measured using sensors. The test samples are collected from various farmlands, and the results are validated with laboratory analysis of samples using spectrophotometers used in laboratories. ANOVA test has been performed in which F value > 1 in our study indicates statistically significant differences between the group means. The alternate hypothesis, which proposes the presence of significant differences between the groups, is supported by the data. The device created in this paper has crucial potential in terms of environmental and biological applications.

DYRK3 contributes to differentiation and hypoxic control in neuroblastoma.

Neuroblastoma (NB), a pediatric cancer of the peripheral sympathetic nervous system, represents the most frequent solid malignancy in infants. Treatment of high-risk patients is still challenging and, depending on the genetic make-up and involved risk factors, the 5-year survival rate can drop to only 30%. Here, we found that the expression of the Dual Specificity Tyrosine Phosphorylation Regulated Kinase 3 (DYRK3) is increased in NB and is associated with decreased survival in NB patients. We further identified DYRK3 as a cytoplasmic kinase in NB cells and found that its levels are increased by hypoxic conditions. Further mechanistic studies revealed that DYRK3 acts as a negative regulator of HIF-driven transcriptional responses, suggesting that it functions in a negative feedback loop controlling the hypoxic response. Moreover, DYRK3 negatively impacted on NB cell differentiation, proposing an oncogenic role of this kinase in the etiology of NB. In summary, we describe novel functions of the DYRK3 kinase in NB, which will help to further improve the understanding of this disease eventually leading to the design of improved therapeutic concepts.

A Quick Guide to CAF Subtypes in Pancreatic Cancer.

Pancreatic cancer represents one of the most desmoplastic malignancies and is characterized by an extensive deposition of extracellular matrix. The latter is provided by activated cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs), which are abundant cells in the pancreatic tumor microenvironment. Many recent studies have made it clear that CAFs are not a singular cellular entity but represent a multitude of potentially dynamic subgroups that affect tumor biology at several levels. As mentioned before, CAFs significantly contribute to the fibrotic reaction and the biomechanical properties of the tumor, but they can also modulate the local immune environment and the response to targeted, chemo or radiotherapy. As the number of known and emerging CAF subgroups is steadily increasing, it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with these developments and to clearly discriminate the cellular subsets identified so far. This review aims to provide a helpful overview that enables readers to quickly familiarize themselves with field of CAF heterogeneity and to grasp the phenotypic, functional and therapeutic distinctions of the various stromal subpopulations.

Emergency department non-invasive cardiac output study (EDNICO): an accuracy study.

BACKGROUND: There is little published data investigating non-invasive cardiac output monitoring in the emergency department (ED). We assess here the accuracy of five non-invasive methods in detecting fluid responsiveness in the ED: (1) common carotid artery blood flow, (2) suprasternal aortic Doppler, (3) bioreactance, (4) plethysmography with digital vascular unloading method, and (5) inferior vena cava collapsibility index. Left ventricular outflow tract echocardiography derived velocity time integral is the reference standard. This follows an assessment of feasibility and repeatability of these methods in the same cohort of ED patients. METHODS: This is a prospective observational study of non-invasive methods for assessing fluid responsiveness in the ED. Participants were non-ventilated ED adult patients requiring intravenous fluid resuscitation. Sensitivity and specificity of each method in determining the fluid responsiveness status of participants is determined in comparison to the reference standard. RESULTS: Thirty-three patient data sets were included for analysis. The specificity and sensitivity to detect fluid responders was 46.2 and 45% for common carotid artery blood flow (CCABF), 61.5 and 63.2% for suprasternal artery Doppler (SSAD), 46.2 and 50% for bioreactance, 50 and 41.2% for plethysmography vascular unloading technique (PVUT), and 63.6 and 47.4% for inferior vena cava collapsibility index (IVCCI), respectively. Analysis of agreement with Cohen's Kappa - 0.08 for CCABF, 0.24 for SSAD, - 0.04 for bioreactance, - 0.08 for PVUT, and 0.1 for IVCCI. CONCLUSION: In this study, non-invasive methods were not found to reliably identify fluid responders. Non-invasive methods of identifying fluid responders are likely to play a key role in improving patient outcome in the ED in fluid depleted states such as sepsis. These results have implications for future studies assessing the accuracy of such methods.

Observational study in healthy volunteers to define interobserver reliability of ultrasound haemodynamic monitoring techniques performed by trainee doctors.

OBJECTIVES: Bedside ultrasound is increasingly being used to guide fluid management in shocked patients. Little data exist on the inter-rater reliability of techniques used, especially when performed by nonexpert trainee doctors. The primary aim of this study is to measure the inter-rater reliability of five ultrasound techniques commonly used to guide fluid management: inferior vena cava collapsibility index (IVCCI), transthoracic echocardiography (TTE)-derived stroke volumes, ultrasound cardiac output monitor (USCOM) derived stroke volume and carotid artery blood flow and corrected flow time measurements. METHODS: Two Royal College of Emergency Medicine level one ultrasound-certified emergency medicine trainees performed paired ultrasound measurements on 31 healthy nonpatient volunteers. Inter-rater reliability was assessed through three indices: interclass correlation coefficient (ICC), limits of agreements (LOAs) derived from Band-Altman plots and the proportion of paired scans with absolute differences of less that 15% (defined as agreement). RESULTS: TTE-derived measurements performed the best overall, with an LOA of 22%, an ICC of 0.55 and an agreement of 80%. USCOM also performed well, with an LOA of 33%, an ICC of 0.68 and an agreement of 58%. IVCCI and carotid artery-derived measurements performed poorly across all indices. CONCLUSION: TTE-derived measurements showed the highest level of inter-rater reliability and can thus be expected to provide reliable measures over time with different sonographer clinicians. USCOM interobserver reliability was also adequate for clinical use. However, on the basis of inter-reliability measures, IVCCI and carotid artery measurements were found to be inadequate for clinical use.