Resident physicians physical activity during on-call shifts: smartphone-based assessment.

BACKGROUND: Physical activity of resident physicians (RPs) during on-call shifts is difficult to objectively evaluate. The integration of smartphones in our daily routines may allow quantitative assessment, employing pedometric assessment. AIMS: To evaluate the number of steps that RPs walk during on-call shifts as a marker of physical activity by using smartphone-based pedometers. METHODS: Step counts were collected from 100 RPs' smartphones who volunteered to participate in the study between January 2018 and May 2019. The conversion rate was 1400 steps = 1 km (application's default). A shift was defined as regular morning work followed by an in-house on-call stay, totalling 26 hours. Statistical analyses included univariate and multivariate linear mixed models, and Fisher exact test. A P-value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: The average walking distance was 12 118 steps (8.6 km/RP/shift). Paediatric intensive care unit and neurosurgery residents recorded the longest walking distances 16 347 and 15 630 steps (11.67 and 11.16 km/shift), respectively. Radiology residents walked the shortest distances 4718 steps (3.37 km/shift). Physically active RPs walked significantly longer distances during their shifts than non-physically active RPs: 12 527 steps versus 11 384 steps (8.95 versus 8.13 km/shift, P < 0.05), respectively. Distances covered during weekday shifts were longer than weekend shifts: 12 092 steps versus 11 570 steps (8.63 versus 8.26 km/shift, P < 0.05), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Smartphone-based pedometers can aid in analysing physical activity and workload during on-call shifts; such information can be valuable for human resource department, occupational health authorities and medical students with impaired physical mobility when choosing a speciality.

Identification and genetic mapping of PmAF7DS a powdery mildew resistance gene in bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.).

KEY MESSAGE: Gene PmAF7DS confers resistance to wheat powdery mildew (isolate Bgt#211 ); it was mapped to a 14.6-cM interval ( Xgwm350 a- Xbarc184 ) on chromosome 7DS. The flanking markers could be applied in MAS breeding. Wheat powdery mildew (Pm) is caused by the biotrophic pathogen Blumeria graminis tritici (DC.) (Bgt). An ongoing threat of breakdown of race-specific resistance to Pm requires a continuous effort to discover new alleles in the wheat gene pool. Developing new cultivars with improved disease resistance is an economically and environmentally safe approach to reduce yield losses. To identify and characterize genes for resistance against Pm in bread wheat we used the (Arina × Forno) RILs population. Initially, the two parental lines were screened with a collection of 61 isolates of Bgt from Israel. Three Pm isolates Bgt#210 , Bgt#211 and Bgt#213 showed differential reactions in the parents: Arina was resistant (IT = 0), whereas Forno was moderately susceptible (IT = -3). Isolate Bgt#211 was then used to inoculate the RIL population. The segregation pattern of plant reactions among the RILs indicates that a single dominant gene controls the conferred resistance. A genetic map of the region containing this gene was assembled with DNA markers and assigned to the 7D physical bin map. The gene, temporarily designated PmAF7DS, was located in the distal region of chromosome arm 7DS. The RILs were also inoculated with Bgt#210 and Bgt#213. The plant reactions to these isolates showed high identity with the reaction to Bgt#211, indicating the involvement of the same gene or closely linked, but distinct single genes. The genomic location of PmAF7DS, in light of other Pm genes on 7DS is discussed.

Distinguishing between Bread Wheat and Spelt Grains Using Molecular Markers and Spectroscopy.

The increasing demand for spelt products requires the baking industry to develop accurate and efficient tools to differentiate between spelt and bread wheat grains. We subjected a 272-sample spelt-bread wheat set to several potential diagnostic methods. DNA markers for γ-gliadin-D ( GAG56D), γ-gliadin-B ( GAG56B), and the Q-gene were used, alongside phenotypic assessment of ease-of-threshing and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). The GAG56B and GAG56D markers demonstrated low diagnostic power in comparison to the Q-gene genotyping, which showed full accordance with the threshing phenotype, providing a highly accurate distinction between bread wheat and spelt kernels. A highly reliable Q classification was based on a three-waveband NIR model [Kappa (0.97), R-square (0.93)], which suggested that this gene influences grain characteristics. Our data ruled out a protein concentration bias of the NIRS-based diagnosis. These findings highlight the Q gene and NIRS as important, valuable, but simple tools for distinguishing between bread wheat and spelt.

Neuronal circadian clock protein oscillations are similar in behaviourally rhythmic forager honeybees and in arrhythmic nurses.

Internal clocks driving rhythms of about a day (circadian) are ubiquitous in animals, allowing them to anticipate environmental changes. Genetic or environmental disturbances to circadian clocks or the rhythms they produce are commonly associated with illness, compromised performance or reduced survival. Nevertheless, some animals including Arctic mammals, open sea fish and social insects such as honeybees are active around-the-clock with no apparent ill effects. The mechanisms allowing this remarkable natural plasticity are unknown. We generated and validated a new and specific antibody against the clock protein PERIOD of the honeybee Apis mellifera (amPER) and used it to characterize the circadian network in the honeybee brain. We found many similarities to Drosophila melanogaster and other insects, suggesting common anatomical organization principles in the insect clock that have not been appreciated before. Time course analyses revealed strong daily oscillations in amPER levels in foragers, which show circadian rhythms, and also in nurses that do not, although the latter have attenuated oscillations in brain mRNA clock gene levels. The oscillations in nurses show that activity can be uncoupled from the circadian network and support the hypothesis that a ticking circadian clock is essential even in around-the-clock active animals in a constant physical environment.

Search for the decay K(L) --> pi(0)&mgr;(+)&mgr;(-)

We report on a search for the decay K(L)-->pi(0)&mgr;(+)&mgr;(-) carried out as a part of the KTeV experiment at Fermilab. This decay is expected to have a significant CP violating contribution and a direct measurement will either support the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa mechanism for CP violation or point to new physics. Two events were observed in the 1997 data with an expected background of 0.87+/-0.15 events, and we set an upper limit B(K(L)-->pi(0)&mgr;(+)&mgr;(-))<3. 8x10(-10) at the 90% confidence level.

Search for the weak decay of a lightly bound H0 dibaryon

We present results of a search for a new form of hadronic matter, a six-quark, dibaryon state called the H0, a state predicted to exist in several theoretical models. Analyzing data collected by experiment E799-II at Fermilab, we searched for the decay H0-->Lambdappi(-) and found no candidate events. We place an upper limit on [B(H0-->Lambdappi(-))dsigma(H)/dOmega]/(dsigma(Xi)/dOmega) and, in the context of published models, exclude the region of lightly bound mass states just below the LambdaLambda mass threshold, 2.194

Observation of CP violation in K(L)-->pi(+)pi(-)e(+)e(-) decays

We report the first observation of a manifestly CP violating effect in the K(L)-->pi(+)pi(-)e(+)e(-) decay mode. A large asymmetry was observed in the distribution of these decays in the CP-odd and T-odd angle straight phi between the decay planes of the e(+)e(-) and pi(+)pi(-) pairs in the K(L) center of mass system. After acceptance corrections, the overall asymmetry is found to be [13.6+/-2. 5(stat)+/-1.2(syst)]%. This is the largest CP-violating effect yet observed when integrating over the entire phase space of a mode and the first such effect observed in an angular variable.

Measurement of the branching ratio and form factor of K(L)-->mu(+)mu(-)gamma.

We report on the analysis of the rare decay K(L)-->mu(+)mu(-)gamma the 1997 data from the KTeV experiment at Fermilab. A total of 9327 candidate events are observed with 2.4% background, representing a factor of 40 increase in statistics over the current world sample. We find that B(K(L)-->mu(+)mu(-)gamma) = (3.62 +/- 0.04(stat) +/- 0.08(syst)) x 10(-7). The form factor parameter alpha(K*) is measured to be alpha(K*) = -0.160(+0.026)(-0.028). In addition, we make the first measurement of the parameter alpha from the D'Ambrosio-Isidori-Portolés form factor, finding alpha = -1.54 +/- 0.10. In that model, this alpha measurement limits the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa parameter rho>-0.2.

Measurement of the K(L) charge asymmetry.

We present a measurement of the charge asymmetry delta(L) in the mode K(L)-->pi(+/-)e(-/+)nu based on 298 x 10(6) analyzed decays. We measure a value of delta(L) = [3322+/-58(stat)+/-47(syst)]x10(-6), in good agreement with previous measurements and 2.4 times more precise than the current best published result. The result is used to place more stringent limits on CPT and DeltaS = DeltaQ violation in the neutral kaon system.