Fitness of F1 hybrids between 10 maternal wild soybean populations and transgenic soybean

Transgenic Research - The releasing of transgenic soybeans (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) into farming systems raises concerns that transgenes might escape from the soybeans via pollen into...     

Pediatric SubQ-ICD implantation,a single center review of the inter-muscular technique

IntroductionPediatric patients with cardiomyopathies are at risk for sudden death and may need implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICD’s), but given their small size and duration of use, children are at increased risk for complications associated with ICD use. The subcutaneous ICD presents a favorable option for children without pacing indications. Unfortunately, initial pediatric studies have demonstrated a high complication rate, likely due to the 3-incision technique employed.Material and methodsPatients with ICD but no pacing indication were retrospectively reviewed after implantation of subcutaneous ICD via the two-incision technique. In half of the patients, 10-J impedance test was also performed to compare with impedance obtained after defibrillation threshold testing with 65-J.ResultsTwelve patients were included. The median age was 14 years (range 10–16 years) with eight males included (72.7%). The median weight was 55 kg (range 29 kg–75.1 kg). Follow-up had a median of 11.5 months (range 2–27 months). The median body mass index was 18.4 kg/m squared (range 15.5–27.9 kg/m squared). One patient suffered a minor complication after tearing off the incisional adhesive strips early and required a non-invasive repair in clinic. Shock impedance had a median of 55 J (range 48–68 J). There was one appropriate shock/charge and no inappropriate shocks during follow-up.ConclusionThe two-incision, intermuscular technique appears to have a lower acute complication rate than prior reports, in our cohort of 12 pediatric patients.     

Potential Applications in Sewage Bioremediation of the Highly Efficient Pyridine-Transforming Paenochrobactrum sp.

Applied Biochemistry and Microbiology - A pyridine-transforming strain P2 was isolated from sewage collected from Guangzhou oil stain field(China).According to the system analysis, it was...     

On computation of semiparametric maximum likelihood estimators with shape constraints

Large sample theory of semiparametric models based on maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) with shape constraint on the nonparametric component is well studied. Relatively less attention has been paid to the computational aspect of semiparametric MLE. The computation of semiparametric MLE based on existing approaches such as the expectation‐maximization (EM) algorithm can be computationally prohibitive when the missing rate is high. In this paper, we propose a computational framework for semiparametric MLE based on an inexact block coordinate ascent (BCA) algorithm. We show theoretically that the proposed algorithm converges. This computational framework can be applied to a wide range of data with different structures, such as panel count data, interval‐censored data, and degradation data, among others. Simulation studies demonstrate favorable performance compared with existing algorithms in terms of accuracy and speed. Two data sets are used to illustrate the proposed computational method. We further implement the proposed computational method in R package BCA1SG , available at CRAN.