Vegetative state

BACKGROUND: Worksite-based health programs have shown positive impacts on employee health and have led to significant improvements in cardiovascular risk factor profiles. We aimed to determine the effect of cafeteria intervention on cardio-metabolic risk factors diet in a worksite setting (Dhulikhel Hospital) in Nepal. METHODS: In this one-arm pre-post intervention study, we recruited 277 non-pregnant hospital employees aged 18-60 with prediabetes or pre-hypertension...

Across the Western United States, human development into the wildland urban interface (WUI) is contributing to increasing wildfire damage. Given that natural disasters often cause greater harm within socio-economically vulnerable groups, research is needed to explore the potential for disproportionate impacts associated with wildfire. Using Zillow Transaction and Assessment Database (ZTRAX), hereafter "Zillow", real estate data, we explored whether lower-priced structures were more likely to be damaged during the most destructive, recent wildfires in Southern California...

Rapid urbanization is restructuring landscapes across sub-Saharan Africa. This study employed post-classification comparison of multi-temporal Landsat imagery to characterize land cover changes in Abakaliki Local Government Area, Ebonyi State, Nigeria between 2000 and 2022, addressing the need for empirical baselines to guide sustainable planning. Four classes were considered and images classified with overall accuracy of 95% for the year 2000 and 97% for the year 2022. Notably, 21,000 hectares of vegetation were lost, while built-up and bare land increased by 7500 and 13,700 hectares respectively...

Human actions are causing widespread increases in fire size, frequency, and severity in diverse ecosystems globally. This alteration of fire regimes is considered a threat to numerous animal species, but empirical evidence of how fire regimes are shifting within both threatened species' ranges and protected areas is scarce, particularly at large spatial and temporal scales. We used a big data approach to quantify multidecadal changes in fire regimes in southern Australia from 1980 to 2021, spanning 415 reserves (21...

Plants growing with neighbors compete for light and consequently increase the growth of their vegetative organs to enhance access to sunlight. This response, called shade avoidance syndrome (SAS), involves photoreceptors such as phytochromes as well as phytochrome interacting factors (PIFs), which regulate the expression of growth-mediating genes. Numerous cell wall-related genes belong to the putative targets of PIFs, and the importance of cell wall modifications for enabling growth was extensively shown in developmental models such as dark-grown hypocotyl...

BACKGROUND: With the rapid growth of global aging, frailty has become a serious public health burden, affecting the life quality of older adults. Depressive symptoms (depression hereafter) and sleep quality are associated with frailty, but the pathways in which sleep quality and depression affect frailty remain unclear. METHOD: This cross-sectional study included 1866 community-dwelling older adults. Demographic characteristics and health-related data of them was collected, and we also assessed frailty, depression, and sleep quality...

The global trend toward sustainable development, coupled with growing concerns about environmental pollution and the depletion of fossil energy resources, has contributed to the widespread implementation of biopolymers (BPs) as bio-solutions for geo-infrastructures stabilization. In this respect, previous attempts proved that soil treatment with BP can guarantee the strength improvement of geo-materials by satisfying environmental standards. However, the applications, mechanisms, and interactions of BPs within geo-environments need more investigations on their suitability for specific sites, long-term durability, and economic viability...

BACKGROUND: Non-invasive brain stimulation is considered as a promising technology for treating patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC). Various approaches and protocols have been proposed; however, few of them have shown potential effects on patients with vegetative state (VS). This study aimed to explore the neuro-modulation effects of intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS) on the brains of patients with VS and to provide a pilot investigation into its possible role in treating such patients...

The study's significance lies in the multitude of challenges facing individuals today, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, military conflicts like the war in Ukraine, and the escalating rates of cancer morbidity and mortality. These factors contribute to the onset of anxiety and depressive disorders, disrupting various aspects of individuals' mental functioning and social interactions. Addressing these disorders effectively necessitates a comprehensive approach, combining pharmacological interventions with psychotherapeutic strategies under the guidance of specialized professionals...

Several new per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) have been synthesized to replace traditional (legacy) PFASs frequently without clear information on their structure, use and potential toxicity. Among them, chloroperfluoropolyether carboxylates (ClPFPECAs) are an emerging group used as processing aids in the production of fluoropolymers to replace the ammonium salt of perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA). The Solvay Company has produced ClPFPECAs as a mixture of six congeners (oligomers) since the mid-1990s, but other possible manufacturers and annual quantities synthesized and used worldwide are unknown...

BACKGROUND: The complexity of the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying human consciousness is widely acknowledged, with information processing and flow originating in cortex conceived as a core mechanism of consciousness emergence. Combination of transcranial magnetic stimulation and electroencephalography (TMS-EEG) is considered as a promising technique to understand the effective information flow associated with consciousness. OBJECTIVES: To investigate information flow with TMS-EEG and its relationship to different consciousness states...

Spinach ( Spinacia oleracea ) is a commonly used green vegetable. During September and October in both 2022 and 2023, a vegetable nursery company located among paddy rice fields in Taichung City, Taiwan, reported significant failures in spinach seedling production in net-houses with mean outdoor temperatures of 28.7℃. Abnormal growth was observed in approximately 30% of the spinach seedlings in each batch (n = 2,000 to 3,000), with aboveground tissues showing stunting, yellowing, and wilt, and underground tissues displaying root rot...

Meloidogyne naasi Franklin, 1965, the barley root-knot nematode, was originally found in field crops such as cereals, grasses, and sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) in England and Wales, (Franklin,1965). This nematode is one of the most significant root-knot nematodes impacting grains in European countries (Santos et al. 2020). Among root-knot nematode species, M. naasi, exhibits a distinct preference for grasses, with documented impacts on turfgrasses leading to reduced growth and vigor (Skantar et al., 2023; Cook and Yeates, 1993)...

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to discover the prevalence of school nutrition state legislation and to identify the correlates of enactment. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: An online legislative database, Legiscan, was used to collect bills related to school nutrition from the US from 2010 to 2019. Bills were coded and compiled into a study database with state-level dietary variables (obesity prevalence, fruit, and vegetable intake, sugar-sweetened beverage consumption), community variables (percent White, poverty), and bill-characteristic variables (party affiliation in legislature, strength of language, party of governor, school gardens, vegetable intake, and other salient variables)...

With continuing global warming and urbanization, it is increasingly important to understand the resilience of urban vegetation to extreme high temperatures, but few studies have examined urban vegetation at large scale or both concurrent and delayed responses. In this study, we performed an urban-rural comparison using the Enhanced Vegetation Index and months that exceed the historical 90th percentile in mean temperature (referred to as "hot months") across 85 major cities in the contiguous United States. We found that hot months initially enhanced vegetation greenness but could cause a decline afterwards, especially for persistent (≥4 months) and intense (≥+2 °C) episodes in summer...

Enviromics refers to the characterization of micro- and macroenvironments based on large-scale environmental datasets. By providing genotypic recommendations with predictive extrapolation at a site-specific level, enviromics could inform plant breeding decisions across varying conditions and anticipate productivity in a changing climate. Enviromics-based integration of statistics, envirotyping (i.e., classifying environmental factors), and remote sensing could help unravel the complex interplay of genetics, environment, and management (G × E × M)...

The lack of extreme water level fluctuations in managed, non-peat forming wetland ecosystems can result in decreased productivity through the loss of heterogeneity of these ecosystems. Stochastic disruption, such as a water level drawdown, can effectively reverse this effect and return the wetland to a more productive state, associated with higher biodiversity through new vegetation development. Yet, aside from the effect on vegetation dynamics, little is known about longer-term effects (30 years) of a water level drawdown, hereafter referred to as legacy effects, and how this may impact future water level drawdowns...

IMPORTANCE: The American Cancer Society's (ACS's) nutrition and physical activity guidelines are intended to reduce morbidity and mortality among cancer survivors, but to our knowledge, adherence to these guidelines has not been systematically quantified. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate adherence to and factors associated with adherence to lifestyle modification guidelines among cancer survivors. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This cross-sectional study used data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System using survey administration years 2017 (surveys completed between January 2017 and March 2018), 2019 (surveys completed between January 2019 and December 2019), and 2021 (surveys completed between January 2021 and February 2022)...

Land use and land cover (LULC) analysis gives important information on how the region has evolved over time. Kerala, a land with an extensive and dynamic history of land-use changes, has, until now, lacked comprehensive investigations into this history. So the current study focuses on Kerala, one of the ecologically diverse states in India with complex topography, through Landsat images taken from 1990 to 2020 using two different machine learning classifications, random forest (RF) and classification and regression trees (CART) on Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform...

Hutuo River Basin straddles Shanxi and Hebei provinces, and Hutuo River was once cut off due to economic development and urban expansion after 2000; however, with the national emphasis on ecological civilization and the implementation of the South-North Water Diversion Project, the ecological protection of Hutuo River Basin has been significantly improved. MODIS data, Landsat data, and night light remote sensing data were selected based on the google earth engine (GEE) platform, and a new evaluation index system was generated by combining the biological richness index, vegetation cover index, land stress index, and pollution load index in the ecological environment index (EI) and the humidity index in the remote sensing ecological index (RSEI), using the variation coefficient method and entropy weighting method to assign weights to these indices...