Leucorrhinia caudalis is a dragonfly species threatened throughout Europe. Despite evidence of the recent extension of its distribution range, it is unknown whether L. caudalis regularly or hardly ever migrates among ponds. The contemporary migration patterns of the species were investigated using Bayesian assignment tests and the migration rates related to landscape structural and thematic variables (distance between ponds, forest area, area of water body, area of hedgerow). Migration rates of L. caudalis are independent of any landscape element. Thus, landscape structure is not a barrier or corridor for migration in this species. The tendency of L. caudalis to disperse is largely independent of the nature of the landscape, at least at the scale of the present study. and Janine Bolliger, Daniela Keller, Rolf Holderegger.
Despite recent advancements in reproductive medicine, recurrent implantation failure and habitual abortion remain ongoing issues. One of the most important aspects of successful implantation is the intricate immune response and regulation necessary for the acceptance of the hemiallogenic embryo. The most numerous immune cells in the decidua are uterine natural killer cells (uNK). Studies suggest that changes in the uNK count and physiology may be responsible for the aforementioned pathological conditions. Thus, testing for uNK may provide valuable insights into their pathogenesis. The study compared Pipelle endometrial sampling with conventional curettage to find out whether the less invasive Pipelle method is a viable alternative of tissue collection. Tissue samples from 14 patients obtained by both methods were examined. The average size of tissue samples obtained with Pipelle was 17 mm2 , samples obtained with curettage had on average 34 mm2 . Using immunohistochemical visualization of CD56 (NK cells) and granzyme B antigens (serine protease-expressing activation state of NK cells), it was found that the average total count of CD56 / mm2 was 115 for Pipelle and 120 for curettage, respectively. The study also proved a correlation between granzyme B positivity and identification of NK cells clusters. The results indicated that Pipelle endometrial sampling seems a suitable method of tissue harvesting for the purpose of uNK cells examination. Pipelle endometrial sampling is safe, cost-effective and can be performed on an outpatient basis without the need of anesthesia or analgesia. Several issues remain yet to be solved: how to standardize the subsequent uNK testing, how to interpret the results and finally yet importantly, how to use this knowledge in personalized treatment protocols.
Let X be a completely regular Hausdorff space and, as usual, let C(X) denote the ring of real-valued continuous functions on X. The lattice of z-ideals of C(X) has been shown by Martínez and Zenk (2005) to be a frame. We show that the spectrum of this lattice is (homeomorphic to) βX precisely when X is a P-space. This we actually show to be true not only in spaces, but in locales as well. Recall that an ideal of a commutative ring is called a d-ideal if whenever two elements have the same annihilator and one of the elements belongs to the ideal, then so does the other. We characterize when the spectrum of the lattice of d-ideals of C(X) is the Stone-Čech compactification of the largest dense sublocale of the locale determined by X. It is precisely when the closure of every open set of X is the closure of some cozero-set of X.
The study stems from the author’s long-time interest in the history of the Czechoslovak foreign resistance during the Great War, particularly in Russia. As to its sources, it draws from a collection of published recollections of Czechoslovak legionnaires and their autobiographic novels and other texts of prose. The author attempts to reconstruct the picture of the return of Czechoslovak legions from Russia to their home country; due to the nature of his sources, however, his intention is not to convey an authentic experience of the return in the fi rst days and weeks, but rather to examine the construct created by the legionnaires’ memories and novels. In this respect, he makes use of, in particular, Anglo-Saxon historical literature dealing with similar topics. The key issues include how individuals or whole social groups were coping with the reality of the newborn republic, which was rather different from the visions of the home country they had been dreaming about while away. An important factor affecting their refl ections was also the required political nonaffi liation of organizations of legionnaires, as well as the criticism of the situation not just among the veterans, but in the entire society. The extent of the idealization of Russia, which was a fairly frequent phenomenon among them, was directly proportional to the disillusionment after their return, and was a mirror image of their previous idealization of home while they had been in Russia. In the author’s opinion, the topic of the return of Czechoslovak legions home and their life in their home country is far from exhausted; this is why the present study should be just a springboard to further broadly conceived research. and Přeložil Jiří Mareš
Suppose F ⊂ [0, 1] is closed. Is it true that the typical (in the sense of Baire category) function in C 1 [0, 1] is one-to-one on F? If dimBF < 1/2 we show that the answer to this question is yes, though we construct an F with dimB F = 1/2 for which the answer is no. If Cα is the middle-α Cantor set we prove that the answer is yes if and only if dim(Cα) ≤ 1/2. There are F’s with Hausdorff dimension one for which the answer is still yes. Some other related results are also presented.
White adipose tissue (WAT) represents a reservoir of lipophilic environmental pollutants, especially of those which are resistant to biological and chemical degradation – so-called persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Large amounts of different congeners and isomers of these compounds exhibit a variety of adverse biological effects. Interactions among different classes of compounds, frequently with opposing effects, complicate hazard evaluation and risk assessment. WAT is the key organ for energy homeostasis and it also releases metabolites into the circulation and adipokines with systemic effects on insulin sensitivity and fuel partitioning in muscles and other tissues. Its beneficial role is lost in obesity when excessive accumulation of WAT contributes to severe diseases, such as diabetes. POPs may crossroad or modulate the effect of endogenous ligands of nuclear transcription factors, participating in differentiation, metabolism and the secretory function of adipocytes. These mechanisms include, most importantly: i) endocrine disrupting potency
of POPs ́ mixtures on androgen, estrogen or thyroid hormone metabolism/functions in WAT, ii) interference of dioxin-like chemicals with retinoic acid homeostasis, where impact on retinoid receptors is expected, and iii) interaction with transcriptional activity of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors is likely. Thus, the accumulation and action of
POPs in WAT represents a unitary mechanism explaining, at least in part, the effects of POPs in the whole organism. By modulating WAT differentiation, metabolism and function, the POPs could affect not only the physiological role of WAT, but they may also influence the development of obesity-associated diseases.
Semi-dry grasslands in the White Carpathian (Bílé Karpaty) Mountains on the Czech-Slovak border are famous for their extremely high species richness. In places they contain more than 130 species of vascular plants per 100m2 and for some plot sizes they hold world records in the number of vascular plant species, but the reasons for this are poorly understood. Here we ask whether the high number of species in these grasslands can be explained by local ecological factors. We compared the White Carpathian grasslands with similar grasslands in adjacent areas in the west (southern Moravia) and the east (Inner Western Carpathians), which are on average notably poorer in species than those in the White Carpathians. In both of these areas, we sampled grasslands that were among the species richest in the regional context and had a similar physiognomy, species composition and ecology as those in the White Carpathians. We found 75 sites with >70 and >25 species of vascular plants per 100 m2 and 1 m2, respectively, in which we recorded species composition and local environmental conditions, including precipitation, soil depth, soil pH and nutrient concentrations, above-ground biomass production and nutrients in plant biomass. Although the White Carpathian grasslands were considerably richer in species than the richest grasslands in the adjacent regions, there were no differences in the values of the factors studied that could provide an unequivocal explanation of their high species richness. However, the values of the factors studied were within the ranges reported in the literature as conducive to high species richness in temperate grasslands. We conclude that the high species richness recorded in the White Carpathian grasslands cannot be explained by a single factor. It results from a unique combination of regional factors (long history of these grasslands, large size of individual grassland areas and their existence in a landscape mosaic with forests, scrub and small wetlands), local abiotic factors (soil pH, soil nutrient status, moisture regime and resulting grassland productivity that are suitable for many species from the regional species pool) and management (low fertilizer input and mowing once a year in late spring or summer).