Timm Carey (beardlip6)

This report is third in a three-part clinical trial series screening potential treatments for Gulf War Illness (GWI). The goal of the project was to rapidly identify agents to prioritize for further efficacy research. We used a placebo-controlled, pseudo-randomized, crossover design to test the effects of reishi mushroom (Ganoderma lucidum), stinging nettle (Uritca dioica), and epimedium (Epimedium sagittatum) in 29 men with GWI. Participants completed 30 days of symptom reports for baseline, then a botanical line consisting of 30 days of placebo, followed by 30 days each of lower-dose and higher-dose botanical. After completing a botanical line, participants were randomized to complete the protocol with another botanical, until they completed three botanical trials. GWI symptom severity, pain, and fatigue were contrasted between the four conditions (baseline, placebo, lower-dose, higher dose) using linear mixed models. GWI symptom severity was unchanged from placebo in the reishi lower-dose condition (p = 0.603), and was higher in the higher-dose condition (p = 0.012). Symptom severity was not decreased from placebo with lower-dose stinging nettle (p = 0.604), but was significantly decreased with higher-dose stinging nettle (p = 0.048). Epimedium showed no significant decreases of GWI symptoms in the lower (p = 0.936) or higher (p = 0.183) dose conditions. Stinging nettle, especially at higher daily dosages, may help reduce the symptoms of GWI. Epimedium does not appear to beneficially affect GWI symptom severity, and reishi may exaggerate symptoms in some GWI sufferers. These results are in a small sample and are preliminary. Further research is required to determine if stinging nettle is indeed helpful for the treatment of GWI, and what dosage is optimal. selleck chemical This trial was registered on ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT02909686).The aim of this work was to improve the growth characteristics of Murciano-Granadina (MG) kids through terminal crossbreeding of MG goats to Boer bucks. Four experiments were carried out, using a total of 354 MG goats, half of which were mated with MG bucks (n = 12) and the other half with Boer bucks (n = 12). The kids were raised in artificial rearing until slaughter weight (9 kg). The birth weight and average daily gain were recorded in crossed kids (n = 197 and 145, respectively) and purebred kids (n = 257 and 169, respectively). Crossed kids presented significant differences (p less then 0.001) compared to MG purebred kids in birth weight (+ 24%), mortality in artificial rearing (-37%), average daily gain (+32%) and milk powder conversion rate (-16%). However, the reproductive performance rates of MG goats mated with Boer bucks were slightly worse (pregnancy rate 78.5% vs. 86.6%, p less then 0.05; kidding rate 62.0% vs. 75.7%; p less then 0.01; prolificacy 1.9 vs. 2.1 kids/parturition), especially when the matings took place in non-breeding season (experiments conducted at latitude 38-39° N). It is concluded that the terminal crossbreeding of MG goats to Boer bucks (those not used to produce replacement kids) could be an interesting option for ethical goat production.Hippocampus atrophy is an early structural feature that can be measured from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to improve the diagnosis of neurological diseases. An accurate and robust standardized hippocampus segmentation method is required for reliable atrophy assessment. The aim of this work was to develop and evaluate an automatic segmentation tool (DeepHarp) for hippocampus delineation according to the ADNI harmonized hippocampal protocol (HarP). DeepHarp utilizes a two-step process. First, the approximate location of the hippocampus is identified in T1-weighted MRI datasets using an atlas-based approach, which is used to crop the images to a region-of-interest (ROI) containing the hippocampus. In the second step, a convolutional neural network trained using datasets with corresponding manual hippocampus annotations is u