slightly overestimates image scoring; however, with minimal clinical impact. Sedation with acepromazine-buprenorphine and ovariohysterectomy using a balanced anesthetic protocol did not influence the FGS scores. Responsiveness to analgesic administration was observed with both the FGS-RT and FGS-IMG. ©2020 Evangelista et al.Background The incidence of young patients with pancreatic cancer (PC) is on the rise, and there is a lack of models that could effectively predict their prognosis. The purpose of this study was to construct nomograms for predicting the overall survival (OS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS) of young patients with PC. Methods PC patients younger than 50 years old from 2004 to 2015 in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database were selected and randomly divided into training set and validation set. Univariable and forward stepwise multivariable Cox analysis was used to determine the independent factors affecting OS. The Fine and Gray competing risk regression model was used to determine the independent factors affecting CSS. We used significant variables in the training set to construct nomograms predicting prognosis. The discrimination and calibration power of models were evaluated by concordance index (C-index), calibration curve and 10-flod cross-validation. Results A total of 4,146 paely judge the prognosis of individual patients. ©2020 Shi et al.Bacteria play a vital role in biotransformation of soil organic carbon (SOC). However, mechanisms of bacterium and organic carbon mineralization remain unclear during improvement of sandy soil using soft rock additions. In this study, four treatments with differing ratios of soft rock to sand of 01 (CK), 15 (C1), 12 (C2) and 11 (C3) were selected for mineralization incubation and high-throughput sequencing. The results showed that SOC, total nitrogen (TN), available phosphorus (AP), nitrate nitrogen (NO 3 - -N), and mass water content (WC) of sandy soil increased significantly after addition of soft rock (P  0.05). selleck compound The three dominant bacteria were Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria and Chloroflexi, among which Proteobacteria was negatively correlated with mineralization of organic carbon (P  less then  0.01). The mineralization rate constant (k) was positively correlated and negatively correlated with Cyanobacteria and Nitrospirae, respectively. Under C2 treatment, Proteobacteria and Nitrospirae had the largest increase, and Cyanobacteria had the largest decrease. Compared with other treatments, C2 treatment significantly increased bacterial diversity index, richness index and evenness index, and the richness index had a negative correlation with k value. In conclusion, when the ratio of soft rock to sand was 12, the k of SOC could be reduced. In addition, the retention time of SOC can be increased, and resulting carbon fixation was improved. ©2020 Guo et al.Observations of temporal overlap of niche occupation among Late Cretaceous marine amniotes suggest that the rise and diversification of mosasauroid squamates might have been influenced by competition with or disappearance of some plesiosaur taxa. We discuss that hypothesis through comparisons of the rates of morphological evolution of mosasauroids throughout their evolutionary history with those inferred for contemporary plesiosaur clades. We used expanded versions of two species-level phylogenetic datasets of both these groups, updated them with stratigraphic information, and analyzed using the Bayesian inference to estimate the rates of divergence for each clade. The oscillations in evolutionary rates of the mosasauroid and plesiosaur lineages that overlapped in time and space were then used as a baseline for discussion and comparisons of traits that can affect the shape of the niche structures of aquatic amniotes, such as tooth morphologies, body size, swimming abilities, metabolism, and reproduction. Only two groups of plesiosaurs are considered to be possible niche competitors of mosasauroids the brachauchenine pliosaurids and the polycotylid leptocleidians. However, direct evidence for interactions between mosasauroids and plesiosaurs is scarce and limited only to large mosasauroids as the predators/scavengers and polycotylids as their prey. The first mosasauroids differed from contemporary plesiosaurs in certain aspects of all discussed traits and no evidence suggests that early representatives of Mosasauroidea diversified after competitions with plesiosaurs. Nevertheless, some mosasauroids, such as tylosaurines, might have seized the opportunity and occupied the niche previously inhabited by brachauchenines, around or immediately after they became extinct, and by polycotylids that decreased their phylogenetic diversity and disparity around the time the large-sized tylosaurines started to flourish. ©2020 Madzia and Cau.Intriguing and potentially commercially useful microorganisms are found in our surroundings and new tools allow us to learn about their genetic potential and evolutionary history. Engaging students from different disciplines and courses in the search for microbes requires an exciting project with innovative but straightforward procedures and goals. Here we describe an interdisciplinary program to engage students from different courses in the sampling, identification and analysis of the DNA sequences of a unique yet common microbe, Delftia spp. A campus-wide challenge was created to identify the prevalence of this genus, able to precipitate gold, involving introductory level environmental and life science courses, upper-level advanced laboratory modules taken by undergraduate students (juniors and seniors), graduate students and staff from the campus. The number of participants involved allowed for extensive sampling while undergraduate researchers and students in lab-based courses participated in the sample processing and analyses, helping contextualize and solidify their learning of the molecular biology techniques. The results were shared at each step through publicly accessible websites and workshops. This model allows for the rapid discovery of Delftia presence and prevalence and is adaptable to different campuses and experimental questions. © 2020 Riley et al.