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Applying laboratory studies from the prevention, medical diagnosis, treatment, as well as monitoring of COVID-19.
There is increasing interest in incorporating arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) into agricultural production because of the benefits they provide, including protection against pathogens and pests. Sudden death syndrome (SDS) of soybean is a devastating disease caused by the soilborne pathogen Fusarium virguliforme. Multiple management methods are needed to control SDS. The relationship between F. virguliforme and AMF is not well documented. The goal of this study was to determine whether soybean plants co-inoculated with F. virguliforme and the AMF species Rhizophagus intraradices showed reduced SDS foliar symptom severity and reduced relative F. virguliforme DNA quantities in soybean roots. Six soybean genotypes were inoculated with F. virguliforme alone or with R. intraradices in a greenhouse experiment. Averaged over the six soybean genotypes, area under the disease progress curve values and relative F. virguliforme DNA quantities were 45 and 28% lower (P less then 0.05), respectively, in roots co-inoculated with R. intraradices compared with roots of control plants inoculated with F. virguliforme only. Weight of roots co-inoculated with R. intraradices were 58% higher (P less then 0.05) compared with roots of plants not inoculated with R. intraradices. Phospholipase (e.g. PLA) inhibitor Nutrient analysis showed higher boron, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, and sulfur concentrations in root tissues of plants co-inoculated with R. intraradices compared with plants inoculated with F. virguliforme (P less then 0.05). Overall, this study showed that R. intraradices reduced SDS severity and relative F. virguliforme DNA quantities while simultaneously increasing growth and nutrient uptake of plants. Further testing of AMF inoculants in the field will indicate whether incorporating them into soybean SDS management practices will reduce the impact of SDS on soybean production.Purpose Right-hemisphere brain damage (RHD) can affect pragmatic aspects of communication that may contribute to an impaired ability to gather information. Questions are an explicit means of gathering information. Question types vary in terms of the demands they place on cognitive resources. The purpose of this exploratory descriptive study is to test the hypothesis that adults with RHD differ from neurologically healthy adults in the types of questions asked during a structured task. Method Adults who sustained a single right-hemisphere stroke and neurologically healthy controls from the RHDBank Database completed the Unfamiliar Object Task of the RHDBank Discourse Protocol (Minga et al., 2016). Each task was video-recorded. Questions were transcribed using the Codes for the Human Analysis of Transcripts format. Coding and analysis of each response were conducted using Computerized Language Analysis (MacWhinney, 2000) programs. Results The types of questions used differed significantly across groups, with the RHD group using significantly more content questions and significantly fewer polar questions than the neurologically healthy control group. In their content question use, adults with RHD used significantly more "what" questions than other question subtypes. Conclusion Question-asking is an important aspect of pragmatic communication. Differences in the relative usage of question types, such as the reduced use of polar questions or increased use of content questions, may reflect cognitive limitations arising from RHD. Further investigations examining question use in this population are encouraged to replicate the current findings and to expand on the study tasks and measures. Supplemental Material https//doi.org/10.23641/asha.11936295.PURPOSE Cancer care has increasingly shifted from physician offices (MDOs) to hospital-based outpatient departments (HOPDs). This study compared the proportion of patients receiving optimal, evidence-based anticancer drug regimens and the cost of care when administered in these sites. METHODS Patients with breast, lung, or colorectal cancer were identified from a large health insurance database. Anticancer drug regimens were considered on pathway when they were on the payer's program list of optimal regimens when administered. Anticancer drug-related costs included all patient- and plan-paid costs on claims for anticancer drugs over the 6-month postindex period; total per-patient costs were summed over all claims in that period. RESULTS A total of 38,140 patients (MDO, n = 18,998; HOPD, n = 19,142) were included. On-pathway status was similar in HOPDs (59.5%; 95% CI, 58.6% to 60.4%) versus MDOs (60.8%; 95% CI, 59.8% to 61.8%; P = .069). HOPDs had substantially higher costs. Adjusted cancer drug-related costs were $63,763 (95% CI, $62,301 to $65,224) for HOPDs versus $36,500 (95% CI, $35,729 to $37,271) for MDOs (P less then .001); adjusted total costs were $115,843 (95% CI, $113,642 to $118,044) for HOPDs versus $77,346 (95% CI, $76,072 to $78,620) for MDOs (P less then .001). For Medicare Advantage, adjusted total costs were $61,812 for HOPDs compared with $62,769 for MDOs; adjusted drug-related costs were $31,610 for HOPDs compared with $33,168 for MDOs. For commercial insurance, total costs were $119,288 for HOPDs compared with $77,613 for MDOs; drug-related costs were $65,930 for HOPDs compared with $36,366 for MDOs. CONCLUSION Total and cancer drug-related per-patient costs were higher in HOPDs versus MDOs, but on-pathway status was similar. The cost differential between HOPDs and MDOs was driven by commercially insured members rather than Medicare Advantage members.INTRODUCTION The proposed Radiation Oncology Alternative Payment Model (RO-APM) aims to test prospective episode-based payments for radiotherapy episodes. Practices will need a tool that can calculate historical episode reimbursements to succeed in this new model. An automated software-based technology was created to calculate historical episode reimbursements within a large Network of community oncology practices. MATERIALS AND METHODS Claims data between January 1, 2017, and July 31, 2019, were cleaned, organized into episodes, and analyzed with a series of Python computer programs per proposed RO-APM methodology. Averaged Winsorized historical episode reimbursements were first calculated over the entire Network, then over 24 of the largest Practices, and then rerun after application of Clinical Rules to remove misattributed episodes. RESULTS A total of 79,418 RO-APM-defined episodes were generated from 6,512,375 claims lines. A total of 7,086 episodes (8.9%) were removed because of no treatment delivery code within 28 days of treatment planning.
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