Four rating systems were developed by the American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society to provide a standard method of reporting clinical status of the ankle and foot. The systems incorporate both subjective and objective factors into numerical scales to describe function, alignment, and pain.

The mechanisms of carbon starvation: how, when, or does it even occur at all?Recent observations of increasing vegetation mortality events appear to be a result of changing climate, in particular, an increase in the frequency, length and intensity of droughts (e.g. Allen et al., 2010). The threat of widespread increases in future mortality has rekindled interest in the mechanisms of plant mortality and survival because we do not yet understand them well enough to confidently model future vegetation dynamics (Sitch et al., 2008). In this issue of New Phytologist, provide a viewpoint on the 'carbon (C) starvation hypothesis ' (McDowell et al., 2008). Their viewpoint is invaluable for stimulating our field to explicitly refine our definitions and identify the key experiments needed to understand mechanisms of vegetation survival and mortality. Two important conclusions of their paper were that mortality can occur at nonzero carbohydrate levels and that careful experiments focused on the explicit mechanisms of C starvation, as well as on partitioning the roles of hydraulic failure and C starvation, are needed to understand the physiological underpinnings of how plants die. We applaud these conclusions, and agree that hasty acceptance of any hypothesis before adequate testing is foolish. In this commentary, we highlight some of the valuable ideas from Sala et al. and provide additional comments that we hope will prompt careful future tests on the mechanisms of plant mortality.When the C-starvation hypothesis was proposed (McDowell et al., 2008), it represented an attempt to summarize and interpret the existing literature on vegetation mortality, of which there was a wealth of indirect studies, but a paucity of true, mechanistic tests. The original formulation of the hypothesis suggested that stomatal closure minimizes hydraulic failure during drought, causing photosynthetic C uptake to decline to low levels, thereby promoting carbon starvation as carbohydrate demand continues for maintenance of metabolism and defense. The plant either starves outright, or succumbs to attack by insects or pathogens, whichever occurs first. By contrast, failure to maintain xylem water tension lower than its cavitation threshold results in embolisms, which, if unrepaired, can eventually lead to widespread hydraulic failure, desiccation and mortality. We hoped that the C-starvation and hydraulic failure hypotheses would generate discussion and new ideas; and 'The paucity of studies that quantified mortality forces scientists to use data from nonmortality studies to develop hypotheses … we do this at the risk of confusing stress responses with mortality mechanisms.' , as summarized by Sala et al., active discussion is taking place. A primary conclusion from the discussion is that we need clarification of the various mechanisms by which C starvation can occur, if it occurs at all.Plants maintain metabolism through respiratory processes that consume carbohydrates, and in doing so their C budgets must obey the law of conservation of energ...

Summary• Identification of ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi is often achieved through comparisons of ribosomal DNA internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences with accessioned sequences deposited in public databases. A major problem encountered is that annotation of the sequences in these databases is not always complete or trustworthy. In order to overcome this deficiency, we report on UNITE, an open-access database.• UNITE comprises well annotated fungal ITS sequences from well defined herbarium specimens that include full herbarium reference identification data, collector/source and ecological data. At present UNITE contains 758 ITS sequences from 455 species and 67 genera of ECM fungi.• UNITE can be searched by taxon name, via sequence similarity using BLAST n, and via phylogenetic sequence identification using galaxie. Following implementation, galaxie performs a phylogenetic analysis of the query sequence after alignment either to pre-existing generic alignments, or to matches retrieved from a BLAST search on the UNITE data. It should be noted that the current version of UNITE is dedicated to the reliable identification of ECM fungi.• The UNITE database is accessible through the URL http://unite.zbi.ee

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This investigation utilized gross dissections, histological preparations, and neurophysiologic experiments to gain an improved understanding of the innervation of the human knee. Anatomical illustrations represent the findings of dissections of 15 fresh amputation specimens. Neurohistologic preparations using silver staining techniques demonstrate the rich innervation of the soft tissues of the knee, and a variety of specialized receptors are identified. In 10 subjects with normal knees, and experimentally produced knee effusion of 60 cc was found to result in profound inhibition of reflexly evoked quadriceps contraction. Clinical implications of the anatomical and physiologic data are discussed.

(tribe Amherstieae) and Afzclia (tribe Detarieae) were ectomycorrhizal. These species were not uniformly distributed in the forest, and three large emergent species Microberlinia bimhata A. Chcv., Tetraberlima bifoliolata (Harms) Hauman, and T. moreliana Aubr. in particular appear to form groves c. 600 m across. This type of distribution may be related to the ectomycorrhizal habit.A previous large scale enumeration and soil survey on tour 5 km transects of plots in the forest, carried out during the wet season, had revealed an association between these ectomycorrhizal legumes and low concentrations (^ 5 //.g g ') of cxtractable phosphorus in the mineral soil. In the current study part of one of the original transects in a low phosphorus area of the forest, where ectomycorrhizal trees comprise 29 "," of the basal area, was resampled at the subplot level during the dry season. Whereas in the wet season soil phosphorus had been lower (2-8//g g ') within the ectomycorrhizal groves than without (3-8 jig g '), in the dry season the situation was reversed and the overall concentrations were higher (12-3 and 7-9//g g' respectively). Ordination analysis re-afHrmed the association of the three Microberliiia/Tetrabeilinia species with relatively low concentrations of extractable phosphorus in the wet season but relatively high ones in the dry season. The groves are characterized by high inputs of leaf litter in the dry season, extensive colonization of surface organic matter by ectom> corrhizas and hyphal strands, and high carbon ; extractable inorganic phosphorus ratios in the mineral soil in the wet season. These features are discussed in relation to the presumed ability ot ectomycorrhizas to utilize organic phosphorus.

Summary• In order to clarify the functional role of individual ectomycorrhizal (EcM) fungal species in the field, we need to relate their abundance and distribution as mycorrhizas to their abundance and distribution as extramatrical mycelium (EMM).• We divided each of four 20 cm × 20 cm × 2 cm slices of pine forest soil into 100 cubes of 2 cm × 2 cm. For each cube, ectomycorrhizas were identified and the presence of EMM of the EcM fungi recorded as ectomycorrhizas was determined by terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) analysis of ITS rDNA.• Ectomycorrhizas and EMM of seven EcM species were mapped. Spatial segregation of mycorrhizas and EMM was evident and some species produced their EMM in different soil layers from their mycorrhizas.• The spatial relationship between mycorrhizas and their EMM generally conformed to their reported exploration types, but EMM of smooth types (e.g. Lactarius rufus ) was more frequent than expected. Different EcM fungi foraged at different spatial scales.

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