SUMMAR Y The objective of this investigation was to evaluate subjective fatigue versus subjective sleepiness as independent consequences of sleep disorders. Furthermore, we tried to explore how these symptoms relate to alertness, depressive symptoms and illness intrusiveness. In a prospective observational study, 283 sleep-disordered patients referred to a hospital-based sleep laboratory for various indications over a 1-year period were evaluated vis-a`-vis fatigue and sleepiness. All patients completed five subjective questionnaires, underwent objective sleep recording and attended a clinical interview with a sleep specialist. The subjective questionnaires included the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, the Fatigue Severity Scale, the Toronto Hospital Alertness Test, the Illness Intrusiveness Rating Scale and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale. Only 4% of the total sample was referred to the sleep clinic due to a complaint of excessive fatigue compared with 17% for excessive daytime sleepiness. However, during the assessment, 64% of referred patients reported pathological fatigue without overlap of sleepiness and only 4% reported pathological sleepiness without overlap of fatigue.Pearson's correlation analysis indicated a weak association (r ¼ 0.18) between subjective fatigue and sleepiness in the total sample. Analysis of variance testing showed strong association between those patients with prominent fatigue and depressive symptoms (P < 0.01) and illness intrusiveness (P < 0.001). The findings support the notion that subjective fatigue and sleepiness can be independent manifestations of sleep disorders. Furthermore, predominantly fatigued individuals with sleep disorders seem vulnerable to additional negative consequences due to possible interplay between amplified fatigue and psychological distress.k e y w o r d s fatigue, sleep disorders, sleepiness, subjective rating scales

Background: In view of the immense value of Brassica rapa in the fields of agriculture and molecular biology, the multinational Brassica rapa Genome Sequencing Project (BrGSP) was launched in 2003 by five countries. The developing BrGSP has valuable resources for the community, including a reference genetic map and seed BAC sequences. Although the initial B. rapa linkage map served as a reference for the BrGSP, there was ambiguity in reconciling the linkage groups with the ten chromosomes of B. rapa. Consequently, the BrGSP assigned each of the linkage groups to the project members as chromosome substitutes for sequencing.

The International Classification of Sleep Disorders distinguishes more than 80 different disorders, which can be effectively treated. Problems with falling asleep or daytime sleepiness affect approximately 35 to 40% of the U.S. adult population annually and are a significant cause of morbidity and mortality. However, the prevalence, burden, and management of sleep disorders are often ignored or overlooked by individuals and society in general. This leads to an underappreciation and undertreatment of sleep disorders, making this group of illnesses a serious health concern. Sleep medicine is a young discipline, and as such the full implications of treating sleep disorders and the extent of sleep-related problems are not well delineated. As a result of high prevalence, severe complications, and concomitant illnesses in untreated cases, the cost implications are immense. The costs can be direct, indirect, related, and intangible. However, relatively little has been published on the economic implications of sleep disorders. Economic analysis can help evaluate available resources to set priorities and maximize management strategies for cost control without sacrificing safety, efficacy, or effectiveness. There has been considerable evidence of the cost-effectiveness of treating patients with obstructive sleep apnea, especially considering its high prevalence, morbidity, mortality, and concomitant health care consumption. We review the economic balance sheet of sleep disorders and conclude that sleep medicine education (among general population and health care professionals) and the availability of diagnostic and therapeutic facilities to treat sleep disorders will reduce the profound socioeconomic implications of untreated sleep disorders.

The International Classification of Sleep Disorders distinguishes more than 80 different disorders, which can be effectively treated. Problems with falling asleep or daytime sleepiness affect approximately 35 to 40% of the U.S. adult population annually and are a significant cause of morbidity and mortality. However, the prevalence, burden, and management of sleep disorders are often ignored or overlooked by individuals and society in general. This leads to an underappreciation and undertreatment of sleep disorders, making this group of illnesses a serious health concern. Sleep medicine is a young discipline, and as such the full implications of treating sleep disorders and the extent of sleep-related problems are not well delineated. As a result of high prevalence, severe complications, and concomitant illnesses in untreated cases, the cost implications are immense. The costs can be direct, indirect, related, and intangible. However, relatively little has been published on the economic implications of sleep disorders. Economic analysis can help evaluate available resources to set priorities and maximize management strategies for cost control without sacrificing safety, efficacy, or effectiveness. There has been considerable evidence of the cost-effectiveness of treating patients with obstructive sleep apnea, especially considering its high prevalence, morbidity, mortality, and concomitant health care consumption. We review the economic balance sheet of sleep disorders and conclude that sleep medicine education (among general population and health care professionals) and the availability of diagnostic and therapeutic facilities to treat sleep disorders will reduce the profound socioeconomic implications of untreated sleep disorders.

Daxx is essential for embryonic development and implicated in apoptosis and transcriptional regulation. It is found only in the animal kingdom and appears to arise first in insects. In the Drosophila genus, the Daxx orthologs are much larger than those in other species. Here we show that in addition to a conserved core of ~200 residues, Daxx possesses several conserved domains and two essentially invariable short SUMO-interacting motifs (SIMs), each located at one or the other terminus of the protein.

Wheat is one of the world’s most commonly consumed cereal grains. During abiotic stresses, the physiological and biochemical alterations in the cells reduce growth and development of plants that ultimately decrease the yield of wheat. Therefore, novel approaches are needed for sustainable wheat production under the changing climate to ensure food and nutritional security of the ever-increasing population of the world. There are two ways to alleviate the adverse effects of abiotic stresses in sustainable wheat production. These are (i) development of abiotic stress tolerant wheat cultivars by molecular breeding, speed breeding, genetic engineering, and/or gene editing approaches such as clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-Cas toolkit, and (ii) application of improved agronomic, nano-based agricultural technology, and other climate-smart agricultural technologies. The development of stress-tolerant wheat cultivars by mobilizing global biodiversity and using molecular breeding, speed breeding, genetic engineering, and/or gene editing approaches such as CRISPR-Cas toolkit is considered the most promising ways for sustainable wheat production in the changing climate in major wheat-growing regions of the world. This comprehensive review updates the adverse effects of major abiotic stresses and discusses the potentials of some novel approaches such as molecular breeding, biotechnology and genetic-engineering, speed breeding, nanotechnology, and improved agronomic practices for sustainable wheat production in the changing climate.

Extended hours of shift work has the potential for adverse consequences for workers, particularly during the nightshift, such as poorer sleep quality during the day, increased worker fatigue, and fatigue-related accidents and decreased work performance. This study examined subjective and objective measurements of sleep and performance in a group of underground miners before and after the change from a backward-rotating 8-hour to a forward-rotating 10-hour shift schedule. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the short- and long-term impact of a shift schedule change on sleep and performance. The results demonstrated improved subjective and objective measures of sleep and performance on the new 10-hour nightshift schedule. The 10-hour nightshift workers subjectively reported more refreshing sleep, fewer performance impairments and driving difficulties than 8-hour nightshift workers. The results of the objective measures of sleep and performance on the 10-hour nightshifts were overall similar or possibly better than those measured on the 10-hour dayshifts. These are some of the first data to suggest that a nightshift that does not encompass the entire night period could have significant benefits to shift-workers. We suggest that these benefits are mostly the result of the timing of the new nightshift start and end times rather than other shift-schedule factors.

SUMMAR Y About 20-25% of the population in primary healthcare settings complains of chronic fatigue but this symptom has been under-emphasized compared with sleepiness in clinical practice. Shift-workers are particularly vulnerable because of various fatiguerelated personal and public morbidity and mortality. The goal of this cross-sectional study was to explore if fatigue severity could be used as an independent predictive tool to identify underlying sleep pathology. The 21 most-fatigued (study group) and 23 leastfatigued (control) miners were selected on the basis of the Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS), which was administered to 195 subjects in an underground mine in Timmins, a town in northern Ontario. The two groups were matched for age, gender, and body mass index (BMI). Mean FSS score for the most-fatigued subjects was 4.9 ± 0.5 and the leastfatigued was 2.2 ± 0.5 (P < 0.0001). The subjects from each group were studied polysomnographically to identify sleep disorders. The polysomnographic data in 15 of 21 (71.4%) of the most-fatigued subjects displayed significant sleep pathology compared with only three of 23 (13.0%) in the least-fatigued subjects. Based on Fisher's exact test, the difference between the two groups was highly significant (P < 0.0001). Also, in the total subject pool (n ¼ 195), the correlation between subjective fatigue and sleepiness was not very strong (Pearson's r ¼ 0.45), suggesting that these two symptoms can be independent phenomena. It is concluded that chronic high fatigue can be an independent manifestation of underlying sleep pathology, which warrants independent subjective and objective assessment.k e y w o r d s fatigue, shift-work, sleepiness, sleep pathology