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Frontiers in Psychology 2017Objects from the Middle Paleolithic period colored with ochre and marked with incisions represent the beginning of non-utilitarian object manipulation in different...
Objects from the Middle Paleolithic period colored with ochre and marked with incisions represent the beginning of non-utilitarian object manipulation in different species of the genus. To investigate the visual effects caused by these markings, we compared humans who have different cultural backgrounds (Namibian hunter-gatherers and German city dwellers) to one species of non-human great apes (orangutans) with respect to their perceptions of markings on objects. We used eye-tracking to analyze their fixation patterns and the durations of their fixations on marked and unmarked stones and sticks. In an additional test, humans evaluated the objects regarding their aesthetic preferences. Our hypotheses were that colorful markings help an individual to structure the surrounding world by making certain features of the environment salient, and that aesthetic appreciation should be associated with this structuring. Our results showed that humans fixated on the marked objects longer and used them in the structural processing of the objects and their background, but did not consistently report finding them more beautiful. Orangutans, in contrast, did not distinguish between object and background in their visual processing and did not clearly fixate longer on the markings. Our results suggest that marking behavior is characteristic for humans and evolved as an attention-directing rather than aesthetic benefit.
PubMed: 28167923
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00006 -
Forensic Sciences Research 2022Hallucinogenic mushroom is a kind of toxic strain containing psychoactive tryptamine substances such as psilocybin, psilocin and ibotenic acid, etc. The mushrooms...
Hallucinogenic mushroom is a kind of toxic strain containing psychoactive tryptamine substances such as psilocybin, psilocin and ibotenic acid, etc. The mushrooms containing hallucinogenic components are various, widely distributed and lack of standard to define, which made a great challenge to identification. Traditional identification methods, such as morphology and toxicology analysis, showed shortcomings in old or processed samples, while the DNA-based identification of hallucinogenic mushrooms would allow to identify these samples due to the stability of DNA. In this paper, four primer sets are designed to target DNA for increasing resolution of present identification method, and the target markers include largest subunit of RNA polymerase II (marked as PC-R1), psilocybin-related phosphotransferase gene (marked as PC-PT), glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (marked as PC-3) and translation EF1α (marked as PC-EF). Real-time PCR with high-resolution melting (HRM) assay were used for the differentiation of the fragments amplified by these primer sets, which were tested for specificity, reproducibility, sensitivity, mixture analysis and multiplex PCR. It was shown that the melting temperatures of PC-R1, PC-PT, PC-3 and PC-EF of were (87.93 ± 0.12) °C, (82.21 ± 0.14) °C, (79.72 ± 0.12) °C and (80.11 ± 0.19) °C in our kinds of independent experiments. Significant HRM characteristic can be shown with a low concentration of 62.5 pg/µL DNA sample, and could be detected in mixtures with or . In summary, the method of HRM analysis can quickly and specifically distinguish from other species, which could be utilized for forensic science, medical diagnosis and drug trafficking cases. Supplemental data for this article are available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/20961790.2021.1875580.
PubMed: 36353314
DOI: 10.1080/20961790.2021.1875580 -
Acta Neurobiologiae Experimentalis 1993This paper presents a review of the main results of an application of discourse analysis in aphasics with the left hemisphere damages and in the right hemisphere damaged... (Review)
Review
This paper presents a review of the main results of an application of discourse analysis in aphasics with the left hemisphere damages and in the right hemisphere damaged (RHD) patients. Research findings indicate that aphasics have marked deficits on the level of microstructure, especially cohesion of discourse, whereas the coherence and superstructure of their texts are relatively well preserved. RHD patients show difficulties at the microstructure of discourse but not so marked as that of aphasic subjects. The main impairments of RHD patients' discourse can be observed at the level of text coherence. The both populations have also preserved cognitive representation concerned with script knowledge. Discourse processing at macrostructural level of discourse is affected in aphasics as well as in RHD patients. These results suggest that both hemispheres are necessary for normal discourse processes.
Topics: Aphasia; Functional Laterality; Humans
PubMed: 8317259
DOI: No ID Found -
Journal of Insect Science (Online) Mar 2023Nitrogen, a limiting growth factor in wood-feeding insects, was hypothesized to play a role in the recently discovered behavior of subterranean termites returning to the...
Nitrogen, a limiting growth factor in wood-feeding insects, was hypothesized to play a role in the recently discovered behavior of subterranean termites returning to the nest to molt. Coptotermes gestroi (Wasmann) exuviae is approximately 11% N by dry weight, and therefore a potentially rich source of recyclable nitrogen. Exuviae from a C. gestroi colony were marked with immunoglobulin G (IgG) and were fed to two-year-old C. gestroi colonies. IgG-marked exuviae were detected with an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The IgG marker was later detected in every caste and life stage except first-instar larvae (L1). The proportion of individuals positive for the marker varied by caste, with the queens always being positive for the marker. The queens and second-or-higher-instar workers (W2+) had significantly higher concentrations of the marker than the eggs and L1. The trophic path of exuviae includes individuals that directly fed on marked exuviae (workers and possibly second-instar larvae) and individuals that secondarily received marked exuviae through trophallaxis (queens, kings, and soldiers). This study described the trophic path of consumed exuviae and demonstrated its role in the recycling of nitrogen in a subterranean termite. Molting at the central nest may be an efficient means to transfer nitrogen from shed exuviae to recipients and may be a nitrogen recycling behavior conserved from a termite ancestor.
Topics: Animals; Cockroaches; Isoptera; Ovum; Larva; Immunoglobulin G
PubMed: 36916276
DOI: 10.1093/jisesa/iead007 -
Journal of Clinical Virology : the... Aug 2020There is an urgent need for reliable high-throughput serological assays for the management of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Preferably, the performance of serological... (Comparative Study)
Comparative Study
There is an urgent need for reliable high-throughput serological assays for the management of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Preferably, the performance of serological tests for a novel virus should be determined with clinical specimens against a gold standard, i.e. virus neutralisation. We compared the performance of six commercial immunoassays for the detection of SARS-COV-2 IgG, IgA and IgM antibodies, including four automated assays [Abbott SARS-COV-2 IgG (CE marked), Diasorin Liaison® SARS-COV-2 S1/S2 IgG (research use only, RUO), and Euroimmun SARS-COV-2 IgG and IgA (CE marked)], and two rapid lateral flow (immunocromatographic) tests [Acro Biotech 2019-nCoV IgG/IgM (CE marked) and Xiamen Biotime Biotechnology SARS-COV-2 IgG/IgM (CE marked)] with a microneutralisation test (MNT). Two specimen panels from serum samples sent to Helsinki University Hospital Laboratory (HUSLAB) were compiled: the patient panel (N=70) included sera from PCR confirmed COVID-19 patients, and the negative panel (N=81) included sera sent for screening of autoimmune diseases and respiratory virus antibodies in 2018 and 2019. The MNT was carried out for all COVID-19 samples (70 serum samples, 62 individuals) and for 53 samples from the negative panel. Forty-one out of 62 COVID-19 patients showed neutralising antibodies.The specificity and sensitivity values of the commercial tests against MNT, respectively, were as follows: 95.1 %/80.5 % (Abbott Architect SARS-CoV-2 IgG), 94.9 %/43.8 % (Diasorin Liaison SARS-CoV-2 IgG; RUO), 68.3 %/87.8 % (Euroimmun SARS-CoV-2 IgA), 86.6 %/70.7 % (Euroimmun SARS-CoV-2 IgG), 74.4 %/56.1 % (Acro 2019-nCoV IgG), 69.5 %/46.3 % (Acro 2019-nCoV IgM), 97.5 %/71.9 % (Xiamen Biotime SARS-CoV-2 IgG), and 88.8 %/81.3 % (Xiamen Biotime SARS-CoV-2 IgM). This study shows variable performance values. Laboratories should carefully consider their testing process, such as a two-tier approach, in order to optimize the overall performance of SARS- CoV-2 serodiagnostics.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Antibodies, Viral; Automation, Laboratory; Betacoronavirus; COVID-19; COVID-19 Testing; Child; Child, Preschool; Clinical Laboratory Techniques; Coronavirus Infections; Female; Hospitals; Humans; Immunoassay; Immunoglobulin A; Immunoglobulin G; Immunoglobulin M; Male; Middle Aged; Neutralization Tests; Pandemics; Pneumonia, Viral; SARS-CoV-2; Sensitivity and Specificity; Serologic Tests; Young Adult
PubMed: 32563180
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcv.2020.104512 -
Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Jul 2023When forming the radar situation of a terrain, in order to increase its information content and to extract useful information, multi-position spatially distributed...
When forming the radar situation of a terrain, in order to increase its information content and to extract useful information, multi-position spatially distributed systems for integrating multi-angle radar data established by small-sized UAV-based airborne radars are used. In this case, each radar station belonging to a multi-position system as a probing signal must have its own unique marked signal. Such a setup will allow the signals reflected from ground objects and zones to be "attached" to specific receiving-transmitting positions of the multi-position system. This requirement results from the fact that each transceiver position emits one probing signal, and then receives all the echo signals reflected from the underlying surface and previously emitted by other radar devices of the multi-position system. Such a setup of multi-position systems requires the researcher to look for and investigate specialized systems of marked code structures used to modulate the probing signals in order to identify them in a joint radar channel. Thus, the problem at hand is how to look for and investigate novel marked code structures used to generate a system of probing signals, the use of which will allow it to be "attached" to a specific receiving-transmitting position of a multi-position onboard system and to identify them in a joint radar channel in the course of the remote sensing of the underlying surface. The purpose of this work is to conduct a study on the subject of the squeak and choice of a system of code structures that have a low level of side lobes of autocorrelation functions and uniformly distributed values of the levels of the cross-correlation function. To achieve this goal, the relevance of the study is substantiated in the introduction. The second section analyzes the level of side lobes for classical and modified Barker codes with an asymmetric alphabet. On the basis of this analysis, it was concluded that it is expedient to apply this approach for codes longer than Barker codes. Therefore, in the third section, the features of the generation of M-sequences are considered. The fourth section presents a technique for searching for new marked code structures, taking into account their mutual correlation properties for modifying M-sequences in order to implement multi-positional systems. The fifth section presents computer experiments on the search for marked code structures based on the modifications of M-sequences and presents the numerical characteristics of the correlation properties of the considered marked codes. And finally, in the sixth section, the final conclusions of the study are presented and recommendations are given for their further practical application. The practical significance of this study lies in the fact that the proposed new marked code structures are necessary for the synthesis of probing signals in the implementation of spatially distributed systems that function for the high-probability detection and high-precision determination of the coordinates of physical objects and are also necessary for the formation of radar images in a multi-position mode.
PubMed: 37571618
DOI: 10.3390/s23156835 -
Developmental Biology Jun 2017Transposable elements are parasitic genomic elements that can be deleterious for host gene function and genome integrity. Heterochromatic histone modifications are...
Transposable elements are parasitic genomic elements that can be deleterious for host gene function and genome integrity. Heterochromatic histone modifications are involved in the repression of transposons. However, it remains unknown how these histone modifications mark different types of transposons during embryonic development. Here we document the variety of heterochromatic epigenetic signatures at parasitic elements during development in Xenopus tropicalis, using genome-wide ChIP-sequencing data and ChIP-qPCR analysis. We show that specific subsets of transposons in various families and subfamilies are marked by different combinations of the heterochromatic histone modifications H4K20me3, H3K9me2/3 and H3K27me3. Many DNA transposons are marked at the blastula stage already, whereas at retrotransposons the histone modifications generally accumulate at the gastrula stage or later. Furthermore, transposons marked by H3K9me3 and H4K20me3 are more prominent in gene deserts. Using intra-subfamily divergence as a proxy for age, we show that relatively young DNA transposons are preferentially marked by early embryonic H4K20me3 and H3K27me3. In contrast, relatively young retrotransposons are marked by increasing H3K9me3 and H4K20me3 during development, and are also linked to piRNA-sized small non-coding RNAs. Our results implicate distinct repression mechanisms that operate in a transposon-selective and developmental stage-specific fashion.
Topics: Animals; Chromatin Immunoprecipitation; DNA Transposable Elements; Embryo, Nonmammalian; Embryonic Development; Epigenetic Repression; Evolution, Molecular; Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; Heterochromatin; Histone Code; Histones; Methylation; Protein Processing, Post-Translational; RNA, Small Interfering; Retroelements; Xenopus; Xenopus Proteins
PubMed: 27639284
DOI: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2016.08.031 -
Scientific Reports Feb 2024In quantum computing, the quantum walk search algorithm is designed for locating fixed marked nodes within a graph. However, when multiple marked nodes exist, the...
In quantum computing, the quantum walk search algorithm is designed for locating fixed marked nodes within a graph. However, when multiple marked nodes exist, the conventional search algorithm lacks the capacity to simultaneously amplify the marked nodes as well as identify the correct chronological ordering between the marked nodes, if any. To address this limitation, we explore a potential extension of the algorithm by introducing additional quantum states to label the marked nodes. The labels resolve the ambiguity of simultaneous amplification of the marked nodes. Additionally, by associating the label states with a chronological ordering, we can extend the algorithm to track a moving particle on a two-dimensional surface. Our algorithm efficiently searches for the trajectory of the particle and is supported by a proposed quantum circuit. This concept holds promise for a range of applications, from real-time object tracking to network management and routing.
PubMed: 38307883
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-51709-0 -
Lung Jun 2020Area under expiratory flow-volume curve (AEX) is a useful spirometric tool in stratifying respiratory impairment. The AEX approximations based on isovolumic flows can be...
BACKGROUND
Area under expiratory flow-volume curve (AEX) is a useful spirometric tool in stratifying respiratory impairment. The AEX approximations based on isovolumic flows can be used with reasonable accuracy when AEX is unavailable. We assessed here pre- to post-bronchodilator (BD) variability of AEX as a functional assessment tool for lung disorders.
METHODS
The BD response was assessed in 4330 subjects by changes in FEV, FVC, and AEX, which were derived from FVC, peak expiratory flow, and forced expiratory flow at 25%, 50%, and 75% FVC. Newly proposed BD response categories (negative, minimal, mild, moderate and marked) have been investigated in addition to standard criteria.
RESULTS
Using standard BD criteria, 24% of subjects had a positive response. Using the new BD response categories, only 23% of subjects had a negative response; 45% minimal, 18% mild, 9% moderate, and 5% had a marked BD response. Mean percent change of the square root AEX was 0.3% and 14.3% in the standard BD-negative and BD-positive response groups, respectively. In the new BD response categories of negative, minimal, mild, moderate, and marked, mean percent change of square root AEX was - 8.2%, 2.9%, 9.2%, 15.0%, and 24.8%, respectively.
CONCLUSIONS
Mean pre- to post-BD variability of AEX was < 6% and stratified well between newly proposed categories of BD response (negative, minimal, mild, moderate and marked). We suggest that AEX (AEX) could become a useful measurement for stratifying dysfunction in obstructive lung disease and invite further investigation into indications for using bronchodilator agents or disease-modifying, anti-inflammatory therapies.
Topics: Aged; Bronchodilator Agents; Exhalation; Female; Forced Expiratory Volume; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive; Retrospective Studies; Spirometry; Vital Capacity
PubMed: 32211978
DOI: 10.1007/s00408-020-00345-2 -
The British and Foreign... Jan 1855
Review
PubMed: 30164336
DOI: No ID Found