Elimination of virus-like particles reduces protein aggregation and extends replicative lifespan in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

A major consequence of aging and stress, in yeast to humans, is an increased accumulation of protein aggregates at distinct sites within the cells. Using genetic screens, immunoelectron microscopy, and three-dimensional modeling in our efforts to elucidate the importance of aggregate annexation, we found that most aggregates in yeast accumulate near the surface of mitochondria. Further, we show that virus-like particles (VLPs), which are part of the retrotransposition cycle of Ty elements, are markedly enriched in these sites of protein aggregation. RNA interference-mediated silencing of Ty expression perturbed aggregate sequestration to mitochondria, reduced overall protein aggregation, mitigated toxicity of a Huntington's disease model, and expanded the replicative lifespan of yeast in a partially Hsp104-dependent manner. The results are in line with recent data demonstrating that VLPs might act as aging factors in mammals, including humans, and extend these findings by linking VLPs to a toxic accumulation of protein aggregates and raising the possibility that they might negatively influence neurological disease progression.

Accurate Experimental Structure of 1-Chloronaphthalene

The structure of isolated 1-chloronaphthalene has been investigated in a supersonic expansion by high-resolution chirped-pulse Fourier transform microwave (CP-FTMW) spectroscopy in the 2-8 GHz frequency range. Accurate values of the rotational, centrifugal distortion, and nuclear quadrupole coupling constants for the only availabe conformer have been determined. The intensity of the spectrum allowed us to observe all the heavy atoms isotopologues in natural abundance, determining their rotational constants. From the extensive experimental dataset we derived accurate structures for 1-chloronaphthalene using different methodologies and compared with related compounds.

One more trip to Barcetona: on the special status of visual similarity effects in city names

Previous research has shown that, unlike misspelled common words, misspelled brand names are sensitive to visual letter similarity effects (e.g., amazom is often recognized as a legitimate brand name, but not amazot). This pattern poses problems for those models that assume that word identification is exclusively based on abstract codes. Here, we investigated the role of visual letter similarity using another type of word often presented in a more homogenous format than common words: city names. We found a visual letter similarity effect for misspelled city names (e.g., Barcetona was often recognized as a word, but not Barcesona) for relatively short durations of the stimuli (200 ms; Experiment 2), but not when the stimuli were presented until response (Experiment 1). Notably, misspelled common words did not show a visual letter similarity effect for brief 200- and 150-ms durations (e.g., votume was not as often recognized as a word than vosume; Experiments 3-4). These findings provide further evidence that the consistency in the format of presentations may shape the representation of words in the mental lexicon, which may be more salient in scenarios where processing resources are limited (e.g., brief exposure presentations).

Masked priming under the Bayesian microscope: Exploring the integration of local elements into global shape through Bayesian model comparison

To investigate whether local elements are grouped into global shapes in the absence of awareness, we introduced two different masked priming designs (e.g., the classic dissociation paradigm and a trial-wise probe and prime discrimination task) and collected both objective (i.e., performance based) and subjective (using the perceptual awareness scale [PAS]) awareness measures. Prime visibility was manipulated using three different prime-mask stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) and an unmasked condition. Our results showed that assessing prime visibility trial-wise heavily interfered with masked priming preventing any prime facilitation effect. The implementation of Bayesian regression models, which predict priming effects for participants whose awareness levels are at chance level, provided strong evidence in favor of the hypothesis that local elements group into global shape in the absence of awareness for SOAs longer than 50 ms, suggesting that prime-mask SOA is a crucial factor in the processing of the global shape without awareness.

Long-Term Monitoring of Aphid-Transmitted Viruses in Melon and Zucchini Crops: Genetic Diversity and Population Structure of Cucurbit Aphid-Borne Yellows Virus and Watermelon Mosaic Virus

Understanding the emergence and prevalence of viral diseases in crops requires the systematic epidemiological monitoring of viruses, as well as the analysis of how ecological and evolutionary processes combine to shape viral population dynamics. Here, we extensively monitored the occurrence of six aphid-transmitted viruses in melon and zucchini crops in Spain for 10 consecutive cropping seasons between 2011 and 2020. The most prevalent viruses were cucurbit aphid-borne yellows virus (CABYV) and watermelon mosaic virus (WMV), found in 31 and 26% of samples with yellowing and mosaic symptoms. Other viruses, such as zucchini yellow mosaic virus, cucumber mosaic virus, Moroccan watermelon mosaic virus, and papaya ring spot virus, were detected less frequently (<3%) and mostly in mixed infections. Notably, our statistical analysis showed a significant association between CABYV and WMV in melon and zucchini hosts, suggesting that mixed infections might be influencing the evolutionary epidemiology of these viral diseases. We then carried out a comprehensive genetic characterization of the full-length genome sequences from CABYV and WMV isolates by using the Pacific Biosciences single-molecule real-time (PacBio) high-throughput technology to assess the genetic variation and structure of their populations. Our results showed that the CABYV population displayed seven codons under positive selection, and although most isolates clustered in the Mediterranean clade, a subsequent analysis of molecular variance revealed a significant, fine-scale temporal structure, which was in part explained by the level of the variance between isolates from single and mixed infections. In contrast, the WMV population genetic analysis showed that most of the isolates grouped into the Emergent clade, with no genetic differentiation and under purifying selection. These results underlie the epidemiological relevance of mixed infections for CABYV and provide a link between genetic diversity and CABYV dynamics at the whole-genome level.

Risk/Benefit Evaluation of Chia Seeds as a New Ingredient in Cereal-Based Foods

Chia seed (Salvia hispanica L.) is a food rich in protein, fiber, polyunsaturated fatty acids and antioxidants. Consequently, its incorporation in food formulations may be desirable from a nutritional and healthy point of view. However, there is concern regarding the formation of process contaminants when they are subjected to thermal processing. The objective of this study was to incorporate different amounts of ground chia seeds in a biscuit model to evaluate the effect on the antioxidant capacity and formation of acrylamide and furfurals. Seven standard "Maria-type" biscuit formulations were prepared, replacing wheat flour with different amounts of ground chia seeds (defatted and non-defatted), from 0% (control biscuit) to 15% (respect to total solids in the recipe). Samples were baked at 180 °C for 22 min. Compared with the control biscuit, chia formulations increased the content of nutrients, antioxidant capacity (ABTS) and phenolic compounds (Folin-Ciocalteau method) but also doubled acrylamide levels and even raised more than 10 times furanic compound concentrations. Results indicate that the use of chia seeds as ingredients in new cereal-based formulations would improve the nutritional profile but also increase the occurrence of chemical process contaminants. This paradox should be carefully considered in the context of risk/benefit analysis.

Does online masked priming pass the test? The effects of prime exposure duration on masked identity priming

Masked priming is one of the most important paradigms in the study of visual word recognition, but it is usually thought to require a laboratory setup with a known monitor and keyboard. To test if this technique can be safely used in an online setting, we conducted two online masked priming lexical decision task experiments using PsychoPy/PsychoJS (Peirce et al., 2019). Importantly, we also tested the role of prime exposure duration (33.3 vs. 50 ms in Experiment 1 and 16.7 vs. 33.3 ms in Experiment 2), thus allowing us to examine both across conditions and within-conditions effects. We found that our online data are indeed very similar to the masked priming data previously reported in the masked priming literature. Additionally, we found a clear effect of prime duration, with the priming effect (measured in terms of response time and accuracy) being stronger at 50 ms than 33.3 ms and no priming effect at 16.7 ms prime duration. From these results, we can conclude that modern online browser-based experimental psychophysics packages (e.g., PsychoPy) can present stimuli and collect responses on standard end user devices with enough precision. These findings provide us with confidence that masked priming can be used online, thus allowing us not only to run less time-consuming experiments, but also to reach populations that are difficult to test in a laboratory.

TouchScope: A Passive-Haptic Device to Investigate Tactile Perception Using a Refreshable Braille Display

The sense of touch is underrepresented in cognitive psychology research. One of the reasons is that controlling the timing of stimulus presentation, which is a hallmark of cognitive research, is significantly more difficult for tactile stimuli than visual or auditory stimuli. In the present work, we present a system to display tactile stimuli (braille cells) and collect response time with the capability for static and dynamic (passive haptic) stimuli prsentation that will contribute to the development of tactile research. While the system requires some construction, it can be put together with commercially available materials. Here, we present the step-by-step instructions for constructing the tool, the code used to control it, and some basic experiments to validate it. The data from the experiments show that the device can be used for a variety of tactile perception experiments.

V-042 MOVING THE CONCEPT ASSOCIATED TO LAPAROSCOPIC INTRACORPOREAL RECTUS APONEUROPLASTY (LIRA) TO LATERAL HERNIA

Aims

Lateral hernias(LH) are rare and there are difficulties associated to minimally invasive approach, LIRA-technique has been described as an alternative to simple closure of the defect. Despite this, the indications of the concept associated to this technique are beginning to expand to other complex locations. Aims of this video is to show the surgical steps for LH where the concept associated to LIRA is followed to repair this type of hernias.

Material & Methods

56-year-old female patient without previous surgical history. Clinical examination and CT-scan showed a LH(L2) 6.4 cm in width(W2) and a length of 6.6 cm.

Results

We started by opening the peritoneum and fascia, exposing the fibers of the internal oblique and the posterior rectus sheath near the border of the defect. Then, the peritoneum and the fascia transversalis, and medially the posterior aponeurosis of the rectus muscle, are opened. Also, it is important to create a lateral peritoneum flap, using a hybrid procedure that involves a partially extraperitoneal and transabdominal (TAPE), then loop-suture are used for closing the defect. Finally, the mesh is placed intraperitoneally and partially extraperitoneal.

Conclusions

Best surgical technique for LH is still not clear. The anatomical location of these hernias is challenging, recurrence and bulging are also frequent. Since the introduction of the concept of primary closure of the hernia defect, the surgical repair of hernias in different locations has changed, although the idea of expanding the indication of LIRA could be related to better results in term of recurrences, bulging and pain.

Does adding an accent mark hinder lexical access? Evidence from Spanish

Recent research has shown that omitting the accent mark in a Spanish word, which is a language in which these diacritics only indicate lexical stress, does not cause a delay in lexical access (e.g., cárcel [prison] ≈ carcel; cárcel-CÁRCEL ≈ carcel-CÁRCEL). This pattern has been interpreted as accented and nonaccented vowels sharing the abstract letter representations in Spanish. However, adding an accent mark to a nonaccented Spanish word appears to produce a reading cost in masked priming paradigms (e.g., féliz-FELIZ [happy] > feliz-FELIZ). We examined whether adding an accent mark to a non accented Spanish word slows down lexical access in two semantic categorization experiments to solve this puzzle. We added an accent mark either on the stressed syllable (Experiment 1, e.g., cébra for the word cebra [zebra]) or an unstressed syllable (Experiment 2, e.g., cebrá). While effect sizes were small in magnitude, adding an accent mark produced a cost relative to the intact words, especially when the accent mark was added on an unstressed syllable (cebrá > cebra). These findings favor the view that letter identity and (to a lesser extent) accent mark information are encoded during word recognition in Spanish. We also examined the practical implications of these results.

Reading about a RELO-VUTION

Pseudowords created by transposing two letters of words (e.g., MOHTER; CHOLOCATE) are highly confusable with their base word; this is known as the transposed-letter similarity effect. In this work, we examined whether transposed-letter effects occur when words span more than one line (e.g., CHOLO- in one line and CATE in another line; note that the transposed letters L and C are in different lines). While this type of presentation is not the canonical format for reading in alphabetic languages, it is widely used in advertising, billboards, and street signs. Transposed-letter pseudowords and their replacement-letter controls were written in the standard one-line format versus a two-line format (Experiments 1-2) or a syllable-per-line format (Experiment 3). While results showed some decrease in the transposed-letter effect in the two-line and syllabic formats, the transposed-letter effect was still substantial in the accuracy of responses. These findings demonstrate that even when the letters being transposed are relatively far apart in space, the transposed-letter effect is still robust. Thus, a major component of letter position coding occurs at an abstract level.

Unveiling the boost in the sandwich priming technique

The masked priming technique (which compares #####-house-HOUSE vs. #####-fight-HOUSE) is the gold-standard tool to examine the initial moments of word processing. Lupker and Davis showed that adding a pre-prime identical to the target produced greater priming effects in the sandwich technique (which compares #####-HOUSE-house-HOUSE vs #####-HOUSE-fight-HOUSE). While there is consensus that the sandwich technique magnifies the size of priming effects relative to the standard procedure, the mechanisms underlying this boost are not well understood (i.e., does it reflect quantitative or qualitative changes?). To fully characterise the sandwich technique, we compared the sandwich and standard techniques by examining the response times (RTs) and their distributional features (delta plots; conditional-accuracy functions), comparing identity versus unrelated primes. The results showed that the locus of the boost in the sandwich technique was two-fold: faster responses in the identity condition (via a shift in the RT distributions) and slower responses in the unrelated condition. We discuss the theoretical and methodological implications of these findings.

Comparación nutricional de huevos azules de gallina Araucana y una línea de gallina

Se comparó ceniza proteína, grasa, ácidos grasos y colesterol en huevos de gallina Araucana y Hy-line, bajo la administración de dos dietas (concentrado y granos más pastoreo), estandarizando la etapa productiva y el peso del huevo. Se generaron 4 tratamientos con 3 pools formados de 12 huevos, yemas y albumenes. Los análisis se efectuaron con protocolos de la Association of Analytical Communities, esterificación y cromatografía. Los resultados se evaluaron mediante análisis de varianza. El contenido de ceniza fue mayor (P

Which Factors Modulate Letter Position Coding in Pre-literate Children?

One of the central landmarks of learning to read is the emergence of orthographic processing (i.e., the encoding of letter identity and letter order): it constitutes the necessary link between the low-level stages of visual processing and the higher-level processing of words. Regarding the processing of letter position, many experiments have shown worse performance in various tasks for the transposed-letter pair judge-JUDGE than for the orthographic control jupte-JUDGE. Importantly, 4-y.o. pre-literate children also show letter transposition effects in a same-different task: TZ-ZT is more error-prone than TZ-PH. Here, we examined whether this effect with pre-literate children is related to the cognitive and linguistic skills required to learn to read. Specifically, we examined the relation of the transposed-letter in a same-different task with the scores of these children in phonological, alphabetic and metalinguistic awareness, linguistic skills, and basic cognitive processes. To that end, we used a standardized battery to assess the abilities related with early reading acquisition. Results showed that the size of the transposed-letter effect in pre-literate children was strongly associated with the sub-test on basic cognitive processes (i.e., memory and perception) but not with the other sub-tests. Importantly, identifying children who may need a pre-literacy intervention is crucial to minimize eventual reading difficulties. We discuss how this marker can be used as a tool to anticipate reading difficulties in beginning readers.

A Deep Learning Enhanced Novel Software Tool for Laryngeal Dynamics Analysis

Purpose High-speed videoendoscopy (HSV) is an emerging, but barely used, endoscopy technique in the clinic to assess and diagnose voice disorders because of the lack of dedicated software to analyze the data. HSV allows to quantify the vocal fold oscillations by segmenting the glottal area. This challenging task has been tackled by various studies; however, the proposed approaches are mostly limited and not suitable for daily clinical routine. Method We developed a user-friendly software in C# that allows the editing, motion correction, segmentation, and quantitative analysis of HSV data. We further provide pretrained deep neural networks for fully automatic glottis segmentation. Results We freely provide our software Glottis Analysis Tools (GAT). Using GAT, we provide a general threshold-based region growing platform that enables the user to analyze data from various sources, such as in vivo recordings, ex vivo recordings, and high-speed footage of artificial vocal folds. Additionally, especially for in vivo recordings, we provide three robust neural networks at various speed and quality settings to allow a fully automatic glottis segmentation needed for application by untrained personnel. GAT further evaluates video and audio data in parallel and is able to extract various features from the video data, among others the glottal area waveform, that is, the changing glottal area over time. In total, GAT provides 79 unique quantitative analysis parameters for video- and audio-based signals. Many of these parameters have already been shown to reflect voice disorders, highlighting the clinical importance and usefulness of the GAT software. Conclusion GAT is a unique tool to process HSV and audio data to determine quantitative, clinically relevant parameters for research, diagnosis, and treatment of laryngeal disorders. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.14575533.

Do Grading Gray Stimuli Help to Encode Letter Position?

Numerous experiments in the past decades recurrently showed that a transposed-letter pseudoword (e.g., JUGDE) is much more wordlike than a replacement-letter control (e.g., JUPTE). Critically, there is an ongoing debate as to whether this effect arises at a perceptual level (e.g., perceptual uncertainty at assigning letter position of an array of visual objects) or at an abstract language-specific level (e.g., via a level of "open bigrams" between the letter and word levels). Here, we designed an experiment to test the limits of perceptual accounts of letter position coding. The stimuli in a lexical decision task were presented either with a homogeneous letter intensity or with a graded gray intensity, which indicated an unambiguous letter order. The pseudowords were either transposed-letter pseudowords or replaced-letter pseudowords (e.g., jugde vs. jupte). The results showed much longer response times and substantially more errors in the transposed-letter pseudowords than in the replacement-letter pseudowords, regardless of visual format. These findings favor the idea that language-specific orthographic element factors play an essential role when encoding letter position during word recognition.

BAGLS, a multihospital Benchmark for Automatic Glottis Segmentation

Laryngeal videoendoscopy is one of the main tools in clinical examinations for voice disorders and voice research. Using high-speed videoendoscopy, it is possible to fully capture the vocal fold oscillations, however, processing the recordings typically involves a time-consuming segmentation of the glottal area by trained experts. Even though automatic methods have been proposed and the task is particularly suited for deep learning methods, there are no public datasets and benchmarks available to compare methods and to allow training of generalizing deep learning models. In an international collaboration of researchers from seven institutions from the EU and USA, we have created BAGLS, a large, multihospital dataset of 59,250 high-speed videoendoscopy frames with individually annotated segmentation masks. The frames are based on 640 recordings of healthy and disordered subjects that were recorded with varying technical equipment by numerous clinicians. The BAGLS dataset will allow an objective comparison of glottis segmentation methods and will enable interested researchers to train their own models and compare their methods.

Perceived and anticipating stigma in schizophrenia in relationship with depressive symptoms and functionality degree

Introduction

Perceived and anticipated stigma is relevant issues in patients with schizophrenia. Stigma has negative consequences both in quality of life and in the course of illness.

Objectives

To analyze the degree of perceived and anticipated stigma and discrimination in patients with schizophrenia and their relationship with clinical and socio-demographic variables.

Methods

A cross-sectional study was carried out in a sample of 100 patients with diagnosis of schizophrenia, 18 or more years old, clinically stabilized, without axis I DSM-IV comorbidity. Patients received treatment in the outpatient services of a catchment area in Madrid. Perceived and anticipated discrimination was evaluated trough the DISC-12 (Discrimination and Stigma scale). Other study variables were: socio-demographic characteristics, symptoms of depression (Calgary Scale) and functionality degree measured by Global Assessment of Function (GAF).

Results

The presence of symptoms of depression evaluated by the Calgary Scale and low degree of functionality measured by GAF are associated with greater feelings of discrimination and stigma, especially in the sub-scales of experienced and anticipated discrimination of the DISC 12. Anticipated stigma is higher in men than in women while the rest sub scales of the DISC-12 do not correlate with gender or other sociodemographic variables.

Conclusions

Preventive strategies to avoid the stigma in schizophrenia should consider some characteristics associated with disease, especially the degree of functionality and presence of depressive symptoms.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Long-Term Cocirculation of Two Strains of Pepino Mosaic Virus in Tomato Crops and Its Effect on Population Genetic Variability

Mixed viral infections are common in plants, and the evolutionary dynamics of viral populations may differ depending on whether the infection is caused by single or multiple viral strains. However, comparative studies of single and mixed infections using viral populations in comparable agricultural and geographical locations are lacking. Here, we monitored the occurrence of pepino mosaic virus (PepMV) in tomato crops in two major tomato-producing areas in Murcia (southeastern Spain), supporting evidence showing that PepMV disease-affected plants had single infections of the Chilean 2 (CH2) strain in one area and the other area exhibited long-term (13 years) coexistence of the CH2 and European (EU) strains. We hypothesized that circulating strains of PepMV might be modulating the differentiation between them and shaping the evolutionary dynamics of PepMV populations. Our phylogenetic analysis of 106 CH2 isolates randomly selected from both areas showed a remarkable divergence between the CH2 isolates, with increased nucleotide variability in the geographical area where both strains cocirculate. Furthermore, the potential virus-virus interaction was studied further by constructing six full-length infectious CH2 clones from both areas, and assessing their viral fitness in the presence and absence of an EU-type isolate. All CH2 clones showed decreased fitness in mixed infections and although complete genome sequencing indicated a nucleotide divergence of those CH2 clones by area, the magnitude of the fitness response was irrespective of the CH2 origin. Overall, these results suggest that although agroecological cropping practices may be particularly important for explaining the evolutionary dynamics of PepMV in tomato crops, the cocirculation of both strains may have implications on the genetic variability of PepMV populations.

[Emotional valence effect on prospective memory in relapsing remitting Multiple Sclerosis]

INTRODUCTION

prospective memory is the ability to remember to perform actions in the future. Currently there is no consensus about the relationship between prospective memory and emotional processing.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this work is to determine the influence of the emotional valence of prospective memory signals on prospective recall in patients diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

METHOD

37 patients with multiple sclerosis and 32 healthy volunteers were recruited. An experimental test was made where the concurrent task consisted in a 2-back working memory activity and the prospective component consisted of remembering to press a key on the computer when an image of positive, negative or neutral emotional content appears on the screen.

RESULTS

An intra-group comparison was made between the memory of emotional and neutral stimuli, and it was obtained that the differences are significant in both groups in favor of the recall of stimuli with neutral valence (Z = -3.39, p = .001 for the control group and Z = -2.63, p = .008 for multiple sclerosis).

DISCUSSION

The results indicate that emotionally neutral target stimuli benefits prospective memory in normal people and in multiple sclerosis patients. The limitations of the implemented method are discussed.

Diversity of Staphylococcus aureus clones in wild mammals in Aragon, Spain, with detection of MRSA ST130-mecC in wild rabbits

AIMS

To determine the Staphylococcus aureus carriage rate in wild mammals in Aragon, northern Spain, to analyse their antimicrobial resistance phenotype/genotype and to characterize the recovered isolates.

METHODS AND RESULTS

Nasal and rectal swabs of 103 mammals were collected in Aragón during the period 2012-2015. Antimicrobial susceptibility, the presence of antimicrobial resistance genes and virulence factors were investigated. Molecular characterization was carried out by spa, MLST, agr and SCCmec. Staphylococcus aureus were recovered from 23 animals (22%). Four of the 23 S. aureus were methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). Three MRSA were mecC-positive and were isolated from European rabbits and were typed as t843 (ascribed to CC130). The remaining MRSA was a mecA-carrying isolate from European hedgehog, typed as ST1-t386-SCCmecIVa-agrIII and it harboured the blaZ, erm(C), ant(6)-Ia and aph(3´)-IIIa resistance genes. A high diversity of spa-types was detected among the 19 methicillin-susceptible S. aureus isolates, which showed high susceptibility to the antimicrobials tested. The tst gene and different combinations of staphylococcal enterotoxins were found.

CONCLUSIONS

Staphylococcus aureus were detected in nasal and rectal samples of wild mammals. Wild rabbits could be a reservoir of mecC-MRSA.

SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY

This work provides information on the presence and characteristics of S. aureus from mammals in a defined geographic region in Spain.

In situ hybridization for the localization of two pepino mosaic virus isolates in mixed infections

In situ hybridization (ISH) is an informative and relatively accessible technique for the localization of viral genomes in plant tissue and cells. However, simultaneous visualization of related plant viruses in mixed infections may be limited by the nucleotide similarity in the genomes and the single chromogenic detection over the same sample preparation. To address this issue, we used two Pepino mosaic virus isolates and performed ISH over consecutive serial cross-sections of paraffin-embedded leaf samples of single and mixed infected Nicotiana benthamiana plants. Moreover, the probe design was optimized to reduce cross-hybridisation, and co-localization was based on the overlapping of consecutive cross-sections from mixed infected leaves; thus, our results showed that both Pepino mosaic virus isolates co-localized in the same leaf tissue. In turn, both isolates were localized in the cytoplasm of the same cells. These results provide valuable information for studying mixed infections in plants by using a simple ISH procedure that is accessible to any pathology laboratory.

Laryngeal Pressure Estimation With a Recurrent Neural Network

Quantifying the physical parameters of voice production is essential for understanding the process of phonation and can aid in voice research and diagnosis. As an alternative to invasive measurements, they can be estimated by formulating an inverse problem using a numerical forward model. However, high-fidelity numerical models are often computationally too expensive for this. This paper presents a novel approach to train a long short-term memory network to estimate the subglottal pressure in the larynx at massively reduced computational cost using solely synthetic training data. We train the network on synthetic data from a numerical two-mass model and validate it on experimental data from 288 high-speed ex vivo video recordings of porcine vocal folds from a previous study. The training requires significantly fewer model evaluations compared with the previous optimization approach. On the test set, we maintain a comparable performance of 21.2% versus previous 17.7% mean absolute percentage error in estimating the subglottal pressure. The evaluation of one sample requires a vanishingly small amount of computation time. The presented approach is able to maintain estimation accuracy of the subglottal pressure at significantly reduced computational cost. The methodology is likely transferable to estimate other parameters and training with other numerical models. This improvement should allow the adoption of more sophisticated, high-fidelity numerical models of the larynx. The vast speedup is a critical step to enable a future clinical application and knowledge of parameters such as the subglottal pressure will aid in diagnosis and treatment selection.

Control of nuclear β-dystroglycan content is crucial for the maintenance of nuclear envelope integrity and function

β-Dystroglycan (β-DG) is a plasma membrane protein that has ability to target to the nuclear envelope (NE) to maintain nuclear architecture. Nevertheless, mechanisms controlling β-DG nuclear localization and the physiological consequences of a failure of trafficking are largely unknown. We show that β-DG has a nuclear export pathway in myoblasts that depends on the recognition of a nuclear export signal located in its transmembrane domain, by CRM1. Remarkably, NES mutations forced β-DG nuclear accumulation resulting in mislocalization and decreased levels of emerin and lamin B1 and disruption of various nuclear processes in which emerin (centrosome-nucleus linkage and β-catenin transcriptional activity) and lamin B1 (cell cycle progression and nucleoli structure) are critically involved. In addition to nuclear export, the lifespan of nuclear β-DG is restricted by its nuclear proteasomal degradation. Collectively our data show that control of nuclear β-DG content by the combination of CRM1 nuclear export and nuclear proteasome pathways is physiologically relevant to preserve proper NE structure and activity.

Weeds and ground-dwelling predators' response to two different weed management systems in glyphosate-tolerant cotton: A farm-scale study

The use of glyphosate, as a post-emergence broad-spectrum herbicide in genetically modified glyphosate-tolerant (GT) cotton, supposes a big change in weed management programs with respect to a conventional regime. Thus, alterations in arable flora and arthropod fauna must be considered when evaluating their potential impacts. A 3-year farm-scale study was conducted in a 2-ha GT cotton crop, in southern Spain, to compare the effects of conventional and glyphosate herbicide regimes on weed abundance and diversity and their consequences for ground-dwelling predators. Surveys reveal that weed density was relatively low within all treatments with a few dominant species, with significantly higher weed densities and modifications of the floristic composition in glyphosate-treated plots that led to an increase in the abundance of Portulaca oleracea and to a reduction in plant diversity. The activity-density of the main predatory arthropod taxa (spiders, ground beetles, rove beetles and earwigs) varied among years, but no significant differences were obtained between conventional and glyphosate herbicide regimes. However, significant differences between treatments were obtained for ground beetles species richness and diversity, being higher under the glyphosate herbicide regime, and a positive correlation with weed density could be established for both parameters. The implications of these findings to weed control in GT cotton are discussed.

Biomechanical simulation of vocal fold dynamics in adults based on laryngeal high-speed videoendoscopy

MOTIVATION

Human voice is generated in the larynx by the two oscillating vocal folds. Owing to the limited space and accessibility of the larynx, endoscopic investigation of the actual phonatory process in detail is challenging. Hence the biomechanics of the human phonatory process are still not yet fully understood. Therefore, we adapt a mathematical model of the vocal folds towards vocal fold oscillations to quantify gender and age related differences expressed by computed biomechanical model parameters.

METHODS

The vocal fold dynamics are visualized by laryngeal high-speed videoendoscopy (4000 fps). A total of 33 healthy young subjects (16 females, 17 males) and 11 elderly subjects (5 females, 6 males) were recorded. A numerical two-mass model is adapted to the recorded vocal fold oscillations by varying model masses, stiffness and subglottal pressure. For adapting the model towards the recorded vocal fold dynamics, three different optimization algorithms (Nelder-Mead, Particle Swarm Optimization and Simulated Bee Colony) in combination with three cost functions were considered for applicability. Gender differences and age-related kinematic differences reflected by the model parameters were analyzed.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION

The biomechanical model in combination with numerical optimization techniques allowed phonatory behavior to be simulated and laryngeal parameters involved to be quantified. All three optimization algorithms showed promising results. However, only one cost function seems to be suitable for this optimization task. The gained model parameters reflect the phonatory biomechanics for men and women well and show quantitative age- and gender-specific differences. The model parameters for younger females and males showed lower subglottal pressures, lower stiffness and higher masses than the corresponding elderly groups. Females exhibited higher subglottal pressures, smaller oscillation masses and larger stiffness than the corresponding similar aged male groups. Optimizing numerical models towards vocal fold oscillations is useful to identify underlying laryngeal components controlling the phonatory process.

Efficacy and Tolerability of Aripiprazole Intramuscular as Maintenance Treatment in Patients with Paranoid Schizophrenia

Introduction

Patients suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, require long-term anti-psychotic treatment, which provide, in addition to adequate efficacy both positive and negative symptoms, a good safety and tolerability profile that would ensure adequate adherence to prevent relapse.

Objectives

To analyze the efficacy, tolerability and therapeutic adherence over a year after the introduction of aripiprazole depot in patients diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia previously treated with other oral or depot anti-psychotics [1,2,3].

Methods

One-year prospective longitudinal study with a sample size of 23 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia in outpatient treatment. Study variables (baseline, 6 and 12 months): Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), clinical global impression (CGI), mean dose of aripiprazole depot, previous treatments, adherence, relapse rate, prolactin levels, sexual dysfunction, BMIs.

Results

Twenty-three patients (71% men, 29% women) diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia were identified. Improvement was obtained in the different study variables with statistically significant difference (P ≤ 0.05).

Conclusions

Following the introduction of aripiprazole depot in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia previously treated with other oral or depot anti-psychotics in our study, we conclude that maintaining therapeutic efficacy a better tolerability and safety profile, better therapeutic adherence and consequently lower relapse rate were achieved.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Frequency domain model for transient analysis of lightning protection systems of buildings

A frequency domain modeling approach for lightning protection systems (LPS) of buildings is described and validated in this paper. The model is based on a 2-port transmission line representation of each conductor, and the further assembling of a network representing the complete structure. Horizontal and vertical conductors are modeled using formulas based on the complex images method, in order to take into account frequency dependence. Variation of electrical parameters with height is also considered for vertical conductors. This is accomplished by means of a non-uniform modeling approach based on conductor subdivision and cascaded connection of chain matrices computed for each segment. The results from the model are validated by means of comparisons with measurements reported elsewhere, as well as simulations using PSCAD/EMTDC.

Abstract P4-07-04: PARP1/2 inhibition in a subset of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) patient-derived tumor xenografts (PDX) identifies predictive biomarkers of response

Background: BRCA1/2 mutation carriers (gBRCA) have a higher risk of breast or ovarian cancer, since BRCA1/2 mutation results in impaired high-fidelity DNA repair by homologous recombination (HR) and subsequently genetic instability. In non-gBRCA TNBC, HR deficiency occurs at the somatic level, by means of BRCA1 mutation, BRCA1 epigenetic loss or mutation in other HR-associated genes. Because PARP1/2 inhibitors (PARPi) are well-tolerated and active anti-cancer agents in the advanced setting of gBRCA tumors, we sought to expand their applicability by identifying response biomarkers in TNBC.

Methods: We have assessed the antitumor response of the PARP1/2 inhibitor olaparib as single agent in a panel of 12 primary and advanced TNBC PDX models. On PDXs exhibiting primary sensitivity to olaparib, we have developed models of acquired resistance by continuous exposure to the drug and identifying progression on treatment. We have characterized the models through targeted sequencing and the analysis of the hypermethylation and expression levels of BRCA1 transcript to find potential correlates of drug-sensitivity.

Results: Three out of 12 PDXs (25%) treated with single agent olaparib, exhibit tumor regression or disease stabilization. BRCA1 is hypermethylated in two of these PARPi-sensitive TNBC PDX models and is associated with loss of BRCA1 mRNA expression. The third PARPi-sensitive TNBC PDX harbors a frameshift, heterozygous PALB2 mutation, which is no longer detected in the acquired resistance PDX model. Acquired resistance in the hypermethylated PDXs is under study as well as the duration of response compared to gBRCA PDX models.

Conclusions: Our study highlights that somatic HR-deficiency is frequent in TNBC and provides the basis of sensitivity to PARPi.

Citation Format: Serra V, Cruz C, Bruna A, Ibrahim YH, Vivancos A, Vivancos A, Nuciforo P, Bellet M, Gómez P, Pérez JM, Saura C, Vidal M, Serres X, Rueda OM, Peg V, Caldas C, O'Connor MJ, Baselga J, Cortés J. PARP1/2 inhibition in a subset of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) patient-derived tumor xenografts (PDX) identifies predictive biomarkers of response. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Thirty-Eighth Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium: 2015 Dec 8-12; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P4-07-04.

Abstract P2-08-13: Integrating multiplex and next generation sequencing (NGS) platforms in routine molecular profiling of metastatic breast cancer (MBC) patients (pts): Trends for enrollment in genotype-directed clinical trials (GDTs)

Background/aims: Multiplex or NGS platforms increase the number of mutations (mut) detected in tumor samples respect to single-gene sequencing techniques. We aimed to assess the actionable molecular alteration (ActMA) detection rate and the enrollment in GDTs derived from the integration of these platforms in routine molecular profiling of MBC pts, in addition to FISH and IHC techniques already in use. Methods: Consecutive MBC pts screened for gene mut by Sequenom (Seq) or AmpliconSeq (ASeq) were identified. Data on FGFR1 amplification (amp), PTEN IHC, and enrollment in GDTs were collected. ActMA: any mut, PTENnull (IHC score=0), or FGFR1/HER2amp for which a matched targeted drug might be available. Targeted therapy: treatment with PI3K/mTOR, novel anti-HER2, FGFR, or AKT inhibitors (inh) irrespective of having ActMA. GDT: treatment matched to ActMA. Results: From Oct2010-Apr2015, 260 pts screened (Seq 207, ASeq 53). IHC subtype: HR+/HER2- (LUM) 65%, HER2+ 13.5%, TN 19.6%, unk 1.9%. 84 samples from a metastatic site (32.3%).

ActMA / n (%)LUMHER2+TNP value (Fisher's exact test)TotalTP53*11 (31.4)1 (50)9 (52.9)0.3421 (38.9)PIK3CA44 (26)10 (28.6)4 (7.8)0.158 (22.7)FGFR1amp21 (17.4)1 (5.3)6 (16.7)0.4728 (15.9)PTENnull12 (9.3)2 (7.7)9 (25)0.0323 (12)AKT110 (5.9)1 (2.9)-0.1511 (4.3)ERBB23 (1.8)---3 (1.2)EGFR1 (0.6)-2 (4.1)-3 (1.2)ESR1*1 (3)---1 (2)KRAS2 (1.2)---2 (0.8)Denominators vary according to platform. *Amplicon only

Proportion of PIK3CAmut was similar irrespective of the site of analysis (primary 25.5%, metastasis 21.4%; P=0.63) and platform (Seq 22.2%, ASeq 24.5%, P=0.72). ASeq detected more mutations in actionable genes than Seq (36% vs. 29%, P=0.01). At least 1 ActMA (range 0-3) was found in 53.5% of pts, with non-significant differences in HER2- subtypes (LUM 48.5% vs. TN 39.2%, P=0.32).

Subtype* / ActMA n (%)≥10123All139 (53.5)121 (46.5)111 (42.7)25 (9.6)3 (1.2)LUM82 (48.5)87 (51.5)71 (42)9 (5.3)2 (1.2)HER2+35 (100)-22 (62.9)12 (34.3)1 (28)TN20 (39.2)31 (60.8)16 (31.4)4 (7.8)-*5 pts with unk subtype not shown

Pts with ≥2 ActMA (excluding HER2amp): 11 LUM (interestingly, 3 pts with PIK3CAmut+FGFR1amp), 1 HER2+, and 4 TN. Overall, 56% of pts received ≥1 targeted therapy (range 0-4). From the 139 pts with ≥1 potential ActMA (including HER2amp if treated with a novel anti-HER2), 61.8% received a targeted therapy and 42.4% were enrolled in a GDT: PI3K/mTOR inhibitor (inh) 54 (64.3%), novel anti-HER2 16 (19.1%), FGFR inh 8 (9.5%), AKT inh 6 (7.1%). Of the 121 pts that did not have potentially ActMA, 50% received a targeted therapy. The OR for receiving targeted therapy if ActMA was present was 1.59 (95%CI 0.94-2.70, P=0.08). Conclusion: Integration of multiplex and NGS platforms in routine molecular profiling of MBC pts yields a detection rate of ActMA &gt;50%, which translates into higher probability of receiving a targeted agent and enrollment in a GDT. This suggests that physicians are pushing towards matched targeted therapies for pts that participate in molecular screening programs and have ActMA. Results on the outcome of these pts will be presented.

Citation Format: Oliveira M, Dienstmann R, Bellet M, Pérez-Garcia JM, Gómez P, Muñoz-Couselo E, Vidal M, Ortega V, Zamora E, Soberino J, Meire A, Nuciforo P, Vivancos A, Cortés J, Saura C. Integrating multiplex and next generation sequencing (NGS) platforms in routine molecular profiling of metastatic breast cancer (MBC) patients (pts): Trends for enrollment in genotype-directed clinical trials (GDTs). [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Thirty-Eighth Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium: 2015 Dec 8-12; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P2-08-13.

How do Scrabble players encode letter position during reading?

BACKGROUND

A number of experiments with skilled adult readers have shown that a transposed-letter pseudoword (e.g., CHOLOCATE) is considerably more word-like than a control replacement-letter pseudoword (e.g., CHOTONATE). For instance, in lexical decision, response times are longer and less accurate for CHOLOCATE than for CHOTONATE (i.e., a transposed-letter effect).

METHOD

Here, we examined how letter position coding is attained in individuals who excel in orthographic-lexical processing: competitive Scrabble players. To this end, we conducted a lexical decision experiment with two types of pseudowords (transposed-letter vs. replacement-letter pseudowords).

RESULTS

Data showed that while the transposed-letter effect does occur in expert Scrabble players, the magnitude of the effect is dramatically smaller than in a control group of university students—in particular, for the accuracy data.

CONCLUSIONS

The parameters responsible for the flexibility of letter position coding in models of visual word recognition must be modulated by the degree of expertise in orthographic-lexical processing.

Characterisation of nasal Staphylococcus delphini and Staphylococcus pseudintermedius isolates from healthy donkeys in Tunisia

REASONS FOR PERFORMING STUDY

Staphylococcus intermedius group (SIG) bacteria can colonise the nares of some animals but are also emerging pathogens in humans and animals.

OBJECTIVES

To analyse SIG nasal carriage in healthy donkeys destined for food consumption in Tunisia and to characterise recovered isolates.

METHODS

Nasal swabs from 100 healthy donkeys were tested for SIG recovery, and isolates were identified by biochemical and molecular methods. Antimicrobial susceptibility of isolates was tested and detection of antimicrobial resistance and virulence genes was performed. Isolates were typed at the clonal level by multilocus sequence typing and SmaI pulsed-field gel electrophoresis.

RESULTS

Staphylococcus delphini and Staphylococcus pseudintermedius (included in SIG) were obtained in 19% and 2% of the tested samples, respectively, and one isolate per sample was characterised. All isolates were meticillin susceptible and mecA negative. Most S. delphini and S. pseudintermedius isolates showed susceptibility to all antimicrobials tested, with the exception of 2 isolates resistant to tetracycline (tet(M) gene) or fusidic acid. The following toxin genes were identified (percentage of isolates): lukS-I (100%), lukF-I (9.5%), siet (100%), se-int (90%), seccanine (19%) and expA (9.5%). Thirteen different pulsed-field gel electrophoresis profiles were identified among the 21 SIG isolates. Additionally, the following 9 different sequence types (STs) were detected by multilocus sequence typing, 6 of them new: ST219 (6 isolates), ST12 (5 isolates), ST220 (3 isolates), ST13, ST50, ST193, ST196, ST218 and ST221 (one isolate each).

CONCLUSIONS

Staphylococcus delphini and S. pseudintermedius are common nasal colonisers of donkeys, generally susceptible to the antimicrobials tested; nevertheless, these SIG isolates contain virulence genes, including the recently described exfoliative gene (expA) and several enterotoxin genes, with potential implications for public health. This is the first description of S. delphini in Tunisia. The Summary is available in Chinese - see Supporting information.

A challenging dissociation in masked identity priming with the lexical decision task

The masked priming technique has been used extensively to explore the early stages of visual-word recognition. One key phenomenon in masked priming lexical decision is that identity priming is robust for words, whereas it is small/unreliable for nonwords. This dissociation has usually been explained on the basis that masked priming effects are lexical in nature, and hence there should not be an identity prime facilitation for nonwords. We present two experiments whose results are at odds with the assumption made by models that postulate that identity priming is purely lexical, and also challenge the assumption that word and nonword responses are based on the same information. Our experiments revealed that for nonwords, but not for words, matched-case identity PRIME-TARGET pairs were responded to faster than mismatched-case identity prime-TARGET pairs, and this phenomenon was not modulated by the lowercase/uppercase feature similarity of the stimuli.

First detection of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus ST398 and Staphylococcus pseudintermedius ST68 from hospitalized equines in Spain

Eight coagulase-positive staphylococci from equines with different pathologies obtained between 2005 and 2011 were investigated. Isolates were characterized by different molecular techniques (spa-, agr-, MLST), and clonal relatedness of strains was investigated by ApaI and SmaI PFGE. Anti-microbial resistance and virulence profiles were determined. Six isolates were identified as Staphylococcus aureus, and two as Staphylococcus pseudintermedius. Of these, four isolates were methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) ST398 and one S. pseudintermedius was mecA positive and typed as ST68. One MRSA ST398 strain was isolated in 2005 and might be one of the earliest MRSA ST398 descriptions in Spain. All 5 mecA-positive strains were multidrug resistant and were isolated from hospitalized equines. Three MRSA ST398 strains carried the recently described transposon Tn559 within the chromosomal radC gene. The mecA-positive S. pseudintermedius ST68 strain was also multidrug resistant and harboured the erm(B)-Tn5405-like element. This ST68 strain presented a clear susceptible phenotype to oxacillin and cefoxitin regardless of the presence of an integral and conserved mecA gene and mecA promoter, which enhances the need for testing the presence of this gene in routine analysis to avoid treatment failures. These data reflect the extended anti-microbial resistance gene acquisition capacities of both bacterial species and evidence their pathogenic properties. The first detection of MRSA ST398 and S. pseudintermedius ST68 in horses in Spain is reported.

ERP correlates of letter identity and letter position are modulated by lexical frequency

The encoding of letter position is a key aspect in all recently proposed models of visual-word recognition. We analyzed the impact of lexical frequency on letter position assignment by examining the temporal dynamics of lexical activation induced by pseudowords extracted from words of different frequencies. For each word (e.g., BRIDGE), we created two pseudowords: A transposed-letter (TL: BRIGDE) and a replaced-letter pseudoword (RL: BRITGE). ERPs were recorded while participants read words and pseudowords in two tasks: Semantic categorization (experiment 1) and lexical decision (experiment 2). For high-frequency stimuli, similar ERPs were obtained for words and TL-pseudowords, but the N400 component to words was reduced relative to RL-pseudowords, indicating less lexical/semantic activation. In contrast, TL- and RL-pseudowords created from low-frequency stimuli elicited similar ERPs. Behavioral responses in the lexical decision task paralleled this asymmetry. The present findings impose constraints on computational and neural models of visual-word recognition.

Homogeneous sonophotolysis of food processing industry wastewater: Study of synergistic effects, mineralization and toxicity removal

The mineralization of industrial wastewater coming from food industry using an emerging homogeneous sonophotolytic oxidation process was evaluated as an alternative to or a rapid pretreatment step for conventional anaerobic digestion with the aim of considerably reducing the total treatment time. At the selected operation conditions ([H(2)O(2)]=11,750ppm, pH=8, amplitude=50%, pulse length (cycles)=1), 60% of TOC is removed after 60min and 98% after 180min when treating an industrial effluent with 2114ppm of total organic carbon (TOC). This process removed completely the toxicity generated during storing or due to intermediate compounds. An important synergistic effect between sonolysis and photolysis (H(2)O(2)/UV) was observed. Thus the sonophotolysis (ultrasound/H(2)O(2)/UV) technique significantly increases TOC removal when compared with each individual process. Finally, a preliminary economical analysis confirms that the sono-photolysis with H(2)O(2) and pretreated water is a profitable system when compared with the same process without using ultrasound waves and with no pretreatment.