The sweetpotato weevil, (Summers) (Coleoptera: Brentidae), is one of the most destructive pests of sweetpotato worldwide. Genomic analyses of sweetpotato weevils can provide insights into their genetic diversity, population structure, and dispersal as well as provide information to support management strategies. Adult sweetpotato weevils were collected by various methods from L.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSustainable global immunization campaigns against COVID-19 and other emerging infectious diseases require effective, broadly deployable vaccines. Here, we report a dissolvable microarray patch (MAP) SARS-CoV-2 vaccine that targets the immunoresponsive skin microenvironment, enabling efficacious needle-free immunization. Multicomponent MAPs delivering both SARS-CoV-2 S1 subunit antigen and the TLR3 agonist Poly(I:C) induce robust antibody and cellular immune responses systemically and in the respiratory mucosa.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFClimate change is transforming ecosystems and affecting ecosystem goods and services. Along the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coasts of the southeastern United States, the frequency and intensity of extreme freeze events greatly influence whether coastal wetlands are dominated by freeze-sensitive woody plants (mangrove forests) or freeze-tolerant grass-like plants (salt marshes). In response to warming winters, mangroves have been expanding and displacing salt marshes at varying degrees of severity in parts of north Florida, Louisiana, and Texas.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Med Imaging (Bellingham)
July 2021
Experienced radiologists have enhanced global processing ability relative to novices, allowing experts to rapidly detect medical abnormalities without performing an exhaustive search. However, evidence for global processing models is primarily limited to two-dimensional image interpretation, and it is unclear whether these findings generalize to volumetric images, which are widely used in clinical practice. We examined whether radiologists searching volumetric images use methods consistent with global processing models of expertise.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTranscult Psychiatry
August 2021
This article examines the role of prayers for traumatized survivors of war within a Pentecostal-charismatic community in post-conflict northern Uganda. It argues that becoming part of a church group and learning certain regimes of prayer can work toward symptom relief and recovery for people suffering from traumatic experiences. The study builds on 13 months of ethnographic fieldwork in rural northern Uganda, with extensive participant observation of religious practices and interviews with rural church congregants.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis paper puts forward the framework of the 'marketplace of post-conflict assistance' as a conceptual, analytical, and heuristic tool to comprehend better holistic dynamics in humanitarian and post-conflict contexts, where a variety of different actors offer various services and forms of assistance. It seeks to emphasise relations and interactions between service providers and intended beneficiaries in settings where there are often numerous different ways to conceptualise and manage problems stemming from armed conflict. This is demonstrated using one in-depth case study of a family in northern Uganda that has struggled for years with mental illness/spiritual problems.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSweet potato leaf curl virus (SPLCV) threatens global sweet potato production. SPLCV is transmitted by or via infected vegetative planting materials; however, SPLCV was suggested to be seed transmissible, which is a characteristic that is disputed for geminiviruses. The objective of this study was to revisit the validity of seed transmission of SPLCV in sweet potato.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe presence of memory for rejected distractors during visual search has been heavily debated in the literature and has proven challenging to investigate behaviorally. In this research, we used an electrophysiological index of working memory (contralateral delay activity) to passively measure working memory activity during visual search. Participants were asked to indicate whether a novel target was present or absent in a lateralized search array with three visual set sizes (2, 4, or 6).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Animal studies remain essential for understanding mechanisms of epilepsy and identifying new therapeutic targets. However, existing animal models of epilepsy do not reflect the high level of genetic diversity found in the human population. The Collaborative Cross (CC) population is a genetically diverse recombinant inbred panel of mice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInterpretation of volumetric medical images represents a rapidly growing proportion of the workload in radiology. However, relatively little is known about the strategies that best guide search behavior when looking for abnormalities in volumetric images. Although there is extensive literature on two-dimensional medical image perception, it is an open question whether the conclusions drawn from these images can be generalized to volumetric images.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study provides a protocol for the isolation of high-quality DNA from sweetpotato weevils (Cylas formicarius elegantulus (Summers)) collected from pheromone-baited aerial funnel traps. This study was based on our discovery that a 2-wk collection interval of sweetpotato weevils from pheromone traps did not permit isolation of intact high-quality genomic DNA. To test the effect of collection methods, i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecent evidence has suggested that visual working memory (VWM) plays an important role in representing the target prior to initiating a visual search. The more familiar we are with the search target, the more refined the representation of the target (or "target template") becomes. This sharpening of the target template is thought to underlie the reduced response time (RT) and increased accuracy associated with repeatedly searching for the same target.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWhat are the costs and consequences of interruptions during diagnostic radiology? The cognitive psychology literature suggests that interruptions lead to an array of negative consequences that could hurt patient outcomes and lead to lower patient throughput. Meanwhile, observational studies have both noted a strikingly high rate of interruptions and rising number of interruptions faced by radiologists. There is some observational evidence that more interruptions could lead to worse patient outcomes: Balint et al.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRegulation by gene-distal enhancers is critical for cell type-specific and condition-specific patterns of gene expression. Thus, to understand the basis of gene activity in a given cell type or tissue, we must identify the precise locations of enhancers and functionally characterize their behaviors. Here, we demonstrate that transcription is a nearly universal feature of enhancers in and mammalian cells and that nascent RNA sequencing strategies are optimal for identification of both enhancers and superenhancers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCogn Res Princ Implic
November 2017
Searching for targets in the visual world, or visual search, is something we all do every day. We frequently make 'false-negative' errors, wherein we erroneously conclude a target was absent when one was, in fact, present. These sorts of errors can have tremendous costs, as when signs of cancers are missed in diagnostic radiology.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Collaborative Cross (CC) is a multiparent panel of recombinant inbred (RI) mouse strains derived from eight founder laboratory strains. RI panels are popular because of their long-term genetic stability, which enhances reproducibility and integration of data collected across time and conditions. Characterization of their genomes can be a community effort, reducing the burden on individual users.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCogn Res Princ Implic
February 2017
Observational studies have shown that interruptions are a frequent occurrence in diagnostic radiology. The present study used an experimental design in order to quantify the cost of these interruptions during search through volumetric medical images. Participants searched through chest CT scans for nodules that are indicative of lung cancer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe remarkable capacity for pluripotency and self-renewal in embryonic stem cells (ESCs) requires a finely tuned transcriptional circuitry wherein the pathways and genes that initiate differentiation are suppressed, but poised to respond rapidly to developmental signals. To elucidate transcriptional control in mouse ESCs in the naive, ground state, we defined the distribution of engaged RNA polymerase II (Pol II) at high resolution. We find that promoter-proximal pausing of Pol II is most enriched at genes regulating cell cycle and signal transduction and not, as expected, at developmental or bivalent genes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this article, we present a case study of residents' clinical experiences and communication in outpatient oncology consultations. We apply positioning theory, a dynamic alternative to role theory, to investigate how oncology residents and patients situate themselves as persons with rights and duties. Drawing from seven qualitative interviews and six days of observation, we investigate the residents' social positioning and their conversations with patients or supervisors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Insulin-like growth factor binding protein-2 (IGFBP-2) regulates the bioavailability, transportation, and localization of insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I), an effective neuroprotectant in animal stroke models especially when administered intranasally. Therefore, determining IGFBP-2's endogenous distribution in the normal and ischemic brain is essential in maximizing the neuroprotective potential of the intranasal IGF-I treatment approach. However, current data on IGFBP-2 is limited to mRNA and in situ hybridization studies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnimal models that recapitulate human disease are proving to be an invaluable tool in the identification of novel disease-associated genes. These models can improve our understanding of the complex genetic mechanisms involved in disease and provide a basis to guide therapeutic strategies to combat these conditions. We have identified a novel mouse model of non-syndromic sensorineural hearing loss with linkage to a region on chromosome 18.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMyosin VI (Myo6) is known to play an important role in the mammalian auditory and vestibular systems. We have identified a novel N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea mutagenised mouse strain, charlie, carrying an intronic Myo6 splice site mutation. This mutation (IVS5+5G > A) results in skipping of exon 5, and is predicted to cause a frameshift and premature termination of the protein.
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