Inferring control objectives in a virtual balancing task in humans and monkeys.

Natural behaviors have redundancy, which implies that humans and animals can achieve their goals with different strategies. Given only observations of behavior, is it possible to infer the control objective that the subject is employing? This challenge is particularly acute in animal behavior because we cannot ask or instruct the subject to use a particular strategy. This study presents a three-pronged approach to infer an animal's control objective from behavior.

Prolonged interval to surgery following neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy in locally advanced rectal cancer: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

Background: Long-course neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (NCRT), followed by surgery after an interval of 6-8 weeks, represents standard of care for patients with locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC). Increasing this interval may improve rates of complete pathological response (pCR) and tumour downstaging. We performed a meta-analysis comparing standard (SI, within 8 weeks) versus longer (LI, after 8 weeks) interval from NCRT to surgery.

Inferring control objectives in a virtual balancing task in humans and monkeys.

Natural behaviors have redundancy, which implies that humans and animals can achieve their goals with different control objectives. Given only observations of behavior, is it possible to infer the control strategy that the subject is employing? This challenge is particularly acute in animal behavior because we cannot ask or instruct the subject to use a particular control strategy. This study presents a threepronged approach to infer an animal's control strategy from behavior.

Soybean Yellow Stripe-like 7 is a symbiosome membrane peptide transporter important for nitrogen fixation.

Legumes form a symbiosis with rhizobia that convert atmospheric nitrogen (N2) to ammonia and provide it to the plant in return for a carbon and nutrient supply. Nodules, developed as part of the symbiosis, harbor rhizobia that are enclosed in a plant-derived symbiosome membrane (SM) to form an organelle-like structure called the symbiosome. In mature nodules exchanges between the symbionts occur across the SM.

The role of prophylactic mesh placement to prevent incisional hernia in laparotomy. Is it time to change practice?

Background: Incisional hernia (IH) occurs in approximately 25% of laparotomies. Prophylactic mesh placement (PMP) may significantly reduce IH but is not widely used. This paper will review the evidence relating to the role of PMP in laparotomy and its ability to effectively and safely have an impact on hernia reduction.

Time for metrics in emergency surgical care - the role of an emergency surgery registry.

There is abundant local, national, and international evidence that clinical decision-making in emergency general surgery (EGS) is frequently sub-optimal, and this has a negative impact on the quality and safety of care and patient outcomes. The barriers to achieving high-quality, safe, and effective EGS care across health systems are manifold and multifactorial. It is suggested that emergency surgery registries may provide a suitable foundation to enable interventions that lead to improvements in quality in this area.

Genome and proteome of the chlorophyll f-producing cyanobacterium Halomicronema hongdechloris: adaptative proteomic shifts under different light conditions.

Background: Halomicronema hongdechloris was the first cyanobacterium to be identified that produces chlorophyll (Chl) f. It contains Chl a and uses phycobiliproteins as its major light-harvesting components under white light conditions. However, under far-red light conditions H.

The critical stability task: quantifying sensory-motor control during ongoing movement in nonhuman primates.

Everyday behaviors require that we interact with the environment, using sensory information in an ongoing manner to guide our actions. Yet, by design, many of the tasks used in primate neurophysiology laboratories can be performed with limited sensory guidance. As a consequence, our knowledge about the neural mechanisms of motor control is largely limited to the feedforward aspects of the motor command.

Use of Flutemetamol F 18-Labeled Positron Emission Tomography and Other Biomarkers to Assess Risk of Clinical Progression in Patients With Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment.

Importance: Patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) may progress to clinical Alzheimer disease (AD), remain stable, or revert to normal. Earlier progression to AD among patients who were β-amyloid positive vs those who were β-amyloid negative has been previously observed. Current research now accepts that a combination of biomarkers could provide greater refinement in the assessment of risk for clinical progression.

Antegrade Enema After Total Mesorectal Excision for Rectal Cancer: The Last Chance to Avoid Definitive Colostomy for Refractory Low Anterior Resection Syndrome and Fecal Incontinence.

Background: Total mesorectal excision and preoperative radiotherapy in mid and low rectal cancer allow us to achieve very good oncological results. However, major and refractory low anterior resection syndrome and fecal incontinence alter the quality of life of patients with a long expected life span.

Objective: We assessed the functional results of patients treated by antegrade enema for refractory low anterior resection syndrome and fecal incontinence after total mesorectal excision.

The Use of Vibrotactile Feedback During Dual-Task Standing Balance Conditions in People With Unilateral Vestibular Hypofunction.

Hypothesis: People with unilateral vestibular hypofunction (UVH) would have increased postural sway and slower reaction times while using vibrotactile feedback (VTF) during dual-task conditions compared with age-matched controls.

Background: VTF has been shown to improve real-time balance performance in persons with vestibular disorders. Future use of this technology outside of the laboratory environment as a real-time balance aid requires that using VTF during dual-tasking scenarios be studied.

Proceedings of resources for optimal care of acute care and emergency surgery consensus summit Donegal Ireland.

Background: Opportunities to improve emergency surgery outcomes exist through guided better practice and reduced variability. Few attempts have been made to define optimal care in emergency surgery, and few clinically derived key performance indicators (KPIs) have been published. A summit was therefore convened to look at resources for optimal care of emergency surgery.

Transanal versus abdominal low rectal dissection for rectal cancer: long-term results of the Bordeaux' randomized trial.

Aim: The aim of the current study is to report long-term outcomes after transanal low rectal dissection compared with the conventional laparoscopic approach within the context of the Bordeaux' randomized trial. Results from this randomized trial have indicated that transanal approach was more effective than laparoscopic dissection regarding the rate of negative circumferential resection margin (CRM). Despite a high number of publications regarding the transanal approach for TME, there were no long-term data on survival and local recurrence which are now required.

The C2-formyl group in chlorophyll originates from molecular oxygen.

Chlorophylls (Chls) are the most important cofactors for capturing solar energy to drive photosynthetic reactions. Five spectral types of Chls have been identified to date, with Chl having the most red-shifted absorption maximum because of a C2-formyl group substitution of Chl However, the biochemical provenance of this formyl group is unknown. Here, we used a stable isotope labeling technique (O and H) to determine the origin of the C2-formyl group of Chl and to verify whether Chl is synthesized from Chl in the cyanobacterial species In the presence of either HO or O, the origin of oxygen atoms in the newly synthesized chlorophylls was investigated.

Neuroimaging of an attention demanding dual-task during dynamic postural control.

Cognitive tasks impact postural control when performed concurrently as dual-tasks. This is presumed to result from capacity limitations in relevant brain regions. We used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to measure brain activation of the left motor, temporal, and dorsal-lateral prefrontal brain regions of younger (n=6) and older (n=10) adults.

Genome Sequence of Rhodoferax antarcticus ANT.BR; A Psychrophilic Purple Nonsulfur Bacterium from an Antarctic Microbial Mat.

is an Antarctic purple nonsulfur bacterium and the only characterized anoxygenic phototroph that grows best below 20 °C. We present here a high-quality draft genome of strain ANT.BR, isolated from an Antarctic microbial mat.

Protecting patient privacy when sharing patient-level data from clinical trials.

Background: Greater transparency and, in particular, sharing of patient-level data for further scientific research is an increasingly important topic for the pharmaceutical industry and other organisations who sponsor and conduct clinical trials as well as generally in the interests of patients participating in studies. A concern remains, however, over how to appropriately prepare and share clinical trial data with third party researchers, whilst maintaining patient confidentiality. Clinical trial datasets contain very detailed information on each participant.

Spectral properties of bacteriophytochrome AM1_5894 in the chlorophyll d-containing cyanobacterium Acaryochloris marina.

Acaryochloris marina, a unicellular oxygenic photosynthetic cyanobacterium, has uniquely adapted to far-red light-enriched environments using red-shifted chlorophyll d. To understand red-light use in Acaryochloris, the genome of this cyanobacterium was searched for red/far-red light photoreceptors from the phytochrome family, resulting in identification of a putative bacteriophytochrome AM1_5894. AM1_5894 contains three standard domains of photosensory components as well as a putative C-terminal signal transduction component consisting of a histidine kinase and receiver domain.

Model-based waveform design for optimal detection: A multi-objective approach to dealing with incomplete a priori knowledge.

This work considers the design of optimal, energy-constrained transmit signals for active sensing for the case when the designer has incomplete or uncertain knowledge of the target and/or environment. The mathematical formulation is that of a multi-objective optimization problem, wherein one can incorporate a plurality of potential targets, interference, or clutter models and in doing so take advantage of the wide range of results in the literature related to modeling each. It is shown, via simulation, that when the objective function of the optimization problem is chosen to maximize the minimum (i.

Characterization of red-shifted phycobilisomes isolated from the chlorophyll f-containing cyanobacterium Halomicronema hongdechloris.

Phycobilisomes are the main light-harvesting protein complexes in cyanobacteria and some algae. It is commonly accepted that these complexes only absorb green and orange light, complementing chlorophyll absorbance. Here, we present a new phycobilisome derived complex that consists only of allophycocyanin core subunits, having red-shifted absorption peaks of 653 and 712 nm.

A phase space approach to wave propagation with dispersion.

A phase space approximation method for linear dispersive wave propagation with arbitrary initial conditions is developed. The results expand on a previous approximation in terms of the Wigner distribution of a single mode. In contrast to this previously considered single-mode case, the approximation presented here is for the full wave and is obtained by a different approach.

Proteomic analysis of the soybean symbiosome identifies new symbiotic proteins.

Legumes form a symbiosis with rhizobia in which the plant provides an energy source to the rhizobia bacteria that it uses to fix atmospheric nitrogen. This nitrogen is provided to the legume plant, allowing it to grow without the addition of nitrogen fertilizer. As part of the symbiosis, the bacteria in the infected cells of a new root organ, the nodule, are surrounded by a plant-derived membrane, the symbiosome membrane, which becomes the interface between the symbionts.

The effect of age on postural and cognitive task performance while using vibrotactile feedback.

Vibrotactile feedback (VTF) has been shown to improve balance performance in healthy people and people with vestibular disorders in a single-task experimental condition. It is unclear how age-related changes in balance affect the ability to use VTF and if there are different attentional requirements for old and young adults when using VTF. Twenty younger and 20 older subjects participated in this two-visit study to examine the effect of age, VTF, sensory condition, cognitive task, duration of time, and visit on postural and cognitive performance.