CLIWOC multilingual meteorological dictionary

This dictionary is the first attempt to express the wealth of archaic logbook wind force terms in a form that is comprehensible to the modern-day reader. Oliver and Kington (1970) and Lamb (1982) have drawn attention to the importance of logbooks in climatic studies, and Lamb (1991) offered a conversion scale for early eighteenth century English wind force terms, but no studies have thus far pursued the matter to any greater depth. This text attempts to make good this deficiency, and is derived from the research undertaken by the CLIWOC project1 in which British, Dutch, French and Spanish naval and merchant logbooks from the period 1750 to 1850 were used to derive a global database of climatic information. At an early stage in the project it was apparent that many of the logbook weather terms, whilst conforming to a conventional vocabulary, possessed meanings that were unclear to twenty-first century readers or had changed over time. This was particularly the case for the important element of wind force; but no special plea is entered for the evolution in nautical vocabulary, which often reflected more wide-ranging changes in the respective native languages.The key objective was to translate the archaic vocabulary of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century mariner into expressions directly comparable with the Beaufort Scale (see Appendix I). Only then could the projects scientific programme be embarked upon. This dictionary is the result of the largest undertaking into logbook studies that has yet been carried out. Several thousand logbooks from British, Dutch, French and Spanish archives were examined, and the exercise offered a unique opportunity to explore the vocabulary of the one hundred year period beginning in 1750. The logbooks from which the raw data have been abstracted range widely across the North and South Atlantic and the Indian Oceans. Only the Pacific, largely in consequence of the paucity of regular naval activity in that area, is not well represented. The range of climates encountered in this otherwise wide geographic domain gives ample opportunity for the full range of the mariners nautical weather vocabulary to be assessed, from the calms of the Equatorial regions, through the gales of the mid-latitude systems to the fearsome storms of the tropical latitudes. The Trade Winds belts, the Doldrums, the unsettled mid-latitudes, even the icy wastes of the high latitudes, are all embraced in this study. It is not here intended to pass any judgements on the climatological record of the logbooks, and this text seeks only to provide a means of understanding archaic wind force terms and, other than to indicate those items that were not commonly used, no information is given on the frequency with which different terms appeared in the logbooks. Attention is, furthermore, confined to Dutch, English, French and Spanish because these once great imperial powers were the only nations able to support wide-ranging ocean-going fleets with their attendant collections of logbooks and documents over this long period of time. The work is offered to the wider academic community in the hope that they will prove to be of as much value as it has been to the CLIWOC team

Acute Effects and the Dreamy State Evoked by Deep Brain Electrical Stimulation of the Amygdala: Associations of the Amygdala in Human Dreaming, Consciousness, Emotions, and Creativity.

Accurate localization of complex human experiences such as emotions, dreaming, creativity, and consciousness to specific cerebral structures or neural networks has remained elusive despite technological advances. We report the use of acute deep brain stimulation (DBS) to evoke behavioral and emotional effects by applying electrical stimulation (ES) at various voltage strengths to the basolateral and central subnuclei of the amygdala in addition to the head of hippocampus (HC) for two subjects with medically refractory post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Our results suggest that the amygdala could be a node in a neural network responsible for the generation of complex vivid mental imagery and integrated sensory experiences similar to John Hughlings Jackson's "dreamy state" and "double consciousness," which have been classically associated with temporal lobe epilepsy during uncinate seizures. That we were able to elicit similar vivid, dynamic, complex, bizarre, and original mental imagery with ES in non-epileptic subjects suggests that Jackson's seizure related "dreamy state" and "double consciousness" may arise from heightened innate brain mechanisms with the amygdala acting as a node in the neural network responsible for physiologic dreaming and creative functions. Furthermore, our subjects experienced different emotions with different stimulation strengths at various electrode contacts. Our results suggest that higher voltage stimulation of the amygdala and HC at 4-5 V leads to predominantly negative responses and 2-4 V stimulation showed inversely coupled positive and negative responses of the amygdala in either hemisphere which may imply hemispheric dominance of emotional valences without relation to handedness. Due to the unique and complex responses dependent on location and strength of stimulation, we advise that all patients receiving DBS of the amygdala undergo acute stimulation mapping in a monitored setting before selecting therapeutic parameters for chronic stimulation

Home versus outpatient ultraviolet B phototherapy for mild to severe psoriasis: pragmatic multicentre randomised controlled non-inferiority trial (PLUTO study)

Objective To determine whether ultraviolet B phototherapy at home is equally safe and equally effective as ultraviolet B phototherapy in an outpatient setting for patients with psoriasis

A review of methods for addressing components of interventions in meta-analysis

Many healthcare interventions are complex, consisting of multiple, possibly interacting, components. Several methodological articles addressing complex interventions in the metaanalytical context have been published. We hereby provide an overview of methods used to evaluate the effects of complex interventions with meta-analytical models. We summarized the methodology, highlighted new developments, and described the benefits, drawbacks, and potential challenges of each identified method. We expect meta-analytical methods focusing on components of several multicomponent interventions to become increasingly popular due to recently developed, easy-to-use, software tools that can be used to conduct the relevant analyses. The different meta-analytical methods are illustrated through two examples comparing psychotherapies for panic disorder. Copyright

A comparative study of software programmes for cross-sectional skeletal muscle and adipose tissue measurements on abdominal computed tomography scans of rectal cancer patients

__Background:__ The association between body composition (e.g. sarcopenia or visceral obesity) and treatment outcomes, such as survival, using single-slice computed tomography (CT)-based measurements has recently been studied in various patient groups. These studies have been conducted with different software programmes, each with their specific characteristics, of which the inter-observer, intra-observer, and inter-software correlation are unknown. Therefore, a comparative study was performed. __Methods:__ Fifty abdominal CT scans were randomly selected from 50 different patients and independently assessed by two observers. Cross-sectional muscle area (CSMA, i.e. rectus abdominis, oblique and transverse abdominal muscles, paraspinal muscles, and the psoas muscle), visceral adipose tissue area (VAT), and subcutaneous adipose tissue area (SAT) were segmented by using standard Hounsfield unit ranges and computed for regions of interest. The inter-software, intra-observer, and inter-observer agreement for CSMA, VAT, and SAT measurements using FatSeg, OsiriX, ImageJ, and sliceOmatic were calculated using intra-class correlation coefficients (ICCs) and Bland-Altman analyses. Cohen's κ was calculated for the agreement of sarcopenia and visceral obesity assessment. The Jaccard similarity coefficient was used to compare the similarity and diversity of measurements. __Results:__ Bland-Altman analyses and ICC indicated that the CSMA, VAT, and SAT measurements between the different software programmes were highly comparable (ICC 0.979-1.000, P<0.001). All programmes adequately distinguished between the presence or absence of sarcopenia (κ=0.88-0.96 for one observer and all κ=1.00 for all comparisons of the other observer) and visceral obesity (all κ=1.00). Furthermore, excellent intra-observer (ICC 0.999-1.000, P<0.001) and inter-observer (ICC 0.998-0.999, P< 0.001) agreement for all software programmes were found. Accordingly, excellent Jaccard similarity coefficients were found for all comparisons (mean≥0.964). __Conclusions:__ FatSeg, OsiriX, ImageJ, and sliceOmatic showed an excellent agreement for CSMA, VAT, and SAT measurements on abdominal CT scans. Furthermore, excellent inter-observer and intra-observer agreement were achieved. Therefore, results of studies using these different software programmes can reliably be compared

COVID-19 Related Mobility Reduction: Heterogenous Effects on Sleep and Physical Activity Rhythms

Mobility restrictions imposed to suppress coronavirus transmission can alter physical activity (PA) and sleep patterns. Characterization of response heterogeneity and their underlying reasons may assist in tailoring customized interventions. We obtained wearable data covering baseline, incremental movement restriction and lockdown periods from 1824 city-dwelling, working adults aged 21 to 40 years, incorporating 206,381 nights of sleep and 334,038 days of PA. Four distinct rest activity rhythms (RARs) were identified using k-means clustering of participants' temporally distributed step counts. Hierarchical clustering of the proportion of time spent in each of these RAR revealed 4 groups who expressed different mixtures of RAR profiles before and during the lockdown. Substantial but asymmetric delays in bedtime and waketime resulted in a 24 min increase in weekday sleep duration with no loss in sleep efficiency. Resting heart rate declined 2 bpm. PA dropped an average of 38%. 4 groups with different compositions of RAR profiles were found. Three were better able to maintain PA and weekday/weekend differentiation during lockdown. The least active group comprising 51 percent of the sample, were younger and predominantly singles. Habitually less active already, this group showed the greatest reduction in PA during lockdown with little weekday/weekend differences. Among different mobility restrictions, removal of habitual social cues by lockdown had the largest effect on PA and sleep. Sleep and resting heart rate unexpectedly improved. RAR evaluation uncovered heterogeneity of responses to lockdown and can identify characteristics of persons at risk of decline in health and wellbeing.Comment: 30 pages, 3 main figures, 3 tables, 4 supplementary figure

Fluorescence analysis of the Hansenula polymorpha peroxisomal targeting signal-1 receptor, Pex5p

Correct sorting of newly synthesized peroxisomal matrix proteins is dependent on a peroxisomal targeting signal (PTS). So far two PTSs are known. PTS1 consists of a tripeptide that is located at the extreme C terminus of matrix proteins and is specifically recognized by the PTS1-receptor Pex5p. We studied Hansenula polymorpha Pex5p (HpPex5p) using fluorescence spectroscopy. The intensity of Trp fluorescence of purified HpPex5p increased by 25% upon shifting the pH from pH 6.0 to pH 7.2. Together with the results of fluorescence quenching by acrylamide, these data suggest that the conformation of HpPex5p differs at these two pH values. Fluorescence anisotropy decay measurements revealed that the pH affected the oligomeric state of HpPex5p, possibly from monomers/dimers at pH 6.0 to larger oligomeric forms at pH 7.2. Addition of dansylated peptides containing a PTS1, caused some shortening of the average fluorescence lifetime of the Trp residues, which was most pronounced at pH 7.2. Our data are discussed in relation to a molecular model of HpPex5p based on the three-dimensional structure of human Pex5p