Value added processing of dehydrated and suncured alfalfa

Non-Peer ReviewedA pilot scale pellet mill was used to produce pellets using ground alfalfa leaf and stem fractions. Both suncured and dehydrated alfalfa chops were used in the experiments. The moisture content of the suncured and dehydrated chops was 8.4 and 9.6% (wb), respectively. A stack of two square sieves with different opening sizes and a pan were used to separate leaf and stem fractions. The leaf and stem fractions were further segregated into two sample lots and ground in a hammer mill using two screen sizes of 3.20 mm (1/8 in.) and 1.98 mm (5/64 in.). The leaf and stem fractions from each sample lot of same grind sizes were combined to get five different samples with leaf content ranging from 0% to 100% in 25% increments. The moisture content and temperature of the samples were raised to 10-11% (wb) and 76oC, respectively, in a double chamber steam conditioner prior to the pelleting operation. The temperature of material was further raised to 95oC in the pellet mill due to the friction between its roller-die assembly. Average particle sizes of sample lots were determined. Temperature and moisture content of samples after various pelleting stages were recorded. High durability pellets were produced using fractionated suncured alfalfa irrespective of grind size (except for 100% stems, which was low). Durability fluctuated between high and medium range for dehydrated alfalfa (except for 100% stems, which was low). Dehydrated alfalfa produced pellets with greener color, while suncured alfalfa produced harder pellets

Factors affecting titratable acidity in raw milk

The value of titratable acidity (TA) as an indicator of raw milk quality has been challenged recently, because milk is refrigerated within minutes after it leaves the cow until it reaches the consumer. Also, high milk protein may interfere with the test or confer falsely high TA values. Samples of milk containing 3.8% protein were used to examine the impact of protein on TA. The effects of milk age and bacterial counts also were investigated. Titratable acidity increased as milk protein content increased but the influence of bacterial populations and age were much more dramatic. As bacterial counts increased, TA values surpassed an acceptable level (upper maximum at .17%) for the KSU Dairy Processing Plant. At the same time, as raw milk increased in age, TA increased to the upper level of acceptability (.17%). Thus, TA appears to be a valid method of evaluating raw milk quality even though it can be influenced by the protein content

Phenotypic and Molecular Analysis of the Effect of 20-hydroxyecdysone on the Human Filarial Parasite Brugia malayi

A homologue of the ecdysone receptor has been identified and shown to be responsive to 20- hydroxyecdysone in Brugia malayi. However, the role of this master regulator of insect development has not been delineated in filarial nematodes. Gravid adult female B. malayi cultured in the presence of 20-hydroxyecdysone produced significantly more microfilariae and abortive immature progeny than control worms, implicating the ecdysone receptor in regulation of embryogenesis and microfilarial development. Transcriptome analyses identified 30 genes whose expression was significantly up-regulated in 20-hydroxyecdysone-treated parasites compared with untreated controls. Of these, 18% were identified to be regulating transcription. A comparative proteomic analysis revealed 932 proteins to be present in greater amounts in extracts of 20- hydroxyecdysone-treated adult females than in extracts prepared from worms cultured in the absence of the hormone. Of the proteins exhibiting a greater than two-fold difference in the 20- hydroxyecdysone-treated versus untreated parasite extracts, 16% were involved in transcriptional regulation. RNA interference (RNAi) phenotype analysis of Caenorhabditis elegans orthologs revealed that phenotypes involved in developmental processes associated with embryogenesis were significantly over-represented in the transcripts and proteins that were up-regulated by exposure to 20-hydroxyecdysone. Taken together, the transcriptomic, proteomic and phenotypic data suggest that the filarial ecdysone receptor may play a role analogous to that in insects, where it serves as a regulator of egg development

Ketamine effects on memory reconsolidation favor a learning model of delusions.

Delusions are the persistent and often bizarre beliefs that characterise psychosis. Previous studies have suggested that their emergence may be explained by disturbances in prediction error-dependent learning. Here we set up complementary studies in order to examine whether such a disturbance also modulates memory reconsolidation and hence explains their remarkable persistence. First, we quantified individual brain responses to prediction error in a causal learning task in 18 human subjects (8 female). Next, a placebo-controlled within-subjects study of the impact of ketamine was set up on the same individuals. We determined the influence of this NMDA receptor antagonist (previously shown to induce aberrant prediction error signal and lead to transient alterations in perception and belief) on the evolution of a fear memory over a 72 hour period: they initially underwent Pavlovian fear conditioning; 24 hours later, during ketamine or placebo administration, the conditioned stimulus (CS) was presented once, without reinforcement; memory strength was then tested again 24 hours later. Re-presentation of the CS under ketamine led to a stronger subsequent memory than under placebo. Moreover, the degree of strengthening correlated with individual vulnerability to ketamine's psychotogenic effects and with prediction error brain signal. This finding was partially replicated in an independent sample with an appetitive learning procedure (in 8 human subjects, 4 female). These results suggest a link between altered prediction error, memory strength and psychosis. They point to a core disruption that may explain not only the emergence of delusional beliefs but also their persistence

Artificial-intelligence-based molecular classification of diffuse gliomas using rapid, label-free optical imaging

Molecular classification has transformed the management of brain tumors by enabling more accurate prognostication and personalized treatment. However, timely molecular diagnostic testing for patients with brain tumors is limited, complicating surgical and adjuvant treatment and obstructing clinical trial enrollment. In this study, we developed DeepGlioma, a rapid ($< 90$ seconds), artificial-intelligence-based diagnostic screening system to streamline the molecular diagnosis of diffuse gliomas. DeepGlioma is trained using a multimodal dataset that includes stimulated Raman histology (SRH); a rapid, label-free, non-consumptive, optical imaging method; and large-scale, public genomic data. In a prospective, multicenter, international testing cohort of patients with diffuse glioma ($n=153$) who underwent real-time SRH imaging, we demonstrate that DeepGlioma can predict the molecular alterations used by the World Health Organization to define the adult-type diffuse glioma taxonomy (IDH mutation, 1p19q co-deletion and ATRX mutation), achieving a mean molecular classification accuracy of $93.3\pm 1.6\%$. Our results represent how artificial intelligence and optical histology can be used to provide a rapid and scalable adjunct to wet lab methods for the molecular screening of patients with diffuse glioma.Comment: Paper published in Nature Medicin

Sedation Modulates Frontotemporal Predictive Coding Circuits and the Double Surprise Acceleration Effect

Two important theories in cognitive neuroscience are predictive coding (PC) and the global workspace (GW) theory. A key research task is to understand how these two theories relate to one another, and particularly, how the brain transitions from a predictive early state to the eventual engagement of a brain-scale state (the GW). To address this question, we present a source-localization of EEG responses evoked by the local-global task—an experimental paradigm that engages a predictive hierarchy, which encompasses the GW. The results of our source reconstruction suggest three phases of processing. The first phase involves the sensory (here auditory) regions of the superior temporal lobe and predicts sensory regularities over a short timeframe (as per the local effect). The third phase is brain-scale, involving inferior frontal, as well as inferior and superior parietal regions, consistent with a global neuronal workspace (GNW; as per the global effect). Crucially, our analysis suggests that there is an intermediate (second) phase, involving modulatory interactions between inferior frontal and superior temporal regions. Furthermore, sedation with propofol reduces modulatory interactions in the second phase. This selective effect is consistent with a PC explanation of sedation, with propofol acting on descending predictions of the precision of prediction errors; thereby constraining access to the GNW

Confidence and psychosis: a neuro-computational account of contingency learning disruption by NMDA blockade.

A state of pathological uncertainty about environmental regularities might represent a key step in the pathway to psychotic illness. Early psychosis can be investigated in healthy volunteers under ketamine, an NMDA receptor antagonist. Here, we explored the effects of ketamine on contingency learning using a placebo-controlled, double-blind, crossover design. During functional magnetic resonance imaging, participants performed an instrumental learning task, in which cue-outcome contingencies were probabilistic and reversed between blocks. Bayesian model comparison indicated that in such an unstable environment, reinforcement learning parameters are downregulated depending on confidence level, an adaptive mechanism that was specifically disrupted by ketamine administration. Drug effects were underpinned by altered neural activity in a fronto-parietal network, which reflected the confidence-based shift to exploitation of learned contingencies. Our findings suggest that an early characteristic of psychosis lies in a persistent doubt that undermines the stabilization of behavioral policy resulting in a failure to exploit regularities in the environment.FV was supported by the Groupe Pasteur Mutualité. RG was supported by the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale and the Fondation Bettencourt Schueller. SP is supported by a Marie Curie Intra-European fellowship (FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IEF). AF was supported by National Health and Medical Research Council grants (IDs : 1050504 and 1066779) and an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (ID: FT130100589). This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust and the Bernard Wolfe Health Neuroscience Fund.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from the Nature Publishing Group via http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/mp.2015.7

Splitting and blaming: The psychic life of neoliberal executive women

The aim of the article is to explore the psychic life of executive women under neoliberalism using psychosocial approaches. The article shows how, despite enduring unfair treatment and access to opportunities, many executive women remain emotionally invested in upholding the neoliberal ideal that if one perseveres, one shall be successful, regardless of gender. Drawing on psychosocial approaches, we explore how the accounts given by some executive women of repudiation, as denying gender inequality, and individualization, as subjects completely agentic, are underpinned by the unconscious, intertwined processes of splitting and blaming. Women sometimes split off undesirable aspects of the workplace, which repudiates gender inequality, or blame other women, which individualizes failure and responsibility for change. We explain that splitting and blaming enable some executive women to manage the anxiety evoked from threats to the neoliberal ideal of the workplace. This article thereby makes a contribution to existing postfeminist scholarship by integrating psychosocial approaches to the study of the psychic life of neoliberal executive women, by exploring why they appear unable to engage directly with and redress instances of gender discrimination in the workplace

Anaesthesia and PET of the Brain

Although drugs have been used to administer general anaesthesia for more than a century and a half, relatively little was known until recently about the molecular and cellular effects of the anaesthetic agents and the neurobiology of anaesthesia. Positron emission tomography (PET) and single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) studies have played a valuable role in improving this knowledge. PET studies using 11C-flumazenil binding have been used to demonstrate that the molecular action of some, but not all, of the current anaesthetic agents is mediated via the GABAA receptor. Using different tracers labelled with 18F, 11C and 15O, PET studies have shown the patterns of changes in cerebral metabolism and blood flow associated with different intravenous and volatile anaesthetic agents. Within classes of volatile agents, there are minor variations in patterns. More profound differences are found between classes of agents. Interestingly, all agents cause alterations in the blood flow and metabolism of the thalamus, providing strong support for the hypothesis that the anaesthetic agents interfere with consciousness by interfering with thalamocortical communication.</p