Intra-dance variation among waggle runs and the design of efficient protocols for honey bee dance decoding

Noise is universal in information transfer. In animal communication, this presents a challenge not only for intended signal receivers, but also to biologists studying the system. In honey bees, a forager communicates to nestmates the location of an important resource via the waggle dance. This vibrational signal is composed of repeating units (waggle runs) that are then averaged by nestmates to derive a single vector. Manual dance decoding is a powerful tool for studying bee foraging ecology, although the process is time-consuming: a forager may repeat the waggle run 1- >100 times within a dance. It is impractical to decode all of these to obtain the vector; however, intra-dance waggle runs vary, so it is important to decode enough to obtain a good average. Here we examine the variation among waggle runs made by foraging bees to devise a method of dance decoding. The first and last waggle runs within a dance are significantly more variable than the middle run. There was no trend in variation for the middle waggle runs. We recommend that any four consecutive waggle runs, not including the first and last runs, may be decoded, and we show that this methodology is suitable by demonstrating the goodness-of-fit between the decoded vectors from our subsamples with the vectors from the entire dances

Timeline Follow-Back Versus Global Self-Reports of Tobacco Smoking: A Comparison of Findings With Non-Daily Smokers

Methods assessing non-daily smoking are of concern because biochemical measures can not verify self-reports beyond 7 days. This study compares two self-reported smoking measures for non-daily smokers. A total of 389 college students, (48% female, 96% white, mean age of 19) smoking between 1 and 29 days out of the past 30, completed computer assessments in three cohorts with the order of administration of the measures counterbalanced. Values from the two measures were highly correlated. Comparisons of Timeline Follow-Back (TLFB) with the global questions for the total sample of non-daily smokers yielded statistically significant differences (p\u3c.001), albeit small, between measures with the TLFB resulting on average in 2.38 more total cigarettes smoked out of the past 30 days, 0.46 less smoking days, and 0.21 more cigarettes smoked per day. Analyses by level of smoking showed that the discordance between the measures differed by frequency of smoking. Global questions of days smoked resulted in frequent reporting in multiples of five days, suggesting digit bias. Overall the two measures of smoking were highly correlated and equally effective for identifying any smoking in a 30-day period among non-daily smokers

Local Skin Inflammation in Cutaneous Leishmaniasis as a Source of Variable Pharmacokinetics and Therapeutic Efficacy of Liposomal Amphotericin B.

Disfiguring skin lesions caused by several species of the Leishmania parasite characterize cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL). Successful treatment of CL with intravenous (i.v.) liposomal amphotericin B (LAmB) relies on the presence of adequate antibiotic concentrations at the dermal site of infection within the inflamed skin. Here, we have investigated the impact of the local skin inflammation on the pharmacokinetics (PK) and efficacy of LAmB in two murine models of localized CL (Leishmania major and Leishmania mexicana) at three different stages of disease (papule, initial nodule, and established nodule). Twenty-four hours after the administration of one 25 mg/kg of body weight LAmB (i.v.) dose to infected BALB/c mice (n = 5), drug accumulation in the skin was found to be dependent on the causative parasite species (L. major > L. mexicana) and the disease stage (papule > initial nodule > established nodule > healthy skin). Elevated tissue drug levels were associated with increased vascular permeability (Evans blue assay) and macrophage infiltration (histomorphometry) in the infected skin, two pathophysiological parameters linked to tissue inflammation. After identical treatment of CL in the two models with 5 × 25 mg/kg LAmB (i.v.), intralesional drug concentrations and reductions in lesion size and parasite load (quantitative PCR [qPCR]) were all ≥2-fold higher for L. major than for L. mexicana In conclusion, drug penetration of LAmB into CL skin lesions could depend on the disease stage and the causative Leishmania species due to the influence of local tissue inflammation

Phase I Clinical Trials in Acute Myeloid Leukemia: 23-Year Experience From Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program of the National Cancer Institute

Therapy for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) has largely remained unchanged, and outcomes are unsatisfactory. We sought to analyze outcomes of AML patients enrolled in phase I studies to determine whether overall response rates (ORR) and mortality rates have changed over time

IgG4 Immunostaining and Its Implications in Orbital Inflammatory Disease

Objective IgG4-related disease is an emerging clinical entity which frequently involves tissue within the orbit. In order to appreciate the implications of IgG4 immunostaining, we analyzed gene expression and the prevalence of IgG4- immunostaining among subjects with orbital inflammatory diseases. Methods We organized an international consortium to collect orbital biopsies from 108 subjects including 22 with no known orbital disease, 42 with nonspecific orbital inflammatory disease (NSOI), 26 with thyroid eye disease (TED), 12 with sarcoidosis, and 6 with granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA). Lacrimal gland and orbital adipose tissue biopsies were immunostained for IgG4 or IgG secreting plasma cells. RNA transcripts were quantified by Affymetrix arrays. Results None of the healthy controls or subjects with TED had substantial IgG4 staining. Among the 63 others, the prevalence of significant IgG4-immunostaining ranged from 11 to 39% depending on the definition for significant. IgG4 staining was detectable in the majority of tissues from subjects with GPA and less commonly in tissue from subjects with sarcoidosis or NSOI. The detection of IgG4+ cells correlated with inflammation in the lacrimal gland based on histology. IgG4 staining tissue expressed an increase in transcripts associated with inflammation, especially B cell-related genes. Functional annotation analysis confirmed this. Conclusion IgG4+ plasma cells are common in orbital tissue from patients with sarcoidosis, GPA, or NSOI. Even using the low threshold of 10 IgG4+ cells/high powered field, IgG4 staining correlates with increased inflammation in the lacrimal gland based on histology and gene expression

Predictive response-relevant clustering of expression data provides insights into disease processes

This article describes and illustrates a novel method of microarray data analysis that couples model-based clustering and binary classification to form clusters of ;response-relevant' genes; that is, genes that are informative when discriminating between the different values of the response. Predictions are subsequently made using an appropriate statistical summary of each gene cluster, which we call the ;meta-covariate' representation of the cluster, in a probit regression model. We first illustrate this method by analysing a leukaemia expression dataset, before focusing closely on the meta-covariate analysis of a renal gene expression dataset in a rat model of salt-sensitive hypertension. We explore the biological insights provided by our analysis of these data. In particular, we identify a highly influential cluster of 13 genes-including three transcription factors (Arntl, Bhlhe41 and Npas2)-that is implicated as being protective against hypertension in response to increased dietary sodium. Functional and canonical pathway analysis of this cluster using Ingenuity Pathway Analysis implicated transcriptional activation and circadian rhythm signalling, respectively. Although we illustrate our method using only expression data, the method is applicable to any high-dimensional datasets

Herschel observations of EXtraordinary Sources: Analysis of the full Herschel/HIFI molecular line survey of Sagittarius B2(N)

A sensitive broadband molecular line survey of the Sagittarius B2(N) star-forming region has been obtained with the HIFI instrument on the Herschel Space Observatory, offering the first high-spectral resolution look at this well-studied source in a wavelength region largely inaccessible from the ground (625-157 um). From the roughly 8,000 spectral features in the survey, a total of 72 isotopologues arising from 44 different molecules have been identified, ranging from light hydrides to complex organics, and arising from a variety of environments from cold and diffuse to hot and dense gas. We present an LTE model to the spectral signatures of each molecule, constraining the source sizes for hot core species with complementary SMA interferometric observations, and assuming that molecules with related functional group composition are cospatial. For each molecule, a single model is given to fit all of the emission and absorption features of that species across the entire 480-1910 GHz spectral range, accounting for multiple temperature and velocity components when needed to describe the spectrum. As with other HIFI surveys toward massive star forming regions, methanol is found to contribute more integrated line intensity to the spectrum than any other species. We discuss the molecular abundances derived for the hot core, where the local thermodynamic equilibrium approximation is generally found to describe the spectrum well, in comparison to abundances derived for the same molecules in the Orion KL region from a similar HIFI survey.Comment: Accepted to ApJ. 64 pages, 14 figures. Truncated abstrac

Human-AI Teaming During an Ongoing Disaster: How Scripts Around Training and Feedback Reveal this is a Form of Human-Machine Communication

Humans play an integral role in identifying important information from social media during disasters. While human annotation of social media data to train machine learning models is often viewed as human-computer interaction, this study interrogates the ontological boundary between such interaction and human-machine communication. We conducted multiple interviews with participants who both labeled data to train machine learning models and corrected machine-inferred data labels. Findings reveal three themes: scripts invoked to manage decision-making, contextual scripts, and scripts around perceptions of machines. Humans use scripts around training the machine—a form of behavioral anthropomorphism—to develop social relationships with them. Correcting machine-inferred data labels changes these scripts and evokes self-doubt around who is right, which substantiates the argument that this is a form of human-machine communication

Development and Pilot Test of the Workplace Readiness Questionnaire, a Theory-Based Instrument to Measure Small Workplaces’ Readiness to Implement Wellness Programs

To develop a theory-based questionnaire to assess readiness for change in small workplaces adopting wellness programs