Frequency versus relaxation oscillations in a semiconductor laser with coherent filtered optical feedback

We investigate the dynamics of a semiconductor laser subject to coherent delayed filtered optical feedback. A systematic bifurcation analysis reveals that this system supports two fundamentally different types of oscillations, namely relaxation oscillations and external roundtrip oscillations. Both occur stably in large domains under variation of the feedback conditions, where the feedback phase is identified as a key quantity for controlling this dynamical complexity. We identify two separate parameter regions of stable roundtrip oscillations, which occur throughout in the form of pure frequency oscillations

Rodenticidal Effects of Zinc Phosphide and Strychnine of Nontarget Species

When three rodenticide treatments—zinc phosphide (prebaited) and strychnine (both with and without prebait)were evaluated, zinc phosphide was the most effective in reducing active burrows of prairie dogs; but, it also resulted in a reduction in deer mouse densities. One month after treatment, counts of fecal pellets of eastern cottontails were greater on areas treated with strychnine without prebait than on sites treated with zinc phosphide. Eight months after treatment, no differences could be detected among rodenticides for either leporid. Horned lark densities were reduced 61% on sites treated with strychnine only

Rodenticidal Effects of Zinc Phosphide and Strychnine of Nontarget Species

When three rodenticide treatments—zinc phosphide (prebaited) and strychnine (both with and without prebait)were evaluated, zinc phosphide was the most effective in reducing active burrows of prairie dogs; but, it also resulted in a reduction in deer mouse densities. One month after treatment, counts of fecal pellets of eastern cottontails were greater on areas treated with strychnine without prebait than on sites treated with zinc phosphide. Eight months after treatment, no differences could be detected among rodenticides for either leporid. Horned lark densities were reduced 61% on sites treated with strychnine only

Validation of the reasons for gambling questionnaire (RGQ) in a British population survey

Introduction. The aim of the study is to validate the five-dimensional structure of the Reasons for Gambling Questionnaire (RGQ) and to test the differences between different types of gamblers (i.e., offline gamblers who gambled in-person only vs.mixed-mode gamblers who gambled both online and offline) on the five dimensions of the RGQ. Methods. Data from the 2010 British Gambling Prevalence Survey (BGPS) were used. The analysed data comprised 5,677 individuals (52.7% female; mean age=47.64 years; SD=17.82). Confirmatory factor analysis and independent-samples t-tests were applied. Results. The five-dimensional structure of the RGQ wasconfirmed in the general sample and among gender and age subgroups. Furthermore, mixed-mode gamblers (MMGs) who gambled both online and offline had higher scores for enhancement, recreation and money motives than offline gamblers that gambled in-person only (IPGs). In addition among males, there was a significant difference in the scores for enhancement and recreation motives across MMGs and IPGs. Among past-year gamblers aged 16-34 years, MMGs had higher scores for enhancement, recreational and monetary motives than IPGs whilst among past-year gamblers aged 35-55years, MMGs had higher scores for enhancement and recreational motives than IPGs. Conclusions. The results are consistent with a previous test of the RGQ and the findings indicate that the RGQis a valid instrument to assess gambling motives among the general population

Modelling three-dimensional cancer-associated cachexia and therapy: the molecular basis and therapeutic potential of interleukin-6 transignalling blockade

Background: Causes and mechanisms underlying cancer cachexia are not fully understood, and currently, no therapeutic approaches are available to completely reverse the cachectic phenotype. Interleukin-6 (IL-6) has been extensively described as a key factor in skeletal muscle physiopathology, exerting opposite roles through different signalling pathways. Methods: We employed a three-dimensional ex vivo muscle engineered tissue (X-MET) to model cancer-associated cachexia and to study the effectiveness of selective inhibition of IL-6 transignalling in counteracting the cachectic phenotype. Conditioned medium (CM) derived from C26 adenocarcinoma cells was used as a source of soluble factors contributing to the establishment of cancer cachexia in the X-MET model. A dose of 1.2 ng/mL of glycoprotein-130 fused chimaera (gp130Fc) was added to cachectic culture medium to neutralize IL-6 transignalling. Results: C26-conditioned medium induced a cachectic-like phenotype in the X-MET, leading to a decline of muscle mass (−60%; P < 0.001), a reduction in myosin expression (−92.4%; P < 0.005) and a reduction of the contraction frequency spectrum (−94%). C26-conditioned medium contains elevated amounts of IL-6 (8.61 ± 4.09 pg/mL) and IL6R (56.85 ± 10.96 pg/mL). These released factors activated the signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) signalling in the C26_CM X-MET system (phosphorylated STAT3/TOTAL +54.6%; P < 0.005), which in turn promote an enhancement of Il-6 (+69.2%; P < 0.05) and Il6r (+43%; P < 0.05) gene expression, suggesting the induction of a feed-forward loop. The selective neutralization of IL-6 transignalling, by gp130Fc, in C26_CM X-MET prevented the hyperactivation of STAT3 (−55.8%; P < 0.005), countered the reduction of cross-sectional area (+28.2%; P < 0.05) and reduced the expression of proteolytic factors including muscle ring finger-1 (−88%; P < 0.005) and ATROGIN1 (−92%; P < 0.05), thus preserving the robustness and increasing the contractile force (+20%) of the three-dimensional muscle system. Interestingly, the selective inhibition of IL-6 transignalling modulated gene regulatory networks involved in myogenesis and apoptosis, normalizing the expression of pro-apoptotic miRNAs, including miR-31 (−53.2%; P < 0.05) and miR-34c (−65%; P < 0.005), and resulting in the reduction of apoptotic pathways highlighted by the sensible reduction of cleaved caspase 3 (−92.5%; P < 0.005) in gp130Fc-treated C26_CM X-MET. Conclusions: IL-6 transignalling appeared as a promising target to counter cancer cachexia-related alterations. The X-MET model has proven to be a reliable drug-screening tool to identify novel therapeutic approaches and to test them in preclinical studies, significantly reducing the use of animal models

Monitoring of Communication Precursors in Extremely Low Birth Weight (ELBW) Newborns by Video Analysis Method: Preliminary Results

Background: The survival of extremely low birth weight infants (ELBW) has increased worldwide. Even in the absence of major disabilities, ELBW infants show difficulty in simple language functions. It is relevant to assess early abilities, which are the base of early linguistic skills, in order to implement customized intervention programs in ELBW infants. Aims: To evaluate communication precursors of language development in ELBW infants at 12 and 24 months of correct age (C.A). To investigate the correlation of linguistic and communicative prerequisites with mental development outcome at 24 months CA. Method: 52 ELBW neonates (mean gestational age 26.6 weeks, mean birth weight was 775 g) who were admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit of the University Hospital of Modena, were enrolled. Data were collected from archived audio-video recordings of neurodevelopmental follow-up visits. Video analysis of communicative and linguistic developmental was performed at 12 and 24 months CA. Neurodevelopmental outcome was evaluated with Mental Developmental Scales (GMDS-R). Results: The video-analysis showed that infants at 12 months CA used predominantly eye contacts and gestural turns, while vocal turns were scant. At 24 months CA, a significant change in eye contacts, vocal turns, gestural turns, and utterances (p < 0.001) occurred. The total number of utterances (p = 0.036) and eye contacts (p = 0.045) were significantly correlated to the Development Quotient (DQ) of Hearing and Language scale. Moreover, a significant correlation was found with the Personal-Social scale vocal turns (p = 0.009) and the total number of utterances (p = 0,02). Finally, the Global Quotient of the GMDS-R was related to the Vocal Turns (p = 0.034) and the total number of Utterances (p = 0.013). Conclusions: ELBW infants at 12 months CA use predominantly eye contacts and gestural turns to communicate with adults. At 24 months CA, the child’s communicative intention evolves from gestural to verbal communication. The latter is characterized by an increase in both vocal turns and the number of utterances produced during interaction. The video analysis we implement appears to be a sensitive tool for early assessment of communication and language development and to refine early intervention

Drawing a line in the sand: affect and testimony in autism assessment teams in the UK.

Diagnosis of autism in the UK is generally made within a multidisciplinary team setting and is primarily based on observation and clinical interview. We examined how clinicians diagnose autism in practice by observing post-assessment meetings in specialist autism teams. Eighteen meetings across four teams based in the south of England and covering 88 cases were audio-recorded, transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. We drew out two themes, related to the way in which clinicians expressed their specialist disciplinary knowledge to come to diagnostic consensus: Feeling Autism in the Encounter; and Evaluating Testimonies of Non-present Actors. We show how clinicians produce objective accounts through their situated practices and perform diagnosis as an act of interpretation, affect and evaluation to meet the institutional demands of the diagnostic setting. Our study contributes to our understanding of how diagnosis is accomplished in practice.Wellcome Trust Investigator Awar

Accounting for Location Uncertainty in Azimuthal Telemetry Data Improves Ecological Inference

Background: Characterizing animal space use is critical for understanding ecological relationships. Animal telemetry technology has revolutionized the fields of ecology and conservation biology by providing high quality spatial data on animal movement. Radio-telemetry with very high frequency (VHF) radio signals continues to be a useful technology because of its low cost, miniaturization, and low battery requirements. Despite a number of statistical developments synthetically integrating animal location estimation and uncertainty with spatial process models using satellite telemetry data, we are unaware of similar developments for azimuthal telemetry data. As such, there are few statistical options to handle these unique data and no synthetic framework for modeling animal location uncertainty and accounting for it in ecological models. We developed a hierarchical modeling framework to provide robust animal location estimates from one or more intersecting or non-intersecting azimuths. We used our azimuthal telemetry model (ATM) to account for azimuthal uncertainty with covariates and propagate location uncertainty into spatial ecological models. We evaluate the ATM with commonly used estimators (Lenth (1981) maximum likelihood and M-Estimators) using simulation. We also provide illustrative empirical examples, demonstrating the impact of ignoring location uncertainty within home range and resource selection analyses. We further use simulation to better understand the relationship among location uncertainty, spatial covariate autocorrelation, and resource selection inference. Results: We found the ATM to have good performance in estimating locations and the only model that has appropriate measures of coverage. Ignoring animal location uncertainty when estimating resource selection or home ranges can have pernicious effects on ecological inference. Home range estimates can be overly confident and conservative when ignoring location uncertainty and resource selection coefficients can lead to incorrect inference and over confidence in the magnitude of selection. Furthermore, our simulation study clarified that incorporating location uncertainty helps reduce bias in resource selection coefficients across all levels of covariate spatial autocorrelation. Conclusion: The ATM can accommodate one or more azimuths when estimating animal locations, regardless of how they intersect; this ensures that all data collected are used for ecological inference. Our findings and model development have important implications for interpreting historical analyses using this type of data and the future design of radio-telemetry studies

Vulnerability to depression is associated with a failure to acquire implicit social appraisals

Major depressive disorder is frequently associated with disrupted relationships with spouses, partners, family and peers. These problems can precipitate the onset of clinical illness, influence severity and the prospects for treatment and recovery. Here, we investigated whether individuals who have recovered from depression use interpersonal signals to form favourable appraisals of others as social partners. Twenty recovered-depressed adults (with at least two adult episodes of major depressive disorder but euthymic and medication-free for six months) and twenty three healthy, never-depressed adults completed a reaction time task in which the gaze direction of some faces reliably cued the location a target (valid faces), whereas the gaze direction of other faces cued the opposite spatial location (invalid faces). None of the participants were aware of this contingency. Following this task, participants judged the trustworthiness of the faces. Both the recovered-depressed and healthy never-depressed participants were significantly faster to categorise targets following valid compared with invalid gaze cueing faces. Whereas the healthy never-depressed participants judged the valid faces to be significantly more trustworthy than the invalid faces; this implicit social appraisal was absent in the recovered-depressed participants. Individuals who have recovered from major depressive disorder are able to respond appropriately to joint attention with other people but appear to not use joint attention to form implicit trust appraisals of others as potential social partners

Shifting boundaries between the normal and the pathological:the case of mild intellectual disability

When disorders fade into normality, how can the threshold between normality and disorder be determined? In considering mild intellectual disability, I argue that economic factors partly determine thresholds. We tend to assume that the relationship between disorder, need and services is such that: first, a cut-off point between the disordered and the normal is determined; second, a needy population is identified; and third, resources are found (or at least should be found) to meet this need. However, the changing definitions of intellectual disability can best be understood if we think of this happening in reverse. That is, first, certain resources are thought obtainable, and then a cut-off point for disorder is selected which supplies an appropriately sized ‘needy population’