History and Actuality of Galician Emigrants: A Galicia (Spain) Shared between Latin America and Europe

Despite the significant advances in path planning methods, problems involving highly constrained spaces are still challenging. In particular, in many situations the configuration space is a non-parametrizable variety implicitly defined by constraints, which complicates the successful generalization of sampling-based path planners. In this paper, we present a new path planning algorithm specially tailored for highly constrained systems. It builds on recently developed tools for Higher-dimensional Continuation, which provide numerical procedures to describe an implicitly defined variety using a set of local charts. We propose to extend these methods to obtain an efficient path planner on varieties, handling highly constrained problems. The advantage of this planner comes from that it directly operates into the configuration space and not into the higher-dimensional ambient space, as most of the existing methods do.Postprint (author’s final draft

The genetics of the mood disorder spectrum:genome-wide association analyses of over 185,000 cases and 439,000 controls

Background Mood disorders (including major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder) affect 10-20% of the population. They range from brief, mild episodes to severe, incapacitating conditions that markedly impact lives. Despite their diagnostic distinction, multiple approaches have shown considerable sharing of risk factors across the mood disorders. Methods To clarify their shared molecular genetic basis, and to highlight disorder-specific associations, we meta-analysed data from the latest Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) genome-wide association studies of major depression (including data from 23andMe) and bipolar disorder, and an additional major depressive disorder cohort from UK Biobank (total: 185,285 cases, 439,741 controls; non-overlapping N = 609,424). Results Seventy-three loci reached genome-wide significance in the meta-analysis, including 15 that are novel for mood disorders. More genome-wide significant loci from the PGC analysis of major depression than bipolar disorder reached genome-wide significance. Genetic correlations revealed that type 2 bipolar disorder correlates strongly with recurrent and single episode major depressive disorder. Systems biology analyses highlight both similarities and differences between the mood disorders, particularly in the mouse brain cell-types implicated by the expression patterns of associated genes. The mood disorders also differ in their genetic correlation with educational attainment – positive in bipolar disorder but negative in major depressive disorder. Conclusions The mood disorders share several genetic associations, and can be combined effectively to increase variant discovery. However, we demonstrate several differences between these disorders. Analysing subtypes of major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder provides evidence for a genetic mood disorders spectrum

Activity in early visual areas reflects the trial-by-trial precision of perception

The information received from our senses is typically consistent with a range of possible stimulus values, making any of our perceptual decisions uncertain. It is well known that this perceptual uncertainty affects behavior, but how does the brain represent knowledge of uncertainty? We used functional MRI in combination with pattern-based analyses to address this question. Participants viewed annular gratings of random orientation. Shortly after the presentation of the grating, observers reported its orientation. We used a novel pattern-based decoding approach to analyzing fMRI data, computing for each trial of BOLD activity the likelihood function of stimulus orientation. This approach differs from conventional decoding approaches in that the latter typically generates a single orientation estimate, whereas our method computes a full probability distribution over all possible orientations. We hypothesized that the width of the decoded probability distribution might reflect the degree of perceptual uncertainty. Accordingly, we compared the width of this distribution with behavioral variability, reasoning that more precise stimulus representations in visual cortex should be linked to less variable (more accurate) behavior. We found that perceptual uncertainty could reliably be decoded from fMRI activity patterns in the visual cortex. Specifically, the trial-to-trial fluctuations in the width of the likelihood function reliably predicted the variability in the observer's response. In contrast, we observed no link between the overall amplitude of the BOLD response and behavioral performance. These findings provide some of the first evidence that the trial-by-trial precision of perception can reliably be extracted from the human visual cortex. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 201

Data of 'Self-facilitation and negative species interactions could drive microscale vegetation mosaic in a floating fen'

Item does not contain fulltextIn our paper ‘Self-facilitation and negative species interactions could drive microscale vegetation mosaic in a floating fen' we analyze the spatial distribution of poor and rich fen mosaic in a floating fen in Connemara, Ireland. Two distinct vegetation types were identified, Scorpidio-Caricetum diandrae (rich fen) and Erico-Sphagnetum magellanici (poor fen), of which we selected three vegetation plots: rich fen (n=3), poor fen (n=4) and poor fen patches within rich fen vegetation (n=3). In all plots we measured biogeochemical variables at different depths (+5, -10 and -50 cm). Next to that, geohydrological measurements were conducted in the floating fen. We found that geohydrological conditions likely drives the distribution of poor and rich fen species at a larger scale in the floating fen, due to the supply of minerotrophic groundwater. Interestingly, both poor and rich fen vegetation occurred in a mosaic, when electrical conductivity values at 50 cm depth were between 300 and 450 µS cm-1. Although environmental conditions were homogeneous at 50 cm, they differed markedly between rich and poor fen vegetation at 10 cm depth. Specifically, our measurements indicate that poor fen vegetation lowered porewater alkalinity, bicarbonate concentrations and pH. No effects of rich fen vegetation at 10 cm depth on biogeochemistry was measured. However, rich fen litter had a higher mineralization rate than poor fen litter, which increases the influence of minerotrophic water in rich fen habitat. These results strengthen our hypothesis that species can drive formation of vegetation mosaics under environmentally homogeneous conditions in a floating fen with positive intraspecific self-facilitating mechanisms and negative species interactions. The data can be found in the following files, containing primary data: - VanBergen_etal_2019_primary_data_geohydrology - VanBergen_etal_2019_primary_data_biogeochemistry - VanBergen_etal_2019_primary_data_aerobic_mineralizatio

Disruption of Abcc6 in the mouse: novel insight in the pathogenesis of pseudoxanthoma elasticum.

Item does not contain fulltextPseudoxanthoma elasticum (PXE) is a heritable disorder of connective tissue, affecting mainly skin, eye and the cardiovascular system. PXE is characterized by dystrophic mineralization of elastic fibres. The condition is caused by loss of function mutations in ABCC6. We generated Abcc6 deficient mice (Abcc6-/-) by conventional gene targeting. As shown by light and electron microscopy Abcc6-/- mice spontaneously developed calcification of elastic fibres in blood vessel walls and in Bruch's membrane in the eye. No clear abnormalities were seen in the dermal extracellular matrix. Calcification of blood vessels was most prominent in small arteries in the cortex of the kidney, but in old mice, it occurred also in other organs and in the aorta and vena cava. Newly developed monoclonal antibodies against mouse Abcc6 localized the protein to the basolateral membranes of hepatocytes and the basal membrane in renal proximal tubules, but failed to show the protein at the pathogenic sites. Abcc6-/- mice developed a 25% reduction in plasma HDL cholesterol and an increase in plasma creatinine levels, which may be due to impaired kidney function. No changes in serum mineral balance were found. We conclude that the phenotype of the Abcc6-/- mouse shares calcification of elastic fibres with human PXE pathology, which makes this model a useful tool to further investigate the aetiology of PXE. Our data support the hypothesis that PXE is in fact a systemic disease

Data of 'Self-facilitation and negative species interactions could drive microscale vegetation mosaic in a floating fen'

In our paper ‘Self-facilitation and negative species interactions could drive microscale vegetation mosaic in a floating fen' we analyze the spatial distribution of poor and rich fen mosaic in a floating fen in Connemara, Ireland. Two distinct vegetation types were identified, Scorpidio-Caricetum diandrae (rich fen) and Erico-Sphagnetum magellanici (poor fen), of which we selected three vegetation plots: rich fen (n=3), poor fen (n=4) and poor fen patches within rich fen vegetation (n=3). In all plots we measured biogeochemical variables at different depths (+5, -10 and -50 cm). Next to that, geohydrological measurements were conducted in the floating fen. We found that geohydrological conditions likely drives the distribution of poor and rich fen species at a larger scale in the floating fen, due to the supply of minerotrophic groundwater. Interestingly, both poor and rich fen vegetation occurred in a mosaic, when electrical conductivity values at 50 cm depth were between 300 and 450 µS cm-1. Although environmental conditions were homogeneous at 50 cm, they differed markedly between rich and poor fen vegetation at 10 cm depth. Specifically, our measurements indicate that poor fen vegetation lowered porewater alkalinity, bicarbonate concentrations and pH. No effects of rich fen vegetation at 10 cm depth on biogeochemistry was measured. However, rich fen litter had a higher mineralization rate than poor fen litter, which increases the influence of minerotrophic water in rich fen habitat. These results strengthen our hypothesis that species can drive formation of vegetation mosaics under environmentally homogeneous conditions in a floating fen with positive intraspecific self-facilitating mechanisms and negative species interactions. The data can be found in the following files, containing primary data: - VanBergen_etal_2019_primary_data_geohydrology - VanBergen_etal_2019_primary_data_biogeochemistry - VanBergen_etal_2019_primary_data_aerobic_mineralizatio