Experimental evidence for helper effects in a cooperatively breeding cichlid

Neolamprologus pulcher is a cooperatively breeding cichlid fish, in which helpers stay in their natal territory and help with brood care, territory defense, and maintenance. In this study we investigated helper effects by an experimental group size reduction in the field. After this manipulation, focal helpers in reduced groups tended to feed less, and small helpers visited the breeding shelter significantly more often than same-sized helpers in control groups. No evidence was found that remaining helpers compensated for the removed helpers by increasing territory defense and maintenance behavior. Breeders, however, did show a lower defense rate, possibly caused by an increase in brood care effort. Survival of fry was significantly lower in removal than control groups, which provides the first experimental proof in a natural population of fish that brood care helpers do effectively help. The data suggest that in small, generally younger, helpers, kin selection may be an important evolutionary cause of cooperation. Large helpers, however, who are generally older and less related to the breeders than small helpers are suggested to pay to be allowed to stay in the territory by helping. All group members benefit from group augmentatio

Plasmids conferring resistance to extended-spectrum beta-lactamases including a rare IncN+IncR multireplicon carrying blaCTX-M-1 in Escherichia coli recovered from migrating barnacle geese (Branta leucopsis) [version 1; peer review: 2 approved]

Peer reviewe

Expression of the Inhibitory CD200 Receptor Is Associated with Alternative Macrophage Activation

Classical macrophage activation is inhibited by the CD200 receptor (CD200R). Here, we show that CD200R expression was specifically induced on human in vitro polarized macrophages of the alternatively activated M2a subtype, generated by incubation with IL-4 or IL-13. In mice, peritoneal M2 macrophages, elicited during infection with the parasites Taenia crassiceps or Tryponosoma brucei brucei, expressed increased CD200R levels compared to those derived from uninfected mice. However, in vitro stimulation of mouse peritoneal macrophages and T crassiceps infection in IL-4-/- and IL-4R-/- mice showed that, in contrast to humans, induction of CD200R in mice was not IL-4 or IL-13 dependent. Our data identify CD200R as a suitable marker for alternatively activated macrophages in humans and corroborate observations of distinct species- and/or site-specific mechanisms regulating macrophage polarization in mouse and man. Copyright (C) 2009 S. Karger AG, Base

The magnitude vector of images

The magnitude of a finite metric space has recently emerged as a novel invariant quantity, allowing to measure the effective size of a metric space. Despite encouraging first results demonstrating the descriptive abilities of the magnitude, such as being able to detect the boundary of a metric space, the potential use cases of magnitude remain under-explored. In this work, we investigate the properties of the magnitude on images, an important data modality in many machine learning applications. By endowing each individual images with its own metric space, we are able to define the concept of magnitude on images and analyse the individual contribution of each pixel with the magnitude vector. In particular, we theoretically show that the previously known properties of boundary detection translate to edge detection abilities in images. Furthermore, we demonstrate practical use cases of magnitude for machine learning applications and propose a novel magnitude model that consists of a computationally efficient magnitude computation and a learnable metric. By doing so, we address the computational hurdle that used to make magnitude impractical for many applications and open the way for the adoption of magnitude in machine learning research

In silico analysis of sequenced strains of Clostridium difficile reveals a related set of conjugative transposons carrying a variety of accessory genes

The human gut pathogen Clostridium difficile contains many conjugative transposons that have an array of accessory genes. In the current study, recently sequenced genomes were analyzed to identify new putative conjugative transposons. Eleven new elements in 5 C. difficile strains were identified and all had a similar structure to the previously described elements CTn1, CTn5 and CTn7 in C. difficile strain 630. Each element identified did however contain a new set of accessory genes compared with those previously reported; including those predicted to encode ABC transporters, a toxin/antitoxin system and multiple antibiotic resistance genes

Manifold Filter-Combine Networks

We introduce a large class of manifold neural networks (MNNs) which we call Manifold Filter-Combine Networks. This class includes as special cases, the MNNs considered in previous work by Wang, Ruiz, and Ribeiro, the manifold scattering transform (a wavelet-based model of neural networks), and other interesting examples not previously considered in the literature such as the manifold equivalent of Kipf and Welling's graph convolutional network. We then consider a method, based on building a data-driven graph, for implementing such networks when one does not have global knowledge of the manifold, but merely has access to finitely many sample points. We provide sufficient conditions for the network to provably converge to its continuum limit as the number of sample points tends to infinity. Unlike previous work (which focused on specific MNN architectures and graph constructions), our rate of convergence does not explicitly depend on the number of filters used. Moreover, it exhibits linear dependence on the depth of the network rather than the exponential dependence obtained previously

Introduction: The Wealth-Power Nexus

This introductory chapter provides a general framework for thinking about the relationship between wealth and power. It begins by situating the topic in the history of political thought, modern social science, and recent political philosophy, before putting forward an analytical framework. This has three elements: first, the idea of liberalism's public/private divide: a division between a power-wielding state from which wealth should be absent, and a market economy from which power should be absent; second, the two ways the division can be transgressed by the power of the wealthy: by the wealthy subverting the power of the state and by directly exercising power within the economy; and third, the four different approaches to responding to the transgression, either aiming to reassert the public/private divide or to move beyond it

Topological Graph Neural Networks

Graph neural networks (GNNs) are a powerful architecture for tackling graph learning tasks, yet have been shown to be oblivious to eminent substructures, such as cycles. We present TOGL, a novel layer that incorporates global topological information of a graph using persistent homology. TOGL can be easily integrated into any type of GNN and is strictly more expressive in terms of the Weisfeiler--Lehman test of isomorphism. Augmenting GNNs with our layer leads to beneficial predictive performance for graph and node classification tasks, both on synthetic data sets, which can be classified by humans using their topology but not by ordinary GNNs, and on real-world data

Challenges with coverage with evidence development schemes for medical devices: A systematic review

Objectives: Coverage with evidence development (CED) schemes are particularly relevant for medical devices (MDs), since clinical evidence is often limited at the time of launch and their long-term (cost-) effectiveness heavily depends on how they are adopted into routine clinical practice. The objective of this study was to identify and describe the challenges that payers and manufacturers might face when assessing the desirability of, choosing the research design for, implementing, and evaluating CED schemes for MDs. Methods: A systematic literature review was performed on six databases following PRISMA guidelines. Two independent reviewers assessed the eligibility of studies based on predefined criteria and extracted data from the included articles by using a pre-defined extraction template. The data were synthesised in a narrative review. Results: The systematic search yielded 4293 articles of which 27 were eligible for inclusion. We identified 20 challenges that are associated with CED schemes for MDs. Five of these challenges relate directly to the characteristics of MDs, and hence are specific to MDs. These challenges concern deciding on whether a CED scheme is required, understanding the relevant uncertainties and risks, identifying meaningful outcomes, defining an adequate duration for a scheme, and market entry of new technologies. Conclusions: Payers and manufacturers of MDs have to address the identified challenges to improve a CED scheme's chance of success. This can be further improved by public sharing of information about the outcome of applied schemes and way in which stakeholders have addressed the challenges they faced when applying a CED scheme