It's not what you play, it's how you play it: timbre affects perception of emotion in music.

Salient sensory experiences often have a strong emotional tone, but the neuropsychological relations between perceptual characteristics of sensory objects and the affective information they convey remain poorly defined. Here we addressed the relationship between sound identity and emotional information using music. In two experiments, we investigated whether perception of emotions is influenced by altering the musical instrument on which the music is played, independently of other musical features. In the first experiment, 40 novel melodies each representing one of four emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, or anger) were each recorded on four different instruments (an electronic synthesizer, a piano, a violin, and a trumpet), controlling for melody, tempo, and loudness between instruments. Healthy participants (23 young adults aged 18-30 years, 24 older adults aged 58-75 years) were asked to select which emotion they thought each musical stimulus represented in a four-alternative forced-choice task. Using a generalized linear mixed model we found a significant interaction between instrument and emotion judgement with a similar pattern in young and older adults (p < .0001 for each age group). The effect was not attributable to musical expertise. In the second experiment using the same melodies and experimental design, the interaction between timbre and perceived emotion was replicated (p < .05) in another group of young adults for novel synthetic timbres designed to incorporate timbral cues to particular emotions. Our findings show that timbre (instrument identity) independently affects the perception of emotions in music after controlling for other acoustic, cognitive, and performance factors

Validity and Reliability of the Jefferson Scale of Empathy, Nursing Student Version R in a Sample of Iranian Oncology Nurses

Background: Empathy is essential in the process of nurse-patient relationships in oncology wards. The lack of a rigorous tool to measure empathy in oncology nurses makes the research difficult. Objectives: Modifying a Persian translation of the Jefferson scale of empathy to create an Iranian version of the Jefferson scale of empathy-nursing student version R (JSE-NS version R), and to determine its validity and reliability in oncology nurses of Tehran Universities of Medical Sciences. Methods: This is a methodological study with cross-sectional design, conducted in 2015. The translation and modification process was conducted according to the World Health Organization guidelines and an Iranian version of the scale was created. Different types of validity, including face and content validity together with construct and convergent validity were assessed. Construct validity was evaluated in a convenience sample of oncology nurses (n = 181) through confirmatory (CFA) and exploratory factor analysis (EFA). By correlation assessment between the total score of the JSE-NS version R and the subscales of the interpersonal reactivity index (IRI), convergent validity was tested. Reliability was ascertained by assessing the internal consistency and stability of the scale. The data were analyzed using SPSS-13 and LISREL 8.8. Results: Face and content validity of the scale was confirmed by an expert panel. The initial CFA did not show a three-factor structure of empathy, thus an EFA was run and a four-factor model with a grand factor was extracted. Subsequently, the results of the final CFA confirmed acceptable goodness of fit indices for the four-factor structure of empathy, and the scale explained 63% of variances in the data. Convergent validity showed a significant correlation between the total score of the scale and most subscales of the IRI (P < 0.001). Cronbach’s alpha value (0.86) and the ICC level (0.90) showed satisfactory results in oncology nurses. Conclusions: The Iranian version of the Jefferson scale of empathy-NS version R is a psychometrically sound instrument, implying that it is suitable for measurement of empathy in oncology nurses

Structural neuroanatomy of face processing in frontotemporal lobar degeneration

Impairments of face processing occur frequently in frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) but the neuroanatomical basis for these deficits has seldom been studied systematically. Here a prospective voxel based morphometry study is described addressing the neuroanatomy of two key dimensions of face processing—face identification and facial emotion recognition—in a single cohort of 32 patients with FTLD (19 with frontal variant and 13 with temporal variant FTLD). For the FTLD group as a whole, face identification was positively associated with grey matter in the right anterior fusiform gyrus while recognition of angry expressions was positively associated with grey matter in the bilateral insula cortex. FTLD provides a perspective on the neuroanatomy of face processing that is complementary to focal lesion and normal functional imaging work

(R)-1-Phenyl­ethanaminium (S)-4-chloro­mandelate

The absolute configuration of the title complex, C8H12N+·C8H6ClO3 − or [R-C6H5C(H)CH3NH3][S-4-ClC6H4C(H)(OH)CO2], has been confirmed by the structure determination. In the crystal structure, inter­molecular O—H⋯O and N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds form a two-dimensional network perpendicular to the c axis

Classifying the unknown: discovering novel gravitational-wave detector glitches using similarity learning

The observation of gravitational waves from compact binary coalescences by LIGO and Virgo has begun a new era in astronomy. A critical challenge in making detections is determining whether loud transient features in the data are caused by gravitational waves or by instrumental or environmental sources. The citizen-science project \emph{Gravity Spy} has been demonstrated as an efficient infrastructure for classifying known types of noise transients (glitches) through a combination of data analysis performed by both citizen volunteers and machine learning. We present the next iteration of this project, using similarity indices to empower citizen scientists to create large data sets of unknown transients, which can then be used to facilitate supervised machine-learning characterization. This new evolution aims to alleviate a persistent challenge that plagues both citizen-science and instrumental detector work: the ability to build large samples of relatively rare events. Using two families of transient noise that appeared unexpectedly during LIGO's second observing run (O2), we demonstrate the impact that the similarity indices could have had on finding these new glitch types in the Gravity Spy program

Isolasi Dan Identifikasi Bakteri Resisten Herbisida Glifosat Dan Paraquat Dari Rizosfer Tanaman Padi - (Isolation and Identification of Resistant Bacteria to Glyphosate and Paraquat Herbicide From Rhizosphere of Rice Plants)

Glyphosate and paraquat are broad-spectrum herbicides that commonly used in rice fields to control weeds. This study aims to isolate and identificate bacteria from rhizosphere of rice plants which resistant to glyphosate and paraquat herbicides. Thirty bacterial isolates were isolated from rhizosphere of rice plants and screened for their resistance of glyphosate and paraquat herbicides. One isolate was resistant to 4,000 ppm of glyphosate and 1,600 ppm of paraquat. Based on Biolog omniLog identification system, isolate 4.2 was identified as Ensifer meliloti

The Link between Dengue Incidence and El Niño Southern Oscillation

Pejman Rohani discusses a new study that examined the dynamic relationship between climate variables and dengue incidence in Thailand, Mexico, and Puerto Rico

Delusions in frontotemporal lobar degeneration

We assessed the significance and nature of delusions in frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), an important cause of young-onset dementia with prominent neuropsychiatric features that remain incompletely characterised. The case notes of all patients meeting diagnostic criteria for FTLD attending a tertiary level cognitive disorders clinic over a three year period were retrospectively reviewed and eight patients with a history of delusions were identified. All patients underwent detailed clinical and neuropsychological evaluation and brain MRI. The diagnosis was confirmed pathologically in two cases. The estimated prevalence of delusions was 14 %. Delusions were an early, prominent and persistent feature. They were phenomenologically diverse; however paranoid and somatic delusions were prominent. Behavioural variant FTLD was the most frequently associated clinical subtype and cerebral atrophy was bilateral or predominantly right-sided in most cases. We conclude that delusions may be a clinical issue in FTLD, and this should be explored further in future work

Genotypic characterization of Streptococcus pneumoniae serotype 19F in Malaysia

Streptococcus pneumoniae is an epidemiologically important bacterial pathogen. Recently, we reported the antibiotic susceptibility patterns of a limited collection of pneumococcal isolates in Malaysia with a high prevalence of erythromycin resistant strains. In the present study, 55 of the pneumococcal isolates of serotype 19F were further analysed by pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and multilocus sequence typing (MLST). The generated genotypic patterns were then correlated with the antibiograms previously reported. Forty-seven different PFGE profiles (PTs) were obtained, showing that the isolates were genetically diverse. MLST identified 16 sequence types (STs) with ST-236 being predominant (58.2%), followed by ST-81 (10.3%). Among the ST-236 isolates, 22 were erythromycin resistant S. pneumoniae (ERSP) and 15 were trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (TMP/SMX) resistant, while among ST-81, four isolates were ERSP and two were TMP/SMX resistant. The high prevalence of erythromycin resistant serotype 19F isolates of ST-236 in this study has also been reported in other North and South East Asian countries