Implications evinced by the phase diagram, anisotropy, magnetic penetration depths, isotope effects and conductivities of cuprate superconductors

Anisotropy, thermal and quantum fluctuations and their dependence on dopant concentration appear to be present in all cuprate superconductors, interwoven with the microscopic mechanisms responsible for superconductivity. Here we review anisotropy, in-plane and c-axis penetration depths, isotope effect and conductivity measurements to reassess the universal behavior of cuprates as revealed by the doping dependence of these phenomena and of the transition temperature.Comment: 14 pages, 13 figure

The tidyomics ecosystem: Enhancing omic data analyses

The growth of omic data presents evolving challenges in data manipulation, analysis, and integration. Addressing these challenges, Bioconductor1 provides an extensive community-driven biological data analysis platform. Meanwhile, tidy R programming2 offers a revolutionary standard for data organisation and manipulation. Here, we present the tidyomics software ecosystem, bridging Bioconductor to the tidy R paradigm. This ecosystem aims to streamline omic analysis, ease learning, and encourage cross-disciplinary collaborations. We demonstrate the effectiveness of tidyomics by analysing 7.5 million peripheral blood mononuclear cells from the Human Cell Atlas3, spanning six data frameworks and ten analysis tools.Competing Interest StatementR.G. has received consulting income from Takeda and Sanofi, and declares ownership in Ozette Technologies. M.K. is an employee of and declares ownership in Achilles Therapeutics. ​​The remaining authors declare no competing interests

Microneurosurgical Anastomoses for Cerebral Ischemia [Contents]

From jacket: The purpose of this volume is to present a series of important papers on the rapidly growing surgical field of microneurosurgical anastomoses for cerebral ischemia. It includes papers on the indications and results of microneurosurgical bypass anastomoses; on the techniques used to study patients before and after surgery, including cerebral blood flow psychometic testing, etc.; and on the basic mechanisms of cerebral ischemia studies in animals. New ideas are suggested for techniques involving increased use of the occipital arteries and the development of vein, arterial, or prosthetic grafts in place of the STA (superficial temporal artery). Also discussed are the importance of measuring blood flow in the STA where possible, and the measurement of cerebral blood flow pre- and postoperatively to monitor the results. Psychometric studies are shown to be of importance pre- and postoperatively in addition to careful neurologic evaluation

Neonatal Handling Affects Durably Bonding and Social Development

The neonatal period in humans and in most mammals is characterized by intense mother-young interactions favoring pair bonding and the adaptation of neonates to their new environment. However, in many post-delivery procedures, human babies commonly experience combined maternal separation and intense handling for about one hour post-birth. Currently, the effects of such disturbances on later attachment and on the development of newborns are still debated: clearly, further investigations are required. As animals present good models for controlled experimentation, we chose domestic horses to investigate this issue. Horses, like humans, are characterized by single births, long lactating periods and selective mother-infant bonds. Routine postnatal procedures for foals, as for human babies, also involve intense handling and maternal separation. In the present study, we monitored the behavior of foals from early stages of development to “adolescence”, in a normal ecological context (social groups with adults and peers). Experimental foals, separated from their mothers and handled for only 1 hour post-birth, were compared to control foals, left undisturbed after birth. Our results revealed short- and long-term effects of this unique neonatal experience on attachment and subsequent social competences. Thus, experimental foals presented patterns of insecure attachment to their mothers (strong dependence on their mothers, little play) and impaired social competences (social withdrawal, aggressiveness) at all ages. We discuss these results in terms of mother-young interactions, timing of interactions and relationships between bonding and subsequent social competences. Our results indicate that this ungulate species could become an interesting animal model. To our knowledge, this is the first clear demonstration that intervention just after birth affects bonding and subsequent social competences (at least until “adolescence”). It opens new research directions for studies on both humans and other animals

Agonistic behavior and environmental enrichment of cats communally housed in a shelter

Objective-To evaluate the presence of a dominance rank in a group of cats and the relation between agonistic behavior and the use of resources, including environmental enrichment, in these cats. Design-Observational analytic study. Animals-27 neutered cats in a shelter in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Procedures-The cats were video recorded for 4 consecutive days to obtain baseline data. Subsequently, a puzzle feeder was added as an enrichment device every other day over 8 days, for a total of 4 days with enrichment. Cats were also video recorded on these days. All pretreatment and posttreatment agonistic behaviors and interactions with the puzzle feeder were recorded by reviewing the videotapes. Results-143 agonistic encounters were recorded, of which 44 were related to resources and 99 were not. There were insufficient agonistic interactions to determine a dominance rank. Presence or absence of the puzzle feeder did not affect the rate of aggression. There was no significant effect of weight, sex, or coat color on the rate of aggression, and aggressive behavior did not correlate with time spent with the puzzle feeder. Twenty-three of the 27 cats interacted with the puzzle feeder. Conclusions and Clinical Relevance-In a stable group of communally housed cats, environmental enrichment did not cause increased aggression as a result of competition for the source of enrichment. Because environmental enrichment increases the opportunity to perform exploratory behaviors, it may improve the welfare of groups of cats maintained long-term in shelters, sanctuaries, or multicat households. (J Am Vet Med Assoc 2011239:796-802)CAPES Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superio

Complementary topology of maintenance and manipulation brain networks in working memory.

Working memory (WM) is assumed to consist of a process that sustains memory representations in an active state (maintenance) and a process that operates on these activated representations (manipulation). We examined evidence for two distinct, concurrent cognitive functions supporting maintenance and manipulation abilities by testing brain activity as participants performed a WM alphabetization task. Maintenance was investigated by varying the number of letters held in WM and manipulation by varying the number of moves required to sort the list alphabetically. We found that both maintenance and manipulation demand had significant effects on behavior that were associated with different cortical regions: maintenance was associated with bilateral prefrontal and left parietal cortex, and manipulation with right parietal activity, a link that is consistent with the role of parietal cortex in symbolic computations. Both structural and functional architecture of these systems suggested that these cognitive functions are supported by two dissociable brain networks. Critically, maintenance and manipulation functional networks became increasingly segregated with increasing demand, an effect that was positively associated with individual WM ability. These results provide evidence that network segregation may act as a protective mechanism to enable successful performance under increasing WM demand