Noun and Verb Production and Comprehension in Stroke-Induced and Primary Progressive Aphasia: An Introduction to the Northwestern Naming Battery

This study examined production and comprehension of nouns and verbs using the Northwestern Naming Battery (NNB), a new test designed to assess naming ability in individuals with stroke-induced or primary progressive aphasia (PPA). Scores derived from the NNB were also compared to scores from published, standardized tests to evaluate the NNB’s validity. Dissociations between word classes in production were observed for participants with stroke-induced anomic and Broca’s aphasia with agrammatism and individuals with logopenic and agrammatic variants of PPA, with the two agrammatic groups showing greater impairment for verb compared to noun naming. Clinical and theoretical implications will be discussed

Actively Addressing Systemic Racism Using a Behavioral Community Approach

Recent police brutality and related violence against Black people, coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic, has further evidenced the disproportionate impact of systemic racism in our institutions and across society. In the United States, the alarming mortality rates for Black people due to police violence and COVID-19 related deaths are clear demonstrations of inequities within a long history of disparate outcomes. In understanding systemic racism, it is essential to consider how it is embedded within society and across socio-ecological levels. The Social-Ecological Model (SEM) is used to examine conditions within the environment that maintain systemic racism, including within our field and discipline. A behavioral-community approach for examining racism aids in determining points of intervention across multiple ecological levels that may contribute to behavior change, including with behaviorists. The science of behavior is well-suited to help examine the contingencies governing behaviors within and across systems, which is pivotal for addressing operant behaviors to influence long-term behavior change. This paper calls on the behavioral community to address systemic racism within our environments and systems of influence to contribute to a more equitable community. Systemic racism, including within the context of anti-Blackness, is examined by considering behavior change strategies that can be supported by behaviorists across socio-ecological levels. Tools for collaborative action are provided to support behaviorists in demonstrating the skills needed across a continuum of behaviors from allyship to anti-racism to actively address systemic racism

Marine viruses discovered via metagenomics shed light on viral strategies throughout the oceans

Marine viruses are key drivers of host diversity, population dynamics and biogeochemical cycling and contribute to the daily flux of billions of tons of organic matter. Despite recent advancements in metagenomics, much of their biodiversity remains uncharacterized. Here we report a data set of 27,346 marine virome contigs that includes 44 complete genomes. These outnumber all currently known phage genomes in marine habitats and include members of previously uncharacterized lineages. We designed a new method for host prediction based on co-occurrence associations that reveals these viruses infect dominant members of the marine microbiome such as Prochlorococcus and Pelagibacter. A negative association between host abundance and the virus-to-host ratio supports the recently proposed Piggyback-the-Winner model of reduced phage lysis at higher host densities. An analysis of the abundance patterns of viruses throughout the oceans revealed how marine viral communities adapt to various seasonal, temperature and photic regimes according to targeted hosts and the diversity of auxiliary metabolic genes.CAPESCNPqFAPERJCiencia sem fronteiras programUniv Fed Rio de Janeiro, IB, BR-21944970 Rio de Janeiro, BrazilRadboud Univ Nijmegen, Radboud Inst Mol Life Sci, CMBI, Med Ctr, NL-6500 HB Nijmegen, NetherlandsUniv Utrecht, Theoret Biol & Bioinformat, NL-3584 CH Utrecht, NetherlandsSan Diego State Univ, Dept Biol, San Diego, CA 92182 USAUniv Fed Sao Paulo UNIFESP, Dept Ciencias Mar, BR-11070100 Baixada Santista, BrazilNIOZ Royal Netherlands Inst Sea Res, Dept Marine Microbiol & Biogeochem, POB 59, NL-1790 AB Den Burg, NetherlandsUniv Utrecht, POB 59, NL-1790 AB Den Burg, NetherlandsUniv Amsterdam, Dept Aquat Microbiol, IBED, NL-1090 GE Amsterdam, NetherlandsUniv Fed Rio de Janeiro, COPPE, SAGE, BR-21941950 Rio de Janeiro, BrazilUniv Fed Sao Paulo UNIFESP, Dept Ciencias Mar, BR-11070100 Baixada Santista, BrazilCAPESCNPqFAPERJCiencia sem fronteiras program: 864.14.004Web of Scienc

Pentose phosphate pathway activity: effect on in vitro maturation and oxidative status of bovine oocytes

Abstract. The relationship between pentose phosphate pathway (PPP) activity in cumulus-oocyte complexes (COCs) and oxidative and mitochondrial activity in bovine oocytes was evaluated with the aim of analysing the impact of two inhibitors (NADPH and 6-aminonicotinamide (6-AN)) and a stimulator (NADP) of the key enzymes of the PPP on the maturation rate, oxidative and mitochondrial activity and the mitochondrial distribution in oocytes. The proportion of COCs with measurable PPP activity (assessed using brilliant cresyl blue staining), glucose uptake, lactate production and meiotic maturation rate diminished when 6-AN (0.1, 1, 5 and 10 mM for 22 h) was added to the maturation medium (P , 0.05). The addition of NADPH did not modify glucose uptake or lactate production, but reduced PPP activity in COCs and meiotic maturation rates (P , 0.05). The presence of NADP (0.0125, 0.125, 1.25 and 12.5 mM for 22 h of culture) in the maturation medium had no effect on PPP activity in COCs, glucose uptake, lactate production and meiotic maturation rate. However, in the absence of gonadotropin supplementation, NADP stimulated both glucose uptake and lactate production at 12.5 mM (the highest concentration tested; P , 0.05). NADP did not modify cleavage rate, but decreased blastocyst production (P , 0.05). During IVM, oocyte oxidative and mitochondrial activity was observed to increase at 15 and 22 h maturation, which was also related to progressive mitochondrial migration. Inhibiting the PPP with 6-AN or NADPH led to reduced oxidative and mitochondrial activity compared with the respective control groups and inhibition of mitochondrial migration (P , 0.05). Stimulation of the PPP with NADP increased oxidative and mitochondrial activity at 9 h maturation (P , 0.05) and delayed mitochondrial migration. The present study shows the significance of altering PPP activity during bovine oocyte IVM, revealing that there is a link between the activity of the PPP and the oxidative status of the oocyte

Policy Brief MIX AND MATCH: WHAT PRINCIPALS REALLY LOOK FOR WHEN HIRING TEACHERS

Abstract The vast majority of research and policy related to teacher quality focuses on the supply of teachers and ignores teacher demand. In particular, the important role of school principals in hiring teachers is rarely considered. Using interviews of school principals in a midsized Florida school district, we provide an exploratory mixed methods analysis of the teacher characteristics principals prefer. Our findings contradict the conventional wisdom that principals undervalue content knowledge and intelligence. Principals in our study ranked content knowledge third among a list of twelve characteristics. Intelligence does appear less important at first glance, but this is apparently because principals believe all applicants who meet certification requirements meet a minimum threshold on intelligence and because some intelligent teachers have difficulty connecting with students. More generally, we find that principals prefer an "individual mix" of personal and professional qualities. They also create an "organizational mix," hiring teachers who differ from those already in the school in terms of race, gender, experience, and skills, and an "organizational match," in which teachers have similar work habits and a high propensity to remain with the school over time. Because of tenure rules, many principals also prefer less experienced (untenured) teachers, even though research suggests that they are less effective

Efficient, high-throughput transfection of human embryonic stem cells

INTRODUCTION: Genetic manipulation of human embryonic stem cells (hESC) has been limited by their general resistance to common methods used to introduce exogenous DNA or RNA. Efficient and high throughput transfection of nucleic acids into hESC would be a valuable experimental tool to manipulate these cells for research and clinical applications. METHODS: We investigated the ability of two commercially available electroporation systems, the Nucleofection(® )96-well Shuttle(® )System from Lonza and the Neon™ Transfection System from Invitrogen to efficiently transfect hESC. Transfection efficiency was measured by flow cytometry for the expression of the green fluorescent protein and the viability of the transfected cells was determined by an ATP catalyzed luciferase reaction. The transfected cells were also analyzed by flow cytometry for common markers of pluripotency. RESULTS: Both systems are capable of transfecting hESC at high efficiencies with little loss of cell viability. However, the reproducibility and the ease of scaling for high throughput applications led us to perform more comprehensive tests on the Nucleofection(® )96-well Shuttle(® )System. We demonstrate that this method yields a large fraction of transiently transfected cells with minimal loss of cell viability and pluripotency, producing protein expression from plasmid vectors in several different hESC lines. The method scales to a 96-well plate with similar transfection efficiencies at the start and end of the plate. We also investigated the efficiency with which stable transfectants can be generated and recovered under antibiotic selection. Finally, we found that this method is effective in the delivery of short synthetic RNA oligonucleotides (siRNA) into hESC for knockdown of translation activity via RNA interference. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate that these electroporation methods provide a reliable, efficient, and high-throughput approach to the genetic manipulation of hESC

Phylogenetic and structural diversity of aromatically dense pili from environmental metagenomes

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Bray, M.S., Wu, J., Padilla, C.C., Stewart, F.J., Fowle, D.A., Henny, C., Simister, R.L., Thompson, K.J., Crowe, S.A. and Glass, J.B. (2020), Phylogenetic and structural diversity of aromatically dense pili from environmental metagenomes. Environmental Microbiology Reports, 12: 49-57. https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-2229.12809, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-2229.12809. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. This article may not be enhanced, enriched or otherwise transformed into a derivative work, without express permission from Wiley or by statutory rights under applicable legislation. Copyright notices must not be removed, obscured or modified. The article must be linked to Wiley’s version of record on Wiley Online Library and any embedding, framing or otherwise making available the article or pages thereof by third parties from platforms, services and websites other than Wiley Online Library must be prohibited.Electroactive type IV pili, or e-pili, are used by some microbial species for extracellular electron transfer. Recent studies suggest that e-pili may be more phylogenetically and structurally diverse than previously assumed. Here, we used updated aromatic density thresholds (≥9.8% aromatic amino acids, ≤22-aa aromatic gaps and aromatic amino acids at residues 1, 24, 27, 50 and/or 51, and 32 and/or 57) to search for putative e-pilin genes in metagenomes from diverse ecosystems with active microbial metal cycling. Environmental putative e-pilins were diverse in length and phylogeny, and included truncated e-pilins in Geobacter spp., as well as longer putative e-pilins in Fe(II)-oxidizing Betaproteobacteria and Zetaproteobacteria