The influence of emotion clarity on emotional prosody identification in paranoid schizophrenia

Background Identification of emotional facial expression and emotional prosody (i.e. speech melody) is often impaired in schizophrenia. For facial emotion identification, a recent study suggested that the relative deficit in schizophrenia is enhanced when the presented emotion is easier to recognize. It is unclear whether this effect is specific to face processing or part of a more general emotion recognition deficit. Method We used clarity-graded emotional prosodic stimuli without semantic content, and tested 25 in-patients with paranoid schizophrenia, 25 healthy control participants and 25 depressive in-patients on emotional prosody identification. Facial expression identification was used as a control task. Results Patients with paranoid schizophrenia performed worse than both control groups in identifying emotional prosody, with no specific deficit in any individual emotion category. This deficit was present in high-clarity but not in low-clarity stimuli. Performance in facial control tasks was also impaired, with identification of emotional facial expression being a better predictor of emotional prosody identification than illness-related factors. Of those, negative symptoms emerged as the best predictor for emotional prosody identification. Conclusions This study suggests a general deficit in identifying high-clarity emotional cues. This finding is in line with the hypothesis that schizophrenia is characterized by high noise in internal representations and by increased fluctuations in cerebral network

Morbus Darier und Depression - besteht eine genetische Verbindung?: Übersicht und klinischer Fall

Zusammenfassung: Der Morbus Darier ist eine seltene Hauterkrankung, die autosomal-dominant vererbt wird und durch eine Mutation im SERCA (sarco/endoplasmatic reticulum calcium transporter)-2-Gen verursacht wird. In einigen Stammbäumen ist das Auftreten des Morbus Darier eng mit dem Vorkommen affektiver Erkrankungen verknüpft. Die wahrscheinlichste Ursache ist ein Suszeptibilitätsgen für affektive Erkrankungen in der Nähe des SERCA-2-Gens. Als Suszeptibilitätslokus konnte eine 6,5-Mb-Region identifiziert werden. Auch Studien mit affektiv erkrankten Stichproben, die nicht an Morbus Darier leiden, weisen ein Signal in der gleichen Region auf. Das zugrunde liegende Gen ist jedoch noch nicht identifizier

A Novel Diagnostic Aid for Detection of Intra-Abdominal Adhesions to the Anterior Abdominal Wall Using Dynamic Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Introduction. Abdominal adhesions can cause serious morbidity and complicate subsequent operations. Their diagnosis is often one of exclusion due to a lack of a reliable, non-invasive diagnostic technique. Development and testing of a candidate technique are described below. Method. During respiration, smooth visceral sliding motion occurs between the abdominal contents and the walls of the abdominal cavity. We describe a technique involving image segmentation and registration to calculate shear as an analogue for visceral slide based on the tracking of structures throughout the respiratory cycle. The presence of an adhesion is attributed to a resistance to visceral slide resulting in a discernible reduction in shear. The abdominal movement due to respiration is captured in sagittal dynamic MR images. Results. Clinical images were selected for analysis, including a patient with a surgically confirmed adhesion. Discernible reduction in shear was observed at the location of the adhesion while a consistent, gradually changing shear was observed in the healthy volunteers. Conclusion. The technique and its validation show encouraging results for adhesion detection but a larger study is now required to confirm its potential

Automatic Assessment of Speech Capability Loss in Disordered Speech

International audienceIn this article, we report on the use of an automatic technique to assess pronunciation in the context of several types of speech disorders. Even if such tools already exist, they are more widely used in a different context, namely, Computer-Assisted Language Learning, in which the objective is to assess nonnative pronunciation by detecting learners' mispronunciations at segmental and/or suprasegmental levels. In our work, we sought to determine if the Goodness of Pronunciation (GOP) algorithm, which aims to detect phone-level mispronunciations by means of automatic speech recognition, could also detect segmental deviances in disordered speech. Our main experiment is an analysis of speech from people with unilateral facial palsy. This pathology may impact the realization of certain phonemes such as bilabial plosives and sibilants. Speech read by 32 speakers at four different clinical severity grades was automatically aligned and GOP scores were computed for each phone realization. The highest scores, which indicate large dissimilarities with standard phone realizations, were obtained for the most severely impaired speakers. The corresponding speech subset was manually transcribed at phone level; 8.3% of the phones differed from standard pronunciations extracted from our lexicon. The GOP technique allowed the detection of 70.2% of mispronunciations with an equal rate of about 30% of false rejections and false acceptances. Finally, to broaden the scope of the study, we explored the correlation between GOP values and speech comprehensibility scores on a second corpus, composed of sentences recorded by six people with speech impairments due to cancer surgery or neurological disorders. Strong correlations were achieved between GOP scores and subjective comprehensibility scores (about 0.7 absolute). Results from both experiments tend to validate the use of GOP to measure speech capability loss, a dimension that could be used as a complement to physiological measures in pathologies causing speech disorders

An Australian longitudinal pilot study examining health determinants of cardiac outcomes 12 months post percutaneous coronary intervention

Background Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is a very common revascularisation procedure for coronary artery disease (CAD). The purpose of this study was to evaluate cardiac outcomes, health related quality of life (HRQoL), resilience and adherence behaviours in patients who have undergone a PCI at two time points (6 and 12 months) following their procedure. Methods A longitudinal pilot study was conducted to observe the cardiac outcomes across a cohort of patients who had undergone a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Participants who had undergone PCI 6 months prior were invited. Those participants who met the inclusion criteria and provided consent then completed a telephone survey (time point 1). These participants were then contacted 6 months later (i.e. 12 months post-intervention, time point 2) and the measures were repeated. Results All patients (n = 51) were recorded as being alive at time point 1. The multiple model indicated that controlling for other factors, gender was significantly associated with a linear combination of outcome measures (p = 0.004). The effect was moderate in magnitude (partial-η2 = 0.303), where males performed significantly better than females 6 months after the PCI procedure physically and with mood. Follow-up univariate ANOVAs indicated that gender differences were grounded in the scale measuring depression (PHQ9) (p = 0.005) and the physical component score of the short form measuring HRQoL (SF12-PCS) (p = 0.003). Thirteen patients were lost to follow-up between time points 1 and 2. One patient was confirmed to have passed away. The pattern of correlations between outcome measures at time point 2 revealed statistically significant negative correlation between the PHQ instrument and the resilience scale (CD-RISC) (r = -0.611; p < 0.001); and the physical component score of the SF-12 instrument (r = -0.437; p = 0.054). Conclusions Men were performing better than women in the 6 months post-PCI, particularly in the areas of mood (depression) and physical health. This pilot results indicate gender-sensitive practices are recommended particularly up to 6 months post-PCI. Any gender differences observed at 6 month appear to disappear at 12 months post-PCI. Further research into the management of mood particularly for women post-PCI is warranted. A more detailed inquiry related to access/attendance to secondary prevention is also warranted

Height and timing of growth spurt during puberty in young people living with vertically acquired HIV in Europe and Thailand.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to describe growth during puberty in young people with vertically acquired HIV. DESIGN: Pooled data from 12 paediatric HIV cohorts in Europe and Thailand. METHODS: One thousand and ninety-four children initiating a nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor or boosted protease inhibitor based regimen aged 1-10 years were included. Super Imposition by Translation And Rotation (SITAR) models described growth from age 8 years using three parameters (average height, timing and shape of the growth spurt), dependent on age and height-for-age z-score (HAZ) (WHO references) at antiretroviral therapy (ART) initiation. Multivariate regression explored characteristics associated with these three parameters. RESULTS: At ART initiation, median age and HAZ was 6.4 [interquartile range (IQR): 2.8, 9.0] years and -1.2 (IQR: -2.3 to -0.2), respectively. Median follow-up was 9.1 (IQR: 6.9, 11.4) years. In girls, older age and lower HAZ at ART initiation were independently associated with a growth spurt which occurred 0.41 (95% confidence interval 0.20-0.62) years later in children starting ART age 6 to 10 years compared with 1 to 2 years and 1.50 (1.21-1.78) years later in those starting with HAZ less than -3 compared with HAZ at least -1. Later growth spurts in girls resulted in continued height growth into later adolescence. In boys starting ART with HAZ less than -1, growth spurts were later in children starting ART in the oldest age group, but for HAZ at least -1, there was no association with age. Girls and boys who initiated ART with HAZ at least -1 maintained a similar height to the WHO reference mean. CONCLUSION: Stunting at ART initiation was associated with later growth spurts in girls. Children with HAZ at least -1 at ART initiation grew in height at the level expected in HIV negative children of a comparable age

Fenologia e produção de cultivares de amoreira-preta em sistema agroecológico.

A amoreira-preta é uma espécie de exploração recente no Brasil. Nos últimos ano, s tem sido dada especial atenção ao cultivo orgânico ou agroecológico dessa espécie. O objetivo deste trabalho foi verificar o comportamento fenológico e produtivo das cultivares de amora-preta ‘Tupy’, ‘Guarani’, ‘Caingangue’, ‘Cherokee’ e ‘Brazos’, e das seleções denominadas ‘seleção 97’ e ‘seleção 787’ na região de Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul(RS), em sistema agroecológico. O trabalho foi realizado na Estação Experimental de Cascata (EEC), Embrapa Clima Temperado. As plantas foram dispostas no pomar, em blocos varietais aleatórios, com 10 plantas por genótipo, perfazendo quatro linhas com duas cultivares por linha. Foram observadas as datas de início da floração e fim da floração, início e final de colheita, massa (gramas) e número de frutos por planta, teor de sólidos solúveis totais (ºBrix), produção média por planta (g pl-1) e produtividade estimada por hectare (kg ha-1). Para análise das características dos frutos, a média de cada ano de avaliação (três) foi considerada como uma repetição. Na região de Pelotas-RS, é viável o cultivo agroecológico de amoreira-preta. Não há diferenças de produção, produtividade, número de frutos e teores de sólidos solúveis totais entre os genótipos estudados

A Bioelectrochemical Approach to Characterize Extracellular Electron Transfer by Synechocystis sp. PCC6803

Biophotovoltaic devices employ photosynthetic organisms at the anode of a microbial fuel cell to generate electrical power. Although a range of cyanobacteria and algae have been shown to generate photocurrent in devices of a multitude of architectures, mechanistic understanding of extracellular electron transfer by phototrophs remains minimal. Here we describe a mediatorless bioelectrochemical device to measure the electrogenic output of a planktonically grown cyanobacterium, Synechocystis sp. PCC6803. Light dependent production of current is measured, and its magnitude is shown to scale with microbial cell concentration and light intensity. Bioelectrochemical characterization of a Synechocystis mutant lacking Photosystem II demonstrates conclusively that production of the majority of photocurrent requires a functional water splitting aparatus and electrons are likely ultimately derived from water. This shows the potential of the device to rapidly and quantitatively characterize photocurrent production by genetically modified strains, an approach that can be used in future studies to delineate the mechanisms of cyanobacterial extracellular electron transport

Accurate automated quantitative imaging of tortoise erythrocytes using the NIS image analysis system

The standard method for assessing blood cell characteristics using an ocular micrometer is time-consuming and limited. We used the Nikon NIS Elements imaging software and May-Grünwald-Giemsa staining to determine whether automated image analysis is suitable for rapid and accurate quantitative morphometry of erythrocytes. Blood was collected during four seasons from 126 geometric tortoises and the blood smears were evaluated for cell (C) and nuclear (N) characteristics of the erythrocytes. We measured area, length (L), width (W), perimeter, elongation and pixelation intensity, and calculated L/W and N/C areas. Erythrocyte size differed among cohorts; females, the larger sex, had smaller erythrocytes than either males or juveniles. Males had more elongated erythrocytes than females and erythrocytes of adults were more elongated than those of juveniles. Erythrocyte size and shape influence the efficiency of gas exchange owing to surface area to volume ratios, which are greater for small, elongated cells than for large, round cells. The high N/C ratio and low pixelation intensities of males and juveniles indicate that they may have had more immature erythrocytes in their circulation than females. The use of pixelation intensity to indicate the presence of immature erythrocytes was validated by seasonal differences that corresponded to the biology of the tortoises. Pixelation intensity was lowest in winter. We found that automated image analysis is a rapid and reliable method for determining cell size and shape, and it offers the potential for distinguishing among developmental stages that differ in staining intensity. The method should be useful for rapid health assessments, particularly of threatened species, and for comparative studies among different vertebrates.Web of Scienc