Investigating the familiarity effect in texture segmentation by means of event-related brain potentials

The familiarity effect (FE) refers to the phenomenon that it is easier to find an unfamiliar element on a background of familiar elements than vice versa. In this study, we examined the FE in texture segmentation while recording event-related brain potentials with the aim to find out which processing stages were influenced by familiarity. In two experiments, with different levels of texture homogeneity, the N1, the N2p and the P3 components were investigated. It was found that the FE in texture segmentation is associated with a modulation of the early N1 and of the intermediate N2p component for homogeneous textures. For inhomogeneous (jittered) textures, the FE was found for the intermediate N2p and for the late P3 components, but not for the N1 component. Our findings suggest that increasing texture inhomogeneity shifts the FE occurrence to later processing stages

Effect of early life antibiotic use on serologic responses to oral rotavirus vaccine in the MAL-ED birth cohort study

Background: Oral rotavirus vaccine efficacy is lower in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) than in high-income countries. The degree to which antibiotic use impacts rotavirus vaccine immunogenicity in LMICs is unknown. Using data from a multisite prospective birth cohort study of malnutrition and enteric disease, MAL-ED, we examined the effect of early life antibiotic use on the immune response to rotavirus vaccine. Methods: We assessed whether antibiotic use from birth up to 7 days following rotavirus vaccine series completion was associated with rotavirus seropositivity at 7 months of age in Brazil, Peru, and South Africa using a modified Poisson regression. We then used parametric g-computation to estimate the impact of hypothetical interventions that treated all children and alternatively prevented inappropriate antibiotic treatments on seropositivity. Results: Of 537 children, 178 (33%) received at least one antibiotic course during the exposure window. Probability of seropositivity was 40% higher among children who had at least one course of antibiotics compared with those with no antibiotic exposure (PR: 1.40, 95% CI: 1.04, 1.89). There was no significant difference by the number of antibiotic courses received or total duration of antibiotics. Treating all children with antibiotics would be associated with a 19% (95% CI: 18%, 21%) absolute increase in seropositivity at 7 months. In contrast, removing inappropriate antibiotics would result in a 4% absolute reduction (95% CI: −5%, −2%) in seropositivity. Conclusions: Early life antibiotic use was associated with increased seropositivity. However, a hypothetical intervention to remove inappropriate antibiotics would have little effect on overall seropositivity. Further investigation into the underlying mechanisms of antibiotic use on the infant gut microbiome and immune response are needed

Transporting monovalent rotavirus vaccine efficacy estimates to an external target population: a secondary analysis of data from a randomised controlled trial in Malawi

Oral rotavirus vaccine efficacy estimates from randomised controlled trials are highly variable across settings. Although the randomised study design increases the likelihood of internal validity of findings, results from trials may not always apply outside the context of the study due to differences between trial participants and the target population. Here, we used a weight-based method to transport results from a monovalent rotavirus vaccine clinical trial conducted in Malawi between 2005 and 2008 to a target population of all trial-eligible children in Malawi, represented by data from the 2015-2016 Malawi Demographic and Health Survey (DHS). We reweighted trial participants to reflect the population characteristics described by the Malawi DHS. Vaccine efficacy was estimated for 1008 trial participants after applying these weights such that they represented trial-eligible children in Malawi. We also conducted subgroup analyses to examine the heterogeneous treatment effects by stunting and tuberculosis vaccination status at enrolment. In the original trial, the estimates of one-year vaccine efficacy against severe rotavirus gastroenteritis and any-severity rotavirus gastroenteritis in Malawi were 49.2% (95% CI 15.6%-70.3%) and 32.1% (95% CI 2.5%-53.1%), respectively. After weighting trial participants to represent all trial-eligible children in Malawi, vaccine efficacy increased to 62.2% (95% CI 35.5%-79.0%) against severe rotavirus gastroenteritis and 38.9% (95% CI 11.4%-58.5%) against any-severity rotavirus gastroenteritis. Rotavirus vaccine efficacy may differ between trial participants and target populations when these two populations differ. Differences in tuberculosis vaccination status between the trial sample and DHS population contributed to varying trial and target population vaccine efficacy estimates

Magnetoelectric ordering of BiFeO3 from the perspective of crystal chemistry

In this paper we examine the role of crystal chemistry factors in creating conditions for formation of magnetoelectric ordering in BiFeO3. It is generally accepted that the main reason of the ferroelectric distortion in BiFeO3 is concerned with a stereochemical activity of the Bi lone pair. However, the lone pair is stereochemically active in the paraelectric orthorhombic beta-phase as well. We demonstrate that a crucial role in emerging of phase transitions of the metal-insulator, paraelectric-ferroelectric and magnetic disorder-order types belongs to the change of the degree of the lone pair stereochemical activity - its consecutive increase with the temperature decrease. Using the structural data, we calculated the sign and strength of magnetic couplings in BiFeO3 in the range from 945 C down to 25 C and found the couplings, which undergo the antiferromagnetic-ferromagnetic transition with the temperature decrease and give rise to the antiferromagnetic ordering and its delay in regard to temperature, as compared to the ferroelectric ordering. We discuss the reasons of emerging of the spatially modulated spin structure and its suppression by doping with La3+.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures, 3 table

Clinical characteristics, risk factors, and population attributable fraction for campylobacteriosis in a nicaraguan birth cohort

Campylobacteriosis is an important contributor to the global burden of acute gastroenteritis (AGE). In Nicaragua, the burden, risk factors, and species diversity for infant campylobacteriosis are unknown. Between June 2017 and December 2018, we enrolled 444 infants from León, Nicaragua, in a population-based birth cohort, conducting weekly household AGE surveillance. First, we described clinical characteristics of symptomatic Campylobacter infections, and then compared clinical characteristics between Campylobacter jejuni/coli and non-jejuni/coli infections. Next, we conducted a nested case–control analysis to examine campylobacteriosis risk factors. Finally, we estimated the population attributable fraction of campylobacteriosis among infants experiencing AGE. Of 296 AGE episodes in the first year of life, Campylobacter was detected in 59 (20%), 39 were C. jejuni/coli, and 20 were non-jejuni/coli species, including the first report of Campylobacter vulpis infection in humans. Acute gastroenteritis symptoms associated with C. jejuni/coli lasted longer than those attributed to other Campylobacter species. In a conditional logistic regression model, chickens in the home (odds ratio [OR]: 3.8, 95% CI: 1.4–9.8), a prior AGE episode (OR: 3.3; 95% CI: 1.4–7.8), and poverty (OR: 0.4; 95% CI: 0.2–0.9) were independently associated with campylobacteriosis. Comparing 90 infants experiencing AGE with 90 healthy controls, 22.4% (95% CI: 11.2–32.1) of AGE episodes in the first year of life could be attributed to Campylobacter infection. Campylobacter infections contribute substantially to infant AGE in León, Nicaragua, with non-jejuni/coli species frequently detected. Reducing contact with poultry in the home and interventions to prevent all-cause AGE may reduce campylobacteriosis in this setting

An Integrated TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource to Drive High-Quality Survival Outcome Analytics

For a decade, The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) program collected clinicopathologic annotation data along with multi-platform molecular profiles of more than 11,000 human tumors across 33 different cancer types. TCGA clinical data contain key features representing the democratized nature of the data collection process. To ensure proper use of this large clinical dataset associated with genomic features, we developed a standardized dataset named the TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource (TCGA-CDR), which includes four major clinical outcome endpoints. In addition to detailing major challenges and statistical limitations encountered during the effort of integrating the acquired clinical data, we present a summary that includes endpoint usage recommendations for each cancer type. These TCGA-CDR findings appear to be consistent with cancer genomics studies independent of the TCGA effort and provide opportunities for investigating cancer biology using clinical correlates at an unprecedented scale. Analysis of clinicopathologic annotations for over 11,000 cancer patients in the TCGA program leads to the generation of TCGA Clinical Data Resource, which provides recommendations of clinical outcome endpoint usage for 33 cancer types

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp. Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02

Human Resource Flexibility as a Mediating Variable Between High Performance Work Systems and Performance

Much of the human resource management literature has demonstrated the impact of high performance work systems (HPWS) on organizational performance. A new generation of studies is emerging in this literature that recommends the inclusion of mediating variables between HPWS and organizational performance. The increasing rate of dynamism in competitive environments suggests that measures of employee adaptability should be included as a mechanism that may explain the relevance of HPWS to firm competitiveness. On a sample of 226 Spanish firms, the study’s results confirm that HPWS influences performance through its impact on the firm’s human resource (HR) flexibility