Application of cartographic sources, satellite imagery Landsat 7ETM+ and GIS technology to spatial analysis of windthrows in Bory Tucholskie Forest

The spatial distribution of wind-induced damages was analysed in the forest complex of Komorza, situated in the Woziwoda Forest Inspectorate, the region of Bory Tucholskie Forest, northern Poland. The discussed damages were caused by a windstorm on the 22 nd of June 2000 in the forest fragment neighbouring agricultural grounds. The present study aimed at answering two questions: 1 does closer location of forest in relation to field-forest borderline increase damages in the standing timber? 2 – do windinduced damages occur more often and are more severe in the secondary forests restored on the formerly arable lands than in the forests, the development of which was not interrupted by temporary agricultural land use after cutting of trees? In order to define changes in forest and farming grounds in the study area, and as well as to identify secondary forests, old and temporary topographic maps were used, forest economic maps and satellite image Landsat 7ETM+ dated year 2000. Information derived from the above sources and also from the forest stock-taking and direct field measurements carried out with application of GPS receiver were organised in the geographic information system. Statistical analysis conducted according to GIS technology with application of computer programs: MicroStation/Bentley, ESRI ArcView3.2 and Idrisi32, proved that factors like the neighbourhood of large non-forested areas and the temporary use of forest soils for farming purposes do indeed increase range and frequency of damages caused by strong wind in the canopy of forest ecosystems

Past, current and potential resources of carbon and above-ground plant biomass in the landscape with heaths in some selected areas of the Tuchola Forest

Applying the GIS technologies, historical and contemporary cartographic materials, data coming from the forest inventory and indices of biomass state, the total biomass and biomass for individual layers of forest and non-forest phytocoenoses, the real and potential biomass was assessed, as well as current and potential carbon resources in that biomass in four nature objects. The investigated objects were characterized by different spatial size, as well as by different intensity of human economic activities and different status of nature conservation. Those were: the Tuchola Forest National Park, the Zaborski Landscape Park, as well as the areas of the so-called (forest) demesne of Zabory and the (field) demesne of Tuchola in the former District (Starosty) of Tuchola. In the case of both demesnes, the biomass state was assessed, as well as the extent of its displacement caused by economic human activities, both nowadays and in the past, i.e. for the year 1796 and 2008. The smallest difference in the state of potential and actual biomass was recorded in the National Park. The loss here amounted to 28.44%. The biggest differences occurred in the field demesne in 1796. The loss here reached 76.47%. It was also observed that nowadays the loss slightly decreased, reaching the level of 73.97%. In the demesne of Zabory, the increase of biomass state was considerably higher during the discussed period. In 1796, when heaths and poor xerothermic meadows covered relatively large areas and were exploited as sheep’s grazing lands, the biomass loss amounted here to 69.32% and in 2008 to 51.87%. The increase of biomass state and at the same time the reduction in biomass losses, calculated in relation to the potential, was brought here about mainly by establishing the Prussian Forest Inspectorate Zwangshof in 1890 and by afforestation of agricultural and fallow lands, which was done by Polish forest inspectorates in the 20th century, particularly during several years after the 2nd World War

Haptoglobin genotype-dependent anti-inflammatory signaling in CD163(+) macrophages

Intraplaque hemorrhage causes adaptive remodelling of macrophages towards a protective phenotype specialized towards handling iron and lipid overload, denoted Mhem. The Mhem phenotype expresses elevated levels of hemoglobin (Hb) scavenger receptor, CD163, capable of endocytosing pro-oxidant free Hb complexed to acute phase protein haptoglobin (Hp). It is notable that individuals homozygous for the Hp 2 allele (a poorer antioxidant) are at increased risk of cardiovascular disease compared to the Hp 1 allele. In this study, we examined whether scavenging of polymorphic Hp:Hb complexes differentially generated downstream anti-inflammatory signals in cultured human macrophages culminating in interleukin (IL)-10 secretion. We describe an anti-inflammatory signalling pathway involving phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase activation upstream of Akt phosphorylation (pSer473Akt) and IL-10 secretion. The pathway is mediated specifically through CD163 and is blocked by anti-CD163 antibody or phagocytosis inhibitor. However, levels of pSer473Akt and IL-10 were significantly diminished when scavenging polymorphic Hp2-2:Hb complexes compared to Hp1-1:Hb complexes (P < 0.05). Impaired anti-inflammatory macrophage signaling through a CD163/pAkt/IL-10 axis may thus represent a possible Hp2-2 disease mechanism in atherosclerosis

Porównanie struktury krajobrazu na obszarach intensywnej i ekologicznie zrównoważonej gospodarki leśnej

Zastosowano technologię GIS i metody teledetekcji satelitarnej do oceny i porównań znormalizowanego wskaźnika wegetacji (NDVI), różnorodności i fragmentacji dwóch obszarów leśnych o różnym użytkowaniu w XIX wieku i różnej intensywności pozyskiwania drewna w ostatnich latach. Oba kompleksy leśne zlokalizowane są w Zaborskim Parku Krajobrazowym w województwie pomorskim. Pierwsze stanowisko (M) obejmuje lasy odtworzone w końcu XIX stulecia poprzez nasadzenia sosny na byłych pastwiskach i gruntach ornych. W wyniku intensywnego użytkowania lasów znaczną część terenu zajmują zręby i kilkunastoletnie uprawy sosnowe. Drugie stanowisko (P) obejmuje teren leśny w przeszłości nie użytkowany rolniczo, na którym od kilkunastu lat ograniczono pozyskiwanie drewna, a w 1996 roku utworzono Park Narodowy Bory Tucholskie. Strukturę krajobrazu porównano na pięciu powierzchniach badawczych (około 150 ha lub 500 ha każda) na stanowisku M i czterech powierzchniach o podobnych rozmiarach na stanowisku P. W analizie użyto zdjęcie satelitarne z 28 lipca 1990 roku oraz program Idrisi 32. Stwierdzono, że powierzchnie na stanowisku M charakteryzują się niższymi wartościami NDVI, ale wyższą różnorodnością i fragmentacją, niż powierzchnie zlokalizowane na obszarze dzisiejszego parku narodowego. Znaczne różnice w strukturze krajobrazu na stanowisku obejmującym lasy intensywnie użytkowane i na obszarze lasów o ograniczonym pozyskiwaniu drewna wykazano też metodami klasyfikacji i ordynacji numerycznej.GIS and remote sensing technology have been used to compare Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), diversity and fragmentation of two forest complexes different each from the other in the structure of land use in the 19th century and intensively of timber exploitation in the recent several years. Both complexes have been located in Zabory Landscape Park in Pomerania Province. The first site M has been comprised secondary forests restored by introduction of pine seedlings on former poor seep pastures and arable lands. Due to intensive timber exploitation a big part of those area has been occupied by clear-cuttings and few-year-old pine plantations apart from the oldest pine forests. The second site P has been forest complex where the timber exploitation was significantly reduced since the middle of eighties. The structure of landscape in the first site has been assessed on the basis of five sample plots about 150 or 500 hectares. Four plots of similar size have been chosen in the site P. The Landsat TM imagery from 28 July 1990 and Idrisi 32 software have been used in analysis. It results from the calculations that landscape with intensively exploited forests on former agricultural soils has been characterised by lower values of NDVI and higher values of diversity and fragmentation in comparison to those with sustainable forest management. Significant differences in the structure of landscapes have also been clearly expressed by the methods of numerical classification and ordination

The inositol 5-phosphatase SHIP2 regulates endocytic clathrin-coated pit dynamics

SHIP2 is recruited early to clathrin-coated pits by the scaffold protein intersectin and dissociates before fission

A large, curated, open-source stroke neuroimaging dataset to improve lesion segmentation algorithms.

Accurate lesion segmentation is critical in stroke rehabilitation research for the quantification of lesion burden and accurate image processing. Current automated lesion segmentation methods for T1-weighted (T1w) MRIs, commonly used in stroke research, lack accuracy and reliability. Manual segmentation remains the gold standard, but it is time-consuming, subjective, and requires neuroanatomical expertise. We previously released an open-source dataset of stroke T1w MRIs and manually-segmented lesion masks (ATLAS v1.2, N = 304) to encourage the development of better algorithms. However, many methods developed with ATLAS v1.2 report low accuracy, are not publicly accessible or are improperly validated, limiting their utility to the field. Here we present ATLAS v2.0 (N = 1271), a larger dataset of T1w MRIs and manually segmented lesion masks that includes training (n = 655), test (hidden masks, n = 300), and generalizability (hidden MRIs and masks, n = 316) datasets. Algorithm development using this larger sample should lead to more robust solutions; the hidden datasets allow for unbiased performance evaluation via segmentation challenges. We anticipate that ATLAS v2.0 will lead to improved algorithms, facilitating large-scale stroke research

Are motor inhibition and cognitive flexibility dead ends in ADHD?

Contains fulltext : 53518.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)Executive dysfunction has been postulated as the core deficit in ADHD, although many deficits in lower order cognitive processes have also been identified. By obtaining an appropriate baseline of lower order cognitive functioning light may be shed on as to whether executive deficits result from problems in lower order and/or higher order cognitive processes. We examined motor inhibition and cognitive flexibility in relation to a baseline measure in 816 children from ADHD and control families. Multiple children in a family were tested in order to examine the familiality of the measures. No evidence was found for deficits in motor inhibition or cognitive flexibility in children with ADHD or their nonaffected siblings: Compared to their baseline speed and accuracy of responding, children with ADHD and their (non)affected siblings were not disproportionally slower or inaccurate when demands for motor inhibition or cognitive flexibility were added to the task. However, children with ADHD and their (non)affected siblings were overall less accurate than controls, which could not be attributed to differences in response speed. This suggests that inaccuracy of responding is characteristic of children having (a familial risk for) ADHD. Motor inhibition and cognitive flexibility as operationalized with mean reaction time were found to be familial. It is concluded that poorer performance on executive tasks in children with ADHD and their (non)affected siblings may result from deficiencies in lower order cognitive processes and not (only) from higher order cognitive processes/executive functions

Structural brain abnormalities in the common epilepsies assessed in a worldwide ENIGMA study

Progressive functional decline in the epilepsies is largely unexplained. We formed the ENIGMA-Epilepsy consortium to understand factors that influence brain measures in epilepsy, pooling data from 24 research centres in 14 countries across Europe, North and South America, Asia, and Australia. Structural brain measures were extracted from MRI brain scans across 2149 individuals with epilepsy, divided into four epilepsy subgroups including idiopathic generalized epilepsies (n =367), mesial temporal lobe epilepsies with hippocampal sclerosis (MTLE; left, n = 415; right, n = 339), and all other epilepsies in aggregate (n = 1026), and compared to 1727 matched healthy controls. We ranked brain structures in order of greatest differences between patients and controls, by meta-Analysing effect sizes across 16 subcortical and 68 cortical brain regions. We also tested effects of duration of disease, age at onset, and age-by-diagnosis interactions on structural measures. We observed widespread patterns of altered subcortical volume and reduced cortical grey matter thickness. Compared to controls, all epilepsy groups showed lower volume in the right thalamus (Cohen's d = \uc3\ua2 '0.24 to \uc3\ua2 '0.73; P < 1.49 \uc3\u97 10 \uc3\ua2 '4), and lower thickness in the precentral gyri bilaterally (d = \uc3\ua2 '0.34 to \uc3\ua2 '0.52; P < 4.31 \uc3\u97 10 \uc3\ua2 '6). Both MTLE subgroups showed profound volume reduction in the ipsilateral hippocampus (d = \uc3\ua2 '1.73 to \uc3\ua2 '1.91, P < 1.4 \uc3\u97 10 \uc3\ua2 '19), and lower thickness in extrahippocampal cortical regions, including the precentral and paracentral gyri, compared to controls (d = \uc3\ua2 '0.36 to \uc3\ua2 '0.52; P < 1.49 \uc3\u97 10 \uc3\ua2 '4). Thickness differences of the ipsilateral temporopolar, parahippocampal, entorhinal, and fusiform gyri, contralateral pars triangularis, and bilateral precuneus, superior frontal and caudal middle frontal gyri were observed in left, but not right, MTLE (d = \uc3\ua2 '0.29 to \uc3\ua2 '0.54; P < 1.49 \uc3\u97 10 \uc3\ua2 '4). Contrastingly, thickness differences of the ipsilateral pars opercularis, and contralateral transverse temporal gyrus, were observed in right, but not left, MTLE (d = \uc3\ua2 '0.27 to \uc3\ua2 '0.51; P < 1.49 \uc3\u97 10 \uc3\ua2 '4). Lower subcortical volume and cortical thickness associated with a longer duration of epilepsy in the all-epilepsies, all-other-epilepsies, and right MTLE groups (beta, b < \uc3\ua2 '0.0018; P < 1.49 \uc3\u97 10 \uc3\ua2 '4). In the largest neuroimaging study of epilepsy to date, we provide information on the common epilepsies that could not be realistically acquired in any other way. Our study provides a robust ranking of brain measures that can be further targeted for study in genetic and neuropathological studies. This worldwide initiative identifies patterns of shared grey matter reduction across epilepsy syndromes, and distinctive abnormalities between epilepsy syndromes, which inform our understanding of epilepsy as a network disorder, and indicate that certain epilepsy syndromes involve more widespread structural compromise than previously assumed

A systems-level analysis highlights microglial activation as a modifying factor in common forms of human epilepsy

The common human epilepsies are associated with distinct patterns of reduced cortical thickness, detectable on neuroimaging, with important clinical consequences. To explore underlying mechanisms, we layered MRI-based cortical structural maps from a large-scale epilepsy neuroimaging study onto highly spatially-resolved human brain gene expression data, identifying >2,500 genes overexpressed in regions of reduced cortical thickness, compared to relatively-protected regions. The resulting set of differentially-expressed genes shows enrichment for microglial markers, and in particular, activated microglial states. Parallel analyses of cell-specific eQTLs show enrichment in human genetic signatures of epilepsy severity, but not epilepsy causation. Post mortem brain tissue from humans with epilepsy shows excess activated microglia. In an experimental model, depletion of activated microglia prevents cortical thinning, but not the development of chronic seizures. These convergent data strongly implicate activated microglia in cortical thinning, representing a new dimension for concern and disease modification in the epilepsies, potentially distinct from seizure control