Early Huntington's disease affects movements in transformed sensorimotor mappings

This study examined the effect of transformed visual feedback on movement control in Huntington’s disease (HD). Patients in the early stages of HD and controls performed aiming movements towards peripheral targets on a digitizing tablet using an indirect visual control of movement through a monitor and emphasizing precision. In a baseline condition, HD patients were slower but showed few precision problems in aiming. When visual feedback was inverted in both vertical and horizontal axes, patients showed problems in initial and terminal phases of movement where feedback is most critical. When visual feedback was inverted along a single axis as in a mirror-inversion, HD patients showed large deviations and over-corrections before adaptation. Adaptation was similar in both groups. These results suggest that HD impairs on-line error correction in novel movements

Appuyer les organisations de producteurs

Ce guide très accessible et pratique étudie les moyens qui existent pour renforcer les organisations de producteurs et améliorer leur relation avec l'environnement. Déjà nombreuses et actives dans la modernisation de l'agriculture dans le Sud, les organisations de producteurs ont malgré tout du mal à avoir accès à suffisamment d'informations et de ressources pour répondre aux besoins de leurs membres. Illustré de manière utile et présentant de nombreux exemples, ce livre a pour but d'aider le lecteur à poser les bonnes questions pour relever ces défis

Is the Phenylalanine-Restricted Diet a Risk Factor for Overweight or Obesity in Patients with Phenylketonuria (PKU)? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Funding: CINTESIS—UIDB/4255/2020 a program financially supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia/Ministério da Educação e Ciência, through national funds is acknowledged. Support from Human Nutrition and Metabolism Master Program from NOVA Medical School, Universidade Nova de Lisboa is ackowledged.Although there is a general assumption that a phenylalanine (Phe)-restricted diet promotes overweight in patients with phenylketonuria (PKU), it is unclear if this presumption is supported by scientific evidence. This systematic review aimed to determine if patients with PKU are at a higher risk of overweight compared to healthy individuals. A literature search was carried out on PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Embase databases. Risk of bias of individual studies was assessed using the Quality Assessment Tool for Observational Cohort and Cross-Sectional Studies, and the quality of the evidence for each outcome was assessed using the NutriGrade scoring system. From 829 articles identified, 15 were included in the systematic review and 12 in the meta-analysis. Body mass index (BMI) was similar between patients with PKU and healthy controls, providing no evidence to support the idea that a Phe-restricted diet is a risk factor for the development of overweight. However, a subgroup of patients with classical PKU had a significantly higher BMI than healthy controls. Given the increasing prevalence of overweight in the general population, patients with PKU require lifelong follow-up, receiving personalised nutritional counselling, with methodical nutritional status monitoring from a multidisciplinary team in inherited metabolic disorders.publishersversionpublishe

Genetic Analysis of High Protein Content in ‘AC Proteus’ Related Soybean Populations Using SSR, SNP, DArT and DArTseq Markers

Key message: Several AC Proteus derived genomic regions (QTLs, SNPs) have been identified which may prove useful for further development of high yielding high protein cultivars and allele-specific marker developments. High seed protein content is a trait which is typically difficult to introgress into soybean without an accompanying reduction in seed yield. In a previous study, ‘AC Proteus’ was used as a high protein source and was found to produce populations that did not exhibit the typical association between high protein and low yield. Five high x low protein RIL populations and a high x high protein RIL population were evaluated by either quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis or bulk segregant analyses (BSA) following phenotyping in the field. QTL analysis in one population using SSR, DArT and DArTseq markers found two QTLs for seed protein content on chromosomes 15 and 20. The BSA analyses suggested multiple genomic regions are involved with high protein content across the five populations, including the two previously mentioned QTLs. In an alternative approach to identify high protein genes, pedigree analysis identified SNPs for which the allele associated with high protein was retained in seven high protein descendants of AC Proteus on chromosomes 2, 17 and 18. Aside from the two identified QTLs (five genomic regions in total considering the two with highly elevated test statistic, but below the statistical threshold and the one with epistatic interactions) which were some distance from Meta-QTL regions and which were also supported by our BSA analysis within five populations. These high protein regions may prove useful for further development of high yielding high protein cultivars

Improved hardness results for the guided local Hamiltonian problem

Estimating the ground state energy of a local Hamiltonian is a central problem in quantum chemistry. In order to further investigate its complexity and the potential of quantum algorithms for quantum chemistry, Gharibian and Le Gall (STOC 2022) recently introduced the guided local Hamiltonian problem (GLH), which is a variant of the local Hamiltonian problem where an approximation of a ground state (which is called a guiding state) is given as an additional input. Gharibian and Le Gall showed quantum advantage (more precisely, BQP-completeness) for GLH with 6-local Hamiltonians when the guiding state has fidelity (inverse-polynomially) close to 1/2 with a ground state. In this paper, we optimally improve both the locality and the fidelity parameter: we show that the BQP-completeness persists even with 2-local Hamiltonians, and even when the guiding state has fidelity (inverse-polynomially) close to 1 with a ground state. Moreover, we show that the BQP-completeness also holds for 2-local physically motivated Hamiltonians on a 2D square lattice or a 2D triangular lattice. Beyond the hardness of estimating the ground state energy, we also show BQP-hardness persists when considering estimating energies of excited states of these Hamiltonians instead. Those make further steps towards establishing practical quantum advantage in quantum chemistry

Drying nano particles solution on an oscillating tip at an air liquid interface: what we can learn, what we can do

Evaporation of fluid at micro and nanometer scale may be used to self-assemble nanometre-sized particles in suspension. Evaporating process can be used to gently control flow in micro and nanofluidics, thus providing a potential mean to design a fine pattern onto a surface or to functionalize a nanoprobe tip. In this paper, we present an original experimental approach to explore this open and rather virgin domain. We use an oscillating tip at an air liquid interface with a controlled dipping depth of the tip within the range of the micrometer. Also, very small dipping depths of a few ten nanometers were achieved with multi walls carbon nanotubes glued at the tip apex. The liquid is an aqueous solution of functionalized nanoparticles diluted in water. Evaporation of water is the driving force determining the arrangement of nanoparticles on the tip. The results show various nanoparticles deposition patterns, from which the deposits can be classified in two categories. The type of deposit is shown to be strongly dependent on whether or not the triple line is pinned and of the peptide coating of the gold nanoparticle. In order to assess the classification, companion dynamical studies of nanomeniscus and related dissipation processes involved with thinning effects are presented

Astrobiologically Interesting Stars within 10 parsecs of the Sun

The existence of life based on carbon chemistry and water oceans relies upon planetary properties, chiefly climate stability, and stellar properties, such as mass, age, metallicity and Galactic orbits. The latter can be well constrained with present knowledge. We present a detailed, up-to-date compilation of the atmospheric parameters, chemical composition, multiplicity and degree of chromospheric activity for the astrobiologically interesting solar-type stars within 10 parsecs of the Sun. We determine their state of evolution, masses, ages and space velocities, and produce an optimized list of candidates that merit serious scientific consideration by the future space-based interferometry probes aimed at directly detecting Earth-sized extrasolar planets and seeking spectroscopic infrared biomarkers as evidence of photosynthetic life. The initially selected stars number 33 solar-type within the population of 182 stars (excluding late M-dwarfs) closer than 10 pc. A comprehensive and detailed data compilation for these objects is still essentially lacking: a considerable amount of recent data has so far gone unexplored in this context. We present 13 objects as the nearest "biostars", after eliminating multiple stars, young, chromospherically active, hard X-ray emitting stars, and low metallicity objects. Three of these "biostars", HD 1581, 109358 and 115617, closely reproduce most of the solar properties and are considered as premier targets. We show that approximately 7% of the nearby stars are optimally interesting targets for exobiology.Comment: 36 pages, recommended for publication in Astrobiolog

International study on inter-reader variability for circulating tumor cells in breast cancer

Introduction: Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have been studied in breast cancer with the CellSearch® system. Given the low CTC counts in non-metastatic breast cancer, it is important to evaluate the inter-reader agreement.Methods: CellSearch® images (N = 272) of either CTCs or white blood cells or artifacts from 109 non-metastatic (M0) and 22 metastatic (M1) breast cancer patients from reported studies were sent to 22 readers from 15 academic laboratories and 8 readers from two Veridex laboratories. Each image was scored as No CTC vs CTC HER2- vs CTC HER2+. The 8 Veridex readers were summarized to a Veridex Consensus (VC) to compare each academic reader using % agreement and kappa (κ) statistics. Agreement was compared according to disease stage and CTC counts using the Wilcoxon signed rank test.Results: For CTC definition (No CTC vs CTC), the median agreement between academic readers and VC was 92% (range 69 to 97%) with a median κ of 0.83 (range 0.37 to 0.93). Lower agreement was observed in images from M0 (median 91%, range 70 to 96%) compared to M1 (median 98%, range 64 to 100%) patients (P < 0.001) and from M0 and <3CTCs (median 87%, range 66 to 95%) compared to M0 and ≥3CTCs samples (median 95%, range 77 to 99%), (P < 0.001). For CTC HER2 expression (HER2- vs HER2+), the median agreement was 87% (range 51 to 95%) with a median κ of 0.74 (range 0.25 to 0.90).Conclusions: The inter-reader agreement for CTC definition was high. Reduced agreement was observed in M0 patients with low CTC counts. Continuous training and independent image review are required

Bibliographie de l'histoire de Belgique : bibliografie van de geschiedenis van België. 1986

Van Eenoo R., Scufflaire Andrée, Bovesse J., Dumont M.-E., Hélin Etienne, Petit R., Van Derveeghde Denise, Prevenier Walter, Triaille-Closset C., Tits-Dieuaide M.-J., Vermeulen U., Gaus H., Witte Els, Lis Catharina, Cauchies J. M., Haesenne-Peremans N., Maréchal Griet, François Luc, Meyers W., Geirnaert Ν., De Wever B., Art J. Bibliographie de l'histoire de Belgique — Bibliografie van de geschiedenis van België. 1986. In: Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire, tome 66, fasc. 2, 1988. Histoire - Geschiedenis. pp. 329-430