Testing for changes in rate of evolution and position of the climatic niche of clades

1. There is solid recognition that phylogenetic effects must be acknowledged to appreciate climatic niche variability among species clades properly. Yet, most currently available methods either work at the intra- specific level (hence they ignore phylogeny) or rely on the Brownian motion model of evolution to estimate phylogenetic effects on climatic niche variation. The Brownian mo-tion model may be inappropriate to describe niche evolution in several cases, and even a significant phylogenetic signal in climatic variables does not in-dicate that the effect of shared ancestry was relevant to niche evolution.2. We introduce a new phylogenetic comparative method which describes sig-nificant changes in the width and position of the climatic niche at the inter-specific (clade) level, while making no a priori assumption about how niche evolution took place.3. We devised the R function phylo.niche.shift to estimate whether the climatic niches of individual clades in the tree are either wider or narrower than expected, and whether the niche occupies unexpected climates. We tested phylo.niche.shift on realistic virtual species’ distribution patterns applied to a phylogeny of 365 extant primate species.4. We demonstrate via simulations that the new method is fast and accurate under widely different climatic niche evolution scenarios. phylo.niche.shift showed that the capuchin monkeys and langurs occupy much wider, and prosimian much narrower, climatic niche space than expected by their phylogenetic positions.5. phylo.niche.shift may help to improve research on niche evolution by allow-ing researchers to test specific hypotheses on the factors affecting clades’ realised niche width and position, and the potential effects of climate change on species’ distribution

Evaluation of accuracy and reproducibility in manual point picking during 3D cephalometry on CBCT data

Three-dimensional cephalometry is currently emerging as an innovative diagnos- tic tool, due to accessibility and radiation low dose of Cone Beam CT (CBCT) scan ners (1). Despite annotation made by specialists is now considered the gold standard in clinical practice and research, reliability of manual point picking can be biased by intra and inter-operator differences (2). In order to estimate the variability of the manual procedure, in this study an evaluation of accuracy, precision and reproducibility was performed. Three experienced operators analyzed ten CBCT images, retrospectively selected from the SST Dentofacial Clinic database. They annotated 9 chosen landmarks on all the images for three times, under the same conditions and at least one week of distance. Accuracy and precision were calculated as the median and the interquartile range of the distances from each landmark to the corresponding barycenter, calculated as the mean of all operator annotations. Kruskal-Wallis test was performed to evaluate reproducibility, and post-hoc tests were carried out to assess whether the significance depended from operators. A remarkable difference was found in accuracy between anatomic and geometrical landmarks, in both the intra and inter-operator repetitions. The intra-operator analysis showed higher accuracy and precision values than the inter-operator one. Statistical analyses revealed significant differences in reproducibility (p<0.05) for all landmarks except for Sella turcica, but the post-hoc tests did not show a clear pattern between operators. Results demonstrate that both accuracy and reproducibility may vary, depending on the operators, suggesting the need for automatic or semiautomatic tools that will help the operator during annotation

The interplay among psychopathology, personal resources, context-related factors and real-life functioning in schizophrenia: stability in relationships after 4 years and differences in network structure between recovered and non-recovered patients

Improving real-life functioning is the main goal of the most advanced integrated treatment programs in people with schizophrenia. The Italian Network for Research on Psychoses previously explored, by using network analysis, the interplay among illness-related variables, personal resources, context-related factors and real-life functioning in a large sample of patients with schizophrenia. The same research network has now completed a 4-year follow-up of the original sample. In the present study, we used network analysis to test whether the pattern of relationships among all variables investigated at baseline was similar at follow-up. In addition, we compared the network structure of patients who were classified as recovered at follow-up versus those who did not recover. Six hundred eighteen subjects recruited at baseline could be assessed in the follow-up study. The network structure did not change significantly from baseline to follow-up, and the overall strength of the connections among variables increased slightly, but not significantly. Functional capacity and everyday life skills had a high betweenness and closeness in the network at follow-up, as they had at baseline, while psychopathological variables remained more peripheral. The network structure and connectivity of non-recovered patients were similar to those observed in the whole sample, but very different from those in recovered subjects, in which we found few connections only. These data strongly suggest that tightly coupled symptoms/dysfunctions tend to maintain each other's activation, contributing to poor outcome in schizophrenia. Early and integrated treatment plans, targeting variables with high centrality, might prevent the emergence of self-reinforcing networks of symptoms and dysfunctions in people with schizophrenia

The interplay among psychopathology, personal resources, context-related factors and real-life functioning in schizophrenia: stability in relationships after 4 years and differences in network structure between recovered and non-recovered patients

Improving real-life functioning is the main goal of the most advanced integrated treatment programs in people with schizophrenia. The Italian Network for Research on Psychoses previously explored, by using network analysis, the interplay among illness-related variables, personal resources, context-related factors and real-life functioning in a large sample of patients with schizophrenia. The same research network has now completed a 4-year follow-up of the original sample. In the present study, we used network analysis to test whether the pattern of relationships among all variables investigated at baseline was similar at follow-up. In addition, we compared the network structure of patients who were classified as recovered at follow-up versus those who did not recover. Six hundred eighteen subjects recruited at baseline could be assessed in the follow-up study. The network structure did not change significantly from baseline to follow-up, and the overall strength of the connections among variables increased slightly, but not significantly. Functional capacity and everyday life skills had a high betweenness and closeness in the network at follow-up, as they had at baseline, while psychopathological variables remained more peripheral. The network structure and connectivity of non-recovered patients were similar to those observed in the whole sample, but very different from those in recovered subjects, in which we found few connections only. These data strongly suggest that tightly coupled symptoms/dysfunctions tend to maintain each other's activation, contributing to poor outcome in schizophrenia. Early and integrated treatment plans, targeting variables with high centrality, might prevent the emergence of self-reinforcing networks of symptoms and dysfunctions in people with schizophrenia

EVALITA Evaluation of NLP and Speech Tools for Italian - December 17th, 2020

Welcome to EVALITA 2020! EVALITA is the evaluation campaign of Natural Language Processing and Speech Tools for Italian. EVALITA is an initiative of the Italian Association for Computational Linguistics (AILC, http://www.ai-lc.it) and it is endorsed by the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence (AIxIA, http://www.aixia.it) and the Italian Association for Speech Sciences (AISV, http://www.aisv.it)

Effects of Anacetrapib in Patients with Atherosclerotic Vascular Disease

BACKGROUND: Patients with atherosclerotic vascular disease remain at high risk for cardiovascular events despite effective statin-based treatment of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels. The inhibition of cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) by anacetrapib reduces LDL cholesterol levels and increases high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels. However, trials of other CETP inhibitors have shown neutral or adverse effects on cardiovascular outcomes. METHODS: We conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial involving 30,449 adults with atherosclerotic vascular disease who were receiving intensive atorvastatin therapy and who had a mean LDL cholesterol level of 61 mg per deciliter (1.58 mmol per liter), a mean non-HDL cholesterol level of 92 mg per deciliter (2.38 mmol per liter), and a mean HDL cholesterol level of 40 mg per deciliter (1.03 mmol per liter). The patients were assigned to receive either 100 mg of anacetrapib once daily (15,225 patients) or matching placebo (15,224 patients). The primary outcome was the first major coronary event, a composite of coronary death, myocardial infarction, or coronary revascularization. RESULTS: During the median follow-up period of 4.1 years, the primary outcome occurred in significantly fewer patients in the anacetrapib group than in the placebo group (1640 of 15,225 patients [10.8%] vs. 1803 of 15,224 patients [11.8%]; rate ratio, 0.91; 95% confidence interval, 0.85 to 0.97; P=0.004). The relative difference in risk was similar across multiple prespecified subgroups. At the trial midpoint, the mean level of HDL cholesterol was higher by 43 mg per deciliter (1.12 mmol per liter) in the anacetrapib group than in the placebo group (a relative difference of 104%), and the mean level of non-HDL cholesterol was lower by 17 mg per deciliter (0.44 mmol per liter), a relative difference of -18%. There were no significant between-group differences in the risk of death, cancer, or other serious adverse events. CONCLUSIONS: Among patients with atherosclerotic vascular disease who were receiving intensive statin therapy, the use of anacetrapib resulted in a lower incidence of major coronary events than the use of placebo. (Funded by Merck and others; Current Controlled Trials number, ISRCTN48678192 ; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT01252953 ; and EudraCT number, 2010-023467-18 .)

Relationship of non-suicidal self-injury and suicide attempt: a psychopathological perspective

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is not uncommon in the general population, and is prevalent in association with a range of psychiatric disorders including major affective, personality and neuropsychiatric disorders. It often starts in childhood or early adolescence and involves repeated bouts of self-injurious acts, with similar risks among females and males. Such behaviours are distinguished from suicide attempts by an evident lack of lethal intent. Nevertheless, NSSI and suicidal behaviours occur frequently in the same persons, and NSSI can be a precursor of suicidal behaviour. NSSI typically seems to represent an effort to reduce overwhelming negative emotions, which can include dysphoric or depressive states. Indeed, the experience of immediate relief may contribute to the repetition of self-injurious behaviours. NSSI may also arise in response to a felt need for punishment or a desire to influence or seek help from others. NSSI behaviours occur far more frequently than suicide attempts, and usually are of low medical severity and rarely fatal. In addition to representing an important psychiatric syndrome in its own right, NSSI is a major risk factor for suicide that requires ongoing assessment of suicidal intent

Cognitive Impairment and its Associations with the Path of Illness in Affective Disorders

The goals of this study were to investigate differences in neurocognitive performance between groups of patients with unipolar major depressive disorder (MDD) or bipolar I disorder (BD-I) in a euthymic state, and to analyze associations among cognitive performance, sociodemographic and clinical variables, and global functioning. The study evaluated 25 outpatients with MDD and 25 outpatients with BD-I. Controls consisted of a sample of 29 healthy adult volunteers. All of the subjects were administered a battery of neuropsychological tests (Babcock Story Recall Test, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Trail Making Test Part B, Stroop Color and Word Test, Symbol- Number Association Test, and Digit Span). Patients demonstrated reduced performance on tasks involving executive functions (Trail Making Test Part B and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test) and attention (Digit Span and Symbol-Number Association Test) compared with healthy controls. Performance on neurocognitive tasks did not differentiate patients with MDD from those with BD-I. Improved performance on tasks that assessed executive functions by patients with BDI and MDD, considered as a single group, was associated with better global functioning, even when controlling for several sociodemographic and clinical confounders. Patients with MDD and BD-I showed a similar profile of information-processing deficits and similar global functioning. Global functioning was also moderately associated with performance on executive function task

Effects of the CK2 inhibitors CX-4945 and CX-5011 on drug-resistant cells.

CK2 is a pleiotropic protein kinase, which regulates many survival pathways and plays a global anti-apoptotic function. It is highly expressed in tumor cells, and is presently considered a promising therapeutic target. Among the many inhibitors available for this kinase, the recently developed CX-4945 and CX-5011 have proved to be very potent, selective and effective in inducing cell death in tumor cells; CX-4945 has recently entered clinical trials. However, no data are available on the efficacy of these compounds to overcome drug resistance, a major reasons of cancer therapy failure. Here we address this point, by studying their effects in several tumor cell lines, each available as variant R resistant to drug-induced apoptosis, and normal-sensitive variant S. We found that the inhibition of endogenous CK2 was very similar in S and R treated cells, with more than 50% CK2 activity reduction at sub-micromolar concentrations of CX-4945 and CX-5011. A consequent apoptotic response was induced both in S and R variants of each pairs. Moreover, the combined treatment of CX-4945 plus vinblastine was able to sensitize to vinblastine R cells that are otherwise almost insensitive to this conventional antitumor drug. Consistently, doxorubicin accumulation in multidrug resistant (MDR) cells was greatly increased by CX-4945.In summary, we demonstrated that all the R variants are sensitive to CX-4945 and CX-5011; since some of the treated R lines express the extrusion pump Pgp, often responsible of the MDR phenotype, we can also conclude that the two inhibitors can successfully overcome the MDR phenomenon