Vocabulari anatòmic de la tonyina: una proposta valenciana

La tonyina, Thunnus thynnus, és un dels éssers marins més rellevants de l'alimentació i cultura catalanes. Però malgrat la importància d'aquest ésser marí en l'esdevenir comercial, gastronòmic i vital de la Mediterrània, el seu lèxic ha sigut estudiat de manera imprecisa, parcial i dispersa tant en català com en altres llengües. Així doncs, l'objectiu principal del nostre treball serà fer una proposta de terminologia tonyinera que ompli el buit lèxic existent a través de definicions anatòmiques i gastronòmiques tan precises com sigui possible. De fet, en aquest vocabulari presentem cinquanta-tres termes de la morfologia del túnid dels quals quinze vénen definits en els nostres diccionaris en relació a la tonyina, vint-i-set apareixen de manera indirecta, i són onze els termes fonamentals de l'anatomia del peix i gastronòmica que no apareixen en les nostres obres lexicogràfiques principals.The tunny fish, Thunnus thynnus, is one of the most important sea species in Catalan culture and the Catalan food industry. However, despite its vital, commercial and gastronomic importance in the future of the Mediterranean, the lexis relating to it has been studied in an imprecise, piecemeal, sporadic fashion both in Catalan and other languages. Therefore, the principal aim of this article is to propose terminology to fill this gap with maximally accurate anatomical and gastronomic definitions. In this vocabulary, we present fifty-three terms that describe the morphology of the species, fifteen of which are already defined in our dictionaries, twenty-seven indirectly, and finally there are eleven basic vocabulary items referring to the anatomy of the fish and its gastronomic use that are absent from these reference works

Vocabulari anatòmic de la tonyina: una proposta valenciana

La tonyina, Thunnus thynnus, és un dels éssers marins més rellevants de l'alimentació i cultura catalanes. Però malgrat la importància d'aquest ésser marí en l'esdevenir comercial, gastronòmic i vital de la Mediterrània, el seu lèxic ha sigut estudiat de manera imprecisa, parcial i dispersa tant en català com en altres llengües. Així doncs, l'objectiu principal del nostre treball serà fer una proposta de terminologia tonyinera que ompli el buit lèxic existent a través de definicions anatòmiques i gastronòmiques tan precises com sigui possible. De fet, en aquest vocabulari presentem cinquanta-tres termes de la morfologia del túnid dels quals quinze vénen definits en els nostres diccionaris en relació a la tonyina, vint-i-set apareixen de manera indirecta, i són onze els termes fonamentals de l'anatomia del peix i gastronòmica que no apareixen en les nostres obres lexicogràfiques principals.The tunny fish, Thunnus thynnus, is one of the most important sea species in Catalan culture and the Catalan food industry. However, despite its vital, commercial and gastronomic importance in the future of the Mediterranean, the lexis relating to it has been studied in an imprecise, piecemeal, sporadic fashion both in Catalan and other languages. Therefore, the principal aim of this article is to propose terminology to fill this gap with maximally accurate anatomical and gastronomic definitions. In this vocabulary, we present fifty-three terms that describe the morphology of the species, fifteen of which are already defined in our dictionaries, twenty-seven indirectly, and finally there are eleven basic vocabulary items referring to the anatomy of the fish and its gastronomic use that are absent from these reference works

Use of linear mixed models for genetic evaluation of gestation length and birth weight allowing for heavy-tailed residual effects

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The distribution of residual effects in linear mixed models in animal breeding applications is typically assumed normal, which makes inferences vulnerable to outlier observations. In order to mute the impact of outliers, one option is to fit models with residuals having a heavy-tailed distribution. Here, a Student's-<it>t </it>model was considered for the distribution of the residuals with the degrees of freedom treated as unknown. Bayesian inference was used to investigate a bivariate Student's-<it>t </it>(BS<it>t</it>) model using Markov chain Monte Carlo methods in a simulation study and analysing field data for gestation length and birth weight permitted to study the practical implications of fitting heavy-tailed distributions for residuals in linear mixed models.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In the simulation study, bivariate residuals were generated using Student's-<it>t </it>distribution with 4 or 12 degrees of freedom, or a normal distribution. Sire models with bivariate Student's-<it>t </it>or normal residuals were fitted to each simulated dataset using a hierarchical Bayesian approach. For the field data, consisting of gestation length and birth weight records on 7,883 Italian Piemontese cattle, a sire-maternal grandsire model including fixed effects of sex-age of dam and uncorrelated random herd-year-season effects were fitted using a hierarchical Bayesian approach. Residuals were defined to follow bivariate normal or Student's-<it>t </it>distributions with unknown degrees of freedom.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Posterior mean estimates of degrees of freedom parameters seemed to be accurate and unbiased in the simulation study. Estimates of sire and herd variances were similar, if not identical, across fitted models. In the field data, there was strong support based on predictive log-likelihood values for the Student's-<it>t </it>error model. Most of the posterior density for degrees of freedom was below 4. Posterior means of direct and maternal heritabilities for birth weight were smaller in the Student's-<it>t </it>model than those in the normal model. Re-rankings of sires were observed between heavy-tailed and normal models.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Reliable estimates of degrees of freedom were obtained in all simulated heavy-tailed and normal datasets. The predictive log-likelihood was able to distinguish the correct model among the models fitted to heavy-tailed datasets. There was no disadvantage of fitting a heavy-tailed model when the true model was normal. Predictive log-likelihood values indicated that heavy-tailed models with low degrees of freedom values fitted gestation length and birth weight data better than a model with normally distributed residuals.</p> <p>Heavy-tailed and normal models resulted in different estimates of direct and maternal heritabilities, and different sire rankings. Heavy-tailed models may be more appropriate for reliable estimation of genetic parameters from field data.</p

Additive Antinociceptive Effects of a Combination of Vitamin C and Vitamin E after Peripheral Nerve Injury

Accumulating evidence indicates that increased generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) contributes to the development of exaggerated pain hypersensitivity during persistent pain. In the present study, we investigated the antinociceptive efficacy of the antioxidants vitamin C and vitamin E in mouse models of inflammatory and neuropathic pain. We show that systemic administration of a combination of vitamins C and E inhibited the early behavioral responses to formalin injection and the neuropathic pain behavior after peripheral nerve injury, but not the inflammatory pain behavior induced by Complete Freund's Adjuvant. In contrast, vitamin C or vitamin E given alone failed to affect the nociceptive behavior in all tested models. The attenuated neuropathic pain behavior induced by the vitamin C and E combination was paralleled by a reduced p38 phosphorylation in the spinal cord and in dorsal root ganglia, and was also observed after intrathecal injection of the vitamins. Moreover, the vitamin C and E combination ameliorated the allodynia induced by an intrathecally delivered ROS donor. Our results suggest that administration of vitamins C and E in combination may exert synergistic antinociceptive effects, and further indicate that ROS essentially contribute to nociceptive processing in special pain states

DNA methylation patterns of Brachypodium distachyon chromosomes and their alteration by 5-azacytidine treatment

Sequential immunolocalisation of 5-methylcytosine (5-MeC) and fluorescence in situ hybridisation with chromosome-specific BAC clones were performed on Brachypodium distachyon mitotic metaphase chromosomes to determine specific DNA methylation patterns of each chromosome in the complement. In the majority of cells examined, chromosomes Bd4 and Bd5, which bear the loci of 5S and 35S ribosomal DNA, respectively, had characteristic 5-MeC patterns. In contrast, the distribution of 5-MeC along the metacentric chromosome pairs Bd1, Bd2 and Bd3 was more variable. There were numerous differences in distribution of methylated sites between homologous chromosomes as well as between chromosome arms. Some chromosome sites, such as pericentromeric regions, were highly methylated in all chromosomes. Additionally, the influence of a hypomethylating agent, 5-azacytidine, on B. distachyon chromosome methylation patterns was confirmed. It was found that some chromosome pairs underwent demethylation more easily than others, but there was no apparent regularity in demethylation of particular chromosome segments

Linking early-life NMDAR hypofunction and oxidative stress in schizophrenia pathogenesis.

Molecular, genetic and pathological evidence suggests that deficits in GABAergic parvalbumin-positive interneurons contribute to schizophrenia pathophysiology through alterations in the brain's excitation-inhibition balance that result in impaired behaviour and cognition. Although the factors that trigger these deficits are diverse, there is increasing evidence that they converge on a common pathological hub that involves NMDA receptor hypofunction and oxidative stress. These factors have been separately linked to schizophrenia pathogenesis, but evidence now suggests that they are mechanistically interdependent and contribute to a common schizophrenia-associated pathology

DISC1 genetics, biology and psychiatric illness

Psychiatric disorders are highly heritable, and in many individuals likely arise from the combined effects of genes and the environment. A substantial body of evidence points towards DISC1 being one of the genes that influence risk of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression, and functional studies of DISC1 consequently have the potential to reveal much about the pathways that lead to major mental illness. Here, we review the evidence that DISC1 influences disease risk through effects upon multiple critical pathways in the developing and adult brain