Second language user support

Computer users rarely experience entirely trouble-free interaction. The natural variety ofindividuals ensures that no software systems yield constantly fluent interaction for allusers. In consequence, software designers often strive to ameliorate this situation bybuilding 'user support' into their systems. User support can take different forms but,conventionally, each aims to assist the needy end-user by means of facilities directly supporting the performance of certain operations, or through supply of information thatadvises the user on available system functionality.The present paper briefly characterises a range of user support facilities before describingone requirement in greater detail. This aspect considers the needs of users whose mother-tongue is not English, but who are obliged to use English-based information systems. Inthis context, 'helping the user' must reasonably extend beyond mere advice on systemoperation to selective elucidation of information content. We regard this move as alogical extension of the user support concept, by seeking to address specific interactionneeds in a target user population. An example of this approach is described through aninformation system, in the domain of civil engineering, for native Chinese speakers ofEnglish

Computational Models of Classical Conditioning guest editors’ introduction

In the present special issue, the performance of current computational models of classical conditioning was evaluated under three requirements: (1) Models were to be tested against a list of previously agreed-upon phenomena; (2) the parameters were fixed across simulations; and (3) the simulations used to test the models had to be made available. These requirements resulted in three major products: (a) a list of fundamental classical-conditioning results for which there is a consensus about their reliability; (b) the necessary information to evaluate each of the models on the basis of its ordinal successes in accounting for the experimental data; and (c) a repository of computational models ready to generate simulations. We believe that the contents of this issue represent the 2012 state of the art in computational modeling of classical conditioning and provide a way to find promising avenues for future model development

A Rescorla-Wagner Drift-Diffusion Model of Conditioning and Timing

Computational models of classical conditioning have made significant contributions to the theoretic understanding of associative learning, yet they still struggle when the temporal aspects of conditioning are taken into account. Interval timing models have contributed a rich variety of time representations and provided accurate predictions for the timing of responses, but they usually have little to say about associative learning. In this article we present a unified model of conditioning and timing that is based on the influential Rescorla-Wagner conditioning model and the more recently developed Timing Drift-Diffusion model. We test the model by simulating 10 experimental phenomena and show that it can provide an adequate account for 8, and a partial account for the other 2. We argue that the model can account for more phenomena in the chosen set than these other similar in scope models: CSC-TD, MS-TD, Learning to Time and Modular Theory. A comparison and analysis of the mechanisms in these models is provided, with a focus on the types of time representation and associative learning rule used

A survey of the anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 subfamily expression in cancer types provides a platform to predict the efficacy of Bcl-2 antagonists in cancer therapy

We investigated the mRNA expression levels of all six antiapoptotic Bcl-2 subfamily members in 68 human cancer cell lines using qPCR techniques and measured the ability of known Bcl-2 inhibitors to induce cell death in 36 of the studied tumor cell lines. Our study reveals that Mcl-1 represents the anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 subfamily member with the highest mRNA levels in the lung, prostate, breast, ovarian, renal, and glioma cancer cell lines. In leukemia/lymphoma and melanoma cancer cell lines, Bcl-2 and Bfl-1 had the highest levels of mRNA, respectively. The observed correlation between the cell killing properties of known Bcl-2 inhibitors and the relative mRNA expression levels of anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 proteins provide critical insights into apoptosis-based anticancer strategies that target Bcl-2 proteins. Our data may explain current challenges of selective Bcl-2 inhibitors in the clinic, given that severe expression of Bcl-2 seems to be limited to leukemia cell lines. Furthermore, our data suggest that in most cancer types a strategy targeted to Mcl-1 inhibition, or combination of Bfl-1 and Mcl-1 inhibition for melanoma, may prove to be more successful than therapies targeting only Bcl-2

A comprehensive characterization of the caspase gene family in insects from the order Lepidoptera

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The cell suicide pathway of apoptosis is a necessary event in the life of multicellular organisms. It is involved in many biological processes ranging from development to the immune response. Evolutionarily conserved proteases, called caspases, play a central role in regulating apoptosis. Reception of death stimuli triggers the activation of initiator caspases, which in turn activate the effector caspases. In Lepidoptera, apoptosis is crucial in processes such as metamorphosis or defending against baculovirus infection. The discovery of p35, a baculovirus protein inhibiting caspase activity, has led to the characterization of the first lepidopteran caspase, Sf-Caspase-1. Studies on Sf-Caspase-1 mode of activation suggested that apoptosis in Lepidoptera requires a cascade of caspase activation, as demonstrated in many other species.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In order to get insights into this gene family in Lepidoptera, we performed an extensive survey of lepidopteran-derived EST datasets. We identified 66 sequences distributed among 27 species encoding putative caspases. Phylogenetic analyses showed that Lepidoptera possess at least 5 caspases, for which we propose a unified nomenclature. According to homology to their <it>Drosophila </it>counterparts and their primary structure, we determined that Lep-Caspase-1, -2 and -3 are putative effector caspases, whereas Lep-Caspase-5 and -6 are putative initiators. The likely function of Lep-Caspase-4 remains unclear. Lep-Caspase-2 is absent from the silkworm genome and appears to be noctuid-specific, and to have arisen from a tandem duplication of the Caspase-1 gene. In the tobacco hawkmoth, 3 distinct transcripts encoding putative Caspase-4 were identified, suggesting at least 2 duplication events in this species.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The basic repertoire of five major types of caspases shared among Lepidoptera seems to be smaller than for most other groups studied to date, but gene duplication still plays a role in lineage-specific increases in diversity, just as in Diptera and mammals.</p

Turner syndrome and sexual differentiation of the brain: implications for understanding male-biased neurodevelopmental disorders

Turner syndrome (TS) is one of the most common sex chromosome abnormalities. Affected individuals often show a unique pattern of cognitive strengths and weaknesses and are at increased risk for a number of other neurodevelopmental conditions, many of which are more common in typical males than typical females (e.g., autism and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder). This phenotype may reflect gonadal steroid deficiency, haploinsufficiency of X chromosome genes, failure to express parentally imprinted genes, and the uncovering of X chromosome mutations. Understanding the contribution of these different mechanisms to outcome has the potential to improve clinical care for individuals with TS and to better our understanding of the differential vulnerability to and expression of neurodevelopmental disorders in males and females. In this paper, we review what is currently known about cognition and brain development in individuals with TS, discuss underlying mechanisms and their relevance to understanding male-biased neurodevelopmental conditions, and suggest directions for future research

Poaceae pollen grain size as a tool to distinguish past grasslands in South America: a new methodological approach

Despite the dominance of grasslands during the last glacial period, especially in South America, the highly uniform morphology of Poaceae pollen grains has so far allowed only very few palynological studies based on Poaceae pollen. In our study we compare two methods of distinguishing between South American grassland ecosystems based on quantitative morphology of Poaceae pollen grains. We investigated data sets from Paramo in southern Ecuador, Campos de Altitude and Campos in south-eastern and southern Brazil as well as data sets from the Pampa in Argentina by measuring the pollen grain length, grain width, pore diameter and annulus width. Firstly we investigated the potential influence of chemical treatment of pollen grains on pollen grain size as well as the measurement setting for defining the boundary conditions for using Poaceae pollen grains in a palaeoecological investigation. Finally the measured pollen grain parameters were analyzed by comparison of average grain length using statistical tests. This approach reveals highly significant differences in average grain size between all grassland ecosystems. Assuming that a certain grain size range can be assigned to a certain Poaceae taxon, conclusions about differences and similarities in taxa composition can be derived. We used two methods of multivariate data analysis. One uses the pollen grain parameters directly for a Principle Component Analysis (PCA). The other is an already established method in grassland ecology which defines parameter based pollen grain types to investigate similarities between grassland ecosystems. Both approaches confirm the results of the grain length analysis. In this work we demonstrate that the method we developed has the potential to provide acquisition of so far inaccessible information on spatial and temporal patterns and dynamics of South American grasslands