17 research outputs found
Recruitment of Language-, Emotion- and Speech-Timing Associated Brain Regions for Expressing Emotional Prosody: Investigation of Functional Neuroanatomy with fMRI
We aimed to progress understanding of prosodic emotion expression by establishing brain regions active when expressing specific emotions, those activated irrespective of the target emotion, and those whose activation intensity varied depending on individual performance. BOLD contrast data were acquired whilst participants spoke non-sense words in happy, angry or neutral tones, or performed jaw-movements. Emotion-specific analyses demonstrated that when expressing angry prosody, activated brain regions included the inferior frontal and superior temporal gyri, the insula, and the basal ganglia. When expressing happy prosody, the activated brain regions also included the superior temporal gyrus, insula, and basal ganglia, with additional activation in the anterior cingulate. Conjunction analysis confirmed that the superior temporal gyrus and basal ganglia were activated regardless of the specific emotion concerned. Nevertheless, disjunctive comparisons between the expression of angry and happy prosody established that anterior cingulate activity was significantly higher for angry prosody than for happy prosody production. Degree of inferior frontal gyrus activity correlated with the ability to express the target emotion through prosody. We conclude that expressing prosodic emotions (vs. neutral intonation) requires generic brain regions involved in comprehending numerous aspects of language, emotion-related processes such as experiencing emotions, and in the time-critical integration of speech information
The khmer software package: enabling efficient nucleotide sequence analysis [version 1; referees: 2 approved, 1 approved with reservations]
The khmer package is a freely available software library for working efficiently with fixed length DNA words, or k-mers. khmer provides implementations of a probabilistic k-mer counting data structure, a compressible De Bruijn graph representation, De Bruijn graph partitioning, and digital normalization. khmer is implemented in C++ and Python, and is freely available under the BSD license at https://github.com/dib-lab/khmer/
The khmer software package: enabling efficient nucleotide sequence analysis [version 1; referees: 2 approved, 1 approved with reservations]
The khmer package is a freely available software library for working efficiently with fixed length DNA words, or k-mers. khmer provides implementations of a probabilistic k-mer counting data structure, a compressible De Bruijn graph representation, De Bruijn graph partitioning, and digital normalization. khmer is implemented in C++ and Python, and is freely available under the BSD license at https://github.com/dib-lab/khmer/
Prediction of the probability of forest decline damage to Norway spruce using three simple site-independent diagnostic parameters
Survey data for Norway spruce (Picea abies I.) trees at 12 different forest sites across Europe have been analysed. Three variables (dry weight/fresh weight ratio differences between current and two-year-old needles, ethylene emissions and violaxanthin/antheraxanthin ratios) were found which together show a significant relationship to tree damage in areas affected by forest decline and which are independent of site effects (P < 0.001). Results are also presented that support the contention that atmospheric pollution, especially tropospheric ozone, is the major cause of this problem. After a four-year fumigation experiment, 12-year-old Norway spruce trees showed similar cellular changes as those found in the 30-to 40-year-old trees of the survey affected by forest decline. In the fumigation experiment, these changes were most pronounced in those plants exposed to a combination of treatments including ozone, sulphur dioxide and acid rain. The pollutant concentrations used in the four-year study were representative of those experienced by trees growing in affected areas