Monophyly of brachiopods and phoronids: reconciliation of molecular evidence with Linnaean classification (the subphylum Phoroniformea nov.)

Molecular phylogenetic analyses of aligned 18S rDNA gene sequences from articulate and inarticulate brachiopods representing all major extant lineages, an enhanced set of phoronids and several unrelated protostome taxa, confirm previous indications that in such data, brachiopod and phoronids form a well-supported clade that (on previous evidence) is unambiguously affiliated with protostomes rather than deuterostomes. Within the brachiopod-phoronid clade, an association between phoronids and inarticulate brachiopods is moderately well supported, whilst a close relationship between phoronids and craniid inarticulates is weakly indicated. Brachiopod-phoronid monophyly is reconciled with the most recent Linnaean classification of brachiopods by abolition of the phylum Phoronida and rediagnosis of the phylum Brachiopoda to include tubiculous, shell-less forms. Recognition that brachiopods and phoronids are close genealogical allies of protostome phyla such as molluscs and annelids, but are much more distantly related to deuterostome phyla such as echinoderms and chordates, implies either (or both) that the morphology and ontogeny of blastopore, mesoderm and coelom formation have been widely misreported or misinterpreted, or that these characters have been subject to extensive homoplasy. This inference, if true, undermines virtually all morphology-based reconstructions of phylogeny made during the past century or more

Long-term Outcomes of Small Pigmented Choroidal Melanoma Treated with Primary Photodynamic Therapy

PURPOSE: To report the long-term outcomes of patients with small, pigmented posteriorly located choroidal melanoma undergoing primary treatment using photodynamic therapy (PDT) with verteporfin at the London Ocular Oncology Service. DESIGN: Retrospective interventional consecutive case series SUBJECTS: All patients undergoing primary treatment using PDT with verteporfin from April 2014 and December 2015 and followed until December 2019. METHODS: This is a long-term follow up study of the same cohort of patients previously reported by our group in 2017 and 2018. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Local tumor control, visual outcomes and metastasis-free survival. RESULTS: Twenty-six patients were included with a mean (± SD) age and tumour thickness of 62 ± 14 years and 1.3 ± 0.5 mm, respectively. Tumours were posteriorly located (mean distance to optic nerve and fovea = 2.0 ± 2.2 and 1.6 ± 1.5 mm, respectively) and the majority were fully pigmented (73%). Overall, patients were followed for a median [IQR, range] of 49.5 [15.3, 7.0 - 66.0] months from first PDT to last follow up. Over the course of this study, 14/26 (54%) have developed a local recurrence at a median of 20.0 months [20.5, 4.7 - 60.9 months]. The most common pattern of recurrence was an isolated increase in basal dimensions (9/14; 64%). Median [IQR] final LogMAR visual acuity of the whole cohort was 0.2 [0.5]. The only statistically significant difference in baseline and outcome characteristics between treatment failures and non-failures was distance to fovea (median [IQR]: 0.5 [1.3] versus 2.5 [2.8]; P = 0.002) and final LogMAR visual acuity (median [IQR]: 0.50 [0.80] versus 0.00 [0.14]; P-value = 0.002), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: While treatment of small pigmented posterior choroidal melanoma with PDT effectively preserves visual acuity, five-year treatment-success calculated by Kaplan-Meier analysis was only 38.4%. Recurrences after PDT tend to occur along the tumor edges, often with minimal increase in thickness. Given the substantial risk of treatment failure, primary PDT with vertepofrin is recommended in exceptional cases of choroidal melanoma, where other treatments with greater tumor control are not a feasible option

A framework for power analysis using a structural equation modelling procedure

BACKGROUND: This paper demonstrates how structural equation modelling (SEM) can be used as a tool to aid in carrying out power analyses. For many complex multivariate designs that are increasingly being employed, power analyses can be difficult to carry out, because the software available lacks sufficient flexibility. Satorra and Saris developed a method for estimating the power of the likelihood ratio test for structural equation models. Whilst the Satorra and Saris approach is familiar to researchers who use the structural equation modelling approach, it is less well known amongst other researchers. The SEM approach can be equivalent to other multivariate statistical tests, and therefore the Satorra and Saris approach to power analysis can be used. METHODS: The covariance matrix, along with a vector of means, relating to the alternative hypothesis is generated. This represents the hypothesised population effects. A model (representing the null hypothesis) is then tested in a structural equation model, using the population parameters as input. An analysis based on the chi-square of this model can provide estimates of the sample size required for different levels of power to reject the null hypothesis. CONCLUSIONS: The SEM based power analysis approach may prove useful for researchers designing research in the health and medical spheres

The relationship between adult attachment and coping with brain tumour:The mediating role of social support

From Crossref via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: epub 2019-12-26, issued 2019-12-26Article version: Vo

The moderating factors of neuroticism and extraversion in pain anticipation

This study investigates the moderator relationship between three psychological variables on pain threshold and tolerance: pain anticipation, neuroticism and extraversion. It is hypothesised that (a) a significant effect of anticipation on both pain threshold and tolerance will exist; wherein high-intensity pain anticipation will predispose lower pain threshold and tolerance, and (b) high neuroticism and low extraversion will moderate this relationship. The study was conducted using 76 participants who completed the cold pressor test under one of three conditions: control condition, intense-pain expectant condition or low-pain expectant. The results of the study showed no significant effect of anticipation and no significant moderator relationship for neuroticism or extraversion on pain threshold and tolerance, thus both hypotheses are not supported. Implications for future research are discussed providing new and unique findings, as no prior research into the moderator relationship between anticipation, personality traits and pain currently exists

The "Goldilocks Effect" in Cystic Fibrosis: identification of a lung phenotype in the cftr knockout and heterozygous mouse

BACKGROUND: Cystic Fibrosis is a pleiotropic disease in humans with primary morbidity and mortality associated with a lung disease phenotype. However, knockout in the mouse of cftr, the gene whose mutant alleles are responsible for cystic fibrosis, has previously failed to produce a readily, quantifiable lung phenotype. RESULTS: Using measurements of pulmonary mechanics, a definitive lung phenotype was demonstrated in the cftr-/- mouse. Lungs showed decreased compliance and increased airway resistance in young animals as compared to cftr+/+ littermates. These changes were noted in animals less than 60 days old, prior to any long term inflammatory effects that might occur, and are consistent with structural differences in the cftr-/- lungs. Surprisingly, the cftr+/- animals exhibited a lung phenotype distinct from either the homozygous normal or knockout genotypes. The heterozygous mice showed increased lung compliance and decreased airway resistance when compared to either homozygous phenotype, suggesting a heterozygous advantage that might explain the high frequency of this mutation in certain populations. CONCLUSIONS: In the mouse the gene dosage of cftr results in distinct differences in pulmonary mechanics of the adult. Distinct phenotypes were demonstrated in each genotype, cftr-/-, cftr +/-, and cftr+/+. These results are consistent with a developmental role for CFTR in the lung

Andreev bound states in superconductor/ferromagnet point contact Andreev reflection spectra

As charge carriers traverse a single superconductor ferromagnet interface, they experience an additional spin-dependent phase angle that results in spin mixing and the formation of a bound state called the Andreev bound state. Here we explore whether point contact Andreev reflection can be used to detect the Andreev bound state and, within the limits of our experiment, we extract the resulting spin mixing angle. By examining spectra taken from L a 1.15 S r 1.85 M n 2 O 7 − Pb junctions, together with a compilation of literature data on highly spin polarized systems, we suggest that the existence of the Andreev bound state would resolve a number of long standing controversies in the literature of Andreev reflection, as well as defining a route to quantify the strength of spin mixing at superconductor-ferromagnet interfaces. Intriguingly, we find that for high transparency junctions, the spin mixing angle appears to take a relatively narrow range of values across all the samples studied. The ferromagnets we have chosen to study share a common property in terms of their spin arrangement, and our observations may point to the importance of this property in determining the spin mixing angle under these circumstances

EXIM: A Hybrid Explicit-Implicit Representation for Text-Guided 3D Shape Generation

This paper presents a new text-guided technique for generating 3D shapes. The technique leverages a hybrid 3D shape representation, namely EXIM, combining the strengths of explicit and implicit representations. Specifically, the explicit stage controls the topology of the generated 3D shapes and enables local modifications, whereas the implicit stage refines the shape and paints it with plausible colors. Also, the hybrid approach separates the shape and color and generates color conditioned on shape to ensure shape-color consistency. Unlike the existing state-of-the-art methods, we achieve high-fidelity shape generation from natural-language descriptions without the need for time-consuming per-shape optimization or reliance on human-annotated texts during training or test-time optimization. Further, we demonstrate the applicability of our approach to generate indoor scenes with consistent styles using text-induced 3D shapes. Through extensive experiments, we demonstrate the compelling quality of our results and the high coherency of our generated shapes with the input texts, surpassing the performance of existing methods by a significant margin. Codes and models are released at https://github.com/liuzhengzhe/EXIM.Comment: SIGGRAPH Asia 2023 & TOG Project page: https://liuzhengzhe.github.io/EXIM.github.io

Examining consumers’ adoption of wearable healthcare technology: The role of health attributes

With the advancement of information technology, wearable healthcare technology has emerged as one of the promising technologies to improve the wellbeing of individuals. However, the adoption of wearable healthcare technology has lagged when compared to other well-established durable technology products, such as smartphones and tablets, because of the inadequate knowledge of the antecedents of adoption intention. The aim of this paper is to address an identified gap in the literature by empirically testing a theoretical model for examining the impact of consumers’ health beliefs, health information accuracy, and the privacy protection of wearable healthcare technology on perceived usefulness. Importantly, this study also examines the influences of perceived usefulness, consumer innovativeness, and reference group influence on the adoption intention of wearable healthcare technology. The model seeks to enhance understanding of the influential factors in adopting wearable healthcare technology. Finally, suggestions for future research for the empirical investigation of the model are provided

Signatures of filamentary superconductivity in antiferromagnetic BaFe2As2 single crystals

In this paper, we present ac susceptibility and magnetotransport measurements on aged single crystals of the ferropnictide parent compound, BaFe2As2 with a paramagnetic-to-antiferromagnetic transition temperature of 134 K. The ac susceptibility shows the clear onset of a partial diamagnetic response with an onset temperature, commensurate with a subtle downturn in resistivity at approximately 20 K. Below 20 K the magnetotransport shows in-plane anisotropy, magnetic-field history dependence and a hysteretic signature. Above 20 K the crystals show the widely reported high-field linear magnetoresistance. An enhanced noise signature in ac susceptibility is observed above 20 K, which varies in character with amplitude and frequency of the ac signal. The hysteresis in magnetoresistance and the observed sensitivity of the superconducting phase to the amplitude of the ac signal are indicative characteristics of granular or weakly linked filamentary superconductivity. These features taken together with the observed noise signature above $T_{\mathrm{c}}$ suggests a link between the formation of the superconducting filamentary phase and the freezing of antiphase domain walls, known to exist in these materials