Impacts of climate change on plant diseases – opinions and trends

There has been a remarkable scientific output on the topic of how climate change is likely to affect plant diseases in the coming decades. This review addresses the need for review of this burgeoning literature by summarizing opinions of previous reviews and trends in recent studies on the impacts of climate change on plant health. Sudden Oak Death is used as an introductory case study: Californian forests could become even more susceptible to this emerging plant disease, if spring precipitations will be accompanied by warmer temperatures, although climate shifts may also affect the current synchronicity between host cambium activity and pathogen colonization rate. A summary of observed and predicted climate changes, as well as of direct effects of climate change on pathosystems, is provided. Prediction and management of climate change effects on plant health are complicated by indirect effects and the interactions with global change drivers. Uncertainty in models of plant disease development under climate change calls for a diversity of management strategies, from more participatory approaches to interdisciplinary science. Involvement of stakeholders and scientists from outside plant pathology shows the importance of trade-offs, for example in the land-sharing vs. sparing debate. Further research is needed on climate change and plant health in mountain, boreal, Mediterranean and tropical regions, with multiple climate change factors and scenarios (including our responses to it, e.g. the assisted migration of plants), in relation to endophytes, viruses and mycorrhiza, using long-term and large-scale datasets and considering various plant disease control methods

Antibody targeting of Cathepsin S induces antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Proteolytic enzymes have been implicated in driving tumor progression by means of their cancer cell microenvironment activity where they promote proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, migration, and invasion. Therapeutic strategies have focused on attenuating their activity using small molecule inhibitors, but the association of proteases with the cell surface during cancer progression opens up the possibility of targeting these using antibody dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC). Cathepsin S is a lysosomal cysteine protease that promotes the growth and invasion of tumour and endothelial cells during cancer progression. Our analysis of colorectal cancer patient biopsies shows that cathepsin S associates with the cell membrane indicating a potential for ADCC targeting.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here we report the cell surface characterization of cathepsin S and the development of a humanized antibody (Fsn0503h) with immune effector function and a stable <it>in vivo </it>half-life of 274 hours. Cathepsin S is expressed on the surface of tumor cells representative of colorectal and pancreatic cancer (23%-79% positive expression). Furthermore the binding of Fsn0503h to surface associated cathepsin S results in natural killer (NK) cell targeted tumor killing. In a colorectal cancer model Fsn0503h elicits a 22% cytotoxic effect.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This data highlights the potential to target cell surface associated enzymes, such as cathepsin S, as therapeutic targets using antibodies capable of elicitingADCC in tumor cells.</p

Keeping an eye on the violinist: motor experts show superior timing consistency in a visual perception task

Common coding theory states that perception and action may reciprocally induce each other. Consequently, motor expertise should map onto perceptual consistency in specific tasks such as predicting the exact timing of a musical entry. To test this hypothesis, ten string musicians (motor experts), ten non-string musicians (visual experts), and ten non-musicians were asked to watch progressively occluded video recordings of a first violinist indicating entries to fellow members of a string quartet. Participants synchronised with the perceived timing of the musical entries. Results revealed significant effects of motor expertise on perception. Compared to visual experts and non-musicians, string players not only responded more accurately, but also with less timing variability. These findings provide evidence that motor experts’ consistency in movement execution—a key characteristic of expert motor performance—is mirrored in lower variability in perceptual judgements, indicating close links between action competence and perception

Visual Working Memory Capacity and Proactive Interference

Background: Visual working memory capacity is extremely limited and appears to be relatively immune to practice effects or the use of explicit strategies. The recent discovery that visual working memory tasks, like verbal working memory tasks, are subject to proactive interference, coupled with the fact that typical visual working memory tasks are particularly conducive to proactive interference, suggests that visual working memory capacity may be systematically under-estimated. Methodology/Principal Findings: Working memory capacity was probed behaviorally in adult humans both in laboratory settings and via the Internet. Several experiments show that although the effect of proactive interference on visual working memory is significant and can last over several trials, it only changes the capacity estimate by about 15%. Conclusions/Significance: This study further confirms the sharp limitations on visual working memory capacity, both in absolute terms and relative to verbal working memory. It is suggested that future research take these limitations into account in understanding differences across a variety of tasks between human adults, prelinguistic infants and nonlinguistic animals

Novelty Enhances Visual Perception

The effects of novelty on low-level visual perception were investigated in two experiments using a two-alternative forced-choice tilt detection task. A target, consisting of a Gabor patch, was preceded by a cue that was either a novel or a familiar fractal image. Participants had to indicate whether the Gabor stimulus was vertically oriented or slightly tilted. In the first experiment tilt angle was manipulated; in the second contrast of the Gabor patch was varied. In the first, we found that sensitivity was enhanced after a novel compared to a familiar cue, and in the second we found sensitivity to be enhanced for novel cues in later experimental blocks when participants became more and more familiarized with the familiar cue. These effects were not caused by a shift in the response criterion. This shows for the first time that novel stimuli affect low-level characteristics of perception. We suggest that novelty can elicit a transient attentional response, thereby enhancing perception

Colour categories are reflected in sensory stages of colour perception when stimulus issues are resolved

Debate exists about the time course of the effect of colour categories on visual processing. We investigated the effect of colour categories for two groups who differed in whether they categorised a blue-green boundary colour as the same- or different-category to a reliably-named blue colour and a reliably-named green colour. Colour differences were equated in just-noticeable differences to be equally discriminable. We analysed event-related potentials for these colours elicited on a passive visual oddball task and investigated the time course of categorical effects on colour processing. Support for category effects was found 100 ms after stimulus onset, and over frontal sites around 250 ms, suggesting that colour naming affects both early sensory and later stages of chromatic processing

Pleosporales

One hundred and five generic types of Pleosporales are described and illustrated. A brief introduction and detailed history with short notes on morphology, molecular phylogeny as well as a general conclusion of each genus are provided. For those genera where the type or a representative specimen is unavailable, a brief note is given. Altogether 174 genera of Pleosporales are treated. Phaeotrichaceae as well as Kriegeriella, Zeuctomorpha and Muroia are excluded from Pleosporales. Based on the multigene phylogenetic analysis, the suborder Massarineae is emended to accommodate five families, viz. Lentitheciaceae, Massarinaceae, Montagnulaceae, Morosphaeriaceae and Trematosphaeriaceae

Search for Gravitational Waves from Primordial Black Hole Binary Coalescences in the Galactic Halo

We use data from the second science run of the LIGO gravitational-wave detectors to search for the gravitational waves from primordial black hole (PBH) binary coalescence with component masses in the range 0.2--$1.0 M_\odot$. The analysis requires a signal to be found in the data from both LIGO observatories, according to a set of coincidence criteria. No inspiral signals were found. Assuming a spherical halo with core radius 5 kpc extending to 50 kpc containing non-spinning black holes with masses in the range 0.2--$1.0 M_\odot$, we place an observational upper limit on the rate of PBH coalescence of 63 per year per Milky Way halo (MWH) with 90% confidence.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, to be submitted to Phys. Rev.

Impact of Load-Related Neural Processes on Feature Binding in Visuospatial Working Memory

BACKGROUND: The capacity of visual working memory (WM) is substantially limited and only a fraction of what we see is maintained as a temporary trace. The process of binding visual features has been proposed as an adaptive means of minimising information demands on WM. However the neural mechanisms underlying this process, and its modulation by task and load effects, are not well understood. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the neural correlates of feature binding and its modulation by WM load during the sequential phases of encoding, maintenance and retrieval. METHODS AND FINDINGS: 18 young healthy participants performed a visuospatial WM task with independent factors of load and feature conjunction (object identity and position) in an event-related functional MRI study. During stimulus encoding, load-invariant conjunction-related activity was observed in left prefrontal cortex and left hippocampus. During maintenance, greater activity for task demands of feature conjunction versus single features, and for increased load was observed in left-sided regions of the superior occipital cortex, precuneus and superior frontal cortex. Where these effects were expressed in overlapping cortical regions, their combined effect was additive. During retrieval, however, an interaction of load and feature conjunction was observed. This modulation of feature conjunction activity under increased load was expressed through greater deactivation in medial structures identified as part of the default mode network. CONCLUSIONS AND SIGNIFICANCE: The relationship between memory load and feature binding qualitatively differed through each phase of the WM task. Of particular interest was the interaction of these factors observed within regions of the default mode network during retrieval which we interpret as suggesting that at low loads, binding processes may be 'automatic' but at higher loads it becomes a resource-intensive process leading to disengagement of activity in this network. These findings provide new insights into how feature binding operates within the capacity-limited WM system