International Veterinary Epilepsy Task Force Consensus Proposal: Outcome of therapeutic interventions in canine and feline epilepsy

Common criteria for the diagnosis of drug resistance and the assessment of outcome are needed urgently as a prerequisite for standardized evaluation and reporting of individual therapeutic responses in canine epilepsy. Thus, we provide a proposal for the definition of drug resistance and partial therapeutic success in canine patients with epilepsy. This consensus statement also suggests a list of factors and aspects of outcome, which should be considered in addition to the impact on seizures. Moreover, these expert recommendations discuss criteria which determine the validity and informative value of a therapeutic trial in an individual patient and also suggest the application of individual outcome criteria. Agreement on common guidelines does not only render a basis for future optimization of individual patient management, but is also a presupposition for the design and implementation of clinical studies with highly standardized inclusion and exclusion criteria. Respective standardization will improve the comparability of findings from different studies and renders an improved basis for multicenter studies. Therefore, this proposal provides an in-depth discussion of the implications of outcome criteria for clinical studies. In particular ethical aspects and the different options for study design and application of individual patient-centered outcome criteria are considered

LIG4 and RAD52 DNA repair genes polymorphisms and systemic lupus erythematosus.

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a complex autoimmune disorder with a strong genetic background. Nevertheless, SLE might also be triggered due to environmental factors, such as UV light exposure. DNA double strand breaks (DSBs) may be induced secondarily by UV radiation, increasing DNA immunogenicity and in SLE patients DNA repair is diminished, allowing the accumulation of DSBs and genomic instability. LIG4 and RAD52 genes play important roles in DNA repair mechanisms and a recent microarray analysis showed their differential expression in active SLE patients. In this study we investigated a potential association between LIG4 and RAD52 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and SLE predisposition in a Southeast Brazilian population. We assessed four Tag SNPs in LIG4 and three in RAD52 gene region, encompassing most of the gene sequence, in 158 SLE patients and 212 healthy controls. We also performed SNPs analysis considering clinical manifestation, gender and ethnicity in SLE patients. Our data did not show association between LIG4 and RAD52 SNPs and SLE, its clinical manifestations or ethnicity in the tested population. The analysis regarding ethnicity and SLE clinical manifestations indicated Caucasian-derived patients as more susceptible to cutaneous and hematological alterations than the African-derived. To our knowledge, this is the first association study involving LIG4 and RAD52 genes and SLE predisposition

The Minority Game Unpacked: Coordination and Competition in a Team-based Experiment

We conduct an experiment on a minority-of-three game in which each player is a team composed of three subjects. Each team can freely discuss its strategies in the game and decisions must be made via majority rule. Team discussions are recorded and their content analyzed to detect evidence of strategy co-evolution among teams playing together. Our main results show no evidence supporting the mixed strategy Nash equilibrium solution, and provide evidence more consistent with reinforcement learning models than with belief-based models. Exhibiting level-2 rationality (i.e., reasoning about others’ beliefs) is positively and significantly correlated with higher than average earnings in the game. In addition, teams that are more successful tend to become more self-centered over time, paying more attention to their own past successes than to the behavior of other teams. Finally, we find evidence of mutual adaptation over time, as teams that are more strategic induce competing teams to be more self-centered instead. Our results contribute to the understanding of coordination dynamics resting on heterogeneity and co-evolution of decision rules. In addition, they provide support at the decision process level to the validity of modeling behavior using reinforcement learning models

Sunlight and Soil-Litter Mixing: Drivers of Litter Decomposition in Drylands

Decomposition of leaf litter is a key component of biogeochemical cycles but the mechanisms driving it in arid and semiarid ecosystems (drylands) remain unresolved. Here, we review recent findings that demonstrate dual roles of solar radiation (ultraviolet and photosynthetically active radiation) and soil–litter mixing as drivers of decomposition in drylands. We focus on the known and potential mechanisms by which these factors influence leaf litter decomposition, explore how the importance of these two drivers may shift over time, and propose possible avenues by which these factors may interact. Special attention is given to UV in sunlight, as this radiation is known to have multiple roles in influencing decomposition and has received considerable recent research attention. We also identify important uncertainties and challenges and offer a generalized conceptual model to guide future research aimed at enhancing our mechanistic understanding and quantitative modeling of the processes by which soil deposition and solar radiation together influence leaf litter decomposition rates in globally extensive dryland ecosystems