Novel European free-living, non-diazotrophic Bradyrhizobium isolates from contrasting soils that lack nodulation and nitrogen fixation genes - a genome comparison

The slow-growing genus Bradyrhizobium is biologically important in soils, with different representatives found to perform a range of biochemical functions including photosynthesis, induction of root nodules and symbiotic nitrogen fixation and denitrification. Consequently, the role of the genus in soil ecology and biogeochemical transformations is of agricultural and environmental significance. Some isolates of Bradyrhizobium have been shown to be non-symbiotic and do not possess the ability to form nodules. Here we present the genome and gene annotations of two such free-living Bradyrhizobium isolates, named G22 and BF49, from soils with differing long-term management regimes (grassland and bare fallow respectively) in addition to carbon metabolism analysis. These Bradyrhizobium isolates are the first to be isolated and sequenced from European soil and are the first free-living Bradyrhizobium isolates, lacking both nodulation and nitrogen fixation genes, to have their genomes sequenced and assembled from cultured samples. The G22 and BF49 genomes are distinctly different with respect to size and number of genes; the grassland isolate also contains a plasmid. There are also a number of functional differences between these isolates and other published genomes, suggesting that this ubiquitous genus is extremely heterogeneous and has roles within the community not including symbiotic nitrogen fixation

Telling lies:The irrepressible truth?

Telling a lie takes longer than telling the truth but precisely why remains uncertain. We investigated two processes suggested to increase response times, namely the decision to lie and the construction of a lie response. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants were directed or chose whether to lie or tell the truth. A colored square was presented and participants had to name either the true color of the square or lie about it by claiming it was a different color. In both experiments we found that there was a greater difference between lying and telling the truth when participants were directed to lie compared to when they chose to lie. In Experiments 3 and 4, we compared response times when participants had only one possible lie option to a choice of two or three possible options. There was a greater lying latency effect when questions involved more than one possible lie response. Experiment 5 examined response choice mechanisms through the manipulation of lie plausibility. Overall, results demonstrate several distinct mechanisms that contribute to additional processing requirements when individuals tell a lie

Development and evaluation of an aged care specific Advance Care Plan.

OBJECTIVES: To report on the quality of advance care planning (ACP) documents in use in residential aged care facilities (RACF) in areas of Victoria Australia prior to a systematic intervention; to report on the development and performance of an aged care specific Advance Care Plan template used during the intervention. DESIGN: An audit of the quality of pre-existing documentation used to record resident treatment preferences and end-of-life wishes at participating RACFs; development and pilot of an aged care specific Advance Care Plan template; an audit of the completeness and quality of Advance Care Plans completed on the new template during a systematic ACP intervention. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: 19 selected RACFs (managed by 12 aged care organisations) in metropolitan and regional areas of Victoria. RESULTS: Documentation in use at facilities prior to the ACP intervention most commonly recorded preferences regarding hospital transfer, life prolonging treatment and personal/cultural/religious wishes. However, 7 of 12 document sets failed to adequately and clearly specify the resident's preferences as regards life prolonging medical treatment. The newly developed aged care specific Advance Care Plan template was met with approval by participating RACFs. Of 203 Advance Care Plans completed on the template throughout the project period, 49% included the appointment of a Medical Enduring Power of Attorney. Requests concerning medical treatment were specified in almost all completed documents (97%), with 73% nominating the option of refusal of life-prolonging treatment. Over 90% of plans included information concerning residents' values and beliefs, and future health situations that the resident would find to be unacceptable were specified in 78% of completed plans. CONCLUSIONS: Standardised procedures and documentation are needed to improve the quality of processes, documents and outcomes of ACP in the residential aged care sector

Who’s that? - Social situation awareness for behaviour support agents: A feasibility study

Behaviour support agents need to be aware of the social environment of the user in order to be able to provide comprehensive support. However, this is a feature that is currently lacking in existing systems. To tackle it, first of all we explore literature from social sciences in order to find which elements of the social environment need to be represented. We structure this knowledge as a two-level ontology that models social situations. We formalize the elements that are needed to model social situations, which consist of different types of meetings between two people. We conduct an experiment to evaluate the lower level of the ontology using feedback from the subjects, and to test whether we can use the data to reason about the priority of different situations. Subjects found our proposed features of social relationships to be understandable and representative. Furthermore, we show these features can be combined in a decision tree to predict the priority of social situations.Interactive Intelligenc