Signs and Symptoms in the Psychiatric Domain: A Corpus Analysis

AbstractIn the medical domain, great effort is taken to normalize terminology at an international level. However, corpus analysis indicates that there is still much work to be done. For example, the basic conceptual distinction between sign (an objective change in a patient's condition) and symptom (subjective evidence of disease or condition as perceived by the patient) is something any medical expert is aware of. In texts of the subdomain of Psychiatry, however, the terms sign and symptom seem to be used indistinctly. Their use was analyzed from a multidimensional perspective in an English language medical corpus on the subdomain of Psychiatry. Collocational information was extracted and then classified according to the data obtained. Finally a comparison was made with an English language corpus on Oncology to see if the conclusions drawn can be applied to other medical subdomains or if the boundaries between the terms are even fuzzier in the Psychiatric domain

Exotic Rickettsiae in Ixodes ricinus: fact or artifact?

Several pathogenic Rickettsia species can be transmitted via Ixodes ricinus ticks to humans and animals. Surveys of I. ricinus for the presence of Rickettsiae using part of its 16S rRNA gene yield a plethora of new and different Rickettsia sequences. Interpreting these data is sometimes difficult and presenting these findings as new or potentially pathogenic Rickettsiae should be done with caution: a recent report suggested presence of a known human pathogen, R. australis, in questing I. ricinus ticks in Europe. A refined analysis of these results revealed that R. helvetica was most likely to be misinterpreted as R. australis. Evidence in the literature is accumulating that rickettsial DNA sequences found in tick lysates can also be derived from other sources than viable, pathogenic Rickettsiae. For example, from endosymbionts, environmental contamination or even horizontal gene transfer

A Qualia-based description of specialized knowledge units in the lexical-constructional model

EcoLexicon és una base de dades de coneixement sobre medi ambient basada en la idea de marcs semàntics. La informació que conté està estructurada coherentment dins de l'esdeveniment prototípic de domini, l'esdeveniment mediambiental (EE). S'hi ha definit un inventari tancat de relacions, tant a nivell intercategorial com intracategorial, que connecten els conceptes entre si. Això és la base per a una ontologia formal d'aquest àmbit que servirà per a finalitats computacionals, fer cerques o extreure informació automàticament. Les premisses teòriques de la terminologia basada en marcs, el lexicó generatiu i la gramàtica de construccions lèxiques, proporcionen un formalisme estricte que ens permet fer un pas endavant cap a l'ontologia formal.EcoLexicon is a frame-based knowledge base on the environment. The information it contains is coherently structured within a prototypical domain event, the Environmental Event (EE). At an intra- and intercategorial level, a closed inventory of relations has been defined that relates concepts to each other as well as to the EE. It will be the basis for a formal domain ontology which will serve computational purposes, enhance searches and allow for automatic information extraction. Theoretical premises from Frame-Based Terminology, the Generative Lexicon and the Lexical-Constructional Model provide a streamlined formalism that brings us one step closer to a formal ontology

Cultural Context and Multimodal Knowledge Representation: Seeing the Forest for the Trees

Context, especially cultural context, has long been neglected in Terminology. Even though recent approaches have acknowledged the relevance of culture in specialized communication, the development of culture in Terminology is still marginal. Culture is also underrepresented in terminological resources, which may respond to the complexity of reflecting the cultural component in the description of terms and concepts. However, conceptualization is dynamic and changes from culture to culture and, for that reason, an in-depth study on how the nature of human perception and cultural cognition influences the representation of concept systems and terms in specialized knowledge contexts is needed. Furthermore, to facilitate knowledge acquisition, contextual and conceptual information should go together with multimodal information, as the combination of textual and visual material improves understanding. This study integrates different types of context (i.e., semantic relations, frames, and culture) to describe a methodology for the selection and representation of multimodal information for culturally bound concepts such as forest in terminological knowledge bases, based on the theoretical premises of Frame-Based Terminology. Different ideas of forest in European countries were analyzed and represented by means of culturally adapted images, which are best suited to disseminate knowledge and foreground the role of culture in specialized communication.Ministry of Science and Innovation, Spain (MICINN) Spanish Government PID2020118369GB-I00European Commission A-HUM-600-UGR2

Role of sand lizards in the ecology of Lyme and other tick-borne diseases in the Netherlands

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Lizards are considered zooprophylactic for almost all <it>Borrelia burgdorferi </it>species, and act as dilution hosts in parts of North America. Whether European lizards significantly reduce the ability of <it>B. burgdorferi </it>to maintain itself in enzootic cycles, and consequently decrease the infection rate of <it>Ixodes ricinus ticks </it>for <it>B. burgdorferi </it>and other tick-borne pathogens in Western Europe is not clear.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Ticks were collected from sand lizards, their habitat (heath) and from the adjacent forest. DNA of tick-borne pathogens was detected by PCR followed by reverse line blotting. Tick densities were measured at all four locations by blanket dragging. Nymphs and adult ticks collected from lizards had a significantly lower (1.4%) prevalence of <it>B. burgdorferi </it>sensu lato, compared to questing ticks in heath (24%) or forest (19%). The prevalence of <it>Rickettsia helvetica </it>was significantly higher in ticks from lizards (19%) than those from woodland (10%) whereas neither was significantly different from the prevalence in ticks from heather (15%). The prevalence of <it>Anaplasma </it>and <it>Ehrlichia </it>spp in heather (12%) and forest (14%) were comparable, but significantly lower in ticks from sand lizards (5.4%). The prevalence of <it>Babesia </it>spp in ticks varied between 0 and 5.3%. Tick load of lizards ranged from 1 - 16. Tick densities were ~ 5-fold lower in the heather areas than in woodlands at all four sites.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Despite their apparent low reservoir competence, the presence of sand lizards had insignificant impact on the <it>B. burgdorferi </it>s.l. infection rate of questing ticks. In contrast, sand lizards might act as reservoir hosts for <it>R. helvetica</it>. Remarkably, the public health risk from tick-borne diseases is approximately five times lower in heather than in woodland, due to the low tick densities in heather.</p

Association of Interacting Genes in the Toll-Like Receptor Signaling Pathway and the Antibody Response to Pertussis Vaccination

BACKGROUND: Activation of the Toll-like receptor (TLR) signaling pathway through TLR4 may be important in the induction of protective immunity against Bordetella pertussis with TLR4-mediated activation of dendritic and B cells, induction of cytokine expression, and reversal of tolerance as crucial steps. We examined whether single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in genes of the TLR4 pathway and their interaction are associated with the response to whole-cell vaccine (WCV) pertussis vaccination in 490 one-year-old children. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We analyzed associations of 75 haplotype-tagging SNPs in genes in the TLR4 signaling pathway with pertussis toxin (PT)-IgG titers. We found significant associations between the PT-IgG titer and SNPs in CD14, TLR4, TOLLIP, TIRAP, IRAK3, IRAK4, TICAM1, and TNFRSF4 in one or more of the analyses. The strongest evidence for association was found for two SNPs (rs5744034 and rs5743894) in TOLLIP that were almost completely in linkage disequilibrium, provided statistically significant associations in all tests with the lowest p-values, and displayed a dominant mode of inheritance. However, none of these single gene associations would withstand correction for multiple testing. In addition, Multifactor Dimensionality Reduction Analysis, an approach that does not need correction for multiple testing, showed significant and strong two and three locus interactions between SNPs in TOLLIP (rs4963060), TLR4 (rs6478317) and IRAK1 (rs1059703). CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: We have identified significant interactions between genes in the TLR pathway in the induction of vaccine-induced immunity. These interactions underline that these genes are functionally related and together form a true biological relationship in a protein-protein interaction network. Practically all our findings may be explained by genetic variation in directly or indirectly interacting proteins at the extra- and intracytoplasmic sites of the cell membrane of antigen-presenting cells, B cells, or both. Fine tuning of interacting proteins in the TLR pathway appears important for the induction of an optimal vaccine response

Changes in small intestinal homeostasis, morphology, and gene expression during rotavirus infection of infant mice

Rotavirus is the most important cause of infantile gastroenteritis. Since in vivo mucosal responses to a rotavirus infection thus far have not been extensively studied, we related viral replication in the murine small intestine to alterations in mucosal structure, epithelial cell homeostasis, cellular kinetics, and differentiation. Seven-day-old suckling BALB/c mice were inoculated with 2 x 10(4) focus-forming units of murine rotavirus and were compared to mock-infected controls. Diarrheal illness and viral shedding were recorded, and small intestinal tissue was evaluated for rotavirus (NSP4 and structural proteins)- and enterocyte-specific (lactase, SGLT1, and L-FABP) mRNA and protein expression. Morphology, apoptosis, proliferation, and migration were evaluated (immuno)histochemically. Diarrhea was observed from days 1 to 5 postinfection, and viral shedding was observed from days 1 to 10. Two peaks of rotavirus replication were observed at 1 and 4 days postinfection. Histological changes were characterized by the accumulation of vacuolated enterocytes. Strikingly, the number of vacuolated cells exceeded the number of cells in which viral replication was detectable. Apoptosis and proliferation were increased from days 1 to 7, resulting in villous atrophy. Epithelial cell turnover was significantly higher (<4 days) than that observed in controls (7 days). Since epithelial renewal occurred within 4 days, the second peak of viral replication was most likely caused by infection of newly synthesized cells. Expression of enterocyte-specific genes was downregulated in infected cells at mRNA and protein levels starting as early as 6 h after infection. In conclusion, we show for the first time that rotavirus infection induces apoptosis in vivo, an increase in epithelial cell turnover, and a shutoff of gene expression in enterocytes showing viral replication. The shutoff of enterocyte-specific gene expression, together with the loss of mature enterocytes through apoptosis and the replacement of these cells by less differentiated dividing cells, likely leads to a defective absorptive function of the intestinal epithelium, which contributes to rotavirus pathogenesis