How Do We See Art: An Eye-Tracker Study

We describe the pattern of fixations of subjects looking at figurative and abstract paintings from different artists (Molina, Mondrian, Rembrandt, della Francesca) and at modified versions in which different aspects of these art pieces were altered with simple digital manipulations. We show that the fixations of the subjects followed some general common principles (e.g., being attracted to saliency regions) but with a large variability for the figurative paintings, according to the subject’s personal appreciation and knowledge. In particular, we found different gazing patterns depending on whether the subject saw the original or the modified version of the painting first. We conclude that the study of gazing patterns obtained by using the eye-tracker technology gives a useful approach to quantify how subjects observe art

COVID-19 ¿Una oportunidad o un retraso para la educación médica de pregrado? COVID-19 an oportunnity or a disaster for undergraduate medical education?

This letter expresses a novel opinion on the prospects for undergraduate medical education during the COVID-19 pandemic. It reviews traditional medical education and the benefits and harms of new educational models, such as telemedicine.La presente carta al editor expresa una opinión novedosa sobre las perspectivas sobre la educación me´dica de pregrado durante la pandemia del COVID-19. Hace un repaso sobre la educación médica tradicional y sobre los beneficios y perjuicios de los nuevos modelos educacionales, como la telemedicina

Molecular and genetic characterization of novel S-RNases from a natural population of Nicotiana alata

Self-incompatibility in the Solanaceae is mediated by S-RNase alleles expressed in the style, which confer specificity for pollen recognition. Nicotiana alata has been successfully used as an experimental model to elucidate cellular and molecular aspects of S-RNase-based self-incompatibility in Solanaceae. However, S-RNase alleles of this species have not been surveyed from natural populations and consequently the S-haplotype diversity is poorly known. Here the molecular and functional characterization of seven S-RNase candidate sequences, identified from a natural population of N. alata, are reported. Six of these candidates, S 5 , S 27 , S 70 , S 75 , S 107 , and S 210 , showed plant-specific amplification in the natural population and style-specific expression, which increased gradually during bud maturation, consistent with the reported S-RNase expression. In contrast, the S 63 ribonuclease was present in all plants examined and was ubiquitously expressed in different organs and bud developmental stages. Genetic segregation analysis demonstrated that S 27 , S 70 , S 75 , S 107 , and S 210 alleles were fully functional novel S-RNases, while S 5 and S 63 resulted to be non-S-RNases, although with a clearly distinct pattern of expression. These results reveal the importance of performing functional analysis in studies of S-RNase allelic diversity. Comparative phylogenetic analysis of six species of Solanaceae showed that N. alata S-RNases were included in eight transgeneric S-lineages. Phylogenetic pattern obtained from the inclusion of the novel S-RNase alleles confirms that N. alata represents a broad sample of the allelic variation at the S-locus of the Solanaceae.Fil: Roldán, Juan Alfredo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones en Química Biológica de Córdoba. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Químicas. Centro de Investigaciones en Química Biológica de Córdoba; ArgentinaFil: Quiroga, Rodrigo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones en Química Biológica de Córdoba. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Químicas. Centro de Investigaciones en Química Biológica de Córdoba; ArgentinaFil: Goldraij, Ariel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones en Química Biológica de Córdoba. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Químicas. Centro de Investigaciones en Química Biológica de Córdoba; Argentin

Explicit Encoding of Multimodal Percepts by Single Neurons in the Human Brain

Different pictures of Marilyn Monroe can evoke the same percept, even if greatly modified as in Andy Warhol’s famous portraits. But how does the brain recognize highly variable pictures as the same percept? Various studies have provided insights into how visual information is processed along the ‘‘ventral pathway,’’ via both single-cell recordings in monkeys and functional imaging in humans. Interestingly, in humans, the same "concept" of Marilyn Monroe can be evoked with other stimulus modalities, for instance by hearing or reading her name. Brain imaging studies have identified cortical areas selective to voices and visual word forms. However, how visual, text, and sound information can elicit a unique percept is still largely unknown. By using presentations of pictures and of spoken and written names, we show that (1) single neurons in the human medial temporal lobe (MTL) respond selectively to representations of the same individual across different sensory modalities; (2) the degree of multimodal invariance increases along the hierarchical structure within the MTL; and (3) such neuronal representations can be generated within less than a day or two. These results demonstrate that single neurons can encode percepts in an explicit, selective, and invariant manner, even if evoked by different sensory modalities

Reverse Vaccinology approach for antigen candidates prioritization to develop a vaccine against a poultry pathogen

PosterAvibacterium paragallinarum (AvP) is the causative agent of infectious coryza, an acute disease that affects the upper respiratory system of chickens. This Gram-negative pathogen is widely distributed in poultry production systems all over the world, causing significant economic losses. Despite vaccination being the main form of prevention, commercially available vaccines show incomplete protection against strains not included in the formulation.EEA BalcarceFil: Felici, María Esperanza. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Químicas; Argentina.Fil: Felici, María Esperanza. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina.Fil: Huberman, Yosef Daniel. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA) Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Balcarce; Argentina.Fil: Maletto, Belkys. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Químicas; Argentina.Fil: Maletto, Belkys. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina.Fil: Quiroga, Rodrigo. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Químicas; Argentina.Fil: Quiroga, Rodrigo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina

Sparse Representation in the Human Medial Temporal Lobe

Recent experiments characterized individual neurons in the human medial temporal lobe with remarkably selective, invariant, and explicit responses to images of famous individuals or landmark buildings. Here, we used a probabilistic analysis to show that these data are consistent with a sparse code in which neurons respond in a selective manner to a small fraction of stimuli

A Single-Neuron Correlate of Change Detection and Change Blindness in the Human Medial Temporal Lobe

Observers are often unaware of changes in their visual environment when attention is not focused at the location of the change [1,2,3,4]. Because of its rather intriguing nature, this phenomenon, known as change blindness, has been extensively studied with psychophysics [5,6,7] as well as with fMRI [8,9,10,11]. However, whether change blindness can be tracked in the activity of single cells is not clear. To explore the neural correlates of change detection and change blindness, we recorded from single neurons in the human medial temporal lobe (MTL) during a change-detection paradigm. The preferred pictures of the visually responsive units elicited significantly higher firing rates on the attended trials when subjects correctly identified a change (change detection) compared to the unattended trials when they missed it (change blindness). On correct trials, the firing activity of individual units allowed us to predict the occurrence of a change, on a trial-by-trial basis, with 67% accuracy. In contrast, this prediction was at chance for incorrect, unattended trials. The firing rates of visually selective MTL cells thus constitute a neural correlate of change detection

Persistent Single-Neuron Activity during Working Memory in the Human Medial Temporal Lobe

Working memory is an essential component of human cognition. Persistent activity related to working memory has been reported in many brain areas, including the inferior temporal and prefrontal cortex [1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7 ; 8]. The medial temporal lobe (MTL) contains “concept cells” that respond invariantly to specific individuals or places whether presented as images, text, or speech [9 ; 10]. It is unknown, however, whether the MTL also participates in working memory processes. We thus sought to determine whether human MTL neurons respond to images held in working memory. We recorded from patients with chronically intractable epilepsy as they performed a task that required them to remember three or four sequentially presented pictures across a brief delay. 48% of visually selective neurons continued to carry image-specific information after image offset, but most ceased to encode previously presented images after a subsequent presentation of a different image. However, 8% of visually selective neurons encoded previously presented images during a final maintenance period, despite presentation of further images in the intervening interval. Population activity of stimulus-selective neurons predicted behavioral outcome in terms of correct and incorrect responses. These findings indicate that the MTL is part of a brain-wide network for working memory

COVID‑19 mitigation by digital contact tracing and contact prevention (app‑based social exposure warnings)

A plethora of measures are being combined in the attempt to reduce SARS-CoV-2 spread. Due to its sustainability, contact tracing is one of the most frequently applied interventions worldwide, albeit with mixed results. We evaluate the performance of digital contact tracing for different infection detection rates and response time delays. We also introduce and analyze a novel strategy we call contact prevention, which emits high exposure warnings to smartphone users according to Bluetooth-based contact counting. We model the effect of both strategies on transmission dynamics in SERIA, an agent-based simulation platform that implements population-dependent statistical distributions. Results show that contact prevention remains effective in scenarios with high diagnostic/response time delays and low infection detection rates, which greatly impair the effect of traditional contact tracing strategies. Contact prevention could play a significant role in pandemic mitigation, especially in developing countries where diagnostic and tracing capabilities are inadequate. Contact prevention could thus sustainably reduce the propagation of respiratory viruses while relying on available technology, respecting data privacy, and most importantly, promoting community-based awareness and social responsibility. Depending on infection detection and app adoption rates, applying a combination of digital contact tracing and contact prevention could reduce pandemic-related mortality by 20–56%.publishedVersionFil: Soldano, Germán J. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Químicas; Argentina.Fil: Soldano, Germán J. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones en Físico-química de Córdoba; Argentina.Fil: Fraire Juan A. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales; Argentina.Fil: Fraire Juan A. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Estudios Avanzados en ingeniería y Tecnología; Argentina.Fil: Fraire Juan A. Saarland University. Saarland Informatics Campus; Saarbrücken, Germany.Fil: Finochietto, Jorge M. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales; Argentina.Fil: Finochietto, Jorge M. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Estudios Avanzados en ingeniería y Tecnología; Argentina.Fil: Quiroga; Rodrigo. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Químicas; Argentina.Fil: Quiroga; Rodrigo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones en Físico-química de Córdoba; Argentina

Detection and Control of Indoor Airborne Pathogenic Bacteria by Biosensors Based on Quorum Sensing Chemical Language: Bio-Tools, Connectivity Apps and Intelligent Buildings

Nowadays, lifestyles and climate change lead people to spend long periods in indoors spaces, where reduced ventilation and artificial light favor the concentration and spread of airborne pathogenic microorganisms. Current procedures for microbiological air evaluation are based on air sampling coupled to traditional microbiological culture-dependent methods such as biochemical tests and molecular rDNA 16S sequencing. These techniques generate an important delay in the application of prevention and control measures. This chapter presents whole cell-based biosensors that are able to detect quorum sensing signaling molecules produced by airborne pathogenic bacteria as a tool for indoor air monitoring. Furthermore, a general biosensor model is proposed. In this model, in vivo biosensors technology can be connected to online applications (Apps), being part of intelligent buildings, in order to reduce airborne pathogenic bacteria concentration and dissemination