Genetic structure of the high dispersal Atlanto-Mediterreanean sea star Astropecten aranciacus revealed by mitochondrial DNA sequences and microsatellite loci

To investigate the impact of potential marine barriers on gene-flow in high dispersal marine invertebrates, we assessed the population genetic structure of the sea star Astropecten aranciacus. Samples were obtained from nine locations within the Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea including populations east of the Siculo-Tunisian Strait. We obtained both DNA sequence data of the mitochondrial control region and genotype data at four microsatellite loci. Both markers were highly polymorphic and showed a great level of genetic diversity. Genetic differentiation between populations (F ST) was in general low, particularly for nuclear data, as is often the case in high dispersal marine invertebrates. Nevertheless, both marker sets indicated a significant genetic differentiation of the population from the island of Madeira to most other populations. Our results also demonstrate a clear pattern of isolation-by-distance supported by both mitochondrial and nuclear markers. Therefore, we conclude that larval dispersal of A. aranciacus is somewhat limited even within the basins of the Atlantic, the west Mediterranean and the east Mediterranean. Microsatellite loci further revealed genetic differentiation between the three basins; however, it is not clear whether this is truly caused by marine barriers. Genetic differentiation between basins might also be a result of isolation-by-distance allowing for any grouping to be significant as long as geographical neighbors are clustered together. Although levels of genetic differentiation were less pronounced in microsatellite data, both datasets were coherent and revealed similar patterns of genetic structure in A. aranciacu

Continuing Educational Needs and Preferences for Swiss Registered Dietitians: Lessons Learned.

Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH) in Switzerland offers continuing educational programs for registered dietitians. In order to initialize effective changes to maximize attendance, the promotors and barriers influencing the participation of Swiss registered dietitians to continuing education classes were identified. A survey was conducted from December 2013 to January 2014 and sent to 630 registered members of the Swiss Association of Registered Dietitians (SVDE). The questionnaire was developed on the web-based software Survey Monkey® and included 37 open- and closed-ended questions. Evaluation questions were based on a four-point Likert scale and space for individual comments was ensured. Data analysis included descriptive statistics and chi-squared tests. The final sample included 202 dietitians, the majority being female (96%), between 25 and 54 years old (90%) and 45% worked in clinical settings. Almost 70% had participated in a BFH continuing education course. Respondents were overall very satisfied with parameters including course registration, organisation, content, professional competence of teachers, and practical relevance. Preferred course format were short courses (1-2 days). The lecturer’s limited practical experience, no interest to the subject matter, and no cost coverage by employer were mentioned as the main barriers for attending courses. Based on lessons learned from this evaluation, the following aspects should be considered in order to secure the attractiveness of such programs: Favouring shorter more intensive courses and having them taught by lecturers with a strong practical experience, and hence with more insightful approach. Topics should be established based on the audience’s expectations and needs, possibly through an inquiry among professional societies. In addition, overlapping fields as for example nutritional psychology, gerontology, and transdisciplinary approaches could be further included to broaden the dietitians’ perspectives and encourage a more holistic approach. Finally, the registration process and quality of teaching environment should be seamless, in order to avoid negative influences on the course. Keywords Continuing education; Dietetics; Nutritionists; Needs assessmen

Differential Ganciclovir-Mediated Cytotoxicity and Bystander Killing in Human Colon Carcinoma Cell Lines Expressing Herpes Simplex Virus Thymidine Kinase

Overview summary The transfer of HSV-TK into tumor cells and the subsequent sensitization to GCV have resulted in successful antitumor effects both in vitro and in vivo for a variety of cancers. This study focuses on evaluating and comparing two colon carcinoma cell lines for their ability to metabolize GCV and transfer phosphorylated metabolites to neighboring non-HSV-TK-expressing cells (bystander effect). Here we demonstrate differences in HSV-TK expression, GCV triphosphate accumulation, and incorporation into DNA and their effect on cytotoxicity. We also provide evidence of the transfer of phosphorylated GCV to bystander cells in a cell line deficient in gap junctional intercellular communication.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/63405/1/hum.1998.9.6-801.pd

Automatic medical encoding with SNOMED categories

BACKGROUND: In this paper, we describe the design and preliminary evaluation of a new type of tools to speed up the encoding of episodes of care using the SNOMED CT terminology. METHODS: The proposed system can be used either as a search tool to browse the terminology or as a categorization tool to support automatic annotation of textual contents with SNOMED concepts. The general strategy is similar for both tools and is based on the fusion of two complementary retrieval strategies with thesaural resources. The first classification module uses a traditional vector-space retrieval engine which has been fine-tuned for the task, while the second classifier is based on regular variations of the term list. For evaluating the system, we use a sample of MEDLINE. SNOMED CT categories have been restricted to Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) using the SNOMED-MeSH mapping provided by the UMLS (version 2006). RESULTS: Consistent with previous investigations applied on biomedical terminologies, our results show that performances of the hybrid system are significantly improved as compared to each single module. For top returned concepts, a precision at high ranks (P0) of more than 80% is observed. In addition, a manual and qualitative evaluation on a dozen of MEDLINE abstracts suggests that SNOMED CT could represent an improvement compared to existing medical terminologies such as MeSH. CONCLUSION: Although the precision of the SNOMED categorizer seems sufficient to help professional encoders, it is concluded that clinical benchmarks as well as usability studies are needed to assess the impact of our SNOMED encoding method in real settings. AVAILABILITIES : The system is available for research purposes on: http://eagl.unige.ch/SNOCat

Fundamental limitations for quantum and nano thermodynamics

The relationship between thermodynamics and statistical physics is valid in the thermodynamic limit - when the number of particles becomes very large. Here, we study thermodynamics in the opposite regime - at both the nano scale, and when quantum effects become important. Applying results from quantum information theory we construct a theory of thermodynamics in these limits. We derive general criteria for thermodynamical state transformations, and as special cases, find two free energies: one that quantifies the deterministically extractable work from a small system in contact with a heat bath, and the other that quantifies the reverse process. We find that there are fundamental limitations on work extraction from nonequilibrium states, owing to finite size effects and quantum coherences. This implies that thermodynamical transitions are generically irreversible at this scale. As one application of these methods, we analyse the efficiency of small heat engines and find that they are irreversible during the adiabatic stages of the cycle.Comment: Final, published versio

Convergence and Psychometric Properties of Character Strengths Measures: The VIA-IS and the VIA-IS-R.

This study compares the German versions of the original measure of character strengths (VIA-IS) with its latest revision (VIA-IS-R) regarding reliability and convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity. A sample of 499 German-speaking adults (79% women, mean age: 33.3 years) provided self-reports of character strengths (VIA-IS, VIA-IS-R) and several criteria: Core virtues, thriving, and moral behaviors. Results suggested that both measures showed satisfactory internal consistency and converged well in a multitrait-multimethod analysis. Further, both measures were comparable regarding their relationships with the criteria. Overall, the results of the current study suggest that both questionnaires are reliable and valid, and that findings based on these instruments can be considered highly comparable

Is This a Joke? Detecting Humor in Spanish Tweets

While humor has been historically studied from a psychological, cognitive and linguistic standpoint, its study from a computational perspective is an area yet to be explored in Computational Linguistics. There exist some previous works, but a characterization of humor that allows its automatic recognition and generation is far from being specified. In this work we build a crowdsourced corpus of labeled tweets, annotated according to its humor value, letting the annotators subjectively decide which are humorous. A humor classifier for Spanish tweets is assembled based on supervised learning, reaching a precision of 84% and a recall of 69%.Comment: Preprint version, without referra

The German version of the Humor Styles Questionnaire: Psychometric properties and overlap with other styles of humor

The Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ; Martin et al., 2003) is one of the most frequently used questionnaires in humor research and has been adapted to several languages. The HSQ measures four humor styles (affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating), which should be adaptive or potentially maladaptive to psychosocial well-being. The present study analyzes the internal consistency, factorial validity, and factorial invariance of the HSQ on the basis of several German-speaking samples combined (total N = 1,101). Separate analyses were conducted for gender (male/female), age groups (16–24, 25–35, &gt;36 years old), and countries (Germany/Switzerland). Internal consistencies were good for the overall sample and the demographic subgroups (.80–.89), with lower values obtained for the aggressive scale (.66–.73). Principal components and confirmatory factor analyses mostly supported the four-factor structure of the HSQ. Weak factorial invariance was found across gender and age groups, while strong factorial invariance was supported across countries. Two subsamples also provided self-ratings on ten styles of humorous conduct (n = 344) and of eight comic styles (n = 285). The four HSQ scales showed small to large correlations to the styles of humorous conduct (-.54 to .65) and small to medium correlations to the comic styles (-.27 to .42). The HSQ shared on average 27.5–35.0% of the variance with the styles of humorous conduct and 13.0–15.0% of the variance with the comic styles. Thus–despite similar labels–these styles of humorous conduct and comic styles differed from the HSQ humor styles.</p

An examination of the convergence between the conceptualization and the measurement of humor styles: A study of the construct validity of the Humor Styles Questionnaire

AbstractThe Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ;</jats:p