Identifications in BioPortals™

BioPortals are a ‘Google-like’ webportal solution tailored for national or thematic biological diversity information needs. This solution allows for an efficient route to retrieve information from heterogeneous biological information sources after identification with integrated identification systems. BioPortals can be used in combination with mobile devices and provide options to share biological observation data after identification in the field

Cortical alpha activity predicts the confidence in an impending action

When we make a decision, we experience a degree of confidence that our choice may lead to a desirable outcome. Recent studies in animals have probed the subjective aspects of the choice confidence using confidence-reporting tasks. These studies showed that estimates of the choice confidence substantially modulate neural activity in multiple regions of the brain. Building on these findings, we investigated the neural representation of the confidence in a choice in humans who explicitly reported the confidence in their choice. Subjects performed a perceptual decision task in which they decided between choosing a button press or a saccade while we recorded EEG activity. Following each choice, subjects indicated whether they were sure or unsure about the choice. We found that alpha activity strongly encodes a subject's confidence level in a forthcoming button press choice. The neural effect of the subjects' confidence was independent of the reaction time and independent of the sensory input modeled as a decision variable. Furthermore, the effect is not due to a general cognitive state, such as reward expectation, because the effect was specifically observed during button press choices and not during saccade choices. The neural effect of the confidence in the ensuing button press choice was strong enough that we could predict, from independent single trial neural signals, whether a subject was going to be sure or unsure of an ensuing button press choice. In sum, alpha activity in human cortex provides a window into the commitment to make a hand movement

Preliminary results using a P300 brain-computer interface speller: a possible interaction effect between presentation paradigm and set of stimuli

Fernández-Rodríguez Á., Medina-Juliá M.T., Velasco-Álvarez F., Ron-Angevin R. (2019) Preliminary Results Using a P300 Brain-Computer Interface Speller: A Possible Interaction Effect Between Presentation Paradigm and Set of Stimuli. In: Rojas I., Joya G., Catala A. (eds) Advances in Computational Intelligence. IWANN 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 11506. Springer, ChamSeveral proposals to improve the performance controlling a P300-based BCI speller have been studied using the standard row-column presentation (RCP) par-adigm. However, this paradigm could not be suitable for those patients with lack of gaze control. To solve that, the rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) para-digm, which presents the stimuli located in the same position, has been proposed in previous studies. Thus, the aim of the present work is to assess if a stimuli set of pictures that improves the performance in RCP, could also improve the per-formance in a RSVP paradigm. Six participants have controlled four conditions in a calibration task: letters in RCP, pictures in RCP, letters in RSVP and pictures in RSVP. The results showed that pictures in RCP obtained the best accuracy and information transfer rate. The improvement effect given by pictures was greater in the RCP paradigm than in RSVP. Therefore, the improvements reached under RCP may not be directly transferred to the RSVP.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Microenvironment generated during EGFR targeted killing of pancreatic tumor cells by ATC inhibits myeloid-derived suppressor cells through COX2 and PGE\u3csub\u3e2\u3c/sub\u3e dependent pathway

Abstract Background Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) are one of the major components of the immune-suppressive network, play key roles in tumor progression and limit therapeutic responses. Recently, we reported that tumor spheres formed by breast cancer cell lines were visibly smaller in a Th1 enriched microenvironment with significantly reduced differentiation of MDSC populations in 3D culture. In this study, we investigated the mechanism(s) of bispecific antibody armed ATC mediated inhibition of MDSC in the presence or absence of Th1 microenvironment. Methods We used 3D co-culture model of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) with pancreatic cancer cells MiaPaCa-2 [MiaE] and gemcitabine resistant MiaPaCa-GR [MiaM] cells to generate MDSC in the presence or absence of Th1 cytokines and EGFRBi armed ATC (aATC). Results We show significantly decreased differentiation of MDSC (MiaE, p\u3c0.005; MiaM, p\u3c0.05) in the presence of aATC with or without Th1 cytokines. MDSC recovered from control cultures (without aATC) showed potent ability to suppress T cell functions compared to those recovered from aATC containing co-cultures. Reduced accumulation of MDSC was accompanied by significantly lower levels of COX2 (p\u3c0.0048), PGE2 (p\u3c0.03), and their downstream effector molecule Arginase-1 (p\u3c0.01), and significantly higher levels of TNF-α, IL-12 and chemokines CCL3, CCL4, CCL5, CXCL9 and CXCL10 under aATC induced Th1 cytokine enriched microenvironment. Conclusions These data suggest aATC can suppress MDSC differentiation and attenuation of their suppressive activity through down regulation of COX2, PGE2 and ARG1 pathway that is potentiated in presence of Th1 cytokines, suggesting that Th1 enriching immunotherapy may be beneficial in pancreatic cancer treatment

Usability of volunteer brokerage websites:The why and how of user testing

Dutch volunteer centers offer online volunteer brokerage via their websites. Usability is a crucial factor for the success of this service. It determines whether or not visitors or potential volunteers stay on the website and a match can be made. In this article, user testing is applied to the websites of five volunteer centers. The results provide information on the usability of these specific websites. In addition, other volunteer centers are offered insight into the various problems of usability and a tool to test this

The development and validation of a five-factor model of Sources of Self-Efficacy in clinical nursing education

Background: The aim of this study is to validate a newly developed nurses' self-efficacy sources inventory. We test the validity of a five-dimensional model of sources of self-efficacy, which we contrast with the traditional four-dimensional model based on Bandura’s theoretical concepts.Methods: Confirmatory factor analysis was used in the development of the newly developed self-efficacy measure. Model fit was evaluated based upon commonly recommended goodness-of-fit indices, including the χ2 of the model fit, the Root Mean Square Error of approximation (RMSEA), the Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI), the Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR), and the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC).Results: All 22 items of the newly developed five-factor sources of self-efficacy have high factor loadings (range .40-.80). Structural equation modeling showed that a five-factor model is favoured over the four-factor model.Conclusions and implications: Results of this study show that differentiation of the vicarious experience source into a peer- and expert based source reflects better how nursing students develop self-efficacy beliefs. This has implications for clinical learning environments: a better and differentiated use of self-efficacy sources can stimulate the professional development of nursing students

Beautiful friendship: Social sharing of emotions improves subjective feelings and activates the neural reward circuitry

Humans have a strong tendency to affiliate with other people, especially in emotional situations. Here, we suggest that a critical mechanism underlying this tendency is that socially sharing emotional experiences is in itself perceived as hedonically positive and thereby contributes to the regulation of individual emotions. We investigated the effect of social sharing of emotions on subjective feelings and neural activity by having pairs of friends view emotional (negative and positive) and neutral pictures either alone or with the friend. While the two friends remained physically separated throughout the experiment—with one undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging and the other performing the task in an adjacent room—they were made aware on a trial-by-trial basis whether they were seeing pictures simultaneously with their friend (shared) or alone (unshared). Ratings of subjective feelings were improved significantly when participants viewed emotional pictures together than alone, an effect that was accompanied by activity increase in ventral striatum and medial orbitofrontal cortex, two important components of the reward circuitry. Because these effects occurred without any communication or interaction between the friends, they point to an important proximate explanation for the basic human motivation to affiliate with others, particularly in emotional situation

Regionale Wachstumseffekte der GRW-Förderung?: Eine räumlich-ökonometrische Analyse auf Basis deutscher Arbeitsmarktregionen

This paper provides an analysis of the impact of the German “Joint Task for the Improve-ment of Regional Economic Structures” (GRW) on labour productivity growth of 225 German labour market regions for the period 1994 to 2006. The empirical regression approach builds on a “Barro-type” growth equation, where a special focus is given to the policy instrument as additional right hand side regressor. The results show that for different model specifications the direct effect of the regional policy instrument on labour productivity growth remains statistically significant and positive for almost two thirds of the supported labour markets. In order to check for the robustness of the results we also augment the standard regression approach to the field of spatial econometrics. Here the results for the Spatial Lag model show that we observe a strong positive spatial spillover effect for productivity growth among neighbouring regions. If we additionally include further spatial lags of the right hand side regressors in the growth equation, the estimated coefficients for the resulting Spatial Durbin and Spatial Durbin Error model indicate that there is a negative spillover effect from the GRW policy on neighbouring regions. This effect remains stable, if we add further spatial lags of other explanatory variables. The indirect distorting effect of the GRW programme yields to the result that only for about 45% of supported regions a positive overall effect was found (with an initial income level up to 73% of the non-funded West German labour markets)