Will climate change increase the risk of plant invasions into mountains?

Mountain ecosystems have been less adversely affected by invasions of non-native plants than most other ecosystems, partially because most invasive plants in the lowlands are limited by climate and cannot grow under harsher high-elevation conditions. However, with ongoing climate change, invasive species may rapidly move upwards and threaten mid-, and then high-elevation mountain ecosystems. We evaluated this threat by modeling the current and future habitat suitability for 48 invasive plant species in Switzerland and New South Wales, Australia. Both regions had contrasting climate interactions with elevation, resulting in possible different responses of species distributions to climate change. Using a species distribution modeling approach that combines data from two spatial scales, we built high-resolution species distribution models (≤ 250 m) that account for the global climatic niche of species and also finer variables depicting local climate and disturbances. We found that different environmental drivers limit the elevation range of invasive species in each of the two regions, leading to region-specific species responses to climate change. The optimal suitability for plant invaders is predicted to markedly shift from the lowland to the montane or subalpine zone in Switzerland, whereas the upward shift is far less pronounced in New South Wales where montane and subalpine elevations are already suitable. The results suggest that species most likely to invade high elevations in Switzerland will be cold-tolerant, whereas species with an affinity to moist soils are most likely to invade higher elevations in Australia. Other plant traits were only marginally associated with elevation limits. These results demonstrate that a more systematic consideration of future distributions of invasive species is required in conservation plans of not yet invaded mountainous ecosystems

MOCCA College: An assessment of inferential narrative and expository comprehension

[ES] MOCCA-C is an assessment of adult reading ability designed for early diagnosis of reading problems, for formative assessment in reading intervention planning, for assessment of reading improvement over time, and for assessment of reading intervention outcomes. It uses both narrative and expository reading passages and it currently has four forms. Two goals of this research were to compare narrative and expository passages on (a) their difficulty and (b) their ability to discriminate between good and poor readers. An additional goal was to assess whether narrative and expository passages measure the same or different comprehension dimensions. A final goal was to assess the reliability of forms. We randomly assigned students to forms with between 274 – 279 college students per form. Across the several forms, results suggest that narrative passages are easier and better discriminate between good and poor readers. However, both narrative and expository passages measure a single dimension of ability. MOCCA-C scores are reliable. Implications for research and practice are discussed.Davison, ML.; Seipel, B.; Clinton, V.; Carlson, S.; Kennedy, P.; Kennedy, PC. (2020). MOCCA College: An assessment of inferential narrative and expository comprehension. En 6th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'20). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. (30-05-2020):417-425. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAd20.2020.11081OCS41742530-05-202

The DLV System for Knowledge Representation and Reasoning

This paper presents the DLV system, which is widely considered the state-of-the-art implementation of disjunctive logic programming, and addresses several aspects. As for problem solving, we provide a formal definition of its kernel language, function-free disjunctive logic programs (also known as disjunctive datalog), extended by weak constraints, which are a powerful tool to express optimization problems. We then illustrate the usage of DLV as a tool for knowledge representation and reasoning, describing a new declarative programming methodology which allows one to encode complex problems (up to $\Delta^P_3$-complete problems) in a declarative fashion. On the foundational side, we provide a detailed analysis of the computational complexity of the language of DLV, and by deriving new complexity results we chart a complete picture of the complexity of this language and important fragments thereof. Furthermore, we illustrate the general architecture of the DLV system which has been influenced by these results. As for applications, we overview application front-ends which have been developed on top of DLV to solve specific knowledge representation tasks, and we briefly describe the main international projects investigating the potential of the system for industrial exploitation. Finally, we report about thorough experimentation and benchmarking, which has been carried out to assess the efficiency of the system. The experimental results confirm the solidity of DLV and highlight its potential for emerging application areas like knowledge management and information integration.Comment: 56 pages, 9 figures, 6 table

Vergleich von Lisinopril und Captopril zur Behandlung der schweren Herzinsuffizienz (NYHA III-IV) bei Hochrisikopatienten. Vorläufige Studienergebnisse (=Comparison of lisinopril and captopril in treatment of severe heart failure (NYHA III-IV) in high risk patients. Preliminary results of the trial)

We present preliminary data of a study comparing captopril, a short acting, with lisinopril, a long acting ACE-inhibitor in 8 of 12 projected patients with severe chronic heart failure (NYHA III-IV) and one additional risk factor (e.g. diabetes mellitus, renal failure). The 8 patients were treated in a cross over design for 12 weeks with either drug. While lisinopril improved NYHA-class in all patients, captopril reached this goal in only 3. Renal function was stable in all patients. Captopril influenced hormones (renin, aldosterone, norepinephrine, epinephrine) and microalbuminuria less than lisinopril. The number of adverse reactions was smaller in lisinopril treated patients. These preliminary data demonstrate at least an equal efficacy of lisinopril compared to captopril in high risk patients with severe chronic heart failure

Cocaine Increases Dopamine Release by Mobilization of a Synapsin-Dependent Reserve Pool

Cocaine primarily exerts its behavioral effects by enhancing dopaminergic neurotransmission, amplifying dopamine-encoded sensorimotor integration. The presumed mechanism for this effect is inhibition of the dopamine transporter, which blocks dopamine uptake and prolongs the duration of dopamine in the extracellular space. However, there is growing evidence that cocaine can also augment dopamine release. Here, we directly monitored the actions of cocaine on dopamine release by using electrochemical detection to measure extracellular dopamine in the striatum of anesthetized mice. Cocaine enhanced the levels of striatal dopamine produced by electrical stimulation of dopaminergic neurons. Even after pretreatment with alpha-methyl-p-tyrosine, which depletes the readily releasable pool of dopamine, cocaine was still capable of elevating dopamine levels. This suggests that cocaine enhances dopamine release by mobilizing a reserve pool of dopamine-containing synaptic vesicles. To test this hypothesis, we examined electrically evoked dopamine release in synapsin I/II/III triple knock-out mice, which have impaired synaptic vesicle reserve pools. Knock-out of synapsins greatly reduced the ability of cocaine to enhance dopamine release with long stimulus trains or after depletion of the newly synthesized pool. We therefore conclude that cocaine enhances dopamine release and does so by mobilizing a synapsin-dependent reserve pool of dopamine-containing synaptic vesicles. This capacity to enhance exocytotic release of dopamine may be important for the psychostimulant actions of cocaine

Transphyletic conservation of developmental regulatory state in animal evolution

Specific regulatory states, i.e., sets of expressed transcription factors, define the gene expression capabilities of cells in animal development. Here we explore the functional significance of an unprecedented example of regulatory state conservation from the cnidarian Nematostella to Drosophila, sea urchin, fish, and mammals. Our probe is a deeply conserved cis-regulatory DNA module of the SRY-box B2 (soxB2), recognizable at the sequence level across many phyla. Transphyletic cis-regulatory DNA transfer experiments reveal that the plesiomorphic control function of this module may have been to respond to a regulatory state associated with neuronal differentiation. By introducing expression constructs driven by this module from any phyletic source into the genomes of diverse developing animals, we discover that the regulatory state to which it responds is used at different levels of the neurogenic developmental process, including patterning and development of the vertebrate forebrain and neurogenesis in the Drosophila optic lobe and brain. The regulatory state recognized by the conserved DNA sequence may have been redeployed to different levels of the developmental regulatory program during evolution of complex central nervous systems

The HLH-6 Transcription Factor Regulates C. elegans Pharyngeal Gland Development and Function

The Caenorhabditis elegans pharynx (or foregut) functions as a pump that draws in food (bacteria) from the environment. While the “organ identity factor” PHA-4 is critical for formation of the C. elegans pharynx as a whole, little is known about the specification of distinct cell types within the pharynx. Here, we use a combination of bioinformatics, molecular biology, and genetics to identify a helix-loop-helix transcription factor (HLH-6) as a critical regulator of pharyngeal gland development. HLH-6 is required for expression of a number of gland-specific genes, acting through a discrete cis-regulatory element named PGM1 (Pharyngeal Gland Motif 1). hlh-6 mutants exhibit a frequent loss of a subset of glands, while the remaining glands have impaired activity, indicating a role for hlh-6 in both gland development and function. Interestingly, hlh-6 mutants are also feeding defective, ascribing a biological function for the glands. Pharyngeal pumping in hlh-6 mutants is normal, but hlh-6 mutants lack expression of a class of mucin-related proteins that are normally secreted by pharyngeal glands and line the pharyngeal cuticle. An interesting possibility is that one function of pharyngeal glands is to secrete a pharyngeal lining that ensures efficient transport of food along the pharyngeal lumen