Genera of fungivorous Phlaeothripinae (Thysanoptera) from dead branches and leaf-litter in Australia

An illustrated key is provided for the identification of 39 genera of Thysanoptera-Phlaeothripinae with species that live in association with dead branches and leaf-litter in Australia and are considered to be fungus-feeding. Seven of these gen-era are not previously recorded from this continent, including un-named species of Deplorothrips, Malacothrips, Mystro-thrips, Preeriella and Tylothrips, together with Azaleothrips lepidus Okajima and Terthrothrips ananthakrishnani Kudo. A brief generic diagnosis is provided for each genus, together with comments on systematic problems and numbers of species. Copyright © 2013 Magnolia Press

Characterisation of the effects of salicylidene acylhydrazide compounds on type three secretion in Escherichia coli O157:H7

Recent work has highlighted a number of compounds that target bacterial virulence by affecting gene regulation. In this work, we show that small-molecule inhibitors affect the expression of the type III secretion system (T3SS) of <i>Escherichia coli</i> O157:H7 in liquid culture and when the bacteria are attached to bovine epithelial cells. The inhibition of T3SS expression resulted in a reduction in the capacity of the bacteria to form attaching and effacing lesions. Our results show a marked variation in the ability of four structurally-related compounds to inhibit the T3SS of a panel of isolates. Using transcriptomics, we provide a comprehensive analysis of the conserved- and inhibitor-specific transcriptional responses to the four compounds. These analyses of gene expression show that numerous virulence genes, located on horizontally-acquired DNA elements, are affected by the compounds but the number of genes significantly affected varied markedly between the compounds. Overall, we highlight the importance of assessing the effect of such "anti-virulence" agents on a range of isolates and discuss the possible mechanisms which may lead to the co-ordinate down-regulation of horizontally acquired virulence genes

Seasonal performance of air conditioners - an analysis of the DOE test procedures: the thermostat and measurement errors. Report No. 2

Two aspects of the DOE test procedures are analyzed. First, the role of the thermostat in controlling the cycling of conditioning equipment is investigated. The test procedures call for a cycling scheme of 6 minutes on, 24 minutes off for Test D. To justify this cycling scheme as being representative of cycling in the field, it is assumed that the thermostat is the major factor in controlling the cycle rate. This assumption is examined by studying a closed-loop feedback model consisting of a thermostat, a heating/cooling plant and a conditioned space. Important parameters of this model are individually studied to determine their influence on the system. It is found that the switch differential and the anticipator gain are the major parameters in controlling the cycle rate. This confirms the thermostat's dominant role in the cycling of a system. The second aspect of the test procedures concerns transient errors or differences in the measurement of cyclic capacity. In particular, errors due to thermocouple response, thermocouple grid placement, dampers and nonuniform velocity and temperature distributions are considered. Problems in these four areas are mathematically modeled and the basic assumptions are stated. Results from these models help to clarify the problem areas and give an indication of the magnitude of the errors involved. It is found that major disagreement in measured capacity can arise in these four areas and can be mainly attributed to test set-up differences even though such differences are allowable in the test procedures. An understanding of such differences will aid in minimizing many problems in the measurement of cyclic capacity

The genome sequence of the stone loach, Barbatula barbatula (Linnaeus, 1758)

We present a genome assembly from an individual female Barbatula barbatula (the stone loach; Chordata; Actinopteri; Cypriniformes; Nemacheilidae). The genome sequence is 617.6 megabases in span. Most of the assembly is scaffolded into 25 chromosomal pseudomolecules. The mitochondrial genome has also been assembled and is 16.64 kilobases in length

Reading and visual word recognition ability in semantic dementia is not predicted by semantic performance

This paper describes longitudinal testing of two Semantic Dementia (SD) cases. It is common for patients with SD to present with deficits in reading aloud irregular words (i.e. surface dyslexia), and in lexical decision. Theorists from the connectionist tradition (e.g. Woollams et al., 2007) argue that in SD cases with concurrent surface dyslexia, the deterioration of irregular word reading and recognition performance is related to the extent of the deterioration of the semantic system. The Dual Route Cascaded model (DRC; Coltheart et al., 2001) makes no such prediction. We examined this issue using a battery of cognitive tests and two structural scans undertaken at different points in each cases time course. Across both cases, our behavioural testing found little evidence of a key putative link between semantic impairment and the decline of irregular word reading or lexical decision. In addition, our neuroimaging analyses suggested that it may be the emergence of atrophy to key neural regions both inside and outside the anterior temporal lobes that may best capture the emergence of impairments of irregular word reading, and implicated inferior temporal cortex in surface dyslexia

Exploring the links between volunteering, health and inequalities – is this a public health issue?

Issue: Health 2020 envisions a critical role for civil society and volunteerism is an important facet of this. As well as the volunteer contribution to community health, volunteering is associated with intrinsic health benefits. This makes it a public health issue but little attention is given to the question of how volunteering intersects with health inequalities. Description of problem: This presentation reports on a UK project that is seeking to maximise the public health potential of volunteering and address barriers that result in unequal access. Because little is known about this issue beyond the variations that exist, the first stage was a rapid scoping review conducted in 2015-6. This involved reviewing key literature on health inequalities and volunteering across socio-economic status and the nine population groups protected by the UK Equality Act. Results: The scoping review identified 6,094 publications and after screening, 98 studies were reviewed; of these were 24 UK and 18 from elsewhere in Europe. Results confirmed that volunteering is associated with a social gradient, with disadvantaged groups less likely to volunteer. A web of factors were found to influence volunteering prevalence, however barriers varied between groups and across the lifecourse. The review also uncovered issues of stigma affecting people with disabilities. Lessons: The review provides a map of inequalities issues that affect volunteering, which given the focus of Europe 2020 will be of use to public health policy and practice. The next stage is to identify interventions that are able to widen participation and address social exclusion. Our conclusions are that volunteering should be recognised as a public health issue. More debate is needed on how public health systems can respond to the inequalities identified and enable those who face barriers to gain from the health and wellbeing benefits of volunteering. Main messages Volunteering needs to be considered as a public health issue, with more potential for addressing social exclusion and health inequalities Multiple factors influence inequalities in access to volunteering, with different population groups experiencing different barrier

Why Um Helps Auditory Word Recognition: The Temporal Delay Hypothesis

Several studies suggest that speech understanding can sometimes benefit from the presence of filled pauses (uh, um, and the like), and that words following such filled pauses are recognised more quickly. Three experiments examined whether this is because filled pauses serve to delay the onset of upcoming words and these delays facilitate auditory word recognition, or whether the fillers themselves serve to signal upcoming delays in a way which informs listeners' reactions. Participants viewed pairs of images on a computer screen, and followed recorded instructions to press buttons corresponding to either an easy (unmanipulated, with a high-frequency name) or a difficult (visually blurred, low-frequency) image. In all three experiments, participants were faster to respond to easy images. In 50% of trials in each experiment, the name of the image was directly preceded by a delay; in the remaining trials an equivalent delay was included earlier in the instruction. Participants were quicker to respond when a name was directly preceded by a delay, regardless of whether this delay was filled with a spoken um, was silent, or contained an artificial tone. This effect did not interact with the effect of image difficulty, nor did it change over the course of each experiment. Taken together, our consistent finding that delays of any kind help word recognition indicates that natural delays such as fillers need not be seen as ‘signals’ to explain the benefits they have to listeners' ability to recognise and respond to the words which follow them

A role for core planar polarity proteins in cell contact-mediated orientation of planar cell division across the mammalian embryonic skin

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. © The Author(s) 2017. Supplementary information accompanies this paper at doi:10.1038/s41598-017-01971-2.The question of how cell division orientation is determined is fundamentally important for understanding tissue and organ shape in both healthy or disease conditions. Here we provide evidence for cell contact-dependent orientation of planar cell division in the mammalian embryonic skin. We propose a model where the core planar polarity proteins Celsr1 and Frizzled-6 (Fz6) communicate the long axis orientation of interphase basal cells to neighbouring basal mitoses so that they align their horizontal division plane along the same axis. The underlying mechanism requires a direct, cell surface, planar polarised cue, which we posit depends upon variant post-translational forms of Celsr1 protein coupled to Fz6. Our hypothesis has parallels with contact-mediated division orientation in early C. elegans embryos suggesting functional conservation between the adhesion-GPCRs Celsr1 and Latrophilin-1. We propose that linking planar cell division plane with interphase neighbour long axis geometry reinforces axial bias in skin spreading around the mouse embryo body.Peer reviewe