MRI phenotyping of underlying cerebral small vessel disease in mixed hemorrhage patients

Objective: To investigate underlying cerebral small vessel disease (CSVD) in patients with mixed cerebral hemorrhages patterns and phenotype them according to the contribution of the two most common sporadic CSVD subtypes: cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) vs. hypertensive arteriopathy (HA). Methods: Brain MRIs of patients with intracerebral hemorrhages (ICHs) and/or cerebral microbleeds (CMBs) were assessed for the full spectrum of CSVD markers using validated scales: ICHs, CMBs, cortical superficial siderosis (cSS), white matter hyperintensities, MRI-visible perivascular spaces (PVS). PVS predominance pattern was grouped as centrum-semiovale (CSO)-PVS predominance, basal-ganglia (BG)-PVS predominance, CSO-PVS and BG-PVS equality. Patients with mixed cerebral hemorrhages were classified into mixed CAA-pattern or mixed HA-pattern according to the existence of cSS and/or a CSO-PVS predominance pattern and comparisons were performed. Results: We included 110 patients with CAA (strictly lobar ICHs/CMBs), 33 with HA (strictly deep ICHs/CMBs) and 97 with mixed lobar/deep ICHs/CMBs. Mixed patients were more similar to HA with respect to their MRI-CSVD markers, vascular risk profile and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) measures. In the mixed patients, 33 (34%) had cSS, a CSO-PVS predominance pattern, or both, and were defined as mixed CAA-pattern cases. The mixed CAA-pattern patients were more alike CAA patients regarding their MRI-CSVD markers, CSF and genetic profile. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that the heterogeneous group of patients with mixed cerebral hemorrhages distribution can be further phenotyped according to the predominant underlying CSVD. cSS presence and a CSO-PVS predominance pattern could serve as strongly suggestive markers of a contribution from CAA among patients with mixed hemorrhages

Self domestication and the evolution of language

We set out an account of how self-domestication plays a crucial role in the evolution of language. In doing so, we focus on the growing body of work that treats language structure as emerging from the process ofcultural transmission. We argue that a full recognition of the importance of cultural transmission fundamentally changes the kind ofquestionswe should be asking regarding the biological basis of language structure. If we think of language structure as reflecting an accumulated set of changes in our genome, then we might ask something like, "What are the genetic bases of language structure and why were they selected?" However, if cultural evolution can account for language structure, then this question no longer applies. Instead, we face the task of accounting for the origin of the traits that enabled that process of structure-creating cultural evolution to get started in the first place. In light of work on cultural evolution, then, the new question for biological evolution becomes, "How did those precursor traits evolve?" We identify two key precursor traits: (1) the transmission of the communication system throughlearning; and (2) the ability to infer thecommunicative intentassociated with a signal or action. We then describe two comparative case studies-the Bengalese finch and the domestic dog-in which parallel traits can be seen emerging followingdomestication. Finally, we turn to the role of domestication in human evolution. We argue that the cultural evolution of language structure has its origin in an earlier process of self-domestication.</p

Posture Does Not Matter! Paw Usage and Grasping Paw Preference in a Small-Bodied Rooting Quadrupedal Mammal

BACKGROUND: Recent results in birds, marsupials, rodents and nonhuman primates suggest that phylogeny and ecological factors such as body size, diet and postural habit of a species influence limb usage and the direction and strength of limb laterality. To examine to which extent these findings can be generalised to small-bodied rooting quadrupedal mammals, we studied trees shrews (Tupaia belangeri). METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We established a behavioural test battery for examining paw usage comparable to small-bodied primates and tested 36 Tupaia belangeri. We studied paw usage in a natural foraging situation (simple food grasping task) and measured the influence of varying postural demands (triped, biped, cling, sit) on paw preferences by applying a forced-food grasping task similar to other small-bodied primates. Our findings suggest that rooting tree shrews prefer mouth over paw usage to catch food in a natural foraging situation. Moreover, we demonstrated that despite differences in postural demand, tree shrews show a strong and consistent individual paw preference for grasping across different tasks, but no paw preference at a population level. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Tree shrews showed less paw usage than small-bodied quadrupedal and arboreal primates, but the same paw preference. Our results confirm that individual paw preferences remain constant irrespective of postural demand in some small-bodied quadrupedal non primate and primate mammals which do not require fine motoric control for manipulating food items. Our findings suggest that the lack of paw/hand preference for grasping food at a population level is a universal pattern among those species and that the influence of postural demand on manual lateralisation in quadrupeds may have evolved in large-bodied species specialised in fine manipulations of food items

Checkerboard Patterns, Interspecific Competition, and Extinction: Lessons from Distribution Patterns of Tarsiers (Tarsius) and Slow Lorises (Nycticebus) in Insular Southeast Asia

Tarsiers (Tarsius) and slow lorises (Nycticebus) are the only extant nocturnal primates occurring in Southeast Asia. Harcourt (1999) hypothesized that in insular Southeast Asia, slow lorises and tarsiers showed a checkerboard distribution on 12 small (<12,000 km2) islands, i.e., only one or the other occurs, and attributed this to extreme levels of competition between these 2 largely faunivorous primates. Further, he predicted slow lorises were able to persist on smaller islands than tarsiers. We re-evaluated these findings using an expanded dataset including 49 islands where tarsiers or slow lorises occur. Tarsiers and slow lorises live on islands of similar size (median size of ca. 300–900 km2), and both taxa inhabit an equal proportion of small, medium, and large islands. On small islands within their area of sympatry tarsiers occur on 1 island, slow lorises on 8, both genera on 3, and we can assume they have become extinct from 11 small islands since the Last Glacial Maximum. Sizes of islands where tarsiers or slow lorises have become extinct do not differ from islands where they are still extant. We show that slow lorises occur on more islands in insular Southeast Asia than perhaps previously assumed, but these islands are not smaller on average than islands where tarsiers occur. A checkerboard distribution between these taxa is not evident. More studies are needed at the macroecological level to assess the importance of biogeographic history in explaining their present-day distribution patterns

Access and allocation in earth system governance: Water and climate change compared

A significant percentage of the global population does not yet have access to safe drinking water, sufficient food or energy to live in dignity. There is a continuous struggle to allocate the earth's resources among users and uses. This article argues that distributional problems have two faces: access to basic resources or ecospace; and, the allocation of environmental resources, risks, burdens, and responsibilities for causing problems. Furthermore, addressing problems of access and allocation often requires access to social processes (science, movements and law). Analysts, however, have tended to take a narrow, disciplinary approach although an integrated conceptual approach may yield better answers. This article proposes a multi-disciplinary perspective to the problem of access and allocation and illustrates its application to water management and climate change. © The Author(s) 2010

Australian examples of residential integrated water cycle planning: accepted current practice and a suggested alternative

Australian examples of Integrated Water Cycle Planning (IWCP) for residential development demonstrate that providing multiple household-water connections is a generally accepted practice. These connections typically include a potable mains supply, a separate non-potable supply utilising reclaimed water and/or a household roofwater tank for non-potable uses. Stormwater is not fully exploited as a potential urban water source. The advent of national guidelines for using recycled water for drinking purposes is expected to simplify IWCP towards a single-line household-water supply reclaimed from a range of different sources. An IWCP approach is suggested in this paper based on a single household supply complemented by: 1) potential separation of blackwater to reduce human health risk and to enhance community acceptance of recycled water, 2) the use of water sensitive urban design requirements of storing and slowly releasing urban stormwater, and 3) taking advantage of economies of scale by integrating communal roofwater tanks into the urban stormwater system

Fundamental Shifts in Turkey's water policy

Since the middle of the last century, Turkey's water policy has undergone continuous reforms, with significant changes being made especially in the past three decades. Three mutually reinforcing trends can be identified since the early 1980s: decentralization, privatization and Europeanization. On the whole, Turkey's water policy has been transformed from being an entirely centralized public policy to one with decentralized elements, with strong private sector participation and a still rather weak integration of environmental issues into its water policies and management