Facilitation of vertical vergence by horizontal saccades, found in a patient with dissociated vertical deviation.

Abstract The authors examined vertical vergence in a Is-year-old girl with dissociated vertical deviation, a 60 convergent strabismus, no binocular vision, latent nystagmus, and a minimal left amblyopia. Eye movements were recorded during 4s-periods of (1) both eyes open, alternated with 4speriods of (2a) right eye covered, (2b) left eye covered or (2C) both eyes closed. The patient preferred fixation with the right eye; when this eye was covered, the left eye took over fixation with an almost completely monocular, downward saccade (a horizontal saccade occurred at the same time). The right eye only made a very small saccade, and then started to drift upward with an exponentially decreasing velocity. Enright has shown that fast convergence or divergence may occur when a horizontal saccade is performed at the same time. Similarly, the authors suspected that, in their patient, vertical vergence was facilitated by the horizontal saccade that resulted, in this case of horizontal strabismus, from alternation of fixation. To examine whether this was the case, they compensated for the horizontal strabismus by placing a 30 prism-dioptre base-out prism in front of the left eye (the patient had no binocular vision). With the prism in place, the horizontal saccade that occurred when the right eye was covered was smaller, and only little vertical vergence occurred together with the horizontal saccade. It seems possible that vertical vergence is also facilitated by horizontal saccades

Landschapsbedrijven als middel tot opheffing van onontwikkelde streken in Nederlandsch-Indie

The study was of the island of Japen north of Western New Guinea, a wild and undeveloped part of the East Indies.The island had vast forests; in the past some attempts to develop forestry and agriculture failed.The author suggested exploitation of forest by-product copal, obtained by tapping Agathis, a coniferous tree. The natives were already familiar with the tapping of this tree in a very primitive way but organisation had failed. The author suggested growing artificial plantations of Agathis. Transport costs for the Agathis timber seemed too high.Government supervision, organisation and financial support were needed

Optimization of deep learning precipitation models using categorical binary metrics

This work introduces a methodology for optimizing neural network models using a combination of continuous and categorical binary indices in the context of precipitation forecasting. Probability of detection or false alarm rate are popular metrics used in the verification of precipitation models. However, machine learning models trained using gradient descent cannot be optimized based on these metrics, as they are not differentiable. We propose an alternative formulation for these categorical indices that are differentiable and we demonstrate how they can be used to optimize the skill of precipitation neural network models defined as a multi-objective optimization problem. To our knowledge, this is the first proposal of a methodology for optimizing weather neural network models based on categorical indices.TIN2016-78365-

Liposomal Antioxidants for Protection against Oxidant-Induced Damage

Reactive oxygen species (ROS), including superoxide anion, hydrogen peroxide, and hydroxyl radical, can be formed as normal products of aerobic metabolism and can be produced at elevated rates under pathophysiological conditions. Overproduction and/or insufficient removal of ROS result in significant damage to cell structure and functions. In vitro studies showed that antioxidants, when applied directly and at relatively high concentrations to cellular systems, are effective in conferring protection against the damaging actions of ROS, but results from animal and human studies showed that several antioxidants provide only modest benefit and even possible harm. Antioxidants have yet to be rendered into reliable and safe therapies because of their poor solubility, inability to cross membrane barriers, extensive first-pass metabolism, and rapid clearance from cells. There is considerable interest towards the development of drug-delivery systems that would result in the selective delivery of antioxidants to tissues in sufficient concentrations to ameliorate oxidant-induced tissue injuries. Liposomes are biocompatible, biodegradable, and nontoxic artificial phospholipid vesicles that offer the possibility of carrying hydrophilic, hydrophobic, and amphiphilic molecules. This paper focus on the use of liposomes for the delivery of antioxidants in the prevention or treatment of pathological conditions related to oxidative stress

Impact of salinity on element incorporation in two benthic foraminiferal species with contrasting magnesium contents

Accurate reconstructions of seawater salinity could provide valuable constraints for studying past ocean circulation, the hydrological cycle and sea level change. Controlled growth experiments and field studies have shown the potential of foraminiferal Na ∕ Ca as a direct salinity proxy. Incorporation of minor and trace elements in foraminiferal shell carbonate varies, however, greatly between species and hence extrapolating calibrations to other species needs validation by additional (culturing) studies. Salinity is also known to impact other foraminiferal carbonate-based proxies, such as Mg ∕ Ca for temperature and Sr ∕ Ca for sea water carbonate chemistry. Better constraints on the role of salinity on these proxies will therefore improve their reliability. Using a controlled growth experiment spanning a salinity range of 20 units and analysis of element composition on single chambers using laser ablation-Q-ICP-MS, we show here that Na ∕ Ca correlates positively with salinity in two benthic foraminiferal species (<i>Ammonia tepida</i> and <i>Amphistegina lessonii</i>). The Na ∕ Ca values differ between the two species, with an approximately 2-fold higher Na ∕ Ca in <i>A. lessonii</i> than in <i>A. tepida</i>, coinciding with an offset in their Mg content ( ∼  35 mmol molM<super>−2</super> versus  ∼  2.5 mmol mol−<super>1</super> for <i>A. lessonii</i> and <i>A. tepida</i>, respectively). Despite the offset in average Na ∕ Ca values, the slopes of the Na ∕ Ca–salinity regressions are similar between these two species (0.077 versus 0.064 mmol mol<super>−1</super> change per salinity unit). In addition, Mg ∕ Ca and Sr ∕ Ca are positively correlated with salinity in cultured <i>A. tepida</i> but show no correlation with salinity for <i>A. lessonii</i>. Electron microprobe mapping of incorporated Na and Mg of the cultured specimens shows that within chamber walls of <i>A. lessonii</i>, Na ∕ Ca and Mg ∕ Ca occur in elevated bands in close proximity to the primary organic lining. Between species, Mg banding is relatively similar, even though Mg content is 10 times lower and that variation within the chamber wall is much less pronounced in <i>A. tepida</i>. In addition, Na banding is much less prominent in this species than it is in <i>A. lessonii</i>. Inter-species differences in element banding reported here are hypothesized to be caused by differences in biomineralization controls responsible for element uptake

De invloed van informatie over risico's, voordelen en bestaande attitudes op post-attitudes ten opzichte van voedselproductiemethodes

Het effect van eenzijdige versus tweezijdige informatievoorziening en bestaande attitudes op post-attitudes is onderzocht. Met name is gekeken naar de mogelijke asymmetrische invloed van positieve en negatieve informatie op post-attitudes. Daarnaast is gekeken hoe bestaande attitudes dit effect beïnvloeden. Eenzijdige informatie beïnvloedde attitudeformatie in de richting van de informatie. In tegenstelling tot de verwachting had negatieve informatie in een tweezijdige boodschap geen dominant effect op attitudeformatie. Het effect van tweezijdige informatie was afhankelijk van bestaande attitudes wanneer de informatie verschillende domeinen betrof (gezondheid en milieu), maar had geen effect wanneer de informatie eenzelfde domein betrof

Differential and sex- and age-specific risks of cardiometabolic diseases with unrelated metabolic syndrome dimensions

ObjectiveThis study aimed to investigate whether independent dimensions of metabolic syndrome (MetS) components are associated differentially with incident cardiometabolic diseases. MethodsPrincipal components analysis was performed using the five MetS components from 153,073 unrelated European-ancestry participants (55% women) from the UK Biobank. The associations of the principal components (PCs) with incident type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D), coronary artery disease (CAD), and (ischemic) stroke were analyzed using multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazards models in groups stratified by sex and baseline age. ResultsPC1 (40.5% explained variance; increased waist circumference with dyslipidemia) and PC2 (22.7% explained variance; hyperglycemia) were both associated with incident cardiometabolic disease. Hazard ratios (HR [95% CI]) for CAD and T2D were higher for PC1 than for PC2 (1.27 [95% CI: 1.25-1.29] vs. 1.06 [95% CI: 1.03-1.08] and 2.09 [95% CI: 2.03-2.16] vs. 1.39 [95% CI: 1.34-1.44], respectively). Furthermore, the association of PC1 with T2D was slightly higher for women than for men, and especially the HRs of PC1 with CAD and T2D attenuated with increasing age (p values for heterogeneity test among subgroups < 0.05). ConclusionsMetS can be dissected into two distinct presentations characterized by differential sex- and age-associated cardiometabolic disease risk, confirming the loss of information using the dichotomous MetS.Metabolic health: pathophysiological trajectories and therap

Lamivudine plasma levels in chronic hepatitis B patients

Lamivudine has recently been registered for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B patients. The main therapeutic outcome in the studies on which the registration was based was a drop of HBV DNA below 10(7) genome equivalents/ml, the level of detection of the insensitive Abbott Genostics assay. However, as we have reported previously, with the use of sensitive PCR-based assays, individual differences in virological response to lamivudine can be detected. As a first step in analysing the chain of events after oral intake of lamivudine we modified and validated a high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) method to evaluate lamivudine plasma levels. Lamivudine levels in chronic hepatitis B patients who participated in a study on the efficacy of lamivudine were comparable to our reference curve, which was derived from eight chronic hepatitis B patients. From the reference curve, a mean area under the curve (AUC) of 4994 mcg/l.h (SD 1524), a mean t(max) of 42 minutes (SD 11), and a mean C(max) of 1.9 mg/l (SD 0.70) were calculated. Lamivudine exerts its action as the active triphosphate inside the hepatocyte after extensive handling. Therefore, additional steps in the pharmacokinetic process should be evaluated to explore the potential mechanisms that are responsible for the diversity in quantitative HBV DNA response to lamivudine