Cue Recognition and Integration - Eye Tracking Evidence of Processing Differences in Sentence Comprehension in Aphasia

PURPOSE: We aimed at further elucidating whether aphasic patients' difficulties in understanding non-canonical sentence structures, such as Passive or Object-Verb-Subject sentences, can be attributed to impaired morphosyntactic cue recognition, and to problems in integrating competing interpretations. METHODS: A sentence-picture matching task with canonical and non-canonical spoken sentences was performed using concurrent eye tracking. Accuracy, reaction time, and eye tracking data (fixations) of 50 healthy subjects and 12 aphasic patients were analysed. RESULTS: Patients showed increased error rates and reaction times, as well as delayed fixation preferences for target pictures in non-canonical sentences. Patients' fixation patterns differed from healthy controls and revealed deficits in recognizing and immediately integrating morphosyntactic cues. CONCLUSION: Our study corroborates the notion that difficulties in understanding syntactically complex sentences are attributable to a processing deficit encompassing delayed and therefore impaired recognition and integration of cues, as well as increased competition between interpretations.

SMARTDIAB: a communication and information technology approach for the intelligent monitoring, management and follow-up of type 1 diabetes patients

SMARTDIAB is a platform designed to support the monitoring, management, and treatment of patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM), by combining state-of-the-art approaches in the fields of database (DB) technologies, communications, simulation algorithms, and data mining. SMARTDIAB consists mainly of two units: 1) the patient unit (PU); and 2) the patient management unit (PMU), which communicate with each other for data exchange. The PMU can be accessed by the PU through the internet using devices, such as PCs/laptops with direct internet access or mobile phones via a Wi-Fi/General Packet Radio Service access network. The PU consists of an insulin pump for subcutaneous insulin infusion to the patient and a continuous glucose measurement system. The aforementioned devices running a user-friendly application gather patient's related information and transmit it to the PMU. The PMU consists of a diabetes data management system (DDMS), a decision support system (DSS) that provides risk assessment for long-term diabetes complications, and an insulin infusion advisory system (IIAS), which reside on a Web server. The DDMS can be accessed from both medical personnel and patients, with appropriate security access rights and front-end interfaces. The DDMS, apart from being used for data storage/retrieval, provides also advanced tools for the intelligent processing of the patient's data, supporting the physician in decision making, regarding the patient's treatment. The IIAS is used to close the loop between the insulin pump and the continuous glucose monitoring system, by providing the pump with the appropriate insulin infusion rate in order to keep the patient's glucose levels within predefined limits. The pilot version of the SMARTDIAB has already been implemented, while the platform's evaluation in clinical environment is being in progress.

Mutagenesis and computer modeling studies of a GPCR conserved residue W5.43(194) in ligand recognition and signal transduction for CB2 receptor

W5.43(194), a conserved tryptophan residue among G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) and cannabinoid receptors (CB), was examined in the present report for its significance in CB2 receptor ligand binding and adenylyl cyclase (AC) activity. Computer modeling postulates that this site in CB2 may be involved in the affinity of WIN55212-2 and SR144528 through aromatic contacts. In the present study, we reported that a CB2 receptor mutant, W5.43(194)Y, which had a tyrosine (Y) substitution for tryptophan (W), retained the binding affinity for CB agonist CP55940, but reduced binding affinity for CB2 agonist WIN55212-2 and inverse agonist SR144528 by 8-fold and 5-fold, respectively; the CB2 W5.43(194)F and W5.43(194)A mutations significantly affect the binding activities of CP55940, WIN55212-2 and SR144528. Furthermore, we found that agonist-mediated inhibition of the forskolin-induced cAMP production was dramatically diminished in the CB2 mutant W5.43(194)Y, whereas W5.43(194)F and W5.43(194)A mutants resulted in complete elimination of downstream signaling, suggesting that W5.43(194) was essential for the full activation of CB2. These results indicate that both aromatic interaction and hydrogen bonding are involved in ligand binding for the residue W5.43(194), and the mutations of this tryptophan site may affect the conformation of the ligand binding pocket and therefore control the active conformation of the wild type CB2 receptor. W5.43(194)Y/F/A mutations also displayed noticeable enhancement of the constitutive activation probably attributed to the receptor conformational changes resulted from the mutations.

Increased cytotoxic T-lymphocyte epitope variant cross-recognition and functional avidity are associated with hepatitis C virus clearance

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) clearance has been associated with reduced viral evolution in targeted cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) epitopes, suggesting that HCV clearers may mount CTL responses with a superior ability to recognize epitope variants and prevent viral immune escape. Here, 40 HCV-infected subjects were tested with 406 10-mer peptides covering the vast majority of the sequence diversity spanning a 197-residue region of the NS3 protein. HCV clearers mounted significantly broader CTL responses of higher functional avidity and with wider variant cross-recognition capacity than nonclearers. These observations have important implications for vaccine approaches that may need to induce high-avidity responses in vivo.

Interview and translation strategies: coping with multilingual settings and data

Central Eastern Europe, the research area this paper is concerned with, is a region characterized by a high diversity of languages and cultures. It is, at the same time, an area where political, cultural and social conflicts have emerged over time, nowadays especially in border zones, where people of different ethnic, cultural or linguistic background live. In this context, it is important for us researchers to get balanced interview data, and consequently we very often have to conduct interviews in several different languages and within changing cultural contexts. In order to avoid "communication problems" or even conflictual (interview) situations, which might damage the outcome of the research, we are thus challenged to find appropriate communication strategies for any of these situations. This is especially difficult when we are confronted with language or culture-specific terminology or taboo expressions that carry political meaning(s). Once the interview data is collected and it comes to translating and analysing it, we face further challenges and new questions arise. First of all, we have to decide what a good translation strategy would be. Many words and phrases that exist in one language do not have an exact equivalent in another. Therefore we have to find a solution for translating these expressions and concepts in a way that their meanings do not get "lost by translation". In this paper I discuss and provide insights to these challenges by presenting and discussing numerous examples from the region in question. Specifically, I focus on the deconstruction of the meaning of geographical names and politically loaded expressions in order to show the sensitivities of language, the difficulties of research in multilingual settings and with multilingual data as well as the strategies or "ways out" of certain dilemmas.

A communication and information technology infrastructure for real time monitoring and management of type 1 diabetes patients

This paper is focused on the integration of state-of-the-art technologies in the fields of telecommunications, simulation algorithms, and data mining in order to develop a Type 1 diabetes patient's semi to fully-automated monitoring and management system. The main components of the system are a glucose measurement device, an insulin delivery system (insulin injection or insulin pumps), a mobile phone for the GPRS network, and a PDA or laptop for the Internet. In the medical environment, appropriate infrastructure for storage, analysis and visualizing of patients' data has been implemented to facilitate treatment design by health care experts.