Imaging emotional brain functions: conceptual and methodological issues

This article reviews the psychophysiological and brain imaging literature on emotional brain function from a methodological point of view. The difficulties in defining, operationalising and measuring emotional activation and, in particular, aversive learning will be considered. Emotion is a response of the organism during an episode of major significance and involves physiological activation, motivational, perceptual, evaluative and learning processes, motor expression, action tendencies and monitoring/subjective feelings. Despite the advances in assessing the physiological correlates of emotional perception and learning processes, a critical appraisal shows that functional neuroimaging approaches encounter methodological difficulties regarding measurement precision (e.g., response scaling and reproducibility) and validity (e.g., response specificity, generalisation to other paradigms, subjects or settings). Since emotional processes are not only the result of localised but also of widely distributed activation, a more representative model of assessment is needed that systematically relates the hierarchy of high- and low-level emotion constructs with the corresponding patterns of activity and functional connectivity of the brain.

Angiopoietin-1 induces sprouting angiogenesis in vitro

Sprouting of new capillaries from pre-existing blood vessels is a hallmark of angiogenesis during embryonic development and solid tumor growth [1]. In addition to the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and its receptors, the Tie receptors and their newly identified ligands, the angiopoietins, have been implicated in the control of blood vessel formation [2,3]. Although 'knockouts' of the gene encoding the Tie2 receptor, or its activating ligand angiopoietin-1 (Ang1), result in embryonic lethality in mice due to an absence of remodeling and sprouting of blood vessels [4,5], biological activity in vitro has not yet been described for this receptor-ligand system. In an assay in which a monolayer of endothelial cells were cultured on microcarrier beads and embedded in three-dimensional fibrin gels, recombinant Ang1 (0.5-10 nM) induced the formation of capillary sprouts in a dose-dependent manner that was completely inhibited by soluble Tie2 receptor extracellular domains. In contrast with VEGF, which also induced sprouting of capillaries, Ang1 was only very weakly mitogenic for endothelial cells. Suboptimal concentrations of VEGF and Ang1 acted synergistically to induce sprout formation. Thus, the biological activity of Ang1 in vitro is consistent with the specific phenotype of mice deficient in Tie2 or Ang1. The data suggest that, like in other developmental systems, blood vessel formation requires a hierarchy of master-control genes in which VEGF and angiopoietins, along with their receptors, are amongst the most important regulators.

Applied Graph Theory in Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition

This book will serve as a foundation for a variety of useful applications of graph theory to computer vision, pattern recognition, and related areas. It covers a representative set of novel graph-theoretic methods for complex computer vision and pattern recognition tasks. The first part of the book presents the application of graph theory to low-level processing of digital images such as a new method for partitioning a given image into a hierarchy of homogeneous areas using graph pyramids, or a study of the relationship between graph theory and digital topology. Part II presents graph-theoretic learning algorithms for high-level computer vision and pattern recognition applications, including a survey of graph based methodologies for pattern recognition and computer vision, a presentation of a series of computationally efficient algorithms for testing graph isomorphism and related graph matching tasks in pattern recognition and a new graph distance measure to be used for solving graph matching problems. Finally, Part III provides detailed descriptions of several applications of graph-based methods to real-world pattern recognition tasks. It includes a critical review of the main graph-based and structural methods for fingerprint classification, a new method to visualize time series of graphs, and potential applications in computer network monitoring and abnormal event detection.

Towards a Hybrid Method to Categorize Interruptions and Activities in Healthcare

Objective Interruptions are known to have a negative impact on activity performance. Understanding how an interruption contributes to human error is limited because there is not a standard method for analyzing and classifying interruptions. Qualitative data are typically analyzed by either a deductive or an inductive method. Both methods have limitations. In this paper a hybrid method was developed that integrates deductive and inductive methods for the categorization of activities and interruptions recorded during an ethnographic study of physicians and registered nurses in a Level One Trauma Center. Understanding the effects of interruptions is important for designing and evaluating informatics tools in particular and for improving healthcare quality and patient safety in general. Method The hybrid method was developed using a deductive a priori classification framework with the provision of adding new categories discovered inductively in the data. The inductive process utilized line-by-line coding and constant comparison as stated in Grounded Theory. Results The categories of activities and interruptions were organized into a three-tiered hierarchy of activity. Validity and reliability of the categories were tested by categorizing a medical error case external to the study. No new categories of interruptions were identified during analysis of the medical error case. Conclusions Findings from this study provide evidence that the hybrid model of categorization is more complete than either a deductive or an inductive method alone. The hybrid method developed in this study provides the methodical support for understanding, analyzing, and managing interruptions and workflow.

Towards a hybrid method to categorize interruptions and activities in healthcare.

OBJECTIVE: Interruptions are known to have a negative impact on activity performance. Understanding how an interruption contributes to human error is limited because there is not a standard method for analyzing and classifying interruptions. Qualitative data are typically analyzed by either a deductive or an inductive method. Both methods have limitations. In this paper, a hybrid method was developed that integrates deductive and inductive methods for the categorization of activities and interruptions recorded during an ethnographic study of physicians and registered nurses in a Level One Trauma Center. Understanding the effects of interruptions is important for designing and evaluating informatics tools in particular as well as improving healthcare quality and patient safety in general. METHOD: The hybrid method was developed using a deductive a priori classification framework with the provision of adding new categories discovered inductively in the data. The inductive process utilized line-by-line coding and constant comparison as stated in Grounded Theory. RESULTS: The categories of activities and interruptions were organized into a three-tiered hierarchy of activity. Validity and reliability of the categories were tested by categorizing a medical error case external to the study. No new categories of interruptions were identified during analysis of the medical error case. CONCLUSIONS: Findings from this study provide evidence that the hybrid model of categorization is more complete than either a deductive or an inductive method alone. The hybrid method developed in this study provides the methodical support for understanding, analyzing, and managing interruptions and workflow.

Intraspecific Aggregation Alters Competitive Interactions in Experimental Plant Communities

We tested the prediction from spatial competition models that intraspecific aggregation may promote coexistence and thus maintain biodiversity with experimental communities of four annual species. Monocultures, three-species mixtures, and the four-species mixture were sown at two densities and with either random or intraspecifically aggregated distributions. There was a hierarchy of competitive abilities among the four species. The weaker competitors showed higher aboveground biomass in the aggregated distribution compared to the random distribution, especially at high density. In one species, intraspecific aggregation resulted in an 86% increase in the number of flowering individuals and a 171% increase in the reproductive biomass at high density. The competitively superior species had a lower biomass in the aggregated distribution than in the random distribution at high density. The data support the hypothesis that the spatial distribution of plants profoundly affects competition in such a way that weaker competitors increase their fitness while stronger competitors are suppressed when grown in the neighborhood of conspecifics. This implies that the spatial arrangement of plants in a community can be an important determinant of species coexistence and biodiversity.

Exact Unification and Admissibility

A new hierarchy of "exact" unification types is introduced, motivated by the study of admissible rules for equational classes and non-classical logics. In this setting, unifiers of identities in an equational class are preordered, not by instantiation, but rather by inclusion over the corresponding sets of unified identities. Minimal complete sets of unifiers under this new preordering always have a smaller or equal cardinality than those provided by the standard instantiation preordering, and in significant cases a dramatic reduction may be observed. In particular, the classes of distributive lattices, idempotent semigroups, and MV-algebras, which all have nullary unification type, have unitary or finitary exact type. These results are obtained via an algebraic interpretation of exact unification, inspired by Ghilardi's algebraic approach to equational unification.

Minimal invasive extracorporeal circulation should become the standard practice in coronary revascularization surgery†.

We read with great interest the large-scale network meta-analysis by Kowalewski et al. comparing clinical outcomes of patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) operated on using minimal invasive extracorporeal circulation (MiECC) or off-pump (OPCAB) with those undergoing surgery on conventional cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) [1]. The authors actually integrated into single study two recently published meta-analysis comparing MiECC and OPCAB with conventional CPB, respectively [2, 3] into a single study. According to the results of this study, MiECC and OPCAB are both strongly associated with improved perioperative outcomes following CABG when compared with CABG performed on conventional CPB. The authors conclude that MiECC may represent an attractive compromise between OPCAB and conventional CPB. After carefully reading the whole manuscript, it becomes evident that the role of MiECC is clearly undervalued. Detailed statistical analysis using the surface under the cumulative ranking probabilities indicated that MiECC represented the safer and more effective intervention regarding all-cause mortality and protection from myocardial infarction, cerebral stroke, postoperative atrial fibrillation and renal dysfunction when compared with OPCAB. Even though no significant statistical differences were demonstrated between MiECC and OPCAB, the superiority of MiECC is obvious by the hierarchy of treatments in the probability analysis, which ranked MiECC as the first treatment followed by OPCAB and conventional CPB. Thus, MiECC does not represent a compromise between OPCAB and conventional CPB, but an attractive dominant technique in CABG surgery. These results are consistent with the largest published meta-analysis by Anastasiadis et al. comparing MiECC versus conventional CPB including a total of 2770 patients. A significant decrease in mortality was observed when MiECC was used, which was also associated with reduced risk of postoperative myocardial infarction and neurological events [4]. Similarly, another recent meta-analysis by Benedetto et al. compared MiECC versus OPCAB and resulted in comparable outcomes between these two surgical techniques [5]. As stated in the text, superiority of MiECC observed in the current network meta-analysis, when compared with OPCAB, could be attributed to the fact that MiECC offers the potential for complete revascularization, whereas OPCAB poses a challenge for unexperienced surgeons; especially when distal marginal branches on the lateral and/or posterior wall of the heart need revascularization. This is reflected by a significantly lower number of distal anastomoses performed in OPCAB when compared with conventional CPB. Therefore, taking into consideration the literature published up to date, including the results of the current article, we advocate that MiECC should be integrated in the clinical practice guidelines as a state-of-the-art technique and become a standard practice for perfusion in coronary revascularization surgery.

Entramado de politicidad en un ámbito estatal de trabajo : La experiencia de los trabajadores del Hospital Provincial Neuquén (2005-2013)

La presente investigación analiza el entramado de politicidad en un ámbito estatal de trabajo, a partir de la experiencia de los trabajadores del Hospital Provincial Neuquén Dr. Castro Rendón (HN) entre los años 2005 y 2013. Se propone un abordaje relacional que atienda a la configuración y redefinición de los escenarios de disputa, retomando la perspectiva de Norbert Elías. Se ha diseñado una estrategia metodológica cualitativa basada en la realización de observaciones participantes, entrevistas semi-estructuradas en profundidad y en el análisis de materiales gráficos. Se realizó un muestreo teórico de tipo no probabilístico, y las unidades de la muestra fueron seleccionadas de acuerdo a criterios relativos a la participación política y a las características de las labores hospitalarias. Los principales hallazgos de esta tesis refieren a la conceptualización de los ámbitos estatales de trabajo. Se los caracteriza como espacios donde se relacionan y se expresan múltiples grupos, resaltando los procesos socio-culturales que están implicados en las disputas políticas de los trabajadores. Se analizan la articulación entre demandas sectoriales y la disputa más general por la gestión de las políticas públicas, las regulaciones especiales que legislan el trabajo hospitalario, las distintas temporalidades de los conflictos, la vinculación con organizaciones externas, la jerarquización del espacio laboral, y la permeabilidad de lo estatal y lo no-estatal. Estos resultados permiten aportar de manera más general a las teorías sociológicas de la acción colectiva en lo que respecta a la utilización de las categorías de clase y a las identidades de los trabajadores

Pressoes e oposiçoes contra pequenos criadores familiares de gado bovino leiteiro da zona periurbana do Município de Castanhal (Pará, Brasil - Amazônia Oriental)

It is analyzed, in this paper, the conflicts involving a family of small dairy cattle breeders, faced with the opposition of society and restrictions imposed by the local authorities, against the livestock grazing on public lands in peri-urban zone of a medium-sized Amazonian city. The case study employed participant observation, interviews and document research. Despite the subordinate position occupied by the focused group in the credibility hierarchy of versions issued on the conflict, the group maintains a resistance conduct, based both in the need for sustenance, and in an attempt to preserve a way of life cherished by its members

Signos y profecías en el libro III de Eneida

El objetivo de este trabajo es estudiar los signos y profecías de Eneida III, entendidos como medio de comunicación del fatum entre dioses y hombres y, en consecuencia, inscriptos en el arte de la divinatio. Se analizan los anuncios de Apolo, los Penates, Celeno, Heleno y el signo de los caballos blancos en relación con la tipología de prácticas adivinatorias que presentan tanto un texto antiguo (De divinatione de Cicerón), como estudios contemporáneos (Bouché-Leclercq, Flacelière, Turcan, Warrior, etc). A través de este examen se advierte a) una síntesis de elementos pertenecientes a diferentes rituales que no se agotan en la adivinación oficial romana, b) el modo en que se organiza la jerarquía divina del poema, en términos de conocimiento del destino y c) una representación de los troyanos como pueblo piadoso que honra a los dioses a través de distintas ofrendas y sacrificios

Pressoes e oposiçoes contra pequenos criadores familiares de gado bovino leiteiro da zona periurbana do Município de Castanhal (Pará, Brasil - Amazônia Oriental)

It is analyzed, in this paper, the conflicts involving a family of small dairy cattle breeders, faced with the opposition of society and restrictions imposed by the local authorities, against the livestock grazing on public lands in peri-urban zone of a medium-sized Amazonian city. The case study employed participant observation, interviews and document research. Despite the subordinate position occupied by the focused group in the credibility hierarchy of versions issued on the conflict, the group maintains a resistance conduct, based both in the need for sustenance, and in an attempt to preserve a way of life cherished by its members

Entramado de politicidad en un ámbito estatal de trabajo : La experiencia de los trabajadores del Hospital Provincial Neuquén (2005-2013)

La presente investigación analiza el entramado de politicidad en un ámbito estatal de trabajo, a partir de la experiencia de los trabajadores del Hospital Provincial Neuquén Dr. Castro Rendón (HN) entre los años 2005 y 2013. Se propone un abordaje relacional que atienda a la configuración y redefinición de los escenarios de disputa, retomando la perspectiva de Norbert Elías. Se ha diseñado una estrategia metodológica cualitativa basada en la realización de observaciones participantes, entrevistas semi-estructuradas en profundidad y en el análisis de materiales gráficos. Se realizó un muestreo teórico de tipo no probabilístico, y las unidades de la muestra fueron seleccionadas de acuerdo a criterios relativos a la participación política y a las características de las labores hospitalarias. Los principales hallazgos de esta tesis refieren a la conceptualización de los ámbitos estatales de trabajo. Se los caracteriza como espacios donde se relacionan y se expresan múltiples grupos, resaltando los procesos socio-culturales que están implicados en las disputas políticas de los trabajadores. Se analizan la articulación entre demandas sectoriales y la disputa más general por la gestión de las políticas públicas, las regulaciones especiales que legislan el trabajo hospitalario, las distintas temporalidades de los conflictos, la vinculación con organizaciones externas, la jerarquización del espacio laboral, y la permeabilidad de lo estatal y lo no-estatal. Estos resultados permiten aportar de manera más general a las teorías sociológicas de la acción colectiva en lo que respecta a la utilización de las categorías de clase y a las identidades de los trabajadores

Pressoes e oposiçoes contra pequenos criadores familiares de gado bovino leiteiro da zona periurbana do Município de Castanhal (Pará, Brasil - Amazônia Oriental)

It is analyzed, in this paper, the conflicts involving a family of small dairy cattle breeders, faced with the opposition of society and restrictions imposed by the local authorities, against the livestock grazing on public lands in peri-urban zone of a medium-sized Amazonian city. The case study employed participant observation, interviews and document research. Despite the subordinate position occupied by the focused group in the credibility hierarchy of versions issued on the conflict, the group maintains a resistance conduct, based both in the need for sustenance, and in an attempt to preserve a way of life cherished by its members

Signos y profecías en el libro III de Eneida

El objetivo de este trabajo es estudiar los signos y profecías de Eneida III, entendidos como medio de comunicación del fatum entre dioses y hombres y, en consecuencia, inscriptos en el arte de la divinatio. Se analizan los anuncios de Apolo, los Penates, Celeno, Heleno y el signo de los caballos blancos en relación con la tipología de prácticas adivinatorias que presentan tanto un texto antiguo (De divinatione de Cicerón), como estudios contemporáneos (Bouché-Leclercq, Flacelière, Turcan, Warrior, etc). A través de este examen se advierte a) una síntesis de elementos pertenecientes a diferentes rituales que no se agotan en la adivinación oficial romana, b) el modo en que se organiza la jerarquía divina del poema, en términos de conocimiento del destino y c) una representación de los troyanos como pueblo piadoso que honra a los dioses a través de distintas ofrendas y sacrificios