Luminance artifacts of cathode-ray tube displays for vision research.

Phosphor persistence, video bandwidth, DC restoration and high-voltage regulation affect the appearance of images presented on cathode-ray tubes (CRTs), potentially resulting in differences between nominal and actual stimuli. We illustrate these effects by measuring physical parameters of horizontal and vertical static and counter-phase flickering gratings, and we illustrate problems for vision research by measuring contrast sensitivity to these gratings. We also measured the extent to which calibration protocols actually result in the monitor being calibrated over its entire area regardless of image size. The results of our physical measurements indicate substantial differences between gratings that nominally differ only as to orientation. Consistent with these differences, our psychophysical measurements indicate different sensitivities when the bars of the gratings are parallel or orthogonal to raster lines, regardless of the retinal orientation of the gratings. The results of our calibration check show that only a small region around the target area of calibration can be regarded as effectively linearized, and only if the size of the test image used during the check is similar to the size of the calibration patch. Overall, our results indicate potentially severe problems with the use of CRTs in vision research, and we discuss some published results that are likely to have been affected by these problems.     

Eagerness for Physical Activity Scale: Theoretical background and validation

The Eagerness for Physical Activity Scale (EPAS) validated in this study is based on the belief that eagerness for physical activity should be seen as a major outcome of interventions and physical activity contexts. The aim of the study was to introduce the concept of eagerness into physical activity research, to validate EPAS, and to explore its relationship with maximal oxygen uptake (VO_2max) and motivation. A multi-study validation approach was used. Convergent and discriminant validity was supported and the scale displayed high internal consistency across all studies. When controlling for self-determined motivation, eagerness for physical activity related positively to VO_2max, thus supporting incremental validity above and beyond intrinsic motivation, identified regulation, extrinsic regulation, and a-motivation. Based on our results we recommend not only the application of EPAS in the assessment of how intervention programs and regular types of activity contexts affect people of all ages, but also the introduction of the concept of eagerness into physical activity and health research and policy in general.     

A Review of Frailty Analysis in Older Adults: From Clinical Tools Towards Fully Automated Preventive Systems

ObjectivesFrailty is a geriatric syndrome characterized by sarcopenia and physiological impairment. Although the majority of older adults wish to age at home, being frail threatens this choice since it increases the risk of falls and loss of functional independence. Hence, frailty screening and early detection are needed to stop or at least slow down the physical weakening process. In this paper, we present a review in which we discuss the proposed methods from the literature that targets frailty detection and analysis, starting from traditional clinical tools then introducing data-driven studies before highlighting the importance of fully automated systems.Material and methodsWe conducted a review study by searching several databases such as Google Scholar, IEEE Xplore, MDPI, and ScienceDirect to name a few. This work presents clinical tools and classical performance tests to assess the health status and the physical function, as well as statistical and observational studies to analyze the frailty syndrome. Moreover, we discuss briefly the work of our research team in this context, represented by the development of a telemonitoring system which aims at the transition from a curative to a preventive model.ResultsFirstly, this review points out the absence of a gold standard to detect frailty in older individuals. Secondly, it discusses the limitations of self-reported measures/questionnaires and other traditional performance tests which are based on subjective data and done under supervised conditions. Thirdly, our study emphasizes the lack of robust approaches that target the early detection of frailty and the prediction of a future risk of physical worsening. We propose new research directions based, on the one hand, on automatic activity identification and tracking and, on the other hand, on the analysis of spontaneous speech of elderly.ConclusionThis paper describes research findings and highlights the existing gaps in the context of frailty, and serves as a state of the art for researchers. Additionally, this work suggests future research directions regarding the early detection and prevention of frailty.     

Waging war on modern chronic diseases: primary prevention through exercise biology.

In this review, we develop a blueprint for exercise biology research in the new millennium. The first part of our plan provides statistics to support the contention that there has been an epidemic emergence of modern chronic diseases in the latter part of the 20th century. The health care costs of these conditions were almost two-thirds of a trillion dollars and affected 90 million Americans in 1990. We estimate that these costs are now approaching $1 trillion and stand to further dramatically increase as the baby boom generation ages. We discuss the reaction of the biomedical establishment to this epidemic, which has primarily been to apply modern technologies to stabilize overt clinical problems (e.g., secondary and tertiary prevention). Because this approach has been largely unsuccessful in reversing the epidemic, we argue that more emphasis must be placed on novel approaches such as primary prevention, which requires attacking the environmental roots of these conditions. In this respect, a strong association exists between the increase in physical inactivity and the emergence of modern chronic diseases in 20th century industrialized societies. Approximately 250,000 deaths per year in the United States are premature due to physical inactivity. Epidemiological data have established that physical inactivity increases the incidence of at least 17 unhealthy conditions, almost all of which are chronic diseases or considered risk factors for chronic diseases. Therefore, as part of this review, we present the concept that the human genome evolved within an environment of high physical activity. Accordingly, we propose that exercise biologists do not study "the effect of physical activity" but in reality study the effect of reintroducing exercise into an unhealthy sedentary population that is genetically programmed to expect physical activity. On the basis of healthy gene function, exercise research should thus be viewed from a nontraditional perspective in that the "control" group should actually be taken from a physically active population and not from a sedentary population with its predisposition to modern chronic diseases. We provide exciting examples of exercise biology research that is elucidating the underlying mechanisms by which physical inactivity may predispose individuals to chronic disease conditions, such as mechanisms contributing to insulin resistance and decreased skeletal muscle lipoprotein lipase activity. Some findings have been surprising and remarkable in that novel signaling mechanisms have been discovered that vary with the type and level of physical activity/inactivity at multiple levels of gene expression. Because this area of research is underfunded despite its high impact, the final part of our blueprint for the next millennium calls for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to establish a major initiative devoted to the study of the biology of the primary prevention of modern chronic diseases. We justify this in several ways, including the following estimate: if the percentage of all US morbidity and mortality statistics attributed to the combination of physical inactivity and inappropriate diet were applied as a percentage of the NIH's total operating budget, the resulting funds would equal the budgets of two full institutes at the NIH! Furthermore, the fiscal support of studies elucidating the scientific foundation(s) targeted by primary prevention strategies in other public health efforts has resulted in an increased efficacy of the overall prevention effort. We estimate that physical inactivity impacts 80-90% of the 24 integrated review group (IRG) topics proposed by the NIH's Panel on Scientific Boundaries for Review, which is currently directing a major restructuring of the NIH's scientific funding system. Unfortunately, the primary prevention of chronic disease and the investigation of physical activity/inactivity and/or exercise are not mentioned in the almost 200 total subtopics comprising t     

Commentary: The Life And Times Of V. M. Bekhterev

The provocative article that follows has been translated as part of our endeavors to uncover the contributions of V. M. Bekhterev to social psychology. For these introductory comments we rely most heavily on two sources available in English, mainly the work of Alex Kozulin (1984) and V. Gerver (1932), a junior colleague of Bekhterev's. Other valuable material was provided by the work of A. L. Schniermann (1930), another of Bekhterev's junior associates. These and other writings yield a picture of an outstanding Russian scientist who published about six hundred works on anatomy and physiology, nervous and mental diseases, biology and pedology, philosophy and reflexology; who established an astonishing number of research units and laboratories, ranging from the enormous Psychoneurological Institute in St. Petersburg to small laboratories for research on vocational counseling, children's neuropathology, etc.; and who founded several important journals. In time, he should probably become generally acknowledged as one of the founders of social psychology as well.     

Methyl/alkyl-coenzyme M reductase-based anaerobic alkane oxidation in archaea

Methyl-coenzyme M reductase (MCR) has been originally identified to catalyse the final step of the methanogenesis pathway. About 20 years ago anaerobic methane-oxidizing archaea (ANME) were discovered that use MCR enzymes to activate methane. ANME thrive at the thermodynamic limit of life, are slow-growing, and in most cases form syntrophic consortia with sulfate-reducing bacteria. Recently, archaea that have the ability to anaerobically oxidize non-methane multi-carbon alkanes such as ethane and n-butane were described in both enrichment cultures and environmental samples. These anaerobic multi-carbon alkane-oxidizing archaea (ANKA) use enzymes homologous to MCR named alkyl-coenzyme M reductase (ACR). Here we review the recent progresses on the diversity, distribution and functioning of both ANME and ANKA by presenting a detailed MCR/ACR-based phylogeny, compare their metabolic pathways and discuss the gaps in our knowledge of physiology of these organisms. To improve our understanding of alkane oxidation in archaea, we identified three directions for future research: (i) expanding cultivation attempts to validate omics-based metabolic models of yet-uncultured organisms, (ii) performing biochemical and structural analyses of key enzymes to understand thermodynamic and steric constraints and (iii) investigating the evolution of anaerobic alkane metabolisms and their impact on biogeochemical cycles.     

moBeat: Using Interactive Music to Guide and Motivate Users During Aerobic Exercising

An increasing number of people are having trouble staying fit and maintaining a healthy bodyweight because of lack of physical activity. Getting people to exercise is crucial. However, many struggle with developing healthy exercising habits, due to hurdles like having to leave the house and the boring character of endurance exercising. In this paper, we report on a design project that explores the use of audio to motivate and provide feedback and guidance during exercising in a home environment. We developed moBeat, a system that provides intensity-based coaching while exercising, giving real-time feedback on training pace and intensity by means of interactive music. We conducted a within-subject comparison between our moBeat system and a commercially available heart rate watch. With moBeat, we achieved a comparable success rate: our system has a significant, positive influence on intrinsic motivation and attentional focus, but we did not see significant differences with regard to either perceived exertion or effectiveness. Although promising, future research is needed.     

Understanding development and prevention of chronic physical aggression: towards experimental epigenetic studies

The aim of this paper was to highlight how developmental psychopathology, epigenetics and prevention experiments are starting to blend together to explain the developmental causes of chronic physical aggression (CPA) and, more importantly, to help prevent CPA and its associated physical, mental and social problems. After defining the keywords (prevention, chronic and physical aggression), a selected review of published studies is used to answer the following four questions: when should we attempt to prevent onset of CPA? What are the risk factors for CPA? Have early childhood interventions been shown to prevent CPA? Can early preventive interventions benefit from epigenetic studies? The last section of this paper gives two examples of experimental prevention designs that integrate present knowledge of CPA development, risk factors, early childhood preventive interventions and epigenetic programming of brain development during pregnancy and early childhood. I conclude that randomized control trials of preventive interventions during pregnancy and early childhood with a specific focus on epigenetic effects are the research design most likely to advance our understanding of the biopsychosocial mechanisms that lead to CPA, and the only research design that can identify effective interventions for preventing the development of CPA.     

Médecine et douleur au xxi e siècle: nous restons prisonniers de la conception dualiste classique du corps et de l’esprit

Since the dawn of Western medicine, the medical approach to man and its ailments has been based on the notion of mind-body dualism. However, when we refer to the etymology of the words about pain, it would seem that the distinction between physical pain and emotional or mental pain (the dualistic approach to pain) is a recent development in the history of humanity — emerging after Descartes and the distinction that medicine itself made no earlier than the 19^th century. Today, despite the almost exclusively physical orientation of the neurosciences, the dualistic approach to pain is still prevalent. Yet the accompanying concept of “psychogenic pain” seems to lead to a deadlock which might again call into question the principle of the dualist approach to pain. Moreover, many phenomena related to pain, such as the placebo effect, hypnosis, feeling pain at the end of our lives, and torment, still cannot be satisfactorily explained by a dualist point of view. Finally, the short-sighted perspective of a future medicine based on managing the means to be used in order to arrive at the expected results should convince everyone to reconsider our conception of pain, which at present does not allow optimal car for patients suffering from which at present does not allow optimal car for patients suffering from chronic pain in situations of therapeutic failure.     

Application of 3-Dimensional Printing Technology to Construct an Eye Model for Fundus Viewing Study

Objective

To construct a life-sized eye model using the three-dimensional (3D) printing technology for fundus viewing study of the viewing system.

Methods

We devised our schematic model eye based on Navarro''s eye and redesigned some parameters because of the change of the corneal material and the implantation of intraocular lenses (IOLs). Optical performance of our schematic model eye was compared with Navarro''s schematic eye and other two reported physical model eyes using the ZEMAX optical design software. With computer aided design (CAD) software, we designed the 3D digital model of the main structure of the physical model eye, which was used for three-dimensional (3D) printing. Together with the main printed structure, polymethyl methacrylate(PMMA) aspherical cornea, variable iris, and IOLs were assembled to a physical eye model. Angle scale bars were glued from posterior to periphery of the retina. Then we fabricated other three physical models with different states of ammetropia. Optical parameters of these physical eye models were measured to verify the 3D printing accuracy.

Results

In on-axis calculations, our schematic model eye possessed similar size of spot diagram compared with Navarro''s and Bakaraju''s model eye, much smaller than Arianpour''s model eye. Moreover, the spherical aberration of our schematic eye was much less than other three model eyes. While in off- axis simulation, it possessed a bit higher coma and similar astigmatism, field curvature and distortion. The MTF curves showed that all the model eyes diminished in resolution with increasing field of view, and the diminished tendency of resolution of our physical eye model was similar to the Navarro''s eye. The measured parameters of our eye models with different status of ametropia were in line with the theoretical value.

Conclusions

The schematic eye model we designed can well simulate the optical performance of the human eye, and the fabricated physical one can be used as a tool in fundus range viewing research.     

Do physically stronger males prevail in non-physical conflicts?

Among non-human animals, a key strategy to resolve conflicts without fighting relies on assessing relative fighting ability on the basis of physical cues such as size and strength. Recent studies hypothesize that the human mind also contains mechanisms for spontaneously coordinating conflict behavior on the basis of difference in physical strength, even if strength is not rationally relevant to the conflict. We provide the first direct, experimental test of the existence of such mechanisms. We do so by applying a non-physical, anonymous, economic game - the war of attrition - in which male contestants compete by means of perseverance to win a monetary prize. While initial studies provided some support for the prediction, the final well-powered and pre-registered study failed to support the prediction. Overall, we interpret our findings as evidence against the hypothesis that the human mind attributes relevance to physical factors that are irrelevant for the actual resolution of a conflict. We discuss implications for existing findings in the field and provide directions for further research.     

The energetics of obesity

Although there is little argument about the state of energy imbalance that produces weight gain, there is considerable argument about the respective role of genetics, diet and physical activity in achieving obesity. In the USA, obesity has increased in the last decades despite a concomitant decrease in total energy and fat intake suggesting that there has been a dramatic drop in total energy expenditure. In this review, we investigated the respective role of resting metabolic rate, post-prandial thermogenesis, and activity energy expenditure in this lower energy output, and provided evidence that physical inactivity is the major contributor. Based on Jean Mayer original observation (Mayer et al., 1954), we hypothesize that there is a level of physical activity below which mechanisms of body mass regulation are impaired. The increasing prevalence of obesity may reflect the fact the majority of the population has fallen below such a level of physical activity. However, a causal relation between physical inactivity and obesity is still difficult to prove, probably because of the lack of longitudinal models to investigate the physiological consequences of inactivity and because the deleterious consequences of sedentary behaviors are essentially deduced from the benefits of exercise training. By using long term strict bed rest as a unique model of inactivity, we provide evidence that inactivity per se indeed disrupts fuel homeostasis and partitions post-absorptive and post-prandial fat use towards storage, thus promoting weight gain in the long term. More research is needed to investigate mechanisms and to determine the minimal physical activity our body has been engineered for by evolution.     

Participation in Mass Gatherings Can Benefit Well-Being: Longitudinal and Control Data from a North Indian Hindu Pilgrimage Event

How does participation in a long-duration mass gathering (such as a pilgrimage event) impact well-being? There are good reasons to believe such collective events pose risks to health. There are risks associated with communicable diseases. Moreover, the physical conditions at such events (noise, crowding, harsh conditions) are often detrimental to well-being. Yet, at the same time, social psychological research suggests participation in group-related activities can impact well-being positively, and we therefore investigated if participating in a long-duration mass gathering can actually bring such benefits. In our research we studied one of the world''s largest collective events – a demanding month-long Hindu religious festival in North India. Participants (comprising 416 pilgrims who attended the gathering for the whole month of its duration, and 127 controls who did not) completed measures of self-assessed well-being and symptoms of ill-health at two time points. The first was a month before the gathering commenced, the second was a month after it finished. We found that those participating in this collective event reported a longitudinal increase in well-being relative to those who did not participate. Our data therefore imply we should reconceptualise how mass gatherings impact individuals. Although such gatherings can entail significant health risks, the benefits for well-being also need recognition. Indeed, an exclusive focus on risk is misleading and limits our understanding of why such events may be so attractive. More importantly, as our research is longitudinal and includes a control group, our work adds robust evidence to the social psychological literature concerning the relationship between participation in social group activities and well-being.     

Call Off the Dog(ma): M1/M2 Polarization Is Concurrent following Traumatic Brain Injury

Following the primary mechanical impact, traumatic brain injury (TBI) induces the simultaneous production of a variety of pro- and anti-inflammatory molecular mediators. Given the variety of cell types and their requisite expression of cognate receptors this creates a highly complex inflammatory milieu. Increasingly in neurotrauma research there has been an effort to define injury-induced inflammatory responses within the context of in vitro defined macrophage polarization phenotypes, known as “M1” and “M2”. Herein, we expand upon our previous work in a rodent model of TBI to show that the categorization of inflammatory response cannot be so easily delineated using this nomenclature. Specifically, we show that TBI elicited a wide spectrum of concurrent expression responses within both pro- and anti-inflammatory arms. Moreover, we show that the cells principally responsible for the production of these inflammatory mediators, microglia/macrophages, simultaneously express both “M1” and “M2” phenotypic markers. Overall, these data align with recent reports suggesting that microglia/macrophages cannot adequately switch to a polarized “M1-only” or “M2-only” phenotype, but display a mixed phenotype due to the complex signaling events surrounding them.     

In celebration of Sydney M. Finegold, M.D.: bacteroides fragilis in the colon: the good & the bad

Dr. Sydney Finegold is one of the most heralded leaders in the discovery, classification and scientific knowledge of anaerobic bacteria. On this occasion of his 90th birthday, this paper celebrates his lifetime of accomplishments and provides a perspective on the changes and growth in our understanding of one anaerobic species, Bacteroides fragilis. Over the last nearly 40 years, clinical and research data have fostered our current view that B. fragilis are essential symbiotes as well as, in some circumstances, pathogens with the capacity to induce both acute systemic and abdominal illnesses and possibly chronic colonic diseases.     

多氧霉素及其生物合成的研究进展

多氧霉素(Polyoxins)是高效广谱抗真菌核苷类抗生素,在农业上广泛用于防治植物真菌病害。本文综述了多氧霉素化学结构和理化性质,尤其是武汉大学组合生物合成与新药发现(教育部)重点实验室近年来在该抗生素生物合成基因簇的克隆、生物合成途径的阐明以及多氧霉素组合生物合成等多个方面的研究进展与成果,并对今后以多氧霉素为代表的核苷类抗生素的生物合成研究进行了展望。     

Does physical inactivity cause nonalcoholic fatty liver disease?

While physical activity represents a key element in the prevention and management of many chronic diseases, we and others believe that physical inactivity is a primary cause of obesity and associated metabolic disorders. Unfortunately, accumulating evidence suggests that we have engineered physical activity out of our normal daily living activity. One such consequence of our sedentary and excessive lifestyle is nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which is now considered the most common cause of chronic liver disease in Westernized societies. In this review, we will present evidence that physical inactivity, low aerobic fitness, and overnutrition, either separately or in combination, are an underlying cause of NAFLD.     

Cholesterol and phosphatidylethanolamine lipids exert opposite effects on membrane modulations caused by the M2 amphipathic helix

Membrane curvature remodeling induced by amphipathic helices (AHs) is essential in many biological processes. Here we studied a model amphipathic peptide, M2AH, derived from influenza A M2. We are interested in how M2AH may promote membrane curvature by altering membrane physical properties. We used atomic force microscopy (AFM) to examine changes in membrane topographic and mechanical properties. We used electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy to explore changes in lipid chain mobility and chain orientational order. We found that M2AH perturbed lipid bilayers by generating nanoscale pits. The structural data are consistent with lateral expansion of lipid chain packing, resulting in a mechanically weaker bilayer. Our EPR spectroscopy showed that M2AH reduced lipid chain mobility and had a minimal effect on lipid chain orientational order. The EPR data are consistent with the surface-bound state of M2AH that acts as a chain mobility inhibitor. By comparing results from different lipid bilayers, we found that cholesterol enhanced the activity of M2AH in inducing bilayer pits and altering lipid chain mobility. The results were explained by considering specific M2AH-cholesterol recognition and/or cholesterol-induced expansion of interlipid distance. Both AFM and EPR experiments revealed a modest effect of anionic lipids. This highlights that membrane interaction of M2AH is mainly driven by hydrophobic forces. Lastly, we found that phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) lipids inhibited the activity of M2AH. We explained our data by considering interlipid hydrogen-bonding that can stabilize bilayer organization. Our results of lipid-dependent membrane modulations are likely relevant to M2AH-induced membrane restructuring.     

Intelligent software for laboratory automation

The automation of laboratory techniques has greatly increased the number of experiments that can be carried out in the chemical and biological sciences. Until recently, this automation has focused primarily on improving hardware. Here we argue that future advances will concentrate on intelligent software to integrate physical experimentation and results analysis with hypothesis formulation and experiment planning. To illustrate our thesis, we describe the 'Robot Scientist' - the first physically implemented example of such a closed loop system. In the Robot Scientist, experimentation is performed by a laboratory robot, hypotheses concerning the results are generated by machine learning and experiments are allocated and selected by a combination of techniques derived from artificial intelligence research. The performance of the Robot Scientist has been evaluated by a rediscovery task based on yeast functional genomics. The Robot Scientist is proof that the integration of programmable laboratory hardware and intelligent software can be used to develop increasingly automated laboratories.     

Protein-lipid interactions of bacteriophage M13 major coat protein

During the past years, remarkable progress has been made in our understanding of the replication cycle of bacteriophage M13 and the molecular details that enable phage proteins to navigate in the complex environment of the host cell. With new developments in molecular membrane biology in combination with spectroscopic techniques, we are now in a position to ask how phages carry out this delicate process on a molecular level, and what sort of protein-lipid and protein-protein interactions are involved. In this review we will focus on the molecular details of the protein-protein and protein-lipid interactions of the major coat protein (gp8) that may play a role during the infection of Escherichia coli by bacteriophage M13.