Book Reviews

Abstract

In April 1986, a five-year-old boy was fatally mauled by a pit bull terrier in Multnomah County, (Portland) Oregon. This tragic event sparked concern over how effectively the public was being protected from the hazards posed by aggressive dogs. In June 1986, a new ordinance was passed that identifies and regulates potentially dangerous dogs. In the first three years of the program, 1,652 dogs were classified as potentially dangerous, and restrictions were placed on the ownership of these animals. A pretest-posttest evaluation methodology examining the rate of recidivism was used to measure the program's effectiveness in limiting the opportunity for identified potentially dangerous dogs to repeat their behavior. In the five years prior to the implementation of the program, 25% of those dogs that had caused injury to people or other animals through attacking or biting repeated that same behavior within one year. After the implementation of the program, that rate of repeat incidence has been reduced to 7%.     

Can zebrafish Danio rerio learn about predation risk? The effect of a previous experience on the cortisol response in subsequent encounters with a predator

Experienced zebrafish Danio rerio, when subjected to visual contact with a predator, did not show elevated cortisol levels and had values similar to control fish. The main hypothesis is that experienced D. rerio know about the real relevance of this prey–predator encounter. In summary, the data presented provide evidence that experienced D. rerio does not produce elevated cortisol in response to sighting a possible predator, and might suggest that these fish can learn about dangerous situations.     

How Attention Can Create Synaptic Tags for the Learning of Working Memories in Sequential Tasks

Intelligence is our ability to learn appropriate responses to new stimuli and situations. Neurons in association cortex are thought to be essential for this ability. During learning these neurons become tuned to relevant features and start to represent them with persistent activity during memory delays. This learning process is not well understood. Here we develop a biologically plausible learning scheme that explains how trial-and-error learning induces neuronal selectivity and working memory representations for task-relevant information. We propose that the response selection stage sends attentional feedback signals to earlier processing levels, forming synaptic tags at those connections responsible for the stimulus-response mapping. Globally released neuromodulators then interact with tagged synapses to determine their plasticity. The resulting learning rule endows neural networks with the capacity to create new working memory representations of task relevant information as persistent activity. It is remarkably generic: it explains how association neurons learn to store task-relevant information for linear as well as non-linear stimulus-response mappings, how they become tuned to category boundaries or analog variables, depending on the task demands, and how they learn to integrate probabilistic evidence for perceptual decisions.     

Cleaning by the wrasse Thalassoma noronhanum, with two records of predation by its grouper client Cephalopholis fulva

The Noronha wrasse Thalassoma noronhanum was recorded cleaning 19 client fish species at Fernando de Noronha Archipelago, o. north–eastern Brazil. The preferred clients were non–dangerous, mostly planktivorous species, whereas the potentially dangerous, predatory species were rarely cleaned. T. noronhanum acts as a cleaner in two distinct ecological situations, at and outside the cleaning stations, and attends different client species in each of them. Potentially dangerous clients were mostly attended outside the cleaning stations. Many attacks and two instances of predation on the cleaner wrasse by the grouper client Cephalopholis fulva were recorded. The attacks occurred on individual wrasses foraging near the bottom outside the cleaning stations.     

流程重组在病案质量控制中的实践应用

??????? 目的 对病案质控流程重组,总结完善工作流程,提高工作效率,改善工作质量。方法 在分析病案出院前质控流程现状基础上,从缩短审核时间、增加病床合理使用和保证病历质量等方面阐述如何在现有条件下来改善病案质控流程。结果 加强病案质量控制,不断提高病历书写质量。结论 使病案质控最大限度服务于临床需要。     

Multisensory learning: from experimental psychology to animal training

Abstract

Stimuli and events that animals have to learn about in both their natural environments and in modern environments, such as our homes and farms, are often “multisensory,” i.e., they usually occur in more than one sensory modality. There are studies in humans and animals showing that stimuli that are multisensory are learned more quickly than stimuli presented in just a single sensory modality. My aim is to highlight how animals can combine information from several sensory modalities simultaneously, and show how using multisensory stimuli in training can enhance an animal's ability to learn new behaviors.     

Binding of Amphipathic Cell Penetrating Peptide p28 to Wild Type and Mutated p53 as studied by Raman,Atomic Force and Surface Plasmon Resonance spectroscopies

BackgroundMutations within the DNA binding domain (DBD) of the tumor suppressor p53 are found in > 50% of human cancers and may significantly modify p53 secondary structure impairing its function. p28, an amphipathic cell-penetrating peptide, binds to the DBD through hydrophobic interaction and induces a posttranslational increase in wildtype and mutant p53 restoring functionality. We use mutation analyses to explore which elements of secondary structure may be critical to p28 binding.MethodsMolecular modeling, Raman spectroscopy, Atomic Force Spectroscopy (AFS) and Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) were used to identify which secondary structure of site-directed and naturally occurring mutant DBDs are potentially altered by discrete changes in hydrophobicity and the molecular interaction with p28.ResultsWe show that specific point mutations that alter hydrophobicity within non-mutable and mutable regions of the p53 DBD alter specific secondary structures. The affinity of p28 was positively correlated with the β-sheet content of a mutant DBD, and reduced by an increase in unstructured or random coil that resulted from a loss in hydrophobicity and redistribution of surface charge.ConclusionsThese results help refine our knowledge of how mutations within p53-DBD alter secondary structure and provide insight on how potential structural alterations in p28 or similar molecules improve their ability to restore p53 function.General significanceRaman spectroscopy, AFS, SPR and computational modeling are useful approaches to characterize how mutations within the p53DBD potentially affect secondary structure and identify those structural elements prone to influence the binding affinity of agents designed to increase the functionality of p53.     

Wa Grotesque: Headhunting Theme Parks and the Chinese Nostalgia for Primitive Contemporaries

ABSTRACT

The Wa people have long occupied a special place in the state-directed political spectacle of minority nationalities, in both China and Burma. This fascination builds on older views of the Wa as dangerous barbarians, and closely evokes other primitivisms from around the world. In China and in neighbouring countries, state policy has recently combined with commercial entrepreneurism to cultivate a new, selective nostalgia for ‘primitive-exotic’ peoples like the Wa. In this paper, I discuss mainly China, and how the ‘wild’ Wa headhunting paraphernalia prohibited by the Chinese in the 1950s now reappear as kitsch. Some Wa of older generations see such revivals as dangerous, but younger people may embrace the revival. I discuss the new Chinese repackaging of primitive violence and the different Wa understandings of these staged exoticizations of their culture, including ways the staged representations are taken up in Wa attempts to revive aspects of their cultural past.     

Once bitten twice shy: long‐term behavioural changes caused by trapping experience in willow warblers Phylloscopus trochilus

In dangerous situations, animals learn from experience to anticipate risks during similar subsequent occasions. Mist netting may represent just such a dangerous occasion and may serve as a tool to get insight into whether and how memorizing and recognition of the circumstances that form the prelude to a recapture can alter the animal's behaviour after capture, as well as it may affect the subsequent recapture rates. We used a playback lure to study the capture latency in willow warblers Phylloscopus trochilus, both without any and with a previous capture experience (either in the same year or in a previous one). We found increased response latencies to the playback lure for experienced males, compared to naive males. Naive males responded faster in the presence of a mist net than without a mist net; while experienced males tended to increase their response latencies. Individuals with between‐year capture experience showed exactly the same response pattern as individuals with a capture experience within the same year. These findings suggest that the birds may recall the capture event even a year later. It is very likely that the playback lure, with or without the net's presence, contributed significantly to the apparent risk of detection. We believe our study reveals that long‐lasting modifications of behaviour induced by capture and handling deserve further attention, as they might have a serious impact on the value of behavioural and ecological data, which is either based upon observing captured individuals and/or upon the recapture rates.     

Enhancing fine-grained intra-urban dengue forecasting by integrating spatial interactions of human movements between urban regions

BackgroundAs a mosquito-borne infectious disease, dengue fever (DF) has spread through tropical and subtropical regions worldwide in recent decades. Dengue forecasting is essential for enhancing the effectiveness of preventive measures. Current studies have been primarily conducted at national, sub-national, and city levels, while an intra-urban dengue forecasting at a fine spatial resolution still remains a challenging feat. As viruses spread rapidly because of a highly dynamic population flow, integrating spatial interactions of human movements between regions would be potentially beneficial for intra-urban dengue forecasting.MethodologyIn this study, a new framework for enhancing intra-urban dengue forecasting was developed by integrating the spatial interactions between urban regions. First, a graph-embedding technique called Node2Vec was employed to learn the embeddings (in the form of an N-dimensional real-valued vector) of the regions from their population flow network. As strongly interacting regions would have more similar embeddings, the embeddings can serve as “interaction features.” Then, the interaction features were combined with those commonly used features (e.g., temperature, rainfall, and population) to enhance the supervised learning–based dengue forecasting models at a fine-grained intra-urban scale.ResultsThe performance of forecasting models (i.e., SVM, LASSO, and ANN) integrated with and without interaction features was tested and compared on township-level dengue forecasting in Guangzhou, the most threatened sub-tropical city in China. Results showed that models using both common and interaction features can achieve better performance than that using common features alone.ConclusionsThe proposed approach for incorporating spatial interactions of human movements using graph-embedding technique is effective, which can help enhance fine-grained intra-urban dengue forecasting.     

Anticipating Ulawun Volcano in New Britain,Papua New Guinea

ABSTRACT

This paper outlines some of the ways Mengen speakers have positioned Ulawun volcano, its inhabitants and outputs as beneficial features of daily life. By way of contrast, volcanology and more recent disaster planning discourses in Papua New Guinea, have often positioned Ulawun as a hazard that creates potential dangers and risks. The paper explores how these two distinct orientations to Ulawun’s past and future influence the possibilities of Ulawun’s beneficial and dangerous outcomes. We emphasise how Ulawun’s anticipated future has been articulated into forms of disaster planning involving new modes of action, accountability and world making.     

Elements for a general memory structure: properties of recurrent neural networks used to form situation models

We study how individual memory items are stored assuming that situations given in the environment can be represented in the form of synaptic-like couplings in recurrent neural networks. Previous numerical investigations have shown that specific architectures based on suppression or max units can successfully learn static or dynamic stimuli (situations). Here we provide a theoretical basis concerning the learning process convergence and the network response to a novel stimulus. We show that, besides learning “simple” static situations, a nD network can learn and replicate a sequence of up to n different vectors or frames. We find limits on the learning rate and show coupling matrices developing during training in different cases including expansion of the network into the case of nonlinear interunit coupling. Furthermore, we show that a specific coupling matrix provides low-pass-filter properties to the units, thus connecting networks constructed by static summation units with continuous-time networks. We also show under which conditions such networks can be used to perform arithmetic calculations by means of pattern completion.     

A temperature-sensitive Mycobacterium smegmatis glgE mutation leads to a loss of GlgE enzyme activity and thermostability and the accumulation of α-maltose-1-phosphate

BackgroundThe bacterial GlgE pathway is the third known route to glycogen and is the only one present in mycobacteria. It contributes to the virulence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The involvement of GlgE in glycogen biosynthesis was discovered twenty years ago when the phenotype of a temperature-sensitive Mycobacterium smegmatis mutation was rescued by the glgE gene. The evidence at the time suggested glgE coded for a glucanase responsible for the hydrolysis of glycogen, in stark contrast with recent evidence showing GlgE to be a polymerase responsible for its biosynthesis.MethodsWe reconstructed and examined the temperature-sensitive mutant and characterised the mutated GlgE enzyme.ResultsThe mutant strain accumulated the substrate for GlgE, α-maltose-1-phosphate, at the non-permissive temperature. The glycogen assay used in the original study was shown to give a false positive result with α-maltose-1-phosphate. The accumulation of α-maltose-1-phosphate was due to the lowering of the k_cat of GlgE as well as a loss of stability 42 °C. The reported rescue of the phenotype by GarA could potentially involve an interaction with GlgE, but none was detected.ConclusionsWe have been able to reconcile apparently contradictory observations and shed light on the basis for the phenotype of the temperature-sensitive mutation.General significanceThis study highlights how the lowering of flux through the GlgE pathway can slow the growth mycobacteria.     

Pre-diagnosis lifestyle,health history and psychosocial factors associated with stage at breast cancer diagnosis – Potential targets to shift stage earlier

BackgroundEarly detection of breast cancer improves survival, so identifying factors associated with stage at diagnosis may help formulate cancer prevention messages tailored for higher risk women. The goal of this study was to evaluate associations between multiple potential risk factors, including novel ones, measured before a breast cancer diagnosis and stage at diagnosis in women from Alberta, Canada.MethodsWomen enrolled in Alberta’s Tomorrow Project completed health and lifestyle questionnaires on average 7 years before their breast cancer diagnosis. The association of previously identified and novel predictors with stage (I, II and III + IV) at diagnosis were simultaneously evaluated in partial proportional odds ordinal (PPO) regression models.ResultsThe 492 women in this study were predominantly diagnosed in Stage 1 (51.4%), had college or university education (75.4%), were married or had a partner (74.6%), had been pregnant (90.2%), had taken birth control pills for any reason (86.8%), and had an average body mass index of 26.6. Most had at least one mammogram (83%) with five mammograms the average number. Nearly all reported previously having a breast health examination from a medical practitioner (92.5%). Statistically significant factors identified in the PPO model included protective ones (older age at diagnosis, high household income, parity, smoking, spending time in the sun during high ultraviolet times, having a mammogram and high daily protein intake) and ones that increased risk of later stage at diagnosis (a comorbidity, current stressful situations and high daily caloric intake).ConclusionShifting breast cancer stage at diagnosis downwards may potentially be achieved through cancer prevention programs that target higher risk groups such as women with co-morbidities, non-smokers and younger women who may be eligible for breast cancer screening.     

Minireview: The Potential of Enhanced Manganese Redox Cycling for Sediment Oxidation

Both natural and anthropogenic processes are responsible for excessive organic loading of submerged soils, with detrimental environmental consequences. The often insufficient natural attenuation can be enhanced by exploiting microbial manganese cycles. This review describes how an anoxic oxidation of organic matter with concomitant reduction of MnO ₂ can link up with a reoxidation of the resulting, soluble Mn(II) in oxic layers. The potentially attainable oxidation rates through these natural cycles are of the same order as the organic carbon accumulation rates. The microbiology and physiology of the responsible organisms are discussed, as well as examples of naturally occurring manganese cycles and the possibility to engineer this natural phenomenon.     

Plants Used for Reproductive Health by Nahua Women in Northern Veracruz,Mexico

Plants Used for Reproductive Health by Nahua Women in Northern Veracruz, Mexico. This paper reports the use of medicinal plants by Nahua women in the state of Veracruz, Mexico. It documents the women’s plant knowledge for reproductive purposes, which includes uses such as conception, pregnancy, birth, contraception, menstruation, post-partum, and general reproductive health. The concept of equilibrium is very important in regaining health among the Nahua; consequently, many of the medicinal plants have this as their primary purpose. The introduction of biomedical clinics and hospitals in the region has had a significant effect on the loss of knowledge about medicinal plants. Additionally, the midwives are not taking any new apprentices and laywomen are not passing on their knowledge to future generations. This generational gap contributes to the loss of knowledge about medicinal plants. This research contributes to the study of indigenous ethnobotany by (a) creating a record of the plant knowledge possessed by indigenous women, (b) giving voice to some of their health concerns, (c) indicating how the introduction of biomedicine has affected their plant use, and (d) providing a framework for understanding how marginal peoples around the world respond to the impact that globalization and change has on their health needs and local ethnobotanical knowledge.     

A Pilot Study to Evaluate an Elementary School-Based Dog Bite Prevention Program

ABSTRACT

The primary objective of this program evaluation was to determine if a school-based education program is an effective means of informing elementary school-aged children enrolled in second through fourth grades about dog bite safety—the awareness of proper behavior when in the company of dogs to prevent bites, injuries, or fatalities. The pilot program, featuring written materials and a video, was developed to teach dog bite safety, and questionnaires were designed to assess the program. Students (n=486) from seven schools from Montgomery and Prince George's Counties in Maryland, USA participated. Pre- and post-program questionnaires assessed students' interactions, encounters, and relationships with dogs, as well as use of program materials, and changes in understanding about dog behavior, body language, and bite avoidance. The program results appeared to be highly effective in helping children understand how to prevent or avoid potentially threatening situations involving dogs. The program was most effective at teaching children that: (1) neighborhood and family dogs are most likely to cause dog bite-related injuries, (2) they should never run away from a dog, and (3) they should never touch a dog that is sleeping or eating. For most groups, there was also an increased level of recognition of canine body language. Almost half of the participants indicated that they had been bitten in the past, and over 80% knew the attacking dog. Finally, the findings suggest that an age-appropriate dog bite safety program delivered in an elementary school setting can be effective in producing awareness about preventing dog bite-related injuries. Future investigations should concentrate on monitoring actual changes in child behavior.     

How homologous recombination is initiated: unexpected evidence for single-strand nicks from v(d)j site-specific recombination

Views of how homologous recombination is initiated have changed over the past several decades: in the 1960s and 1970s, single-strand DNA lesions (nicks) were the leading contenders, but in the last decade, double-strand DNA breaks (DSBs) have reigned. In this issue of Cell, evidence is presented that nicks can stimulate homologous recombination and, in uncontrolled situations, may lead to translocations and other potentially dangerous genome rearrangements.     

Proteomics advances for precision therapy in ovarian cancer

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Due to the relatively low mutation rate and high frequency of copy number variation, finding actionable genetic drivers of high-grade serous carcinoma (HGSC) is a challenging task. Furthermore, emerging studies show that genetic alterations are frequently poorly represented at the protein level adding a layer of complexity. With improvements in large-scale proteomic technologies, proteomics studies have the potential to provide robust analysis of the pathways driving high HGSC behavior.

Areas covered: This review summarizes recent large-scale proteomics findings across adequately sized ovarian cancer sample sets. Key words combined with ‘ovarian cancer’ including ‘proteomics’, ‘proteogenomic’, ‘reverse-phase protein array’, ‘mass spectrometry’, and ‘adaptive response’, were used to search PubMed.

Expert opinion: Proteomics analysis of HGSC as well as their adaptive responses to therapy can uncover new therapeutic liabilities, which can reduce the emergence of drug resistance and potentially improve patient outcomes. There is a pressing need to better understand how the genomic and epigenomic heterogeneity intrinsic to ovarian cancer is reflected at the protein level and how this information could be used to improve patient outcomes.