WorldWideScience

Sample records for chemically-mediated roostmate recognition

  1. Chemical cues mediate species recognition in field crickets

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Frances eTyler

    2015-05-01

    Full Text Available Cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs are important in mate choice in many insects, and may be used for species recognition if CHC profiles differ between potentially hybridizing species. In the sibling field cricket species Gryllus campestris and G. bimaculatus, females of G. bimaculatus are tolerant towards G. campestris males and can mate with them. However, G. campestris females are highly aggressive towards heterospecific G. bimaculatus males, and matings between them never happen. We examined whether cricket females might use CHCs to determine the species identity of their potential mates. We firstly analyzed the cuticular chemical profile by gas chromatography and mass spectrometry to assess the potential of CHCs to be used for species recognition in these crickets. We then manipulated females’ ability to detect chemical cues by carrying out chemical ablation of the antennae, and measured changes in aggressive responses to heterospecific males. We show that there are significant interspecies differences in CHC expression for both sexes, and that females with chemically ablated antennae reduce aggressive behavior towards heterospecific males. Our findings support the prediction that cuticular semiochemicals can play a key role in reproductive isolation between closely related insect species.

  2. Stimulus effects and the mediation of recognition memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McAdoo, Ryan M; Key, Kylie N; Gronlund, Scott D

    2018-04-19

    Two broad approaches characterize the type of evidence that mediates recognition memory: discrete state and continuous. Discrete-state models posit a thresholded memory process that provides accurate information about an item (it is detected) or, failing that, no mnemonic information about the item. Continuous models, in contrast, posit the existence of graded mnemonic information about an item. Evidence favoring 1 approach over the other has been mixed, suggesting the possibility that the mediation of recognition memory may be adaptable and influenced by other factors. We tested this possibility with 2 experiments that varied the semantic similarity of word targets and fillers. Experiment 1, which used semantically similar fillers, displayed evidence of continuous mediation (contrary to Kellen & Klauer, 2015), whereas Experiment 2, which used semantically dissimilar fillers, displayed evidence of discrete mediation. The results have implications for basic theories of recognition memory, as well as for theories of applied domains like eyewitness identification. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

  3. Chemical Entity Recognition and Resolution to ChEBI

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grego, Tiago; Pesquita, Catia; Bastos, Hugo P.; Couto, Francisco M.

    2012-01-01

    Chemical entities are ubiquitous through the biomedical literature and the development of text-mining systems that can efficiently identify those entities are required. Due to the lack of available corpora and data resources, the community has focused its efforts in the development of gene and protein named entity recognition systems, but with the release of ChEBI and the availability of an annotated corpus, this task can be addressed. We developed a machine-learning-based method for chemical entity recognition and a lexical-similarity-based method for chemical entity resolution and compared them with Whatizit, a popular-dictionary-based method. Our methods outperformed the dictionary-based method in all tasks, yielding an improvement in F-measure of 20% for the entity recognition task, 2–5% for the entity-resolution task, and 15% for combined entity recognition and resolution tasks. PMID:25937941

  4. Recognition of chemical entities: combining dictionary-based and grammar-based approaches

    Science.gov (United States)

    2015-01-01

    Background The past decade has seen an upsurge in the number of publications in chemistry. The ever-swelling volume of available documents makes it increasingly hard to extract relevant new information from such unstructured texts. The BioCreative CHEMDNER challenge invites the development of systems for the automatic recognition of chemicals in text (CEM task) and for ranking the recognized compounds at the document level (CDI task). We investigated an ensemble approach where dictionary-based named entity recognition is used along with grammar-based recognizers to extract compounds from text. We assessed the performance of ten different commercial and publicly available lexical resources using an open source indexing system (Peregrine), in combination with three different chemical compound recognizers and a set of regular expressions to recognize chemical database identifiers. The effect of different stop-word lists, case-sensitivity matching, and use of chunking information was also investigated. We focused on lexical resources that provide chemical structure information. To rank the different compounds found in a text, we used a term confidence score based on the normalized ratio of the term frequencies in chemical and non-chemical journals. Results The use of stop-word lists greatly improved the performance of the dictionary-based recognition, but there was no additional benefit from using chunking information. A combination of ChEBI and HMDB as lexical resources, the LeadMine tool for grammar-based recognition, and the regular expressions, outperformed any of the individual systems. On the test set, the F-scores were 77.8% (recall 71.2%, precision 85.8%) for the CEM task and 77.6% (recall 71.7%, precision 84.6%) for the CDI task. Missed terms were mainly due to tokenization issues, poor recognition of formulas, and term conjunctions. Conclusions We developed an ensemble system that combines dictionary-based and grammar-based approaches for chemical named

  5. Recognition of chemical entities: combining dictionary-based and grammar-based approaches.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Akhondi, Saber A; Hettne, Kristina M; van der Horst, Eelke; van Mulligen, Erik M; Kors, Jan A

    2015-01-01

    The past decade has seen an upsurge in the number of publications in chemistry. The ever-swelling volume of available documents makes it increasingly hard to extract relevant new information from such unstructured texts. The BioCreative CHEMDNER challenge invites the development of systems for the automatic recognition of chemicals in text (CEM task) and for ranking the recognized compounds at the document level (CDI task). We investigated an ensemble approach where dictionary-based named entity recognition is used along with grammar-based recognizers to extract compounds from text. We assessed the performance of ten different commercial and publicly available lexical resources using an open source indexing system (Peregrine), in combination with three different chemical compound recognizers and a set of regular expressions to recognize chemical database identifiers. The effect of different stop-word lists, case-sensitivity matching, and use of chunking information was also investigated. We focused on lexical resources that provide chemical structure information. To rank the different compounds found in a text, we used a term confidence score based on the normalized ratio of the term frequencies in chemical and non-chemical journals. The use of stop-word lists greatly improved the performance of the dictionary-based recognition, but there was no additional benefit from using chunking information. A combination of ChEBI and HMDB as lexical resources, the LeadMine tool for grammar-based recognition, and the regular expressions, outperformed any of the individual systems. On the test set, the F-scores were 77.8% (recall 71.2%, precision 85.8%) for the CEM task and 77.6% (recall 71.7%, precision 84.6%) for the CDI task. Missed terms were mainly due to tokenization issues, poor recognition of formulas, and term conjunctions. We developed an ensemble system that combines dictionary-based and grammar-based approaches for chemical named entity recognition, outperforming

  6. Theory of mind as a mediator of reasoning and facial emotion recognition: findings from 200 healthy people.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Seul Bee; Koo, Se Jun; Song, Yun Young; Lee, Mi Kyung; Jeong, Yu-Jin; Kwon, Catherine; Park, Kyoung Ri; Park, Jin Young; Kang, Jee In; Lee, Eun; An, Suk Kyoon

    2014-04-01

    It was proposed that the ability to recognize facial emotions is closely related to complex neurocognitive processes and/or skills related to theory of mind (ToM). This study examines whether ToM skills mediate the relationship between higher neurocognitive functions, such as reasoning ability, and facial emotion recognition. A total of 200 healthy subjects (101 males, 99 females) were recruited. Facial emotion recognition was measured through the use of 64 facial emotional stimuli that were selected from photographs from the Korean Facial Expressions of Emotion (KOFEE). Participants were requested to complete the Theory of Mind Picture Stories task and Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM). Multiple regression analysis showed that the SPM score (t=3.19, p=0.002, β=0.22) and the overall ToM score (t=2.56, p=0.011, β=0.18) were primarily associated with a total hit rate (%) of the emotion recognition task. Hierarchical regression analysis through a three-step mediation model showed that ToM may partially mediate the relationship between SPM and performance on facial emotion recognition. These findings imply that higher neurocognitive functioning, inclusive of reasoning, may not only directly contribute towards facial emotion recognition but also influence ToM, which in turn, influences facial emotion recognition. These findings are particularly true for healthy young people.

  7. Theory of Mind as a Mediator of Reasoning and Facial Emotion Recognition: Findings from 200 Healthy People

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Seul Bee; Koo, Se Jun; Song, Yun Young; Lee, Mi Kyung; Jeong, Yu-Jin; Kwon, Catherine; Park, Kyoung Ri; Kang, Jee In; Lee, Eun

    2014-01-01

    Objective It was proposed that the ability to recognize facial emotions is closely related to complex neurocognitive processes and/or skills related to theory of mind (ToM). This study examines whether ToM skills mediate the relationship between higher neurocognitive functions, such as reasoning ability, and facial emotion recognition. Methods A total of 200 healthy subjects (101 males, 99 females) were recruited. Facial emotion recognition was measured through the use of 64 facial emotional stimuli that were selected from photographs from the Korean Facial Expressions of Emotion (KOFEE). Participants were requested to complete the Theory of Mind Picture Stories task and Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM). Results Multiple regression analysis showed that the SPM score (t=3.19, p=0.002, β=0.22) and the overall ToM score (t=2.56, p=0.011, β=0.18) were primarily associated with a total hit rate (%) of the emotion recognition task. Hierarchical regression analysis through a three-step mediation model showed that ToM may partially mediate the relationship between SPM and performance on facial emotion recognition. Conclusion These findings imply that higher neurocognitive functioning, inclusive of reasoning, may not only directly contribute towards facial emotion recognition but also influence ToM, which in turn, influences facial emotion recognition. These findings are particularly true for healthy young people. PMID:24843363

  8. The mate recognition protein gene mediates reproductive isolation and speciation in the Brachionus plicatilis cryptic species complex.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gribble, Kristin E; Mark Welch, David B

    2012-08-01

    Chemically mediated prezygotic barriers to reproduction likely play an important role in speciation. In facultatively sexual monogonont rotifers from the Brachionus plicatilis cryptic species complex, mate recognition of females by males is mediated by the Mate Recognition Protein (MRP), a globular glycoprotein on the surface of females, encoded by the mmr-b gene family. In this study, we sequenced mmr-b copies from 27 isolates representing 11 phylotypes of the B. plicatilis species complex, examined the mode of evolution and selection of mmr-b, and determined the relationship between mmr-b genetic distance and mate recognition among isolates. Isolates of the B. plicatilis species complex have 1-4 copies of mmr-b, each composed of 2-9 nearly identical tandem repeats. The repeats within a gene copy are generally more similar than are gene copies among phylotypes, suggesting concerted evolution. Compared to housekeeping genes from the same isolates, mmr-b has accumulated only half as many synonymous differences but twice as many non-synonymous differences. Most of the amino acid differences between repeats appear to occur on the outer face of the protein, and these often result in changes in predicted patterns of phosphorylation. However, we found no evidence of positive selection driving these differences. Isolates with the most divergent copies were unable to mate with other isolates and rarely self-crossed. Overall the degree of mate recognition was significantly correlated with the genetic distance of mmr-b. Discrimination of compatible mates in the B. plicatilis species complex is determined by proteins encoded by closely related copies of a single gene, mmr-b. While concerted evolution of the tandem repeats in mmr-b may function to maintain identity, it can also lead to the rapid spread of a mutation through all copies in the genome and thus to reproductive isolation. The mmr-b gene is evolving rapidly, and novel alleles may be maintained and increase in

  9. The mate recognition protein gene mediates reproductive isolation and speciation in the Brachionus plicatilis cryptic species complex

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gribble Kristin E

    2012-08-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Chemically mediated prezygotic barriers to reproduction likely play an important role in speciation. In facultatively sexual monogonont rotifers from the Brachionus plicatilis cryptic species complex, mate recognition of females by males is mediated by the Mate Recognition Protein (MRP, a globular glycoprotein on the surface of females, encoded by the mmr-b gene family. In this study, we sequenced mmr-b copies from 27 isolates representing 11 phylotypes of the B. plicatilis species complex, examined the mode of evolution and selection of mmr-b, and determined the relationship between mmr-b genetic distance and mate recognition among isolates. Results Isolates of the B. plicatilis species complex have 1–4 copies of mmr-b, each composed of 2–9 nearly identical tandem repeats. The repeats within a gene copy are generally more similar than are gene copies among phylotypes, suggesting concerted evolution. Compared to housekeeping genes from the same isolates, mmr-b has accumulated only half as many synonymous differences but twice as many non-synonymous differences. Most of the amino acid differences between repeats appear to occur on the outer face of the protein, and these often result in changes in predicted patterns of phosphorylation. However, we found no evidence of positive selection driving these differences. Isolates with the most divergent copies were unable to mate with other isolates and rarely self-crossed. Overall the degree of mate recognition was significantly correlated with the genetic distance of mmr-b. Conclusions Discrimination of compatible mates in the B. plicatilis species complex is determined by proteins encoded by closely related copies of a single gene, mmr-b. While concerted evolution of the tandem repeats in mmr-b may function to maintain identity, it can also lead to the rapid spread of a mutation through all copies in the genome and thus to reproductive isolation. The mmr-b gene is evolving

  10. Enhancing of chemical compound and drug name recognition using representative tag scheme and fine-grained tokenization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dai, Hong-Jie; Lai, Po-Ting; Chang, Yung-Chun; Tsai, Richard Tzong-Han

    2015-01-01

    The functions of chemical compounds and drugs that affect biological processes and their particular effect on the onset and treatment of diseases have attracted increasing interest with the advancement of research in the life sciences. To extract knowledge from the extensive literatures on such compounds and drugs, the organizers of BioCreative IV administered the CHEMical Compound and Drug Named Entity Recognition (CHEMDNER) task to establish a standard dataset for evaluating state-of-the-art chemical entity recognition methods. This study introduces the approach of our CHEMDNER system. Instead of emphasizing the development of novel feature sets for machine learning, this study investigates the effect of various tag schemes on the recognition of the names of chemicals and drugs by using conditional random fields. Experiments were conducted using combinations of different tokenization strategies and tag schemes to investigate the effects of tag set selection and tokenization method on the CHEMDNER task. This study presents the performance of CHEMDNER of three more representative tag schemes-IOBE, IOBES, and IOB12E-when applied to a widely utilized IOB tag set and combined with the coarse-/fine-grained tokenization methods. The experimental results thus reveal that the fine-grained tokenization strategy performance best in terms of precision, recall and F-scores when the IOBES tag set was utilized. The IOBES model with fine-grained tokenization yielded the best-F-scores in the six chemical entity categories other than the "Multiple" entity category. Nonetheless, no significant improvement was observed when a more representative tag schemes was used with the coarse or fine-grained tokenization rules. The best F-scores that were achieved using the developed system on the test dataset of the CHEMDNER task were 0.833 and 0.815 for the chemical documents indexing and the chemical entity mention recognition tasks, respectively. The results herein highlight the importance

  11. Slp-76 is a critical determinant of NK cell-mediated recognition of missing-self targets

    OpenAIRE

    Lampe, Kristin; Endale, Mehari; Cashman, Siobhan; Fang, Hao; Mattner, Jochen; Hildeman, David; Hoebe, Kasper

    2015-01-01

    Absence of MHC class I expression is an important mechanism by which NK cells recognize a variety of target cells, yet the pathways underlying “missing-self” recognition, including the involvement of activating receptors, remain poorly understood. Using ENU mutagenesis in mice, we identified a germline mutant, designated Ace, with a marked defect in NK cell-mediated recognition and elimination of “missing-self” targets. The causative mutation was linked to chromosome 11 and identified as a mi...

  12. Chemical entity recognition in patents by combining dictionary-based and statistical approaches

    Science.gov (United States)

    Akhondi, Saber A.; Pons, Ewoud; Afzal, Zubair; van Haagen, Herman; Becker, Benedikt F.H.; Hettne, Kristina M.; van Mulligen, Erik M.; Kors, Jan A.

    2016-01-01

    We describe the development of a chemical entity recognition system and its application in the CHEMDNER-patent track of BioCreative 2015. This community challenge includes a Chemical Entity Mention in Patents (CEMP) recognition task and a Chemical Passage Detection (CPD) classification task. We addressed both tasks by an ensemble system that combines a dictionary-based approach with a statistical one. For this purpose the performance of several lexical resources was assessed using Peregrine, our open-source indexing engine. We combined our dictionary-based results on the patent corpus with the results of tmChem, a chemical recognizer using a conditional random field classifier. To improve the performance of tmChem, we utilized three additional features, viz. part-of-speech tags, lemmas and word-vector clusters. When evaluated on the training data, our final system obtained an F-score of 85.21% for the CEMP task, and an accuracy of 91.53% for the CPD task. On the test set, the best system ranked sixth among 21 teams for CEMP with an F-score of 86.82%, and second among nine teams for CPD with an accuracy of 94.23%. The differences in performance between the best ensemble system and the statistical system separately were small. Database URL: http://biosemantics.org/chemdner-patents PMID:27141091

  13. Nest marking behavior and chemical composition of olfactory cues involved in nest recognition in Megachile rotundata.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guédot, Christelle; Buckner, James S; Hagen, Marcia M; Bosch, Jordi; Kemp, William P; Pitts-Singer, Theresa L

    2013-08-01

    In-nest observations of the solitary bee, Megachile rotundata (F.), revealed that nesting females apply olfactory cues to nests for nest recognition. On their way in and out of the nest, females drag the abdomen along the entire length of the nest, and sometimes deposit fluid droplets from the tip of the abdomen. The removal of bee-marked sections of the nest resulted in hesitation and searching behavior by females, indicating the loss of olfactory cues used for nest recognition. Chemical analysis of female cuticles and the deposits inside marked nesting tubes revealed the presence of hydrocarbons, wax esters, fatty aldehydes, and fatty alcohol acetate esters. Chemical compositions were similar across tube samples, but proportionally different from cuticular extracts. These findings reveal the importance of lipids as chemical signals for nest recognition and suggest that the nest-marking cues are derived from a source in addition to, or other than, the female cuticle.

  14. Modulation of neonatal microbial recognition: TLR-mediated innate immune responses are specifically and differentially modulated by human milk.

    Science.gov (United States)

    LeBouder, Emmanuel; Rey-Nores, Julia E; Raby, Anne-Catherine; Affolter, Michael; Vidal, Karine; Thornton, Catherine A; Labéta, Mario O

    2006-03-15

    The mechanisms controlling innate microbial recognition in the neonatal gut are still to be fully understood. We have sought specific regulatory mechanisms operating in human breast milk relating to TLR-mediated microbial recognition. In this study, we report a specific and differential modulatory effect of early samples (days 1-5) of breast milk on ligand-induced cell stimulation via TLRs. Although a negative modulation was exerted on TLR2 and TLR3-mediated responses, those via TLR4 and TLR5 were enhanced. This effect was observed in human adult and fetal intestinal epithelial cell lines, monocytes, dendritic cells, and PBMC as well as neonatal blood. In the latter case, milk compensated for the low capacity of neonatal plasma to support responses to LPS. Cell stimulation via the IL-1R or TNFR was not modulated by milk. This, together with the differential effect on TLR activation, suggested that the primary effect of milk is exerted upstream of signaling proximal to TLR ligand recognition. The analysis of TLR4-mediated gene expression, used as a model system, showed that milk modulated TLR-related genes differently, including those coding for signal intermediates and regulators. A proteinaceous milk component of > or =80 kDa was found to be responsible for the effect on TLR4. Notably, infant milk formulations did not reproduce the modulatory activity of breast milk. Together, these findings reveal an unrecognized function of human milk, namely, its capacity to influence neonatal microbial recognition by modulating TLR-mediated responses specifically and differentially. This in turn suggests the existence of novel mechanisms regulating TLR activation.

  15. Interveillance: A New Culture of Recognition and Mediatization

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    André Jansson

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available The everyday uses of networked media technologies, especially social media, have revolutionized the classical model of top-down surveillance. This article sketches the contours of an emerging culture of interveillance where non-hierarchical and non-systematic monitoring practices are part of everyday life. It also introduces a critical perspective on how the industrial logics of dominant social media, through which interveillance practices are normalized, resonate with social forces already at play in individualized societies. The argument is developed in three steps. Firstly, it is argued that the concept of interveillance is needed, and must be distinguished from surveillance, in order to critically assess the everyday mutual sharing and disclosure of private information (of many different kinds. Secondly, it is argued that the culture of interveillance responds to the social deficit of recognition that characterizes highly individualized societies. Finally, it is argued that the culture of interveillance constitutes a defining instance and even represents a new stage of the meta-process of mediatization. The dialectical nature of interveillance integrates and reinforces the overarching ambiguities of mediatization, whereby the opportunities for individuals and groups to achieve growing freedom and autonomy are paralleled by limitations and dependences vis-à-vis media.

  16. Attachment of trianglamines to silicon wafers, chiral recognition by chemical force microscopy

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Hlinka, J.; Hodačová, Jana; Raehm, L.; Granier, M.; Ramonda, M.; Durand, J. O.

    2010-01-01

    Roč. 13, č. 4 (2010), s. 481-485 ISSN 1631-0748 R&D Projects: GA MŠk MEB020748 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z40550506 Keywords : trianglamines * chemical force microscopy * chiral recognition Subject RIV: CC - Organic Chemistry Impact factor: 1.600, year: 2010

  17. Chemical entity recognition in patents by combining dictionary-based and statistical approaches.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Akhondi, Saber A; Pons, Ewoud; Afzal, Zubair; van Haagen, Herman; Becker, Benedikt F H; Hettne, Kristina M; van Mulligen, Erik M; Kors, Jan A

    2016-01-01

    We describe the development of a chemical entity recognition system and its application in the CHEMDNER-patent track of BioCreative 2015. This community challenge includes a Chemical Entity Mention in Patents (CEMP) recognition task and a Chemical Passage Detection (CPD) classification task. We addressed both tasks by an ensemble system that combines a dictionary-based approach with a statistical one. For this purpose the performance of several lexical resources was assessed using Peregrine, our open-source indexing engine. We combined our dictionary-based results on the patent corpus with the results of tmChem, a chemical recognizer using a conditional random field classifier. To improve the performance of tmChem, we utilized three additional features, viz. part-of-speech tags, lemmas and word-vector clusters. When evaluated on the training data, our final system obtained an F-score of 85.21% for the CEMP task, and an accuracy of 91.53% for the CPD task. On the test set, the best system ranked sixth among 21 teams for CEMP with an F-score of 86.82%, and second among nine teams for CPD with an accuracy of 94.23%. The differences in performance between the best ensemble system and the statistical system separately were small.Database URL: http://biosemantics.org/chemdner-patents. © The Author(s) 2016. Published by Oxford University Press.

  18. Attitude and Entrepreneurial Intention Among Rural Community: the Mediating Role of Entrepreneurial Opportunity Recognition

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dahalan Norziani

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Entrepreneurship has been well documented to have an economic and social implication for the nation to increase income. Most of developing countries give further consideration to include entrepreneurship as an agenda to help the poor to increase the living standard. In fact, entrepreneurship offers various business opportunities for rural communities to achieve better quality of life. However, the crucial part of doing business is to recognize business opportunity. Entrepreneurship and opportunity are two terms that complement each other. Opportunity recognition enables the entrepreneur to identify a good idea and transform it into a business concept. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between attitude (attitude toward money, attitude toward start-up and entrepreneurial intention. This paper also intends to understand the role of entrepreneurial opportunity recognition as a mediator between attitude and entrepreneurial intention. The aim of this research is to support training providers, to identify input for entrepreneurial training, specifically developing business concepts among rural community. From the practical perspective, it might help the government to understand the necessity to encourage entrepreneurial movement among rural community as to ensure business ideas flow. This research employed the quantitative method of data collection. The questionnaires were distributed to 500 local populations according to districts and villages. The findings of this study showed that both attitude (attitude toward money, attitude toward start-up influence entrepreneurial intention. The relationship between attitude toward start-up and entrepreneurial intention was mediated by opportunity recognition.

  19. Miniature Chemical Sensor Combining Molecular Recognition with Evanescent Wave Cavity Ring-Down Spectroscopy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pipino, Andrew C. R.; Meuse, Curtis W.

    2002-01-01

    To address the chemical sensing needs of DOE, a new class of chemical sensors is being developed that enables qualitative and quantitative, remote, real-time, optical diagnostics of chemical species in hazardous gas, liquid, and semi-solid phases by employing evanescent wave cavity ringdown spectroscopy (EW-CRDS). The sensitivity of EW-CRDS was demonstrated previously under Project No.60231. The objective of this project is to enhance the range of application and selectivity of the technique by combining EW-CRDS with refractive-index-sensitive nanoparticle optics, molecular recognition (MR) chemistry, and by utilizing the polarization-dependence of EW-CRDS. Research Progress and Implications

  20. Sibling Rivalry in Myxococcus xanthus Is Mediated by Kin Recognition and a Polyploid Prophage.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dey, Arup; Vassallo, Christopher N; Conklin, Austin C; Pathak, Darshankumar T; Troselj, Vera; Wall, Daniel

    2016-01-19

    Myxobacteria form complex social communities that elicit multicellular behaviors. One such behavior is kin recognition, in which cells identify siblings via their polymorphic TraA cell surface receptor, to transiently fuse outer membranes and exchange their contents. In addition, outer membrane exchange (OME) regulates behaviors, such as inhibition of wild-type Myxococcus xanthus (DK1622) from swarming. Here we monitored the fate of motile cells and surprisingly found they were killed by nonmotile siblings. The kill phenotype required OME (i.e., was TraA dependent). The genetic basis of killing was traced to ancestral strains used to construct DK1622. Specifically, the kill phenotype mapped to a large "polyploid prophage," Mx alpha. Sensitive strains contained a 200-kb deletion that removed two of three Mx alpha units. To explain these results, we suggest that Mx alpha expresses a toxin-antitoxin cassette that uses the OME machinery of M. xanthus to transfer a toxin that makes the population "addicted" to Mx alpha. Thus, siblings that lost Mx alpha units (no immunity) are killed by cells that harbor the element. To test this, an Mx alpha-harboring laboratory strain was engineered (by traA allele swap) to recognize a closely related species, Myxococcus fulvus. As a result, M. fulvus, which lacks Mx alpha, was killed. These TraA-mediated antagonisms provide an explanation for how kin recognition specificity might have evolved in myxobacteria. That is, recognition specificity is determined by polymorphisms in traA, which we hypothesize were selected for because OME with non-kin leads to lethal outcomes. The transition from single cell to multicellular life is considered a major evolutionary event. Myxobacteria have successfully made this transition. For example, in response to starvation, individual cells aggregate into multicellular fruiting bodies wherein cells differentiate into spores. To build fruits, cells need to recognize their siblings, and in part, this is

  1. Molecular recognition of naphthalene diimide ligands by telomeric quadruplex-DNA: the importance of the protonation state and mediated hydrogen bonds.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spinello, A; Barone, G; Grunenberg, J

    2016-01-28

    In depth Monte Carlo conformational scans in combination with molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and electronic structure calculations were applied in order to study the molecular recognition process between tetrasubstituted naphthalene diimide (ND) guests and G-quadruplex (G4) DNA receptors. ND guests are a promising class of telomere stabilizers due to which they are used in novel anticancer therapeutics. Though several ND guests have been studied experimentally in the past, the protonation state under physiological conditions is still unclear. Based on chemical intuition, in the case of N-methyl-piperazine substitution, different protonation states are possible and might play a crucial role in the molecular recognition process by G4-DNA. Depending on the proton concentration, different nitrogen atoms of the N-methyl-piperazine might (or might not) be protonated. This fact was considered in our simulation in terms of a case by case analysis, since the process of molecular recognition is determined by possible donor or acceptor positions. The results of our simulations show that the electrostatic interactions between the ND ligands and the G4 receptor are maximized in the case of the protonation of the terminal nitrogen atoms, forming compact ND G4 complexes inside the grooves. The influence of different protonation states in terms of the ability to form hydrogen bonds with the sugar-phosphate backbone, as well as the importance of mediated vs. direct hydrogen bonding, was analyzed in detail by MD and relaxed force constant (compliance constant) simulations.

  2. Divergent short- and long-term effects of acute stress in object recognition memory are mediated by endogenous opioid system activation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nava-Mesa, Mauricio O; Lamprea, Marisol R; Múnera, Alejandro

    2013-11-01

    Acute stress induces short-term object recognition memory impairment and elicits endogenous opioid system activation. The aim of this study was thus to evaluate whether opiate system activation mediates the acute stress-induced object recognition memory changes. Adult male Wistar rats were trained in an object recognition task designed to test both short- and long-term memory. Subjects were randomly assigned to receive an intraperitoneal injection of saline, 1 mg/kg naltrexone or 3 mg/kg naltrexone, four and a half hours before the sample trial. Five minutes after the injection, half the subjects were submitted to movement restraint during four hours while the other half remained in their home cages. Non-stressed subjects receiving saline (control) performed adequately during the short-term memory test, while stressed subjects receiving saline displayed impaired performance. Naltrexone prevented such deleterious effect, in spite of the fact that it had no intrinsic effect on short-term object recognition memory. Stressed subjects receiving saline and non-stressed subjects receiving naltrexone performed adequately during the long-term memory test; however, control subjects as well as stressed subjects receiving a high dose of naltrexone performed poorly. Control subjects' dissociated performance during both memory tests suggests that the short-term memory test induced a retroactive interference effect mediated through light opioid system activation; such effect was prevented either by low dose naltrexone administration or by strongly activating the opioid system through acute stress. Both short-term memory retrieval impairment and long-term memory improvement observed in stressed subjects may have been mediated through strong opioid system activation, since they were prevented by high dose naltrexone administration. Therefore, the activation of the opioid system plays a dual modulating role in object recognition memory. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights

  3. Computer-Mediated Input, Output and Feedback in the Development of L2 Word Recognition from Speech

    Science.gov (United States)

    Matthews, Joshua; Cheng, Junyu; O'Toole, John Mitchell

    2015-01-01

    This paper reports on the impact of computer-mediated input, output and feedback on the development of second language (L2) word recognition from speech (WRS). A quasi-experimental pre-test/treatment/post-test research design was used involving three intact tertiary level English as a Second Language (ESL) classes. Classes were either assigned to…

  4. Slp-76 is a critical determinant of NK cell-mediated recognition of missing-self targets

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lampe, Kristin; Endale, Mehari; Cashman, Siobhan; Fang, Hao; Mattner, Jochen; Hildeman, David; Hoebe, Kasper

    2015-01-01

    Absence of MHC class I expression is an important mechanism by which NK cells recognize a variety of target cells, yet the pathways underlying “missing-self” recognition, including the involvement of activating receptors, remain poorly understood. Using ENU mutagenesis in mice, we identified a germline mutant, designated Ace, with a marked defect in NK cell-mediated recognition and elimination of “missing-self” targets. The causative mutation was linked to chromosome 11 and identified as a missense mutation [Thr428Ile] in the SH2 domain of Slp-76—a critical adapter molecule downstream of ITAM-containing surface receptors. The Slp-76 Ace mutation behaved as a hypomorphic allele—while no major defects were observed in conventional T cell development/function, a marked defect in NK cell-mediated elimination of β2-Microglobulin (β2M)-deficient target cells was observed. Further studies revealed Slp-76 to control NK cell receptor expression and maturation, however, activation of Slp-76ace/ace NK cells through ITAM-containing NK cell receptors or allogeneic/tumor target cells appeared largely unaffected. Imagestream analysis of the NK-β2M−/− target cell synapse, revealed a specific defect in actin recruitment to the conjugate synapse in Slp-76ace/ace NK cells. Overall these studies establish Slp-76 as a critical determinant of NK cell development and NK cell-mediated elimination of missing-self target cells. PMID:25929249

  5. Slp-76 is a critical determinant of NK-cell mediated recognition of missing-self targets.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lampe, Kristin; Endale, Mehari; Cashman, Siobhan; Fang, Hao; Mattner, Jochen; Hildeman, David; Hoebe, Kasper

    2015-07-01

    Absence of MHC class I expression is an important mechanism by which NK cells recognize a variety of target cells, yet the pathways underlying "missing-self" recognition, including the involvement of activating receptors, remain poorly understood. Using ethyl-N-nitrosourea mutagenesis in mice, we identified a germline mutant, designated Ace, with a marked defect in NK cell mediated recognition and elimination of "missing-self" targets. The causative mutation was linked to chromosome 11 and identified as a missense mutation (Thr428Ile) in the SH2 domain of Slp-76-a critical adapter molecule downstream of ITAM-containing surface receptors. The Slp-76 Ace mutation behaved as a hypomorphic allele-while no major defects were observed in conventional T-cell development/function, a marked defect in NK cell mediated elimination of β2-microglobulin (β2M) deficient target cells was observed. Further studies revealed Slp-76 to control NK-cell receptor expression and maturation; however, activation of Slp-76(ace/ace) NK cells through ITAM-containing NK-cell receptors or allogeneic/tumor target cells appeared largely unaffected. Imagestream analysis of the NK-β2M(-/-) target cell synapse revealed a specific defect in actin recruitment to the conjugate synapse in Slp-76(ace/ace) NK cells. Overall these studies establish Slp-76 as a critical determinant of NK-cell development and NK cell mediated elimination of missing-self target cells in mice. © 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  6. Supramolecular chemistry and chemical warfare agents: from fundamentals of recognition to catalysis and sensing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sambrook, M R; Notman, S

    2013-12-21

    Supramolecular chemistry presents many possible avenues for the mitigation of the effects of chemical warfare agents (CWAs), including sensing, catalysis and sequestration. To-date, efforts in this field both to study fundamental interactions between CWAs and to design and exploit host systems remain sporadic. In this tutorial review the non-covalent recognition of CWAs is considered from first principles, including taking inspiration from enzymatic systems, and gaps in fundamental knowledge are indicated. Examples of synthetic systems developed for the recognition of CWAs are discussed with a focus on the supramolecular complexation behaviour and non-covalent approaches rather than on the proposed applications.

  7. Probabilistic Neural Networks for Chemical Sensor Array Pattern Recognition: Comparison Studies, Improvements and Automated Outlier Rejection

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Shaffer, Ronald E

    1998-01-01

    For application to chemical sensor arrays, the ideal pattern recognition is accurate, fast, simple to train, robust to outliers, has low memory requirements, and has the ability to produce a measure...

  8. Chemical basis of prey recognition in thamnophiine snakes: the unexpected new roles of parvalbumins.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maïté Smargiassi

    Full Text Available Detecting and locating prey are key to predatory success within trophic chains. Predators use various signals through specialized visual, olfactory, auditory or tactile sensory systems to pinpoint their prey. Snakes chemically sense their prey through a highly developed auxiliary olfactory sense organ, the vomeronasal organ (VNO. In natricine snakes that are able to feed on land and water, the VNO plays a critical role in predatory behavior by detecting cues, known as vomodors, which are produced by their potential prey. However, the chemical nature of these cues remains unclear. Recently, we demonstrated that specific proteins-parvalbumins-present in the cutaneous mucus of the common frog (Rana temporaria may be natural chemoattractive proteins for these snakes. Here, we show that parvalbumins and parvalbumin-like proteins, which are mainly intracellular, are physiologically present in the epidermal mucous cells and mucus of several frog and fish genera from both fresh and salt water. These proteins are located in many tissues and function as Ca(2+ buffers. In addition, we clarified the intrinsic role of parvalbumins present in the cutaneous mucus of amphibians and fishes. We demonstrate that these Ca(2+-binding proteins participate in innate bacterial defense mechanisms by means of calcium chelation. We show that these parvalbumins are chemoattractive for three different thamnophiine snakes, suggesting that these chemicals play a key role in their prey-recognition mechanism. Therefore, we suggest that recognition of parvalbumin-like proteins or other calcium-binding proteins by the VNO could be a generalized prey-recognition process in snakes. Detecting innate prey defense mechanism compounds may have driven the evolution of this predator-prey interaction.

  9. T-ray spectroscopy of biomolecules: from chemical recognition toward biochip analysis - horizons and hurdles

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Fischer, Bernd M.; Helm, Hanspeter; Jepsen, Peter Uhd

    2006-01-01

    In the recent years, there has been an increased interest in the exploitation of the far-infrared spectral region for applications based on chemical recognition. The fact that on the one hand many packaging materials are transparent for THz radiation and on the other hand the THz-spectra of many ...

  10. Does Employee Recognition Affect Positive Psychological Functioning and Well-Being?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Merino, M Dolores; Privado, Jesús

    2015-09-14

    Employee recognition is one of the typical characteristics of healthy organizations. The majority of research on recognition has studied the consequences of this variable on workers. But few investigations have focused on understanding what mechanisms mediate between recognition and its consequences. This work aims to understand whether the relationship between employee recognition and well-being, psychological resources mediate. To answer this question a sample of 1831 workers was used. The variables measured were: employee recognition, subjective well-being and positive psychological functioning (PPF), which consists of 11 psychological resources. In the analysis of data, structural equation models were applied. The results confirmed our hypothesis and showed that PPF mediate the relationship between recognition and well-being. The effect of recognition over PPF is two times greater (.39) with peer-recognition than with supervisor-recognition (.20), and, the effect of PPF over well-being is .59. This study highlights the importance of promoting employee recognition policies in organizations for the impact it has, not only on well-being, but also on the positive psychological functioning of the workers.

  11. Virus-mediated suppression of host non-self recognition facilitates horizontal transmission of heterologous viruses.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Songsong Wu

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available Non-self recognition is a common phenomenon among organisms; it often leads to innate immunity to prevent the invasion of parasites and maintain the genetic polymorphism of organisms. Fungal vegetative incompatibility is a type of non-self recognition which often induces programmed cell death (PCD and restricts the spread of molecular parasites. It is not clearly known whether virus infection could attenuate non-self recognition among host individuals to facilitate its spread. Here, we report that a hypovirulence-associated mycoreovirus, named Sclerotinia sclerotiorum mycoreovirus 4 (SsMYRV4, could suppress host non-self recognition and facilitate horizontal transmission of heterologous viruses. We found that cell death in intermingled colony regions between SsMYRV4-infected Sclerotinia sclerotiorum strain and other tested vegetatively incompatible strains was markedly reduced and inhibition barrage lines were not clearly observed. Vegetative incompatibility, which involves Heterotrimeric guanine nucleotide-binding proteins (G proteins signaling pathway, is controlled by specific loci termed het (heterokaryon incompatibility loci. Reactive oxygen species (ROS plays a key role in vegetative incompatibility-mediated PCD. The expression of G protein subunit genes, het genes, and ROS-related genes were significantly down-regulated, and cellular production of ROS was suppressed in the presence of SsMYRV4. Furthermore, SsMYRV4-infected strain could easily accept other viruses through hyphal contact and these viruses could be efficiently transmitted from SsMYRV4-infected strain to other vegetatively incompatible individuals. Thus, we concluded that SsMYRV4 is capable of suppressing host non-self recognition and facilitating heterologous viruses transmission among host individuals. These findings may enhance our understanding of virus ecology, and provide a potential strategy to utilize hypovirulence-associated mycoviruses to control fungal diseases.

  12. Oviposition site-selection by Bactrocera dorsalis is mediated through an innate recognition template tuned to γ-octalactone.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kamala Jayanthi Pagadala Damodaram

    Full Text Available Innate recognition templates (IRTs in insects are developed through many years of evolution. Here we investigated olfactory cues mediating oviposition behavior in the oriental fruit fly, Bactrocera dorsalis, and their role in triggering an IRT for oviposition site recognition. Behavioral assays with electrophysiologically active compounds from a preferred host, mango, revealed that one of the volatiles tested, γ-octalactone, had a powerful effect in eliciting oviposition by gravid B. dorsalis females. Electrophysiological responses were obtained and flies clearly differentiated between treated and untreated substrates over a wide range of concentrations of γ-octalactone. It triggered an innate response in flies, overriding inputs from other modalities required for oviposition site evaluation. A complex blend of mango volatiles not containing γ-octalactone elicited low levels of oviposition, whereas γ-octalactone alone elicited more oviposition response. Naïve flies with different rearing histories showed similar responses to γ-octalactone. Taken together, these results indicate that oviposition site selection in B. dorsalis is mediated through an IRT tuned to γ-octalactone. Our study provides empirical data on a cue underpinning innate behavior and may also find use in control operations against this invasive horticultural pest.

  13. The origin of the chemical profiles of fungal symbionts and their significance for nestmate recognition in Acromyrmex leaf-cutting ants

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Richard, Freddie-Jeanne; Poulsen, Michael; Hefetz, Abraham

    2007-01-01

    with less aggression when they are later introduced into that colony. It appears, therefore, that fungus gardens are an independent and significant source of chemical compounds, potentially contributing a richer and more abundant blend of recognition cues to the colony ¿gestalt¿ than the innate chemical...

  14. Inflammatory Mediator Profiling of n-butanol Exposed Upper Airways in Individuals with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Dantoft, Thomas Meinertz; Skovbjerg, Sine; Andersson, Linus

    2015-01-01

    Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) is a chronic condition characterized by reports of recurrent symptoms in response to low level exposure to various chemical substances. Recent findings suggests that dysregulation of the immune system may play a role in MCS pathophysiology. The aim of this study...... inflammatory mediator profiles (P>0.05) at baseline. Likewise, direct comparison of mediator levels in the MCS group and controls after n-butanol exposure revealed no significant group differences. We demonstrate no abnormal upper airway inflammatory mediator levels in MCS subjects before or after a symptom...

  15. Individual recognition and odor in rat-like hamsters: behavioral responses and chemical properties.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Dingzhen; Huang, Ke-Jian; Zhang, Jian-Xu

    2011-11-01

    Individual recognition has been studied across a number of taxa and modalities; however, few attempts have been made to combine chemical and biological approaches and arrive at a more complete understanding of the use of secretions as signals. We combined behavioral habituation experiments with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry of glandular secretions from the left and right flank gland and midventral gland of the rat-like hamster, Tscheskia triton. We found that females became habituated to one scent and then could discriminate individuals via another scent source from the same individual only when familiar with the scent donor. However, this prior social interaction was not required for females to discriminate different individuals in single-stimulus habituation-dishabituation tests. Chemical analyses revealed a similarity in volatile compounds between the left and right flank gland and midventral gland scents. It appears that individually distinctive cues are integratively coded by a combination of both flank gland and midventral gland secretions, instead of a single scent, albeit animals show different preferences to the novel scent. Our results suggest that odors from the flank and midventral glands may provide information related to individuality and aid individual recognition in this species and confirm that prior interaction between individuals is a prerequisite for rat-like hamsters to form multi-odor memory of a particular conspecific.

  16. Cooperative DNA Recognition Modulated by an Interplay between Protein-Protein Interactions and DNA-Mediated Allostery.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Felipe Merino

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available Highly specific transcriptional regulation depends on the cooperative association of transcription factors into enhanceosomes. Usually, their DNA-binding cooperativity originates from either direct interactions or DNA-mediated allostery. Here, we performed unbiased molecular simulations followed by simulations of protein-DNA unbinding and free energy profiling to study the cooperative DNA recognition by OCT4 and SOX2, key components of enhanceosomes in pluripotent cells. We found that SOX2 influences the orientation and dynamics of the DNA-bound configuration of OCT4. In addition SOX2 modifies the unbinding free energy profiles of both DNA-binding domains of OCT4, the POU specific and POU homeodomain, despite interacting directly only with the first. Thus, we demonstrate that the OCT4-SOX2 cooperativity is modulated by an interplay between protein-protein interactions and DNA-mediated allostery. Further, we estimated the change in OCT4-DNA binding free energy due to the cooperativity with SOX2, observed a good agreement with experimental measurements, and found that SOX2 affects the relative DNA-binding strength of the two OCT4 domains. Based on these findings, we propose that available interaction partners in different biological contexts modulate the DNA exploration routes of multi-domain transcription factors such as OCT4. We consider the OCT4-SOX2 cooperativity as a paradigm of how specificity of transcriptional regulation is achieved through concerted modulation of protein-DNA recognition by different types of interactions.

  17. Siderocalin-mediated recognition, sensitization, and cellular uptake of actinides.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Allred, Benjamin E; Rupert, Peter B; Gauny, Stacey S; An, Dahlia D; Ralston, Corie Y; Sturzbecher-Hoehne, Manuel; Strong, Roland K; Abergel, Rebecca J

    2015-08-18

    Synthetic radionuclides, such as the transuranic actinides plutonium, americium, and curium, present severe health threats as contaminants, and understanding the scope of the biochemical interactions involved in actinide transport is instrumental in managing human contamination. Here we show that siderocalin, a mammalian siderophore-binding protein from the lipocalin family, specifically binds lanthanide and actinide complexes through molecular recognition of the ligands chelating the metal ions. Using crystallography, we structurally characterized the resulting siderocalin-transuranic actinide complexes, providing unprecedented insights into the biological coordination of heavy radioelements. In controlled in vitro assays, we found that intracellular plutonium uptake can occur through siderocalin-mediated endocytosis. We also demonstrated that siderocalin can act as a synergistic antenna to sensitize the luminescence of trivalent lanthanide and actinide ions in ternary protein-ligand complexes, dramatically increasing the brightness and efficiency of intramolecular energy transfer processes that give rise to metal luminescence. Our results identify siderocalin as a potential player in the biological trafficking of f elements, but through a secondary ligand-based metal sequestration mechanism. Beyond elucidating contamination pathways, this work is a starting point for the design of two-stage biomimetic platforms for photoluminescence, separation, and transport applications.

  18. All-organic microelectromechanical systems integrating specific molecular recognition--a new generation of chemical sensors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ayela, Cédric; Dubourg, Georges; Pellet, Claude; Haupt, Karsten

    2014-09-03

    Cantilever-type all-organic microelectromechanical systems based on molecularly imprinted polymers for specific analyte recognition are used as chemical sensors. They are produced by a simple spray-coating-shadow-masking process. Analyte binding to the cantilever generates a measurable change in its resonance frequency. This allows label-free detection by direct mass sensing of low-molecular-weight analytes at nanomolar concentrations. © 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  19. Relative judgment theory and the mediation of facial recognition: Implications for theories of eyewitness identification.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McAdoo, Ryan M; Gronlund, Scott D

    2016-01-01

    Many in the eyewitness identification community believe that sequential lineups are superior to simultaneous lineups because simultaneous lineups encourage inappropriate choosing due to promoting comparisons among choices (a relative judgment strategy), but sequential lineups reduce this propensity by inducing comparisons of lineup members directly to memory rather than to each other (an absolute judgment strategy). Different versions of the relative judgment theory have implicated both discrete-state and continuous mediation of eyewitness decisions. The theory has never been formally specified, but (Yonelinas, J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 20:1341-1354, 1994) dual-process models provide one possible specification, thereby allowing us to evaluate how eyewitness decisions are mediated. We utilized a ranking task (Kellen and Klauer, J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 40:1795-1804, 2014) and found evidence for continuous mediation when facial stimuli match from study to test (Experiment 1) and when they mismatch (Experiment 2). This evidence, which is contrary to a version of relative judgment theory that has gained a lot of traction in the legal community, compels reassessment of the role that guessing plays in eyewitness identification. Future research should continue to test formal explanations in order to advance theory, expedite the development of new procedures that can enhance the reliability of eyewitness evidence, and to facilitate the exploration of task factors and emergent strategies that might influence when recognition is continuously or discretely mediated.

  20. Chemical Methods to Knock Down the Amyloid Proteins

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Na Gao

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available Amyloid proteins are closely related with amyloid diseases and do tremendous harm to human health. However, there is still a lack of effective strategies to treat these amyloid diseases, so it is important to develop novel methods. Accelerating the clearance of amyloid proteins is a favorable method for amyloid disease treatment. Recently, chemical methods for protein reduction have been developed and have attracted much attention. In this review, we focus on the latest progress of chemical methods that knock down amyloid proteins, including the proteolysis-targeting chimera (PROTAC strategy, the “recognition-cleavage” strategy, the chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA strategy, the selectively light-activatable organic and inorganic molecules strategy and other chemical strategies.

  1. Social context predicts recognition systems in ant queens

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Dreier, Stéphanie Agnès Jeanine; d'Ettorre, Patrizia

    2009-01-01

    Recognition of group-members is a key feature of sociality. Ants use chemical communication to discriminate nestmates from intruders, enhancing kin cooperation and preventing parasitism. The recognition code is embedded in their cuticular chemical profile, which typically varies between colonies....... We predicted that ants might be capable of accurate recognition in unusual situations when few individuals interact repeatedly, as new colonies started by two to three queens. Individual recognition would be favoured by selection when queens establish dominance hierarchies, because repeated fights...... for dominance are costly; but it would not evolve in absence of hierarchies. We previously showed that Pachycondyla co-founding queens, which form dominance hierarchies, have accurate individual recognition based on chemical cues. Here, we used the ant Lasius niger to test the null hypothesis that individual...

  2. [Construction of chemical information database based on optical structure recognition technique].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lv, C Y; Li, M N; Zhang, L R; Liu, Z M

    2018-04-18

    To create a protocol that could be used to construct chemical information database from scientific literature quickly and automatically. Scientific literature, patents and technical reports from different chemical disciplines were collected and stored in PDF format as fundamental datasets. Chemical structures were transformed from published documents and images to machine-readable data by using the name conversion technology and optical structure recognition tool CLiDE. In the process of molecular structure information extraction, Markush structures were enumerated into well-defined monomer molecules by means of QueryTools in molecule editor ChemDraw. Document management software EndNote X8 was applied to acquire bibliographical references involving title, author, journal and year of publication. Text mining toolkit ChemDataExtractor was adopted to retrieve information that could be used to populate structured chemical database from figures, tables, and textual paragraphs. After this step, detailed manual revision and annotation were conducted in order to ensure the accuracy and completeness of the data. In addition to the literature data, computing simulation platform Pipeline Pilot 7.5 was utilized to calculate the physical and chemical properties and predict molecular attributes. Furthermore, open database ChEMBL was linked to fetch known bioactivities, such as indications and targets. After information extraction and data expansion, five separate metadata files were generated, including molecular structure data file, molecular information, bibliographical references, predictable attributes and known bioactivities. Canonical simplified molecular input line entry specification as primary key, metadata files were associated through common key nodes including molecular number and PDF number to construct an integrated chemical information database. A reasonable construction protocol of chemical information database was created successfully. A total of 174 research

  3. Distinct parietal sites mediate the influences of mood, arousal, and their interaction on human recognition memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Greene, Ciara M; Flannery, Oliver; Soto, David

    2014-12-01

    The two dimensions of emotion, mood valence and arousal, have independent effects on recognition memory. At present, however, it is not clear how those effects are reflected in the human brain. Previous research in this area has generally dealt with memory for emotionally valenced or arousing stimuli, but the manner in which interacting mood and arousal states modulate responses in memory substrates remains poorly understood. We investigated memory for emotionally neutral items while independently manipulating mood valence and arousal state by means of music exposure. Four emotional conditions were created: positive mood/high arousal, positive mood/low arousal, negative mood/high arousal, and negative mood/low arousal. We observed distinct effects of mood valence and arousal in parietal substrates of recognition memory. Positive mood increased activity in ventral posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and orbitofrontal cortex, whereas arousal condition modulated activity in dorsal PPC and the posterior cingulate. An interaction between valence and arousal was observed in left ventral PPC, notably in a parietal area distinct from the those identified for the main effects, with a stronger effect of mood on recognition memory responses here under conditions of relative high versus low arousal. We interpreted the PPC activations in terms of the attention-to-memory hypothesis: Increased arousal may lead to increased top-down control of memory, and hence dorsal PPC activation, whereas positive mood valence may result in increased activity in ventral PPC regions associated with bottom-up attention to memory. These findings indicate that distinct parietal sites mediate the influences of mood, arousal, and their interplay during recognition memory.

  4. Social Hackers: Integration in the Host Chemical Recognition System by a Paper Wasp Social Parasite

    Science.gov (United States)

    Turillazzi, S.; Sledge, M. F.; Dani, F. R.; Cervo, R.; Massolo, A.; Fondelli, L.

    Obligate social parasites in the social insects have lost the worker caste and the ability to establish nests. As a result, parasites must usurp a host nest, overcome the host recognition system, and depend on the host workers to rear their offspring. We analysed cuticular hydrocarbon profiles of live parasite females of the paper wasp social parasite Polistes sulcifer before and after usurpation of host nests, using the non-destructive technique of solid-phase micro-extraction. Our results reveal that hydrocarbon profiles of parasites change after usurpation of host nests to match the cuticular profile of the host species. Chemical evidence further shows that the parasite queen changes the odour of the nest by the addition of a parasite-specific hydrocarbon. We discuss the possible role of this in the recognition and acceptance of the parasite and its offspring in the host colony.

  5. Silver-mediated base pairings: towards dynamic DNA nanostructures with enhanced chemical and thermal stability

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Swasey, Steven M; Gwinn, Elisabeth G

    2016-01-01

    The thermal and chemical fragility of DNA nanomaterials assembled by Watson–Crick (WC) pairing constrain the settings in which these materials can be used and how they can be functionalized. Here we investigate use of the silver cation, Ag + , as an agent for more robust, metal-mediated self-assembly, focusing on the simplest duplex building blocks that would be required for more elaborate Ag + –DNA nanostructures. Our studies of Ag + -induced assembly of non-complementary DNA oligomers employ strands of 2–24 bases, with varied base compositions, and use electrospray ionization mass spectrometry to determine product compositions. High yields of duplex products containing narrowly distributed numbers of Ag + can be achieved by optimizing solution conditions. These Ag + -mediated duplexes are stable to at least 60 mM Mg 2+ , higher than is necessary for WC nanotechnology schemes such as tile assemblies and DNA origami, indicating that sequential stages of Ag + -mediated and WC-mediated assembly may be feasible. Circular dichroism spectroscopy suggests simple helical structures for Ag + -mediated duplexes with lengths to at least 20 base pairs, and further indicates that the structure of cytosine-rich duplexes is preserved at high urea concentrations. We therefore propose an approach towards dynamic DNA nanomaterials with enhanced thermal and chemical stability through designs that combine sturdy silver-mediated ‘frames’ with WC paired ‘pictures’. (paper)

  6. What Types of Visual Recognition Tasks Are Mediated by the Neural Subsystem that Subserves Face Recognition?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brooks, Brian E.; Cooper, Eric E.

    2006-01-01

    Three divided visual field experiments tested current hypotheses about the types of visual shape representation tasks that recruit the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying face recognition. Experiment 1 found a right hemisphere advantage for subordinate but not basic-level face recognition. Experiment 2 found a right hemisphere advantage for…

  7. Perceived Parenting Mediates Serotonin Transporter Gene (5-HTTLPR) and Neural System Function during Facial Recognition: A Pilot Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nishikawa, Saori

    2015-01-01

    This study examined changes in prefrontal oxy-Hb levels measured by NIRS (Near-Infrared Spectroscopy) during a facial-emotion recognition task in healthy adults, testing a mediational/moderational model of these variables. Fifty-three healthy adults (male = 35, female = 18) aged between 22 to 37 years old (mean age = 24.05 years old) provided saliva samples, completed a EMBU questionnaire (Swedish acronym for Egna Minnen Beträffande Uppfostran [My memories of upbringing]), and participated in a facial-emotion recognition task during NIRS recording. There was a main effect of maternal rejection on RoxH (right frontal activation during an ambiguous task), and a gene × environment (G×E) interaction on RoxH, suggesting that individuals who carry the SL or LL genotype and who endorse greater perceived maternal rejection show less right frontal activation than SL/LL carriers with lower perceived maternal rejection. Finally, perceived parenting style played a mediating role in right frontal activation via the 5-HTTLPR genotype. Early-perceived parenting might influence neural activity in an uncertain situation i.e. rating ambiguous faces among individuals with certain genotypes. This preliminary study makes a small contribution to the mapping of an influence of gene and behaviour on the neural system. More such attempts should be made in order to clarify the links. PMID:26418317

  8. Perceived Parenting Mediates Serotonin Transporter Gene (5-HTTLPR and Neural System Function during Facial Recognition: A Pilot Study.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Saori Nishikawa

    Full Text Available This study examined changes in prefrontal oxy-Hb levels measured by NIRS (Near-Infrared Spectroscopy during a facial-emotion recognition task in healthy adults, testing a mediational/moderational model of these variables. Fifty-three healthy adults (male = 35, female = 18 aged between 22 to 37 years old (mean age = 24.05 years old provided saliva samples, completed a EMBU questionnaire (Swedish acronym for Egna Minnen Beträffande Uppfostran [My memories of upbringing], and participated in a facial-emotion recognition task during NIRS recording. There was a main effect of maternal rejection on RoxH (right frontal activation during an ambiguous task, and a gene × environment (G × E interaction on RoxH, suggesting that individuals who carry the SL or LL genotype and who endorse greater perceived maternal rejection show less right frontal activation than SL/LL carriers with lower perceived maternal rejection. Finally, perceived parenting style played a mediating role in right frontal activation via the 5-HTTLPR genotype. Early-perceived parenting might influence neural activity in an uncertain situation i.e. rating ambiguous faces among individuals with certain genotypes. This preliminary study makes a small contribution to the mapping of an influence of gene and behaviour on the neural system. More such attempts should be made in order to clarify the links.

  9. Evaluation of Beef by Electronic Tongue System TS-5000Z: Flavor Assessment, Recognition and Chemical Compositions According to Its Correlation with Flavor.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xinzhuang Zhang

    Full Text Available The aim of this study was to assess the ability of electronic tongue system TS-5000Z to evaluate meat quality based on flavor assessment, recognition and correlation with the meat chemical composition. Meat was sampled from eighteen beef cattle including 6 Wagyu breed cattle, 6 Angus breed cattle and 6 Simmental breed cattle. Chemical composition including dry matter, crude protein, fat, ash, cholesterol and taurine and flavor of the meat were measured. The results showed that different breed cattle had different chemical compositions and flavor, which contains sourness, umami, saltiness, bitterness, astringency, aftertaste from astringency, aftertaste from bitterness and aftertaste from umami, respectively. A principal component analysis (PCA showed an easily visible separation between different breeds of cattle and indicated that TS-5000Z made a rapid identification of different breeds of cattle. In addition, TS-5000Z seemed to be used to predict the chemical composition according to its correlation with the flavor. In conclusion, TS-5000Z would be used as a rapid analytical tool to evaluate the beef quality both qualitatively and quantitatively, based on flavor assessment, recognition and chemical composition according to its correlation with flavor.

  10. Helping, mediating, and gaining recognition: The everyday identity work of Romanian health social workers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ciocănel, Alexandra; Lazăr, Florin; Munch, Shari; Harmon, Cara; Rentea, Georgiana-Cristina; Gaba, Daniela; Mihai, Anca

    2018-03-01

    Health social work is a field with challenges, opportunities, and ways of professing social work that may vary between different national contexts. In this article, we look at how Romanian health social workers construct their professional identity through their everyday identity work. Drawing on a qualitative study based on interviews with 21 health social workers working in various organizational contexts, we analyze what health social workers say they do and how this shapes their self-conception as professionals. Four main themes emerged from participants' descriptions: being a helping professional, being a mediator, gaining recognition, and contending with limits. Through these themes, participants articulated the everyday struggles and satisfactions specific to working as recently recognized professionals in Romanian health and welfare systems not always supportive of their work.

  11. Analogies Between Digital Radio and Chemical Orthogonality as a Method for Enhanced Analysis of Molecular Recognition Events

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sang-Hun Lee

    2008-02-01

    Full Text Available Acoustic wave biosensors are a real-time, label-free biosensor technology, which have been exploited for the detection of proteins and cells. One of the conventional biosensor approaches involves the immobilization of a monolayer of antibodies onto the surface of the acoustic wave device for the detection of a specific analyte. The method described within includes at least two immobilizations of two different antibodies onto the surfaces of two separate acoustic wave devices for the detection of several analogous analytes. The chemical specificity of the molecular recognition event is achieved by virtue of the extremely high (nM to pM binding affinity between the antibody and its antigen. In a standard ELISA (Enzyme-Linked ImmunoSorbent Assay test, there are multiple steps and the end result is a measure of what is bound so tightly that it does not wash away easily. The fact that this “gold standard” is very much not real time, masks the dance that is the molecular recognition event. X-Ray Crystallographer, Ian Wilson, demonstrated more than a decade ago that antibodies undergo conformational change during a binding event[1, 2]. Further, it is known in the arena of immunochemistry that some antibodies exhibit significant cross-reactivity and this is widely termed antibody promiscuity. A third piece of the puzzle that we will exploit in our system of acoustic wave biosensors is the notion of chemical orthogonality. These three biochemical constructs, the dance, antibody promiscuity and chemical orthogonality will be combined in this paper with the notions of Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2008, 9 155 in-phase (I and quadrature (Q signals from digital radio to manifest an approach to molecular recognition that allows a level of discrimination and analysis unobtainable without the aggregate. As an example we present experimental data on the detection of TNT, RDX, C4, ammonium nitrate and musk oil from a system of antibody-coated acoustic

  12. Versatile protein recognition by the encoded display of multiple chemical elements on a constant macrocyclic scaffold

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Yizhou; De Luca, Roberto; Cazzamalli, Samuele; Pretto, Francesca; Bajic, Davor; Scheuermann, Jörg; Neri, Dario

    2018-03-01

    In nature, specific antibodies can be generated as a result of an adaptive selection and expansion of lymphocytes with suitable protein binding properties. We attempted to mimic antibody-antigen recognition by displaying multiple chemical diversity elements on a defined macrocyclic scaffold. Encoding of the displayed combinations was achieved using distinctive DNA tags, resulting in a library size of 35,393,112. Specific binders could be isolated against a variety of proteins, including carbonic anhydrase IX, horseradish peroxidase, tankyrase 1, human serum albumin, alpha-1 acid glycoprotein, calmodulin, prostate-specific antigen and tumour necrosis factor. Similar to antibodies, the encoded display of multiple chemical elements on a constant scaffold enabled practical applications, such as fluorescence microscopy procedures or the selective in vivo delivery of payloads to tumours. Furthermore, the versatile structure of the scaffold facilitated the generation of protein-specific chemical probes, as illustrated by photo-crosslinking.

  13. A computer investigation of chemically mediated detachment in bacterial biofilms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hunt, Stephen M; Hamilton, Martin A; Sears, John T; Harkin, Gary; Reno, Jason

    2003-05-01

    A three-dimensional computer model was used to evaluate the effect of chemically mediated detachment on biofilm development in a negligible-shear environment. The model, BacLAB, combines conventional diffusion-reaction equations for chemicals with a cellular automata algorithm to simulate bacterial growth, movement and detachment. BacLAB simulates the life cycle of a bacterial biofilm from its initial colonization of a surface to the development of a mature biofilm with cell areal densities comparable to those in the laboratory. A base model founded on well established transport equations that are easily adaptable to investigate conjectures at the biological level has been created. In this study, the conjecture of a detachment mechanism involving a bacterially produced chemical detachment factor in which high local concentrations of this detachment factor cause the bacteria to detach from the biofilm was examined. The results show that the often observed 'mushroom'-shaped structure can occur if detachment events create voids so that the remaining attached cells look like mushrooms.

  14. A motivational determinant of facial emotion recognition: regulatory focus affects recognition of emotions in faces.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sassenrath, Claudia; Sassenberg, Kai; Ray, Devin G; Scheiter, Katharina; Jarodzka, Halszka

    2014-01-01

    Two studies examined an unexplored motivational determinant of facial emotion recognition: observer regulatory focus. It was predicted that a promotion focus would enhance facial emotion recognition relative to a prevention focus because the attentional strategies associated with promotion focus enhance performance on well-learned or innate tasks - such as facial emotion recognition. In Study 1, a promotion or a prevention focus was experimentally induced and better facial emotion recognition was observed in a promotion focus compared to a prevention focus. In Study 2, individual differences in chronic regulatory focus were assessed and attention allocation was measured using eye tracking during the facial emotion recognition task. Results indicated that the positive relation between a promotion focus and facial emotion recognition is mediated by shorter fixation duration on the face which reflects a pattern of attention allocation matched to the eager strategy in a promotion focus (i.e., striving to make hits). A prevention focus did not have an impact neither on perceptual processing nor on facial emotion recognition. Taken together, these findings demonstrate important mechanisms and consequences of observer motivational orientation for facial emotion recognition.

  15. Scavenger receptor-mediated recognition of maleyl bovine plasma albumin and the demaleylated protein in human monocyte macrophages

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Haberland, M.E.; Fogelman, A.M.

    1985-01-01

    Maleyl bovine plasma albumin competed on an equimolar basis with malondialdehyde low density lipoprotein (LDL) in suppressing the lysosomal hydrolysis of 125 I-labeled malondialdehyde LDL mediated by the scavenger receptor of human monocyte macrophages. Maleyl bovine plasma albumin, in which 94% of the amino groups were modified, exhibited an anodic mobility in agarose electrophoresis 1.7 times that of the native protein. Incubation of maleyl bovine plasma albumin at pH 3.5 regenerated the free amino groups and restored the protein to the same electrophoretic mobility as native albumin. Although ligands recognized by the scavenger receptor typically are anionic, the authors propose that addition of new negative charge achieved by maleylation, rather than directly forming the receptor binding site(s), induces conformational changes in albumin as a prerequisite to expression of the recognition domain(s). They conclude that the primary sequence of albumin, rather than addition of new negative charge, provides the recognition determinant(s) essential for interaction of maleyl bovine plasma albumin with the scavenger receptor

  16. An Agent-mediated Ontology-based Approach for Composite Activity Recognition in Smart Homes

    OpenAIRE

    Okeyo, George; Chen, Liming; Wang, H.

    2013-01-01

    Activity recognition enables ambient assisted living applications to provide activity-aware services to users in smart homes. Despite significant progress being made in activity recognition research, the focus has been on simple activity recognition leaving composite activity recognition an open problem. For instance, knowledge-driven activity recognition has recently attracted increasing attention but mainly focused on simple activities. This paper extends previous work by introducing a know...

  17. Right parietal cortex mediates recognition memory for melodies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schaal, Nora K; Javadi, Amir-Homayoun; Halpern, Andrea R; Pollok, Bettina; Banissy, Michael J

    2015-07-01

    Functional brain imaging studies have highlighted the significance of right-lateralized temporal, frontal and parietal brain areas for memory for melodies. The present study investigated the involvement of bilateral posterior parietal cortices (PPCs) for the recognition memory of melodies using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Participants performed a recognition task before and after tDCS. The task included an encoding phase (12 melodies), a retention period, as well as a recognition phase (24 melodies). Experiment 1 revealed that anodal tDCS over the right PPC led to a deterioration of overall memory performance compared with sham. Experiment 2 confirmed the results of Experiment 1 and further showed that anodal tDCS over the left PPC did not show a modulatory effect on memory task performance, indicating a right lateralization for musical memory. Furthermore, both experiments revealed that the decline in memory for melodies can be traced back to an interference of anodal stimulation on the recollection process (remember judgements) rather than to familiarity judgements. Taken together, this study revealed a causal involvement of the right PPC for memory for melodies and demonstrated a key role for this brain region in the recollection process of the memory task. © 2015 The Authors. European Journal of Neuroscience published by Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  18. Long-term social recognition memory is mediated by oxytocin-dependent synaptic plasticity in the medial amygdala.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gur, Rotem; Tendler, Alex; Wagner, Shlomo

    2014-09-01

    Recognition of specific individuals is fundamental to mammalian social behavior and is mediated in most mammals by the main and accessory olfactory systems. Both these systems innervate the medial amygdala (MeA), where activity of the neuropeptide oxytocin is thought to mediate social recognition memory (SRM). The specific contribution of the MeA to SRM formation and the specific actions of oxytocin in the MeA are unknown. We used the social discrimination test to evaluate short-term and long-term SRM in adult Sprague-Dawley male rats (n = 38). The role of protein synthesis in the MeA was investigated by local application of the protein synthesis blocker anisomycin (n = 11). Synaptic plasticity was assessed in vivo by recording the MeA evoked field potential responses to stimulation of the main (n = 21) and accessory (n = 56) olfactory bulbs before and after theta burst stimulation. Intracerebroventricular administration of saline, oxytocin, or oxytocin receptor antagonist was used to measure the effect of oxytocin on synaptic plasticity. Anisomycin application to the MeA prevented the formation of long-term SRM. In addition, the responses of MeA neurons underwent long-term depression (LTD) after theta burst stimulation of the accessory olfactory bulb, but not the main accessory bulb, in an oxytocin-dependent manner. No LTD was found in socially isolated rats, which are known to lack long-term SRM. Finally, accessory olfactory bulb stimulation before SRM acquisition blocked long-term SRM, supporting the involvement of LTD in the MeA in formation of long-term SRM. Our results indicate that long-term SRM in rats involves protein synthesis and oxytocin-dependent LTD in the MeA. Copyright © 2014 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  19. Recognition Decisions from Visual Working Memory Are Mediated by Continuous Latent Strengths

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ricker, Timothy J.; Thiele, Jonathan E.; Swagman, April R.; Rouder, Jeffrey N.

    2017-01-01

    Making recognition decisions often requires us to reference the contents of working memory, the information available for ongoing cognitive processing. As such, understanding how recognition decisions are made when based on the contents of working memory is of critical importance. In this work we examine whether recognition decisions based on the…

  20. Emotion recognition and emergent leadership : Unraveling mediating mechanisms and boundary conditions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Walter, F.; Cole, M.S.; van der Vegt, G.S.; Rubin, R.S.; Bommer, W.H.

    2012-01-01

    This study examines the complex connection between individuals' emotion recognition capability and their emergence as leaders. It is hypothesized that emotion recognition and extraversion interactively relate with an individual's task coordination behavior which, in turn, influences the likelihood

  1. Ultrasound-mediated drug delivery by gas bubbles generated from a chemical reaction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Sungmun; Al-Kaabi, Leena; Mawart, Aurélie; Khandoker, Ahsan; Alsafar, Habiba; Jelinek, Herbert F; Khalaf, Kinda; Park, Ji-Ho; Kim, Yeu-Chun

    2018-02-01

    Highly echogenic and ultrasound-responsive microbubbles such as nitrogen and perfluorocarbons have been exploited as ultrasound-mediated drug carriers. Here, we propose an innovative method for drug delivery using microbubbles generated from a chemical reaction. In a novel drug delivery system, luminol encapsulated in folate-conjugated bovine serum albumin nanoparticles (Fol-BSAN) can generate nitrogen gas (N 2 ) by chemical reaction when it reacts with hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ), one of reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS plays an important role in the initiation and progression of cancer and elevated ROS have been observed in cancer cells both in vitro and in vivo. High-intensity focussed ultrasound (HIFU) is used to burst the N 2 microbubbles, causing site-specific delivery of anticancer drugs such as methotrexate. In this research, the drug delivery system was optimised by using water-soluble luminol and Mobil Composition of Matter-41 (MCM-41), a mesoporous material, so that the delivery system was sensitive to micromolar concentrations of H 2 O 2 . HIFU increased the drug release from Fol-BSAN by 52.9 ± 2.9% in 10 minutes. The cytotoxicity of methotrexate was enhanced when methotrexate is delivered to MDA-MB-231, a metastatic human breast cancer cell line, using Fol-BSAN with HIFU. We anticipate numerous applications of chemically generated microbubbles for ultrasound-mediated drug delivery.

  2. Chemically mediated group formation in soil-dwelling larvae and pupae of the beetle Trypoxylus dichotomus

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kojima, Wataru; Ishikawa, Yukio; Takanashi, Takuma

    2014-09-01

    Many insects form groups through interactions among individuals, and these are often mediated by chemical, acoustic, or visual cues and signals. In spite of the diversity of soil-dwelling insects, their aggregation behaviour has not been examined as extensively as that of aboveground species. We investigated the aggregation mechanisms of larvae of the Japanese rhinoceros beetle Trypoxylus dichotomus, which live in groups in humus soil. In two-choice laboratory tests, 2nd- and 3rd-instar larvae gathered at conspecific larvae irrespective of the kinship. The ablation of maxillae, which bear chemosensilla, abolished aggregation behaviour. Intact larvae also exhibited aggregation behaviour towards a larval homogenate. These results suggest that larval aggregation is mediated by chemical cues. We also demonstrated that the mature larvae of T. dichotomus built their pupal cells close to a mesh bag containing a conspecific pupal cell, which indicated that larvae utilize chemical cues emanating from these cells to select the pupation site. Thus, the larvae of T. dichotomus may use chemical cues from the conspecifics in two different contexts, i.e. larval aggregation and pupation site selection. Using conspecific cues, larvae may be able to choose suitable locations for foraging or building pupal cells. The results of the present study highlight the importance of chemical information in belowground ecology.

  3. Carbohydrate self-recognition mediates marine sponge cellular adhesion

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Vliegenthart, J.F.G.; Haseley, S.R.; Vermeer, H.J.; Kamerling, J.P.

    2001-01-01

    Sponges (Porifera), the simplest and earliest multicellular organisms, are thought to have evolved from their unicellular ancestors about 1 billion years ago by developing cell-recognition and adhesion mechanisms to discriminate against 'non-self.' Consequently, they are used as models for

  4. Chemical phase analysis of seed mediated synthesized anisotropic silver nanoparticles

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bharti, Amardeep; Goyal, Navdeep; Singh, Suman; Singla, M. L.

    2015-01-01

    Noble-metal nanoparticles are of great interest because of its broad applications almost in every stream (i.e. biology, chemistry and engineering) due to their unique size/shape dependant properties. In this paper, chemical phase of seed mediated synthesized anisotropic silver nanoparticle (AgNPs) has been investigated via fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). These nanaoparticles were synthesized by seed-growth method controlled by urea and dextrose results to highly stable 12-20 nm particle size revealed by zeta potential and transmission electron microscopy (TEM)

  5. Wax combs mediate nestmate recognition by guard honeybees

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    D'Ettorre, Patrizia; Wenseleers, Tom; Dawson, Jenny

    2006-01-01

    Research has shown that the wax combs are important in the acquisition of colony odour in the honeybee, Apis mellifera. However, many of these studies were conducted in the laboratory or under artificial conditions. We investigated the role of the wax combs in nestmate recognition in the natural...

  6. Cd1b-Mediated T Cell Recognition of a Glycolipid Antigen Generated from Mycobacterial Lipid and Host Carbohydrate during Infection

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moody, D. Branch; Guy, Mark R.; Grant, Ethan; Cheng, Tan-Yun; Brenner, Michael B.; Besra, Gurdyal S.; Porcelli, Steven A.

    2000-01-01

    T cells recognize microbial glycolipids presented by CD1 proteins, but there is no information regarding the generation of natural glycolipid antigens within infected tissues. Therefore, we determined the molecular basis of CD1b-restricted T cell recognition of mycobacterial glycosylated mycolates, including those produced during tissue infection in vivo. Transfection of the T cell receptor (TCR) α and β chains from a glucose monomycolate (GMM)-specific T cell line reconstituted GMM recognition in TCR-deficient T lymphoblastoma cells. This TCR-mediated response was highly specific for natural mycobacterial glucose-6-O-(2R, 3R) monomycolate, including the precise structure of the glucose moiety, the stereochemistry of the mycolate lipid, and the linkage between the carbohydrate and the lipid. Mycobacterial production of antigenic GMM absolutely required a nonmycobacterial source of glucose that could be supplied by adding glucose to media at concentrations found in mammalian tissues or by infecting tissue in vivo. These results indicate that mycobacteria synthesized antigenic GMM by coupling mycobacterial mycolates to host-derived glucose. Specific T cell recognition of an epitope formed by interaction of host and pathogen biosynthetic pathways provides a mechanism for immune response to those pathogenic mycobacteria that have productively infected tissues, as distinguished from ubiquitous, but innocuous, environmental mycobacteria. PMID:11015438

  7. Facultative slave-making ants Formica sanguinea label their slaves with own recognition cues instead of employing the strategy of chemical mimicry.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Włodarczyk, Tomasz; Szczepaniak, Lech

    2017-01-01

    Slave-making ant species use the host workforce to ensure normal colony functioning. Slaves are robbed as pupae from their natal nest and after eclosion, assume the parasite colony as their own. A possible factor promoting the successful integration of slaves into a foreign colony is congruence with the slave-makers in terms of cuticular hydrocarbons, which are known to play the role of recognition cues in social insects. Such an adaptation is observed in the obligate slave-making ant species, which are chemically adjusted to their slaves. To date, however, no reports have been available on facultative slave-making species, which represent an earlier stage of the evolution of slavery. Such an example is Formica sanguinea, which exploit F. fusca colonies as their main source of a slave workforce. Our results show that F. sanguinea ants have a distinct cuticular hydrocarbon profile, which contains compounds not present in free-living F. fusca ants from potential target nests. Moreover, enslaved F. fusca ants acquire hydrocarbons from their slave-making nestmates to such an extent that they become chemically differentiated from free-living, conspecific ants. Our study shows that F. sanguinea ants promote their own recognition cues in their slaves, rather than employing the strategy of chemical mimicry. Possible reasons why F. sanguinea is not chemically well adjusted to its main host species are discussed in this paper. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  8. Implicit recognition based on lateralized perceptual fluency.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vargas, Iliana M; Voss, Joel L; Paller, Ken A

    2012-02-06

    In some circumstances, accurate recognition of repeated images in an explicit memory test is driven by implicit memory. We propose that this "implicit recognition" results from perceptual fluency that influences responding without awareness of memory retrieval. Here we examined whether recognition would vary if images appeared in the same or different visual hemifield during learning and testing. Kaleidoscope images were briefly presented left or right of fixation during divided-attention encoding. Presentation in the same visual hemifield at test produced higher recognition accuracy than presentation in the opposite visual hemifield, but only for guess responses. These correct guesses likely reflect a contribution from implicit recognition, given that when the stimulated visual hemifield was the same at study and test, recognition accuracy was higher for guess responses than for responses with any level of confidence. The dramatic difference in guessing accuracy as a function of lateralized perceptual overlap between study and test suggests that implicit recognition arises from memory storage in visual cortical networks that mediate repetition-induced fluency increments.

  9. Self-recognition of high-mannose type glycans mediating adhesion of embryonal fibroblasts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yoon, Seon-Joo; Utkina, Natalia; Sadilek, Martin; Yagi, Hirokazu; Kato, Koichi; Hakomori, Sen-itiroh

    2013-07-01

    High-mannose type N-linked glycan with 6 mannosyl residues, termed "M6Gn2", displayed clear binding to the same M6Gn2, conjugated with ceramide mimetic (cer-m) and incorporated in liposome, or coated on polystyrene plates. However, the conjugate of M6Gn2-cer-m did not interact with complex-type N-linked glycan with various structures having multiple GlcNAc termini, conjugated with cer-m. The following observations indicate that hamster embryonic fibroblast NIL-2 K cells display homotypic autoadhesion, mediated through the self-recognition capability of high-mannose type glycans expressed on these cells: (i) NIL-2 K cells display clear binding to lectins capable of binding to high-mannose type glycans (e.g., ConA), but not to other lectins capable of binding to other carbohydrates (e.g. GS-II). (ii) NIL-2 K cells adhere strongly to plates coated with M6Gn2-cer-m, but not to plates coated with complex-type N-linked glycans having multiple GlcNAc termini, conjugated with cer-m; (iii) degree of NIL-2 K cell adhesion to plates coated with M6Gn2-cer-m showed a clear dose-dependence on the amount of M6Gn2-cer-m; and (iv) the degree of NIL-2 K adhesion to plates coated with M6Gn2-cer-m was inhibited in a dose-dependent manner by α1,4-L-mannonolactone, the specific inhibitor in high-mannose type glycans addition. These data indicate that adhesion of NIL-2 K is mediated by self-aggregation of high mannose type glycan. Further studies are to be addressed on auto-adhesion of other types of cells based on self interaction of high mannose type glycans.

  10. Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW for Chemical Sensing Applications of Recognition Layers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adnan Mujahid

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available Surface acoustic wave (SAW resonators represent some of the most prominent acoustic devices for chemical sensing applications. As their frequency ranges from several hundred MHz to GHz, therefore they can record remarkably diminutive frequency shifts resulting from exceptionally small mass loadings. Their miniaturized design, high thermal stability and possibility of wireless integration make these devices highly competitive. Owing to these special characteristics, they are widely accepted as smart transducers that can be combined with a variety of recognition layers based on host-guest interactions, metal oxide coatings, carbon nanotubes, graphene sheets, functional polymers and biological receptors. As a result of this, there is a broad spectrum of SAW sensors, i.e., having sensing applications ranging from small gas molecules to large bio-analytes or even whole cell structures. This review shall cover from the fundamentals to modern design developments in SAW devices with respect to interfacial receptor coatings for exemplary sensor applications. The related problems and their possible solutions shall also be covered, with a focus on emerging trends and future opportunities for making SAW as established sensing technology.

  11. Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) for Chemical Sensing Applications of Recognition Layers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mujahid, Adnan; Dickert, Franz L

    2017-11-24

    Surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonators represent some of the most prominent acoustic devices for chemical sensing applications. As their frequency ranges from several hundred MHz to GHz, therefore they can record remarkably diminutive frequency shifts resulting from exceptionally small mass loadings. Their miniaturized design, high thermal stability and possibility of wireless integration make these devices highly competitive. Owing to these special characteristics, they are widely accepted as smart transducers that can be combined with a variety of recognition layers based on host-guest interactions, metal oxide coatings, carbon nanotubes, graphene sheets, functional polymers and biological receptors. As a result of this, there is a broad spectrum of SAW sensors, i.e., having sensing applications ranging from small gas molecules to large bio-analytes or even whole cell structures. This review shall cover from the fundamentals to modern design developments in SAW devices with respect to interfacial receptor coatings for exemplary sensor applications. The related problems and their possible solutions shall also be covered, with a focus on emerging trends and future opportunities for making SAW as established sensing technology.

  12. Recognition of social identity in ants

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bos, Nick; d'Ettorre, Patrizia

    2012-01-01

    Recognizing the identity of others, from the individual to the group level, is a hallmark of society. Ants, and other social insects, have evolved advanced societies characterized by efficient social recognition systems. Colony identity is mediated by colony specific signature mixtures, a blend...

  13. From tameness to wariness: chemical recognition of snake predators by lizards in a Mediterranean island

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Abraham Mencía

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Antipredatory defenses are maintained when benefit exceeds cost. A weak predation pressure may lead insular lizards to tameness. Podarcis lilfordi exhibits a high degree of insular tameness, which may explain its extinction from the main island of Menorca when humans introduced predators. There are three species of lizards in Menorca: the native P. lilfordi, only on the surrounding islets, and two introduced lizards in the main island, Scelarcis perspicillata and Podarcis siculus. In addition, there are three species of snakes, all introduced: one non-saurophagous (Natrix maura, one potentially non-saurophagous (Rhinechis scalaris and one saurophagous (Macroprotodon mauritanicus. We studied the reaction to snake chemical cues in five populations: (1 P. lilfordi of Colom, (2 P. lilfordi of Aire, (3 P. lilfordi of Binicodrell, (4 S. perspicillata, and (5 P. siculus, ordered by increasing level of predation pressure. The three snakes are present in the main island, while only R. scalaris is present in Colom islet, Aire and Binicodrell being snake-free islets. We aimed to assess the relationship between predation pressure and the degree of insular tameness regarding scent recognition. We hypothesized that P. lilfordi should show the highest degree of tameness, S. perspicillata should show intermediate responses, and P. siculus should show the highest wariness. Results are clear: neither P. lilfordi nor S. perspicillata recognize any of the snakes, while P. siculus recognizes the scent of M. mauritanicus and reacts to it with typical well-defined antipredatory behaviours as tail waving and slow motion. These results rise questions about the loss of chemical recognition of predators during island tameness and its related costs and benefits for lizards of insular habitats. In addition, this highlights the necessity for strong conservation measures to avoid the introduction of alien predators.

  14. From tameness to wariness: chemical recognition of snake predators by lizards in a Mediterranean island

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pérez-Mellado, Valentín

    2017-01-01

    Antipredatory defenses are maintained when benefit exceeds cost. A weak predation pressure may lead insular lizards to tameness. Podarcis lilfordi exhibits a high degree of insular tameness, which may explain its extinction from the main island of Menorca when humans introduced predators. There are three species of lizards in Menorca: the native P. lilfordi, only on the surrounding islets, and two introduced lizards in the main island, Scelarcis perspicillata and Podarcis siculus. In addition, there are three species of snakes, all introduced: one non-saurophagous (Natrix maura), one potentially non-saurophagous (Rhinechis scalaris) and one saurophagous (Macroprotodon mauritanicus). We studied the reaction to snake chemical cues in five populations: (1) P. lilfordi of Colom, (2) P. lilfordi of Aire, (3) P. lilfordi of Binicodrell, (4) S. perspicillata, and (5) P. siculus, ordered by increasing level of predation pressure. The three snakes are present in the main island, while only R. scalaris is present in Colom islet, Aire and Binicodrell being snake-free islets. We aimed to assess the relationship between predation pressure and the degree of insular tameness regarding scent recognition. We hypothesized that P. lilfordi should show the highest degree of tameness, S. perspicillata should show intermediate responses, and P. siculus should show the highest wariness. Results are clear: neither P. lilfordi nor S. perspicillata recognize any of the snakes, while P. siculus recognizes the scent of M. mauritanicus and reacts to it with typical well-defined antipredatory behaviours as tail waving and slow motion. These results rise questions about the loss of chemical recognition of predators during island tameness and its related costs and benefits for lizards of insular habitats. In addition, this highlights the necessity for strong conservation measures to avoid the introduction of alien predators. PMID:28123905

  15. Implicit Recognition Based on Lateralized Perceptual Fluency

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Iliana M. Vargas

    2012-02-01

    Full Text Available In some circumstances, accurate recognition of repeated images in an explicit memory test is driven by implicit memory. We propose that this “implicit recognition” results from perceptual fluency that influences responding without awareness of memory retrieval. Here we examined whether recognition would vary if images appeared in the same or different visual hemifield during learning and testing. Kaleidoscope images were briefly presented left or right of fixation during divided-attention encoding. Presentation in the same visual hemifield at test produced higher recognition accuracy than presentation in the opposite visual hemifield, but only for guess responses. These correct guesses likely reflect a contribution from implicit recognition, given that when the stimulated visual hemifield was the same at study and test, recognition accuracy was higher for guess responses than for responses with any level of confidence. The dramatic difference in guessing accuracy as a function of lateralized perceptual overlap between study and test suggests that implicit recognition arises from memory storage in visual cortical networks that mediate repetition-induced fluency increments.

  16. How Learning Goal Orientation Fosters Leadership Recognition in Self-managed Teams

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lee, Yih-Teen; Paunova, Minna

    2017-01-01

    understudied. Drawing on social exchange theory, we propose and test an individual-level two-stage process model of generalised exchange linking LGO and leadership recognition in self-managed teams. Specifically, we posit that learning-oriented individuals will tend to feel safer in self-managed teams, which......Defined as a mental framework for how individuals interpret and respond to achievement situations, learning goal orientation (LGO) has received increasing attention in organisational research. However, its effect on leadership, especially in contexts absent of formal leadership, remains......, but that contextual role behavior alone does not mediate the effect of LGO on leadership recognition. LGO has an indirect effect on leadership recognition through the joint mediation of felt safety and contextual role behavior. Our results offer insight on the link between LGO and leadership, with practical...

  17. Cuticular Hydrocarbons of Tribolium confusum Larvae Mediate Trail Following and Host Recognition in the Ectoparasitoid Holepyris sylvanidis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fürstenau, Benjamin; Hilker, Monika

    2017-09-01

    Parasitic wasps which attack insects infesting processed stored food need to locate their hosts hidden inside these products. Their host search is well-known to be guided by host kairomones, perceived via olfaction or contact. Among contact kairomones, host cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) may provide reliable information for a parasitoid. However, the chemistry of CHC profiles of hosts living in processed stored food products is largely unknown. Here we showed that the ectoparasitoid Holepyris sylvanidis uses CHCs of its host Tribolium confusum, a worldwide stored product pest, as kairomones for host location and recognition at short range. Chemical analysis of T. confusum larval extracts by gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry revealed a rich blend of long-chain (C25-C30) hydrocarbons, including n-alkanes, mono-, and dimethylalkanes. We further studied whether host larvae leave sufficient CHCs on a substrate where they walk along, thus allowing parasitoids to perceive a CHC trail and follow it to their host larvae. We detected 18 CHCs on a substrate that had been exposed to host larvae. These compounds were also found in crude extracts of host larvae and made up about a fifth of the CHC amount extracted. Behavioral assays showed that trails of host CHCs were followed by the parasitoids and reduced their searching time until successful host recognition. Host CHC trails deposited on different substrates were persistent for about a day. Hence, the parasitoid H. sylvanidis exploits CHCs of T. confusum larvae for host finding by following host CHC trails and for host recognition by direct contact with host larvae.

  18. Incomplete Homogenization of Chemical Recognition Labels Between Formica sanguinea and Formica rufa Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) Living in a Mixed Colony

    Science.gov (United States)

    Włodarczyk, Tomasz; Szczepaniak, Lech

    2014-01-01

    Abstract Formica sanguinea Latreille (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) is a slave-making species, i.e., it raids colonies of host species and pillages pupae, which are taken to develop into adult workers in a parasite colony. However, it has been unclear if the coexistence of F. sanguinea with slave workers requires uniformity of cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs), among which those other than n -alkanes are believed to be the principal nestmate recognition cues utilized by ants. In this study, a mixed colony (MC) of F. sanguinea and Formica rufa L. as a slave species was used to test the hypothesis that CHCs are exchanged between the species. Chemical analysis of hexane extracts from ants’ body surfaces provided evidence for interspecific exchange of alkenes and methyl-branched alkanes. This result was confirmed by behavioral tests during which ants exhibited hostility toward conspecific individuals from the MC but not toward ones from homospecific colonies of their own species. However, it seems that species-specific differences in chemical recognition labels were not eliminated completely because ants from the MC were treated differently depending on whether they were con- or allospecific to the individuals whose behavioral reactions were tested. These findings are discussed in the context of mechanisms of colony's odor formation and effective integration of slaves into parasite colony. PMID:25502026

  19. Investigating the relationship between employees’ empowerment and organizational commitment with organizational health mediation in Tehran Municipality, Revenue Recognition and Collection department

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    B. Movahedi

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available In today’s leading organizations, employees’ empowerment is considered as a significant issue in human resource management cycle and it has become a central theme of management functions and practices. The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between empowerment of staffs and organizational commitment with organizational health mediation. The results showed that there is a relationship between staffs empowerment and organizational commitment, and the aspects of empowerment (competence, effectiveness, autonomy, trust, choice right are also associated with organizational commitment and that the variable of organizational health plays a mediation role in the relationship between staffs’ empowerment and organizational commitment in the office of revenue recognition and collection in Tehran Municipality. This research is of descriptive type. To analyze the data, initially the normality of data was examined by using Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, and then assumptions were evaluated by using the model of structural equations and LISREL software.

  20. Cell-mediated mutagenesis and cell transformation of mammalian cells by chemical carcinogens

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Huberman, E.; Langenbach, R.

    1977-01-01

    We have developed a cell-mediated mutagenesis assay in which cells with the appropriate markers for mutagenesis are co-cultivated with either lethally irradiated rodent embryonic cells that can metabolize carcinogenic hydrocarbons or with primary rat liver cells that can metabolize chemicals carcinogenic to the liver. During co-cultivation, the reactive metabolites of the procarcinogen appear to be transmitted to the mutable cells and induce mutations in them. Assays of this type make it possible to demonstrate a relationship between carcinogenic potency of the chemicals and their ability to induce mutations in mammalian cells. In addition, by simultaneously comparing the frequencies of transformation and mutation induced in normal diploid hamster cells by benzo(a)pyrene (BP) and one of its metabolites, it is possible to estimate the genetic target size for cell transformation in vitro

  1. Pattern recognition receptor-mediated cytokine response in infants across 4 continents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smolen, Kinga K; Ruck, Candice E; Fortuno, Edgardo S; Ho, Kevin; Dimitriu, Pedro; Mohn, William W; Speert, David P; Cooper, Philip J; Esser, Monika; Goetghebuer, Tessa; Marchant, Arnaud; Kollmann, Tobias R

    2014-03-01

    Susceptibility to infection as well as response to vaccination varies among populations. To date, the underlying mechanisms responsible for these clinical observations have not been fully delineated. Because innate immunity instructs adaptive immunity, we hypothesized that differences between populations in innate immune responses may represent a mechanistic link to variation in susceptibility to infection or response to vaccination. Determine whether differences in innate immune responses exist among infants from different continents of the world. We determined the innate cytokine response following pattern recognition receptor (PRR) stimulation of whole blood from 2-year-old infants across 4 continents (Africa, North America, South America, and Europe). We found that despite the many possible genetic and environmental exposure differences in infants across 4 continents, innate cytokine responses were similar for infants from North America, South America, and Europe. However, cells from South African infants secreted significantly lower levels of cytokines than did cells from infants from the 3 other sites, and did so following stimulation of extracellular and endosomal but not cytosolic PRRs. Substantial differences in innate cytokine responses to PRR stimulation exist among different populations of infants that could not have been predicted. Delineating the underlying mechanism(s) for these differences will not only aid in improving vaccine-mediated protection but possibly also provide clues for the susceptibility to infection in different regions of the world. Copyright © 2013 The Authors. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

  2. No strong evidence for lateralisation of word reading and face recognition deficits following posterior brain injury

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Gerlach, Christian; Marstrand, Lisbet; Starrfelt, Randi

    2014-01-01

    Face recognition and word reading are thought to be mediated by relatively independent cognitive systems lateralized to the right and left hemisphere respectively. In this case, we should expect a higher incidence of face recognition problems in patients with right hemisphere injury and a higher......-construction, motion perception), we found that both patient groups performed significantly worse than a matched control group. In particular we found a significant number of face recognition deficits in patients with left hemisphere injury and a significant number of patients with word reading deficits following...... right hemisphere injury. This suggests that face recognition and word reading may be mediated by more bilaterally distributed neural systems than is commonly assumed....

  3. Effects of Power on Mental Rotation and Emotion Recognition in Women.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nissan, Tali; Shapira, Oren; Liberman, Nira

    2015-10-01

    Based on construal-level theory (CLT) and its view of power as an instance of social distance, we predicted that high, relative to low power would enhance women's mental-rotation performance and impede their emotion-recognition performance. The predicted effects of power emerged both when it was manipulated via a recall priming task (Study 1) and environmental cues (Studies 2 and 3). Studies 3 and 4 found evidence for mediation by construal level of the effect of power on emotion recognition but not on mental rotation. We discuss potential mediating mechanisms for these effects based on both the social distance/construal level and the approach/inhibition views of power. We also discuss implications for optimizing performance on mental rotation and emotion recognition in everyday life. © 2015 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

  4. Building an immune-mediated coagulopathy consensus: early recognition and evaluation to enhance post-surgical patient safety

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Voils Stacy A

    2009-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Topical hemostats, fibrin sealants, and surgical adhesives are regularly used in a variety of surgical procedures involving multiple disciplines. Generally, these adjuncts to surgical hemostasis are valuable means for improving wound visualization, reducing blood loss or adding tissue adherence; however, some of these agents are responsible for under-recognized adverse reactions and outcomes. Bovine thrombin, for example, is a topical hemostat with a long history of clinical application that is widely used alone or in combination with other hemostatic agents. Hematologists and coagulation experts are aware that these agents can lead to development of an immune-mediated coagulopathy (IMC. A paucity of data on the incidence of IMC contributes to under-recognition and leaves many surgeons unaware that this clinical entity, originating from normal immune responses to foreign antigen exposure, requires enhanced post-operative vigilance and judicious clinical judgment to achieve best outcomes. Postoperative bleeding may result from issues such as loosened ties or clips or the occurrence of a coagulopathy due to hemodilution, vitamin K deficiency, disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC or post-transfusion, post-shock coagulopathic states. Other causes, such as liver disease, may be ruled out by a careful patient history and common pre-operative liver function tests. Less common are coagulopathies secondary to pathologic immune responses. Such coagulopathies include those that may result from inherent patient problems such as patients with an immune dysfunction related to systemic lupus erythrematosus (SLE or lymphoma that can invoke antibodies against native coagulation factors. Medical interventions may also provoke antibody formation in the form of self-directed anti-coagulation factor antibodies, that result in problematic bleeding; it is these iatrogenic post-operative coagulopathies, including those associated with bovine thrombin

  5. Evolution of Soybean mosaic virus-G7 molecularly cloned genome in Rsv1-genotype soybean results in emergence of a mutant capable of evading Rsv1-mediated recognition

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hajimorad, M.R.; Eggenberger, A.L.; Hill, J.H.

    2003-01-01

    Plant resistance (R) genes direct recognition of pathogens harboring matching avirluent signals leading to activation of defense responses. It has long been hypothesized that under selection pressure the infidelity of RNA virus replication together with large population size and short generation times results in emergence of mutants capable of evading R-mediated recognition. In this study, the Rsv1/Soybean mosaic virus (SMV) pathosystem was used to investigate this hypothesis. In soybean line PI 96983 (Rsv1), the progeny of molecularly cloned SMV strain G7 (pSMV-G7) provokes a lethal systemic hypersensitive response (LSHR) with up regulation of a defense-associated gene transcript (PR-1). Serial passages of a large population of the progeny in PI 96983 resulted in emergence of a mutant population (vSMV-G7d), incapable of provoking either Rsv1-mediated LSHR or PR-1 protein gene transcript up regulation. An infectious clone of the mutant (pSMV-G7d) was synthesized whose sequences were very similar but not identical to the vSMV-G7d population; however, it displayed a similar phenotype. The genome of pSMV-G7d differs from parental pSMV-G7 by 17 substitutions, of which 10 are translationally silent. The seven amino acid substitutions in deduced sequences of pSMV-G7d differ from that of pSMV-G7 by one each in P1 proteinase, helper component-proteinase, and coat protein, respectively, and by four in P3. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration in which experimental evolution of a molecularly cloned plant RNA virus resulted in emergence of a mutant capable of evading an R-mediated recognition

  6. Recognition of social identity in ants

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nick eBos

    2012-03-01

    Full Text Available Recognizing the identity of others, from the individual to the group level, is a hallmark of society. Ants, and other social insects, have evolved advanced societies characterized by efficient social recognition systems. Colony identity is mediated by colony specific signature mixtures, a blend of hydrocarbons present on the cuticle of every individual (the label. Recognition occurs when an ant encounters another individual, and compares the label it perceives to an internal representation of its own colony odor (the template. A mismatch between label and template leads to rejection of the encountered individual. Although advances have been made in our understanding of how the label is produced and acquired, contradictory evidence exists about information processing of recognition cues. Here, we review the literature on template acquisition in ants and address how and when the template is formed, where in the nervous system it is localized, and the possible role of learning. We combine seemingly contradictory evidence in to a novel, parsimonious theory for the information processing of nestmate recognition cues.

  7. Avoidance response of juvenile Pacific treefrogs to chemical cues of introduced predatory bullfrogs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chivers, D P; Wildy, E L; Kiesecker, J M; Blaustein, A R

    2001-08-01

    Bullfrogs (Rana catesbeiana), native to eastern North America, were introduced into Oregon in the 1930's. Bullfrogs are highly efficient predators that are known to eat a variety of prey including other amphibians. In laboratory experiments, we investigated whether juvenile Pacific treefrogs (Hyla regilla) recognize adult bullfrogs as a predatory threat. The ability of prey animals to acquire recognition of an introduced predator has important implications for survival of the prey. We found that treefrogs from a population that co-occurred with bullfrogs showed a strong avoidance of chemical cues of bullfrogs. In contrast, treefrogs from a population that did not co-occur with bullfrogs, did not respond to the bullfrog cues. Additional experiments showed that both populations of treefrogs use chemical cues to mediate predation risk. Treefrogs from both populations avoided chemical alarm cues from injured conspecifics.

  8. Oxytocin Reduces Face Processing Time but Leaves Recognition Accuracy and Eye-Gaze Unaffected.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hubble, Kelly; Daughters, Katie; Manstead, Antony S R; Rees, Aled; Thapar, Anita; van Goozen, Stephanie H M

    2017-01-01

    Previous studies have found that oxytocin (OXT) can improve the recognition of emotional facial expressions; it has been proposed that this effect is mediated by an increase in attention to the eye-region of faces. Nevertheless, evidence in support of this claim is inconsistent, and few studies have directly tested the effect of oxytocin on emotion recognition via altered eye-gaze Methods: In a double-blind, within-subjects, randomized control experiment, 40 healthy male participants received 24 IU intranasal OXT and placebo in two identical experimental sessions separated by a 2-week interval. Visual attention to the eye-region was assessed on both occasions while participants completed a static facial emotion recognition task using medium intensity facial expressions. Although OXT had no effect on emotion recognition accuracy, recognition performance was improved because face processing was faster across emotions under the influence of OXT. This effect was marginally significant (pfaces and this was not related to recognition accuracy or face processing time. These findings suggest that OXT-induced enhanced facial emotion recognition is not necessarily mediated by an increase in attention to the eye-region of faces, as previously assumed. We discuss several methodological issues which may explain discrepant findings and suggest the effect of OXT on visual attention may differ depending on task requirements. (JINS, 2017, 23, 23-33).

  9. [Studies on the relation between glucose metabolism and c-AMP formation in dental pulps in the presence of inflammatory chemical mediators in vitro].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kiyohara, H

    1989-01-01

    The relationship between glucose metabolism and cyclic-AMP production in dental pulp in the presence of chemical mediators was investigated in vitro. It is generally accepted that oxidation of glucose-6-14C is indicative of metabolism by the glycolytic pathway whereas that of glucose-1-14C occurs by the hexose monophosphate shunt. The 14CO2 productions from both routes were compared in dental pulp from cattle and rats in the presence of each of several chemical mediators: bradykinin (1.7-3.3 micrograms/ml), prostaglandin E1 (0.3 micrograms/ml), prostaglandin E2 (0.3 micrograms/ml), histamine (33 micrograms/ml), and 5-hydroxytryptamine (33 micrograms/ml). The effects of dental filling materials on glucose oxidation, and cyclic-AMP production by chemical mediators in pulp tissues were also investigated. The results obtained were as follows: 1) Glucose oxidation in dental pulp was stimulated by chemical mediators generally by way of the Embden-Meyerhof Parnas pathway, and was further stimulated by the medium containing bradykinin. However, it was depressed in the presence of higher concentrations of chemical mediators, especially depressed in the HMS pathway. 2) The oxidation ratio of glucose-1-14C to glucose-6-14C (G1/G6) in dental pulp was 4 to 8 in the cattle and 0.6 in the rat, showing clear differences in glucose oxidation between the two animals. 3) Moreover, glucose oxidation in rat dental pulp was 60 to 80 times higher in the EMP pathway and 5 to 10 times higher in the HMS pathway than those in the cattle. 4) Dental filling materials such as silicate cement, zinc phosphate cement, calcium hydroxide, and eugenol cement severely depressed glucose-6-14C oxidation in bovine dental pulp when used at high concentrations, but not at low concentrations. 5) The chemical mediators tested in this experiment (PGE1, PGE2, histamine, 5-HT, bradykinin, and substance P) stimulated cyclic AMP production in rat dental pulp. The production was highest with PGE1 and PGE2. The

  10. Evaluating the Role of Drone-Produced Chemical Signals in Mediating Social Interactions in Honey Bees (Apis mellifera).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Villar, Gabriel; Wolfson, Megan D; Hefetz, Abraham; Grozinger, Christina M

    2018-01-01

    Pheromones play a critical role in shaping societies of social insects, including honey bees, Apis mellifera. While diverse functions have been ascribed to queen- and worker-produced compounds, few studies have explored the identity and function of male-produced (drone) compounds. However, several lines of evidence suggest that drones engage in a variety of social interactions inside and outside of the colony. Here we elucidate the chemical composition of extracts of the drone mandibular gland, and test the hypothesis that compounds produced in these glands, or a synthetic blend consisting of the six main compounds, mediate drone social interactions in and out of the colony. Drone mandibular glands primarily produce a blend of saturated, unsaturated and methyl branched fatty acids ranging in chain length from nonanoic to docosanoic acids, and both gland extracts and synthetic blends of these chemicals serve to attract drones outside of the hive, but do not attract workers inside the hive. These studies shed light on the role drones and drone-produced chemicals have on mediating social interactions with other drones and highlight their potential importance in communicating with other castes.

  11. [Asymmetric confusability effect in recognition memory of cats pictures].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ando, M; Hakoda, Y

    1999-06-01

    Performance superiority of the addition of features in the stimuli over the deletion on recognition (asymmetric confusability effect) has been shown in previous studies (Pezdek, Maki, Valencia-Laver, Whetstone, Stoeckert, & Dougherty, 1988; Ando & Hakoda, 1998). We investigated the same effect by using a familiar living thing (cat) as a stimulus. Ten subjects were given a recognition task using pictures of cats with feature changes (additions, deletions, or no change). Results showed that the picture with deletions were easier to recognize than those with additions, which was opposite to the previous studies. Then, we examined the possibility that performance superiority of the deletions over the additions was mediated by the factor of impression. Another group of 18 subjects was asked to rate the impression scales consisting of a "typicality-reality factor", a "stability-balance factor", and a "grotesque-disgust factor". Results showed that there was a significant difference in impression ratings for each factor between the additions and the deletions, and that impression ratings predicted recognition performance well. It was concluded that performance superiority of the deletions over the additions was mediated by the factor of impression.

  12. Programming Recognition Arrays through Double Chalcogen-Bonding Interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Biot, Nicolas; Bonifazi, Davide

    2018-04-11

    In this work, we have programmed and synthesized a recognition motif constructed around a chalcogenazolo-pyridine scaffold (CGP) that, through the formation of frontal double chalcogen-bonding interactions, associates into dimeric EX-type complexes. The reliability of the double chalcogen-bonding interaction has been shown at the solid-state by X-ray analysis, depicting the strongest recognition persistence for a Te-congener. The high recognition fidelity, chemical and thermal stability and easy derivatization at the 2-position makes CGP a convenient motif for constructing supramolecular architectures through programmed chalcogen-bonding interactions. © 2018 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  13. A unique dual recognition hairpin probe mediated fluorescence amplification method for sensitive detection of uracil-DNA glycosylase and endonuclease IV activities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Yushu; Yan, Ping; Xu, Xiaowen; Jiang, Wei

    2016-03-07

    Uracil-DNA glycosylase (UDG) and endonuclease IV (Endo IV) play cooperative roles in uracil base-excision repair (UBER) and inactivity of either will interrupt the UBER to cause disease. Detection of UDG and Endo IV activities is crucial to evaluate the UBER process in fundamental research and diagnostic application. Here, a unique dual recognition hairpin probe mediated fluorescence amplification method was developed for sensitively and selectively detecting UDG and Endo IV activities. For detecting UDG activity, the uracil base in the probe was excised by the target enzyme to generate an apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP) site, achieving the UDG recognition. Then, the AP site was cleaved by a tool enzyme Endo IV, releasing a primer to trigger rolling circle amplification (RCA) reaction. Finally, the RCA reaction produced numerous repeated G-quadruplex sequences, which interacted with N-methyl-mesoporphyrin IX to generate an enhanced fluorescence signal. Alternatively, for detecting Endo IV activity, the uracil base in the probe was first converted into an AP site by a tool enzyme UDG. Next, the AP site was cleaved by the target enzyme, achieving the Endo IV recognition. The signal was then generated and amplified in the same way as those in the UDG activity assay. The detection limits were as low as 0.00017 U mL(-1) for UDG and 0.11 U mL(-1) for Endo IV, respectively. Moreover, UDG and Endo IV can be well distinguished from their analogs. This method is beneficial for properly evaluating the UBER process in function studies and disease prognoses.

  14. In silico prediction of Tetrahymena pyriformis toxicity for diverse industrial chemicals with substructure pattern recognition and machine learning methods.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cheng, Feixiong; Shen, Jie; Yu, Yue; Li, Weihua; Liu, Guixia; Lee, Philip W; Tang, Yun

    2011-03-01

    There is an increasing need for the rapid safety assessment of chemicals by both industries and regulatory agencies throughout the world. In silico techniques are practical alternatives in the environmental hazard assessment. It is especially true to address the persistence, bioaccumulative and toxicity potentials of organic chemicals. Tetrahymena pyriformis toxicity is often used as a toxic endpoint. In this study, 1571 diverse unique chemicals were collected from the literature and composed of the largest diverse data set for T. pyriformis toxicity. Classification predictive models of T. pyriformis toxicity were developed by substructure pattern recognition and different machine learning methods, including support vector machine (SVM), C4.5 decision tree, k-nearest neighbors and random forest. The results of a 5-fold cross-validation showed that the SVM method performed better than other algorithms. The overall predictive accuracies of the SVM classification model with radial basis functions kernel was 92.2% for the 5-fold cross-validation and 92.6% for the external validation set, respectively. Furthermore, several representative substructure patterns for characterizing T. pyriformis toxicity were also identified via the information gain analysis methods. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  15. Eicosanoid-mediated immunity in insects

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eicosanoid is a collective term for oxygenated metabolites of C20 polyunsaturated fatty acids. As seen in mammals, eicosanoids play crucial roles in mediating various physiological processes, including immune responses, in insects. Upon microbial pathogen infection, non-self recognition signals are ...

  16. DNA recognition by synthetic constructs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pazos, Elena; Mosquera, Jesús; Vázquez, M Eugenio; Mascareñas, José L

    2011-09-05

    The interaction of transcription factors with specific DNA sites is key for the regulation of gene expression. Despite the availability of a large body of structural data on protein-DNA complexes, we are still far from fully understanding the molecular and biophysical bases underlying such interactions. Therefore, the development of non-natural agents that can reproduce the DNA-recognition properties of natural transcription factors remains a major and challenging goal in chemical biology. In this review we summarize the basics of double-stranded DNA recognition by transcription factors, and describe recent developments in the design and preparation of synthetic DNA binders. We mainly focus on synthetic peptides that have been designed by following the DNA interaction of natural proteins, and we discuss how the tools of organic synthesis can be used to make artificial constructs equipped with functionalities that introduce additional properties to the recognition process, such as sensing and controllability. Copyright © 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  17. The Role of Binocular Disparity in Rapid Scene and Pattern Recognition

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Matteo Valsecchi

    2013-04-01

    Full Text Available We investigated the contribution of binocular disparity to the rapid recognition of scenes and simpler spatial patterns using a paradigm combining backward masked stimulus presentation and short-term match-to-sample recognition. First, we showed that binocular disparity did not contribute significantly to the recognition of briefly presented natural and artificial scenes, even when the availability of monocular cues was reduced. Subsequently, using dense random dot stereograms as stimuli, we showed that observers were in principle able to extract spatial patterns defined only by disparity under brief, masked presentations. Comparing our results with the predictions from a cue-summation model, we showed that combining disparity with luminance did not per se disrupt the processing of disparity. Our results suggest that the rapid recognition of scenes is mediated mostly by a monocular comparison of the images, although we can rely on stereo in fast pattern recognition.

  18. Chloroplastic protein NRIP1 mediates innate immune receptor recognition of a viral effector

    Science.gov (United States)

    Caplan, Jeffrey L.; Mamillapalli, Padmavathi; Burch-Smith, Tessa M.; Czymmek, Kirk; Dinesh-Kumar, S.P.

    2008-01-01

    Summary Plant innate immunity relies on the recognition of pathogen effector molecules by nucleotide-binding-leucine-rich repeat (NB-LRR) immune receptor families. Previously we have shown the N immune receptor, a member of TIR-NB-LRR family, indirectly recognizes the 50-kDa helicase (p50) domain of Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) through its TIR domain. We have identified an N receptor-interacting protein, NRIP1, that directly interacts with both N's TIR domain and p50. NRIP1 is a functional rhodanese sulfurtransferase and is required for N to provide complete resistance to TMV. Interestingly, NRIP1 that normally localizes to the chloroplasts is recruited to the cytoplasm and nucleus by the p50 effector. As a consequence, NRIP1 interacts with N only in the presence of the p50 effector. Our findings show that a chloroplastic protein is intimately involved in pathogen recognition. We propose that N's activation requires a pre-recognition complex containing the p50 effector and NRIP1. PMID:18267075

  19. DNA sensor cGAS-mediated immune recognition

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pengyan Xia

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available Abstract The host takes use of pattern recognition receptors (PRRs to defend against pathogen invasion or cellular damage. Among microorganism-associated molecular patterns detected by host PRRs, nucleic acids derived from bacteria or viruses are tightly supervised, providing a fundamental mechanism of host defense. Pathogenic DNAs are supposed to be detected by DNA sensors that induce the activation of NFκB or TBK1-IRF3 pathway. DNA sensor cGAS is widely expressed in innate immune cells and is a key sensor of invading DNAs in several cell types. cGAS binds to DNA, followed by a conformational change that allows the synthesis of cyclic guanosine monophosphate–adenosine monophosphate (cGAMP from adenosine triphosphate and guanosine triphosphate. cGAMP is a strong activator of STING that can activate IRF3 and subsequent type I interferon production. Here we describe recent progresses in DNA sensors especially cGAS in the innate immune responses against pathogenic DNAs.

  20. Character Recognition Using Genetically Trained Neural Networks

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Diniz, C.; Stantz, K.M.; Trahan, M.W.; Wagner, J.S.

    1998-10-01

    Computationally intelligent recognition of characters and symbols addresses a wide range of applications including foreign language translation and chemical formula identification. The combination of intelligent learning and optimization algorithms with layered neural structures offers powerful techniques for character recognition. These techniques were originally developed by Sandia National Laboratories for pattern and spectral analysis; however, their ability to optimize vast amounts of data make them ideal for character recognition. An adaptation of the Neural Network Designer soflsvare allows the user to create a neural network (NN_) trained by a genetic algorithm (GA) that correctly identifies multiple distinct characters. The initial successfid recognition of standard capital letters can be expanded to include chemical and mathematical symbols and alphabets of foreign languages, especially Arabic and Chinese. The FIN model constructed for this project uses a three layer feed-forward architecture. To facilitate the input of characters and symbols, a graphic user interface (GUI) has been developed to convert the traditional representation of each character or symbol to a bitmap. The 8 x 8 bitmap representations used for these tests are mapped onto the input nodes of the feed-forward neural network (FFNN) in a one-to-one correspondence. The input nodes feed forward into a hidden layer, and the hidden layer feeds into five output nodes correlated to possible character outcomes. During the training period the GA optimizes the weights of the NN until it can successfully recognize distinct characters. Systematic deviations from the base design test the network's range of applicability. Increasing capacity, the number of letters to be recognized, requires a nonlinear increase in the number of hidden layer neurodes. Optimal character recognition performance necessitates a minimum threshold for the number of cases when genetically training the net. And, the

  1. Electrophysiological distinctions between recognition memory with and without awareness

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ko, Philip C.; Duda, Bryant; Hussey, Erin P.; Ally, Brandon A.

    2013-01-01

    The influence of implicit memory representations on explicit recognition may help to explain cases of accurate recognition decisions made with high uncertainty. During a recognition task, implicit memory may enhance the fluency of a test item, biasing decision processes to endorse it as “old”. This model may help explain recognition-without-identification, a remarkable phenomenon in which participants make highly accurate recognition decisions despite the inability to identify the test item. The current study investigated whether recognition-without-identification for pictures elicits a similar pattern of neural activity as other types of accurate recognition decisions made with uncertainty. Further, this study also examined whether recognition-without-identification for pictures could be attained by the use of perceptual and conceptual information from memory. To accomplish this, participants studied pictures and then performed a recognition task under difficult viewing conditions while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. Behavioral results showed that recognition was highly accurate even when test items could not be identified, demonstrating recognition-without identification. The behavioral performance also indicated that recognition-without-identification was mediated by both perceptual and conceptual information, independently of one another. The ERP results showed dramatically different memory related activity during the early 300 to 500 ms epoch for identified items that were studied compared to unidentified items that were studied. Similar to previous work highlighting accurate recognition without retrieval awareness, test items that were not identified, but correctly endorsed as “old,” elicited a negative posterior old/new effect (i.e., N300). In contrast, test items that were identified and correctly endorsed as “old,” elicited the classic positive frontal old/new effect (i.e., FN400). Importantly, both of these effects were

  2. Type I interferon production during herpes simplex virus infection is controlled by cell-type-specific viral recognition through Toll-like receptor 9, the mitochondrial antiviral signaling protein pathway, and novel recognition systems

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rasmussen, Simon Brandtoft; Sørensen, Louise Nørgaard; Malmgaard, Lene

    2007-01-01

    Recognition of viruses by germ line-encoded pattern recognition receptors of the innate immune system is essential for rapid production of type I interferon (IFN) and early antiviral defense. We investigated the mechanisms of viral recognition governing production of type I IFN during herpes...... simplex virus (HSV) infection. We show that early production of IFN in vivo is mediated through Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9) and plasmacytoid dendritic cells, whereas the subsequent alpha/beta IFN (IFN-alpha/beta) response is derived from several cell types and induced independently of TLR9...

  3. Molecular recognition in protein modification with rhodium metallopeptides

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ball, Zachary T.

    2015-01-01

    Chemical manipulation of natural, unengineered proteins is a daunting challenge which tests the limits of reaction design. By combining transition-metal or other catalysts with molecular recognition ideas, it is possible to achieve site-selective protein reactivity without the need for engineered recognition sequences or reactive sites. Some recent examples in this area have used ruthenium photocatalysis, pyridine organocatalysis, and rhodium(II) metallocarbene catalysis, indicating that the fundamental ideas provide opportunities for using diverse reactivity on complex protein substrates and in complex cell-like environments. PMID:25588960

  4. Generation of herpesvirus entry mediator (HVEM)-restricted herpes simplex virus type 1 mutant viruses: resistance of HVEM-expressing cells and identification of mutations that rescue nectin-1 recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Uchida, Hiroaki; Shah, Waris A; Ozuer, Ali; Frampton, Arthur R; Goins, William F; Grandi, Paola; Cohen, Justus B; Glorioso, Joseph C

    2009-04-01

    Both initial infection and cell-to-cell spread by herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) require the interaction of the viral glycoprotein D (gD) with an entry receptor on the cell surface. The two major HSV entry receptors, herpesvirus entry mediator (HVEM) and nectin-1, mediate infection independently but are coexpressed on a variety of cells. To determine if both receptors are active in these instances, we have established mutant viruses that are selectively impaired for recognition of one or the other receptor. In plaque assays, these viruses showed approximately 1,000-fold selectivity for the matched receptor over the mismatched receptor. Separate assays showed that each virus is impaired for both infection and spread through the mismatched receptor. We tested several human tumor cell lines for susceptibility to these viruses and observed that HT29 colon carcinoma cells are susceptible to infection by nectin-1-restricted virus but are highly resistant to HVEM-restricted virus infection, despite readily detectable HVEM expression on the cell surface. HVEM cDNA isolated from HT29 cells rendered HSV-resistant cells permissive for infection by the HVEM-restricted virus, suggesting that HT29 cells lack a cofactor for HVEM-mediated infection or express an HVEM-specific inhibitory factor. Passaging of HVEM-restricted virus on nectin-1-expressing cells yielded a set of gD missense mutations that each restored functional recognition of nectin-1. These mutations identify residues that likely play a role in shaping the nectin-1 binding site of gD. Our findings illustrate the utility of these receptor-restricted viruses in studying the early events in HSV infection.

  5. Inflammatory Mediator Profiling of n-butanol Exposed Upper Airways in Individuals with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Thomas Meinertz Dantoft

    Full Text Available Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS is a chronic condition characterized by reports of recurrent symptoms in response to low level exposure to various chemical substances. Recent findings suggests that dysregulation of the immune system may play a role in MCS pathophysiology.The aim of this study was to examine baseline and low dose n-butanol-induced upper airway inflammatory response profiles in MCS subjects versus healthy controls.Eighteen participants with MCS and 18 age- and sex-matched healthy controls were enrolled in the study. Epithelial lining fluid was collected from the nasal cavity at three time points: baseline, within 15 minutes after being exposed to 3.7 ppm n-butanol in an exposure chamber and four hours after exposure termination. A total of 19 cytokines and chemokines were quantified. Furthermore, at baseline and during the exposure session, participants rated the perceived intensity, valence and levels of symptoms and autonomic recordings were obtained.The physiological and psychophysical measurements during the n-butanol exposure session verified a specific response in MCS individuals only. However, MCS subjects and healthy controls displayed similar upper airway inflammatory mediator profiles (P>0.05 at baseline. Likewise, direct comparison of mediator levels in the MCS group and controls after n-butanol exposure revealed no significant group differences.We demonstrate no abnormal upper airway inflammatory mediator levels in MCS subjects before or after a symptom-eliciting exposure to low dose n-butanol, implying that upper airways of MCS subjects are functionally intact at the level of cytokine and chemokine production and secretory capacity. This suggests that previous findings of increased cytokine plasma levels in MCS are unlikely to be caused by systemic priming via excessive upper airway inflammatory processes.

  6. Inflammatory Mediator Profiling of n-butanol Exposed Upper Airways in Individuals with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dantoft, Thomas Meinertz; Skovbjerg, Sine; Andersson, Linus; Claeson, Anna-Sara; Lind, Nina; Nordin, Steven; Brix, Susanne

    2015-01-01

    Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) is a chronic condition characterized by reports of recurrent symptoms in response to low level exposure to various chemical substances. Recent findings suggests that dysregulation of the immune system may play a role in MCS pathophysiology. The aim of this study was to examine baseline and low dose n-butanol-induced upper airway inflammatory response profiles in MCS subjects versus healthy controls. Eighteen participants with MCS and 18 age- and sex-matched healthy controls were enrolled in the study. Epithelial lining fluid was collected from the nasal cavity at three time points: baseline, within 15 minutes after being exposed to 3.7 ppm n-butanol in an exposure chamber and four hours after exposure termination. A total of 19 cytokines and chemokines were quantified. Furthermore, at baseline and during the exposure session, participants rated the perceived intensity, valence and levels of symptoms and autonomic recordings were obtained. The physiological and psychophysical measurements during the n-butanol exposure session verified a specific response in MCS individuals only. However, MCS subjects and healthy controls displayed similar upper airway inflammatory mediator profiles (P>0.05) at baseline. Likewise, direct comparison of mediator levels in the MCS group and controls after n-butanol exposure revealed no significant group differences. We demonstrate no abnormal upper airway inflammatory mediator levels in MCS subjects before or after a symptom-eliciting exposure to low dose n-butanol, implying that upper airways of MCS subjects are functionally intact at the level of cytokine and chemokine production and secretory capacity. This suggests that previous findings of increased cytokine plasma levels in MCS are unlikely to be caused by systemic priming via excessive upper airway inflammatory processes.

  7. Object recognition memory: neurobiological mechanisms of encoding, consolidation and retrieval.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Winters, Boyer D; Saksida, Lisa M; Bussey, Timothy J

    2008-07-01

    Tests of object recognition memory, or the judgment of the prior occurrence of an object, have made substantial contributions to our understanding of the nature and neurobiological underpinnings of mammalian memory. Only in recent years, however, have researchers begun to elucidate the specific brain areas and neural processes involved in object recognition memory. The present review considers some of this recent research, with an emphasis on studies addressing the neural bases of perirhinal cortex-dependent object recognition memory processes. We first briefly discuss operational definitions of object recognition and the common behavioural tests used to measure it in non-human primates and rodents. We then consider research from the non-human primate and rat literature examining the anatomical basis of object recognition memory in the delayed nonmatching-to-sample (DNMS) and spontaneous object recognition (SOR) tasks, respectively. The results of these studies overwhelmingly favor the view that perirhinal cortex (PRh) is a critical region for object recognition memory. We then discuss the involvement of PRh in the different stages--encoding, consolidation, and retrieval--of object recognition memory. Specifically, recent work in rats has indicated that neural activity in PRh contributes to object memory encoding, consolidation, and retrieval processes. Finally, we consider the pharmacological, cellular, and molecular factors that might play a part in PRh-mediated object recognition memory. Recent studies in rodents have begun to indicate the remarkable complexity of the neural substrates underlying this seemingly simple aspect of declarative memory.

  8. Nest-mate recognition in Manuelia postica (Apidae: Xylocopinae): an eusocial trait is present in a solitary bee.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Flores-Prado, Luis; Aguilera-Olivares, Daniel; Niemeyer, Hermann M

    2008-02-07

    In eusocial Hymenoptera, females are more tolerant towards nest-mate than towards non-nest-mate females. In solitary Hymenoptera, females are generally aggressive towards any conspecific female. Field observations of the nest biology of Manuelia postica suggested nest-mate recognition. Experiments were performed involving two live interacting females or one live female interacting with a dead female. Live females from different nests were more intolerant to each other than females from the same nest. Females were more intolerant towards non-nest-mate than towards nest-mate dead females. When dead females were washed with pentane, no differences in tolerant and intolerant behaviours were detected between non-nest-mate and nest-mate females. Females were more intolerant towards nest-mate female carcasses coated with the cuticular extract from a non-nest-mate than towards non-nest-mate female carcasses coated with the cuticular extract from a nest-mate. The compositions of the cuticular extracts was more similar between females from the same nest than between females from different nests. The results demonstrate for the first time nest-mate recognition mediated by cuticular chemicals in a largely solitary species of Apidae. The position of Manuelia at the base of the Apidae phylogeny suggests that nest-mate recognition in eusocial species apical to Manuelia represents the retention of a primitive capacity in Apidae.

  9. Adversity, emotion recognition, and empathic concern in high-risk youth.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jodi A Quas

    Full Text Available Little is known about how emotion recognition and empathy jointly operate in youth growing up in contexts defined by persistent adversity. We investigated whether adversity exposure in two groups of youth was associated with reduced empathy and whether deficits in emotion recognition mediated this association. Foster, rural poor, and comparison youth from Swaziland, Africa identified emotional expressions and rated their empathic concern for characters depicted in images showing positive, ambiguous, and negative scenes. Rural and foster youth perceived greater anger and happiness in the main characters in ambiguous and negative images than did comparison youth. Rural children also perceived less sadness. Youth's perceptions of sadness in the negative and ambiguous expressions mediated the relation between adversity and empathic concern, but only for the rural youth, who perceived less sadness, which then predicted less empathy. Findings provide new insight into processes that underlie empathic tendencies in adversity-exposed youth and highlight potential directions for interventions to increase empathy.

  10. Effects of environmental estrogenic chemicals on AP1 mediated transcription with estrogen receptors alpha and beta.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fujimoto, Nariaki; Honda, Hiroaki; Kitamura, Shigeyuki

    2004-01-01

    There has been much discussion concerning endocrine disrupting chemicals suspected of exerting adverse effects in both wildlife and humans. Since the majority of these compounds are estrogenic, a large number of in vitro tests for estrogenic characteristics have been developed for screening purpose. One reliable and widely used method is the reporter gene assay employing estrogen receptors (ERs) and a reporter gene with a cis-acting estrogen responsive element (ERE). Other elements such as AP1 also mediate estrogenic signals and the manner of response could be quite different from that of ERE. Since this has yet to be explored, the ER mediated AP1 activity in response to a series of environmental estrogens was investigated in comparison with ERE findings. All the compounds exhibited estrogenic properties with ERE-luc and their AP1 responses were quite similar. These was one exception, however, p,p'-DDT (1,1,1,-trichloro-2,2-bis(p-chlorophenyl)ethane) did not exert any AP1-luc activity, while it appeared to be estrogenic at 10(-7) to 10(-5)M with the ERE action. None of the compounds demonstrated ER beta:AP1 activity. These data suggest that significant differences can occur in responses through the two estrogen pathways depending on environmental chemicals.

  11. Adamantane in Drug Delivery Systems and Surface Recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Štimac, Adela; Šekutor, Marina; Mlinarić-Majerski, Kata; Frkanec, Leo; Frkanec, Ruža

    2017-02-16

    The adamantane moiety is widely applied in design and synthesis of new drug delivery systems and in surface recognition studies. This review focuses on liposomes, cyclodextrins, and dendrimers based on or incorporating adamantane derivatives. Our recent concept of adamantane as an anchor in the lipid bilayer of liposomes has promising applications in the field of targeted drug delivery and surface recognition. The results reported here encourage the development of novel adamantane-based structures and self-assembled supramolecular systems for basic chemical investigations as well as for biomedical application.

  12. Adamantane in Drug Delivery Systems and Surface Recognition

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adela Štimac

    2017-02-01

    Full Text Available The adamantane moiety is widely applied in design and synthesis of new drug delivery systems and in surface recognition studies. This review focuses on liposomes, cyclodextrins, and dendrimers based on or incorporating adamantane derivatives. Our recent concept of adamantane as an anchor in the lipid bilayer of liposomes has promising applications in the field of targeted drug delivery and surface recognition. The results reported here encourage the development of novel adamantane-based structures and self-assembled supramolecular systems for basic chemical investigations as well as for biomedical application.

  13. Recognition memory span in autopsy-confirmed Dementia with Lewy Bodies and Alzheimer's Disease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Salmon, David P; Heindel, William C; Hamilton, Joanne M; Vincent Filoteo, J; Cidambi, Varun; Hansen, Lawrence A; Masliah, Eliezer; Galasko, Douglas

    2015-08-01

    Evidence from patients with amnesia suggests that recognition memory span tasks engage both long-term memory (i.e., secondary memory) processes mediated by the diencephalic-medial temporal lobe memory system and working memory processes mediated by fronto-striatal systems. Thus, the recognition memory span task may be particularly effective for detecting memory deficits in disorders that disrupt both memory systems. The presence of unique pathology in fronto-striatal circuits in Dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB) compared to AD suggests that performance on the recognition memory span task might be differentially affected in the two disorders even though they have quantitatively similar deficits in secondary memory. In the present study, patients with autopsy-confirmed DLB or AD, and Normal Control (NC) participants, were tested on separate recognition memory span tasks that required them to retain increasing amounts of verbal, spatial, or visual object (i.e., faces) information across trials. Results showed that recognition memory spans for verbal and spatial stimuli, but not face stimuli, were lower in patients with DLB than in those with AD, and more impaired relative to NC performance. This was despite similar deficits in the two patient groups on independent measures of secondary memory such as the total number of words recalled from long-term storage on the Buschke Selective Reminding Test. The disproportionate vulnerability of recognition memory span task performance in DLB compared to AD may be due to greater fronto-striatal involvement in DLB and a corresponding decrement in cooperative interaction between working memory and secondary memory processes. Assessment of recognition memory span may contribute to the ability to distinguish between DLB and AD relatively early in the course of disease. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  14. The ironic effect of guessing: increased false memory for mediated lists in younger and older adults

    Science.gov (United States)

    Coane, Jennifer H.; Huff, Mark J.; Hutchison, Keith A.

    2016-01-01

    Younger and older adults studied lists of words directly (e.g., creek, water) or indirectly (e.g., beaver, faucet) related to a nonpresented critical lure (CL; e.g., river). Indirect (i.e., mediated) lists presented items that were only related to CLs through nonpresented mediators (i.e., directly related items). Following study, participants completed a condition-specific task, math, a recall test with or without a warning about the CL, or tried to guess the CL. On a final recognition test, warnings (vs. math and recall without warning) decreased false recognition for direct lists, and guessing increased mediated false recognition (an ironic effect of guessing) in both age groups. The observed age-invariance of the ironic effect of guessing suggests that processes involved in mediated false memory are preserved in aging and confirms the effect is largely due to activation in semantic networks during encoding and to the strengthening of these networks during the interpolated tasks. PMID:26393390

  15. Infliximab ameliorates AD-associated object recognition memory impairment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Dong Hyun; Choi, Seong-Min; Jho, Jihoon; Park, Man-Seok; Kang, Jisu; Park, Se Jin; Ryu, Jong Hoon; Jo, Jihoon; Kim, Hyun Hee; Kim, Byeong C

    2016-09-15

    Dysfunctions in the perirhinal cortex (PRh) are associated with visual recognition memory deficit, which is frequently detected in the early stage of Alzheimer's disease. Muscarinic acetylcholine receptor-dependent long-term depression (mAChR-LTD) of synaptic transmission is known as a key pathway in eliciting this type of memory, and Tg2576 mice expressing enhanced levels of Aβ oligomers are found to have impaired mAChR-LTD in this brain area at as early as 3 months of age. We found that the administration of Aβ oligomers in young normal mice also induced visual recognition memory impairment and perturbed mAChR-LTD in mouse PRh slices. In addition, when mice were treated with infliximab, a monoclonal antibody against TNF-α, visual recognition memory impaired by pre-administered Aβ oligomers dramatically improved and the detrimental Aβ effect on mAChR-LTD was annulled. Taken together, these findings suggest that Aβ-induced inflammation is mediated through TNF-α signaling cascades, disturbing synaptic transmission in the PRh, and leading to visual recognition memory deficits. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  16. Molecular tips for scanning tunneling microscopy: intermolecular electron tunneling for single-molecule recognition and electronics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nishino, Tomoaki

    2014-01-01

    This paper reviews the development of molecular tips for scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). Molecular tips offer many advantages: first is their ability to perform chemically selective imaging because of chemical interactions between the sample and the molecular tip, thus improving a major drawback of conventional STM. Rational design of the molecular tip allows sophisticated chemical recognition; e.g., chiral recognition and selective visualization of atomic defects in carbon nanotubes. Another advantage is that they provide a unique method to quantify electron transfer between single molecules. Understanding such electron transfer is mandatory for the realization of molecular electronics.

  17. Individual Recognition in Ant Queens

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    D'Ettorre, Patrizia; Heinze, Jürgen

    2005-01-01

    Personal relationships are the cornerstone of vertebrate societies, but insect societies are either too large for individual recognition, or their members were assumed to lack the necessary cognitive abilities 1 and 2 . This paradigm has been challenged by the recent discovery that paper wasps...... recognize each other's unique facial color patterns [3] . Individual recognition is advantageous when dominance hierarchies control the partitioning of work and reproduction 2 and 4 . Here, we show that unrelated founding queens of the ant Pachycondyla villosa use chemical cues to recognize each other...... individually. Aggression was significantly lower in pairs of queens that had previously interacted than in pairs with similar social history but no experience with one another. Moreover, subordinates discriminated familiar and unfamiliar dominants in choice experiments in which physical contact, but not odor...

  18. Association preference and mechanism of kin recognition in ...

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Prakash

    an open-ended mesh cage (9 cm in diameter), placed in the .... the data. For each parental line, the number of tadpoles that spent a majority of time in different stimulus zones ..... Waldman B 1986 Chemical ecology of kin recognition in anuran.

  19. Age-related differences in emotion recognition ability: a cross-sectional study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mill, Aire; Allik, Jüri; Realo, Anu; Valk, Raivo

    2009-10-01

    Experimental studies indicate that recognition of emotions, particularly negative emotions, decreases with age. However, there is no consensus at which age the decrease in emotion recognition begins, how selective this is to negative emotions, and whether this applies to both facial and vocal expression. In the current cross-sectional study, 607 participants ranging in age from 18 to 84 years (mean age = 32.6 +/- 14.9 years) were asked to recognize emotions expressed either facially or vocally. In general, older participants were found to be less accurate at recognizing emotions, with the most distinctive age difference pertaining to a certain group of negative emotions. Both modalities revealed an age-related decline in the recognition of sadness and -- to a lesser degree -- anger, starting at about 30 years of age. Although age-related differences in the recognition of expression of emotion were not mediated by personality traits, 2 of the Big 5 traits, openness and conscientiousness, made an independent contribution to emotion-recognition performance. Implications of age-related differences in facial and vocal emotion expression and early onset of the selective decrease in emotion recognition are discussed in terms of previous findings and relevant theoretical models.

  20. Functional Connectivity of Multiple Brain Regions Required for the Consolidation of Social Recognition Memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tanimizu, Toshiyuki; Kenney, Justin W; Okano, Emiko; Kadoma, Kazune; Frankland, Paul W; Kida, Satoshi

    2017-04-12

    Social recognition memory is an essential and basic component of social behavior that is used to discriminate familiar and novel animals/humans. Previous studies have shown the importance of several brain regions for social recognition memories; however, the mechanisms underlying the consolidation of social recognition memory at the molecular and anatomic levels remain unknown. Here, we show a brain network necessary for the generation of social recognition memory in mice. A mouse genetic study showed that cAMP-responsive element-binding protein (CREB)-mediated transcription is required for the formation of social recognition memory. Importantly, significant inductions of the CREB target immediate-early genes c-fos and Arc were observed in the hippocampus (CA1 and CA3 regions), medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and amygdala (basolateral region) when social recognition memory was generated. Pharmacological experiments using a microinfusion of the protein synthesis inhibitor anisomycin showed that protein synthesis in these brain regions is required for the consolidation of social recognition memory. These findings suggested that social recognition memory is consolidated through the activation of CREB-mediated gene expression in the hippocampus/mPFC/ACC/amygdala. Network analyses suggested that these four brain regions show functional connectivity with other brain regions and, more importantly, that the hippocampus functions as a hub to integrate brain networks and generate social recognition memory, whereas the ACC and amygdala are important for coordinating brain activity when social interaction is initiated by connecting with other brain regions. We have found that a brain network composed of the hippocampus/mPFC/ACC/amygdala is required for the consolidation of social recognition memory. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Here, we identify brain networks composed of multiple brain regions for the consolidation of social recognition memory. We

  1. Assessing the Dissociability of Recollection and Familiarity in Recognition Memory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pratte, Michael S.; Rouder, Jeffrey N.

    2012-01-01

    Recognition memory is often modeled as constituting 2 separate processes, recollection and familiarity, rather than as constituting a single process mediated by a generic latent strength. One way of stating evidence for the more complex 2-process model is to show dissociations with select manipulations, in which one manipulation affects…

  2. GIS technology in regional recognition of the distribution pattern of multifloral honey: The chemical traits in Serbia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Radović D.I.

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available GIS is a computer-based system to input, store, manipulate, analyze and output spatially referenced data. There is a huge range application of GIS that generally sets out to fulfill: mapping, measurement, monitoring, modeling and management. In this study, GIS technology was used for the regional recognition of origin and distribution patterns of multifloral honey chemical traits in Serbia. This included organizing and analyzing the spatial and attributive data of 164 honey samples collected from different regions of Serbia during the harvesting season of 2009. Multifloral honey was characterized in regards to mineral composition, sugar content and basic physicochemical properties. The kriging method of Geostatistical Analyst was used for interpolation to predict values of a sampled variable over the whole territory of Serbia. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. III 46002, OI 172017 and 451-03-2372-IP Type 1/107

  3. Source and specificity of chemical cues mediating shelter preference of Caribbean spiny lobsters (Panulirus argus).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Horner, Amy J; Nickles, Scott P; Weissburg, Marc J; Derby, Charles D

    2006-10-01

    Caribbean spiny lobsters display a diversity of social behaviors, one of the most prevalent of which is gregarious diurnal sheltering. Previous research has demonstrated that shelter selection is chemically mediated, but the source of release and the identity of the aggregation signal are unknown. In this study, we investigated the source and specificity of the aggregation signal in Caribbean spiny lobsters, Panulirus argus. We developed a relatively rapid test of shelter choice in a 5000-l laboratory flume that simulated flow conditions in the spiny lobster's natural environment, and used it to examine the shelter preference of the animals in response to a variety of odorants. We found that both males and females associated preferentially with shelters emanating conspecific urine of either sex, but not with shelters emanating seawater, food odors, or the scent of a predatory octopus. These results demonstrate specificity in the cues mediating sheltering behavior and show that urine is at least one source of the aggregation signal.

  4. Dissociable roles of internal feelings and face recognition ability in facial expression decoding.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Lin; Song, Yiying; Liu, Ling; Liu, Jia

    2016-05-15

    The problem of emotion recognition has been tackled by researchers in both affective computing and cognitive neuroscience. While affective computing relies on analyzing visual features from facial expressions, it has been proposed that humans recognize emotions by internally simulating the emotional states conveyed by others' expressions, in addition to perceptual analysis of facial features. Here we investigated whether and how our internal feelings contributed to the ability to decode facial expressions. In two independent large samples of participants, we observed that individuals who generally experienced richer internal feelings exhibited a higher ability to decode facial expressions, and the contribution of internal feelings was independent of face recognition ability. Further, using voxel-based morphometry, we found that the gray matter volume (GMV) of bilateral superior temporal sulcus (STS) and the right inferior parietal lobule was associated with facial expression decoding through the mediating effect of internal feelings, while the GMV of bilateral STS, precuneus, and the right central opercular cortex contributed to facial expression decoding through the mediating effect of face recognition ability. In addition, the clusters in bilateral STS involved in the two components were neighboring yet separate. Our results may provide clues about the mechanism by which internal feelings, in addition to face recognition ability, serve as an important instrument for humans in facial expression decoding. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  5. The LasB Elastase of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Acts in Concert with Alkaline Protease AprA To Prevent Flagellin-Mediated Immune Recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Casilag, Fiordiligie; Lorenz, Anne; Krueger, Jonas; Klawonn, Frank; Weiss, Siegfried; Häussler, Susanne

    2016-01-01

    The opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa is capable of establishing severe and persistent infections in various eukaryotic hosts. It encodes a wide array of virulence factors and employs several strategies to evade immune detection. In the present study, we screened the Harvard Medical School transposon mutant library of P. aeruginosa PA14 for bacterial factors that modulate interleukin-8 responses in A549 human airway epithelial cells. We found that in addition to the previously identified alkaline protease AprA, the elastase LasB is capable of degrading exogenous flagellin under calcium-replete conditions and prevents flagellin-mediated immune recognition. Our results indicate that the production of two proteases with anti-flagellin activity provides a failsafe mechanism for P. aeruginosa to ensure the maintenance of protease-dependent immune-modulating functions. Copyright © 2015, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

  6. 8 CFR 1292.2 - Organizations qualified for recognition; requests for recognition; withdrawal of recognition...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ...; requests for recognition; withdrawal of recognition; accreditation of representatives; roster. 1292.2...; requests for recognition; withdrawal of recognition; accreditation of representatives; roster. (a) Qualifications of organizations. A non-profit religious, charitable, social service, or similar organization...

  7. Chemical cues from females trigger male courtship behaviour in grasshoppers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Finck, Jonas; Kuntze, Janine; Ronacher, Bernhard

    2016-05-01

    Gomphocerine grasshoppers use species-specific calling songs for sex recognition and mate attraction. In two closely related species, Chorthippus biguttulus and C. mollis, acoustic communication is the only experimentally characterized communication channel that elicits male courtship behaviour. However, courtship in these species involves extensive close-range interactions that are likely to be mediated by other signalling modalities, in particular chemical cues. We developed a bioassay to determine if female cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) act as chemical cues that induce courtship behaviour, and if males assess variation in CHCs to determine whether or not to court a female. The results of this approach provide evidence that grasshopper males use species- and sex-specific information from CHC signals and respond with a courtship song to the CHC profile of conspecific females but not to the CHC profile of heterospecific females and conspecific males. We conclude that males of C. biguttulus and C. mollis use multimodal channels for mating decisions, based on both acoustic and olfactory cues. We discuss various factors that might favour the evolution of male choosiness in grasshoppers.

  8. Mediators of mucosal inflammation : Implications for therapy

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    VanDullemen, H; Meenan, J; Stronkhorst, A; Tytgat, GNJ; VanDenenter, SJH

    1997-01-01

    Treatment of inflammatory bowel disease remains a challenge. The major shortcoming in the development of new therapeutic approaches is the fact that the cause of inflammatory bowel disease is still unknown. Recognition of the importance of the arachidonic acid cascade of inflammatory mediators

  9. Threshold models of recognition and the recognition heuristic

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Edgar Erdfelder

    2011-02-01

    Full Text Available According to the recognition heuristic (RH theory, decisions follow the recognition principle: Given a high validity of the recognition cue, people should prefer recognized choice options compared to unrecognized ones. Assuming that the memory strength of choice options is strongly correlated with both the choice criterion and recognition judgments, the RH is a reasonable strategy that approximates optimal decisions with a minimum of cognitive effort (Davis-Stober, Dana, and Budescu, 2010. However, theories of recognition memory are not generally compatible with this assumption. For example, some threshold models of recognition presume that recognition judgments can arise from two types of cognitive states: (1 certainty states in which judgments are almost perfectly correlated with memory strength and (2 uncertainty states in which recognition judgments reflect guessing rather than differences in memory strength. We report an experiment designed to test the prediction that the RH applies to certainty states only. Our results show that memory states rather than recognition judgments affect use of recognition information in binary decisions.

  10. Recognition Strategies of Group 3 Innate Lymphoid Cells

    OpenAIRE

    Killig, Monica; Glatzer, Timor; Romagnani, Chiara

    2014-01-01

    During the early phase of an inflammatory response, innate cells can use different strategies to sense environmental danger. These include the direct interaction of specific activating receptors (actR) with pathogen-encoded/danger molecules or the engagement of cytokine receptors by pro-inflammatory mediators produced by antigen presenting cells (APC) in the course of the infection. These general recognition strategies, which have been extensively described for innate myeloid cells, are share...

  11. Exploring Cultural Differences in the Recognition of the Self-Conscious Emotions.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Joanne M Chung

    Full Text Available Recent research suggests that the self-conscious emotions of embarrassment, shame, and pride have distinct, nonverbal expressions that can be recognized in the United States at above-chance levels. However, few studies have examined the recognition of these emotions in other cultures, and little research has been conducted in Asia. Consequently the cross-cultural generalizability of self-conscious emotions has not been firmly established. Additionally, there is no research that examines cultural variability in the recognition of the self-conscious emotions. Cultural values and exposure to Western culture have been identified as contributors to variability in recognition rates for the basic emotions; we sought to examine this for the self-conscious emotions using the University of California, Davis Set of Emotion Expressions (UCDSEE. The present research examined recognition of the self-conscious emotion expressions in South Korean college students and found that recognition rates were very high for pride, low but above chance for shame, and near zero for embarrassment. To examine what might be underlying the recognition rates we found in South Korea, recognition of self-conscious emotions and several cultural values were examined in a U.S. college student sample of European Americans, Asian Americans, and Asian-born individuals. Emotion recognition rates were generally similar between the European Americans and Asian Americans, and higher than emotion recognition rates for Asian-born individuals. These differences were not explained by cultural values in an interpretable manner, suggesting that exposure to Western culture is a more important mediator than values.

  12. Exploring Cultural Differences in the Recognition of the Self-Conscious Emotions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chung, Joanne M; Robins, Richard W

    2015-01-01

    Recent research suggests that the self-conscious emotions of embarrassment, shame, and pride have distinct, nonverbal expressions that can be recognized in the United States at above-chance levels. However, few studies have examined the recognition of these emotions in other cultures, and little research has been conducted in Asia. Consequently the cross-cultural generalizability of self-conscious emotions has not been firmly established. Additionally, there is no research that examines cultural variability in the recognition of the self-conscious emotions. Cultural values and exposure to Western culture have been identified as contributors to variability in recognition rates for the basic emotions; we sought to examine this for the self-conscious emotions using the University of California, Davis Set of Emotion Expressions (UCDSEE). The present research examined recognition of the self-conscious emotion expressions in South Korean college students and found that recognition rates were very high for pride, low but above chance for shame, and near zero for embarrassment. To examine what might be underlying the recognition rates we found in South Korea, recognition of self-conscious emotions and several cultural values were examined in a U.S. college student sample of European Americans, Asian Americans, and Asian-born individuals. Emotion recognition rates were generally similar between the European Americans and Asian Americans, and higher than emotion recognition rates for Asian-born individuals. These differences were not explained by cultural values in an interpretable manner, suggesting that exposure to Western culture is a more important mediator than values.

  13. Exploring Cultural Differences in the Recognition of the Self-Conscious Emotions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chung, Joanne M.; Robins, Richard W.

    2015-01-01

    Recent research suggests that the self-conscious emotions of embarrassment, shame, and pride have distinct, nonverbal expressions that can be recognized in the United States at above-chance levels. However, few studies have examined the recognition of these emotions in other cultures, and little research has been conducted in Asia. Consequently the cross-cultural generalizability of self-conscious emotions has not been firmly established. Additionally, there is no research that examines cultural variability in the recognition of the self-conscious emotions. Cultural values and exposure to Western culture have been identified as contributors to variability in recognition rates for the basic emotions; we sought to examine this for the self-conscious emotions using the University of California, Davis Set of Emotion Expressions (UCDSEE). The present research examined recognition of the self-conscious emotion expressions in South Korean college students and found that recognition rates were very high for pride, low but above chance for shame, and near zero for embarrassment. To examine what might be underlying the recognition rates we found in South Korea, recognition of self-conscious emotions and several cultural values were examined in a U.S. college student sample of European Americans, Asian Americans, and Asian-born individuals. Emotion recognition rates were generally similar between the European Americans and Asian Americans, and higher than emotion recognition rates for Asian-born individuals. These differences were not explained by cultural values in an interpretable manner, suggesting that exposure to Western culture is a more important mediator than values. PMID:26309215

  14. Usage of semantic representations in recognition memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nishiyama, Ryoji; Hirano, Tetsuji; Ukita, Jun

    2017-11-01

    Meanings of words facilitate false acceptance as well as correct rejection of lures in recognition memory tests, depending on the experimental context. This suggests that semantic representations are both directly and indirectly (i.e., mediated by perceptual representations) used in remembering. Studies using memory conjunction errors (MCEs) paradigms, in which the lures consist of component parts of studied words, have reported semantic facilitation of rejection of the lures. However, attending to components of the lures could potentially cause this. Therefore, we investigated whether semantic overlap of lures facilitates MCEs using Japanese Kanji words in which a whole-word image is more concerned in reading. Experiments demonstrated semantic facilitation of MCEs in a delayed recognition test (Experiment 1), and in immediate recognition tests in which participants were prevented from using phonological or orthographic representations (Experiment 2), and the salient effect on individuals with high semantic memory capacities (Experiment 3). Additionally, analysis of the receiver operating characteristic suggested that this effect is attributed to familiarity-based memory judgement and phantom recollection. These findings indicate that semantic representations can be directly used in remembering, even when perceptual representations of studied words are available.

  15. The Impact of Mutual Recognition: Inbuilt Limits and Domestic Responses to the Single Market

    OpenAIRE

    Schmidt, S.

    2002-01-01

    What have been the consequences of integrating the single market via mutual recognition? Did competitive deregulation result? Or were its implications less significant than expected? In this paper I analyse two previously highly regulated service sectors, insurance and road haulage, and study the impact of European policies in Germany and France. I find that the Council instituted mutual recognition in a restrictive way. This limits its impact on member states, which is moreover mediated by n...

  16. Technical Reviews on Pattern Recognition in Process Analytical Technology

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kim, Jong Yun; Choi, Yong Suk; Ji, Sun Kyung; Park, Yong Joon; Song, Kyu Seok; Jung, Sung Hee

    2008-12-01

    Pattern recognition is one of the first and the most widely adopted chemometric tools among many active research area in chemometrics such as design of experiment(DoE), pattern recognition, multivariate calibration, signal processing. Pattern recognition has been used to identify the origin of a wine and the time of year that the vine was grown by using chromatography, cause of fire by using GC/MS chromatography, detection of explosives and land mines, cargo and luggage inspection in seaports and airports by using a prompt gamma-ray activation analysis, and source apportionment of environmental pollutant by using a stable isotope ratio mass spectrometry. Recently, pattern recognition has been taken into account as a major chemometric tool in the so-called 'process analytical technology (PAT)', which is a newly-developed concept in the area of process analytics proposed by US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA). For instance, identification of raw material by using a pattern recognition analysis plays an important role for the effective quality control of the production process. Recently, pattern recognition technique has been used to identify the spatial distribution and uniformity of the active ingredients present in the product such as tablet by transforming the chemical data into the visual information

  17. Cuticular hydrocarbons as potential kin recognition cues in a subsocial spider

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Grinsted, Lena; Bilde, Trine; D'Ettorre, Patrizia

    2011-01-01

    of recognition cues in subsocial species can provide insights into evolutionary pathways leading to permanent sociality and kin-selected benefits of cooperation. In subsocial spiders, empirical evidence suggests the existence of both kin recognition and benefits of cooperating with kin, whereas the cues for kin...... recognition have yet to be identified. However, cuticular hydrocarbons have been proposed to be involved in regulation of tolerance and interattraction in spider sociality. Here, we show that subsocial Stegodyphus lineatus spiderlings have cuticular hydrocarbon profiles that are sibling-group specific, making...... be branched alkanes that are influenced very little by rearing conditions and may be genetically determined. This indicates that a specific group of cuticular chemicals, namely branched alkanes, could have evolved to act as social recognition cues in both insects and spiders....

  18. The contribution of the body and motion to whole person recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Simhi, Noa; Yovel, Galit

    2016-05-01

    While the importance of faces in person recognition has been the subject of many studies, there are relatively few studies examining recognition of the whole person in motion even though this most closely resembles daily experience. Most studies examining the whole body in motion use point light displays, which have many advantages but are impoverished and unnatural compared to real life. To determine which factors are used when recognizing the whole person in motion we conducted two experiments using naturalistic videos. In Experiment 1 we used a matching task in which the first stimulus in each pair could either be a video or multiple still images from a video of the full body. The second stimulus, on which person recognition was performed, could be an image of either the full body or face alone. We found that the body contributed to person recognition beyond the face, but only after exposure to motion. Since person recognition was performed on still images, the contribution of motion to person recognition was mediated by form-from-motion processes. To assess whether dynamic identity signatures may also contribute to person recognition, in Experiment 2 we presented people in motion and examined person recognition from videos compared to still images. Results show that dynamic identity signatures did not contribute to person recognition beyond form-from-motion processes. We conclude that the face, body and form-from-motion processes all appear to play a role in unfamiliar person recognition, suggesting the importance of considering the whole body and motion when examining person perception. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  19. Damage-recognition proteins as a potential indicator of DNA-damage-mediated sensitivity or resistance of human cells to ultraviolet radiation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chao, C.C.-K.

    1992-01-01

    The authors compared damage-recognition proteins in cells expressing different sensitivities to DNA damage. An increase in damage-recognition proteins and an enhancement of plasmid re-activation were detected in HeLa cells resistant to cisplatin and u.v. However, repair-defective cells derived from xeroderma-pigmentosum (a rare skin disease) patients did not express less cisplatin damage-recognition proteins than repair-competent cells, suggesting that damage-recognition-protein expression may not be related to DNA repair. By contrast, cells resistant to DNA damage consistently expressed high levels of u.v.-modified-DNA damage-recognition proteins. The results support the notion that u.v. damage-recognition proteins are different from those that bind to cisplatin. Findings also suggest that the damage-recognition proteins identified could be used as potential indicators of the sensitivity or resistance of cells to u.v. (author)

  20. Self-recognition of avatar motion: how do I know it's me?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cook, Richard; Johnston, Alan; Heyes, Cecilia

    2012-02-22

    When motion is isolated from form cues and viewed from third-person perspectives, individuals are able to recognize their own whole body movements better than those of friends. Because we rarely see our own bodies in motion from third-person viewpoints, this self-recognition advantage may indicate a contribution to perception from the motor system. Our first experiment provides evidence that recognition of self-produced and friends' motion dissociate, with only the latter showing sensitivity to orientation. Through the use of selectively disrupted avatar motion, our second experiment shows that self-recognition of facial motion is mediated by knowledge of the local temporal characteristics of one's own actions. Specifically, inverted self-recognition was unaffected by disruption of feature configurations and trajectories, but eliminated by temporal distortion. While actors lack third-person visual experience of their actions, they have a lifetime of proprioceptive, somatosensory, vestibular and first-person-visual experience. These sources of contingent feedback may provide actors with knowledge about the temporal properties of their actions, potentially supporting recognition of characteristic rhythmic variation when viewing self-produced motion. In contrast, the ability to recognize the motion signatures of familiar others may be dependent on configural topographic cues.

  1. Functions of galectins as 'self/non-self'-recognition and effector factors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vasta, Gerardo R; Feng, Chiguang; González-Montalbán, Nuria; Mancini, Justin; Yang, Lishi; Abernathy, Kelsey; Frost, Graeme; Palm, Cheyenne

    2017-07-31

    Carbohydrate structures on the cell surface encode complex information that through specific recognition by carbohydrate-binding proteins (lectins) modulates interactions between cells, cells and the extracellular matrix, or mediates recognition of potential microbial pathogens. Galectins are a family of ß-galactoside-binding lectins, which are evolutionary conserved and have been identified in most organisms, from fungi to invertebrates and vertebrates, including mammals. Since their discovery in the 1970s, their biological roles, initially understood as limited to recognition of endogenous carbohydrate ligands in embryogenesis and development, have expanded in recent years by the discovery of their roles in tissue repair and regulation of immune homeostasis. More recently, evidence has accumulated to support the notion that galectins can also bind glycans on the surface of potentially pathogenic microbes, and function as recognition and effector factors in innate immunity, thus establishing a new paradigm. Furthermore, some parasites 'subvert' the recognition roles of the vector/host galectins for successful attachment or invasion. These recent findings have revealed a striking functional diversification in this structurally conserved lectin family. © FEMS 2017. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  2. CD56 Is a Pathogen Recognition Receptor on Human Natural Killer Cells.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ziegler, Sabrina; Weiss, Esther; Schmitt, Anna-Lena; Schlegel, Jan; Burgert, Anne; Terpitz, Ulrich; Sauer, Markus; Moretta, Lorenzo; Sivori, Simona; Leonhardt, Ines; Kurzai, Oliver; Einsele, Hermann; Loeffler, Juergen

    2017-07-21

    Aspergillus (A.) fumigatus is an opportunistic fungal mold inducing invasive aspergillosis (IA) in immunocompromised patients. Although antifungal activity of human natural killer (NK) cells was shown in previous studies, the underlying cellular mechanisms and pathogen recognition receptors (PRRs) are still unknown. Using flow cytometry we were able to show that the fluorescence positivity of the surface receptor CD56 significantly decreased upon fungal contact. To visualize the interaction site of NK cells and A. fumigatus we used SEM, CLSM and dSTORM techniques, which clearly demonstrated that NK cells directly interact with A. fumigatus via CD56 and that CD56 is re-organized and accumulated at this interaction site time-dependently. The inhibition of the cytoskeleton showed that the receptor re-organization was an active process dependent on actin re-arrangements. Furthermore, we could show that CD56 plays a role in the fungus mediated NK cell activation, since blocking of CD56 surface receptor reduced fungal mediated NK cell activation and reduced cytokine secretion. These results confirmed the direct interaction of NK cells and A. fumigatus, leading to the conclusion that CD56 is a pathogen recognition receptor. These findings give new insights into the functional role of CD56 in the pathogen recognition during the innate immune response.

  3. Interdependence of Inhibitor Recognition in HIV-1 Protease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Paulsen, Janet L; Leidner, Florian; Ragland, Debra A; Kurt Yilmaz, Nese; Schiffer, Celia A

    2017-05-09

    Molecular recognition is a highly interdependent process. Subsite couplings within the active site of proteases are most often revealed through conditional amino acid preferences in substrate recognition. However, the potential effect of these couplings on inhibition and thus inhibitor design is largely unexplored. The present study examines the interdependency of subsites in HIV-1 protease using a focused library of protease inhibitors, to aid in future inhibitor design. Previously a series of darunavir (DRV) analogs was designed to systematically probe the S1' and S2' subsites. Co-crystal structures of these analogs with HIV-1 protease provide the ideal opportunity to probe subsite interdependency. All-atom molecular dynamics simulations starting from these structures were performed and systematically analyzed in terms of atomic fluctuations, intermolecular interactions, and water structure. These analyses reveal that the S1' subsite highly influences other subsites: the extension of the hydrophobic P1' moiety results in 1) reduced van der Waals contacts in the P2' subsite, 2) more variability in the hydrogen bond frequencies with catalytic residues and the flap water, and 3) changes in the occupancy of conserved water sites both proximal and distal to the active site. In addition, one of the monomers in this homodimeric enzyme has atomic fluctuations more highly correlated with DRV than the other monomer. These relationships intricately link the HIV-1 protease subsites and are critical to understanding molecular recognition and inhibitor binding. More broadly, the interdependency of subsite recognition within an active site requires consideration in the selection of chemical moieties in drug design; this strategy is in contrast to what is traditionally done with independent optimization of chemical moieties of an inhibitor.

  4. Pharmacologic suppression of target cell recognition by engineered T cells expressing chimeric T-cell receptors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alvarez-Vallina, L; Yañez, R; Blanco, B; Gil, M; Russell, S J

    2000-04-01

    Adoptive therapy with autologous T cells expressing chimeric T-cell receptors (chTCRs) is of potential interest for the treatment of malignancy. To limit possible T-cell-mediated damage to normal tissues that weakly express the targeted tumor antigen (Ag), we have tested a strategy for the suppression of target cell recognition by engineered T cells. Jurkat T cells were transduced with an anti-hapten chTCR tinder the control of a tetracycline-suppressible promoter and were shown to respond to Ag-positive (hapten-coated) but not to Ag-negative target cells. The engineered T cells were then reacted with hapten-coated target cells at different effector to target cell ratios before and after exposure to tetracycline. When the engineered T cells were treated with tetracycline, expression of the chTCR was greatly decreased and recognition of the hapten-coated target cells was completely suppressed. Tetracycline-mediated suppression of target cell recognition by engineered T cells may be a useful strategy to limit the toxicity of the approach to cancer gene therapy.

  5. Sensing the intruder: a quantitative threshold for recognition cues perception in honeybees

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cappa, Federico; Bruschini, Claudia; Cipollini, Maria; Pieraccini, Giuseppe; Cervo, Rita

    2014-02-01

    The ability to discriminate among nestmates and non-nestmate is essential to defend social insect colonies from intruders. Over the years, nestmate recognition has been extensively studied in the honeybee Apis mellifera; nevertheless, the quantitative perceptual aspects at the basis of the recognition system represent an unexplored subject in this species. To test the existence of a cuticular hydrocarbons' quantitative perception threshold for nestmate recognition cues, we conducted behavioural assays by presenting different amounts of a foreign forager's chemical profile to honeybees at the entrance of their colonies. We found an increase in the explorative and aggressive responses as the amount of cues increased based on a threshold mechanism, highlighting the importance of the quantitative perceptual features for the recognition processes in A. mellifera.

  6. Mechanisms of Expression and Internalisation of FIBCD1; a novel Pattern Recognition Receptor in the Gut Mucosa

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hammond, Mark; Schlosser, Anders; Dubey, Lalit Kumar

    2012-01-01

    is a carbohydrate recognition domain also expressed by the ficolins, which are pattern recognition molecules that activate the complement system via the lectin pathway. Chitin is a highly ace¬tylated homopolymer of β-1,4-N-acetyl-glucosamine carbohydrate found abundantly in nature in organisms such as fungi...... pattern recognition receptor that binds chitin and directs acetylated structures for de¬gradation in the endosome via clathrin-mediated endocytosis. The localisation of FIBCD1 in the intestinal mucosal epithelia points towards a functional role in innate immunity and/or gut homeostasis....

  7. Mouse mannose-binding lectin-A and ficolin-A inhibit lipopolysaccharide-mediated pro-inflammatory responses on mast cells

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ma, Ying Jie; Kang, Hee Jung; Kim, Ji Yeon

    2013-01-01

    It is unknown how soluble pattern-recognition receptors in blood, such as mannose-binding lectin (MBL) and ficolins, modulate mast cell-mediated inflammatory responses. We investigate how mouse MBL-A or ficolin-A regulate mouse bone marrow-derived mast cells (mBMMCs)-derived inflammatory response...... cytokine production by LPS-mediated TLR4 in mBMMCs appears to be down-regulated, indicating that mouse MBL and ficolin may have an inhibitory function toward mouse TLR4-mediated excessive inflammation on the mast cells.......It is unknown how soluble pattern-recognition receptors in blood, such as mannose-binding lectin (MBL) and ficolins, modulate mast cell-mediated inflammatory responses. We investigate how mouse MBL-A or ficolin-A regulate mouse bone marrow-derived mast cells (mBMMCs)-derived inflammatory response...

  8. Pattern recognition

    CERN Document Server

    Theodoridis, Sergios

    2003-01-01

    Pattern recognition is a scientific discipline that is becoming increasingly important in the age of automation and information handling and retrieval. Patter Recognition, 2e covers the entire spectrum of pattern recognition applications, from image analysis to speech recognition and communications. This book presents cutting-edge material on neural networks, - a set of linked microprocessors that can form associations and uses pattern recognition to ""learn"" -and enhances student motivation by approaching pattern recognition from the designer's point of view. A direct result of more than 10

  9. ERK pathway activation bidirectionally affects visual recognition memory and synaptic plasticity in the perirhinal cortex

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Davide eSilingardi

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available ERK 1,2 pathway mediates experience-dependent gene transcription in neurons and several studies have identified its pivotal role in experience-dependent synaptic plasticity and in forms of long term memory involving hippocampus, amygdala or striatum. The perirhinal cortex (PRHC plays an essential role in familiarity-based object recognition memory. It is still unknown whether ERK activation in PRHC is necessary for recognition memory consolidation. Most important, it is unknown whether by modulating the gain of the ERK pathway it is possible to bidirectionally affect visual recognition memory and PRHC synaptic plasticity.We have first pharmacologically blocked ERK activation in the PRHC of adult mice and found that this was sufficient to impair long term recognition memory in a familiarity-based task, the Object Recognition Task (ORT. We have then tested performance in the ORT in Ras-GRF1 knock-out (KO mice, which exhibit a reduced activation of ERK by neuronal activity, and in ERK1 KO mice, which have an increased activation of ERK2 and exhibit enhanced striatal plasticity and striatal mediated memory. We found that Ras-GRF1 KO mice have normal short-term memory but display a long term memory deficit; memory reconsolidation is also impaired. On the contrary, ERK1 KO mice exhibit a better performance than WT mice at 72 hour retention interval, suggesting a longer lasting recognition memory. In parallel with behavioural data, LTD was strongly reduced and LTP was significantly smaller in PRHC slices from Ras-GRF1 KO than in WT mice while enhanced LTP and LTD were found in PRHC slices from ERK1 KO mice.

  10. Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase-dependent neurotoxic kynurenine metabolism mediates inflammation-induced deficit in recognition memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heisler, Jillian M; O'Connor, Jason C

    2015-11-01

    Cognitive dysfunction in depression is a prevalent and debilitating symptom that is poorly treated by the currently available pharmacotherapies. Research over the past decade has provided evidence for proinflammatory involvement in the neurobiology of depressive disorders and symptoms associated with these disorders, including aspects of memory dysfunction. Recent clinical studies implicate inflammation-related changes in kynurenine metabolism as a potential pathogenic factor in the development of a range of depressive symptoms, including deficits in cognition and memory. Additionally, preclinical work has demonstrated a number of mood-related depressive-like behaviors to be dependent on indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase-1 (IDO1), the inflammation-induced rate-limiting enzyme of the kynurenine pathway. Here, we demonstrate in a mouse model, that peripheral administration of endotoxin induced a deficit in recognition memory. Mice deficient in IDO were protected from cognitive impairment. Furthermore, endotoxin-induced inflammation increased kynurenine metabolism within the perirhinal/entorhinal cortices, brain regions which have been implicated in recognition memory. A single peripheral injection of kynurenine, the metabolic product of IDO1, was sufficient to induce a deficit in recognition memory in both control and IDO null mice. Finally, kynurenine monooxygenase (KMO) deficient mice were also protected from inflammation-induced deficits on novel object recognition. These data implicate IDO-dependent neurotoxic kynurenine metabolism as a pathogenic factor for cognitive dysfunction in inflammation-induced depressive disorders and a potential novel target for the treatment of these disorders. Published by Elsevier Inc.

  11. Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase-dependent neurotoxic kynurenine metabolism mediates inflammation-induced deficit in recognition memory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heisler, Jillian M.; O’Connor, Jason C.

    2015-01-01

    Cognitive dysfunction in depression is a prevalent and debilitating symptom that is poorly treated by the currently available pharmacotherapies. Research over the past decade has provided evidence for proinflammatory involvement in the neurobiology of depressive disorders and symptoms associated with these disorders, including aspects of memory dysfunction. Recent clinical studies implicate inflammation-related changes in kynurenine metabolism as a potential pathogenic factor in the development of a range of depressive symptoms, including deficits in cognition and memory. Additionally, preclinical work has demonstrated a number of mood-related depressive-like behaviors to be dependent on indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase-1 (IDO1), the inflammation-induced rate-limiting enzyme of the kynurenine pathway. Here, we demonstrate in a mouse model, that peripheral administration of endotoxin induced a deficit in recognition memory. Mice deficient in IDO were protected from cognitive impairment. Furthermore, endotoxin-induced inflammation increased kynurenine metabolism within the perirhinal/entorhinal cortices, brain regions which have been implicated in recognition memory. A single peripheral injection of kynurenine, the metabolic product of IDO1, was sufficient to induce a deficit in recognition memory in both control and IDO null mice. Finally, kynurenine monooxygenase (KMO) deficient mice were also protected from inflammation-induced deficits on novel object recognition. These data implicate IDO-dependent neurotoxic kynurenine metabolism as a pathogenic factor for cognitive dysfunction in inflammation-induced depressive disorders and a potential novel target for the treatment of these disorders. PMID:26130057

  12. Odor concentration invariance by chemical ratio coding

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Naoshige Uchida

    2008-08-01

    Full Text Available Many animal species rely on chemical signals to extract ecologically important information from the environment. Yet in natural conditions chemical signals will frequently undergo concentration changes that produce differences in both level and pattern of activation of olfactory receptor neurons. Thus, a central problem in olfactory processing is how the system is able to recognize the same stimulus across different concentrations. To signal species identity for mate recognition, some insects use the ratio of two components in a binary chemical mixture to produce a code that is invariant to dilution. Here, using psychophysical methods, we show that rats also classify binary odor mixtures according to the molar ratios of their components, spontaneously generalizing over at least a tenfold concentration range. These results indicate that extracting chemical ratio information is not restricted to pheromone signaling and suggest a general solution for concentration-invariant odor recognition by the mammalian olfactory system.

  13. Arthropods Associate with their Red Wood ant Host without Matching Nestmate Recognition Cues.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parmentier, Thomas; Dekoninck, Wouter; Wenseleers, Tom

    2017-07-01

    Social insect colonies provide a valuable resource that attracts and offers shelter to a large community of arthropods. Previous research has suggested that many specialist parasites of social insects chemically mimic their host in order to evade aggression. In the present study, we carry out a systematic study to test how common such chemical deception is across a group of 22 arthropods that are associated with red wood ants (Formica rufa group). In contrast to the examples of chemical mimicry documented in some highly specialized parasites in previous studies, we find that most of the rather unspecialized red wood ant associates surveyed did not use mimicry of the cuticular hydrocarbon recognition cues to evade host detection. Instead, we found that myrmecophiles with lower cuticular hydrocarbon concentrations provoked less host aggression. Therefore, some myrmecophiles with low hydrocarbon concentrations appear to evade host detection via a strategy known as chemical insignificance. Others showed no chemical disguise at all and, instead, relied on behavioral adaptations such as particular defense or evasion tactics, in order to evade host aggression. Overall, this study indicates that unspecialized myrmecophiles do not require the matching of host recognition cues and advanced strategies of chemical mimicry, but can integrate in a hostile ant nest via either chemical insignificance or specific behavioral adaptations.

  14. Within-individual variation in bullfrog vocalizations: implications for a vocally mediated social recognition system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bee, Mark A

    2004-12-01

    Acoustic signals provide a basis for social recognition in a wide range of animals. Few studies, however, have attempted to relate the patterns of individual variation in signals to behavioral discrimination thresholds used by receivers to discriminate among individuals. North American bullfrogs (Rana catesbeiana) discriminate among familiar and unfamiliar individuals based on individual variation in advertisement calls. The sources, patterns, and magnitudes of variation in eight acoustic properties of multiple-note advertisement calls were examined to understand how patterns of within-individual variation might either constrain, or provide additional cues for, vocal recognition. Six of eight acoustic properties exhibited significant note-to-note variation within multiple-note calls. Despite this source of within-individual variation, all call properties varied significantly among individuals, and multivariate analyses indicated that call notes were individually distinct. Fine-temporal and spectral call properties exhibited less within-individual variation compared to gross-temporal properties and contributed most toward statistically distinguishing among individuals. Among-individual differences in the patterns of within-individual variation in some properties suggest that within-individual variation could also function as a recognition cue. The distributions of among-individual and within-individual differences were used to generate hypotheses about the expected behavioral discrimination thresholds of receivers.

  15. Nuclear overhauser enhancement mediated chemical exchange saturation transfer imaging at 7 Tesla in glioblastoma patients.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daniel Paech

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Nuclear Overhauser Enhancement (NOE mediated chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST is a novel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI technique on the basis of saturation transfer between exchanging protons of tissue proteins and bulk water. The purpose of this study was to evaluate and compare the information provided by three dimensional NOE mediated CEST at 7 Tesla (7T and standard MRI in glioblastoma patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Twelve patients with newly diagnosed histologically proven glioblastoma were enrolled in this prospective ethics committee-approved study. NOE mediated CEST contrast was acquired with a modified three-dimensional gradient-echo sequence and asymmetry analysis was conducted at 3.3 ppm (B1 = 0.7 µT to calculate the magnetization transfer ratio asymmetry (MTR(asym. Contrast enhanced T1 (CE-T1 and T2-weighted images were acquired at 3T and used for data co-registration and comparison. RESULTS: Mean NOE mediated CEST signal based on MTR(asym values over all patients was significantly increased (p<0.001 in CE-T1 tumor (-1.99 ± 1.22%, tumor necrosis (-1.36 ± 1.30% and peritumoral CEST hyperintensities (PTCH within T2 edema margins (-3.56 ± 1.24% compared to contralateral normal appearing white matter (-8.38 ± 1.19%. In CE-T1 tumor (p = 0.015 and tumor necrosis (p<0.001 mean MTR(asym values were significantly higher than in PTCH. Extent of the surrounding tumor hyperintensity was smaller in eight out of 12 patients on CEST than on T2-weighted images, while four displayed at equal size. In all patients, isolated high intensity regions (0.40 ± 2.21% displayed on CEST within the CE-T1 tumor that were not discernible on CE-T1 or T2-weighted images. CONCLUSION: NOE mediated CEST Imaging at 7 T provides additional information on the structure of peritumoral hyperintensities in glioblastoma and displays isolated high intensity regions within the CE-T1 tumor that cannot be acquired on CE-T1 or T2

  16. Oxytocin Promotes Facial Emotion Recognition and Amygdala Reactivity in Adults with Asperger Syndrome

    Science.gov (United States)

    Domes, Gregor; Kumbier, Ekkehardt; Heinrichs, Markus; Herpertz, Sabine C

    2014-01-01

    The neuropeptide oxytocin has recently been shown to enhance eye gaze and emotion recognition in healthy men. Here, we report a randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled trial that examined the neural and behavioral effects of a single dose of intranasal oxytocin on emotion recognition in individuals with Asperger syndrome (AS), a clinical condition characterized by impaired eye gaze and facial emotion recognition. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we examined whether oxytocin would enhance emotion recognition from facial sections of the eye vs the mouth region and modulate regional activity in brain areas associated with face perception in both adults with AS, and a neurotypical control group. Intranasal administration of the neuropeptide oxytocin improved performance in a facial emotion recognition task in individuals with AS. This was linked to increased left amygdala reactivity in response to facial stimuli and increased activity in the neural network involved in social cognition. Our data suggest that the amygdala, together with functionally associated cortical areas mediate the positive effect of oxytocin on social cognitive functioning in AS. PMID:24067301

  17. A document processing pipeline for annotating chemical entities in scientific documents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Campos, David; Matos, Sérgio; Oliveira, José L

    2015-01-01

    The recognition of drugs and chemical entities in text is a very important task within the field of biomedical information extraction, given the rapid growth in the amount of published texts (scientific papers, patents, patient records) and the relevance of these and other related concepts. If done effectively, this could allow exploiting such textual resources to automatically extract or infer relevant information, such as drug profiles, relations and similarities between drugs, or associations between drugs and potential drug targets. The objective of this work was to develop and validate a document processing and information extraction pipeline for the identification of chemical entity mentions in text. We used the BioCreative IV CHEMDNER task data to train and evaluate a machine-learning based entity recognition system. Using a combination of two conditional random field models, a selected set of features, and a post-processing stage, we achieved F-measure results of 87.48% in the chemical entity mention recognition task and 87.75% in the chemical document indexing task. We present a machine learning-based solution for automatic recognition of chemical and drug names in scientific documents. The proposed approach applies a rich feature set, including linguistic, orthographic, morphological, dictionary matching and local context features. Post-processing modules are also integrated, performing parentheses correction, abbreviation resolution and filtering erroneous mentions using an exclusion list derived from the training data. The developed methods were implemented as a document annotation tool and web service, freely available at http://bioinformatics.ua.pt/becas-chemicals/.

  18. 8 CFR 292.2 - Organizations qualified for recognition; requests for recognition; withdrawal of recognition...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ...; requests for recognition; withdrawal of recognition; accreditation of representatives; roster. 292.2...; withdrawal of recognition; accreditation of representatives; roster. (a) Qualifications of organizations. A non-profit religious, charitable, social service, or similar organization established in the United...

  19. A universal entropy-driven mechanism for thioredoxin–target recognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Palde, Prakash B.; Carroll, Kate S.

    2015-01-01

    Cysteine residues in cytosolic proteins are maintained in their reduced state, but can undergo oxidation owing to posttranslational modification during redox signaling or under conditions of oxidative stress. In large part, the reduction of oxidized protein cysteines is mediated by a small 12-kDa thiol oxidoreductase, thioredoxin (Trx). Trx provides reducing equivalents for central metabolic enzymes and is implicated in redox regulation of a wide number of target proteins, including transcription factors. Despite its importance in cellular redox homeostasis, the precise mechanism by which Trx recognizes target proteins, especially in the absence of any apparent signature binding sequence or motif, remains unknown. Knowledge of the forces associated with the molecular recognition that governs Trx–protein interactions is fundamental to our understanding of target specificity. To gain insight into Trx–target recognition, we have thermodynamically characterized the noncovalent interactions between Trx and target proteins before S-S reduction using isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC). Our findings indicate that Trx recognizes the oxidized form of its target proteins with exquisite selectivity, compared with their reduced counterparts. Furthermore, we show that recognition is dependent on the conformational restriction inherent to oxidized targets. Significantly, the thermodynamic signatures for multiple Trx targets reveal favorable entropic contributions as the major recognition force dictating these protein–protein interactions. Taken together, our data afford significant new insight into the molecular forces responsible for Trx–target recognition and should aid the design of new strategies for thiol oxidoreductase inhibition. PMID:26080424

  20. Neural Mechanisms and Information Processing in Recognition Systems

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mamiko Ozaki

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available Nestmate recognition is a hallmark of social insects. It is based on the match/mismatch of an identity signal carried by members of the society with that of the perceiving individual. While the behavioral response, amicable or aggressive, is very clear, the neural systems underlying recognition are not fully understood. Here we contrast two alternative hypotheses for the neural mechanisms that are responsible for the perception and information processing in recognition. We focus on recognition via chemical signals, as the common modality in social insects. The first, classical, hypothesis states that upon perception of recognition cues by the sensory system the information is passed as is to the antennal lobes and to higher brain centers where the information is deciphered and compared to a neural template. Match or mismatch information is then transferred to some behavior-generating centers where the appropriate response is elicited. An alternative hypothesis, that of “pre-filter mechanism”, posits that the decision as to whether to pass on the information to the central nervous system takes place in the peripheral sensory system. We suggest that, through sensory adaptation, only alien signals are passed on to the brain, specifically to an “aggressive-behavior-switching center”, where the response is generated if the signal is above a certain threshold.

  1. Neurotrophins play differential roles in short and long-term recognition memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Callaghan, Charlotte K; Kelly, Aine M

    2013-09-01

    The neurotrophin family of proteins are believed to mediate various forms of synaptic plasticity in the adult brain. Here we have assessed the roles of these proteins in object recognition memory in the rat, using icv infusions of function-blocking antibodies or the tyrosine kinase antagonist, tyrphostin AG879, to block Trk receptors. We report that tyrphostin AG879 impairs both short-term and long-term recognition memory, indicating a requirement for Trk receptor activation in both processes. The effect of inhibition of each of the neurotrophins with activity-blocking neutralising antibodies was also tested. Treatment with anti-BDNF, anti-NGF or anti-NT4 had no effect on short-term memory, but blocked long-term recognition memory. Treatment with anti-NT3 had no effect on either process. We also assessed changes in expression of neurotrophins and their respective receptors in the hippocampus, dentate gyrus and perirhinal cortex over a 24 h period following training in the object recognition task. We observed time-dependent changes in expression of the Trk receptors and their ligands in the dentate gyrus and perirhinal cortex. The data are consistent with a pivotal role for neurotrophic factors in the expression of recognition memory. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  2. Atypical evening cortisol profile induces visual recognition memory deficit in healthy human subjects

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gilpin Heather

    2008-08-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Diurnal rhythm-mediated endogenous cortisol levels in humans are characterised by a peak in secretion after awakening that declines throughout the day to an evening trough. However, a significant proportion of the population exhibits an atypical cycle of diurnal cortisol due to shift work, jet-lag, aging, and mental illness. Results The present study has demonstrated a correlation between elevation of cortisol in the evening and deterioration of visual object recognition memory. However, high evening cortisol levels have no effect on spatial memory. Conclusion This study suggests that atypical evening salivary cortisol levels have an important role in the early deterioration of recognition memory. The loss of recognition memory, which is vital for everyday life, is a major symptom of the amnesic syndrome and early stages of Alzheimer's disease. Therefore, this study will promote a potential physiologic marker of early deterioration of recognition memory and a possible diagnostic strategy for Alzheimer's disease.

  3. Structural Insights into RNA Recognition by the Alternate-Splicing Regulator CUG-Binding Protein 1

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    M Teplova; J Song; H Gaw; A Teplov; D Patel

    2011-12-31

    CUG-binding protein 1 (CUGBP1) regulates multiple aspects of nuclear and cytoplasmic mRNA processing, with implications for onset of myotonic dystrophy. CUGBP1 harbors three RRM domains and preferentially targets UGU-rich mRNA elements. We describe crystal structures of CUGBP1 RRM1 and tandem RRM1/2 domains bound to RNAs containing tandem UGU(U/G) elements. Both RRM1 in RRM1-RNA and RRM2 in RRM1/2-RNA complexes use similar principles to target UGU(U/G) elements, with recognition mediated by face-to-edge stacking and water-mediated hydrogen-bonding networks. The UG step adopts a left-handed Z-RNA conformation, with the syn guanine recognized through Hoogsteen edge-protein backbone hydrogen-bonding interactions. NMR studies on the RRM1/2-RNA complex establish that both RRM domains target tandem UGUU motifs in solution, whereas filter-binding assays identify a preference for recognition of GU over AU or GC steps. We discuss the implications of CUGBP1-mediated targeting and sequestration of UGU(U/G) elements on pre-mRNA alternative-splicing regulation, translational regulation, and mRNA decay.

  4. Anemonefishes rely on visual and chemical cues to correctly identify conspecifics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Johnston, Nicole K.; Dixson, Danielle L.

    2017-09-01

    Organisms rely on sensory cues to interpret their environment and make important life-history decisions. Accurate recognition is of particular importance in diverse reef environments. Most evidence on the use of sensory cues focuses on those used in predator avoidance or habitat recognition, with little information on their role in conspecific recognition. Yet conspecific recognition is essential for life-history decisions including settlement, mate choice, and dominance interactions. Using a sensory manipulated tank and a two-chamber choice flume, anemonefish conspecific response was measured in the presence and absence of chemical and/or visual cues. Experiments were then repeated in the presence or absence of two heterospecific species to evaluate whether a heterospecific fish altered the conspecific response. Anemonefishes responded to both the visual and chemical cues of conspecifics, but relied on the combination of the two cues to recognize conspecifics inside the sensory manipulated tank. These results contrast previous studies focusing on predator detection where anemonefishes were found to compensate for the loss of one sensory cue (chemical) by utilizing a second cue (visual). This lack of sensory compensation may impact the ability of anemonefishes to acclimate to changing reef environments in the future.

  5. [Effect of opioid receptors on acute stress-induced changes in recognition memory].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Ying; Wu, Yu-Wei; Qian, Zhao-Qiang; Yan, Cai-Fang; Fan, Ka-Min; Xu, Jin-Hui; Li, Xiao; Liu, Zhi-Qiang

    2016-12-25

    Although ample evidence has shown that acute stress impairs memory, the influences of acute stress on different phases of memory, such as acquisition, consolidation and retrieval, are different. Experimental data from both human and animals support that endogenous opioid system plays a role in stress, as endogenous opioid release is increased and opioid receptors are activated during stress experience. On the other hand, endogenous opioid system mediates learning and memory. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of acute forced swimming stress on recognition memory of C57 mice and the role of opioid receptors in this process by using a three-day pattern of new object recognition task. The results showed that 15-min acute forced swimming damaged the retrieval of recognition memory, but had no effect on acquisition and consolidation of recognition memory. No significant change of object recognition memory was found in mice that were given naloxone, an opioid receptor antagonist, by intraperitoneal injection. But intraperitoneal injection of naloxone before forced swimming stress could inhibit the impairment of recognition memory retrieval caused by forced swimming stress. The results of real-time PCR showed that acute forced swimming decreased the μ opioid receptor mRNA levels in whole brain and hippocampus, while the injection of naloxone before stress could reverse this change. These results suggest that acute stress may impair recognition memory retrieval via opioid receptors.

  6. Synergy between ficolin-2 and pentraxin 3 boosts innate immune recognition and complement deposition

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ma, Ying Jie; Doni, Andrea; Hummelshøj, Tina

    2009-01-01

    The long pentraxin 3 (PTX3) is a multifunctional soluble pattern recognition molecule that is crucial in innate immune protection against opportunistic fungal pathogens such as Aspergillus fumigatus. The mechanisms that mediate downstream effects of PTX3 are largely unknown. However, PTX3 interac...

  7. The TIM and TAM families of phosphatidylserine receptors mediate dengue virus entry.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meertens, Laurent; Carnec, Xavier; Lecoin, Manuel Perera; Ramdasi, Rasika; Guivel-Benhassine, Florence; Lew, Erin; Lemke, Greg; Schwartz, Olivier; Amara, Ali

    2012-10-18

    Dengue viruses (DVs) are responsible for the most medically relevant arboviral diseases. However, the molecular interactions mediating DV entry are poorly understood. We determined that TIM and TAM proteins, two receptor families that mediate the phosphatidylserine (PtdSer)-dependent phagocytic removal of apoptotic cells, serve as DV entry factors. Cells poorly susceptible to DV are robustly infected after ectopic expression of TIM or TAM receptors. Conversely, DV infection of susceptible cells is inhibited by anti-TIM or anti-TAM antibodies or knockdown of TIM and TAM expression. TIM receptors facilitate DV entry by directly interacting with virion-associated PtdSer. TAM-mediated infection relies on indirect DV recognition, in which the TAM ligand Gas6 acts as a bridging molecule by binding to PtdSer within the virion. This dual mode of virus recognition by TIM and TAM receptors reveals how DVs usurp the apoptotic cell clearance pathway for infectious entry. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  8. Journal of Chemical Sciences | Indian Academy of Sciences

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Home; Journals; Journal of Chemical Sciences. Shridhar R Gadre. Articles written in Journal of Chemical Sciences. Volume 121 Issue 5 September 2009 pp 815-821. Signatures of molecular recognition from the topography of electrostatic potential · Dhimoy K Roy P Balanarayan Shridhar R Gadre · More Details Abstract ...

  9. The Cek1‑mediated MAP kinase pathway regulates exposure of α‑1,2 and β‑1,2‑mannosides in the cell wall of Candida albicans modulating immune recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Román, E; Correia, I; Salazin, A; Fradin, C; Jouault, T; Poulain, D; Liu, F-T; Pla, J

    2016-07-03

    The Cek1 MAP kinase (MAPK) mediates vegetative growth and cell wall biogenesis in the fungal pathogen Candida albicans. Alterations in the fungal cell wall caused by a defective Cek1‑mediated signaling pathway leads to increased β‑1,3‑glucan exposure influencing dectin‑1 fungal recognition by immune cells. We show here that cek1 cells also display an increased exposure of α‑1,2 and β‑1,2‑mannosides (α‑M and β‑M), a phenotype shared by strains defective in the activating MAPKK Hst7, suggesting a general defect in cell wall assembly. cek1 cells display walls with loosely bound material as revealed by transmission electron microscopy and are sensitive to tunicamycin, an inhibitor of N‑glycosylation. Transcriptomal analysis of tunicamycin treated cells revealed a differential pattern between cek1 and wild type cells which involved mainly cell wall and stress related genes. Mapping α‑M and β‑M epitopes in the mannoproteins of different cell wall fractions (CWMP) revealed an important shift in the molecular weight of the mannan derived from mutants defective in this MAPK pathway. We have also assessed the role of galectin‑3, a member of a β‑galactoside‑binding protein family shown to bind to and kill C. albicans through β‑M recognition, in the infection caused by cek1 mutants. Increased binding of cek1 to murine macrophages was shown to be partially blocked by lactose. Galectin-3(-/-) mice showed increased resistance to fungal infection, although galectin-3 did not account for the reduced virulence of cek1 mutants in a mouse model of systemic infection. All these data support a role for the Cek1‑mediated pathway in fungal cell wall maintenance, virulence and antifungal discovery.

  10. Sortase-Mediated Ligation of Purely Artificial Building Blocks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xiaolin Dai

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available Sortase A (SrtA from Staphylococcus aureus has been often used for ligating a protein with other natural or synthetic compounds in recent years. Here we show that SrtA-mediated ligation (SML is universally applicable for the linkage of two purely artificial building blocks. Silica nanoparticles (NPs, poly(ethylene glycol and poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide are chosen as synthetic building blocks. As a proof of concept, NP–polymer, NP–NP, and polymer–polymer structures are formed by SrtA catalysis. Therefore, the building blocks are equipped with the recognition sequence needed for SrtA reaction—the conserved peptide LPETG—and a pentaglycine motif. The successful formation of the reaction products is shown by means of transmission electron microscopy (TEM, matrix assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-ToF MS, and dynamic light scattering (DLS. The sortase catalyzed linkage of artificial building blocks sets the stage for the development of a new approach to link synthetic structures in cases where their synthesis by established chemical methods is complicated.

  11. Cu(II) recognition materials: Fluorophores grafted on mesoporous silica supports

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kledzik, Krzysztof; Orlowska, Maja; Patralska, Dorota; Gwiazda, Marcin; Jezierska, Julia; Pikus, Stanislaw; Ostaszewski, Ryszard; Klonkowski, Andrzej M.

    2007-01-01

    There were designed and synthesized naphthalene and pyrene derivatives consisting of fluorophore group and of receptor fragment with donor N and O atoms. These fluorosensors were covalently attached by grafting carboxyl group to surfaces of silica xerogel or mesoporous silicas (MCM-41 and MCM-48) functionalized either with 3-aminopropyl or 3-glycidoxypropyl groups. The pyrene derivatives 2 and 3 covalently grafted on MCM-48 silica functionalized with 3-aminopropyl groups are potential recognition elements of a fluorescence chemical sensor. Fluorescence emission of the prepared recognition materials is quenched specifically owing to photoinduced electron transfer (PET) effect after coordination reactions with Cu(II) ions. Moreover, both the materials exhibit selectivity for Cu(II) ions in aqueous solutions in presence of such metal ions as: alkali, alkaline earth and transition. During UV irradiation the studied recognition elements undergo slowly photochemical degradation

  12. Weak Molecular Interactions in Clathrin-Mediated Endocytosis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sarah M. Smith

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available Clathrin-mediated endocytosis is a process by which specific molecules are internalized from the cell periphery for delivery to early endosomes. The key stages in this step-wise process, from the starting point of cargo recognition, to the later stage of assembly of the clathrin coat, are dependent on weak interactions between a large network of proteins. This review discusses the structural and functional data that have improved our knowledge and understanding of the main weak molecular interactions implicated in clathrin-mediated endocytosis, with a particular focus on the two key proteins: AP2 and clathrin.

  13. Tunable Complex Stability in Surface Molecular Recognition Mediated by Self-Complementary Quadruple Hydrogen Bonds

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Zou, S(han); Zhang, Zhihong; Forch, Renate; Knoll, Wolfgang; Schönherr, Holger; Vancso, Gyula J.

    2003-01-01

    We show that surfaces modified with asymmetric 2-ureido-4[1H]-pyrimidinone-hydroxyalkane disulfide adsorbates exhibit efficient and controllable self-complementary molecular recognition of the pyrimidinone moieties. Two novel asymmetric 2-ureido-4[1H]-pyrimidinone-hydroxyalkane disulfide adsorbates,

  14. Neuropeptide S interacts with the basolateral amygdala noradrenergic system in facilitating object recognition memory consolidation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Han, Ren-Wen; Xu, Hong-Jiao; Zhang, Rui-San; Wang, Pei; Chang, Min; Peng, Ya-Li; Deng, Ke-Yu; Wang, Rui

    2014-01-01

    The noradrenergic activity in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) was reported to be involved in the regulation of object recognition memory. As the BLA expresses high density of receptors for Neuropeptide S (NPS), we investigated whether the BLA is involved in mediating NPS's effects on object recognition memory consolidation and whether such effects require noradrenergic activity. Intracerebroventricular infusion of NPS (1nmol) post training facilitated 24-h memory in a mouse novel object recognition task. The memory-enhancing effect of NPS could be blocked by the β-adrenoceptor antagonist propranolol. Furthermore, post-training intra-BLA infusions of NPS (0.5nmol/side) improved 24-h memory for objects, which was impaired by co-administration of propranolol (0.5μg/side). Taken together, these results indicate that NPS interacts with the BLA noradrenergic system in improving object recognition memory during consolidation. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  15. Urtica dioica modulates hippocampal insulin signaling and recognition memory deficit in streptozotocin induced diabetic mice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Patel, Sita Sharan; Gupta, Sahil; Udayabanu, Malairaman

    2016-06-01

    Diabetes mellitus has been associated with functional abnormalities in the hippocampus and performance of cognitive function. Urtica dioica (UD) has been used in the treatment of diabetes. In our previous report we observed that UD extract attenuate diabetes mediated associative and spatial memory dysfunction. The present study aimed to evaluate the effect of UD extract on mouse model of diabetes-induced recognition memory deficit and explore the possible mechanism behind it. Streptozotocin (STZ) (50 mg/kg, i.p. consecutively for 5 days) was used to induce diabetes followed by UD extract (50 mg/kg, oral) or rosiglitazone (ROSI) (5 mg/kg, oral) administration for 8 weeks. STZ induced diabetic mice showed significant decrease in hippocampal insulin signaling and translocation of glucose transporter type 4 (GLUT4) to neuronal membrane resulting in cognitive dysfunction and hypolocomotion. UD treatment effectively improved hippocampal insulin signaling, glucose tolerance and recognition memory performance in diabetic mice, which was comparable to ROSI. Further, diabetes mediated oxidative stress and inflammation was reversed by chronic UD or ROSI administration. UD leaves extract acts via insulin signaling pathway and might prove to be effective for the diabetes mediated central nervous system complications.

  16. Investigating an Innovative Computer Application to Improve L2 Word Recognition from Speech

    Science.gov (United States)

    Matthews, Joshua; O'Toole, John Mitchell

    2015-01-01

    The ability to recognise words from the aural modality is a critical aspect of successful second language (L2) listening comprehension. However, little research has been reported on computer-mediated development of L2 word recognition from speech in L2 learning contexts. This report describes the development of an innovative computer application…

  17. Optical Pattern Recognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yu, Francis T. S.; Jutamulia, Suganda

    2008-10-01

    Contributors; Preface; 1. Pattern recognition with optics Francis T. S. Yu and Don A. Gregory; 2. Hybrid neural networks for nonlinear pattern recognition Taiwei Lu; 3. Wavelets, optics, and pattern recognition Yao Li and Yunglong Sheng; 4. Applications of the fractional Fourier transform to optical pattern recognition David Mendlovic, Zeev Zalesky and Haldum M. Oxaktas; 5. Optical implementation of mathematical morphology Tien-Hsin Chao; 6. Nonlinear optical correlators with improved discrimination capability for object location and recognition Leonid P. Yaroslavsky; 7. Distortion-invariant quadratic filters Gregory Gheen; 8. Composite filter synthesis as applied to pattern recognition Shizhou Yin and Guowen Lu; 9. Iterative procedures in electro-optical pattern recognition Joseph Shamir; 10. Optoelectronic hybrid system for three-dimensional object pattern recognition Guoguang Mu, Mingzhe Lu and Ying Sun; 11. Applications of photrefractive devices in optical pattern recognition Ziangyang Yang; 12. Optical pattern recognition with microlasers Eung-Gi Paek; 13. Optical properties and applications of bacteriorhodopsin Q. Wang Song and Yu-He Zhang; 14. Liquid-crystal spatial light modulators Aris Tanone and Suganda Jutamulia; 15. Representations of fully complex functions on real-time spatial light modulators Robert W. Cohn and Laurence G. Hassbrook; Index.

  18. A new selective developmental deficit: Impaired object recognition with normal face recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Germine, Laura; Cashdollar, Nathan; Düzel, Emrah; Duchaine, Bradley

    2011-05-01

    Studies of developmental deficits in face recognition, or developmental prosopagnosia, have shown that individuals who have not suffered brain damage can show face recognition impairments coupled with normal object recognition (Duchaine and Nakayama, 2005; Duchaine et al., 2006; Nunn et al., 2001). However, no developmental cases with the opposite dissociation - normal face recognition with impaired object recognition - have been reported. The existence of a case of non-face developmental visual agnosia would indicate that the development of normal face recognition mechanisms does not rely on the development of normal object recognition mechanisms. To see whether a developmental variant of non-face visual object agnosia exists, we conducted a series of web-based object and face recognition tests to screen for individuals showing object recognition memory impairments but not face recognition impairments. Through this screening process, we identified AW, an otherwise normal 19-year-old female, who was then tested in the lab on face and object recognition tests. AW's performance was impaired in within-class visual recognition memory across six different visual categories (guns, horses, scenes, tools, doors, and cars). In contrast, she scored normally on seven tests of face recognition, tests of memory for two other object categories (houses and glasses), and tests of recall memory for visual shapes. Testing confirmed that her impairment was not related to a general deficit in lower-level perception, object perception, basic-level recognition, or memory. AW's results provide the first neuropsychological evidence that recognition memory for non-face visual object categories can be selectively impaired in individuals without brain damage or other memory impairment. These results indicate that the development of recognition memory for faces does not depend on intact object recognition memory and provide further evidence for category-specific dissociations in visual

  19. Odor-based recognition of familiar and related conspecifics: a first test conducted on captive Humboldt penguins (Spheniscus humboldti.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Heather R Coffin

    Full Text Available Studies of kin recognition in birds have largely focused on parent-offspring recognition using auditory or visual discrimination. Recent studies indicate that birds use odors during social and familial interactions and possibly for mate choice, suggesting olfactory cues may mediate kin recognition as well. Here, we show that Humboldt penguins (Spheniscus humboldti, a natally philopatric species with lifetime monogamy, discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar non-kin odors (using prior association and between unfamiliar kin and non-kin odors (using phenotype matching. Penguins preferred familiar non-kin odors, which may be associated with the recognition of nest mates and colony mates and with locating burrows at night after foraging. In tests of kin recognition, penguins preferred unfamiliar non-kin odors. Penguins may have perceived non-kin odors as novel because they did not match the birds' recognition templates. Phenotype matching is likely the primary mechanism for kin recognition within the colony to avoid inbreeding. To our knowledge this is the first study to provide evidence of odor-based kin discrimination in a bird.

  20. Interplay of oxytocin, vasopressin, and sex hormones in the regulation of social recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gabor, Christopher S; Phan, Anna; Clipperton-Allen, Amy E; Kavaliers, Martin; Choleris, Elena

    2012-02-01

    Social Recognition is a fundamental skill that forms the basis of behaviors essential to the proper functioning of pair or group living in most social species. We review here various neurobiological and genetic studies that point to an interplay of oxytocin (OT), arginine-vasopressin (AVP), and the gonadal hormones, estrogens and testosterone, in the mediation of social recognition. Results of a number of studies have shown that OT and its actions at the medial amygdala seem to be essential for social recognition in both sexes. Estrogens facilitate social recognition, possibly by regulating OT production in the hypothalamus and the OT receptors at the medial amygdala. Estrogens also affect social recognition on a rapid time scale, likely through nongenomic actions. The mechanisms of these rapid effects are currently unknown but available evidence points at the hippocampus as the possible site of action. Male rodents seem to be more dependent on AVP acting at the level of the lateral septum for social recognition than female rodents. Results of various studies suggest that testosterone and its metabolites (including estradiol) influence social recognition in males primarily through the AVP V1a receptor. Overall, it appears that gonadal hormone modulation of OT and AVP regulates and fine tunes social recognition and those behaviors that depend upon it (e.g., social bonds, social hierarchies) in a sex specific manner. This points at an important role for these neuroendocrine systems in the regulation of the sex differences that are evident in social behavior and of sociality as a whole.

  1. Speech Recognition for the iCub Platform

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bertrand Higy

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available This paper describes open source software (available at https://github.com/robotology/natural-speech to build automatic speech recognition (ASR systems and run them within the YARP platform. The toolkit is designed (i to allow non-ASR experts to easily create their own ASR system and run it on iCub and (ii to build deep learning-based models specifically addressing the main challenges an ASR system faces in the context of verbal human–iCub interactions. The toolkit mostly consists of Python, C++ code and shell scripts integrated in YARP. As additional contribution, a second codebase (written in Matlab is provided for more expert ASR users who want to experiment with bio-inspired and developmental learning-inspired ASR systems. Specifically, we provide code for two distinct kinds of speech recognition: “articulatory” and “unsupervised” speech recognition. The first is largely inspired by influential neurobiological theories of speech perception which assume speech perception to be mediated by brain motor cortex activities. Our articulatory systems have been shown to outperform strong deep learning-based baselines. The second type of recognition systems, the “unsupervised” systems, do not use any supervised information (contrary to most ASR systems, including our articulatory systems. To some extent, they mimic an infant who has to discover the basic speech units of a language by herself. In addition, we provide resources consisting of pre-trained deep learning models for ASR, and a 2.5-h speech dataset of spoken commands, the VoCub dataset, which can be used to adapt an ASR system to the typical acoustic environments in which iCub operates.

  2. Innate recognition of water bodies in echolocating bats.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Greif, Stefan; Siemers, Björn M

    2010-11-02

    In the course of their lives, most animals must find different specific habitat and microhabitat types for survival and reproduction. Yet, in vertebrates, little is known about the sensory cues that mediate habitat recognition. In free flying bats the echolocation of insect-sized point targets is well understood, whereas how they recognize and classify spatially extended echo targets is currently unknown. In this study, we show how echolocating bats recognize ponds or other water bodies that are crucial for foraging, drinking and orientation. With wild bats of 15 different species (seven genera from three phylogenetically distant, large bat families), we found that bats perceived any extended, echo-acoustically smooth surface to be water, even in the presence of conflicting information from other sensory modalities. In addition, naive juvenile bats that had never before encountered a water body showed spontaneous drinking responses from smooth plates. This provides the first evidence for innate recognition of a habitat cue in a mammal.

  3. Pattern recognition of neurotransmitters using multimode sensing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stefan-van Staden, Raluca-Ioana; Moldoveanu, Iuliana; van Staden, Jacobus Frederick

    2014-05-30

    Pattern recognition is essential in chemical analysis of biological fluids. Reliable and sensitive methods for neurotransmitters analysis are needed. Therefore, we developed for pattern recognition of neurotransmitters: dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine a method based on multimode sensing. Multimode sensing was performed using microsensors based on diamond paste modified with 5,10,15,20-tetraphenyl-21H,23H-porphyrine, hemin and protoporphyrin IX in stochastic and differential pulse voltammetry modes. Optimized working conditions: phosphate buffer solution of pH 3.01 and KCl 0.1mol/L (as electrolyte support), were determined using cyclic voltammetry and used in all measurements. The lowest limits of quantification were: 10(-10)mol/L for dopamine and epinephrine, and 10(-11)mol/L for norepinephrine. The multimode microsensors were selective over ascorbic and uric acids and the method facilitated reliable assay of neurotransmitters in urine samples, and therefore, the pattern recognition showed high reliability (RSDneurotransmitters on biological fluids at a lower determination level than chromatographic methods. The sampling of the biological fluids referees only to the buffering (1:1, v/v) with a phosphate buffer pH 3.01, while for chromatographic methods the sampling is laborious. Accordingly with the statistic evaluation of the results at 99.00% confidence level, both modes can be used for pattern recognition and quantification of neurotransmitters with high reliability. The best multimode microsensor was the one based on diamond paste modified with protoporphyrin IX. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  4. The relationship between protein synthesis and protein degradation in object recognition memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Furini, Cristiane R G; Myskiw, Jociane de C; Schmidt, Bianca E; Zinn, Carolina G; Peixoto, Patricia B; Pereira, Luiza D; Izquierdo, Ivan

    2015-11-01

    For decades there has been a consensus that de novo protein synthesis is necessary for long-term memory. A second round of protein synthesis has been described for both extinction and reconsolidation following an unreinforced test session. Recently, it was shown that consolidation and reconsolidation depend not only on protein synthesis but also on protein degradation by the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS), a major mechanism responsible for protein turnover. However, the involvement of UPS on consolidation and reconsolidation of object recognition memory remains unknown. Here we investigate in the CA1 region of the dorsal hippocampus the involvement of UPS-mediated protein degradation in consolidation and reconsolidation of object recognition memory. Animals with infusion cannulae stereotaxically implanted in the CA1 region of the dorsal hippocampus, were exposed to an object recognition task. The UPS inhibitor β-Lactacystin did not affect the consolidation and the reconsolidation of object recognition memory at doses known to affect other forms of memory (inhibitory avoidance, spatial learning in a water maze) while the protein synthesis inhibitor anisomycin impaired the consolidation and the reconsolidation of the object recognition memory. However, β-Lactacystin was able to reverse the impairment caused by anisomycin on the reconsolidation process in the CA1 region of the hippocampus. Therefore, it is possible to postulate a direct link between protein degradation and protein synthesis during the reconsolidation of the object recognition memory. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  5. Gender differences in emotion recognition: Impact of sensory modality and emotional category.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lambrecht, Lena; Kreifelts, Benjamin; Wildgruber, Dirk

    2014-04-01

    Results from studies on gender differences in emotion recognition vary, depending on the types of emotion and the sensory modalities used for stimulus presentation. This makes comparability between different studies problematic. This study investigated emotion recognition of healthy participants (N = 84; 40 males; ages 20 to 70 years), using dynamic stimuli, displayed by two genders in three different sensory modalities (auditory, visual, audio-visual) and five emotional categories. The participants were asked to categorise the stimuli on the basis of their nonverbal emotional content (happy, alluring, neutral, angry, and disgusted). Hit rates and category selection biases were analysed. Women were found to be more accurate in recognition of emotional prosody. This effect was partially mediated by hearing loss for the frequency of 8,000 Hz. Moreover, there was a gender-specific selection bias for alluring stimuli: Men, as compared to women, chose "alluring" more often when a stimulus was presented by a woman as compared to a man.

  6. Mediator oxidation systems in organic electrosynthesis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ogibin, Yurii N; Elinson, Michail N; Nikishin, Gennady I

    2009-01-01

    The data on the use of mediator oxidation systems activated by electric current (anodic or parallel anodic and cathodic) in organic electrosynthesis are considered and generalised. Electrochemical activation of these systems permits successful application of catalytic versions and easy scaling of mediator-promoted processes. Chemical and environmental advantages of electrochemical processes catalysed by mediator oxidation systems are demonstrated. Examples of the application of organic and inorganic mediators for the oxidation of various classes of organic compounds under conditions of electrolysis are given.

  7. Biochemical study of multiple drug recognition sites on central benzodiazepine receptors

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Trifiletti, R.R.

    1986-01-01

    The benzodiazepine receptor complex of mammalian brain possesses recognition sites which mediate (at least in part) the pharmacologic actions of the 1,4-benzodiazepines and barbiturates. Evidence is provided suggesting the existence of least seven distinct drug recognition sites on this complex. Interactions between the various recognition sites have been explored using radioligand binding techniques. This information is utilized to provide a comprehensive scheme for characterizing receptor-active drugs on an anxiolytic-anticonvulsant/proconvulsant continuum using radioligand binding techniques, as well as a comprehensive program for identifying potential endogenous receptor-active substances. Further evidence is provided here supporting the notion of benzodiazepine recognition site heterogeneity. Classical 1,4-benzodiazepines do not appear to differentiate two populations of benzodiazepine receptors in an equilibrium sense, but appear to do so in a kinetic sense. An apparent physical separation of the two receptor subtypes can be achieved by differential solubilization. The benzodiazepine binding subunit can be identified by photoaffinity labeling with the benzodiazepine agonist (/sup 3/H)flunitrazepan. Conditions for reproducible partial proteolytic mapping of (/sup 3/H)flunitrazepam photoaffinity labeled receptors are established. From these maps, it is concluded that there are probably no major differences in the primary sequence of the benzodiazepine binding subunit in various regions of the rat central nervous system.

  8. Speech Recognition

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adrian Morariu

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents a method of speech recognition by pattern recognition techniques. Learning consists in determining the unique characteristics of a word (cepstral coefficients by eliminating those characteristics that are different from one word to another. For learning and recognition, the system will build a dictionary of words by determining the characteristics of each word to be used in the recognition. Determining the characteristics of an audio signal consists in the following steps: noise removal, sampling it, applying Hamming window, switching to frequency domain through Fourier transform, calculating the magnitude spectrum, filtering data, determining cepstral coefficients.

  9. Significance of chemical recognition cues is context dependent in ants

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bos, N.; Guerrieri, F.J.; d'Ettorre, P.

    2010-01-01

    signatures, composed primarily of long-chain cuticular hydrocarbons. These signatures are colony specific and allow discrimination between nestmates and non-nestmates. Nevertheless, the mechanisms underlying detection, perception and information processing of chemical signatures are poorly understood. It has...... context, affects aggression against non-nestmates carrying the hydrocarbon profile associated with food. Individual ant workers were able to associate the non-nestmate chemical profile with food. However, conditioned ants were still aggressive when encountering a non-nestmate carrying the odour profile...

  10. Recognition and Toleration

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lægaard, Sune

    2010-01-01

    Recognition and toleration are ways of relating to the diversity characteristic of multicultural societies. The article concerns the possible meanings of toleration and recognition, and the conflict that is often claimed to exist between these two approaches to diversity. Different forms...... or interpretations of recognition and toleration are considered, confusing and problematic uses of the terms are noted, and the compatibility of toleration and recognition is discussed. The article argues that there is a range of legitimate and importantly different conceptions of both toleration and recognition...

  11. The Neuropsychology of Familiar Person Recognition from Face and Voice

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Guido Gainotti

    2014-05-01

    Full Text Available Prosopagnosia has been considered for a long period of time as the most important and almost exclusive disorder in the recognition of familiar people. In recent years, however, this conviction has been undermined by the description of patients showing a concomitant defect in the recognition of familiar faces and voices as a consequence of lesions encroaching upon the right anterior temporal lobe (ATL. These new data have obliged researchers to reconsider on one hand the construct of ‘associative prosopagnosia’ and on the other hand current models of people recognition. A systematic review of the patterns of familiar people recognition disorders observed in patients with right and left ATL lesions has shown that in patients with right ATL lesions face familiarity feelings and the retrieval of person-specific semantic information from faces are selectively affected, whereas in patients with left ATL lesions the defect selectively concerns famous people naming. Furthermore, some patients with right ATL lesions and intact face familiarity feelings show a defect in the retrieval of person-specific semantic knowledge greater from face than from name. These data are at variance with current models assuming: (a that familiarity feelings are generated at the level of person identity nodes (PINs where information processed by various sensory modalities converge, and (b that PINs provide a modality-free gateway to a single semantic system, where information about people is stored in an amodal format. They suggest, on the contrary: (a that familiarity feelings are generated at the level of modality-specific recognition units; (b that face and voice recognition units are represented more in the right than in the left ATLs; (c that in the right ATL are mainly stored person-specific information based on a convergence of perceptual information, whereas in the left ATLs are represented verbally-mediated person-specific information.

  12. Molecular Recognition in the Colloidal World.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Elacqua, Elizabeth; Zheng, Xiaolong; Shillingford, Cicely; Liu, Mingzhu; Weck, Marcus

    2017-11-21

    Colloidal self-assembly is a bottom-up technique to fabricate functional nanomaterials, with paramount interest stemming from programmable assembly of smaller building blocks into dynamic crystalline domains and photonic materials. Multiple established colloidal platforms feature diverse shapes and bonding interactions, while achieving specific orientations along with short- and long-range order. A major impediment to their universal use as building blocks for predesigned architectures is the inability to precisely dictate and control particle functionalization and concomitant reversible self-assembly. Progress in colloidal self-assembly necessitates the development of strategies that endow bonding specificity and directionality within assemblies. Methodologies that emulate molecular and polymeric three-dimensional (3D) architectures feature elements of covalent bonding, while high-fidelity molecular recognition events have been installed to realize responsive reconfigurable assemblies. The emergence of anisotropic 'colloidal molecules', coupled with the ability to site-specifically decorate particle surfaces with supramolecular recognition motifs, has facilitated the formation of superstructures via directional interactions and shape recognition. In this Account, we describe supramolecular assembly routes to drive colloidal particles into precisely assembled architectures or crystalline lattices via directional noncovalent molecular interactions. The design principles are based upon the fabrication of colloidal particles bearing surface-exposed functional groups that can undergo programmable conjugation to install recognition motifs with high fidelity. Modular and versatile by design, our strategy allows for the introduction and integration of molecular recognition principles into the colloidal world. We define noncovalent molecular interactions as site-specific forces that are predictable (i.e., feature selective and controllable complementary bonding partners

  13. Journal of Chemical Sciences | Indian Academy of Sciences

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Role of vanadium and pyridine in heteropolycompounds for selective oxidation of ... in the selective oxidation of aromatic methyl group to aldehyde without mediators .... ion recognition studies of lower rim 1,3-di{rhodamine} conjugate of calix[4]arene ... Two expedient one-pot methods have been developed for synthesis of ...

  14. Under what conditions is recognition spared relative to recall after selective hippocampal damage in humans?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Holdstock, J S; Mayes, A R; Roberts, N; Cezayirli, E; Isaac, C L; O'Reilly, R C; Norman, K A

    2002-01-01

    The claim that recognition memory is spared relative to recall after focal hippocampal damage has been disputed in the literature. We examined this claim by investigating object and object-location recall and recognition memory in a patient, YR, who has adult-onset selective hippocampal damage. Our aim was to identify the conditions under which recognition was spared relative to recall in this patient. She showed unimpaired forced-choice object recognition but clearly impaired recall, even when her control subjects found the object recognition task to be numerically harder than the object recall task. However, on two other recognition tests, YR's performance was not relatively spared. First, she was clearly impaired at an equivalently difficult yes/no object recognition task, but only when targets and foils were very similar. Second, YR was clearly impaired at forced-choice recognition of object-location associations. This impairment was also unrelated to difficulty because this task was no more difficult than the forced-choice object recognition task for control subjects. The clear impairment of yes/no, but not of forced-choice, object recognition after focal hippocampal damage, when targets and foils are very similar, is predicted by the neural network-based Complementary Learning Systems model of recognition. This model postulates that recognition is mediated by hippocampally dependent recollection and cortically dependent familiarity; thus hippocampal damage should not impair item familiarity. The model postulates that familiarity is ineffective when very similar targets and foils are shown one at a time and subjects have to identify which items are old (yes/no recognition). In contrast, familiarity is effective in discriminating which of similar targets and foils, seen together, is old (forced-choice recognition). Independent evidence from the remember/know procedure also indicates that YR's familiarity is normal. The Complementary Learning Systems model can

  15. Grasps Recognition and Evaluation of Stroke Patients for Supporting Rehabilitation Therapy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Beatriz Leon

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Stroke survivors often suffer impairments on their wrist and hand. Robot-mediated rehabilitation techniques have been proposed as a way to enhance conventional therapy, based on intensive repeated movements. Amongst the set of activities of daily living, grasping is one of the most recurrent. Our aim is to incorporate the detection of grasps in the machine-mediated rehabilitation framework so that they can be incorporated into interactive therapeutic games. In this study, we developed and tested a method based on support vector machines for recognizing various grasp postures wearing a passive exoskeleton for hand and wrist rehabilitation after stroke. The experiment was conducted with ten healthy subjects and eight stroke patients performing the grasping gestures. The method was tested in terms of accuracy and robustness with respect to intersubjects’ variability and differences between different grasps. Our results show reliable recognition while also indicating that the recognition accuracy can be used to assess the patients’ ability to consistently repeat the gestures. Additionally, a grasp quality measure was proposed to measure the capabilities of the stroke patients to perform grasp postures in a similar way than healthy people. These two measures can be potentially used as complementary measures to other upper limb motion tests.

  16. CELLULAR INTERACTIONS MEDIATED BY GLYCONECTIDS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    O.Popescu

    1999-01-01

    Full Text Available Cellular interactions involve many types of cell surface molecules and operate via homophilic and/or heterophilic protein-protein and protein-carbohydrate binding. Our investigations in different model-systems (marine invertebrates and mammals have provided direct evidence that a novel class of primordial proteoglycans, named by us gliconectins, can mediate cell adhesion via a new alternative molecular mechanism of polyvalent carbohydrate-carbohydrate binding. Biochemical characterization of isolated and purified glyconectins revealed the presence of specific carbohydrate structures, acidic glycans, different from classical glycosaminoglycans. Such acidic glycans of high molecular weight containing fucose, glucuronic or galacturonic acids, and sulfate groups, originally found in sponges and sea urchin embryos, may represent a new class of carbohydrate carcino-embryonal antigens in mice and humans. Such interactions between biological macromolecules are usually investigated by kinetic binding studies, calorimetric methods, X-ray diffraction, nuclear magnetic resonance, and other spectroscopic analyses. However, these methods do not supply a direct estimation of the intermolecular binding forces that are fundamental for the function of the ligand-receptor association. Recently, we have introduced atomic force microscopy to quantify the binding strength between cell adhesion proteoglycans. Measurement of binding forces intrinsic to cell adhesion proteoglycans is necessary to assess their contribution to the maintenance of the anatomical integrity of multicellular organisms. As a model, we selected the glyconectin 1, a cell adhesion proteoglycan isolated from the marine sponge Microciona prolifera. This glyconectin mediates in vivo cell recognition and aggregation via homophilic, species-specific, polyvalent, and calcium ion-dependent carbohydrate-carbohydrate interactions. Under physiological conditions, an adhesive force of up to 400 piconewtons

  17. Improving subjective pattern recognition in chemical senses through reduction of nonlinear effects in evaluation of sparse data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Assadi, Amir H.; Rasouli, Firooz; Wrenn, Susan E.; Subbiah, M.

    2002-11-01

    Artificial neural network models are typically useful in pattern recognition and extraction of important features in large data sets. These models are implemented in a wide variety of contexts and with diverse type of input-output data. The underlying mathematics of supervised training of neural networks is ultimately tied to the ability to approximate the nonlinearities that are inherent in network"s generalization ability. The quality and availability of sufficient data points for training and validation play a key role in the generalization ability of the network. A potential domain of applications of neural networks is in analysis of subjective data, such as in consumer science, affective neuroscience and perception of chemical senses. In applications of ANN to subjective data, it is common to rely on knowledge of the science and context for data acquisition, for instance as a priori probabilities in the Bayesian framework. In this paper, we discuss the circumstances that create challenges for success of neural network models for subjective data analysis, such as sparseness of data and cost of acquisition of additional samples. In particular, in the case of affect and perception of chemical senses, we suggest that inherent ambiguity of subjective responses could be offset by a combination of human-machine expert. We propose a method of pre- and post-processing for blind analysis of data that that relies on heuristics from human performance in interpretation of data. In particular, we offer an information-theoretic smoothing (ITS) algorithm that optimizes that geometric visualization of multi-dimensional data and improves human interpretation of the input-output view of neural network implementations. The pre- and post-processing algorithms and ITS are unsupervised. Finally, we discuss the details of an example of blind data analysis from actual taste-smell subjective data, and demonstrate the usefulness of PCA in reduction of dimensionality, as well as ITS.

  18. Monoclonal antibody-assisted structure-function analysis of the carbohydrate recognition domain of surfactant protein D

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hartshorn, Kevan L; White, Mitchell R; Rynkiewicz, Michael

    2010-01-01

    Surfactant protein D (SP-D) plays important roles in host defense against a variety of pathogens including influenza A virus (IAV). Ligand binding by SP-D is mediated by the trimeric neck and carbohydrate recognition domain (NCRD). We used monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) against human SP-D and a panel...

  19. Semantic Memory Recognition Is Supported by Intrinsic Recollection-Like Processes: "The Butcher on the Bus" Revisited

    Science.gov (United States)

    Waidergoren, Shani; Segalowicz, Judith; Gilboa, Asaf

    2012-01-01

    Dual-process models suggest that recognition memory is independently supported by recollection and familiarity. Current theories attribute recollection solely to hippocampally mediated episodic memory (EM), and familiarity to both episodic and semantic memory (SM) supported by medial temporal lobe cortex (MTLC) and prefrontal cortex. We tested…

  20. Visual attention shift to printed words during spoken word recognition in Chinese: The role of phonological information.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shen, Wei; Qu, Qingqing; Tong, Xiuhong

    2018-05-01

    The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which phonological information mediates the visual attention shift to printed Chinese words in spoken word recognition by using an eye-movement technique with a printed-word paradigm. In this paradigm, participants are visually presented with four printed words on a computer screen, which include a target word, a phonological competitor, and two distractors. Participants are then required to select the target word using a computer mouse, and the eye movements are recorded. In Experiment 1, phonological information was manipulated at the full-phonological overlap; in Experiment 2, phonological information at the partial-phonological overlap was manipulated; and in Experiment 3, the phonological competitors were manipulated to share either fulloverlap or partial-overlap with targets directly. Results of the three experiments showed that the phonological competitor effects were observed at both the full-phonological overlap and partial-phonological overlap conditions. That is, phonological competitors attracted more fixations than distractors, which suggested that phonological information mediates the visual attention shift during spoken word recognition. More importantly, we found that the mediating role of phonological information varies as a function of the phonological similarity between target words and phonological competitors.

  1. Re-thinking employee recognition: understanding employee experiences of recognition

    OpenAIRE

    Smith, Charlotte

    2013-01-01

    Despite widespread acceptance of the importance of employee recognition for both individuals and organisations and evidence of its increasing use in organisations, employee recognition has received relatively little focused attention from academic researchers. Particularly lacking is research exploring the lived experience of employee recognition and the interpretations and meanings which individuals give to these experiences. Drawing on qualitative interviews conducted as part of my PhD rese...

  2. Use of the recognition heuristic depends on the domain's recognition validity, not on the recognition validity of selected sets of objects.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pohl, Rüdiger F; Michalkiewicz, Martha; Erdfelder, Edgar; Hilbig, Benjamin E

    2017-07-01

    According to the recognition-heuristic theory, decision makers solve paired comparisons in which one object is recognized and the other not by recognition alone, inferring that recognized objects have higher criterion values than unrecognized ones. However, success-and thus usefulness-of this heuristic depends on the validity of recognition as a cue, and adaptive decision making, in turn, requires that decision makers are sensitive to it. To this end, decision makers could base their evaluation of the recognition validity either on the selected set of objects (the set's recognition validity), or on the underlying domain from which the objects were drawn (the domain's recognition validity). In two experiments, we manipulated the recognition validity both in the selected set of objects and between domains from which the sets were drawn. The results clearly show that use of the recognition heuristic depends on the domain's recognition validity, not on the set's recognition validity. In other words, participants treat all sets as roughly representative of the underlying domain and adjust their decision strategy adaptively (only) with respect to the more general environment rather than the specific items they are faced with.

  3. The effects of acute social isolation on long-term social recognition memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leser, Noam; Wagner, Shlomo

    2015-10-01

    The abilities to recognize individual animals of the same species and to distinguish them from other individuals are the basis for all mammalian social organizations and relationships. These abilities, termed social recognition memory, can be explored in mice and rats using their innate tendency to investigate novel social stimuli more persistently than familiar ones. Using this methodology it was found that social recognition memory is mediated by a specific neural network in the brain, the activity of which is modulated by several molecules, such the neuropeptides oxytocin and vasopressin. During the last 15 years several independent studies have revealed that social recognition memory of mice and rats depends upon their housing conditions. Specifically, long-term social recognition memory cannot be formed as shortly as few days following social isolation of the animal. This rapid and reversible impairment caused by acute social isolation seems to be specific to social memory and has not been observed in other types of memory. Here we review these studies and suggest that this unique system may serve for exploring of the mechanisms underlying the well-known negative effects of partial or perceived social isolation on human mental health. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  4. Graphical symbol recognition

    OpenAIRE

    K.C. , Santosh; Wendling , Laurent

    2015-01-01

    International audience; The chapter focuses on one of the key issues in document image processing i.e., graphical symbol recognition. Graphical symbol recognition is a sub-field of a larger research domain: pattern recognition. The chapter covers several approaches (i.e., statistical, structural and syntactic) and specially designed symbol recognition techniques inspired by real-world industrial problems. It, in general, contains research problems, state-of-the-art methods that convey basic s...

  5. Chemical fingerprints encode mother–offspring similarity, colony membership, relatedness, and genetic quality in fur seals

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stoffel, Martin A.; Caspers, Barbara A.; Forcada, Jaume; Giannakara, Athina; Baier, Markus; Eberhart-Phillips, Luke; Müller, Caroline; Hoffman, Joseph I.

    2015-01-01

    Chemical communication underpins virtually all aspects of vertebrate social life, yet remains poorly understood because of its highly complex mechanistic basis. We therefore used chemical fingerprinting of skin swabs and genetic analysis to explore the chemical cues that may underlie mother–offspring recognition in colonially breeding Antarctic fur seals. By sampling mother–offspring pairs from two different colonies, using a variety of statistical approaches and genotyping a large panel of microsatellite loci, we show that colony membership, mother–offspring similarity, heterozygosity, and genetic relatedness are all chemically encoded. Moreover, chemical similarity between mothers and offspring reflects a combination of genetic and environmental influences, the former partly encoded by substances resembling known pheromones. Our findings reveal the diversity of information contained within chemical fingerprints and have implications for understanding mother–offspring communication, kin recognition, and mate choice. PMID:26261311

  6. The effects of competition and implicit power motive on men's testosterone, emotion recognition, and aggression.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vongas, John G; Al Hajj, Raghid

    2017-06-01

    A contribution to a special issue on Hormones and Human Competition. We investigated the effects of competition on men's testosterone levels and assessed whether androgen reactivity was associated with subsequent emotion recognition and reactive and proactive aggression. We also explored whether personalized power (p Power) moderated these relationships. In Study 1, 84 males competed on a number tracing task and interpreted emotions from facial expressions. In Study 2, 72 males competed on the same task and were assessed on proactive and reactive aggression. In both studies, contrary to the biosocial model of status (Mazur, 1985), winners' testosterone levels decreased significantly while losers' levels increased, albeit not significantly. Personalized power moderated the effect of competition outcome on testosterone change in both studies. Using the aggregate sample, we found that the effect of decreased testosterone levels among winners (compared to losers) was significant for individuals low in p Power but not for those with medium or high p Power. Testosterone change was positively related to emotion recognition, but unrelated to either aggression subtype. The testosterone-mediated relationship between winning and losing and emotion recognition was moderated by p Power. In addition, p Power moderated the direct (i.e., non-testosterone mediated) path between competition outcome and emotion recognition and both types of aggression: high p-Power winners were more accurate at deciphering others' emotions than high p-Power losers. Finally, among high p-Power men, winners aggressed more proactively than losers, whereas losers aggressed more reactively than winners. Collectively, these studies highlight the importance of implicit power motivation in modulating hormonal, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes arising from human competition. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  7. Modulation of recognition memory performance by light requires both melanopsin and classical photoreceptors

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tam, Shu K. E.; Hasan, Sibah; Hughes, Steven; Hankins, Mark W.; Foster, Russell G.; Bannerman, David M.

    2016-01-01

    Acute light exposure exerts various effects on physiology and behaviour. Although the effects of light on brain network activity in humans are well demonstrated, the effects of light on cognitive performance are inconclusive, with the size, as well as direction, of the effect depending on the nature of the task. Similarly, in nocturnal rodents, bright light can either facilitate or disrupt performance depending on the type of task employed. Crucially, it is unclear whether the effects of light on behavioural performance are mediated via the classical image-forming rods and cones or the melanopsin-expressing photosensitive retinal ganglion cells. Here, we investigate the modulatory effects of light on memory performance in mice using the spontaneous object recognition task. Importantly, we examine which photoreceptors are required to mediate the effects of light on memory performance. By using a cross-over design, we show that object recognition memory is disrupted when the test phase is conducted under a bright light (350 lux), regardless of the light level in the sample phase (10 or 350 lux), demonstrating that exposure to a bright light at the time of test, rather than at the time of encoding, impairs performance. Strikingly, the modulatory effect of light on memory performance is completely abolished in both melanopsin-deficient and rodless–coneless mice. Our findings provide direct evidence that melanopsin-driven and rod/cone-driven photoresponses are integrated in order to mediate the effect of light on memory performance. PMID:28003454

  8. Male mate recognition via cuticular hydrocarbons facilitates sexual isolation between sympatric leaf beetle sister species.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Bin; Xue, Huai-Jun; Song, Ke-Qing; Liu, Jie; Li, Wen-Zhu; Nie, Rui-E; Yang, Xing-Ke

    2014-11-01

    Chemical signals in insects have been documented to play an important role in mate recognition, and divergence in chemical signals can often cause sexual isolation between closely related species or populations within species. We investigated the role of cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs), short distance chemical signals, in male mate recognition between the two sympatric elm leaf beetles, Pyrrhalta maculicollis and Pyrrhaltaaenescens. Mating experiments demonstrated that strong sexual isolation between the two species was driven by CHCs divergence. Males preferred to mate with conspecific females with intact conspecific CHCs or conspecific CHCs reapplied after removal. Males also preferred heterospecific females that were treated with conspecific CHCs. Chemical analysis showed that the CHC profiles differ significantly between species. In P. maculicollis dimethyl-branched alkanes between C29 and C35 account for the majority of the saturated alkanes while the CHC profile of P. aenescens mostly consisted of monomethyl-branched alkanes between C22 and C29. Additionally, some compounds, such as 12,18-diMeC32, 12,18-diMeC34, are unique to P. maculicollis. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  9. Pattern Recognition of the Multiple Sclerosis Syndrome

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stewart, Renee; Healey, Kathleen M.

    2017-01-01

    During recent decades, the autoimmune disease neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD), once broadly classified under the umbrella of multiple sclerosis (MS), has been extended to include autoimmune inflammatory conditions of the central nervous system (CNS), which are now diagnosable with serum serological tests. These antibody-mediated inflammatory diseases of the CNS share a clinical presentation to MS. A number of practical learning points emerge in this review, which is geared toward the pattern recognition of optic neuritis, transverse myelitis, brainstem/cerebellar and hemispheric tumefactive demyelinating lesion (TDL)-associated MS, aquaporin-4-antibody and myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG)-antibody NMOSD, overlap syndrome, and some yet-to-be-defined/classified demyelinating disease, all unspecifically labeled under MS syndrome. The goal of this review is to increase clinicians’ awareness of the clinical nuances of the autoimmune conditions for MS and NMSOD, and to highlight highly suggestive patterns of clinical, paraclinical or imaging presentations in order to improve differentiation. With overlay in clinical manifestations between MS and NMOSD, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain, orbits and spinal cord, serology, and most importantly, high index of suspicion based on pattern recognition, will help lead to the final diagnosis. PMID:29064441

  10. Metal-mediated DNA base pairing: alternatives to hydrogen-bonded Watson-Crick base pairs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Takezawa, Yusuke; Shionoya, Mitsuhiko

    2012-12-18

    With its capacity to store and transfer the genetic information within a sequence of monomers, DNA forms its central role in chemical evolution through replication and amplification. This elegant behavior is largely based on highly specific molecular recognition between nucleobases through the specific hydrogen bonds in the Watson-Crick base pairing system. While the native base pairs have been amazingly sophisticated through the long history of evolution, synthetic chemists have devoted considerable efforts to create alternative base pairing systems in recent decades. Most of these new systems were designed based on the shape complementarity of the pairs or the rearrangement of hydrogen-bonding patterns. We wondered whether metal coordination could serve as an alternative driving force for DNA base pairing and why hydrogen bonding was selected on Earth in the course of molecular evolution. Therefore, we envisioned an alternative design strategy: we replaced hydrogen bonding with another important scheme in biological systems, metal-coordination bonding. In this Account, we provide an overview of the chemistry of metal-mediated base pairing including basic concepts, molecular design, characteristic structures and properties, and possible applications of DNA-based molecular systems. We describe several examples of artificial metal-mediated base pairs, such as Cu(2+)-mediated hydroxypyridone base pair, H-Cu(2+)-H (where H denotes a hydroxypyridone-bearing nucleoside), developed by us and other researchers. To design the metallo-base pairs we carefully chose appropriate combinations of ligand-bearing nucleosides and metal ions. As expected from their stronger bonding through metal coordination, DNA duplexes possessing metallo-base pairs exhibited higher thermal stability than natural hydrogen-bonded DNAs. Furthermore, we could also use metal-mediated base pairs to construct or induce other high-order structures. These features could lead to metal-responsive functional

  11. Biologically mediated dissolution of volcanic glass in seawater

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Staudigel, H; Yayanos, A; Chastain, R; Davies, G.T.; Verdurmen, E.A Th; Schiffmann, P; Bourcier, R; de Baar, H.J.W.

    1998-01-01

    We studied the effects of biological mediation on the dissolution of basaltic glass in seawater. Experiments with typical seawater microbial populations were contrasted with a sterile control, and reactions were monitored chemically and isotopically. Biologically mediated experiments produce twice

  12. Comprehensive Cross-Clade Characterization of Antibody-Mediated Recognition, Complement-Mediated Lysis, and Cell-Mediated Cytotoxicity of HIV-1 Envelope-Specific Antibodies toward Eradication of the HIV-1 Reservoir.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mujib, Shariq; Liu, Jun; Rahman, A K M Nur-Ur; Schwartz, Jordan A; Bonner, Phil; Yue, Feng Yun; Ostrowski, Mario A

    2017-08-15

    Immunotherapy with passive administration of broadly neutralizing HIV-1 envelope-specific antibodies (bnAbs) in the setting of established infection in vivo has yielded mixed results. The contribution of different antibodies toward the direct elimination of infected cells is poorly understood. In this study, we determined the ability of 12 well-characterized anti-HIV-1 neutralizing antibodies to recognize and eliminate primary CD4 T cells infected with HIV-1 belonging to clades A, B, C, and D, via antibody-dependent complement-mediated lysis (ADCML) and antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC), in vitro We further tested unique combinations of these antibodies to determine the optimal antibody cocktails to be tested in future clinical trials. We report that antibody binding to infected CD4 T cells is highly variable and correlates with ADCML and ADCC processes. Particularly, antibodies targeting the envelope glycan shield (2G12) and V1/V2 site (PG9, PG16, and PGT145) are best at recognizing HIV-1-infected CD4 T cells. However, only PG9 and PG16 and their combinations with other bnAbs sufficiently induced the elimination of HIV-1-infected CD4 T cells by ADCML, ADCC, or both. Notably, CD4 binding site antibodies VRC01, 3BNC117, and NIH45-46 G54W did not exhibit recognition of infected cells and were unable to induce their killing. Future trials geared toward the development of a cure for HIV/AIDS should incorporate V1/V2 antibodies for maximal clearance of infected cells. With the use of only primary immune cells, we conducted a comprehensive cross-clade physiological analysis to aid the direction of antibodies as therapeutics toward the development of a cure for HIV/AIDS. IMPORTANCE Several antibodies capable of neutralizing the majority of circulating HIV-1 strains have been identified to date and have been shown to prevent infection in animal models. However, the use of combinations of such broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) for the treatment and

  13. Acceptance threshold hypothesis is supported by chemical similarity of cuticular hydrocarbons in a stingless bee, Melipona asilvai.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nascimento, D L; Nascimento, F S

    2012-11-01

    The ability to discriminate nestmates from non-nestmates in insect societies is essential to protect colonies from conspecific invaders. The acceptance threshold hypothesis predicts that organisms whose recognition systems classify recipients without errors should optimize the balance between acceptance and rejection. In this process, cuticular hydrocarbons play an important role as cues of recognition in social insects. The aims of this study were to determine whether guards exhibit a restrictive level of rejection towards chemically distinct individuals, becoming more permissive during the encounters with either nestmate or non-nestmate individuals bearing chemically similar profiles. The study demonstrates that Melipona asilvai (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Meliponini) guards exhibit a flexible system of nestmate recognition according to the degree of chemical similarity between the incoming forager and its own cuticular hydrocarbons profile. Guards became less restrictive in their acceptance rates when they encounter non-nestmates with highly similar chemical profiles, which they probably mistake for nestmates, hence broadening their acceptance level.

  14. Remembering versus Knowing during Face Recognition in Unilateral Temporal Lobe Epilepsy Patients with or without Hippocampal Sclerosis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bengner, Thomas; Malina, Thomas

    2008-01-01

    Recognition memory involves knowing an item was learned (familiarity) and remembering contextual details about the prior learning episode (recollection). We tested three competing hypotheses about the role of the hippocampus in recollection and familiarity. It mediates either recollection or familiarity, or serves both processes. We further tested…

  15. Innate recognition of bacteria in human milk is mediated by a milk-derived highly expressed pattern recognition receptor, soluble CD14.

    OpenAIRE

    Lab?ta, MO; Vidal, K; Nores, JE; Arias, M; Vita, N; Morgan, BP; Guillemot, JC; Loyaux, D; Ferrara, P; Schmid, D; Affolter, M; Borysiewicz, LK; Donnet-Hughes, A; Schiffrin, EJ

    2000-01-01

    Little is known about innate immunity to bacteria after birth in the hitherto sterile fetal intestine. Breast-feeding has long been associated with a lower incidence of gastrointestinal infections and inflammatory and allergic diseases. We found in human breast milk a 48-kD polypeptide, which we confirmed by mass spectrometry and sequencing to be a soluble form of the bacterial pattern recognition receptor CD14 (sCD14). Milk sCD14 (m-sCD14) concentrations were up to 20-fold higher than serum ...

  16. Innate Recognition of Bacteria in Human Milk Is Mediated by a Milk-Derived Highly Expressed Pattern Recognition Receptor, Soluble Cd14

    OpenAIRE

    Labéta, Mario O.; Vidal, Karine; Nores, Julia E. Rey; Arias, Mauricio; Vita, Natalio; Morgan, B. Paul; Guillemot, Jean Claude; Loyaux, Denis; Ferrara, Pascual; Schmid, Daniel; Affolter, Michael; Borysiewicz, Leszek K.; Donnet-Hughes, Anne; Schiffrin, Eduardo J.

    2000-01-01

    Little is known about innate immunity to bacteria after birth in the hitherto sterile fetal intestine. Breast-feeding has long been associated with a lower incidence of gastrointestinal infections and inflammatory and allergic diseases. We found in human breast milk a 48-kD polypeptide, which we confirmed by mass spectrometry and sequencing to be a soluble form of the bacterial pattern recognition receptor CD14 (sCD14). Milk sCD14 (m-sCD14) concentrations were up to 20-fold higher than serum ...

  17. The CRF1 and the CRF2 receptor mediate recognition memory deficits and vulnerability induced by opiate withdrawal.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morisot, Nadège; Contarino, Angelo

    2016-06-01

    Opiate use disorders are associated with impaired cognitive function and altered stress-responsive systems. The corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) system mediates stress responses via CRF1 and CRF2 receptors and may be implicated in substance use disorders. However, the specific role for each of the two known CRF receptor subtypes in cognitive impairment induced by opiate administration and withdrawal remains to be elucidated. In the present study, CRF1-/-, CRF2-/- and their respective wild-type mice are injected with escalating doses of morphine and cognitive function assessed by the novel object recognition (NOR) memory task throughout relatively long periods of opiate withdrawal. Early (2 days) phases of opiate withdrawal impair NOR memory in wild-type, CRF1-/- and CRF2-/- mice. However, the duration of opiate withdrawal-induced NOR memory deficits is prolonged in CRF1-/- but shortened in CRF2-/- mice, as compared to their respective wild-type mice, indicating opposite roles for the two CRF receptor subtypes. Nevertheless, following apparent recovery, exposure to an environmental stressor induces the reemergence of NOR memory deficits in long-term opiate-withdrawn wild-type but not CRF1-/- or CRF2-/- mice, indicating an essential role for both CRF receptor subtypes in stress vulnerability. These findings bring initial evidence of a complex physiopathological role for the CRF system in cognitive deficits and the long-lasting vulnerability induced by opiate drugs. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  18. Oxytocin improves facial emotion recognition in young adults with antisocial personality disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Timmermann, Marion; Jeung, Haang; Schmitt, Ruth; Boll, Sabrina; Freitag, Christine M; Bertsch, Katja; Herpertz, Sabine C

    2017-11-01

    Deficient facial emotion recognition has been suggested to underlie aggression in individuals with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). As the neuropeptide oxytocin (OT) has been shown to improve facial emotion recognition, it might also exert beneficial effects in individuals providing so much harm to the society. In a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled crossover trial, 22 individuals with ASPD and 29 healthy control (HC) subjects (matched for age, sex, intelligence, and education) were intranasally administered either OT (24 IU) or a placebo 45min before participating in an emotion classification paradigm with fearful, angry, and happy faces. We assessed the number of correct classifications and reaction times as indicators of emotion recognition ability. Significant group×substance×emotion interactions were found in correct classifications and reaction times. Compared to HC, individuals with ASPD showed deficits in recognizing fearful and happy faces; these group differences were no longer observable under OT. Additionally, reaction times for angry faces differed significantly between the ASPD and HC group in the placebo condition. This effect was mainly driven by longer reaction times in HC subjects after placebo administration compared to OT administration while individuals with ASPD revealed descriptively the contrary response pattern. Our data indicate an improvement of the recognition of fearful and happy facial expressions by OT in young adults with ASPD. Particularly the increased recognition of facial fear is of high importance since the correct perception of distress signals in others is thought to inhibit aggression. Beneficial effects of OT might be further mediated by improved recognition of facial happiness probably reflecting increased social reward responsiveness. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  19. Statistical Pattern Recognition

    CERN Document Server

    Webb, Andrew R

    2011-01-01

    Statistical pattern recognition relates to the use of statistical techniques for analysing data measurements in order to extract information and make justified decisions.  It is a very active area of study and research, which has seen many advances in recent years. Applications such as data mining, web searching, multimedia data retrieval, face recognition, and cursive handwriting recognition, all require robust and efficient pattern recognition techniques. This third edition provides an introduction to statistical pattern theory and techniques, with material drawn from a wide range of fields,

  20. Modeling guidance and recognition in categorical search: bridging human and computer object detection.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zelinsky, Gregory J; Peng, Yifan; Berg, Alexander C; Samaras, Dimitris

    2013-10-08

    Search is commonly described as a repeating cycle of guidance to target-like objects, followed by the recognition of these objects as targets or distractors. Are these indeed separate processes using different visual features? We addressed this question by comparing observer behavior to that of support vector machine (SVM) models trained on guidance and recognition tasks. Observers searched for a categorically defined teddy bear target in four-object arrays. Target-absent trials consisted of random category distractors rated in their visual similarity to teddy bears. Guidance, quantified as first-fixated objects during search, was strongest for targets, followed by target-similar, medium-similarity, and target-dissimilar distractors. False positive errors to first-fixated distractors also decreased with increasing dissimilarity to the target category. To model guidance, nine teddy bear detectors, using features ranging in biological plausibility, were trained on unblurred bears then tested on blurred versions of the same objects appearing in each search display. Guidance estimates were based on target probabilities obtained from these detectors. To model recognition, nine bear/nonbear classifiers, trained and tested on unblurred objects, were used to classify the object that would be fixated first (based on the detector estimates) as a teddy bear or a distractor. Patterns of categorical guidance and recognition accuracy were modeled almost perfectly by an HMAX model in combination with a color histogram feature. We conclude that guidance and recognition in the context of search are not separate processes mediated by different features, and that what the literature knows as guidance is really recognition performed on blurred objects viewed in the visual periphery.

  1. Ventromedial prefrontal cortex mediates visual attention during facial emotion recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wolf, Richard C; Philippi, Carissa L; Motzkin, Julian C; Baskaya, Mustafa K; Koenigs, Michael

    2014-06-01

    The ventromedial prefrontal cortex is known to play a crucial role in regulating human social and emotional behaviour, yet the precise mechanisms by which it subserves this broad function remain unclear. Whereas previous neuropsychological studies have largely focused on the role of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex in higher-order deliberative processes related to valuation and decision-making, here we test whether ventromedial prefrontal cortex may also be critical for more basic aspects of orienting attention to socially and emotionally meaningful stimuli. Using eye tracking during a test of facial emotion recognition in a sample of lesion patients, we show that bilateral ventromedial prefrontal cortex damage impairs visual attention to the eye regions of faces, particularly for fearful faces. This finding demonstrates a heretofore unrecognized function of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex-the basic attentional process of controlling eye movements to faces expressing emotion. © The Author (2014). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Guarantors of Brain. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

  2. Self-recognition in the coordination driven self-assembly of 2-D polygons.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Addicott, Chris; Das, Neeladri; Stang, Peter J

    2004-08-23

    Self-recognition in the transition-metal-mediated self-assembly of some 2-D polygons is presented. Prolonged heating of two or three organoplatinum reagents with 4,4'-dipyridyl in aqueous acetone results in the predominant formation of a rectangle, triangle, and/or square. All mixtures are characterized with NMR and electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESIMS). Despite the potential for ill-defined oligomeric products, these mixed ligand systems prefer to self-assemble into discrete species.

  3. Construction mediation and its hybridization: the case of the Hong Kong construction industry

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ng Pui-Lam

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available In view of the sophisticated nature of construction disputes, specialized dispute resolution mechanisms are of pivotal importance to the satisfactory settlement between disputing parties. Among the various construction dispute resolution mechanisms, mediation has been increasingly gaining recognition and acceptance. Its hybrid, namely mediation-arbitration (med-arb, has also emerged and has started receiving attention and appreciation. With special reference to the construction industry practice in Hong Kong, a commentary on the respective merits and demerits of construction mediation and construction med-arb, as well as the ways forward, are presented in this article.

  4. Rotation-invariant neural pattern recognition system with application to coin recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fukumi, M; Omatu, S; Takeda, F; Kosaka, T

    1992-01-01

    In pattern recognition, it is often necessary to deal with problems to classify a transformed pattern. A neural pattern recognition system which is insensitive to rotation of input pattern by various degrees is proposed. The system consists of a fixed invariance network with many slabs and a trainable multilayered network. The system was used in a rotation-invariant coin recognition problem to distinguish between a 500 yen coin and a 500 won coin. The results show that the approach works well for variable rotation pattern recognition.

  5. Diversity in peptide recognition by the SH2 domain of SH2B1.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McKercher, Marissa A; Guan, Xiaoyang; Tan, Zhongping; Wuttke, Deborah S

    2018-02-01

    SH2B1 is a multidomain protein that serves as a key adaptor to regulate numerous cellular events, such as insulin, leptin, and growth hormone signaling pathways. Many of these protein-protein interactions are mediated by the SH2 domain of SH2B1, which recognizes ligands containing a phosphorylated tyrosine (pY), including peptides derived from janus kinase 2, insulin receptor, and insulin receptor substrate-1 and -2. Specificity for the SH2 domain of SH2B1 is conferred in these ligands either by a hydrophobic or an acidic side chain at the +3 position C-terminal to the pY. This specificity for chemically disparate species suggests that SH2B1 relies on distinct thermodynamic or structural mechanisms to bind to peptides. Using binding and structural strategies, we have identified unique thermodynamic signatures for each peptide binding mode, and several SH2B1 residues, including K575 and R578, that play distinct roles in peptide binding. The high-resolution structure of the SH2 domain of SH2B1 further reveals conformationally plastic protein loops that may contribute to the ability of the protein to recognize dissimilar ligands. Together, numerous hydrophobic and electrostatic interactions, in addition to backbone conformational flexibility, permit the recognition of diverse peptides by SH2B1. An understanding of this expanded peptide recognition will allow for the identification of novel physiologically relevant SH2B1/peptide interactions, which can contribute to the design of obesity and diabetes pharmaceuticals to target the ligand-binding interface of SH2B1 with high specificity. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  6. Nucleic Acid Sensors Involved in the Recognition of HBV in the Liver–Specific in vivo Transfection Mouse Models—Pattern Recognition Receptors and Sensors for HBV

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chean Ring Leong

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available Cellular innate immune system recognizing pathogen infection is critical for the host defense against viruses. Hepatitis B virus (HBV is a DNA virus with a unique life cycle whereby the DNA and RNA intermediates present at different phases. However, it is still unclear whether the viral DNA or RNA templates are recognized by the pattern-recognition receptors (PRRs to trigger host antiviral immune response. Here in this article, we review the recent advances in the progress of the HBV studies, focusing on the nucleic acid sensors and the pathways involved in the recognition of HBV in the liver–specific in vivo transfection mouse models. Hydrodynamic injection transfecting the hepatocytes in the gene-disrupted mouse model with the HBV replicative genome DNA has revealed that IFNAR and IRF3/7 are indispensable in HBV eradication in the mice liver but not the RNA sensing pathways. Interestingly, accumulating evidence of the recent studies has demonstrated that HBV markedly interfered with IFN-β induction and antiviral immunity mediated by the Stimulator of interferon genes (STING, which has been identified as a central factor in foreign DNA recognition and antiviral innate immunity. This review will present the current understanding of innate immunity in HBV infection and of the challenges for clearing of the HBV infection.

  7. Training and performance: The mediating role of organizational learning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    María Isabel Barba Aragón

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Although there is a general recognition in the literature that training improves a firm's performance, empirical research does not always provide evidence to support this effect. One possible explanation is that training does not have a direct effect on performance but an indirect effect by improving other organizational outcomes. This paper suggests that organizational learning is one of those variables and that it mediates the relationship between training and performance and that the adoption of a learning-oriented training enhances performances through its positive effect on organizational learning. Using a sample of Spanish firms we obtain empirical evidence, which supports the view that this mediating effect is present.

  8. Recognition of facial expressions of emotion by adults with intellectual disability: Is there evidence for the emotion specificity hypothesis?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Scotland, Jennifer L; McKenzie, Karen; Cossar, Jill; Murray, Aja; Michie, Amanda

    2016-01-01

    This study aimed to evaluate the emotion recognition abilities of adults (n=23) with an intellectual disability (ID) compared with a control group of children (n=23) without ID matched for estimated cognitive ability. The study examined the impact of: task paradigm, stimulus type and preferred processing style (global/local) on accuracy. We found that, after controlling for estimated cognitive ability, the control group performed significantly better than the individuals with ID. This provides some support for the emotion specificity hypothesis. Having a more local processing style did not significantly mediate the relation between having ID and emotion recognition, but did significantly predict emotion recognition ability after controlling for group. This suggests that processing style is related to emotion recognition independently of having ID. The availability of contextual information improved emotion recognition for people with ID when compared with line drawing stimuli, and identifying a target emotion from a choice of two was relatively easier for individuals with ID, compared with the other task paradigms. The results of the study are considered in the context of current theories of emotion recognition deficits in individuals with ID. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  9. Functional inactivation of dorsal medial striatum alters behavioral flexibility and recognition process in mice.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Qiao, Yanhua; Wang, Xingyue; Ma, Lian; Li, Shengguang; Liang, Jing

    2017-10-01

    Deficits in behavioral flexibility and recognition memory are commonly observed in mental illnesses and neurodegenerative diseases. Abnormality of the striatum has been implicated in an association with the pathology of these diseases. However, the exact roles of striatal heterogeneous structures in these cognitive functions are still unknown. In the present study, we investigated the effects of suppressing neuronal activity in the dorsomedial striatum (DMStr) and nucleus accumbens core (NAcC) on reversal learning and novelty recognition in mice. In addition, the locomotor activity, anxiety-like behavior and social interaction were analyzed. Neuronal inactivation was performed by expressing lentivirus-mediated tetanus toxin (TeNT) in the target regions. The results showed that reversal learning was facilitated by neuronal inactivation in the DMStr but not the NAcC, which was attributable to accelerated extinction of acquired strategy but not to impaired memory retention. Furthermore, mice with NAcC inactivation spent more time exploring a novel object than a familiar one, comparable to control mice. In contrast, mice with DMStr inactivation exhibited no preference to a novel environment during the novel object or place recognition test. The DMStr mice also exhibited decreased anxiety level. No phenotypic effect was observed in the locomotion or social interaction in mice with either DMStr or NAcC inactivation. Altogether, these findings suggest that the DMStr but not the ventral area of the striatum plays a crucial role in learning and memory by coordinating spatial exploration as well as mediating information updating. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  10. A Social Recognition Approach to Autonomy: The Role of Equality-Based Respect.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Renger, Daniela; Renger, Sophus; Miché, Marcel; Simon, Bernd

    2017-04-01

    Inspired by philosophical reasoning about the connection between equality and freedom, we examined whether experiences of (equality-based) respect increase perceived autonomy. This link was tested with generalized experiences of respect and autonomy people make in their daily lives (Study 1) and with more specific experiences of employees at the workplace (Study 2). In both studies, respect strongly and independently contributed to perceived autonomy over and above other forms of social recognition (need-based care and achievement-based social esteem) and further affected (life/work) satisfaction. Study 3 experimentally confirmed the hypothesized causal influence of respect on perceived autonomy and demonstrated that this effect further translates into social cooperation. The respect-cooperation link was simultaneously mediated by perceived autonomy and superordinate collective identification. We discuss how the recognition approach, which differentiates between respect, care, and social esteem, can enrich research on autonomy.

  11. The raison d'être of chemical ecology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Raguso, Robert A; Agrawal, Anurag A; Douglas, Angela E; Jander, Georg; Kessler, André; Poveda, Katja; Thaler, Jennifer S

    2015-03-01

    Chemical ecology is a mechanistic approach to understanding the causes and consequences of species interactions, distribution, abundance, and diversity. The promise of chemical ecology stems from its potential to provide causal mechanisms that further our understanding of ecological interactions and allow us to more effectively manipulate managed systems. Founded on the notion that all organisms use endogenous hormones and chemical compounds that mediate interactions, chemical ecology has flourished over the past 50 years since its origin. In this essay we highlight the breadth of chemical ecology, from its historical focus on pheromonal communication, plant-insect interactions, and coevolution to frontier themes including community and ecosystem effects of chemically mediated species interactions. Emerging approaches including the -omics, phylogenetic ecology, the form and function of microbiomes, and network analysis, as well as emerging challenges (e.g., sustainable agriculture and public health) are guiding current growth of this field. Nonetheless, the directions and approaches we advocate for the future are grounded in classic ecological theories and hypotheses that continue to motivate our broader discipline.

  12. Sex differences in face processing are mediated by handedness and sexual orientation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brewster, Paul W H; Mullin, Caitlin R; Dobrin, Roxana A; Steeves, Jennifer K E

    2011-03-01

    Previous research has demonstrated sex differences in face processing at both neural and behavioural levels. The present study examined the role of handedness and sexual orientation as mediators of this effect. We compared the performance of LH (left-handed) and RH (right-handed) heterosexual and homosexual male and female participants on a face recognition memory task. Our main findings were that homosexual males have better face recognition memory than both heterosexual males and homosexual women. We also demonstrate better face processing in women than in men. Finally, LH heterosexual participants had better face recognition than LH homosexual participants and also tended to be better than RH heterosexual participants. These findings are consistent with differences in the organisation and laterality of face-processing mechanisms as a function of sex, handedness, and sexual orientation.

  13. Chemical mediators of granulopoiesis: a review

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Brennan, J K; Lichtman, M A; DiPersio, J F; Abboud, C N

    1980-04-01

    Advances in the culture of primitive hemopoietic cells have added to our understanding of granulopoiesis. Granulocyte production appears to be under both stimulatory and inhibitory control. Colony stimulating factor (CSF), a group of glycoproteins, are specific stimulants of granulocyte and monocyte progenitor cells and may be analogous to erythropoietin. The inhibitory control of granulopoiesis is less well established than the stimulatory. The most promising candidate for a negative feedback mediator is colony inhibiting activity (CIA), a glycoprotein similar to, if not identical with, lactoferrin. This molecule appears to act by reducing colony stimulating facor production by monocytes. Prostaglandins of the E-type and other low molecular weight inhibitors of granulopoiesis have been described but do not appear to be specific for granulocytic cells. At present, there is no decisive evidence that CSF or other granulocyte modulating substances in vitro are in vivo regulators.

  14. Recent Advances in Multinuclear NMR Spectroscopy for Chiral Recognition of Organic Compounds

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Márcio S. Silva

    2017-02-01

    Full Text Available Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR is a powerful tool for the elucidation of chemical structure and chiral recognition. In the last decade, the number of probes, media, and experiments to analyze chiral environments has rapidly increased. The evaluation of chiral molecules and systems has become a routine task in almost all NMR laboratories, allowing for the determination of molecular connectivities and the construction of spatial relationships. Among the features that improve the chiral recognition abilities by NMR is the application of different nuclei. The simplicity of the multinuclear NMR spectra relative to 1H, the minimal influence of the experimental conditions, and the larger shift dispersion make these nuclei especially suitable for NMR analysis. Herein, the recent advances in multinuclear (19F, 31P, 13C, and 77Se NMR spectroscopy for chiral recognition of organic compounds are presented. The review describes new chiral derivatizing agents and chiral solvating agents used for stereodiscrimination and the assignment of the absolute configuration of small organic compounds.

  15. Glutathione--hydroxyl radical interaction: a theoretical study on radical recognition process.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Béla Fiser

    Full Text Available Non-reactive, comparative (2 × 1.2 μs molecular dynamics simulations were carried out to characterize the interactions between glutathione (GSH, host molecule and hydroxyl radical (OH(•, guest molecule. From this analysis, two distinct steps were identified in the recognition process of hydroxyl radical by glutathione: catching and steering, based on the interactions between the host-guest molecules. Over 78% of all interactions are related to the catching mechanism via complex formation between anionic carboxyl groups and the OH radical, hence both terminal residues of GSH serve as recognition sites. The glycine residue has an additional role in the recognition of OH radical, namely the steering. The flexibility of the Gly residue enables the formation of further interactions of other parts of glutathione (e.g. thiol, α- and β-carbons with the lone electron pair of the hydroxyl radical. Moreover, quantum chemical calculations were carried out on selected GSH/OH(• complexes and on appropriate GSH conformers to describe the energy profile of the recognition process. The relative enthalpy and the free energy changes of the radical recognition of the strongest complexes varied from -42.4 to -27.8 kJ/mol and from -21.3 to 9.8 kJ/mol, respectively. These complexes, containing two or more intermolecular interactions, would be the starting configurations for the hydrogen atom migration to quench the hydroxyl radical via different reaction channels.

  16. Serotonergic modulation of face-emotion recognition

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    C.M. Del-Ben

    2008-04-01

    Full Text Available Facial expressions of basic emotions have been widely used to investigate the neural substrates of emotion processing, but little is known about the exact meaning of subjective changes provoked by perceiving facial expressions. Our assumption was that fearful faces would be related to the processing of potential threats, whereas angry faces would be related to the processing of proximal threats. Experimental studies have suggested that serotonin modulates the brain processes underlying defensive responses to environmental threats, facilitating risk assessment behavior elicited by potential threats and inhibiting fight or flight responses to proximal threats. In order to test these predictions about the relationship between fearful and angry faces and defensive behaviors, we carried out a review of the literature about the effects of pharmacological probes that affect 5-HT-mediated neurotransmission on the perception of emotional faces. The hypothesis that angry faces would be processed as a proximal threat and that, as a consequence, their recognition would be impaired by an increase in 5-HT function was not supported by the results reviewed. In contrast, most of the studies that evaluated the behavioral effects of serotonin challenges showed that increased 5-HT neurotransmission facilitates the recognition of fearful faces, whereas its decrease impairs the same performance. These results agree with the hypothesis that fearful faces are processed as potential threats and that 5-HT enhances this brain processing.

  17. Familiar Person Recognition: Is Autonoetic Consciousness More Likely to Accompany Face Recognition Than Voice Recognition?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barsics, Catherine; Brédart, Serge

    2010-11-01

    Autonoetic consciousness is a fundamental property of human memory, enabling us to experience mental time travel, to recollect past events with a feeling of self-involvement, and to project ourselves in the future. Autonoetic consciousness is a characteristic of episodic memory. By contrast, awareness of the past associated with a mere feeling of familiarity or knowing relies on noetic consciousness, depending on semantic memory integrity. Present research was aimed at evaluating whether conscious recollection of episodic memories is more likely to occur following the recognition of a familiar face than following the recognition of a familiar voice. Recall of semantic information (biographical information) was also assessed. Previous studies that investigated the recall of biographical information following person recognition used faces and voices of famous people as stimuli. In this study, the participants were presented with personally familiar people's voices and faces, thus avoiding the presence of identity cues in the spoken extracts and allowing a stricter control of frequency exposure with both types of stimuli (voices and faces). In the present study, the rate of retrieved episodic memories, associated with autonoetic awareness, was significantly higher from familiar faces than familiar voices even though the level of overall recognition was similar for both these stimuli domains. The same pattern was observed regarding semantic information retrieval. These results and their implications for current Interactive Activation and Competition person recognition models are discussed.

  18. Dopamine D1 receptor activation leads to object recognition memory in a coral reef fish.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hamilton, Trevor J; Tresguerres, Martin; Kline, David I

    2017-07-01

    Object recognition memory is the ability to identify previously seen objects and is an adaptive mechanism that increases survival for many species throughout the animal kingdom. Previously believed to be possessed by only the highest order mammals, it is now becoming clear that fish are also capable of this type of memory formation. Similar to the mammalian hippocampus, the dorsolateral pallium regulates distinct memory processes and is modulated by neurotransmitters such as dopamine. Caribbean bicolour damselfish ( Stegastes partitus ) live in complex environments dominated by coral reef structures and thus likely possess many types of complex memory abilities including object recognition. This study used a novel object recognition test in which fish were first presented two identical objects, then after a retention interval of 10 min with no objects, the fish were presented with a novel object and one of the objects they had previously encountered in the first trial. We demonstrate that the dopamine D 1 -receptor agonist (SKF 38393) induces the formation of object recognition memories in these fish. Thus, our results suggest that dopamine-receptor mediated enhancement of spatial memory formation in fish represents an evolutionarily conserved mechanism in vertebrates. © 2017 The Author(s).

  19. Biomaterials for mediation of chemical and biological warfare agents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Russell, Alan J; Berberich, Jason A; Drevon, Geraldine F; Koepsel, Richard R

    2003-01-01

    Recent events have emphasized the threat from chemical and biological warfare agents. Within the efforts to counter this threat, the biocatalytic destruction and sensing of chemical and biological weapons has become an important area of focus. The specificity and high catalytic rates of biological catalysts make them appropriate for decommissioning nerve agent stockpiles, counteracting nerve agent attacks, and remediation of organophosphate spills. A number of materials have been prepared containing enzymes for the destruction of and protection against organophosphate nerve agents and biological warfare agents. This review discusses the major chemical and biological warfare agents, decontamination methods, and biomaterials that have potential for the preparation of decontamination wipes, gas filters, column packings, protective wear, and self-decontaminating paints and coatings.

  20. The inhibitory NKR-P1B:Clr-b recognition axis facilitates detection of oncogenic transformation and cancer immunosurveillance

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Tanaka, M; Fine, Jason; Kirkham, Christina

    2018-01-01

    Natural killer (NK) cells express receptors specific for MHC class I (MHC-I) molecules involved in "missing-self" recognition of cancer and virus-infected cells. Here we elucidate the role of MHC-I-independent NKR-P1B:Clr-b interactions in the detection of oncogenic transformation by NK cells. Ras......-b protein, in turn promoting missing-self recognition via the NKR-P1B inhibitory receptor. Both Ras- and c-Myc-mediated Clr-b loss selectively augmented cytotoxicity of oncogene-transformed leukemia cells by NKR-P1B+ NK cells in vitro and enhanced rejection by WT mice in vivo. Interestingly, genetic...

  1. Question of Drug Workers under the Prism Theory of Axel Honneth recognition . Human Right to Work and his pretension of Universal Validity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maria Cecília Máximo Teodoro

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Relate the theme regarding the Theory of Recognition Axel Honnet, the human right to work as a human right to claim to universal validity, from the perspective of the Declaration of Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work ILO, for purposes of setting parameters and recognition of social (re integration of chemical class dependent workers is the main goal of this article. We will analyze the theoretical framework in which the pursuit of human dignity at work is the goal of the state to which we treat below the dignity of man as a right whose claim to universal validity is based on the recognition of the theory of Axel Honneth . That said, we analyze the possible dignity of man at work in a global context from the recognition of new rights, especially with regard to the category of workers who occupy the social portion of chemical-dependent, whose participation in the social process is prevented, creating a category of workers socially excluded, which is intended to overcome.

  2. Unique contributions of an arginine side chain to ligand recognition in a glutamate-gated chloride channel

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lynagh, Timothy; Komnatnyy, Vitaly V; Pless, Stephan A

    2017-01-01

    Glutamate recognition by neurotransmitter receptors often relies on arginine (Arg) residues in the binding site, leading to the assumption that charge-charge interactions underlie ligand recognition. However, assessing the precise chemical contribution of Arg side chains to protein function......-gated chloride channel from the nematode Haemonchus contortus. Our data unveil a surprisingly small contribution of charge at a conserved arginine side chain previously suggested to form a salt bridge with the ligand, glutamate. Instead, our data show that Arg contributes crucially to ligand sensitivity via...

  3. [Prosopagnosia and facial expression recognition].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koyama, Shinichi

    2014-04-01

    This paper reviews clinical neuropsychological studies that have indicated that the recognition of a person's identity and the recognition of facial expressions are processed by different cortical and subcortical areas of the brain. The fusiform gyrus, especially the right fusiform gyrus, plays an important role in the recognition of identity. The superior temporal sulcus, amygdala, and medial frontal cortex play important roles in facial-expression recognition. Both facial recognition and facial-expression recognition are highly intellectual processes that involve several regions of the brain.

  4. Encoding-related brain activity dissociates between the recollective processes underlying successful recall and recognition: a subsequent-memory study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sadeh, Talya; Maril, Anat; Goshen-Gottstein, Yonatan

    2012-07-01

    The subsequent-memory (SM) paradigm uncovers brain mechanisms that are associated with mnemonic activity during encoding by measuring participants' neural activity during encoding and classifying the encoding trials according to performance in the subsequent retrieval phase. The majority of these studies have converged on the notion that the mechanism supporting recognition is mediated by familiarity and recollection. The process of recollection is often assumed to be a recall-like process, implying that the active search for the memory trace is similar, if not identical, for recall and recognition. Here we challenge this assumption and hypothesize - based on previous findings obtained in our lab - that the recollective processes underlying recall and recognition might show dissociative patterns of encoding-related brain activity. To this end, our design controlled for familiarity, thereby focusing on contextual, recollective processes. We found evidence for dissociative neurocognitive encoding mechanisms supporting subsequent-recall and subsequent-recognition. Specifically, the contrast of subsequent-recognition versus subsequent-recall revealed activation in the Parahippocampal cortex (PHc) and the posterior hippocampus--regions associated with contextual processing. Implications of our findings and their relation to current cognitive models of recollection are discussed. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  5. Pupil dilation during recognition memory: Isolating unexpected recognition from judgment uncertainty.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mill, Ravi D; O'Connor, Akira R; Dobbins, Ian G

    2016-09-01

    Optimally discriminating familiar from novel stimuli demands a decision-making process informed by prior expectations. Here we demonstrate that pupillary dilation (PD) responses during recognition memory decisions are modulated by expectations, and more specifically, that pupil dilation increases for unexpected compared to expected recognition. Furthermore, multi-level modeling demonstrated that the time course of the dilation during each individual trial contains separable early and late dilation components, with the early amplitude capturing unexpected recognition, and the later trailing slope reflecting general judgment uncertainty or effort. This is the first demonstration that the early dilation response during recognition is dependent upon observer expectations and that separate recognition expectation and judgment uncertainty components are present in the dilation time course of every trial. The findings provide novel insights into adaptive memory-linked orienting mechanisms as well as the general cognitive underpinnings of the pupillary index of autonomic nervous system activity. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  6. Dopamine D1 receptor stimulation modulates the formation and retrieval of novel object recognition memory: Role of the prelimbic cortex.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pezze, Marie A; Marshall, Hayley J; Fone, Kevin C F; Cassaday, Helen J

    2015-11-01

    Previous studies have shown that dopamine D1 receptor antagonists impair novel object recognition memory but the effects of dopamine D1 receptor stimulation remain to be determined. This study investigated the effects of the selective dopamine D1 receptor agonist SKF81297 on acquisition and retrieval in the novel object recognition task in male Wistar rats. SKF81297 (0.4 and 0.8 mg/kg s.c.) given 15 min before the sampling phase impaired novel object recognition evaluated 10 min or 24 h later. The same treatments also reduced novel object recognition memory tested 24 h after the sampling phase and when given 15 min before the choice session. These data indicate that D1 receptor stimulation modulates both the encoding and retrieval of object recognition memory. Microinfusion of SKF81297 (0.025 or 0.05 μg/side) into the prelimbic sub-region of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in this case 10 min before the sampling phase also impaired novel object recognition memory, suggesting that the mPFC is one important site mediating the effects of D1 receptor stimulation on visual recognition memory. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  7. Receptor-mediated gene delivery using chemically modified chitosan

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kim, T H; Jiang, H L; Nah, J W; Cho, M H; Akaike, T; Cho, C S

    2007-01-01

    Chitosan has been investigated as a non-viral vector because it has several advantages such as biocompatibility, biodegradability and low toxicity with high cationic potential. However, the low specificity and low transfection efficiency of chitosan need to be solved prior to clinical application. In this paper, we focused on the galactose or mannose ligand modification of chitosan for enhancement of cell specificity and transfection efficiency via receptor-mediated endocytosis in vitro and in vivo

  8. Placebo-mediated, Naloxone-sensitive suggestibility of short-term memory performance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stern, Jair; Candia, Victor; Porchet, Roseline I; Krummenacher, Peter; Folkers, Gerd; Schedlowski, Manfred; Ettlin, Dominik A; Schönbächler, Georg

    2011-03-01

    Physiological studies of placebo-mediated suggestion have been recently performed beyond their traditional clinical context of pain and analgesia. Various neurotransmitter systems and immunological modulators have been used in successful placebo suggestions, including Dopamine, Cholecystokinin and, most extensively, opioids. We adhered to an established conceptual framework of placebo research and used the μ-opioid-antagonist Naloxone to test the applicability of this framework within a cognitive domain (e.g. memory) in healthy volunteers. Healthy men (n=62, age 29, SD=9) were required to perform a task-battery, including standardized and custom-designed memory tasks, to test short-term recall and delayed recognition. Tasks were performed twice, before and after intravenous injection of either NaCl (0.9%) or Naloxone (both 0.15 mg/kg), in a double-blind setting. While one group was given neutral information (S-), the other was told that it might receive a drug with suspected memory-boosting properties (S+). Objective and subjective indexes of memory performance and salivary cortisol (as a stress marker) were recorded during both runs and differences between groups were assessed. Short-term memory recall, but not delayed recognition, was objectively increased after placebo-mediated suggestion in the NaCl-group. Naloxone specifically blocked the suggestion effect without interfering with memory performance. These results were not affected when changes in salivary cortisol levels were considered. No reaction time changes, recorded to uncover unspecific attentional impairment, were seen. Placebo-mediated suggestion produced a training-independent, objective and Naloxone-sensitive increase in memory performance. These results indicate an opioid-mediated placebo effect within a circumscribed cognitive domain in healthy volunteers. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  9. Social and attention-to-detail subclusters of autistic traits differentially predict looking at eyes and face identity recognition ability.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Davis, Joshua; McKone, Elinor; Zirnsak, Marc; Moore, Tirin; O'Kearney, Richard; Apthorp, Deborah; Palermo, Romina

    2017-02-01

    This study distinguished between different subclusters of autistic traits in the general population and examined the relationships between these subclusters, looking at the eyes of faces, and the ability to recognize facial identity. Using the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) measure in a university-recruited sample, we separate the social aspects of autistic traits (i.e., those related to communication and social interaction; AQ-Social) from the non-social aspects, particularly attention-to-detail (AQ-Attention). We provide the first evidence that these social and non-social aspects are associated differentially with looking at eyes: While AQ-Social showed the commonly assumed tendency towards reduced looking at eyes, AQ-Attention was associated with increased looking at eyes. We also report that higher attention-to-detail (AQ-Attention) was then indirectly related to improved face recognition, mediated by increased number of fixations to the eyes during face learning. Higher levels of socially relevant autistic traits (AQ-Social) trended in the opposite direction towards being related to poorer face recognition (significantly so in females on the Cambridge Face Memory Test). There was no evidence of any mediated relationship between AQ-Social and face recognition via reduced looking at the eyes. These different effects of AQ-Attention and AQ-Social suggest face-processing studies in Autism Spectrum Disorder might similarly benefit from considering symptom subclusters. Additionally, concerning mechanisms of face recognition, our results support the view that more looking at eyes predicts better face memory. © 2016 The British Psychological Society.

  10. Kernel learning algorithms for face recognition

    CERN Document Server

    Li, Jun-Bao; Pan, Jeng-Shyang

    2013-01-01

    Kernel Learning Algorithms for Face Recognition covers the framework of kernel based face recognition. This book discusses the advanced kernel learning algorithms and its application on face recognition. This book also focuses on the theoretical deviation, the system framework and experiments involving kernel based face recognition. Included within are algorithms of kernel based face recognition, and also the feasibility of the kernel based face recognition method. This book provides researchers in pattern recognition and machine learning area with advanced face recognition methods and its new

  11. Structural Basis for Degenerate Recognition of Natural HIV Peptide Variants by Cytotoxic Lymphocytes

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Martinez-Hackert, E.; Anikeeva, N.; Kalams, S.; Walker, B.; Hendrickson, W.; Sykulev, Y.

    2006-01-01

    It is well established that even small changes in amino acid side chains of antigenic peptide bound to MHC protein may completely abrogate recognition of the peptide-MHC (pMHC) complex by the T-cell receptor (TCR). Often, however, several non-conservative substitutions in the peptide antigen are accommodated and do not impair its recognition by TCR. For example, a preponderance of natural sequence variants of the HIV p17 Gag-derived peptide SLYNTVATL (SL9) are recognized by cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL), which implies that interactions with SL9 variants are degenerate both with respect to the class I MHC molecule and with respect to TCR. Here we study the molecular basis for this degenerate recognition of SL9 variants. We show that several SL9 variants bind comparably well to soluble HLA-A2 and to a particular soluble TCR and that these variants are active in the cognate cytotoxicity assay. Natural SL9 variation is restricted by its context in the HIV p17 matrix protein, and we have used synthetic variants to explore the wider spectrum of recognition. High-resolution crystal structures of seven selected SL9 variants bound to HLA-A2 all have remarkably similar peptide conformations and side-chain dispositions outside sites of substitution. This preservation of the peptide conformation despite epitope variations suggests a mechanism for the observed degeneracy in pMHC recognition by TCR, and may contribute to the persistence of SL9-mediated immune responses in chronically infected individuals

  12. Novel insights into the ontogeny of nestmate recognition in Polistes social wasps.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Signorotti, Lisa; Cappa, Federico; d'Ettorre, Patrizia; Cervo, Rita

    2014-01-01

    The importance of early experience in animals' life is unquestionable, and imprinting-like phenomena may shape important aspects of behaviour. Early learning typically occurs during a sensitive period, which restricts crucial processes of information storage to a specific developmental phase. The characteristics of the sensitive period have been largely investigated in vertebrates, because of their complexity and plasticity, both in behaviour and neurophysiology, but early learning occurs also in invertebrates. In social insects, early learning appears to influence important social behaviours such as nestmate recognition. Yet, the mechanisms underlying recognition systems are not fully understood. It is currently believed that Polistes social wasps are able to discriminate nestmates from non-nestmates following the perception of olfactory cues present on the paper of their nest, which are learned during a strict sensitive period, immediately after emergence. Here, through differential odour experience experiments, we show that workers of Polistes dominula develop correct nestmate recognition abilities soon after emergence even in absence of what have been so far considered the necessary cues (the chemicals spread on nest paper). P. dominula workers were exposed for the first four days of adult life to paper fragments from their nest, or from a foreign conspecific nest or to a neutral condition. Wasps were then transferred to their original nests where recognition abilities were tested. Our results show that wasps do not alter their recognition ability if exposed only to nest material, or in absence of nest material, during the early phase of adult life. It thus appears that the nest paper is not used as a source of recognition cues to be learned in a specific time window, although we discuss possible alternative explanations. Our study provides a novel perspective for the study of the ontogeny of nestmate recognition in Polistes wasps and in other social insects.

  13. Chemical ecology of insects and tritrophic interactions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ahmad, F.; Aslam, M.; Razaq, M.

    2004-01-01

    This paper reviews the chemical ecology of insects to explain the role of semiochemicals in plant-herbivore, herbivore-carnivore and plant-carnivore interactions. The semiochemical, mediating tritrophic interactions may be produced by plants, herbivores or their natural enemies (carnivores). Some semiochemicals attract the herbivores and carnivores and mediate interaction among them, while on the other hand some repel them. The semiochemicals are used by heribivores, parasites and predators as cues to locate food, host or prey. The same chemicals are also used for defensive purpose by some herbivores against their natural enemies as they are sequestered through their bodies. (author)

  14. Peptides derived from human galectin-3 N-terminal tail interact with its carbohydrate recognition domain in a phosphorylation-dependent manner

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Berbís, M. Álvaro [Chemical and Physical Biology Department, Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas, CSIC, 28040 Madrid (Spain); André, Sabine [Institute of Physiological Chemistry, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ludwig-Maximilians University, 80539 Munich (Germany); Cañada, F. Javier [Chemical and Physical Biology Department, Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas, CSIC, 28040 Madrid (Spain); Pipkorn, Rüdiger [Central Peptide Synthesis Unit, German Cancer Research Center, 69120 Heidelberg (Germany); Ippel, Hans [Department of Biochemistry, CARIM, University of Maastricht, Maastricht (Netherlands); Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 (United States); Mayo, Kevin H. [Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455 (United States); Kübler, Dieter [Biomolecular Interactions, German Cancer Research Center, 69120 Heidelberg (Germany); Gabius, Hans-Joachim [Institute of Physiological Chemistry, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ludwig-Maximilians University, 80539 Munich (Germany); Jiménez-Barbero, Jesús, E-mail: jjbarbero@cib.csic.es [Chemical and Physical Biology Department, Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas, CSIC, 28040 Madrid (Spain)

    2014-01-03

    Highlights: •Galectin-3 is composed of a carbohydrate recognition domain and an N-terminal tail. •Synthetic peptides derived from the tail are shown to interact with the CRD. •This interaction is modulated by Ser- and Tyr-phosphorylation of the peptides. -- Abstract: Galectin-3 (Gal-3) is a multi-functional effector protein that functions in the cytoplasm and the nucleus, as well as extracellularly following non-classical secretion. Structurally, Gal-3 is unique among galectins with its carbohydrate recognition domain (CRD) attached to a rather long N-terminal tail composed mostly of collagen-like repeats (nine in the human protein) and terminating in a short non-collagenous terminal peptide sequence unique in this lectin family and not yet fully explored. Although several Ser and Tyr sites within the N-terminal tail can be phosphorylated, the physiological significance of this post-translational modification remains unclear. Here, we used a series of synthetic (phospho)peptides derived from the tail to assess phosphorylation-mediated interactions with {sup 15}N-labeled Gal-3 CRD. HSQC-derived chemical shift perturbations revealed selective interactions at the backface of the CRD that were attenuated by phosphorylation of Tyr 107 and Tyr 118, while phosphorylation of Ser 6 and Ser 12 was essential. Controls with sequence scrambling underscored inherent specificity. Our studies shed light on how phosphorylation of the N-terminal tail may impact on Gal-3 function and prompt further studies using phosphorylated full-length protein.

  15. Peptides derived from human galectin-3 N-terminal tail interact with its carbohydrate recognition domain in a phosphorylation-dependent manner

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Berbís, M. Álvaro; André, Sabine; Cañada, F. Javier; Pipkorn, Rüdiger; Ippel, Hans; Mayo, Kevin H.; Kübler, Dieter; Gabius, Hans-Joachim; Jiménez-Barbero, Jesús

    2014-01-01

    Highlights: •Galectin-3 is composed of a carbohydrate recognition domain and an N-terminal tail. •Synthetic peptides derived from the tail are shown to interact with the CRD. •This interaction is modulated by Ser- and Tyr-phosphorylation of the peptides. -- Abstract: Galectin-3 (Gal-3) is a multi-functional effector protein that functions in the cytoplasm and the nucleus, as well as extracellularly following non-classical secretion. Structurally, Gal-3 is unique among galectins with its carbohydrate recognition domain (CRD) attached to a rather long N-terminal tail composed mostly of collagen-like repeats (nine in the human protein) and terminating in a short non-collagenous terminal peptide sequence unique in this lectin family and not yet fully explored. Although several Ser and Tyr sites within the N-terminal tail can be phosphorylated, the physiological significance of this post-translational modification remains unclear. Here, we used a series of synthetic (phospho)peptides derived from the tail to assess phosphorylation-mediated interactions with 15 N-labeled Gal-3 CRD. HSQC-derived chemical shift perturbations revealed selective interactions at the backface of the CRD that were attenuated by phosphorylation of Tyr 107 and Tyr 118, while phosphorylation of Ser 6 and Ser 12 was essential. Controls with sequence scrambling underscored inherent specificity. Our studies shed light on how phosphorylation of the N-terminal tail may impact on Gal-3 function and prompt further studies using phosphorylated full-length protein

  16. Two novel WD40 domain–containing proteins, Ere1 and Ere2, function in the retromer-mediated endosomal recycling pathway

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shi, Yufeng; Stefan, Christopher J.; Rue, Sarah M.; Teis, David; Emr, Scott D.

    2011-01-01

    Regulated secretion, nutrient uptake, and responses to extracellular signals depend on cell-surface proteins that are internalized and recycled back to the plasma membrane. However, the underlying mechanisms that govern membrane protein recycling to the cell surface are not fully known. Using a chemical-genetic screen in yeast, we show that the arginine transporter Can1 is recycled back to the cell surface via two independent pathways mediated by the sorting nexins Snx4/41/42 and the retromer complex, respectively. In addition, we identify two novel WD40-domain endosomal recycling proteins, Ere1 and Ere2, that function in the retromer pathway. Ere1 is required for Can1 recycling via the retromer-mediated pathway, but it is not required for the transport of other retromer cargoes, such as Vps10 and Ftr1. Biochemical studies reveal that Ere1 physically interacts with internalized Can1. Ere2 is present in a complex containing Ere1 on endosomes and functions as a regulator of Ere1. Taken together, our results suggest that Snx4/41/42 and the retromer comprise two independent pathways for the recycling of internalized cell-surface proteins. Moreover, a complex containing the two novel proteins Ere1 and Ere2 mediates cargo-specific recognition by the retromer pathway. PMID:21880895

  17. Two waves of proteasome-dependent protein degradation in the hippocampus are required for recognition memory consolidation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Figueiredo, Luciana S; Dornelles, Arethuza S; Petry, Fernanda S; Falavigna, Lucio; Dargél, Vinicius A; Köbe, Luiza M; Aguzzoli, Cristiano; Roesler, Rafael; Schröder, Nadja

    2015-04-01

    Healthy neuronal function and synaptic modification require a concert of synthesis and degradation of proteins. Increasing evidence indicates that protein turnover mediated by proteasome activity is involved in long-term synaptic plasticity and memory. However, its role in different phases of memory remains debated, and previous studies have not examined the possible requirement of protein degradation in recognition memory. Here, we show that the proteasome inhibitor, lactacystin (LAC), infused into the CA1 area of the hippocampus at two specific time points during consolidation, impairs 24-retention of memory for object recognition in rats. Administration of LAC after retrieval did not affect retention. These findings provide the first evidence for a requirement of proteasome activity in recognition memory, indicate that protein degradation in the hippocampus is necessary during selective time windows of memory consolidation, and further our understanding of the role of protein turnover in memory formation. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  18. Disentangling environmental and heritable nestmate recognition cues in a carpenter ant

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    van Zweden, Jelle S; Dreier, Stephanie; d'Ettorre, Patrizia

    2009-01-01

    Discriminating between group members and strangers is a key feature of social life. Nestmate recognition is very effective in social insects and is manifested by aggression and rejection of alien individuals, which are prohibited to enter the nest. Nestmate recognition is based on the quantitative...... variation in cuticular hydrocarbons, which can include heritable cues from the workers, as well as acquired cues from the environment or queen-derived cues. We tracked the profile of six colonies of the ant Camponotus aethiops for a year under homogeneous laboratory conditions. We performed chemical...... diagnostic power between colonies. The presence of a queen had little influence on nestmate discrimination abilities. Our results suggest that heritable cues of workers are the dominant factor influencing nestmate discrimination in these carpenter ants and highlight the importance of colony kin structure...

  19. Social dominance molds cuticular and egg chemical blends in a paper wasp.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dapporto, Leonardo; Romana Dani, Francesca; Turillazzi, Stefano

    2007-07-03

    Hamilton's theory [1] for the evolution of social behaviour predicts that helpers may renounce direct reproduction to help their more fertile kin. Intra-colony recognition among queens and helpers (subordinate queens or workers) is consequently a central issue in insect sociobiology. In social insects, cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) are involved in recognition, and egg-laying and non-egg-laying individuals often differ in CHC composition. These differences are assumed to be directly determined by fertility status [2,3]. In several ants and in Polistes wasps, when egg-layers disappear they are substituted by helpers, which develop their ovaries and become chemically similar to their former queens [2,3]. Sometimes helpers lay eggs in the presence of queens, which recognize and destroy the subordinates' eggs [4]. In ponerine ants, eggs often have the same chemical signature as the maternal cuticle [2]. If chemical signatures depend on fertility, egg-laying subordinates should match the queen's signature even when she is present, making egg recognition and differential oophagy impossible. In the study reported here, we experimentally separated fertility from dominance and analyzed the dynamics of hydrocarbon profiles of the cuticle of Polistes dominulus foundresses and the shell surface of their eggs. We have demonstrated that, contrary to the widely accepted view, dominance, rather than fertility, determines chemical signatures in Polistes wasps. This explains why queens can recognize their own eggs and police reproduction by subordinates if they become fertile and lay eggs.

  20. Pseudomonas Evades Immune Recognition of Flagellin in Both Mammals and Plants

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bardoel, Bart W.; van der Ent, Sjoerd; Pel, Michiel J. C.; Tommassen, Jan; Pieterse, Corné M. J.; van Kessel, Kok P. M.; van Strijp, Jos A. G.

    2011-01-01

    The building blocks of bacterial flagella, flagellin monomers, are potent stimulators of host innate immune systems. Recognition of flagellin monomers occurs by flagellin-specific pattern-recognition receptors, such as Toll-like receptor 5 (TLR5) in mammals and flagellin-sensitive 2 (FLS2) in plants. Activation of these immune systems via flagellin leads eventually to elimination of the bacterium from the host. In order to prevent immune activation and thus favor survival in the host, bacteria secrete many proteins that hamper such recognition. In our search for Toll like receptor (TLR) antagonists, we screened bacterial supernatants and identified alkaline protease (AprA) of Pseudomonas aeruginosa as a TLR5 signaling inhibitor as evidenced by a marked reduction in IL-8 production and NF-κB activation. AprA effectively degrades the TLR5 ligand monomeric flagellin, while polymeric flagellin (involved in bacterial motility) and TLR5 itself resist degradation. The natural occurring alkaline protease inhibitor AprI of P. aeruginosa blocked flagellin degradation by AprA. P. aeruginosa aprA mutants induced an over 100-fold enhanced activation of TLR5 signaling, because they fail to degrade excess monomeric flagellin in their environment. Interestingly, AprA also prevents flagellin-mediated immune responses (such as growth inhibition and callose deposition) in Arabidopsis thaliana plants. This was due to decreased activation of the receptor FLS2 and clearly demonstrated by delayed stomatal closure with live bacteria in plants. Thus, by degrading the ligand for TLR5 and FLS2, P. aeruginosa escapes recognition by the innate immune systems of both mammals and plants. PMID:21901099

  1. Protein-Templated Fragment Ligations-From Molecular Recognition to Drug Discovery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jaegle, Mike; Wong, Ee Lin; Tauber, Carolin; Nawrotzky, Eric; Arkona, Christoph; Rademann, Jörg

    2017-06-19

    Protein-templated fragment ligation is a novel concept to support drug discovery and can help to improve the efficacy of protein ligands. Protein-templated fragment ligations are chemical reactions between small molecules ("fragments") utilizing a protein's surface as a reaction vessel to catalyze the formation of a protein ligand with increased binding affinity. The approach exploits the molecular recognition of reactive small-molecule fragments by proteins both for ligand assembly and for the identification of bioactive fragment combinations. In this way, chemical synthesis and bioassay are integrated in one single step. This Review discusses the biophysical basis of reversible and irreversible fragment ligations and gives an overview of the available methods to detect protein-templated ligation products. The chemical scope and recent applications as well as future potential of the concept in drug discovery are reviewed. © 2017 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  2. Recent breakthroughs in metabolomics promise to reveal the cryptic chemical traits that mediate plant community composition, character evolution and lineage diversification.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sedio, Brian E

    2017-05-01

    Contents 952 I. 952 II. 953 III. 955 IV. 956 V. 957 957 References 957 SUMMARY: Much of our understanding of the mechanisms by which biotic interactions shape plant communities has been constrained by the methods available to study the diverse secondary chemistry that defines plant relationships with other organisms. Recent innovations in analytical chemistry and bioinformatics promise to reveal the cryptic chemical traits that mediate plant ecology and evolution by facilitating simultaneous structural comparisons of hundreds of unknown molecules to each other and to libraries of known compounds. Here, I explore the potential for mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance metabolomics to enable unprecedented tests of seminal, but largely untested hypotheses that propose a fundamental role for plant chemical defenses against herbivores and pathogens in the evolutionary origins and ecological coexistence of plant species diversity. © 2017 The Author. New Phytologist © 2017 New Phytologist Trust.

  3. Altered Kinematics of Facial Emotion Expression and Emotion Recognition Deficits Are Unrelated in Parkinson's Disease.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bologna, Matteo; Berardelli, Isabella; Paparella, Giulia; Marsili, Luca; Ricciardi, Lucia; Fabbrini, Giovanni; Berardelli, Alfredo

    2016-01-01

    Altered emotional processing, including reduced emotion facial expression and defective emotion recognition, has been reported in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). However, few studies have objectively investigated facial expression abnormalities in PD using neurophysiological techniques. It is not known whether altered facial expression and recognition in PD are related. To investigate possible deficits in facial emotion expression and emotion recognition and their relationship, if any, in patients with PD. Eighteen patients with PD and 16 healthy controls were enrolled in this study. Facial expressions of emotion were recorded using a 3D optoelectronic system and analyzed using the facial action coding system. Possible deficits in emotion recognition were assessed using the Ekman test. Participants were assessed in one experimental session. Possible relationship between the kinematic variables of facial emotion expression, the Ekman test scores, and clinical and demographic data in patients were evaluated using the Spearman's test and multiple regression analysis. The facial expression of all six basic emotions had slower velocity and lower amplitude in patients in comparison to healthy controls (all P s facial expression kinematics and emotion recognition deficits were unrelated in patients (all P s > 0.05). Finally, no relationship emerged between kinematic variables of facial emotion expression, the Ekman test scores, and clinical and demographic data in patients (all P s > 0.05). The results in this study provide further evidence of altered emotional processing in PD. The lack of any correlation between altered facial emotion expression kinematics and emotion recognition deficits in patients suggests that these abnormalities are mediated by separate pathophysiological mechanisms.

  4. Sudden Event Recognition: A Survey

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mohd Asyraf Zulkifley

    2013-08-01

    Full Text Available Event recognition is one of the most active research areas in video surveillance fields. Advancement in event recognition systems mainly aims to provide convenience, safety and an efficient lifestyle for humanity. A precise, accurate and robust approach is necessary to enable event recognition systems to respond to sudden changes in various uncontrolled environments, such as the case of an emergency, physical threat and a fire or bomb alert. The performance of sudden event recognition systems depends heavily on the accuracy of low level processing, like detection, recognition, tracking and machine learning algorithms. This survey aims to detect and characterize a sudden event, which is a subset of an abnormal event in several video surveillance applications. This paper discusses the following in detail: (1 the importance of a sudden event over a general anomalous event; (2 frameworks used in sudden event recognition; (3 the requirements and comparative studies of a sudden event recognition system and (4 various decision-making approaches for sudden event recognition. The advantages and drawbacks of using 3D images from multiple cameras for real-time application are also discussed. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research directions in sudden event recognition.

  5. Transformative Mediation and Human Rights: the Possibility of Insertion of Alterity in the Conflict

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Romulo Rhemo Palitot Braga

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available This paper intends to present the transformative mediation, from the theoretical perspective of Luis Alberto Warat, as a proposal for promoting a culture of human rights, seen articular in your exercise the individuals's autonomy and the inclusion of alterity in the conflict. It is from this last element that will be further articulated discussion between human rights and mediation through the debate on the recognition of equality and difference, currently so expensive for human rights. The transformative mediation aims through a dialogic relationship building with the other, a participatory approach and shared the problems and dilemmas common to human and social life.

  6. Lignin Biodegradation with Laccase-Mediator Systems

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Christopher, Lew Paul; Yao, Bin; Ji, Yun

    2014-01-01

    Lignin has a significant and largely unrealized potential as a source for the sustainable production of fuels and bulk high-value chemicals. It can replace fossil-based oil as a renewable feedstock that would bring about socio-economic and environmental benefits in our transition to a biobased economy. The efficient utilization of lignin however requires its depolymerization to low-molecular weight phenolics and aromatics that can then serve as the building blocks for chemical syntheses of high-value products. The ability of laccase to attack and degrade lignin in conjunction with laccase mediators is currently viewed as one of the potential “breakthrough” applications for lignin valorization. Here, we review the recent progress in lignin biodegradation with laccase-mediator systems, and research needs that need to be addressed in this field.

  7. Lignin Biodegradation with Laccase-Mediator Systems

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Christopher, Lew Paul, E-mail: lew.christopher@sdsmt.edu [Center for Bioprocessing Research and Development, South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, Rapid City, SD (United States); Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, Rapid City, SD (United States); Yao, Bin [Center for Bioprocessing Research and Development, South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, Rapid City, SD (United States); Ji, Yun [Department of Chemical Engineering, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND (United States)

    2014-03-31

    Lignin has a significant and largely unrealized potential as a source for the sustainable production of fuels and bulk high-value chemicals. It can replace fossil-based oil as a renewable feedstock that would bring about socio-economic and environmental benefits in our transition to a biobased economy. The efficient utilization of lignin however requires its depolymerization to low-molecular weight phenolics and aromatics that can then serve as the building blocks for chemical syntheses of high-value products. The ability of laccase to attack and degrade lignin in conjunction with laccase mediators is currently viewed as one of the potential “breakthrough” applications for lignin valorization. Here, we review the recent progress in lignin biodegradation with laccase-mediator systems, and research needs that need to be addressed in this field.

  8. A two-step recognition of signal sequences determines the translocation efficiency of proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Belin, D; Bost, S; Vassalli, J D; Strub, K

    1996-02-01

    The cytosolic and secreted, N-glycosylated, forms of plasminogen activator inhibitor-2 (PAI-2) are generated by facultative translocation. To study the molecular events that result in the bi-topological distribution of proteins, we determined in vitro the capacities of several signal sequences to bind the signal recognition particle (SRP) during targeting, and to promote vectorial transport of murine PAI-2 (mPAI-2). Interestingly, the six signal sequences we compared (mPAI-2 and three mutated derivatives thereof, ovalbumin and preprolactin) were found to have the differential activities in the two events. For example, the mPAI-2 signal sequence first binds SRP with moderate efficiency and secondly promotes the vectorial transport of only a fraction of the SRP-bound nascent chains. Our results provide evidence that the translocation efficiency of proteins can be controlled by the recognition of their signal sequences at two steps: during SRP-mediated targeting and during formation of a committed translocation complex. This second recognition may occur at several time points during the insertion/translocation step. In conclusion, signal sequences have a more complex structure than previously anticipated, allowing for multiple and independent interactions with the translocation machinery.

  9. Recognition of functional sites in protein structures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shulman-Peleg, Alexandra; Nussinov, Ruth; Wolfson, Haim J

    2004-06-04

    Recognition of regions on the surface of one protein, that are similar to a binding site of another is crucial for the prediction of molecular interactions and for functional classifications. We first describe a novel method, SiteEngine, that assumes no sequence or fold similarities and is able to recognize proteins that have similar binding sites and may perform similar functions. We achieve high efficiency and speed by introducing a low-resolution surface representation via chemically important surface points, by hashing triangles of physico-chemical properties and by application of hierarchical scoring schemes for a thorough exploration of global and local similarities. We proceed to rigorously apply this method to functional site recognition in three possible ways: first, we search a given functional site on a large set of complete protein structures. Second, a potential functional site on a protein of interest is compared with known binding sites, to recognize similar features. Third, a complete protein structure is searched for the presence of an a priori unknown functional site, similar to known sites. Our method is robust and efficient enough to allow computationally demanding applications such as the first and the third. From the biological standpoint, the first application may identify secondary binding sites of drugs that may lead to side-effects. The third application finds new potential sites on the protein that may provide targets for drug design. Each of the three applications may aid in assigning a function and in classification of binding patterns. We highlight the advantages and disadvantages of each type of search, provide examples of large-scale searches of the entire Protein Data Base and make functional predictions.

  10. Differentiation of tea varieties using UV-Vis spectra and pattern recognition techniques

    Science.gov (United States)

    Palacios-Morillo, Ana; Alcázar, Ángela.; de Pablos, Fernando; Jurado, José Marcos

    2013-02-01

    Tea, one of the most consumed beverages all over the world, is of great importance in the economies of a number of countries. Several methods have been developed to classify tea varieties or origins based in pattern recognition techniques applied to chemical data, such as metal profile, amino acids, catechins and volatile compounds. Some of these analytical methods become tedious and expensive to be applied in routine works. The use of UV-Vis spectral data as discriminant variables, highly influenced by the chemical composition, can be an alternative to these methods. UV-Vis spectra of methanol-water extracts of tea have been obtained in the interval 250-800 nm. Absorbances have been used as input variables. Principal component analysis was used to reduce the number of variables and several pattern recognition methods, such as linear discriminant analysis, support vector machines and artificial neural networks, have been applied in order to differentiate the most common tea varieties. A successful classification model was built by combining principal component analysis and multilayer perceptron artificial neural networks, allowing the differentiation between tea varieties. This rapid and simple methodology can be applied to solve classification problems in food industry saving economic resources.

  11. Surface molecular imprinting onto fluorescein-coated magnetic nanoparticlesvia reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer polymerization: A facile three-in-one system for recognition and separation of endocrine disrupting chemicals

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Ying; Dong, Cunku; Chu, Jia; Qi, Jingyao; Li, Xin

    2011-01-01

    In this study, we present a general protocol for the making of surface-imprinted magnetic fluorescence beads viareversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer polymerization. The resulting composites were characterized by X-ray diffraction analysis, transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, fluorescence spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and energy dispersive spectroscopy. The as-synthesized beads exhibited homogeneous polymer films (thickness of about 5.7 nm), spherical shape, high fluorescence intensity and magnetic property (Magnetization (Ms) = 3.67 emu g-1). The hybrids bind the original template 17β-estradiol with an appreciable selectivity over structurally related compounds. In addition, the resulting hybrids performed without obvious deterioration after five repeated cycles. This study therefore demonstrates the potential of molecularly imprinted polymers for the recognition and separation of endocrine disrupting chemicals.In this study, we present a general protocol for the making of surface-imprinted magnetic fluorescence beads viareversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer polymerization. The resulting composites were characterized by X-ray diffraction analysis, transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, fluorescence spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and energy dispersive spectroscopy. The as-synthesized beads exhibited homogeneous polymer films (thickness of about 5.7 nm), spherical shape, high fluorescence intensity and magnetic property (Magnetization (Ms) = 3.67 emu g-1). The hybrids bind the original template 17β-estradiol with an appreciable selectivity over structurally related compounds. In addition, the resulting hybrids performed without obvious deterioration after five repeated cycles. This study therefore demonstrates the potential of molecularly imprinted polymers for the recognition and separation of endocrine disrupting chemicals. Electronic

  12. The Improvement of Behavior Recognition Accuracy of Micro Inertial Accelerometer by Secondary Recognition Algorithm

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yu Liu

    2014-05-01

    Full Text Available Behaviors of “still”, “walking”, “running”, “jumping”, “upstairs” and “downstairs” can be recognized by micro inertial accelerometer of low cost. By using the features as inputs to the well-trained BP artificial neural network which is selected as classifier, those behaviors can be recognized. But the experimental results show that the recognition accuracy is not satisfactory. This paper presents secondary recognition algorithm and combine it with BP artificial neural network to improving the recognition accuracy. The Algorithm is verified by the Android mobile platform, and the recognition accuracy can be improved more than 8 %. Through extensive testing statistic analysis, the recognition accuracy can reach 95 % through BP artificial neural network and the secondary recognition, which is a reasonable good result from practical point of view.

  13. Scientific and technical development and the chemical weapon convention

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Siddiqui, P.H.

    2008-01-01

    The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) was drafted with the recognition that it is impossible to envision every way in which toxic chemicals might be used for aggressive purposes. As terrorist organizations and rogue states replace the major powers as the most likely candidates to employ chemical weapons, the agents of choice may differ from those developed for battlefield use. Twenty- first century chemical warfare may target civilians or agricultural production, and clandestine production-facilities may manufacture toxic agents from chemical precursors, not monitored under the CWC control regime. The effects (on CWC implementation) of changing industrial technologies, including ongoing developments in chemical process technology, dual-use industrial chemicals, and rapid methods for discovering biologically active chemicals, are considerable Also considered is how commercial technologies could be misused for the development of novel chemical weapons, and how such abuses might be detected and monitored. (author)

  14. Mediators and moderators of magazine advertisement effects on adolescent cigarette smoking.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aloise-Young, Patricia A; Slater, Michael D; Cruickshank, Courtney C

    2006-01-01

    The purpose of the present study is to examine the relation between magazine advertising for cigarettes and adolescent cigarette smoking. Participants (242 adolescents) reported their frequency of reading 46 magazines and their attention to cigarette ads. Recognition of cigarette ads, passive peer pressure (i.e., normative beliefs), and the smoker image also were assessed. Results indicate that exposure to cigarette advertising and recognition of ads augment the effect of passive peer pressure on smoking. In addition, a positive smoker image was associated with attention to advertising and mediated the relation between attention and smoking. It is suggested that the effect of magazine ads on adolescents should be considered in policymaking on cigarette advertising.

  15. Who is the boss? Individual recognition memory and social hierarchy formation in crayfish.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jiménez-Morales, Nayeli; Mendoza-Ángeles, Karina; Porras-Villalobos, Mercedes; Ibarra-Coronado, Elizabeth; Roldán-Roldán, Gabriel; Hernández-Falcón, Jesús

    2018-01-01

    Under laboratory conditions, crayfish establish hierarchical orders through agonistic encounters whose outcome defines the dominant one and one, or more, submissive animals. These agonistic encounters are ritualistic, based on threats, pushes, attacks, grabs, and avoidance behaviors that include retreats and escape responses. Agonistic behavior in a triad of unfamiliar, size-matched animals is intense on the first day of social interaction and the intensity fades on daily repetitions. The dominant animal keeps its status for long periods, and the submissive ones seem to remember 'who the boss is'. It has been assumed that animals remember and recognize their hierarchical status by urine signals, but the putative substance mediating this recognition has not been reported. The aim of this work was to characterize this hierarchical recognition memory. Triads of unfamiliar crayfish (male animals, size and weight-matched) were faced during standardized agonistic protocols for five consecutive days to analyze memory acquisition dynamics (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, dominant crayfish were shifted among triads to disclose whether hierarchy depended upon individual recognition memory or recognition of status. The maintenance of the hierarchical structure without behavioral reinforcement was assessed by immobilizing the dominant animal during eleven daily agonistic encounters, and considering any shift in the dominance order (Experiment 3). Standard amnesic treatments (anisomycin, scopolamine or cold-anesthesia) were given to all members of the triads immediately after the first interaction session to prevent individual recognition memory consolidation and evaluate its effect on the hierarchical order (Experiment 4). Acquisition of hierarchical recognition occurs at the first agonistic encounter and agonistic behavior gradually diminishes in the following days; animals keep their hierarchical order despite the inability of the dominant crayfish to attack the submissive

  16. Associative recognition and the hippocampus: differential effects of hippocampal lesions on object-place, object-context and object-place-context memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Langston, Rosamund F; Wood, Emma R

    2010-10-01

    The hippocampus is thought to be required for the associative recognition of objects together with the spatial or temporal contexts in which they occur. However, recent data showing that rats with fornix lesions perform as well as controls in an object-place task, while being impaired on an object-place-context task (Eacott and Norman (2004) J Neurosci 24:1948-1953), suggest that not all forms of context-dependent associative recognition depend on the integrity of the hippocampus. To examine the role of the hippocampus in context-dependent recognition directly, the present study tested the effects of large, selective, bilateral hippocampus lesions in rats on performance of a series of spontaneous recognition memory tasks: object recognition, object-place recognition, object-context recognition and object-place-context recognition. Consistent with the effects of fornix lesions, animals with hippocampus lesions were impaired only on the object-place-context task. These data confirm that not all forms of context-dependent associative recognition are mediated by the hippocampus. Subsequent experiments suggested that the object-place task does not require an allocentric representation of space, which could account for the lack of impairment following hippocampus lesions. Importantly, as the object-place-context task has similar spatial requirements, the selective deficit in object-place-context recognition suggests that this task requires hippocampus-dependent neural processes distinct from those required for allocentric spatial memory, or for object memory, object-place memory or object-context memory. Two possibilities are that object, place, and context information converge only in the hippocampus, or that recognition of integrated object-place-context information requires a hippocampus-dependent mode of retrieval, such as recollection. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

  17. The neuro-immunological interface in an evolutionary perspective: the dynamic relationship between effector and recognition systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ottaviani, E; Valensin, S; Franceschi, C

    1998-04-16

    The evolutionary perspective indicates that an immune-neuroendocrine effector system integrating innate immunity, stress and inflammation is present in invertebrates. This defense network, centered on the macrophage and exerting primitive and highly promiscuous recognition units, is very effective, ancestral and appears to have been conserved throughout evolution from invertebrates to higher vertebrates. It would seem that there was a "big bang" in the recognition system of lower vertebrates, and T and B cell repertoires, MHC and antibodies suddenly appeared. We argue that this phenomenon is the counterpart of the increasing complexity of the internal circuitry and recognition units in the effector system. The immediate consequences were a progressive enlargement of the pathogen repertoire and new problems regarding self/not-self discrimination. Probably not by chance, a new organ appeared, capable of purging cells able of excessive self recognition. This organ, the thymus, appears to be the result of a well known evolutionary strategy of re-using pre-existing material (neuroendocrine cells and mediators constituting the thymic microenvironment). This bricolage at an organ level is similar to the effect we have already described at the level of molecules and functions of the defense network, and has a general counterpart at genetic level. Thus, in vertebrates, the conserved immune-neuroendocrine effector system remains of fundamental importance in defense against pathogens, while its efficiency has increased through synergy with the new, clonotipical recognition repertoire.

  18. Association of auditory-verbal and visual hallucinations with impaired and improved recognition of colored pictures.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brébion, Gildas; Stephan-Otto, Christian; Usall, Judith; Huerta-Ramos, Elena; Perez del Olmo, Mireia; Cuevas-Esteban, Jorge; Haro, Josep Maria; Ochoa, Susana

    2015-09-01

    A number of cognitive underpinnings of auditory hallucinations have been established in schizophrenia patients, but few have, as yet, been uncovered for visual hallucinations. In previous research, we unexpectedly observed that auditory hallucinations were associated with poor recognition of color, but not black-and-white (b/w), pictures. In this study, we attempted to replicate and explain this finding. Potential associations with visual hallucinations were explored. B/w and color pictures were presented to 50 schizophrenia patients and 45 healthy individuals under 2 conditions of visual context presentation corresponding to 2 levels of visual encoding complexity. Then, participants had to recognize the target pictures among distractors. Auditory-verbal hallucinations were inversely associated with the recognition of the color pictures presented under the most effortful encoding condition. This association was fully mediated by working-memory span. Visual hallucinations were associated with improved recognition of the color pictures presented under the less effortful condition. Patients suffering from visual hallucinations were not impaired, relative to the healthy participants, in the recognition of these pictures. Decreased working-memory span in patients with auditory-verbal hallucinations might impede the effortful encoding of stimuli. Visual hallucinations might be associated with facilitation in the visual encoding of natural scenes, or with enhanced color perception abilities. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

  19. T cell recognition of breast cancer antigens

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Petersen, Nadia Viborg; Andersen, Sofie Ramskov; Andersen, Rikke Sick

    Recent studies are encouraging research of breast cancer immunogenicity to evaluate the applicability ofimmunotherapy as a treatment strategy. The epitope landscape in breast cancer is minimally described, thus it is necessary to identify T cell targets to develop immune mediated therapies.......This project investigates four proteins commonly upregulated in breast cancer and thus probable tumor associated antigens (TAAs). Aromatase, prolactin, NEK3, and PIAS3 contribute to increase growth, survival, and motility of malignant cells. Aspiring to uncover novel epitopes for cytotoxic T cells, a reverse...... recognition utilizing DNA barcode labeled MHC multimers to screen peripheral blood lymphocytes from breast cancer patients and healthy donor samples. Signif-icantly more TAA specific T cell responses were detected in breast cancer patients than healthy donors for both HLA-A*0201 (P

  20. The Legal Recognition of Sign Languages

    Science.gov (United States)

    De Meulder, Maartje

    2015-01-01

    This article provides an analytical overview of the different types of explicit legal recognition of sign languages. Five categories are distinguished: constitutional recognition, recognition by means of general language legislation, recognition by means of a sign language law or act, recognition by means of a sign language law or act including…

  1. Radical-Mediated Enzymatic Polymerizations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zavada, Scott R.; Battsengel, Tsatsral; Scott, Timothy F.

    2016-01-01

    Polymerization reactions are commonly effected by exposing monomer formulations to some initiation stimulus such as elevated temperature, light, or a chemical reactant. Increasingly, these polymerization reactions are mediated by enzymes―catalytic proteins―owing to their reaction efficiency under mild conditions as well as their environmental friendliness. The utilization of enzymes, particularly oxidases and peroxidases, for generating radicals via reduction-oxidation mechanisms is especially common for initiating radical-mediated polymerization reactions, including vinyl chain-growth polymerization, atom transfer radical polymerization, thiol–ene step-growth polymerization, and polymerization via oxidative coupling. While enzyme-mediated polymerization is useful for the production of materials intended for subsequent use, it is especially well-suited for in situ polymerizations, where the polymer is formed in the place where it will be utilized. Such polymerizations are especially useful for biomedical adhesives and for sensing applications. PMID:26848652

  2. DNA sequence of 15 base pairs is sufficient to mediate both glucocorticoid and progesterone induction of gene expression

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Straehle, U.; Klock, G.; Schuetz, G.

    1987-01-01

    To define the recognition sequence of the glucocorticoid receptor and its relationship with that of the progesterone receptor, oligonucleotides derived from the glucocorticoid response element of the tyrosine aminotransferase gene were tested upstream of a heterologous promoter for their capacity to mediate effects of these two steroids. The authors show that a 15-base-pair sequence with partial symmetry is sufficient to confer glucocorticoid inducibility on the promoter of the herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase gene. The same 15-base-pair sequence mediates induction by progesterone. Point mutations in the recognition sequence affect inducibility by glucocorticoids and progesterone similarly. Together with the strong conservation of the sequence of the DNA-binding domain of the two receptors, these data suggest that both proteins recognize a sequence that is similar, if not the same

  3. Human activity recognition and prediction

    CERN Document Server

    2016-01-01

    This book provides a unique view of human activity recognition, especially fine-grained human activity structure learning, human-interaction recognition, RGB-D data based action recognition, temporal decomposition, and causality learning in unconstrained human activity videos. The techniques discussed give readers tools that provide a significant improvement over existing methodologies of video content understanding by taking advantage of activity recognition. It links multiple popular research fields in computer vision, machine learning, human-centered computing, human-computer interaction, image classification, and pattern recognition. In addition, the book includes several key chapters covering multiple emerging topics in the field. Contributed by top experts and practitioners, the chapters present key topics from different angles and blend both methodology and application, composing a solid overview of the human activity recognition techniques. .

  4. Does Set for Variability Mediate the Influence of Vocabulary Knowledge on the Development of Word Recognition Skills?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tunmer, William E.; Chapman, James W.

    2012-01-01

    This study investigated the hypothesis that vocabulary influences word recognition skills indirectly through "set for variability", the ability to determine the correct pronunciation of approximations to spoken English words. One hundred forty children participating in a 3-year longitudinal study were administered reading and…

  5. Repetition priming of face recognition in a serial choice reaction-time task.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roberts, T; Bruce, V

    1989-05-01

    Marshall & Walker (1987) found that pictorial stimuli yield visual priming that is disrupted by an unpredictable visual event in the response-stimulus interval. They argue that visual stimuli are represented in memory in the form of distinct visual and object codes. Bruce & Young (1986) propose similar pictorial, structural and semantic codes which mediate the recognition of faces, yet repetition priming results obtained with faces as stimuli (Bruce & Valentine, 1985), and with objects (Warren & Morton, 1982) are quite different from those of Marshall & Walker (1987), in the sense that recognition is facilitated by pictures presented 20 minutes earlier. The experiment reported here used different views of familiar and unfamiliar faces as stimuli in a serial choice reaction-time task and found that, with identical pictures, repetition priming survives and intervening item requiring a response, with both familiar and unfamiliar faces. Furthermore, with familiar faces such priming was present even when the view of the prime was different from the target. The theoretical implications of these results are discussed.

  6. Stressors impair odor recognition memory via an olfactory bulb-dependent noradrenergic mechanism

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Laura C Manella

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available Non-associative habituation and odor recognition tasks have been widely used to probe questions social recognition, odor memory duration, and odor memory specificity. Among others, these paradigms have provided valuable insight into how neuromodulation, and specifically norepinephrine/noradrenaline (NE influences odor memory. In general, NE levels are modulated by arousal, stress, and behavioral state, and there is sparse evidence of a direct relationship between NE and odor memory in adult rodents. The present study uses simple mild psychological stressors (bright light and sound, to modulate NE levels physiologically in order to probe its effect on olfactory memory. In rats with bilateral bulbar cannulations, we show that these stressors modulate olfactory memory and that this effect is at least partially mediated by olfactory bulb. Specifically, we show that the presence of stressors during the acquisition of odor memory suppresses memory for an odor when tested 30 minutes after the acquisition. This suppression is blocked by infusing NE antagonists into the olfactory bulb prior to odor acquisition. Additionally, we find that infusion of bulbar NE is sufficient to suppress odor memory in a manner mimicking that of our stressors. These effects are unlikely to be solely mediated by locomotor/exploratory changes produced by stressors, although these stressors influence certain behaviors not directly related to odor investigation. This study provides important information about how behaviorally relevant changes in NE can influence top-down sensory processing and odor memory.

  7. Radar automatic target recognition (ATR) and non-cooperative target recognition (NCTR)

    CERN Document Server

    Blacknell, David

    2013-01-01

    The ability to detect and locate targets by day or night, over wide areas, regardless of weather conditions has long made radar a key sensor in many military and civil applications. However, the ability to automatically and reliably distinguish different targets represents a difficult challenge. Radar Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) and Non-Cooperative Target Recognition (NCTR) captures material presented in the NATO SET-172 lecture series to provide an overview of the state-of-the-art and continuing challenges of radar target recognition. Topics covered include the problem as applied to th

  8. Recognition and Toleration

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lægaard, Sune

    2010-01-01

    Recognition and toleration are ways of relating to the diversity characteristic of multicultural societies. The article concerns the possible meanings of toleration and recognition, and the conflict that is often claimed to exist between these two approaches to diversity. Different forms or inter...

  9. Identification of putative estrogen receptor-mediated endocrine disrupting chemicals using QSAR- and structure-based virtual screening approaches

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Zhang, Liying; Sedykh, Alexander; Tripathi, Ashutosh [Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC (United States); Zhu, Hao [The Rutgers Center for Computational and Integrative Biology, Rutgers University, Camden, NJ (United States); Department of Chemistry, Rutgers University, Camden, NJ (United States); Afantitis, Antreas; Mouchlis, Varnavas D.; Melagraki, Georgia [NovaMechanics Ltd., Nicosia (Cyprus); Rusyn, Ivan, E-mail: iir@unc.edu [Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC (United States); Tropsha, Alexander, E-mail: alex_tropsha@unc.edu [Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC (United States)

    2013-10-01

    Identification of endocrine disrupting chemicals is one of the important goals of environmental chemical hazard screening. We report on the development of validated in silico predictors of chemicals likely to cause estrogen receptor (ER)-mediated endocrine disruption to facilitate their prioritization for future screening. A database of relative binding affinity of a large number of ERα and/or ERβ ligands was assembled (546 for ERα and 137 for ERβ). Both single-task learning (STL) and multi-task learning (MTL) continuous quantitative structure–activity relationship (QSAR) models were developed for predicting ligand binding affinity to ERα or ERβ. High predictive accuracy was achieved for ERα binding affinity (MTL R{sup 2} = 0.71, STL R{sup 2} = 0.73). For ERβ binding affinity, MTL models were significantly more predictive (R{sup 2} = 0.53, p < 0.05) than STL models. In addition, docking studies were performed on a set of ER agonists/antagonists (67 agonists and 39 antagonists for ERα, 48 agonists and 32 antagonists for ERβ, supplemented by putative decoys/non-binders) using the following ER structures (in complexes with respective ligands) retrieved from the Protein Data Bank: ERα agonist (PDB ID: 1L2I), ERα antagonist (PDB ID: 3DT3), ERβ agonist (PDB ID: 2NV7), and ERβ antagonist (PDB ID: 1L2J). We found that all four ER conformations discriminated their corresponding ligands from presumed non-binders. Finally, both QSAR models and ER structures were employed in parallel to virtually screen several large libraries of environmental chemicals to derive a ligand- and structure-based prioritized list of putative estrogenic compounds to be used for in vitro and in vivo experimental validation. - Highlights: • This is the largest curated dataset inclusive of ERα and β (the latter is unique). • New methodology that for the first time affords acceptable ERβ models. • A combination of QSAR and docking enables prediction of affinity and function.

  10. Identification of putative estrogen receptor-mediated endocrine disrupting chemicals using QSAR- and structure-based virtual screening approaches

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhang, Liying; Sedykh, Alexander; Tripathi, Ashutosh; Zhu, Hao; Afantitis, Antreas; Mouchlis, Varnavas D.; Melagraki, Georgia; Rusyn, Ivan; Tropsha, Alexander

    2013-01-01

    Identification of endocrine disrupting chemicals is one of the important goals of environmental chemical hazard screening. We report on the development of validated in silico predictors of chemicals likely to cause estrogen receptor (ER)-mediated endocrine disruption to facilitate their prioritization for future screening. A database of relative binding affinity of a large number of ERα and/or ERβ ligands was assembled (546 for ERα and 137 for ERβ). Both single-task learning (STL) and multi-task learning (MTL) continuous quantitative structure–activity relationship (QSAR) models were developed for predicting ligand binding affinity to ERα or ERβ. High predictive accuracy was achieved for ERα binding affinity (MTL R 2 = 0.71, STL R 2 = 0.73). For ERβ binding affinity, MTL models were significantly more predictive (R 2 = 0.53, p < 0.05) than STL models. In addition, docking studies were performed on a set of ER agonists/antagonists (67 agonists and 39 antagonists for ERα, 48 agonists and 32 antagonists for ERβ, supplemented by putative decoys/non-binders) using the following ER structures (in complexes with respective ligands) retrieved from the Protein Data Bank: ERα agonist (PDB ID: 1L2I), ERα antagonist (PDB ID: 3DT3), ERβ agonist (PDB ID: 2NV7), and ERβ antagonist (PDB ID: 1L2J). We found that all four ER conformations discriminated their corresponding ligands from presumed non-binders. Finally, both QSAR models and ER structures were employed in parallel to virtually screen several large libraries of environmental chemicals to derive a ligand- and structure-based prioritized list of putative estrogenic compounds to be used for in vitro and in vivo experimental validation. - Highlights: • This is the largest curated dataset inclusive of ERα and β (the latter is unique). • New methodology that for the first time affords acceptable ERβ models. • A combination of QSAR and docking enables prediction of affinity and function. • The results

  11. Identity, recognition and redistribution: a critical analysis of Charles Taylor, Axel Honneth and Nancy Fraser’s theories

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Javier Amadeo

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-7984.2017v16n35p242 The politics of identity and the idea of recognition have become dominant issues in contemporary political theory. Recognition, as a concept, means that an individual or a social group claims the right to have their identity recognized, directly or throw the mediation of set of institutions. The theories that have evaluated these questions address both important theoretical issues and central political subjects, as the definition of minority rights, national self-determination claims or the challenges posed of our increasingly multicultural societies. The main objective of this paper is to discuss the central arguments presents by Charles Taylor, Axel Honneth and Nancy Fraser emphasizing the discussion around the relationship between recognition and redistribution. A more specific purpose is to analyze the relation between the question of injustice based on the demand of identity and the problem of economic inequality. Finally, we try to understand some of the theoretical and political implications of the idea of difference and the recognition theory in a broader conceptual perspective.

  12. Journal of Chemical Sciences | Indian Academy of Sciences

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    ... Journals; Journal of Chemical Sciences. Ashoka G Samuelson. Articles written in Journal of Chemical Sciences ... Issue 6 November 2012 pp 1343-1352. Computational tools for mechanistic discrimination in the reductive and metathesis coupling reactions mediated by titanium(IV) isopropoxide · Akshai Kumar Ashoka G ...

  13. Journal of Chemical Sciences | Indian Academy of Sciences

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Home; Journals; Journal of Chemical Sciences. Shashank Singh. Articles written in Journal of Chemical Sciences. Volume 127 Issue 3 March 2015 pp 413-423 Regular Articles. Iodobenzene diacetate-mediated isomerization of pyrazolyl chalcones and their cytotoxicity and anti-microbial activity · Mahavir Parshad Vikas ...

  14. A role for carbohydrate recognition in mammalian sperm-egg binding

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Clark, Gary F.

    2014-01-01

    Highlights: • Mammalian sperm-egg binding as a carbohydrate dependent species recognition event. • The role of carbohydrate recognition in human, mouse and pig sperm-egg binding. • Historical perspective and future directions for research focused on gamete binding. - Abstract: Mammalian fertilization usually requires three sequential cell–cell interactions: (i) initial binding of sperm to the specialized extracellular matrix coating the egg known as the zona pellucida (ZP); (ii) binding of sperm to the ZP via the inner acrosomal membrane that is exposed following the induction of acrosomal exocytosis; and (iii) adhesion of acrosome-reacted sperm to the plasma membrane of the egg cell, enabling subsequent fusion of these gametes. The focus of this review is on the initial binding of intact sperm to the mammalian ZP. Evidence collected over the past fifty years has confirmed that this interaction relies primarily on the recognition of carbohydrate sequences presented on the ZP by lectin-like egg binding proteins located on the plasma membrane of sperm. There is also evidence that the same carbohydrate sequences that mediate binding also function as ligands for lectins on lymphocytes that can inactivate immune responses, likely protecting the egg and the developing embryo up to the stage of blastocyst hatching. The literature related to initial sperm-ZP binding in the three major mammalian models (human, mouse and pig) is discussed. Historical perspectives and future directions for research related to this aspect of gamete adhesion are also presented

  15. A role for carbohydrate recognition in mammalian sperm-egg binding

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Clark, Gary F., E-mail: clarkgf@health.missouri.edu

    2014-08-01

    Highlights: • Mammalian sperm-egg binding as a carbohydrate dependent species recognition event. • The role of carbohydrate recognition in human, mouse and pig sperm-egg binding. • Historical perspective and future directions for research focused on gamete binding. - Abstract: Mammalian fertilization usually requires three sequential cell–cell interactions: (i) initial binding of sperm to the specialized extracellular matrix coating the egg known as the zona pellucida (ZP); (ii) binding of sperm to the ZP via the inner acrosomal membrane that is exposed following the induction of acrosomal exocytosis; and (iii) adhesion of acrosome-reacted sperm to the plasma membrane of the egg cell, enabling subsequent fusion of these gametes. The focus of this review is on the initial binding of intact sperm to the mammalian ZP. Evidence collected over the past fifty years has confirmed that this interaction relies primarily on the recognition of carbohydrate sequences presented on the ZP by lectin-like egg binding proteins located on the plasma membrane of sperm. There is also evidence that the same carbohydrate sequences that mediate binding also function as ligands for lectins on lymphocytes that can inactivate immune responses, likely protecting the egg and the developing embryo up to the stage of blastocyst hatching. The literature related to initial sperm-ZP binding in the three major mammalian models (human, mouse and pig) is discussed. Historical perspectives and future directions for research related to this aspect of gamete adhesion are also presented.

  16. Molecular imprinting at walls of silica nanotubes for TNT recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xie, Chenggen; Liu, Bianhua; Wang, Zhenyang; Gao, Daming; Guan, Guijian; Zhang, Zhongping

    2008-01-15

    This paper reports the molecular imprinting at the walls of highly uniform silica nanotubes for the recognition of 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT). It has been demonstrated that TNT templates were efficiently imprinted into the matrix of silica through the strong acid-base pairing interaction between TNT and 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTS). TNT-imprinted silica nanotubes were synthesized by the gelation reaction between APTS and tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS), selectively occurring at the porous walls of APTS-modified alumina membranes. The removal of the original TNT templates leaves the imprinted cavities with covalently anchored amine groups at the cavity walls. A high density of recognition sites with molecular selectivity to the TNT analyte was created at the wall of silica nanotubes. Furthermore, most of these recognition sites are situated at the inside and outside surfaces of tubular walls and in the proximity of the two surfaces due to the ultrathin wall thickness of only 15 nm, providing a better site accessibility and lower mass-transfer resistance. Therefore, greater capacity and faster kinetics of uptaking target species were achieved. The silica nanotube reported herein is an ideal form of material for imprinting various organic or biological molecules toward applications in chemical/biological sensors and bioassay.

  17. Scanning patterns of faces do not explain impaired emotion recognition in Huntington Disease: Evidence for a high level mechanism

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marieke evan Asselen

    2012-02-01

    Full Text Available Previous studies in patients with amygdala lesions suggested that deficits in emotion recognition might be mediated by impaired scanning patterns of faces. Here we investigated whether scanning patterns also contribute to the selective impairment in recognition of disgust in Huntington disease (HD. To achieve this goal, we recorded eye movements during a two-alternative forced choice emotion recognition task. HD patients in presymptomatic (n=16 and symptomatic (n=9 disease stages were tested and their performance was compared to a control group (n=22. In our emotion recognition task, participants had to indicate whether a face reflected one of six basic emotions. In addition, and in order to define whether emotion recognition was altered when the participants were forced to look at a specific component of the face, we used a second task where only limited facial information was provided (eyes/mouth in partially masked faces. Behavioural results showed no differences in the ability to recognize emotions between presymptomatic gene carriers and controls. However, an emotion recognition deficit was found for all 6 basic emotion categories in early stage HD. Analysis of eye movement patterns showed that patient and controls used similar scanning strategies. Patterns of deficits were similar regardless of whether parts of the faces were masked or not, thereby confirming that selective attention to particular face parts is not underlying the deficits. These results suggest that the emotion recognition deficits in symptomatic HD patients cannot be explained by impaired scanning patterns of faces. Furthermore, no selective deficit for recognition of disgust was found in presymptomatic HD patients.

  18. Super-recognition in development: A case study of an adolescent with extraordinary face recognition skills.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bennetts, Rachel J; Mole, Joseph; Bate, Sarah

    2017-09-01

    Face recognition abilities vary widely. While face recognition deficits have been reported in children, it is unclear whether superior face recognition skills can be encountered during development. This paper presents O.B., a 14-year-old female with extraordinary face recognition skills: a "super-recognizer" (SR). O.B. demonstrated exceptional face-processing skills across multiple tasks, with a level of performance that is comparable to adult SRs. Her superior abilities appear to be specific to face identity: She showed an exaggerated face inversion effect and her superior abilities did not extend to object processing or non-identity aspects of face recognition. Finally, an eye-movement task demonstrated that O.B. spent more time than controls examining the nose - a pattern previously reported in adult SRs. O.B. is therefore particularly skilled at extracting and using identity-specific facial cues, indicating that face and object recognition are dissociable during development, and that super recognition can be detected in adolescence.

  19. Pseudomonas evades immune recognition of flagellin in both mammals and plants.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bart W Bardoel

    2011-08-01

    Full Text Available The building blocks of bacterial flagella, flagellin monomers, are potent stimulators of host innate immune systems. Recognition of flagellin monomers occurs by flagellin-specific pattern-recognition receptors, such as Toll-like receptor 5 (TLR5 in mammals and flagellin-sensitive 2 (FLS2 in plants. Activation of these immune systems via flagellin leads eventually to elimination of the bacterium from the host. In order to prevent immune activation and thus favor survival in the host, bacteria secrete many proteins that hamper such recognition. In our search for Toll like receptor (TLR antagonists, we screened bacterial supernatants and identified alkaline protease (AprA of Pseudomonas aeruginosa as a TLR5 signaling inhibitor as evidenced by a marked reduction in IL-8 production and NF-κB activation. AprA effectively degrades the TLR5 ligand monomeric flagellin, while polymeric flagellin (involved in bacterial motility and TLR5 itself resist degradation. The natural occurring alkaline protease inhibitor AprI of P. aeruginosa blocked flagellin degradation by AprA. P. aeruginosa aprA mutants induced an over 100-fold enhanced activation of TLR5 signaling, because they fail to degrade excess monomeric flagellin in their environment. Interestingly, AprA also prevents flagellin-mediated immune responses (such as growth inhibition and callose deposition in Arabidopsis thaliana plants. This was due to decreased activation of the receptor FLS2 and clearly demonstrated by delayed stomatal closure with live bacteria in plants. Thus, by degrading the ligand for TLR5 and FLS2, P. aeruginosa escapes recognition by the innate immune systems of both mammals and plants.

  20. Pattern recognition & machine learning

    CERN Document Server

    Anzai, Y

    1992-01-01

    This is the first text to provide a unified and self-contained introduction to visual pattern recognition and machine learning. It is useful as a general introduction to artifical intelligence and knowledge engineering, and no previous knowledge of pattern recognition or machine learning is necessary. Basic for various pattern recognition and machine learning methods. Translated from Japanese, the book also features chapter exercises, keywords, and summaries.

  1. A REVIEW: OPTICAL CHARACTER RECOGNITION

    OpenAIRE

    Swati Tomar*1 & Amit Kishore2

    2018-01-01

    This paper presents detailed review in the field of Optical Character Recognition. Various techniques are determine that have been proposed to realize the center of character recognition in an optical character recognition system. Even though, sufficient studies and papers are describes the techniques for converting textual content from a paper document into machine readable form. Optical character recognition is a process where the computer understands automatically the image of handwritten ...

  2. Challenging ocular image recognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pauca, V. Paúl; Forkin, Michael; Xu, Xiao; Plemmons, Robert; Ross, Arun A.

    2011-06-01

    Ocular recognition is a new area of biometric investigation targeted at overcoming the limitations of iris recognition performance in the presence of non-ideal data. There are several advantages for increasing the area beyond the iris, yet there are also key issues that must be addressed such as size of the ocular region, factors affecting performance, and appropriate corpora to study these factors in isolation. In this paper, we explore and identify some of these issues with the goal of better defining parameters for ocular recognition. An empirical study is performed where iris recognition methods are contrasted with texture and point operators on existing iris and face datasets. The experimental results show a dramatic recognition performance gain when additional features are considered in the presence of poor quality iris data, offering strong evidence for extending interest beyond the iris. The experiments also highlight the need for the direct collection of additional ocular imagery.

  3. Online recognition of the multiphase flow regime and study of slug flow in pipeline

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Guo Liejin; Bai Bofeng; Zhao Liang; Wang Xin; Gu Hanyang

    2009-01-01

    Multiphase flow is the phenomenon existing widely in nature, daily life, as well as petroleum and chemical engineering industrial fields. The interface structure among multiphase and their movement are complicated, which distribute random and heterogeneously in the spatial and temporal scales and have multivalue of the flow structure and state. Flow regime is defined as the macro feature about the multiphase interface structure and its distribution, which is an important feature to describe multiphase flow. The energy and mass transport mechanism differ much for each flow regimes. It is necessary to solve the flow regime recognition to get a clear understanding of the physical phenomena and their mechanism of multiphase flow. And the flow regime is one of the main factors affecting the online measurement accuracy of phase fraction, flow rate and other phase parameters. Therefore, it is of great scientific and technological importance to develop new principles and methods of multiphase flow regime online recognition, and of great industrial background. In this paper, the key reasons that the present method cannot be used to solve the industrial multiphase flow pattern recognition are clarified firstly. Then the prerequisite to realize the online recognition of multiphase flow regime is analyzed, and the recognition rules for partial flow pattern are obtained based on the massive experimental data. The standard templates for every flow regime feature are calculated with self-organization cluster algorithm. The multi-sensor data fusion method is proposed to realize the online recognition of multiphase flow regime with the pressure and differential pressure signals, which overcomes the severe influence of fluid flow velocity and the oil fraction on the recognition. The online recognition method is tested in the practice, which has less than 10 percent measurement error. The method takes advantages of high confidence, good fault tolerance and less requirement of single

  4. Genetic specificity of face recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shakeshaft, Nicholas G; Plomin, Robert

    2015-10-13

    Specific cognitive abilities in diverse domains are typically found to be highly heritable and substantially correlated with general cognitive ability (g), both phenotypically and genetically. Recent twin studies have found the ability to memorize and recognize faces to be an exception, being similarly heritable but phenotypically substantially uncorrelated both with g and with general object recognition. However, the genetic relationships between face recognition and other abilities (the extent to which they share a common genetic etiology) cannot be determined from phenotypic associations. In this, to our knowledge, first study of the genetic associations between face recognition and other domains, 2,000 18- and 19-year-old United Kingdom twins completed tests assessing their face recognition, object recognition, and general cognitive abilities. Results confirmed the substantial heritability of face recognition (61%), and multivariate genetic analyses found that most of this genetic influence is unique and not shared with other cognitive abilities.

  5. Assessment of hearing aid algorithms using a master hearing aid: the influence of hearing aid experience on the relationship between speech recognition and cognitive capacity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rählmann, Sebastian; Meis, Markus; Schulte, Michael; Kießling, Jürgen; Walger, Martin; Meister, Hartmut

    2017-04-27

    Model-based hearing aid development considers the assessment of speech recognition using a master hearing aid (MHA). It is known that aided speech recognition in noise is related to cognitive factors such as working memory capacity (WMC). This relationship might be mediated by hearing aid experience (HAE). The aim of this study was to examine the relationship of WMC and speech recognition with a MHA for listeners with different HAE. Using the MHA, unaided and aided 80% speech recognition thresholds in noise were determined. Individual WMC capacity was assed using the Verbal Learning and Memory Test (VLMT) and the Reading Span Test (RST). Forty-nine hearing aid users with mild to moderate sensorineural hearing loss divided into three groups differing in HAE. Whereas unaided speech recognition did not show a significant relationship with WMC, a significant correlation could be observed between WMC and aided speech recognition. However, this only applied to listeners with HAE of up to approximately three years, and a consistent weakening of the correlation could be observed with more experience. Speech recognition scores obtained in acute experiments with an MHA are less influenced by individual cognitive capacity when experienced HA users are taken into account.

  6. Face Detection and Recognition

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Jain, Anil K

    2004-01-01

    This report describes research efforts towards developing algorithms for a robust face recognition system to overcome many of the limitations found in existing two-dimensional facial recognition systems...

  7. Enhanced microbial decolorization of methyl red with oxidized carbon fiber as redox mediator

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Emilia Rios-Del Toro, E. [División de Ciencias Ambientales, Instituto Potosino de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (IPICyT), Camino a la Presa San José 2055, Col. Lomas 4a Sección, San Luis Potosí, SLP 78216 (Mexico); Celis, Lourdes B. [División de Geociencias Aplicadas, Instituto Potosino de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (IPICyT), Camino a la Presa San José 2055, Col. Lomas 4a Sección, San Luis Potosí, SLP 78216 (Mexico); Cervantes, Francisco J. [División de Ciencias Ambientales, Instituto Potosino de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (IPICyT), Camino a la Presa San José 2055, Col. Lomas 4a Sección, San Luis Potosí, SLP 78216 (Mexico); Rangel-Mendez, J. Rene, E-mail: rene@ipicyt.edu.mx [División de Ciencias Ambientales, Instituto Potosino de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (IPICyT), Camino a la Presa San José 2055, Col. Lomas 4a Sección, San Luis Potosí, SLP 78216 (Mexico)

    2013-09-15

    Highlights: • Activated carbon fibers (ACFs) act as redox mediator. • Electron accepting capacity increased with oxidation time of ACF. •ACFs increased 8-fold the reduction of methyl red in biological assays. •Biofilm formed on the ACFs partly blocked their redox mediator capacity. -- Abstract: The anaerobic degradation of azo dyes under anaerobic conditions is possible but at a slow rate. Redox mediators (quinones, activated carbon) are used to improve the reduction rate. The aim of this work was to use activated carbon fiber (ACF) as a redox mediator for the anaerobic reduction of the azo dye methyl red. ACF was chemically modified with 8 M HNO{sub 3} to increase its redox-mediating capacity and used in chemical and anaerobic biological batch assays for the reduction of methyl red. ACF increased its redox-mediating capacity up to 3-fold in chemical assays; in biological assays ACF increased the reduction rate up to 8-fold compared to controls without ACF. However, since the ACF served as support for biomass, a biofilm formed on the fiber significantly reduced its redox-mediating capacity; substrate consumption suggested that the electron transport from ACF to methyl red was the rate-limiting step in the process. These results are the first evidence of the role of ACF as a redox mediator in the reductive decolorization of methyl red, in addition to the effect of biofilm attached to ACF on methyl red reduction. Due to the versatile characteristics of ACF and its redox-mediating capacity, carbon fibers could be used in biological wastewater treatment systems to accelerate the reductive transformation of pollutants commonly found in industrial effluents.

  8. Enhanced microbial decolorization of methyl red with oxidized carbon fiber as redox mediator

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Emilia Rios-Del Toro, E.; Celis, Lourdes B.; Cervantes, Francisco J.; Rangel-Mendez, J. Rene

    2013-01-01

    Highlights: • Activated carbon fibers (ACFs) act as redox mediator. • Electron accepting capacity increased with oxidation time of ACF. •ACFs increased 8-fold the reduction of methyl red in biological assays. •Biofilm formed on the ACFs partly blocked their redox mediator capacity. -- Abstract: The anaerobic degradation of azo dyes under anaerobic conditions is possible but at a slow rate. Redox mediators (quinones, activated carbon) are used to improve the reduction rate. The aim of this work was to use activated carbon fiber (ACF) as a redox mediator for the anaerobic reduction of the azo dye methyl red. ACF was chemically modified with 8 M HNO 3 to increase its redox-mediating capacity and used in chemical and anaerobic biological batch assays for the reduction of methyl red. ACF increased its redox-mediating capacity up to 3-fold in chemical assays; in biological assays ACF increased the reduction rate up to 8-fold compared to controls without ACF. However, since the ACF served as support for biomass, a biofilm formed on the fiber significantly reduced its redox-mediating capacity; substrate consumption suggested that the electron transport from ACF to methyl red was the rate-limiting step in the process. These results are the first evidence of the role of ACF as a redox mediator in the reductive decolorization of methyl red, in addition to the effect of biofilm attached to ACF on methyl red reduction. Due to the versatile characteristics of ACF and its redox-mediating capacity, carbon fibers could be used in biological wastewater treatment systems to accelerate the reductive transformation of pollutants commonly found in industrial effluents

  9. Forensic Face Recognition: A Survey

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ali, Tauseef; Spreeuwers, Lieuwe Jan; Veldhuis, Raymond N.J.; Quaglia, Adamo; Epifano, Calogera M.

    2012-01-01

    The improvements of automatic face recognition during the last 2 decades have disclosed new applications like border control and camera surveillance. A new application field is forensic face recognition. Traditionally, face recognition by human experts has been used in forensics, but now there is a

  10. Learning representation hierarchies by sharing visual features: a computational investigation of Persian character recognition with unsupervised deep learning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sadeghi, Zahra; Testolin, Alberto

    2017-08-01

    In humans, efficient recognition of written symbols is thought to rely on a hierarchical processing system, where simple features are progressively combined into more abstract, high-level representations. Here, we present a computational model of Persian character recognition based on deep belief networks, where increasingly more complex visual features emerge in a completely unsupervised manner by fitting a hierarchical generative model to the sensory data. Crucially, high-level internal representations emerging from unsupervised deep learning can be easily read out by a linear classifier, achieving state-of-the-art recognition accuracy. Furthermore, we tested the hypothesis that handwritten digits and letters share many common visual features: A generative model that captures the statistical structure of the letters distribution should therefore also support the recognition of written digits. To this aim, deep networks trained on Persian letters were used to build high-level representations of Persian digits, which were indeed read out with high accuracy. Our simulations show that complex visual features, such as those mediating the identification of Persian symbols, can emerge from unsupervised learning in multilayered neural networks and can support knowledge transfer across related domains.

  11. Voice Recognition in Face-Blind Patients

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Ran R.; Pancaroglu, Raika; Hills, Charlotte S.; Duchaine, Brad; Barton, Jason J. S.

    2016-01-01

    Right or bilateral anterior temporal damage can impair face recognition, but whether this is an associative variant of prosopagnosia or part of a multimodal disorder of person recognition is an unsettled question, with implications for cognitive and neuroanatomic models of person recognition. We assessed voice perception and short-term recognition of recently heard voices in 10 subjects with impaired face recognition acquired after cerebral lesions. All 4 subjects with apperceptive prosopagnosia due to lesions limited to fusiform cortex had intact voice discrimination and recognition. One subject with bilateral fusiform and anterior temporal lesions had a combined apperceptive prosopagnosia and apperceptive phonagnosia, the first such described case. Deficits indicating a multimodal syndrome of person recognition were found only in 2 subjects with bilateral anterior temporal lesions. All 3 subjects with right anterior temporal lesions had normal voice perception and recognition, 2 of whom performed normally on perceptual discrimination of faces. This confirms that such lesions can cause a modality-specific associative prosopagnosia. PMID:25349193

  12. Recognition of tRNAs with a long variable arm by aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tukalo M. A.

    2013-07-01

    Full Text Available In prokaryotic cells three tRNA species, tRNASer, tRNALeu and tRNATyr, possess a long variable arm of 11–20 nucleotides (type 2 tRNA rather than usual 4 or 5 nucleotides (type 1 tRNA. In this review we have summarized the results of our research on the structural basis for recognition and discrimination of type 2 tRNAs by Thermus thermophilus seryl-, tyrosyl- and leucyl-tRNA synthetases (SerRS, TyrRS and LeuRS obtained by X-ray crystallography and chemical probing tRNA in solution. Crystal structures are now known of all three aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases complexed with type 2 tRNAs and the different modes of tRNA recognition represented by these structures will be discussed. In particular, emphasis will be given to the results on recognition of characteristic shape of type 2 tRNAs by cognate synthetases. In tRNASer, tRNATyr and tRNALeu the orientation of the long variable arm with respect to the body of the tRNA is different and is controlled by different packing of the core. In the case of SerRS the N-terminal domain and in the case of TyrRS, the C-terminal domain, bind to the characteristic long variable arm of the cognate RNA, thus recognizing the unique shape of the tRNA. The core of T. thermophilus tRNALeu has several layers of unusual base-pairs, which are revealed by the crystal structure of tRNALeu complexed with T. thermophilus LeuRS and by probing a ligand-free tRNA by specific chemical reagents in solution. In the crystal structure of the LeuRS-tRNALeu complex the unique D-stem structure is recognized by the C-terminal domain of LeuRS and these data are in good agreement with those obtained in solution. LeuRS has canonical class I mode of tRNA recognition, approaching the tRNA acceptor stem from the D-stem and minor groove of the acceptor stem side. SerRS also has canonical class II mode of tRNA recognition and approaches tRNASer from opposite, variable stem and major groove of acceptor stem site. And finally, TyrRS in strong

  13. Interference with Intraepithelial TNF-α Signaling Inhibits CD8+ T-Cell-Mediated Lung Injury in Influenza Infection

    OpenAIRE

    Srikiatkhachorn, Anon; Chintapalli, Jyothi; Liu, Jun; Jamaluddin, Mohammad; Harrod, Kevin S.; Whitsett, Jeffrey A.; Enelow, Richard I.; Ramana, Chilakamarti V.

    2010-01-01

    CD8+ T-cell-mediated pulmonary immunopathology in respiratory virus infection is mediated in large part by antigen-specific TNF-α expression by antiviral effector T cells, which results in epithelial chemokine expression and inflammatory infiltration of the lung. To further define the signaling events leading to lung epithelial chemokine production in response to CD8+ T-cell antigen recognition, we expressed the adenoviral 14.7K protein, a putative inhibitor of TNF-α signaling, in the distal ...

  14. Invariant Face recognition Using Infrared Images

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zahran, E.G.

    2012-01-01

    Over the past few decades, face recognition has become a rapidly growing research topic due to the increasing demands in many applications of our daily life such as airport surveillance, personal identification in law enforcement, surveillance systems, information safety, securing financial transactions, and computer security. The objective of this thesis is to develop a face recognition system capable of recognizing persons with a high recognition capability, low processing time, and under different illumination conditions, and different facial expressions. The thesis presents a study for the performance of the face recognition system using two techniques; the Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and the Zernike Moments (ZM). The performance of the recognition system is evaluated according to several aspects including the recognition rate, and the processing time. Face recognition systems that use visual images are sensitive to variations in the lighting conditions and facial expressions. The performance of these systems may be degraded under poor illumination conditions or for subjects of various skin colors. Several solutions have been proposed to overcome these limitations. One of these solutions is to work in the Infrared (IR) spectrum. IR images have been suggested as an alternative source of information for detection and recognition of faces, when there is little or no control over lighting conditions. This arises from the fact that these images are formed due to thermal emissions from skin, which is an intrinsic property because these emissions depend on the distribution of blood vessels under the skin. On the other hand IR face recognition systems still have limitations with temperature variations and recognition of persons wearing eye glasses. In this thesis we will fuse IR images with visible images to enhance the performance of face recognition systems. Images are fused using the wavelet transform. Simulation results show that the fusion of visible and

  15. End-Stop Exemplar Based Recognition

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Olsen, Søren I.

    2003-01-01

    An approach to exemplar based recognition of visual shapes is presented. The shape information is described by attributed interest points (keys) detected by an end-stop operator. The attributes describe the statistics of lines and edges local to the interest point, the position of neighboring int...... interest points, and (in the training phase) a list of recognition names. Recognition is made by a simple voting procedure. Preliminary experiments indicate that the recognition is robust to noise, small deformations, background clutter and partial occlusion....

  16. Speech Recognition on Mobile Devices

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Tan, Zheng-Hua; Lindberg, Børge

    2010-01-01

    in the mobile context covering motivations, challenges, fundamental techniques and applications. Three ASR architectures are introduced: embedded speech recognition, distributed speech recognition and network speech recognition. Their pros and cons and implementation issues are discussed. Applications within......The enthusiasm of deploying automatic speech recognition (ASR) on mobile devices is driven both by remarkable advances in ASR technology and by the demand for efficient user interfaces on such devices as mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs). This chapter presents an overview of ASR...

  17. Markov Models for Handwriting Recognition

    CERN Document Server

    Plotz, Thomas

    2011-01-01

    Since their first inception, automatic reading systems have evolved substantially, yet the recognition of handwriting remains an open research problem due to its substantial variation in appearance. With the introduction of Markovian models to the field, a promising modeling and recognition paradigm was established for automatic handwriting recognition. However, no standard procedures for building Markov model-based recognizers have yet been established. This text provides a comprehensive overview of the application of Markov models in the field of handwriting recognition, covering both hidden

  18. A Presence-Based Context-Aware Chronic Stress Recognition System

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Andrej Kos

    2012-11-01

    Full Text Available Stressors encountered in daily life may play an important role in personal well-being. Chronic stress can have a serious long-term impact on our physical as well as our psychological health, due to ongoing increased levels of the chemicals released in the ‘fight or flight’ response. The currently available stress assessment methods are usually not suitable for daily chronic stress measurement. The paper presents a context-aware chronic stress recognition system that addresses this problem. The proposed system obtains contextual data from various mobile sensors and other external sources in order to calculate the impact of ongoing stress. By identifying and visualizing ongoing stress situations of an individual user, he/she is able to modify his/her behavior in order to successfully avoid them. Clinical evaluation of the proposed methodology has been made in parallel by using electrodermal activity sensor. To the best of our knowledge, the system presented herein is the first one that enables recognition of chronic stress situations on the basis of user context.

  19. 1Interaction between serum BDNF and aerobic fitness predicts recognition memory in healthy young adults

    Science.gov (United States)

    Whiteman, Andrew; Young, Daniel E.; He, Xuemei; Chen, Tai C.; Wagenaar, Robert C.; Stern, Chantal; Schon, Karin

    2013-01-01

    Convergent evidence from human and non-human animal studies suggests aerobic exercise and increased aerobic capacity may be beneficial for brain health and cognition. It is thought growth factors may mediate this putative relationship, particularly by augmenting plasticity mechanisms in the hippocampus, a brain region critical for learning and memory. Among these factors, glucocorticoids, brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), hormones that have considerable and diverse physiological importance, are thought to effect normal and exercise-induced hippocampal plasticity. Despite these predictions, relatively few published human studies have tested hypotheses that relate exercise and fitness to the hippocampus, and none have considered the potential links to all of these hormonal components. Here we present cross-sectional data from a study of recognition memory; serum BDNF, cortisol, IGF-1, and VEGF levels; and aerobic capacity in healthy young adults. We measured circulating levels of these hormones together with performance on a recognition memory task, and a standard graded treadmill test of aerobic fitness. Regression analyses demonstrated BDNF and aerobic fitness predict recognition memory in an interactive manner. In addition, IGF-1 was positively associated with aerobic fitness, but not with recognition memory. Our results may suggest an exercise adaptation-related change in the BDNF dose-response curve that relates to hippocampal memory. PMID:24269495

  20. Examining ERP correlates of recognition memory: Evidence of accurate source recognition without recollection

    Science.gov (United States)

    Addante, Richard, J.; Ranganath, Charan; Yonelinas, Andrew, P.

    2012-01-01

    Recollection is typically associated with high recognition confidence and accurate source memory. However, subjects sometimes make accurate source memory judgments even for items that are not confidently recognized, and it is not known whether these responses are based on recollection or some other memory process. In the current study, we measured event related potentials (ERPs) while subjects made item and source memory confidence judgments in order to determine whether recollection supported accurate source recognition responses for items that were not confidently recognized. In line with previous studies, we found that recognition memory was associated with two ERP effects: an early on-setting FN400 effect, and a later parietal old-new effect [Late Positive Component (LPC)], which have been associated with familiarity and recollection, respectively. The FN400 increased gradually with item recognition confidence, whereas the LPC was only observed for highly confident recognition responses. The LPC was also related to source accuracy, but only for items that had received a high confidence item recognition response; accurate source judgments to items that were less confidently recognized did not exhibit the typical ERP correlate of recollection or familiarity, but rather showed a late, broadly distributed negative ERP difference. The results indicate that accurate source judgments of episodic context can occur even when recollection fails. PMID:22548808

  1. Evaluating music emotion recognition:Lessons from music genre recognition?

    OpenAIRE

    Sturm, Bob L.

    2013-01-01

    A fundamental problem with nearly all work in music genre recognition (MGR)is that evaluation lacks validity with respect to the principal goals of MGR. This problem also occurs in the evaluation of music emotion recognition (MER). Standard approaches to evaluation, though easy to implement, do not reliably differentiate between recognizing genre or emotion from music, or by virtue of confounding factors in signals (e.g., equalization). We demonstrate such problems for evaluating an MER syste...

  2. Word Recognition in Auditory Cortex

    Science.gov (United States)

    DeWitt, Iain D. J.

    2013-01-01

    Although spoken word recognition is more fundamental to human communication than text recognition, knowledge of word-processing in auditory cortex is comparatively impoverished. This dissertation synthesizes current models of auditory cortex, models of cortical pattern recognition, models of single-word reading, results in phonetics and results in…

  3. Vasopressin infusion into the lateral septum of adult male rats rescues progesterone induced impairment in social recognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bychowski, Meaghan E.; Mena, Jesus D.; Auger, Catherine J.

    2013-01-01

    It is well established that social recognition memory is mediated, in part, by arginine vasopressin (AVP). AVP cells within the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BST) and medial amygdala (MeA) send AVP-ergic projections to the lateral septum (LS). We have demonstrated that progesterone treatment decreases AVP immunoreactivity within the BST, the MeA and the LS, and that progesterone treatment impairs social recognition. These data suggested that progesterone may impair social recognition memory by decreasing AVP. In the present experiment, we hypothesized that infusions of AVP into the LS would rescue the progesterone induced impairment in social recognition within adult male rats. One week after adult male rats underwent cannula surgery, they were given systemic injections of either a physiological dose of progesterone or oil control for three days. Four hours after the last injection, we tested social recognition memory using the social discrimination paradigm, a two-trial test that is based on the natural propensity for rats to be highly motivated to investigate novel conspecifics. Immediately after the first exposure to a juvenile, each animal received bilateral infusions of either AVP or artificial CSF (aCSF) into the LS. Our results show that, as expected, control animals exhibited normal social discrimination. In corroboration with our previous results, animals given progesterone have impaired social discrimination. Interestingly, animals treated with progesterone and AVP exhibited normal social discrimination, suggesting that AVP treatment rescued the impairment in social recognition caused by progesterone. These data also further support a role for progesterone in modulating vasopressin dependent behavior within the male brain. PMID:23639881

  4. In the face of threat: neural and endocrine correlates of impaired facial emotion recognition in cocaine dependence.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ersche, K D; Hagan, C C; Smith, D G; Jones, P S; Calder, A J; Williams, G B

    2015-05-26

    The ability to recognize facial expressions of emotion in others is a cornerstone of human interaction. Selective impairments in the recognition of facial expressions of fear have frequently been reported in chronic cocaine users, but the nature of these impairments remains poorly understood. We used the multivariate method of partial least squares and structural magnetic resonance imaging to identify gray matter brain networks that underlie facial affect processing in both cocaine-dependent (n = 29) and healthy male volunteers (n = 29). We hypothesized that disruptions in neuroendocrine function in cocaine-dependent individuals would explain their impairments in fear recognition by modulating the relationship with the underlying gray matter networks. We found that cocaine-dependent individuals not only exhibited significant impairments in the recognition of fear, but also for facial expressions of anger. Although recognition accuracy of threatening expressions co-varied in all participants with distinctive gray matter networks implicated in fear and anger processing, in cocaine users it was less well predicted by these networks than in controls. The weaker brain-behavior relationships for threat processing were also mediated by distinctly different factors. Fear recognition impairments were influenced by variations in intelligence levels, whereas anger recognition impairments were associated with comorbid opiate dependence and related reduction in testosterone levels. We also observed an inverse relationship between testosterone levels and the duration of crack and opiate use. Our data provide novel insight into the neurobiological basis of abnormal threat processing in cocaine dependence, which may shed light on new opportunities facilitating the psychosocial integration of these patients.

  5. [Comparative studies of face recognition].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kawai, Nobuyuki

    2012-07-01

    Every human being is proficient in face recognition. However, the reason for and the manner in which humans have attained such an ability remain unknown. These questions can be best answered-through comparative studies of face recognition in non-human animals. Studies in both primates and non-primates show that not only primates, but also non-primates possess the ability to extract information from their conspecifics and from human experimenters. Neural specialization for face recognition is shared with mammals in distant taxa, suggesting that face recognition evolved earlier than the emergence of mammals. A recent study indicated that a social insect, the golden paper wasp, can distinguish their conspecific faces, whereas a closely related species, which has a less complex social lifestyle with just one queen ruling a nest of underlings, did not show strong face recognition for their conspecifics. Social complexity and the need to differentiate between one another likely led humans to evolve their face recognition abilities.

  6. Journal of Chemical Sciences | Indian Academy of Sciences

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Home; Journals; Journal of Chemical Sciences. Mei Luo. Articles written in Journal of Chemical Sciences. Volume 127 Issue 1 January 2015 pp 163-166 Regular Articles. Efficient one-pot synthesis of 2-oxazolines from benzoylacetonitrile and -aminoalcohols mediated by ZnCl2 · Mei Luo Jing Cheng Zhang Hao Yin.

  7. Journal of Chemical Sciences | Indian Academy of Sciences

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Home; Journals; Journal of Chemical Sciences. Cheng-Li Yao. Articles written in Journal of Chemical Sciences. Volume 121 Issue 1 January 2009 pp 89-93 Full Papers. Sucrose/bovine serum albumin mediated biomimetic crystallization of calcium carbonate · Cheng-Li Yao Wang-Hua Xu Ai-Min Ding Jin-Mao Zhu.

  8. Identification of natural metabolites in mixture: a pattern recognition strategy based on (13)C NMR.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hubert, Jane; Nuzillard, Jean-Marc; Purson, Sylvain; Hamzaoui, Mahmoud; Borie, Nicolas; Reynaud, Romain; Renault, Jean-Hugues

    2014-03-18

    Because of their highly complex metabolite profile, the chemical characterization of bioactive natural extracts usually requires time-consuming multistep purification procedures to achieve the structural elucidation of pure individual metabolites. The aim of the present work was to develop a dereplication strategy for the identification of natural metabolites directly within mixtures. Exploiting the polarity range of metabolites, the principle was to rapidly fractionate a multigram quantity of a crude extract by centrifugal partition extraction (CPE). The obtained fractions of simplified chemical composition were subsequently analyzed by (13)C NMR. After automatic collection and alignment of (13)C signals across spectra, hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA) was performed for pattern recognition. As a result, strong correlations between (13)C signals of a single structure within the mixtures of the fraction series were visualized as chemical shift clusters. Each cluster was finally assigned to a molecular structure with the help of a locally built (13)C NMR chemical shift database. The proof of principle of this strategy was achieved on a simple model mixture of commercially available plant secondary metabolites and then applied to a bark extract of the African tree Anogeissus leiocarpus Guill. & Perr. (Combretaceae). Starting from 5 g of this genuine extract, the fraction series was generated by CPE in only 95 min. (13)C NMR analyses of all fractions followed by pattern recognition of (13)C chemical shifts resulted in the unambiguous identification of seven major compounds, namely, sericoside, trachelosperogenin E, ellagic acid, an epimer mixture of (+)-gallocatechin and (-)-epigallocatechin, 3,3'-di-O-methylellagic acid 4'-O-xylopyranoside, and 3,4,3'-tri-O-methylflavellagic acid 4'-O-glucopyranoside.

  9. Is having similar eye movement patterns during face learning and recognition beneficial for recognition performance? Evidence from hidden Markov modeling.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chuk, Tim; Chan, Antoni B; Hsiao, Janet H

    2017-12-01

    The hidden Markov model (HMM)-based approach for eye movement analysis is able to reflect individual differences in both spatial and temporal aspects of eye movements. Here we used this approach to understand the relationship between eye movements during face learning and recognition, and its association with recognition performance. We discovered holistic (i.e., mainly looking at the face center) and analytic (i.e., specifically looking at the two eyes in addition to the face center) patterns during both learning and recognition. Although for both learning and recognition, participants who adopted analytic patterns had better recognition performance than those with holistic patterns, a significant positive correlation between the likelihood of participants' patterns being classified as analytic and their recognition performance was only observed during recognition. Significantly more participants adopted holistic patterns during learning than recognition. Interestingly, about 40% of the participants used different patterns between learning and recognition, and among them 90% switched their patterns from holistic at learning to analytic at recognition. In contrast to the scan path theory, which posits that eye movements during learning have to be recapitulated during recognition for the recognition to be successful, participants who used the same or different patterns during learning and recognition did not differ in recognition performance. The similarity between their learning and recognition eye movement patterns also did not correlate with their recognition performance. These findings suggested that perceptuomotor memory elicited by eye movement patterns during learning does not play an important role in recognition. In contrast, the retrieval of diagnostic information for recognition, such as the eyes for face recognition, is a better predictor for recognition performance. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  10. Human GW182 Paralogs Are the Central Organizers for RNA-Mediated Control of Transcription.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hicks, Jessica A; Li, Liande; Matsui, Masayuki; Chu, Yongjun; Volkov, Oleg; Johnson, Krystal C; Corey, David R

    2017-08-15

    In the cytoplasm, small RNAs can control mammalian translation by regulating the stability of mRNA. In the nucleus, small RNAs can also control transcription and splicing. The mechanisms for RNA-mediated nuclear regulation are not understood and remain controversial, hindering the effective application of nuclear RNAi and investigation of its natural regulatory roles. Here, we reveal that the human GW182 paralogs TNRC6A/B/C are central organizing factors critical to RNA-mediated transcriptional activation. Mass spectrometry of purified nuclear lysates followed by experimental validation demonstrates that TNRC6A interacts with proteins involved in protein degradation, RNAi, the CCR4-NOT complex, the mediator complex, and histone-modifying complexes. Functional analysis implicates TNRC6A, NAT10, MED14, and WDR5 in RNA-mediated transcriptional activation. These findings describe protein complexes capable of bridging RNA-mediated sequence-specific recognition of noncoding RNA transcripts with the regulation of gene transcription. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  11. Sensors based on carbon nanotube field-effect transistors and molecular recognition approaches

    OpenAIRE

    Cid Salavert, Cristina Carlota

    2009-01-01

    The general objective of this thesis is to develop chemical sensors whose sensing capacities are based on the principle of molecular recognition and where the transduction is carried out by single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT).The sensing device used is the carbon nanotube field-effect transistor (CNTFET). The new structure of the CNTFET allows nanotubes to be integrated at the surface of the devices, thus exploiting SWCNTs' sensitivity to changes in their environment. The functionalization...

  12. Two distinct sensing pathways allow recognition of Klebsiella pneumoniae by Dictyostelium amoebae.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lima, Wanessa C; Balestrino, Damien; Forestier, Christiane; Cosson, Pierre

    2014-03-01

    Recognition of bacteria by metazoans is mediated by receptors that recognize different types of microorganisms and elicit specific cellular responses. The soil amoebae Dictyostelium discoideum feeds upon a variable mixture of environmental bacteria, and it is expected to recognize and adapt to various food sources. To date, however, no bacteria-sensing mechanisms have been described. In this study, we isolated a Dictyostelium mutant (fspA KO) unable to grow in the presence of non-capsulated Klebsiella pneumoniae bacteria, but growing as efficiently as wild-type cells in the presence of other bacteria, such as Bacillus subtilis. fspA KO cells were also unable to respond to K. pneumoniae and more specifically to bacterially secreted folate in a chemokinetic assay, while they responded readily to B. subtilis. Remarkably, both WT and fspA KO cells were able to grow in the presence of capsulated LM21 K. pneumoniae, and responded to purified capsule, indicating that capsule recognition may represent an alternative, FspA-independent mechanism for K. pneumoniae sensing. When LM21 capsule synthesis genes were deleted, growth and chemokinetic response were lost for fspA KO cells, but not for WT cells. Altogether, these results indicate that Dictyostelium amoebae use specific recognition mechanisms to respond to different K. pneumoniae elements. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  13. Genetic determinants of mate recognition in Brachionus manjavacas (Rotifera).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Snell, Terry W; Shearer, Tonya L; Smith, Hilary A; Kubanek, Julia; Gribble, Kristin E; Welch, David B Mark

    2009-09-09

    repeats are kept nearly identical through a process of concerted evolution. Information-rich molecules like surface glycoproteins are well adapted for chemical communication and aquatic animals may have evolved signaling systems based on these compounds, whereas insects use cuticular hydrocarbons. Owing to its critical role in mating, the mate recognition pheromone gene will be a useful molecular marker for exploring the mechanisms and rates of selection and the evolution of reproductive isolation and speciation using rotifers as a model system. The phylogenetic variation in the mate recognition pheromone gene can now be studied in conjunction with the large amount of ecological and population genetic data being gathered for the Brachionus plicatilis species complex to understand better the evolutionary drivers of cryptic speciation.

  14. Synaptic Cell Adhesion

    OpenAIRE

    Missler, Markus; Südhof, Thomas C.; Biederer, Thomas

    2012-01-01

    Chemical synapses are asymmetric intercellular junctions that mediate synaptic transmission. Synaptic junctions are organized by trans-synaptic cell adhesion molecules bridging the synaptic cleft. Synaptic cell adhesion molecules not only connect pre- and postsynaptic compartments, but also mediate trans-synaptic recognition and signaling processes that are essential for the establishment, specification, and plasticity of synapses. A growing number of synaptic cell adhesion molecules that inc...

  15. Visual Recognition Memory across Contexts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jones, Emily J. H.; Pascalis, Olivier; Eacott, Madeline J.; Herbert, Jane S.

    2011-01-01

    In two experiments, we investigated the development of representational flexibility in visual recognition memory during infancy using the Visual Paired Comparison (VPC) task. In Experiment 1, 6- and 9-month-old infants exhibited recognition when familiarization and test occurred in the same room, but showed no evidence of recognition when…

  16. Colorimetric Recognition of Aldehydes and Ketones.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Zheng; Fang, Ming; LaGasse, Maria K; Askim, Jon R; Suslick, Kenneth S

    2017-08-07

    A colorimetric sensor array has been designed for the identification of and discrimination among aldehydes and ketones in vapor phase. Due to rapid chemical reactions between the solid-state sensor elements and gaseous analytes, distinct color difference patterns were produced and digitally imaged for chemometric analysis. The sensor array was developed from classical spot tests using aniline and phenylhydrazine dyes that enable molecular recognition of a wide variety of aliphatic or aromatic aldehydes and ketones, as demonstrated by hierarchical cluster, principal component, and support vector machine analyses. The aldehyde/ketone-specific sensors were further employed for differentiation among and identification of ten liquor samples (whiskies, brandy, vodka) and ethanol controls, showing its potential applications in the beverage industry. © 2017 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  17. Mediation by Demonstration and Dialogue. An Evaluation of Practices. Deliverable D12

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Elam, Mark; Sundqvist, Goeran; Soneryd, Linda

    2009-10-01

    Two basic forms of mediation have been identified and analysed: the public mediation of radioactive waste management by demonstration and by dialogue. The former coincides firstly with the showing and visualizing radioactive waste management issues and solutions for public inspection and recognition. The latter, on the other hand, corresponds firstly with the establishment of different styles of public discussion, deliberation and inquiry for elaborating further on policy issues and solutions. Both forms of mediation provide the basis for the collection and collation of significant bodies of public evidence and testimony which can be used to continuously inform and guide decision-making processes. Principles and Guidelines of Mediation 1. Both mediation by demonstration and mediation by dialogue should be understood as indispensable in the formation of arenas of risk governance in radioactive waste management. 2. As the two basic forms of mediation each has its own part to play in advancing radioactive waste management solutions, neither one should be automatically privileged over the other in any policy process 3. Both mediation by demonstration and mediation by dialogue can be expected to generate large bodies of public evidence and testimony which can be used to help inform and guide decision-making processes. Historically, evidence deriving from mediation by demonstration has been accorded greater prominence in the radioactive waste management field than evidence deriving from mediation by dialogue. For this reason, new ways of effectively combining evidence and testimony deriving from both forms of mediation should be explored in policy processes in future. 4. Because mediation by demonstration builds upon a clear division between those who demonstrate and those who are being asked to see and evaluate what is being shown, mediation by dialogue should be conceived and constructed as an opportunity to unsettle and destabilize these established roles. 5. Because

  18. Recognition, survival and persistence of Staphylococcus aureus in the model host Tenebrio molitor.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dorling, Jack; Moraes, Caroline; Rolff, Jens

    2015-02-01

    The degree of specificity of any given immune response to a parasite is governed by the complexity and variation of interactions between host and pathogen derived molecules. Here, we assess the extent to which recognition and immuno-resistance of cell wall mutants of the pathogen Staphylococcus aureus may contribute to establishment and maintenance of persistent infection in the model insect host, Tenebrio molitor. The cell surface of S. aureus is decorated with various molecules, including glycopolymers such as wall teichoic acid (WTA). WTA is covalently bound to peptidoglycan (PGN) and its absence has been associated with increased recognition of PGN by host receptors (PGRPs). WTA is also further modified by other molecules such as D-alanine (D-alanylation). Both the level of WTA expression and its D-alanylation were found to be important in the mediation of the host-parasite interaction in this model system. Specifically, WTA itself was seen to influence immune recognition, while D-alanylation of WTA was found to increase immuno-resistance and was associated with prolonged persistence of S. aureus in T. molitor. These results implicate WTA and its D-alanylation as important factors in the establishment and maintenance of persistent infection, affecting different critical junctions in the immune response; through potential evasion of recognition by PGRPs and resistance to humoral immune effectors during prolonged exposure to the immune system. This highlights a mechanism by which specificity in this host-parasite interaction may arise. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  19. Expanding the universe of cytokines and pattern recognition receptors: galectins and glycans in innate immunity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cerliani, Juan P; Stowell, Sean R; Mascanfroni, Iván D; Arthur, Connie M; Cummings, Richard D; Rabinovich, Gabriel A

    2011-02-01

    Effective immunity relies on the recognition of pathogens and tumors by innate immune cells through diverse pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) that lead to initiation of signaling processes and secretion of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines. Galectins, a family of endogenous lectins widely expressed in infected and neoplastic tissues have emerged as part of the portfolio of soluble mediators and pattern recognition receptors responsible for eliciting and controlling innate immunity. These highly conserved glycan-binding proteins can control immune cell processes through binding to specific glycan structures on pathogens and tumors or by acting intracellularly via modulation of selective signaling pathways. Recent findings demonstrate that various galectin family members influence the fate and physiology of different innate immune cells including polymorphonuclear neutrophils, mast cells, macrophages, and dendritic cells. Moreover, several pathogens may actually utilize galectins as a mechanism of host invasion. In this review, we aim to highlight and integrate recent discoveries that have led to our current understanding of the role of galectins in host-pathogen interactions and innate immunity. Challenges for the future will embrace the rational manipulation of galectin-glycan interactions to instruct and shape innate immunity during microbial infections, inflammation, and cancer.

  20. Mediation As a Tool of the Human Being Acknowledgement

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Adriana Silva Maillart

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available The goal of this article is to demonstrate that mediation don`t contemplate exclusively as purpose the resolution of conflicts; gets expanded to receive the aspect denominated as recognition of the human person in its anthropologic meaning, escaping from the mere legal definition of the owner of rights and obligations. The recognition of the other, adopted in the context of conflict management, contributes not only to the controversy back it up to the result of zero-sum resulting from the traditional concept of Justice, but also to individuals and  society  by  adopting  targeted  actions  for  mutual  understanding,  achieve  their independence, but also preserving interpersonal and social relations, in the true sense of co- existential justice. It is an exploratory article, which employ bibliographic research technique and social analysis of Law and also the systemic method of approach.

  1. ON THE ANATOMY OF MEDIATIZED NEWS BROADCASTING: METAMORPHOSES AND MULTIPLE NARRATIVES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Demétrio de Azeredo Soster

    2013-06-01

    Full Text Available This article discusses mediatization in news journalism, which is characterized by the institution, in current times, of a new “place” for the media. From this standpoint, they are no longer regarded as mere media, but as structuring elements of a new communicational bios. In the course of society’s transition from the media towards a mediatized society, news production practices become complex and process practices, as well as narrative and content distribution forms emerge, that are distinct from those seen until then. Television news broadcast emerges, therefore, in a new format, made up of the cluster of diverse media that refer to such programs, demanding new identification and recognition protocols. These changes will be examined as they relate to the news telecasts TV Folha, of TV Cultura, based on four movements resulting from the mediatization process in journalism: self-referentiality, co-referentiality, decentralization and dialogy.

  2. On the anatomy of mediatized news broadcasting: metamorphoses and multiple narratives

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fabiana Piccinin

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available This article discusses mediatization in news journalism, which is characterized by the institution, in current times, of a new “place” for the media. From this standpoint, they are no longer regarded as mere media, but as structuring elements of a new communicational bios. In the course of society’s transition from the media towards a mediatized society, news production practices become complex and process practices, as well as narrative and content distribution forms emerge, that are distinct from those seen until then. Television news broadcast emerges, therefore, in a new format, made up of the cluster of diverse media that refer to such programs, demanding new identification and recognition protocols. These changes will be examined as they relate to the news telecasts TV Folha, of TV Cultura, based on four movements resulting from the mediatization process in journalism: self-referentiality, co-referentiality, decentralization and dialogy.

  3. Tethering of Ficolin-1 to cell surfaces through recognition of sialic acid by the fibrinogen-like domain

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Honore, C.; Rorvig, S.; Hummelshoj, T.

    2010-01-01

    Three Ficolins have been identified in humans: Ficolin-1 (M-Ficolin), Ficolin-2 (L-Ficolin), and Ficolin-3 (H-Ficolin). Ficolin-1 is the least-described of the Ficolins and is expressed by monocytes, granulocytes, and in the lungs. Ficolin-1 is found circulating at low concentrations in serum but......, these results demonstrate a novel self-recognition mechanism of leukocytes mediated by the fibrinogen-like domain of Ficolin-1....

  4. Non Audio-Video gesture recognition system

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Craciunescu, Razvan; Mihovska, Albena Dimitrova; Kyriazakos, Sofoklis

    2016-01-01

    Gesture recognition is a topic in computer science and language technology with the goal of interpreting human gestures via mathematical algorithms. Gestures can originate from any bodily motion or state but commonly originate from the face or hand. Current research focus includes on the emotion...... recognition from the face and hand gesture recognition. Gesture recognition enables humans to communicate with the machine and interact naturally without any mechanical devices. This paper investigates the possibility to use non-audio/video sensors in order to design a low-cost gesture recognition device...

  5. Comparing Face Detection and Recognition Techniques

    OpenAIRE

    Korra, Jyothi

    2016-01-01

    This paper implements and compares different techniques for face detection and recognition. One is find where the face is located in the images that is face detection and second is face recognition that is identifying the person. We study three techniques in this paper: Face detection using self organizing map (SOM), Face recognition by projection and nearest neighbor and Face recognition using SVM.

  6. Exemplar Based Recognition of Visual Shapes

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Olsen, Søren I.

    2005-01-01

    This paper presents an approach of visual shape recognition based on exemplars of attributed keypoints. Training is performed by storing exemplars of keypoints detected in labeled training images. Recognition is made by keypoint matching and voting according to the labels for the matched keypoint....... The matching is insensitive to rotations, limited scalings and small deformations. The recognition is robust to noise, background clutter and partial occlusion. Recognition is possible from few training images and improve with the number of training images.......This paper presents an approach of visual shape recognition based on exemplars of attributed keypoints. Training is performed by storing exemplars of keypoints detected in labeled training images. Recognition is made by keypoint matching and voting according to the labels for the matched keypoints...

  7. Superficial Priming in Episodic Recognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dopkins, Stephen; Sargent, Jesse; Ngo, Catherine T.

    2010-01-01

    We explored the effect of superficial priming in episodic recognition and found it to be different from the effect of semantic priming in episodic recognition. Participants made recognition judgments to pairs of items, with each pair consisting of a prime item and a test item. Correct positive responses to the test item were impeded if the prime…

  8. Computer-mediated interdisciplinary teams: theory and reality.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vroman, Kerryellen; Kovacich, Joann

    2002-05-01

    The benefit of experience, tempered with the wisdom of hindsight and 5 years of text-based, asynchronous, computer-mediated, interdisciplinary team communications, provides the energy, insights and data shared in this article. Through the theoretical lens of group dynamics and the epistemology of interdisciplinary teaming, we analyze the interactions of a virtual interdisciplinary team to provide an understanding and appreciation of collaborative interdisciplinary communication in the context of interactive technologies. Whilst interactive technologies may require new patterns of language similar to that of learning a foreign language, what is communicated in the interdisciplinary team process does not change. Most important is the recognition that virtual teams, similar to their face-to-face counterparts, undergo the same challenges of interdisciplinary teaming and group developmental processes of formation: forming, storming, norming, performing, and transforming. After examining these dynamics of communication and collaboration in the context of the virtual team, the article concludes with guidelines facilitating interdisciplinary team computer-mediated communication.

  9. Journal of Chemical Sciences | Indian Academy of Sciences

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Home; Journals; Journal of Chemical Sciences. S A Inchara. Articles written in Journal of Chemical Sciences. Volume 127 Issue 5 May 2015 pp 843-848 Regular Articles. Para-amino benzoic acid–mediated synthesis of vaterite phase of calcium carbonate · T N Ramesh S A Inchara K Pallavi · More Details Abstract Fulltext ...

  10. Specification for projects of radiogeologic recognition

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1979-01-01

    This instruction is a guidance to achievement of radiogeologic recognition projects. The radiogeologic recognition is a prospecting method that join the classic geologic recognition with measures of rock radioactivity. (C.M.)

  11. Chemical sensors and microsystems for pollution abatement. Brief study

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Drost, S.; Aberl, F.; Endres, H.E.

    1994-01-01

    The demand for chemical sensors and microsystems is assessed on the basis of the substances which the pollution regulations identify as air and water pollutants in accordance with defined immission standards. Microsystems technology can do away with the disadvantages of environmental analysis. Chemical sensors offer many advantages but must be improved as regards their measuring accuracy and service life. These sensors must be developed further (transducers and coatings) and be combined into multisensor systems. Special sensor signal processing methods (pattern recognition) must be developed for the latter as microsystems technology advances. (orig./EF) [de

  12. Why recognition is rational

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Clintin P. Davis-Stober

    2010-07-01

    Full Text Available The Recognition Heuristic (Gigerenzer and Goldstein, 1996; Goldstein and Gigerenzer, 2002 makes the counter-intuitive prediction that a decision maker utilizing less information may do as well as, or outperform, an idealized decision maker utilizing more information. We lay a theoretical foundation for the use of single-variable heuristics such as the Recognition Heuristic as an optimal decision strategy within a linear modeling framework. We identify conditions under which over-weighting a single predictor is a mini-max strategy among a class of a priori chosen weights based on decision heuristics with respect to a measure of statistical lack of fit we call ``risk''. These strategies, in turn, outperform standard multiple regression as long as the amount of data available is limited. We also show that, under related conditions, weighting only one variable and ignoring all others produces the same risk as ignoring the single variable and weighting all others. This approach has the advantage of generalizing beyond the original environment of the Recognition Heuristic to situations with more than two choice options, binary or continuous representations of recognition, and to other single variable heuristics. We analyze the structure of data used in some prior recognition tasks and find that it matches the sufficient conditions for optimality in our results. Rather than being a poor or adequate substitute for a compensatory model, the Recognition Heuristic closely approximates an optimal strategy when a decision maker has finite data about the world.

  13. The murine cytomegalovirus M35 protein antagonizes type I IFN induction downstream of pattern recognition receptors by targeting NF-κB mediated transcription.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Baca Chan

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available The type I interferon (IFN response is imperative for the establishment of the early antiviral immune response. Here we report the identification of the first type I IFN antagonist encoded by murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV that shuts down signaling following pattern recognition receptor (PRR sensing. Screening of an MCMV open reading frame (ORF library identified M35 as a novel and strong negative modulator of IFNβ promoter induction following activation of both RNA and DNA cytoplasmic PRR. Additionally, M35 inhibits the proinflammatory cytokine response downstream of Toll-like receptors (TLR. Using a series of luciferase-based reporters with specific transcription factor binding sites, we determined that M35 targets NF-κB-, but not IRF-mediated, transcription. Expression of M35 upon retroviral transduction of immortalized bone marrow-derived macrophages (iBMDM led to reduced IFNβ transcription and secretion upon activation of stimulator of IFN genes (STING-dependent signaling. On the other hand, M35 does not antagonize interferon-stimulated gene (ISG 56 promoter induction or ISG transcription upon exogenous stimulation of the type I IFN receptor (IFNAR. M35 is present in the viral particle and, upon MCMV infection of fibroblasts, is immediately shuttled to the nucleus where it exerts its immunomodulatory effects. Deletion of M35 from the MCMV genome and hence from the viral particle resulted in elevated type I IFN transcription and secretion in vitro and in vivo. In the absence of M35, lower viral titers are observed during acute infection of the host, and productive infection in the salivary glands was not detected. In conclusion, the M35 protein is released by MCMV immediately upon infection in order to deftly inhibit the antiviral type I IFN response by targeting NF-κB-mediated transcription. The identification of this novel viral protein reinforces the importance of timely countermeasures in the complex relationship between virus and host.

  14. Infant visual attention and object recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reynolds, Greg D

    2015-05-15

    This paper explores the role visual attention plays in the recognition of objects in infancy. Research and theory on the development of infant attention and recognition memory are reviewed in three major sections. The first section reviews some of the major findings and theory emerging from a rich tradition of behavioral research utilizing preferential looking tasks to examine visual attention and recognition memory in infancy. The second section examines research utilizing neural measures of attention and object recognition in infancy as well as research on brain-behavior relations in the early development of attention and recognition memory. The third section addresses potential areas of the brain involved in infant object recognition and visual attention. An integrated synthesis of some of the existing models of the development of visual attention is presented which may account for the observed changes in behavioral and neural measures of visual attention and object recognition that occur across infancy. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  15. A chemical arms race at sea mediates algal host-virus interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bidle, Kay D; Vardi, Assaf

    2011-08-01

    Despite the critical importance of viruses in shaping marine microbial ecosystems and lubricating upper ocean biogeochemical cycles, relatively little is known about the molecular mechanisms mediating phytoplankton host-virus interactions. Recent work in algal host-virus systems has begun to shed novel insight into the elegant strategies of viral infection and subcellular regulation of cell fate, which not only reveal tantalizing aspects of viral replication and host resistance strategies but also provide new diagnostic tools toward elucidating the impact of virus-mediated processes in the ocean. Widespread lateral gene transfer between viruses and their hosts plays a prominent role in host-virus diversification and in the regulation of host-virus infection mechanisms by allowing viruses to manipulate and 'rewire' host metabolic pathways to facilitate infection. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  16. Probabilistic Open Set Recognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jain, Lalit Prithviraj

    Real-world tasks in computer vision, pattern recognition and machine learning often touch upon the open set recognition problem: multi-class recognition with incomplete knowledge of the world and many unknown inputs. An obvious way to approach such problems is to develop a recognition system that thresholds probabilities to reject unknown classes. Traditional rejection techniques are not about the unknown; they are about the uncertain boundary and rejection around that boundary. Thus traditional techniques only represent the "known unknowns". However, a proper open set recognition algorithm is needed to reduce the risk from the "unknown unknowns". This dissertation examines this concept and finds existing probabilistic multi-class recognition approaches are ineffective for true open set recognition. We hypothesize the cause is due to weak adhoc assumptions combined with closed-world assumptions made by existing calibration techniques. Intuitively, if we could accurately model just the positive data for any known class without overfitting, we could reject the large set of unknown classes even under this assumption of incomplete class knowledge. For this, we formulate the problem as one of modeling positive training data by invoking statistical extreme value theory (EVT) near the decision boundary of positive data with respect to negative data. We provide a new algorithm called the PI-SVM for estimating the unnormalized posterior probability of class inclusion. This dissertation also introduces a new open set recognition model called Compact Abating Probability (CAP), where the probability of class membership decreases in value (abates) as points move from known data toward open space. We show that CAP models improve open set recognition for multiple algorithms. Leveraging the CAP formulation, we go on to describe the novel Weibull-calibrated SVM (W-SVM) algorithm, which combines the useful properties of statistical EVT for score calibration with one-class and binary

  17. Hemispheric lateralization of linguistic prosody recognition in comparison to speech and speaker recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kreitewolf, Jens; Friederici, Angela D; von Kriegstein, Katharina

    2014-11-15

    Hemispheric specialization for linguistic prosody is a controversial issue. While it is commonly assumed that linguistic prosody and emotional prosody are preferentially processed in the right hemisphere, neuropsychological work directly comparing processes of linguistic prosody and emotional prosody suggests a predominant role of the left hemisphere for linguistic prosody processing. Here, we used two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments to clarify the role of left and right hemispheres in the neural processing of linguistic prosody. In the first experiment, we sought to confirm previous findings showing that linguistic prosody processing compared to other speech-related processes predominantly involves the right hemisphere. Unlike previous studies, we controlled for stimulus influences by employing a prosody and speech task using the same speech material. The second experiment was designed to investigate whether a left-hemispheric involvement in linguistic prosody processing is specific to contrasts between linguistic prosody and emotional prosody or whether it also occurs when linguistic prosody is contrasted against other non-linguistic processes (i.e., speaker recognition). Prosody and speaker tasks were performed on the same stimulus material. In both experiments, linguistic prosody processing was associated with activity in temporal, frontal, parietal and cerebellar regions. Activation in temporo-frontal regions showed differential lateralization depending on whether the control task required recognition of speech or speaker: recognition of linguistic prosody predominantly involved right temporo-frontal areas when it was contrasted against speech recognition; when contrasted against speaker recognition, recognition of linguistic prosody predominantly involved left temporo-frontal areas. The results show that linguistic prosody processing involves functions of both hemispheres and suggest that recognition of linguistic prosody is based on

  18. Automated recognition and tracking of aerosol threat plumes with an IR camera pod

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fauth, Ryan; Powell, Christopher; Gruber, Thomas; Clapp, Dan

    2012-06-01

    Protection of fixed sites from chemical, biological, or radiological aerosol plume attacks depends on early warning so that there is time to take mitigating actions. Early warning requires continuous, autonomous, and rapid coverage of large surrounding areas; however, this must be done at an affordable cost. Once a potential threat plume is detected though, a different type of sensor (e.g., a more expensive, slower sensor) may be cued for identification purposes, but the problem is to quickly identify all of the potential threats around the fixed site of interest. To address this problem of low cost, persistent, wide area surveillance, an IR camera pod and multi-image stitching and processing algorithms have been developed for automatic recognition and tracking of aerosol plumes. A rugged, modular, static pod design, which accommodates as many as four micro-bolometer IR cameras for 45deg to 180deg of azimuth coverage, is presented. Various OpenCV1 based image-processing algorithms, including stitching of multiple adjacent FOVs, recognition of aerosol plume objects, and the tracking of aerosol plumes, are presented using process block diagrams and sample field test results, including chemical and biological simulant plumes. Methods for dealing with the background removal, brightness equalization between images, and focus quality for optimal plume tracking are also discussed.

  19. DNAzyme-Based Logic Gate-Mediated DNA Self-Assembly.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Cheng; Yang, Jing; Jiang, Shuoxing; Liu, Yan; Yan, Hao

    2016-01-13

    Controlling DNA self-assembly processes using rationally designed logic gates is a major goal of DNA-based nanotechnology and programming. Such controls could facilitate the hierarchical engineering of complex nanopatterns responding to various molecular triggers or inputs. Here, we demonstrate the use of a series of DNAzyme-based logic gates to control DNA tile self-assembly onto a prescribed DNA origami frame. Logic systems such as "YES," "OR," "AND," and "logic switch" are implemented based on DNAzyme-mediated tile recognition with the DNA origami frame. DNAzyme is designed to play two roles: (1) as an intermediate messenger to motivate downstream reactions and (2) as a final trigger to report fluorescent signals, enabling information relay between the DNA origami-framed tile assembly and fluorescent signaling. The results of this study demonstrate the plausibility of DNAzyme-mediated hierarchical self-assembly and provide new tools for generating dynamic and responsive self-assembly systems.

  20. Vasopressin infusion into the lateral septum of adult male rats rescues progesterone-induced impairment in social recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bychowski, M E; Mena, J D; Auger, C J

    2013-08-29

    It is well established that social recognition memory is mediated, in part, by arginine vasopressin (AVP). AVP cells within the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BST) and medial amygdala (MeA) send AVP-ergic projections to the lateral septum (LS). We have demonstrated that progesterone treatment decreases AVP immunoreactivity within the BST, the MeA and the LS, and that progesterone treatment impairs social recognition. These data suggested that progesterone may impair social recognition memory by decreasing AVP. In the present experiment, we hypothesized that infusions of AVP into the LS would rescue the progesterone-induced impairment in social recognition within adult male rats. One week after adult male rats underwent cannula surgery, they were given systemic injections of either a physiological dose of progesterone or oil control for 3 days. Four hours after the last injection, we tested social recognition memory using the social discrimination paradigm, a two-trial test that is based on the natural propensity for rats to be highly motivated to investigate novel conspecifics. Immediately after the first exposure to a juvenile, each animal received bilateral infusions of either AVP or artificial cerebrospinal fluid into the LS. Our results show that, as expected, control animals exhibited normal social discrimination. In corroboration with our previous results, animals given progesterone have impaired social discrimination. Interestingly, animals treated with progesterone and AVP exhibited normal social discrimination, suggesting that AVP treatment rescued the impairment in social recognition caused by progesterone. These data also further support a role for progesterone in modulating vasopressin-dependent behavior within the male brain. Copyright © 2013 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  1. Viewpoint Manifolds for Action Recognition

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Souvenir Richard

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Action recognition from video is a problem that has many important applications to human motion analysis. In real-world settings, the viewpoint of the camera cannot always be fixed relative to the subject, so view-invariant action recognition methods are needed. Previous view-invariant methods use multiple cameras in both the training and testing phases of action recognition or require storing many examples of a single action from multiple viewpoints. In this paper, we present a framework for learning a compact representation of primitive actions (e.g., walk, punch, kick, sit that can be used for video obtained from a single camera for simultaneous action recognition and viewpoint estimation. Using our method, which models the low-dimensional structure of these actions relative to viewpoint, we show recognition rates on a publicly available dataset previously only achieved using multiple simultaneous views.

  2. Cleavage of olefinic double bonds by mediated anodic oxidation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Baeumer, U.-St.; Schaefer, H.J.

    2003-01-01

    Seven alkenes, e.g. 1-decene, methyl oleate, cyclododecene, norbornene, are cleaved by indirect anodic oxidation with IO 4 - /RuCl 3 as mediator to carboxylic acids. The best performance was achieved with two alternative ex cell-methods. Periodate is regenerated from iodate in a divided cell at a PbO 2 /Ti-anode. In the chemical reactor alkene and the produced carboxylic acid are immobilized in a chromatography column on Chromosorb W and oxidized with IO 4 - /RuO 4 in CH 3 CN/water. In the alternative version the alkene is oxidized in an emulsion generated by sonication and the organic phase is retained in the reactor by a separator. Acids and diacids are obtained in 61-91% chemical yield and good current yields. The amount of consumed periodate can be reduced to less than 5% of the amount needed for the chemical oxidation. The mediated anodic cleavage of alkenes is altogether an interesting alternative to ozonolysis

  3. LeadMine: a grammar and dictionary driven approach to entity recognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    2015-01-01

    Background Chemical entity recognition has traditionally been performed by machine learning approaches. Here we describe an approach using grammars and dictionaries. This approach has the advantage that the entities found can be directly related to a given grammar or dictionary, which allows the type of an entity to be known and, if an entity is misannotated, indicates which resource should be corrected. As recognition is driven by what is expected, if spelling errors occur, they can be corrected. Correcting such errors is highly useful when attempting to lookup an entity in a database or, in the case of chemical names, converting them to structures. Results Our system uses a mixture of expertly curated grammars and dictionaries, as well as dictionaries automatically derived from public resources. We show that the heuristics developed to filter our dictionary of trivial chemical names (from PubChem) yields a better performing dictionary than the previously published Jochem dictionary. Our final system performs post-processing steps to modify the boundaries of entities and to detect abbreviations. These steps are shown to significantly improve performance (2.6% and 4.0% F1-score respectively). Our complete system, with incremental post-BioCreative workshop improvements, achieves 89.9% precision and 85.4% recall (87.6% F1-score) on the CHEMDNER test set. Conclusions Grammar and dictionary approaches can produce results at least as good as the current state of the art in machine learning approaches. While machine learning approaches are commonly thought of as "black box" systems, our approach directly links the output entities to the input dictionaries and grammars. Our approach also allows correction of errors in detected entities, which can assist with entity resolution. PMID:25810776

  4. Physiological arousal in processing recognition information

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Guy Hochman

    2010-07-01

    Full Text Available The recognition heuristic (RH; Goldstein and Gigerenzer, 2002 suggests that, when applicable, probabilistic inferences are based on a noncompensatory examination of whether an object is recognized or not. The overall findings on the processes that underlie this fast and frugal heuristic are somewhat mixed, and many studies have expressed the need for considering a more compensatory integration of recognition information. Regardless of the mechanism involved, it is clear that recognition has a strong influence on choices, and this finding might be explained by the fact that recognition cues arouse affect and thus receive more attention than cognitive cues. To test this assumption, we investigated whether recognition results in a direct affective signal by measuring physiological arousal (i.e., peripheral arterial tone in the established city-size task. We found that recognition of cities does not directly result in increased physiological arousal. Moreover, the results show that physiological arousal increased with increasing inconsistency between recognition information and additional cue information. These findings support predictions derived by a compensatory Parallel Constraint Satisfaction model rather than predictions of noncompensatory models. Additional results concerning confidence ratings, response times, and choice proportions further demonstrated that recognition information and other cognitive cues are integrated in a compensatory manner.

  5. Page Recognition: Quantum Leap In Recognition Technology

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miller, Larry

    1989-07-01

    No milestone has proven as elusive as the always-approaching "year of the LAN," but the "year of the scanner" might claim the silver medal. Desktop scanners have been around almost as long as personal computers. And everyone thinks they are used for obvious desktop-publishing and business tasks like scanning business documents, magazine articles and other pages, and translating those words into files your computer understands. But, until now, the reality fell far short of the promise. Because it's true that scanners deliver an accurate image of the page to your computer, but the software to recognize this text has been woefully disappointing. Old optical-character recognition (OCR) software recognized such a limited range of pages as to be virtually useless to real users. (For example, one OCR vendor specified 12-point Courier font from an IBM Selectric typewriter: the same font in 10-point, or from a Diablo printer, was unrecognizable!) Computer dealers have told me the chasm between OCR expectations and reality is so broad and deep that nine out of ten prospects leave their stores in disgust when they learn the limitations. And this is a very important, very unfortunate gap. Because the promise of recognition -- what people want it to do -- carries with it tremendous improvements in our productivity and ability to get tons of written documents into our computers where we can do real work with it. The good news is that a revolutionary new development effort has led to the new technology of "page recognition," which actually does deliver the promise we've always wanted from OCR. I'm sure every reader appreciates the breakthrough represented by the laser printer and page-makeup software, a combination so powerful it created new reasons for buying a computer. A similar breakthrough is happening right now in page recognition: the Macintosh (and, I must admit, other personal computers) equipped with a moderately priced scanner and OmniPage software (from Caere

  6. Transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) enhances recognition of emotions in faces but not bodies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sellaro, Roberta; de Gelder, Beatrice; Finisguerra, Alessandra; Colzato, Lorenza S

    2018-02-01

    The polyvagal theory suggests that the vagus nerve is the key phylogenetic substrate enabling optimal social interactions, a crucial aspect of which is emotion recognition. A previous study showed that the vagus nerve plays a causal role in mediating people's ability to recognize emotions based on images of the eye region. The aim of this study is to verify whether the previously reported causal link between vagal activity and emotion recognition can be generalized to situations in which emotions must be inferred from images of whole faces and bodies. To this end, we employed transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS), a novel non-invasive brain stimulation technique that causes the vagus nerve to fire by the application of a mild electrical stimulation to the auricular branch of the vagus nerve, located in the anterior protuberance of the outer ear. In two separate sessions, participants received active or sham tVNS before and while performing two emotion recognition tasks, aimed at indexing their ability to recognize emotions from facial and bodily expressions. Active tVNS, compared to sham stimulation, enhanced emotion recognition for whole faces but not for bodies. Our results confirm and further extend recent observations supporting a causal relationship between vagus nerve activity and the ability to infer others' emotional state, but restrict this association to situations in which the emotional state is conveyed by the whole face and/or by salient facial cues, such as eyes. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  7. H-2 restriction: Independent recognition of H-2 and foreign antigen by a single receptor

    Science.gov (United States)

    Siliciano, Robert F.; Zacharchuk, Charles M.; Shin, Hyun S.

    1980-01-01

    We describe two situations in which the recognition of hapten can compensate for the lack of recognition of appropriate H-2 gene products in hapten-specific, H-2 restricted, T lymphocyte-mediated cytolysis. First, we show that although recognition of appropriate H-2 gene products is essential for the lysis of target cells bearing a low hapten density, significant hapten-specific lysis of H-2 inappropriate target cells is observed at high levels of target cell derivatization. Secondly, we show that hapten-conjugated anti-H-2 antibody inhibits cytolysis poorly even though its binding to target cell H-2 antigens is equivalent to that of underivatized antibody. These results suggest that hapten and H-2 are recognized independently and are therefore inconsistent with the altered-self model. Although our data do not exclude the dual-recognition model, we prefer to interpret them within the framework of a single-receptor model in which hapten and H-2 are recognized independently by receptors of identical idiotype on the T cell. We postulate that the affinity of these receptors for the relevant H-2 gene product is low enough so that the T cell is not activated by encounters with normal-self cells expressing that H-2 gene product. However, when self cells express in addition a foreign antigen that can also be recognized by the same receptor, then the force of T cell-target cell interaction may be increased sufficiently to activate T cell effector function. PMID:6966404

  8. Artificial neural network for bubbles pattern recognition on the images

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Poletaev, I E; Pervunin, K S; Tokarev, M P

    2016-01-01

    Two-phase bubble flows have been used in many technological and energy processes as processing oil, chemical and nuclear reactors. This explains large interest to experimental and numerical studies of such flows last several decades. Exploiting of optical diagnostics for analysis of the bubble flows allows researchers obtaining of instantaneous velocity fields and gaseous phase distribution with the high spatial resolution non-intrusively. Behavior of light rays exhibits an intricate manner when they cross interphase boundaries of gaseous bubbles hence the identification of the bubbles images is a complicated problem. This work presents a method of bubbles images identification based on a modern technology of deep learning called convolutional neural networks (CNN). Neural networks are able to determine overlapping, blurred, and non-spherical bubble images. They can increase accuracy of the bubble image recognition, reduce the number of outliers, lower data processing time, and significantly decrease the number of settings for the identification in comparison with standard recognition methods developed before. In addition, usage of GPUs speeds up the learning process of CNN owning to the modern adaptive subgradient optimization techniques. (paper)

  9. DAXX envelops a histone H3.3-H4 dimer for H3.3-specific recognition

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Elsässer, Simon J; Huang, Hongda; Lewis, Peter W; Chin, Jason W; Allis, C David; Patel, Dinshaw J [MSKCC; (Rockefeller); (MRC)

    2013-01-24

    Histone chaperones represent a structurally and functionally diverse family of histone-binding proteins that prevent promiscuous interactions of histones before their assembly into chromatin. DAXX is a metazoan histone chaperone specific to the evolutionarily conserved histone variant H3.3. Here we report the crystal structures of the DAXX histone-binding domain with a histone H3.3–H4 dimer, including mutants within DAXX and H3.3, together with in vitro and in vivo functional studies that elucidate the principles underlying H3.3 recognition specificity. Occupying 40% of the histone surface-accessible area, DAXX wraps around the H3.3–H4 dimer, with complex formation accompanied by structural transitions in the H3.3–H4 histone fold. DAXX uses an extended α-helical conformation to compete with major inter-histone, DNA and ASF1 interaction sites. Our structural studies identify recognition elements that read out H3.3-specific residues, and functional studies address the contributions of Gly90 in H3.3 and Glu225 in DAXX to chaperone-mediated H3.3 variant recognition specificity.

  10. DMBT1 functions as pattern-recognition molecule for poly-sulfated and poly-phosphorylated ligands

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    End, Caroline; Bikker, Floris; Renner, Marcus

    2009-01-01

    at unraveling the molecular basis of its function in mucosal protection and of its broad pathogen-binding specificity. We report that DMBT1 directly interacts with dextran sulfate sodium (DSS) and carrageenan, a structurally similar sulfated polysaccharide, which is used as a texturizer and thickener in human...... dietary products. However, binding of DMBT1 does not reduce the cytotoxic effects of these agents to intestinal epithelial cells in vitro. DSS and carrageenan compete for DMBT1-mediated bacterial aggregation via interaction with its bacterial-recognition motif. Competition and ELISA studies identify poly...

  11. Human Mediator Enhances Activator-Facilitated Recruitment of RNA Polymerase II and Promoter Recognition by TATA-Binding Protein (TBP) Independently of TBP-Associated Factors

    OpenAIRE

    Wu, Shwu-Yuan; Zhou, Tianyuan; Chiang, Cheng-Ming

    2003-01-01

    Mediator is a general cofactor implicated in the functions of many transcriptional activators. Although Mediator with different protein compositions has been isolated, it remains unclear how Mediator facilitates activator-dependent transcription, independent of its general stimulation of basal transcription. To define the mechanisms of Mediator function, we isolated two forms of human Mediator complexes (Mediator-P.5 and Mediator-P.85) and demonstrated that Mediator-P.5 clearly functions by e...

  12. Why We Respond Faster to the Self than to Others? An Implicit Positive Association Theory of Self-Advantage during Implicit Face Recognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ma, Yina; Han, Shihui

    2010-01-01

    Human adults usually respond faster to their own faces rather than to those of others. We tested the hypothesis that an implicit positive association (IPA) with self mediates self-advantage in face recognition through 4 experiments. Using a self-concept threat (SCT) priming that associated the self with negative personal traits and led to a…

  13. Online handwritten mathematical expression recognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Büyükbayrak, Hakan; Yanikoglu, Berrin; Erçil, Aytül

    2007-01-01

    We describe a system for recognizing online, handwritten mathematical expressions. The system is designed with a user-interface for writing scientific articles, supporting the recognition of basic mathematical expressions as well as integrals, summations, matrices etc. A feed-forward neural network recognizes symbols which are assumed to be single-stroke and a recursive algorithm parses the expression by combining neural network output and the structure of the expression. Preliminary results show that writer-dependent recognition rates are very high (99.8%) while writer-independent symbol recognition rates are lower (75%). The interface associated with the proposed system integrates the built-in recognition capabilities of the Microsoft's Tablet PC API for recognizing textual input and supports conversion of hand-drawn figures into PNG format. This enables the user to enter text, mathematics and draw figures in a single interface. After recognition, all output is combined into one LATEX code and compiled into a PDF file.

  14. Side-View Face Recognition

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Santemiz, P.; Spreeuwers, Lieuwe Jan; Veldhuis, Raymond N.J.; van den Biggelaar, Olivier

    As a widely used biometrics, face recognition has many advantages such as being non-intrusive, natural and passive. On the other hand, in real-life scenarios with uncontrolled environment, pose variation up to side-view positions makes face recognition a challenging work. In this paper we discuss

  15. [Neurological disease and facial recognition].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kawamura, Mitsuru; Sugimoto, Azusa; Kobayakawa, Mutsutaka; Tsuruya, Natsuko

    2012-07-01

    To discuss the neurological basis of facial recognition, we present our case reports of impaired recognition and a review of previous literature. First, we present a case of infarction and discuss prosopagnosia, which has had a large impact on face recognition research. From a study of patient symptoms, we assume that prosopagnosia may be caused by unilateral right occipitotemporal lesion and right cerebral dominance of facial recognition. Further, circumscribed lesion and degenerative disease may also cause progressive prosopagnosia. Apperceptive prosopagnosia is observed in patients with posterior cortical atrophy (PCA), pathologically considered as Alzheimer's disease, and associative prosopagnosia in frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD). Second, we discuss face recognition as part of communication. Patients with Parkinson disease show social cognitive impairments, such as difficulty in facial expression recognition and deficits in theory of mind as detected by the reading the mind in the eyes test. Pathological and functional imaging studies indicate that social cognitive impairment in Parkinson disease is possibly related to damages in the amygdalae and surrounding limbic system. The social cognitive deficits can be observed in the early stages of Parkinson disease, and even in the prodromal stage, for example, patients with rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (RBD) show impairment in facial expression recognition. Further, patients with myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM 1), which is a multisystem disease that mainly affects the muscles, show social cognitive impairment similar to that of Parkinson disease. Our previous study showed that facial expression recognition impairment of DM 1 patients is associated with lesion in the amygdalae and insulae. Our study results indicate that behaviors and personality traits in DM 1 patients, which are revealed by social cognitive impairment, are attributable to dysfunction of the limbic system.

  16. Anti-PD-L1/TGFβR2 (M7824) fusion protein induces immunogenic modulation of human urothelial carcinoma cell lines, rendering them more susceptible to immune-mediated recognition and lysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grenga, Italia; Donahue, Renee N; Gargulak, Morgan L; Lepone, Lauren M; Roselli, Mario; Bilusic, Marijo; Schlom, Jeffrey

    2018-03-01

    Avelumab has recently been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the therapy of Merkel cell carcinoma and urothelial carcinoma. M7824 is a novel first-in-class bifunctional fusion protein comprising a monoclonal antibody against programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1, avelumab), fused to the extracellular domain of human transforming growth factor beta (TGFβ) receptor 2, which functions as a TGFβ "trap." Advanced urothelial tumors have been shown to express TGFβ, which possesses immunosuppressive properties that promote cancer progression and metastasis. The rationale for a combined molecule is to block the PD-1/PD-L1 interaction between tumor cells and immune cell infiltrate and simultaneously reduce or eliminate TGFβ from the tumor microenvironment. In this study, we explored the effect of M7824 on invasive urothelial carcinoma cell lines. Human urothelial (transitional cell) carcinoma cell lines HTB-4, HTB-1, and HTB-5 were treated with M7824, M7824mut (M7824 that is mutated in the anti-PD-L1 portion of the molecule and thus does not bind PD-L1), anti-PD-L1 (avelumab), or IgG1 isotype control monoclonal antibody, and were assessed for gene expression, cell-surface phenotype, and sensitivity to lysis by TRAIL, antigen-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes and natural killer cells. M7824 retains the ability to mediate antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity of tumor cells, although in some cases to a lesser extent than anti-PD-L1. However, compared to anti-PD-L1, M7824 increases (A) gene expression of molecules involved in T-cell trafficking in the tumor (e.g., CXCL11), (B) TRAIL-mediated tumor cell lysis, and (C) antigen-specific CD8 + T-cell-mediated lysis of tumor cells. These studies demonstrate the immunomodulatory properties of M7824 on both tumor cell phenotype and immune-mediated lysis. Compared to anti-PD-L1 or M7824mut, M7824 induces immunogenic modulation of urothelial carcinoma cell lines, rendering them more susceptible to immune-mediated

  17. Recognition of an Independent Self-Consciousness

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bjerre, Henrik Jøker

    2009-01-01

    Hegel's concept in the Phenomenology of the Spirit of the "recognition of an independent self-consciousness" is investigated as a point of separation for contemporary philosophy of recognition. I claim that multiculturalism and the theories of recognition (such as Axel Honneth's) based on empiric...... psychology neglect or deny crucial metaphysical aspects of the Hegelian legacy. Instead, I seek to point at an additional, "spiritual", level of recognition, based on the concept of the subject in Lacanian psychoanalysis....

  18. Case-Based Policy and Goal Recognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    2015-09-30

    Policy and Goal Recognizer (PaGR), a case- based system for multiagent keyhole recognition. PaGR is a knowledge recognition component within a decision...However, unlike our agent in the BVR domain, these recognition agents have access to perfect information. Single-agent keyhole plan recognition can be...listed below: 1. Facing Target 2. Closing on Target 3. Target Range 4. Within a Target’s Weapon Range 5. Has Target within Weapon Range 6. Is in Danger

  19. Harmonization versus Mutual Recognition

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jørgensen, Jan Guldager; Schröder, Philipp

    The present paper examines trade liberalization driven by the coordination of product standards. For oligopolistic firms situated in separate markets that are initially sheltered by national standards, mutual recognition of standards implies entry and reduced profits at home paired with the oppor......The present paper examines trade liberalization driven by the coordination of product standards. For oligopolistic firms situated in separate markets that are initially sheltered by national standards, mutual recognition of standards implies entry and reduced profits at home paired...... countries and three firms, where firms first lobby for the policy coordination regime (harmonization versus mutual recognition), and subsequently, in case of harmonization, the global standard is auctioned among the firms. We discuss welfare effects and conclude with policy implications. In particular......, harmonized standards may fail to harvest the full pro-competitive effects from trade liberalization compared to mutual recognition; moreover, the issue is most pronounced in markets featuring price competition....

  20. Genetic determinants of mate recognition in Brachionus manjavacas (Rotifera

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kubanek Julia

    2009-09-01

    , even at synonymous positions, suggests that the repeats are kept nearly identical through a process of concerted evolution. Information-rich molecules like surface glycoproteins are well adapted for chemical communication and aquatic animals may have evolved signaling systems based on these compounds, whereas insects use cuticular hydrocarbons. Conclusion Owing to its critical role in mating, the mate recognition pheromone gene will be a useful molecular marker for exploring the mechanisms and rates of selection and the evolution of reproductive isolation and speciation using rotifers as a model system. The phylogenetic variation in the mate recognition pheromone gene can now be studied in conjunction with the large amount of ecological and population genetic data being gathered for the Brachionus plicatilis species complex to understand better the evolutionary drivers of cryptic speciation.

  1. Non-IgE mediated mast cell activation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Redegeld, Frank A; Yu, Yingxin; Kumari, Sangeeta; Charles, Nicolas; Blank, Ulrich

    2018-03-01

    Mast cells (MCs) are innate immune cells that are scattered in tissues throughout the organism being particularly abundant at sites exposed to the environment such as the skin and mucosal surfaces. Generally known for their role in IgE-mediated allergies, they have also important functions in the maintenance of tissue integrity by constantly sensing their microenvironment for signals by inflammatory triggers that can comprise infectious agents, toxins, hormones, alarmins, metabolic states, etc. When triggered their main function is to release a whole set of inflammatory mediators, cytokines, chemokines, and lipid products. This allows them to organize the ensuing innate immune and inflammatory response in tight coordination with resident tissue cells, other rapidly recruited immune effector cells as well as the endocrine and exocrine systems of the body. To complete these tasks, MCs are endowed with a large repertoire of receptors allowing them to respond to multiple stimuli or directly interact with other cells. Here we review some of the receptors expressed on MCs (ie, receptors for Immunoglobulins, pattern recognition receptors, nuclear receptors, receptors for alarmins, and a variety of other receptors) and discuss their functional implication in the immune and inflammatory response focusing on non-IgE-mediated activation mechanisms. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  2. State Toleration, Religious Recognition and Equality

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lægaard, Sune

    2013-01-01

    In debates about multiculturalism, it is widely claimed that ‘toleration is not enough’ and that we need to go ‘beyond toleration’ to some form of politics of recognition in order to satisfactorily address contemporary forms of cultural diversity (e.g. the presence in Europe of Muslim minorities...... a conceptual question of whether the relation between states and minorities can be categoriseized in terms of recognition or toleration, but about a normative question of whether and how toleration and recognition secures equality. When toleration is inadequate, this is often because it institutionaliseizes...... and upholds specific inequalities. But politics of recognition may equally well institute inequalities, and in such cases unequal recognition may not be preferable to toleration....

  3. Vision-Based Navigation and Recognition

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Rosenfeld, Azriel

    1998-01-01

    .... (4) Invariants: both geometric and other types. (5) Human faces: Analysis of images of human faces, including feature extraction, face recognition, compression, and recognition of facial expressions...

  4. Vision-Based Navigation and Recognition

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Rosenfeld, Azriel

    1996-01-01

    .... (4) Invariants -- both geometric and other types. (5) Human faces: Analysis of images of human faces, including feature extraction, face recognition, compression, and recognition of facial expressions...

  5. Voice congruency facilitates word recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Campeanu, Sandra; Craik, Fergus I M; Alain, Claude

    2013-01-01

    Behavioral studies of spoken word memory have shown that context congruency facilitates both word and source recognition, though the level at which context exerts its influence remains equivocal. We measured event-related potentials (ERPs) while participants performed both types of recognition task with words spoken in four voices. Two voice parameters (i.e., gender and accent) varied between speakers, with the possibility that none, one or two of these parameters was congruent between study and test. Results indicated that reinstating the study voice at test facilitated both word and source recognition, compared to similar or no context congruency at test. Behavioral effects were paralleled by two ERP modulations. First, in the word recognition test, the left parietal old/new effect showed a positive deflection reflective of context congruency between study and test words. Namely, the same speaker condition provided the most positive deflection of all correctly identified old words. In the source recognition test, a right frontal positivity was found for the same speaker condition compared to the different speaker conditions, regardless of response success. Taken together, the results of this study suggest that the benefit of context congruency is reflected behaviorally and in ERP modulations traditionally associated with recognition memory.

  6. Voice congruency facilitates word recognition.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sandra Campeanu

    Full Text Available Behavioral studies of spoken word memory have shown that context congruency facilitates both word and source recognition, though the level at which context exerts its influence remains equivocal. We measured event-related potentials (ERPs while participants performed both types of recognition task with words spoken in four voices. Two voice parameters (i.e., gender and accent varied between speakers, with the possibility that none, one or two of these parameters was congruent between study and test. Results indicated that reinstating the study voice at test facilitated both word and source recognition, compared to similar or no context congruency at test. Behavioral effects were paralleled by two ERP modulations. First, in the word recognition test, the left parietal old/new effect showed a positive deflection reflective of context congruency between study and test words. Namely, the same speaker condition provided the most positive deflection of all correctly identified old words. In the source recognition test, a right frontal positivity was found for the same speaker condition compared to the different speaker conditions, regardless of response success. Taken together, the results of this study suggest that the benefit of context congruency is reflected behaviorally and in ERP modulations traditionally associated with recognition memory.

  7. Side-View Face Recognition

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Santemiz, P.; Spreeuwers, Lieuwe Jan; Veldhuis, Raymond N.J.

    2010-01-01

    Side-view face recognition is a challenging problem with many applications. Especially in real-life scenarios where the environment is uncontrolled, coping with pose variations up to side-view positions is an important task for face recognition. In this paper we discuss the use of side view face

  8. Crossmodal object recognition in rats with and without multimodal object pre-exposure: no effect of hippocampal lesions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reid, James M; Jacklin, Derek L; Winters, Boyer D

    2012-10-01

    The neural mechanisms and brain circuitry involved in the formation, storage, and utilization of multisensory object representations are poorly understood. We have recently introduced a crossmodal object recognition (CMOR) task that enables the study of such questions in rats. Our previous research has indicated that the perirhinal and posterior parietal cortices functionally interact to mediate spontaneous (tactile-to-visual) CMOR performance in rats; however, it remains to be seen whether other brain regions, particularly those receiving polymodal sensory inputs, contribute to this cognitive function. In the current study, we assessed the potential contribution of one such polymodal region, the hippocampus (HPC), to crossmodal object recognition memory. Rats with bilateral excitotoxic HPC lesions were tested in two versions of crossmodal object recognition: (1) the original CMOR task, which requires rats to compare between a stored tactile object representation and visually-presented objects to discriminate the novel and familiar stimuli; and (2) a novel 'multimodal pre-exposure' version of the CMOR task (PE/CMOR), in which simultaneous exploration of the tactile and visual sensory features of an object 24 h prior to the sample phase enhances CMOR performance across longer retention delays. Hippocampus-lesioned rats performed normally on both crossmodal object recognition tasks, but were impaired on a radial arm maze test of spatial memory, demonstrating the functional effectiveness of the lesions. These results strongly suggest that the HPC, despite its polymodal anatomical connections, is not critically involved in tactile-to-visual crossmodal object recognition memory. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  9. Document recognition serving people with disabilities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fruchterman, James R.

    2007-01-01

    Document recognition advances have improved the lives of people with print disabilities, by providing accessible documents. This invited paper provides perspectives on the author's career progression from document recognition professional to social entrepreneur applying this technology to help people with disabilities. Starting with initial thoughts about optical character recognition in college, it continues with the creation of accurate omnifont character recognition that did not require training. It was difficult to make a reading machine for the blind in a commercial setting, which led to the creation of a nonprofit social enterprise to deliver these devices around the world. This network of people with disabilities scanning books drove the creation of Bookshare.org, an online library of scanned books. Looking forward, the needs for improved document recognition technology to further lower the barriers to reading are discussed. Document recognition professionals should be proud of the positive impact their work has had on some of society's most disadvantaged communities.

  10. Evolution of disorder in Mediator complex and its functional relevance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nagulapalli, Malini; Maji, Sourobh; Dwivedi, Nidhi; Dahiya, Pradeep; Thakur, Jitendra K

    2016-02-29

    Mediator, an important component of eukaryotic transcriptional machinery, is a huge multisubunit complex. Though the complex is known to be conserved across all the eukaryotic kingdoms, the evolutionary topology of its subunits has never been studied. In this study, we profiled disorder in the Mediator subunits of 146 eukaryotes belonging to three kingdoms viz., metazoans, plants and fungi, and attempted to find correlation between the evolution of Mediator complex and its disorder. Our analysis suggests that disorder in Mediator complex have played a crucial role in the evolutionary diversification of complexity of eukaryotic organisms. Conserved intrinsic disordered regions (IDRs) were identified in only six subunits in the three kingdoms whereas unique patterns of IDRs were identified in other Mediator subunits. Acquisition of novel molecular recognition features (MoRFs) through evolution of new subunits or through elongation of the existing subunits was evident in metazoans and plants. A new concept of 'junction-MoRF' has been introduced. Evolutionary link between CBP and Med15 has been provided which explain the evolution of extended-IDR in CBP from Med15 KIX-IDR junction-MoRF suggesting role of junction-MoRF in evolution and modulation of protein-protein interaction repertoire. This study can be informative and helpful in understanding the conserved and flexible nature of Mediator complex across eukaryotic kingdoms. © The Author(s) 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

  11. Infant Visual Recognition Memory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rose, Susan A.; Feldman, Judith F.; Jankowski, Jeffery J.

    2004-01-01

    Visual recognition memory is a robust form of memory that is evident from early infancy, shows pronounced developmental change, and is influenced by many of the same factors that affect adult memory; it is surprisingly resistant to decay and interference. Infant visual recognition memory shows (a) modest reliability, (b) good discriminant…

  12. Similarity measures for face recognition

    CERN Document Server

    Vezzetti, Enrico

    2015-01-01

    Face recognition has several applications, including security, such as (authentication and identification of device users and criminal suspects), and in medicine (corrective surgery and diagnosis). Facial recognition programs rely on algorithms that can compare and compute the similarity between two sets of images. This eBook explains some of the similarity measures used in facial recognition systems in a single volume. Readers will learn about various measures including Minkowski distances, Mahalanobis distances, Hansdorff distances, cosine-based distances, among other methods. The book also summarizes errors that may occur in face recognition methods. Computer scientists "facing face" and looking to select and test different methods of computing similarities will benefit from this book. The book is also useful tool for students undertaking computer vision courses.

  13. Bidirectional Modulation of Recognition Memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ho, Jonathan W; Poeta, Devon L; Jacobson, Tara K; Zolnik, Timothy A; Neske, Garrett T; Connors, Barry W; Burwell, Rebecca D

    2015-09-30

    Perirhinal cortex (PER) has a well established role in the familiarity-based recognition of individual items and objects. For example, animals and humans with perirhinal damage are unable to distinguish familiar from novel objects in recognition memory tasks. In the normal brain, perirhinal neurons respond to novelty and familiarity by increasing or decreasing firing rates. Recent work also implicates oscillatory activity in the low-beta and low-gamma frequency bands in sensory detection, perception, and recognition. Using optogenetic methods in a spontaneous object exploration (SOR) task, we altered recognition memory performance in rats. In the SOR task, normal rats preferentially explore novel images over familiar ones. We modulated exploratory behavior in this task by optically stimulating channelrhodopsin-expressing perirhinal neurons at various frequencies while rats looked at novel or familiar 2D images. Stimulation at 30-40 Hz during looking caused rats to treat a familiar image as if it were novel by increasing time looking at the image. Stimulation at 30-40 Hz was not effective in increasing exploration of novel images. Stimulation at 10-15 Hz caused animals to treat a novel image as familiar by decreasing time looking at the image, but did not affect looking times for images that were already familiar. We conclude that optical stimulation of PER at different frequencies can alter visual recognition memory bidirectionally. Significance statement: Recognition of novelty and familiarity are important for learning, memory, and decision making. Perirhinal cortex (PER) has a well established role in the familiarity-based recognition of individual items and objects, but how novelty and familiarity are encoded and transmitted in the brain is not known. Perirhinal neurons respond to novelty and familiarity by changing firing rates, but recent work suggests that brain oscillations may also be important for recognition. In this study, we showed that stimulation of

  14. A semantics of love: Brief notes on desire and recognition in Georges Bataille

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Herivelto Pereira de Souza

    2013-06-01

    Full Text Available According to the Hegelian scheme re-proposed by Honneth, the first pattern of intersubjective recognition, still below the juridical mediation, is the sphere of interactions marked by affective bonds, or love. It is considered a first stage mostly because recognition is rooted in the partners' mutual dependency as needy creatures, which demand care and the emotional approval that follows it. In this sense, a constitutional lacking emerges as the fundamental character of the most primitive kinds of interaction embedded in social norms. And that is important inasmuch the other stages of recognitive practices depend on this first one, in which subjects acquire capacities for rational and moral reasoning and action in the public sphere. However, one could question to what extent the same normative structure can be taking as underlying every loving relationship, as oriented by an affirmation of the subject's independence, while presupposing involuntary feelings of liking and attraction. After all, if the aspirations of reciprocal recognition in this realm are intrinsically related to very concrete features, why taking child caring, friendship and sexual encounter as referred to the same set of recognition patterns? If Honneth's recourse to psychoanalytic theory makes it clear why in all these kinds of interaction is to be found erotic contents of libidinal character, on the other hand one gets no clue on why the very different forms of satisfaction of the drives do not come into consideration. At this point it seems important to recall Georges Bataille's account of sexuality to think not only about the limits of recognition, but also its dialectical structure. The central notion of transgression helps understand why the normative grounds of intersubjective acknowledgment regarding at least some love relationships require a sort of suspension which is not the mere suppression of their validity: the violence that resides at the core of such erotic

  15. Involvement of the oxytocin system in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis in the sex-specific regulation of social recognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dumais, Kelly M.; Alonso, Andrea G.; Immormino, Marisa A.; Bredewold, Remco; Veenema, Alexa H.

    2015-01-01

    Sex differences in the oxytocin (OT) system in the brain may explain why OT often regulates social behaviors in sex-specific ways. However, a link between sex differences in the OT system and sex-specific regulation of social behavior has not been tested. Here, we determined whether sex differences in the OT receptor (OTR) or in OT release in the posterior bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (pBNST) mediates sex-specific regulation of social recognition in rats. We recently showed that, compared to female rats, male rats have a three-fold higher OTR binding density in the pBNST, a sexually dimorphic area implicated in the regulation of social behaviors. We now demonstrate that OTR antagonist (5 ng/0.5 μl/side) administration into the pBNST impairs social recognition in both sexes, while OT (100 pg/0.5 μl/side) administration into the pBNST prolongs the duration of social recognition in males only. These effects seem specific to social recognition, as neither treatment altered total social investigation time in either sex. Moreover, baseline OT release in the pBNST, as measured with in vivo microdialysis, did not differ between the sexes. However, males showed higher OT release in the pBNST during social recognition compared to females. These findings suggest a sex-specific role of the OT system in the pBNST in the regulation of social recognition. PMID:26630388

  16. Involvement of the oxytocin system in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis in the sex-specific regulation of social recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dumais, Kelly M; Alonso, Andrea G; Immormino, Marisa A; Bredewold, Remco; Veenema, Alexa H

    2016-02-01

    Sex differences in the oxytocin (OT) system in the brain may explain why OT often regulates social behaviors in sex-specific ways. However, a link between sex differences in the OT system and sex-specific regulation of social behavior has not been tested. Here, we determined whether sex differences in the OT receptor (OTR) or in OT release in the posterior bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (pBNST) mediates sex-specific regulation of social recognition in rats. We recently showed that, compared to female rats, male rats have a three-fold higher OTR binding density in the pBNST, a sexually dimorphic area implicated in the regulation of social behaviors. We now demonstrate that OTR antagonist (5 ng/0.5 μl/side) administration into the pBNST impairs social recognition in both sexes, while OT (100 pg/0.5 μl/side) administration into the pBNST prolongs the duration of social recognition in males only. These effects seem specific to social recognition, as neither treatment altered total social investigation time in either sex. Moreover, baseline OT release in the pBNST, as measured with in vivo microdialysis, did not differ between the sexes. However, males showed higher OT release in the pBNST during social recognition compared to females. These findings suggest a sex-specific role of the OT system in the pBNST in the regulation of social recognition. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  17. Famous face recognition, face matching, and extraversion.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lander, Karen; Poyarekar, Siddhi

    2015-01-01

    It has been previously established that extraverts who are skilled at interpersonal interaction perform significantly better than introverts on a face-specific recognition memory task. In our experiment we further investigate the relationship between extraversion and face recognition, focusing on famous face recognition and face matching. Results indicate that more extraverted individuals perform significantly better on an upright famous face recognition task and show significantly larger face inversion effects. However, our results did not find an effect of extraversion on face matching or inverted famous face recognition.

  18. The Rac Activator DOCK2 Mediates Plasma Cell Differentiation and IgG Antibody Production.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ushijima, Miho; Uruno, Takehito; Nishikimi, Akihiko; Sanematsu, Fumiyuki; Kamikaseda, Yasuhisa; Kunimura, Kazufumi; Sakata, Daiji; Okada, Takaharu; Fukui, Yoshinori

    2018-01-01

    A hallmark of humoral immune responses is the production of antibodies. This process involves a complex cascade of molecular and cellular interactions, including recognition of specific antigen by the B cell receptor (BCR), which triggers activation of B cells and differentiation into plasma cells (PCs). Although activation of the small GTPase Rac has been implicated in BCR-mediated antigen recognition, its precise role in humoral immunity and the upstream regulator remain elusive. DOCK2 is a Rac-specific guanine nucleotide exchange factor predominantly expressed in hematopoietic cells. We found that BCR-mediated Rac activation was almost completely lost in DOCK2-deficient B cells, resulting in defects in B cell spreading over the target cell-membrane and sustained growth of BCR microclusters at the interface. When wild-type B cells were stimulated in vitro with anti-IgM F(ab') 2 antibody in the presence of IL-4 and IL-5, they differentiated efficiently into PCs. However, BCR-mediated PC differentiation was severely impaired in the case of DOCK2-deficient B cells. Similar results were obtained in vivo when DOCK2-deficient B cells expressing a defined BCR specificity were adoptively transferred into mice and challenged with the cognate antigen. In addition, by generating the conditional knockout mice, we found that DOCK2 expression in B-cell lineage is required to mount antigen-specific IgG antibody. These results highlight important role of the DOCK2-Rac axis in PC differentiation and IgG antibody responses.

  19. Iron deficiency in infancy and neurocognitive functioning at 19 years: evidence of long-term deficits in executive function and recognition memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lukowski, Angela F; Koss, Marlene; Burden, Matthew J; Jonides, John; Nelson, Charles A; Kaciroti, Niko; Jimenez, Elias; Lozoff, Betsy

    2010-04-01

    Iron deficiency in infancy negatively impacts a variety of neurodevelopmental processes at the time of nutrient insufficiency, with persistent central nervous system alterations and deficits in behavioral functioning, despite iron therapy. In rodent models, early iron deficiency impairs the hippocampus and the dopamine system. We examined the possibility that young adults who had experienced chronic, severe, iron deficiency as infants would exhibit deficits on neurocognitive tests with documented frontostriatal (Trail Making Test, Intra-/Extra-dimensional Shift, Stockings of Cambridge, Spatial Working Memory, Rapid Visual Information Processing) and hippocampal specificity (Pattern Recognition Memory, Spatial Recognition Memory). Participants with chronic, severe iron deficiency in infancy performed less well on frontostriatal-mediated executive functions, including inhibitory control, set-shifting, and planning. Participants also exhibited impairment on a hippocampus-based recognition memory task. We suggest that these deficits may result from the long-term effects of early iron deficiency on the dopamine system, the hippocampus, and their interaction.

  20. Kazakh Traditional Dance Gesture Recognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nussipbekov, A. K.; Amirgaliyev, E. N.; Hahn, Minsoo

    2014-04-01

    Full body gesture recognition is an important and interdisciplinary research field which is widely used in many application spheres including dance gesture recognition. The rapid growth of technology in recent years brought a lot of contribution in this domain. However it is still challenging task. In this paper we implement Kazakh traditional dance gesture recognition. We use Microsoft Kinect camera to obtain human skeleton and depth information. Then we apply tree-structured Bayesian network and Expectation Maximization algorithm with K-means clustering to calculate conditional linear Gaussians for classifying poses. And finally we use Hidden Markov Model to detect dance gestures. Our main contribution is that we extend Kinect skeleton by adding headwear as a new skeleton joint which is calculated from depth image. This novelty allows us to significantly improve the accuracy of head gesture recognition of a dancer which in turn plays considerable role in whole body gesture recognition. Experimental results show the efficiency of the proposed method and that its performance is comparable to the state-of-the-art system performances.

  1. Fine-grained recognition of plants from images.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Šulc, Milan; Matas, Jiří

    2017-01-01

    Fine-grained recognition of plants from images is a challenging computer vision task, due to the diverse appearance and complex structure of plants, high intra-class variability and small inter-class differences. We review the state-of-the-art and discuss plant recognition tasks, from identification of plants from specific plant organs to general plant recognition "in the wild". We propose texture analysis and deep learning methods for different plant recognition tasks. The methods are evaluated and compared them to the state-of-the-art. Texture analysis is only applied to images with unambiguous segmentation (bark and leaf recognition), whereas CNNs are only applied when sufficiently large datasets are available. The results provide an insight in the complexity of different plant recognition tasks. The proposed methods outperform the state-of-the-art in leaf and bark classification and achieve very competitive results in plant recognition "in the wild". The results suggest that recognition of segmented leaves is practically a solved problem, when high volumes of training data are available. The generality and higher capacity of state-of-the-art CNNs makes them suitable for plant recognition "in the wild" where the views on plant organs or plants vary significantly and the difficulty is increased by occlusions and background clutter.

  2. Chemical suppressors of mlo-mediated powdery mildew resistance

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Hongpo; Kwaaitaal, Mark; Strugala, Roxana; Schaffrath, Ulrich; Bednarek, Paweł

    2017-01-01

    Loss-of-function of barley mildew locus o (Mlo) confers durable broad-spectrum penetration resistance to the barley powdery mildew pathogen, Blumeria graminis f. sp. hordei (Bgh). Given the importance of mlo mutants in agriculture, surprisingly few molecular components have been identified to be required for this type of resistance in barley. With the aim to identify novel cellular factors contributing to mlo-based resistance, we devised a pharmacological inhibitor screen. Of the 41 rationally chosen compounds tested, five caused a partial suppression of mlo resistance in barley, indicated by increased levels of Bgh host cell entry. These chemicals comprise brefeldin A (BFA), 2′,3′-dideoxyadenosine (DDA), 2-deoxy-d-glucose, spermidine, and 1-aminobenzotriazole. Further inhibitor analysis corroborated a key role for both anterograde and retrograde endomembrane trafficking in mlo resistance. In addition, all four ribonucleosides, some ribonucleoside derivatives, two of the five nucleobases (guanine and uracil), some guanine derivatives as well as various polyamines partially suppress mlo resistance in barley via yet unknown mechanisms. Most of the chemicals identified to be effective in partially relieving mlo resistance in barley also to some extent compromised powdery mildew resistance in an Arabidopsis mlo2 mlo6 double mutant. In summary, our study identified novel suppressors of mlo resistance that may serve as valuable probes to unravel further the molecular processes underlying this unusual type of disease resistance. PMID:29127104

  3. Transfer-Appropriate Processing in Recognition Memory: Perceptual and Conceptual Effects on Recognition Memory Depend on Task Demands

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parks, Colleen M.

    2013-01-01

    Research examining the importance of surface-level information to familiarity in recognition memory tasks is mixed: Sometimes it affects recognition and sometimes it does not. One potential explanation of the inconsistent findings comes from the ideas of dual process theory of recognition and the transfer-appropriate processing framework, which…

  4. Question of Drug Workers under the Prism Theory of Axel Honneth recognition . Human Right to Work and his pretension of Universal Validity

    OpenAIRE

    Maria Cecília Máximo Teodoro; Sabrina Colares Nogueira

    2016-01-01

    Relate the theme regarding the Theory of Recognition Axel Honnet, the human right to work as a human right to claim to universal validity, from the perspective of the Declaration of Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work ILO, for purposes of setting parameters and recognition of social (re) integration of chemical class dependent workers is the main goal of this article. We will analyze the theoretical framework in which the pursuit of human dignity at work is the goal of the state to whic...

  5. Immobilization of redox mediators on functionalized carbon nanotube

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Chemical functionalization of single-walled carbon nanotubes with redox mediators, namely, toluidine blue and thionin have been carried out and the performance of graphite electrode modified with functionalized carbon nanotubes is described. Mechanical immobilization of functionalized single-walled nanotube (SWNT) ...

  6. Emotion recognition in early Parkinson's disease patients undergoing deep brain stimulation or dopaminergic therapy: a comparison to healthy participants

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lindsey G. McIntosh

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Parkinson’s disease (PD is traditionally regarded as a neurodegenerative movement disorder, however, nigrostriatal dopaminergic degeneration is also thought to disrupt non-motor loops connecting basal ganglia to areas in frontal cortex involved in cognition and emotion processing. PD patients are impaired on tests of emotion recognition, but it is difficult to disentangle this deficit from the more general cognitive dysfunction that frequently accompanies disease progression. Testing for emotion recognition deficits early in the disease course, prior to cognitive decline, better assesses the sensitivity of these non-motor corticobasal ganglia-thalamocortical loops involved in emotion processing to early degenerative change in basal ganglia circuits. In addition, contrasting this with a group of healthy aging individuals demonstrates changes in emotion processing specific to the degeneration of basal ganglia circuitry in PD. Early PD patients (EPD were recruited from a randomized clinical trial testing the safety and tolerability of deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus (STN-DBS in early-staged PD. EPD patients were previously randomized to receive optimal drug therapy only (ODT, or drug therapy plus STN-DBS (ODT+DBS. Matched healthy elderly controls (HEC and young controls (HYC also participated in this study. Participants completed two control tasks and three emotion recognition tests that varied in stimulus domain. EPD patients were impaired on all emotion recognition tasks compared to HEC. Neither therapy type (ODT or ODT+DBS nor therapy state (ON/OFF altered emotion recognition performance in this study. Finally, HEC were impaired on vocal emotion recognition relative to HYC, suggesting a decline related to healthy aging. This study supports the existence of impaired emotion recognition early in the PD course, implicating an early disruption of fronto-striatal loops mediating emotional function.

  7. Recognition

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Gimmler, Antje

    2017-01-01

    In this article, I shall examine the cognitive, heuristic and theoretical functions of the concept of recognition. To evaluate both the explanatory power and the limitations of a sociological concept, the theory construction must be analysed and its actual productivity for sociological theory mus...

  8. Pattern Recognition Methods and Features Selection for Speech Emotion Recognition System.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Partila, Pavol; Voznak, Miroslav; Tovarek, Jaromir

    2015-01-01

    The impact of the classification method and features selection for the speech emotion recognition accuracy is discussed in this paper. Selecting the correct parameters in combination with the classifier is an important part of reducing the complexity of system computing. This step is necessary especially for systems that will be deployed in real-time applications. The reason for the development and improvement of speech emotion recognition systems is wide usability in nowadays automatic voice controlled systems. Berlin database of emotional recordings was used in this experiment. Classification accuracy of artificial neural networks, k-nearest neighbours, and Gaussian mixture model is measured considering the selection of prosodic, spectral, and voice quality features. The purpose was to find an optimal combination of methods and group of features for stress detection in human speech. The research contribution lies in the design of the speech emotion recognition system due to its accuracy and efficiency.

  9. A review of multi-threat medical countermeasures against chemical warfare and terrorism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cowan, Fred M; Broomfield, Clarence A; Stojiljkovic, Milos P; Smith, William J

    2004-11-01

    The Multi-Threat Medical Countermeasure (MTMC) hypothesis has been proposed with the aim of developing a single countermeasure drug with efficacy against different pathologies caused by multiple classes of chemical warfare agents. Although sites and mechanisms of action and the pathologies caused by different chemical insults vary, common biochemical signaling pathways, molecular mediators, and cellular processes provide targets for MTMC drugs. This article will review the MTMC hypothesis for blister and nerve agents and will expand the scope of the concept to include other chemicals as well as briefly consider biological agents. The article will also consider how common biochemical signaling pathways, molecular mediators, and cellular processes that contribute to clinical pathologies and syndromes may relate to the toxicity of threat agents. Discovery of MTMC provides the opportunity for the integration of diverse researchers and clinicians, and for the exploitation of cutting-edge technologies and drug discovery. The broad-spectrum nature of MTMC can augment military and civil defense to combat chemical warfare and chemical terrorism.

  10. Face Recognition in Humans and Machines

    Science.gov (United States)

    O'Toole, Alice; Tistarelli, Massimo

    The study of human face recognition by psychologists and neuroscientists has run parallel to the development of automatic face recognition technologies by computer scientists and engineers. In both cases, there are analogous steps of data acquisition, image processing, and the formation of representations that can support the complex and diverse tasks we accomplish with faces. These processes can be understood and compared in the context of their neural and computational implementations. In this chapter, we present the essential elements of face recognition by humans and machines, taking a perspective that spans psychological, neural, and computational approaches. From the human side, we overview the methods and techniques used in the neurobiology of face recognition, the underlying neural architecture of the system, the role of visual attention, and the nature of the representations that emerges. From the computational side, we discuss face recognition technologies and the strategies they use to overcome challenges to robust operation over viewing parameters. Finally, we conclude the chapter with a look at some recent studies that compare human and machine performances at face recognition.

  11. An Introduction to Face Recognition Technology

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shang-Hung Lin

    2000-01-01

    Full Text Available Recently face recognition is attracting much attention in the society of network multimedia information access.  Areas such as network security, content indexing and retrieval, and video compression benefits from face recognition technology because "people" are the center of attention in a lot of video.  Network access control via face recognition not only makes hackers virtually impossible to steal one's "password", but also increases the user-friendliness in human-computer interaction.  Indexing and/or retrieving video data based on the appearances of particular persons will be useful for users such as news reporters, political scientists, and moviegoers.  For the applications of videophone and teleconferencing, the assistance of face recognition also provides a more efficient coding scheme.  In this paper, we give an introductory course of this new information processing technology.  The paper shows the readers the generic framework for the face recognition system, and the variants that are frequently encountered by the face recognizer.  Several famous face recognition algorithms, such as eigenfaces and neural networks, will also be explained.

  12. Paradigms in object recognition

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mutihac, R.; Mutihac, R.C.

    1999-09-01

    A broad range of approaches has been proposed and applied for the complex and rather difficult task of object recognition that involves the determination of object characteristics and object classification into one of many a priori object types. Our paper revises briefly the three main different paradigms in pattern recognition, namely Bayesian statistics, neural networks, and expert systems. (author)

  13. The coevolution of recognition and social behavior.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smead, Rory; Forber, Patrick

    2016-05-26

    Recognition of behavioral types can facilitate the evolution of cooperation by enabling altruistic behavior to be directed at other cooperators and withheld from defectors. While much is known about the tendency for recognition to promote cooperation, relatively little is known about whether such a capacity can coevolve with the social behavior it supports. Here we use evolutionary game theory and multi-population dynamics to model the coevolution of social behavior and recognition. We show that conditional harming behavior enables the evolution and stability of social recognition, whereas conditional helping leads to a deterioration of recognition ability. Expanding the model to include a complex game where both helping and harming interactions are possible, we find that conditional harming behavior can stabilize recognition, and thereby lead to the evolution of conditional helping. Our model identifies a novel hypothesis for the evolution of cooperation: conditional harm may have coevolved with recognition first, thereby helping to establish the mechanisms necessary for the evolution of cooperation.

  14. Chemical exchange in biomacromolecules: Past, present, and future

    Science.gov (United States)

    Palmer, Arthur G.

    2014-01-01

    The perspective reviews quantitative investigations of chemical exchange phenomena in proteins and other biological macromolecules using NMR spectroscopy, particularly relaxation dispersion methods. The emphasis is on techniques and applications that quantify the populations, interconversion kinetics, and structural features of sparsely populated conformational states in equilibrium with a highly populated ground state. Applications to folding, mol ecular recognition, catalysis, and allostery by proteins and nucleic acids are highlighted. PMID:24656076

  15. Malleable machines in transcription regulation: the mediator complex.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Agnes Tóth-Petróczy

    2008-12-01

    Full Text Available The Mediator complex provides an interface between gene-specific regulatory proteins and the general transcription machinery including RNA polymerase II (RNAP II. The complex has a modular architecture (Head, Middle, and Tail and cryoelectron microscopy analysis suggested that it undergoes dramatic conformational changes upon interactions with activators and RNAP II. These rearrangements have been proposed to play a role in the assembly of the preinitiation complex and also to contribute to the regulatory mechanism of Mediator. In analogy to many regulatory and transcriptional proteins, we reasoned that Mediator might also utilize intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs to facilitate structural transitions and transmit transcriptional signals. Indeed, a high prevalence of IDRs was found in various subunits of Mediator from both Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Homo sapiens, especially in the Tail and the Middle modules. The level of disorder increases from yeast to man, although in both organisms it significantly exceeds that of multiprotein complexes of a similar size. IDRs can contribute to Mediator's function in three different ways: they can individually serve as target sites for multiple partners having distinctive structures; they can act as malleable linkers connecting globular domains that impart modular functionality on the complex; and they can also facilitate assembly and disassembly of complexes in response to regulatory signals. Short segments of IDRs, termed molecular recognition features (MoRFs distinguished by a high protein-protein interaction propensity, were identified in 16 and 19 subunits of the yeast and human Mediator, respectively. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the functional roles of 11 MoRFs have been experimentally verified, and those in the Med8/Med18/Med20 and Med7/Med21 complexes were structurally confirmed. Although the Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Homo sapiens Mediator sequences are only weakly conserved, the

  16. General Model for Retroviral Capsid Pattern Recognition by TRIM5 Proteins.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wagner, Jonathan M; Christensen, Devin E; Bhattacharya, Akash; Dawidziak, Daria M; Roganowicz, Marcin D; Wan, Yueping; Pumroy, Ruth A; Demeler, Borries; Ivanov, Dmitri N; Ganser-Pornillos, Barbie K; Sundquist, Wesley I; Pornillos, Owen

    2018-02-15

    Restriction factors are intrinsic cellular defense proteins that have evolved to block microbial infections. Retroviruses such as HIV-1 are restricted by TRIM5 proteins, which recognize the viral capsid shell that surrounds, organizes, and protects the viral genome. TRIM5α uses a SPRY domain to bind capsids with low intrinsic affinity ( K D of >1 mM) and therefore requires higher-order assembly into a hexagonal lattice to generate sufficient avidity for productive capsid recognition. TRIMCyp, on the other hand, binds HIV-1 capsids through a cyclophilin A domain, which has a well-defined binding site and higher affinity ( K D of ∼10 μM) for isolated capsid subunits. Therefore, it has been argued that TRIMCyp proteins have dispensed with the need for higher-order assembly to function as antiviral factors. Here, we show that, consistent with its high degree of sequence similarity with TRIM5α, the TRIMCyp B-box 2 domain shares the same ability to self-associate and facilitate assembly of a TRIMCyp hexagonal lattice that can wrap about the HIV-1 capsid. We also show that under stringent experimental conditions, TRIMCyp-mediated restriction of HIV-1 is indeed dependent on higher-order assembly. Both forms of TRIM5 therefore use the same mechanism of avidity-driven capsid pattern recognition. IMPORTANCE Rhesus macaques and owl monkeys are highly resistant to HIV-1 infection due to the activity of TRIM5 restriction factors. The rhesus macaque TRIM5α protein blocks HIV-1 through a mechanism that requires self-assembly of a hexagonal TRIM5α lattice around the invading viral core. Lattice assembly amplifies very weak interactions between the TRIM5α SPRY domain and the HIV-1 capsid. Assembly also promotes dimerization of the TRIM5α RING E3 ligase domain, resulting in synthesis of polyubiquitin chains that mediate downstream steps of restriction. In contrast to rhesus TRIM5α, the owl monkey TRIM5 homolog, TRIMCyp, binds isolated HIV-1 CA subunits much more tightly

  17. The recognition heuristic: A decade of research

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gerd Gigerenzer

    2011-02-01

    Full Text Available The recognition heuristic exploits the basic psychological capacity for recognition in order to make inferences about unknown quantities in the world. In this article, we review and clarify issues that emerged from our initial work (Goldstein and Gigerenzer, 1999, 2002, including the distinction between a recognition and an evaluation process. There is now considerable evidence that (i the recognition heuristic predicts the inferences of a substantial proportion of individuals consistently, even in the presence of one or more contradicting cues, (ii people are adaptive decision makers in that accordance increases with larger recognition validity and decreases in situations when the validity is low or wholly indeterminable, and (iii in the presence of contradicting cues, some individuals appear to select different strategies. Little is known about these individual differences, or how to precisely model the alternative strategies. Although some researchers have attributed judgments inconsistent with the use of the recognition heuristic to compensatory processing, little research on such compensatory models has been reported. We discuss extensions of the recognition model, open questions, unanticipated results, and the surprising predictive power of recognition in forecasting.

  18. Structural Basis for the Altered PAM Recognition by Engineered CRISPR-Cpf1.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nishimasu, Hiroshi; Yamano, Takashi; Gao, Linyi; Zhang, Feng; Ishitani, Ryuichiro; Nureki, Osamu

    2017-07-06

    The RNA-guided Cpf1 nuclease cleaves double-stranded DNA targets complementary to the CRISPR RNA (crRNA), and it has been harnessed for genome editing technologies. Recently, Acidaminococcus sp. BV3L6 (AsCpf1) was engineered to recognize altered DNA sequences as the protospacer adjacent motif (PAM), thereby expanding the target range of Cpf1-mediated genome editing. Whereas wild-type AsCpf1 recognizes the TTTV PAM, the RVR (S542R/K548V/N552R) and RR (S542R/K607R) variants can efficiently recognize the TATV and TYCV PAMs, respectively. However, their PAM recognition mechanisms remained unknown. Here we present the 2.0 Å resolution crystal structures of the RVR and RR variants bound to a crRNA and its target DNA. The structures revealed that the RVR and RR variants primarily recognize the PAM-complementary nucleotides via the substituted residues. Our high-resolution structures delineated the altered PAM recognition mechanisms of the AsCpf1 variants, providing a basis for the further engineering of CRISPR-Cpf1. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  19. Bilingual Language Switching: Production vs. Recognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mosca, Michela; de Bot, Kees

    2017-01-01

    This study aims at assessing how bilinguals select words in the appropriate language in production and recognition while minimizing interference from the non-appropriate language. Two prominent models are considered which assume that when one language is in use, the other is suppressed. The Inhibitory Control (IC) model suggests that, in both production and recognition, the amount of inhibition on the non-target language is greater for the stronger compared to the weaker language. In contrast, the Bilingual Interactive Activation (BIA) model proposes that, in language recognition, the amount of inhibition on the weaker language is stronger than otherwise. To investigate whether bilingual language production and recognition can be accounted for by a single model of bilingual processing, we tested a group of native speakers of Dutch (L1), advanced speakers of English (L2) in a bilingual recognition and production task. Specifically, language switching costs were measured while participants performed a lexical decision (recognition) and a picture naming (production) task involving language switching. Results suggest that while in language recognition the amount of inhibition applied to the non-appropriate language increases along with its dominance as predicted by the IC model, in production the amount of inhibition applied to the non-relevant language is not related to language dominance, but rather it may be modulated by speakers' unconscious strategies to foster the weaker language. This difference indicates that bilingual language recognition and production might rely on different processing mechanisms and cannot be accounted within one of the existing models of bilingual language processing. PMID:28638361

  20. Stereotype Associations and Emotion Recognition

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bijlstra, Gijsbert; Holland, Rob W.; Dotsch, Ron; Hugenberg, Kurt; Wigboldus, Daniel H. J.

    We investigated whether stereotype associations between specific emotional expressions and social categories underlie stereotypic emotion recognition biases. Across two studies, we replicated previously documented stereotype biases in emotion recognition using both dynamic (Study 1) and static

  1. Extensive protein hydrolyzation is indispensable to prevent IgE-mediated poultry allergen recognition in dogs and cats

    OpenAIRE

    Olivry, Thierry; Bexley, Jennifer; Mougeot, Isabelle

    2017-01-01

    Background The central premise for the commercialization of diets with hydrolyzed ingredients is that the small-sized digested peptides would be unable to crosslink allergen-specific IgE at the surface of tissue mast cells and induce their degranulation. Evidence for the validity of this concept to diagnose food allergies in dogs and cats is limited, however. Our objectives were to study the recognition of standard and variably hydrolyzed poultry extracts by sera from dogs and cats with eleva...

  2. Galeotti on recognition as inclusion

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lægaard, Sune

    2008-01-01

    Anna Elisabetta Galeotti's theory of 'toleration as recognition' has been criticised by Peter Jones for being conceptually incoherent, since liberal toleration presupposes a negative attitude to differences, whereas multicultural recognition requires positive affirmation hereof. The paper spells ...

  3. Recognition of names of eminent psychologists.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Duncan, C P

    1976-10-01

    Faculty members, graduate students, undergraduate majors, and introductory psychology students checked those names they recognized in the list of 228 deceased psychologists, rated for eminence, provided by Annin, Boring, and Watson. Mean percentage recognition was less than 50% for the 128 American psychologists, and less than 25% for the 100 foreign psychologists, by the faculty subjects. The other three groups of subjects gave even lower recognition scores. Recognition was probably also influenced by recency; median year of death of the American psychologists was 1955, of the foreign psychologists, 1943. High recognition (defined as recognition by 80% or more of the faculty group) was achieved by only 34 psychologists, almost all of them American. These highly recognized psychologists also had high eminence ratings, but there was an equal number of psychologists with high eminence ratings that were poorly recognized.

  4. Electrolarynx Voice Recognition Utilizing Pulse Coupled Neural Network

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fatchul Arifin

    2010-08-01

    Full Text Available The laryngectomies patient has no ability to speak normally because their vocal chords have been removed. The easiest option for the patient to speak again is by using electrolarynx speech. This tool is placed on the lower chin. Vibration of the neck while speaking is used to produce sound. Meanwhile, the technology of "voice recognition" has been growing very rapidly. It is expected that the technology of "voice recognition" can also be used by laryngectomies patients who use electrolarynx.This paper describes a system for electrolarynx speech recognition. Two main parts of the system are feature extraction and pattern recognition. The Pulse Coupled Neural Network – PCNN is used to extract the feature and characteristic of electrolarynx speech. Varying of β (one of PCNN parameter also was conducted. Multi layer perceptron is used to recognize the sound patterns. There are two kinds of recognition conducted in this paper: speech recognition and speaker recognition. The speech recognition recognizes specific speech from every people. Meanwhile, speaker recognition recognizes specific speech from specific person. The system ran well. The "electrolarynx speech recognition" has been tested by recognizing of “A” and "not A" voice. The results showed that the system had 94.4% validation. Meanwhile, the electrolarynx speaker recognition has been tested by recognizing of “saya” voice from some different speakers. The results showed that the system had 92.2% validation. Meanwhile, the best β parameter of PCNN for electrolarynx recognition is 3.

  5. Communication Barriers and the Clinical Recognition of Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy in a Diverse Cohort of Adults: The DISTANCE Study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Adams, Alyce S; Parker, Melissa M; Moffet, Howard H; Jaffe, Marc; Schillinger, Dean; Callaghan, Brian; Piette, John; Adler, Nancy E; Bauer, Amy; Karter, Andrew J

    2016-05-01

    The purpose of this study was to explore communication barriers as independent predictors and potential mediators of variation in clinical recognition of diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN). In this cross-sectional analysis, we estimated the likelihood of having a DPN diagnosis among 4,436 patients with DPN symptoms. We controlled for symptom frequency, demographic and clinical characteristics, and visit frequency using a modified Poisson regression model. We then evaluated 4 communication barriers as independent predictors of clinical documentation and as possible mediators of racial/ethnic differences: difficulty speaking English, not talking to one's doctor about pain, limited health literacy, and reports of suboptimal patient-provider communication. Difficulty speaking English and not talking with one's doctor about pain were independently associated with not having a diagnosis, though limited health literacy and suboptimal patient-provider communication were not. Limited English proficiency partially attenuated, but did not fully explain, racial/ethnic differences in clinical documentation among Chinese, Latino, and Filipino patients. Providers should be encouraged to talk with their patients about DPN symptoms, and health systems should consider enhancing strategies to improve timely clinical recognition of DPN among patients who have difficult speaking English. More work is needed to understand persistent racial/ethnic differences in diagnosis.

  6. [Face recognition in patients with schizophrenia].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Doi, Hirokazu; Shinohara, Kazuyuki

    2012-07-01

    It is well known that patients with schizophrenia show severe deficiencies in social communication skills. These deficiencies are believed to be partly derived from abnormalities in face recognition. However, the exact nature of these abnormalities exhibited by schizophrenic patients with respect to face recognition has yet to be clarified. In the present paper, we review the main findings on face recognition deficiencies in patients with schizophrenia, particularly focusing on abnormalities in the recognition of facial expression and gaze direction, which are the primary sources of information of others' mental states. The existing studies reveal that the abnormal recognition of facial expression and gaze direction in schizophrenic patients is attributable to impairments in both perceptual processing of visual stimuli, and cognitive-emotional responses to social information. Furthermore, schizophrenic patients show malfunctions in distributed neural regions, ranging from the fusiform gyrus recruited in the structural encoding of facial stimuli, to the amygdala which plays a primary role in the detection of the emotional significance of stimuli. These findings were obtained from research in patient groups with heterogeneous characteristics. Because previous studies have indicated that impairments in face recognition in schizophrenic patients might vary according to the types of symptoms, it is of primary importance to compare the nature of face recognition deficiencies and the impairments of underlying neural functions across sub-groups of patients.

  7. Chemical groups and structural characterization of lignin via thiol-mediated demethylation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lihong Hu; Hui Pan; Yonghong Zhou; Chung-Yun Hse; Chengguo Liu; Baofang Zhang; Bin Xu

    2014-01-01

    A new approach to increase the reactivity of lignin by thiol-mediated demethylation was investigated in this study. Demethylated lignin was characterized by the changes in its hydroxyl and methoxyl groups, molecular weight, and other properties using titration and spectroscopy methods including FT-IR, 1H NMR, UV,and GPC. The total...

  8. Pattern Recognition Methods and Features Selection for Speech Emotion Recognition System

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pavol Partila

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available The impact of the classification method and features selection for the speech emotion recognition accuracy is discussed in this paper. Selecting the correct parameters in combination with the classifier is an important part of reducing the complexity of system computing. This step is necessary especially for systems that will be deployed in real-time applications. The reason for the development and improvement of speech emotion recognition systems is wide usability in nowadays automatic voice controlled systems. Berlin database of emotional recordings was used in this experiment. Classification accuracy of artificial neural networks, k-nearest neighbours, and Gaussian mixture model is measured considering the selection of prosodic, spectral, and voice quality features. The purpose was to find an optimal combination of methods and group of features for stress detection in human speech. The research contribution lies in the design of the speech emotion recognition system due to its accuracy and efficiency.

  9. Itk tyrosine kinase substrate docking is mediated by a nonclassical SH2 domain surface of PLCgamma1.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Min, Lie; Joseph, Raji E; Fulton, D Bruce; Andreotti, Amy H

    2009-12-15

    Interleukin-2 tyrosine kinase (Itk) is a Tec family tyrosine kinase that mediates signaling processes after T cell receptor engagement. Activation of Itk requires recruitment to the membrane via its pleckstrin homology domain, phosphorylation of Itk by the Src kinase, Lck, and binding of Itk to the SLP-76/LAT adapter complex. After activation, Itk phosphorylates and activates phospholipase C-gamma1 (PLC-gamma1), leading to production of two second messengers, DAG and IP(3). We have previously shown that phosphorylation of PLC-gamma1 by Itk requires a direct, phosphotyrosine-independent interaction between the Src homology 2 (SH2) domain of PLC-gamma1 and the kinase domain of Itk. We now define this docking interface using a combination of mutagenesis and NMR spectroscopy and show that disruption of the Itk/PLCgamma1 docking interaction attenuates T cell signaling. The binding surface on PLCgamma1 that mediates recognition by Itk highlights a nonclassical binding activity of the well-studied SH2 domain providing further evidence that SH2 domains participate in important signaling interactions beyond recognition of phosphotyrosine.

  10. Miniature chemical sensor combining molecular recognition with evanescent wave cavity ring-down spectroscopy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pipino, Andrew C. R.

    2004-01-01

    A new chemical detection technology has been realized that addresses DOE environmental management needs. The new technology is based on a variant of the sensitive optical absorption technique, cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS). Termed evanescent-wave cavity ring-down spectroscopy (EW-CRDS), the technology employs a miniature solid-state optical resonator having an extremely high Q-factor as the sensing element, where the high-Q is achieved by using ultra-low-attenuation optical materials, ultra-smooth surfaces, and ultra-high reflectivity coatings, as well as low-diffraction-loss designs. At least one total-internal reflection (TIR) mirror is integral to the resonator permitting the concomitant evanescent wave to probe the ambient environment. Several prototypes have been designed, fabricated, characterized, and applied to chemical detection. Moreover, extensions of the sensing concept have been explored to enhance selectivity, sensitivity, and range of application. Operating primarily in the visible and near IR regions, the technology inherently enables remote detection by optical fiber. Producing 11 archival publications, 5 patents, 19 invited talks, 4 conference proceedings, a CRADA, and a patent-license agreement, the project has realized a new chemical detection technology providing >100 times more sensitivity than comparable technologies, while also providing practical advantages

  11. Facial recognition in education system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Krithika, L. B.; Venkatesh, K.; Rathore, S.; Kumar, M. Harish

    2017-11-01

    Human beings exploit emotions comprehensively for conveying messages and their resolution. Emotion detection and face recognition can provide an interface between the individuals and technologies. The most successful applications of recognition analysis are recognition of faces. Many different techniques have been used to recognize the facial expressions and emotion detection handle varying poses. In this paper, we approach an efficient method to recognize the facial expressions to track face points and distances. This can automatically identify observer face movements and face expression in image. This can capture different aspects of emotion and facial expressions.

  12. Monitoring caustic injuries from emergency department databases using automatic keyword recognition software.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vignally, P; Fondi, G; Taggi, F; Pitidis, A

    2011-03-31

    In Italy the European Union Injury Database reports the involvement of chemical products in 0.9% of home and leisure accidents. The Emergency Department registry on domestic accidents in Italy and the Poison Control Centres record that 90% of cases of exposure to toxic substances occur in the home. It is not rare for the effects of chemical agents to be observed in hospitals, with a high potential risk of damage - the rate of this cause of hospital admission is double the domestic injury average. The aim of this study was to monitor the effects of injuries caused by caustic agents in Italy using automatic free-text recognition in Emergency Department medical databases. We created a Stata software program to automatically identify caustic or corrosive injury cases using an agent-specific list of keywords. We focused attention on the procedure's sensitivity and specificity. Ten hospitals in six regions of Italy participated in the study. The program identified 112 cases of injury by caustic or corrosive agents. Checking the cases by quality controls (based on manual reading of ED reports), we assessed 99 cases as true positive, i.e. 88.4% of the patients were automatically recognized by the software as being affected by caustic substances (99% CI: 80.6%- 96.2%), that is to say 0.59% (99% CI: 0.45%-0.76%) of the whole sample of home injuries, a value almost three times as high as that expected (p < 0.0001) from European codified information. False positives were 11.6% of the recognized cases (99% CI: 5.1%- 21.5%). Our automatic procedure for caustic agent identification proved to have excellent product recognition capacity with an acceptable level of excess sensitivity. Contrary to our a priori hypothesis, the automatic recognition system provided a level of identification of agents possessing caustic effects that was significantly much greater than was predictable on the basis of the values from current codifications reported in the European Database.

  13. The development of object recognition memory in rhesus macaques with neonatal lesions of the perirhinal cortex

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alyson Zeamer

    2015-02-01

    Full Text Available To investigate the role of the perirhinal cortex on the development of recognition measured by the visual paired-comparison (VPC task, infant monkeys with neonatal perirhinal lesions and sham-operated controls were tested at 1.5, 6, 18, and 48 months of age on the VPC task with color stimuli and intermixed delays of 10 s, 30 s, 60 s, and 120 s. Monkeys with neonatal perirhinal lesions showed an increase in novelty preference between 1.5 and 6 months of age similar to controls, although at these two ages, performance remained significantly poorer than that of control animals. With age, performance in animals with neonatal perirhinal lesions deteriorated as compared to that of controls. In contrast to the lack of novelty preference in monkeys with perirhinal lesions acquired in adulthood, novelty preference in the neonatally operated animals remained above chance at all delays and all ages. The data suggest that, although incidental recognition memory processes can be supported by the perirhinal cortex in early infancy, other temporal cortical areas may support these processes in the absence of a functional perirhinal cortex early in development. The neural substrates mediating incidental recognition memory processes appear to be more widespread in early infancy than in adulthood.

  14. School IPM Recognition and Certification

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schools and school districts can get support and recognition for implementation of school IPM. EPA is developing a program to provide recognition for school districts that are working towards or have achieved a level of success with school IPM programs.

  15. Entity recognition in the biomedical domain using a hybrid approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Basaldella, Marco; Furrer, Lenz; Tasso, Carlo; Rinaldi, Fabio

    2017-11-09

    This article describes a high-recall, high-precision approach for the extraction of biomedical entities from scientific articles. The approach uses a two-stage pipeline, combining a dictionary-based entity recognizer with a machine-learning classifier. First, the OGER entity recognizer, which has a bias towards high recall, annotates the terms that appear in selected domain ontologies. Subsequently, the Distiller framework uses this information as a feature for a machine learning algorithm to select the relevant entities only. For this step, we compare two different supervised machine-learning algorithms: Conditional Random Fields and Neural Networks. In an in-domain evaluation using the CRAFT corpus, we test the performance of the combined systems when recognizing chemicals, cell types, cellular components, biological processes, molecular functions, organisms, proteins, and biological sequences. Our best system combines dictionary-based candidate generation with Neural-Network-based filtering. It achieves an overall precision of 86% at a recall of 60% on the named entity recognition task, and a precision of 51% at a recall of 49% on the concept recognition task. These results are to our knowledge the best reported so far in this particular task.

  16. Fusing Facial Features for Face Recognition

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jamal Ahmad Dargham

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available Face recognition is an important biometric method because of its potential applications in many fields, such as access control, surveillance, and human-computer interaction. In this paper, a face recognition system that fuses the outputs of three face recognition systems based on Gabor jets is presented. The first system uses the magnitude, the second uses the phase, and the third uses the phase-weighted magnitude of the jets. The jets are generated from facial landmarks selected using three selection methods. It was found out that fusing the facial features gives better recognition rate than either facial feature used individually regardless of the landmark selection method.

  17. Face Recognition and Tracking in Videos

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Swapnil Vitthal Tathe

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available Advancement in computer vision technology and availability of video capturing devices such as surveillance cameras has evoked new video processing applications. The research in video face recognition is mostly biased towards law enforcement applications. Applications involves human recognition based on face and iris, human computer interaction, behavior analysis, video surveillance etc. This paper presents face tracking framework that is capable of face detection using Haar features, recognition using Gabor feature extraction, matching using correlation score and tracking using Kalman filter. The method has good recognition rate for real-life videos and robust performance to changes due to illumination, environmental factors, scale, pose and orientations.

  18. Using workflows to explore and optimise named entity recognition for chemistry.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Balakrishna Kolluru

    Full Text Available Chemistry text mining tools should be interoperable and adaptable regardless of system-level implementation, installation or even programming issues. We aim to abstract the functionality of these tools from the underlying implementation via reconfigurable workflows for automatically identifying chemical names. To achieve this, we refactored an established named entity recogniser (in the chemistry domain, OSCAR and studied the impact of each component on the net performance. We developed two reconfigurable workflows from OSCAR using an interoperable text mining framework, U-Compare. These workflows can be altered using the drag-&-drop mechanism of the graphical user interface of U-Compare. These workflows also provide a platform to study the relationship between text mining components such as tokenisation and named entity recognition (using maximum entropy Markov model (MEMM and pattern recognition based classifiers. Results indicate that, for chemistry in particular, eliminating noise generated by tokenisation techniques lead to a slightly better performance than others, in terms of named entity recognition (NER accuracy. Poor tokenisation translates into poorer input to the classifier components which in turn leads to an increase in Type I or Type II errors, thus, lowering the overall performance. On the Sciborg corpus, the workflow based system, which uses a new tokeniser whilst retaining the same MEMM component, increases the F-score from 82.35% to 84.44%. On the PubMed corpus, it recorded an F-score of 84.84% as against 84.23% by OSCAR.

  19. Effects of toxic chemicals on the reproductive system. Council on Scientific Affairs.

    Science.gov (United States)

    1985-06-21

    In an effort to make physicians more aware of the hazards of the workplace to pregnant workers, the Council on Scientific Affairs' Advisory Panel on Reproductive Hazards in the Workplace prepared this third and final report reviewing the effects of chemical exposure. A total of 120 chemicals were considered for reviews based on an estimation of their imminent hazard, ie, widespread use and/or inherent toxicity. Following a brief introduction, which sets out general principles, clinical applications, and aids to the recognition of a human teratogen, the report presents reviews and opinions for three representative chemicals. Information concerning the remaining 117 compounds is available upon request.

  20. Structure of the central RNA recognition motif of human TIA-1 at 1.95 A resolution

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kumar, Amit O.; Swenson, Matthew C.; Benning, Matthew M.; Kielkopf, Clara L.

    2008-01-01

    T-cell-restricted intracellular antigen-1 (TIA-1) regulates alternative pre-mRNA splicing in the nucleus, and mRNA translation in the cytoplasm, by recognizing uridine-rich sequences of RNAs. As a step towards understanding RNA recognition by this regulatory factor, the X-ray structure of the central RNA recognition motif (RRM2) of human TIA-1 is presented at 1.95 A resolution. Comparison with structurally homologous RRM-RNA complexes identifies residues at the RNA interfaces that are conserved in TIA-1-RRM2. The versatile capability of RNP motifs to interact with either proteins or RNA is reinforced by symmetry-related protein-protein interactions mediated by the RNP motifs of TIA-1-RRM2. Importantly, the TIA-1-RRM2 structure reveals the locations of mutations responsible for inhibiting nuclear import. In contrast with previous assumptions, the mutated residues are buried within the hydrophobic interior of the domain, where they would be likely to destabilize the RRM fold rather than directly inhibit RNA binding

  1. An acidic microenvironment sets the humoral pattern recognition molecule PTX3 in a tissue repair mode

    Science.gov (United States)

    Doni, Andrea; Musso, Tiziana; Morone, Diego; Bastone, Antonio; Zambelli, Vanessa; Sironi, Marina; Castagnoli, Carlotta; Cambieri, Irene; Stravalaci, Matteo; Pasqualini, Fabio; Laface, Ilaria; Valentino, Sonia; Tartari, Silvia; Ponzetta, Andrea; Maina, Virginia; Barbieri, Silvia S.; Tremoli, Elena; Catapano, Alberico L.; Norata, Giuseppe D.; Bottazzi, Barbara; Garlanda, Cecilia

    2015-01-01

    Pentraxin 3 (PTX3) is a fluid-phase pattern recognition molecule and a key component of the humoral arm of innate immunity. In four different models of tissue damage in mice, PTX3 deficiency was associated with increased fibrin deposition and persistence, and thicker clots, followed by increased collagen deposition, when compared with controls. Ptx3-deficient macrophages showed defective pericellular fibrinolysis in vitro. PTX3-bound fibrinogen/fibrin and plasminogen at acidic pH and increased plasmin-mediated fibrinolysis. The second exon-encoded N-terminal domain of PTX3 recapitulated the activity of the intact molecule. Thus, a prototypic component of humoral innate immunity, PTX3, plays a nonredundant role in the orchestration of tissue repair and remodeling. Tissue acidification resulting from metabolic adaptation during tissue repair sets PTX3 in a tissue remodeling and repair mode, suggesting that matrix and microbial recognition are common, ancestral features of the humoral arm of innate immunity. PMID:25964372

  2. The Recognition Of Fatigue

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Elsass, Peter; Jensen, Bodil; Mørup, Rikke

    2007-01-01

    Elsass P., Jensen B., Morup R., Thogersen M.H. (2007). The Recognition Of Fatigue: A qualitative study of life-stories from rehabilitation clients. International Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation. 11 (2), 75-87......Elsass P., Jensen B., Morup R., Thogersen M.H. (2007). The Recognition Of Fatigue: A qualitative study of life-stories from rehabilitation clients. International Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation. 11 (2), 75-87...

  3. Forecasting elections with mere recognition from small, lousy samples: A comparison of collective recognition, wisdom of crowds, and representative polls

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wolfgang Gaissmeier

    2011-02-01

    Full Text Available We investigated the extent to which the human capacity for recognition helps to forecast political elections: We compared naive recognition-based election forecasts computed from convenience samples of citizens' recognition of party names to (i standard polling forecasts computed from representative samples of citizens' voting intentions, and to (ii simple---and typically very accurate---wisdom-of-crowds-forecasts computed from the same convenience samples of citizens' aggregated hunches about election results. Results from four major German elections show that mere recognition of party names forecast the parties' electoral success fairly well. Recognition-based forecasts were most competitive with the other models when forecasting the smaller parties' success and for small sample sizes. However, wisdom-of-crowds-forecasts outperformed recognition-based forecasts in most cases. It seems that wisdom-of-crowds-forecasts are able to draw on the benefits of recognition while at the same time avoiding its downsides, such as lack of discrimination among very famous parties or recognition caused by factors unrelated to electoral success. Yet it seems that a simple extension of the recognition-based forecasts---asking people what proportion of the population would recognize a party instead of whether they themselves recognize it---is also able to eliminate these downsides.

  4. Indoor navigation by image recognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Choi, Io Teng; Leong, Chi Chong; Hong, Ka Wo; Pun, Chi-Man

    2017-07-01

    With the progress of smartphones hardware, it is simple on smartphone using image recognition technique such as face detection. In addition, indoor navigation system development is much slower than outdoor navigation system. Hence, this research proves a usage of image recognition technique for navigation in indoor environment. In this paper, we introduced an indoor navigation application that uses the indoor environment features to locate user's location and a route calculating algorithm to generate an appropriate path for user. The application is implemented on Android smartphone rather than iPhone. Yet, the application design can also be applied on iOS because the design is implemented without using special features only for Android. We found that digital navigation system provides better and clearer location information than paper map. Also, the indoor environment is ideal for Image recognition processing. Hence, the results motivate us to design an indoor navigation system using image recognition.

  5. Episodic Short-Term Recognition Requires Encoding into Visual Working Memory: Evidence from Probe Recognition after Letter Report.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Poth, Christian H; Schneider, Werner X

    2016-01-01

    Human vision is organized in discrete processing episodes (e.g., eye fixations or task-steps). Object information must be transmitted across episodes to enable episodic short-term recognition: recognizing whether a current object has been seen in a previous episode. We ask whether episodic short-term recognition presupposes that objects have been encoded into capacity-limited visual working memory (VWM), which retains visual information for report. Alternatively, it could rely on the activation of visual features or categories that occurs before encoding into VWM. We assessed the dependence of episodic short-term recognition on VWM by a new paradigm combining letter report and probe recognition. Participants viewed displays of 10 letters and reported as many as possible after a retention interval (whole report). Next, participants viewed a probe letter and indicated whether it had been one of the 10 letters (probe recognition). In Experiment 1, probe recognition was more accurate for letters that had been encoded into VWM (reported letters) compared with non-encoded letters (non-reported letters). Interestingly, those letters that participants reported in their whole report had been near to one another within the letter displays. This suggests that the encoding into VWM proceeded in a spatially clustered manner. In Experiment 2, participants reported only one of 10 letters (partial report) and probes either referred to this letter, to letters that had been near to it, or far from it. Probe recognition was more accurate for near than for far letters, although none of these letters had to be reported. These findings indicate that episodic short-term recognition is constrained to a small number of simultaneously presented objects that have been encoded into VWM.

  6. Episodic Short-Term Recognition Requires Encoding into Visual Working Memory: Evidence from Probe Recognition after Letter Report

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christian H. Poth

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available Human vision is organized in discrete processing episodes (e.g. eye fixations or task-steps. Object information must be transmitted across episodes to enable episodic short-term recognition: recognizing whether a current object has been seen in a previous episode. We ask whether episodic short-term recognition presupposes that objects have been encoded into capacity-limited visual working memory (VWM, which retains visual information for report. Alternatively, it could rely on the activation of visual features or categories that occurs before encoding into VWM. We assessed the dependence of episodic short-term recognition on VWM by a new paradigm combining letter report and probe recognition. Participants viewed displays of ten letters and reported as many as possible after a retention interval (whole report. Next, participants viewed a probe letter and indicated whether it had been one of the ten letters (probe recognition. In Experiment 1, probe recognition was more accurate for letters that had been encoded into VWM (reported letters compared with non-encoded letters (non-reported letters. Interestingly, those letters that participants reported in their whole report had been near to one another within the letter displays. This suggests that the encoding into VWM proceeded in a spatially clustered manner. In Experiment 2 participants reported only one of ten letters (partial report and probes either referred to this letter, to letters that had been near to it, or far from it. Probe recognition was more accurate for near than for far letters, although none of these letters had to be reported. These findings indicate that episodic short-term recognition is constrained to a small number of simultaneously presented objects that have been encoded into VWM.

  7. Functional Elements on SIRPα IgV domain Mediate Cell Surface Binding to CD47

    OpenAIRE

    Liu, Yuan; Tong, Qiao; Zhou, Yubin; Lee, Hsiau-Wei; Yang, Jenny J.; Bühring, Hans-Jörg; Chen, Yi-Tien; Ha, Binh; Chen, Celia X-J.; Zen, Ke

    2006-01-01

    SIRPα and SIRPβ1, the two major isoforms of the signal regulatory protein (SIRP) family, are co-expressed in human leukocytes but mediate distinct extracellular binding interactions and divergent cell signaling responses. Previous studies have demonstrated that binding of SIRPα with CD47, another important cell surface molecule, through the extracellular IgV domain regulates important leukocyte functions including macrophage recognition, leukocyte adhesion and transmigration. Although SIRPβ1 ...

  8. Computational intelligence in multi-feature visual pattern recognition hand posture and face recognition using biologically inspired approaches

    CERN Document Server

    Pisharady, Pramod Kumar; Poh, Loh Ai

    2014-01-01

    This book presents a collection of computational intelligence algorithms that addresses issues in visual pattern recognition such as high computational complexity, abundance of pattern features, sensitivity to size and shape variations and poor performance against complex backgrounds. The book has 3 parts. Part 1 describes various research issues in the field with a survey of the related literature. Part 2 presents computational intelligence based algorithms for feature selection and classification. The algorithms are discriminative and fast. The main application area considered is hand posture recognition. The book also discusses utility of these algorithms in other visual as well as non-visual pattern recognition tasks including face recognition, general object recognition and cancer / tumor classification. Part 3 presents biologically inspired algorithms for feature extraction. The visual cortex model based features discussed have invariance with respect to appearance and size of the hand, and provide good...

  9. Mirror self-recognition: a review and critique of attempts to promote and engineer self-recognition in primates.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Anderson, James R; Gallup, Gordon G

    2015-10-01

    We review research on reactions to mirrors and self-recognition in nonhuman primates, focusing on methodological issues. Starting with the initial demonstration in chimpanzees in 1970 and subsequent attempts to extend this to other species, self-recognition in great apes is discussed with emphasis on spontaneous manifestations of mirror-guided self-exploration as well as spontaneous use of the mirror to investigate foreign marks on otherwise nonvisible body parts-the mark test. Attempts to show self-recognition in other primates are examined with particular reference to the lack of convincing examples of spontaneous mirror-guided self-exploration, and efforts to engineer positive mark test responses by modifying the test or using conditioning techniques. Despite intensive efforts to demonstrate self-recognition in other primates, we conclude that to date there is no compelling evidence that prosimians, monkeys, or lesser apes-gibbons and siamangs-are capable of mirror self-recognition.

  10. Programmable RNA recognition and cleavage by CRISPR/Cas9.

    Science.gov (United States)

    O'Connell, Mitchell R; Oakes, Benjamin L; Sternberg, Samuel H; East-Seletsky, Alexandra; Kaplan, Matias; Doudna, Jennifer A

    2014-12-11

    The CRISPR-associated protein Cas9 is an RNA-guided DNA endonuclease that uses RNA-DNA complementarity to identify target sites for sequence-specific double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) cleavage. In its native context, Cas9 acts on DNA substrates exclusively because both binding and catalysis require recognition of a short DNA sequence, known as the protospacer adjacent motif (PAM), next to and on the strand opposite the twenty-nucleotide target site in dsDNA. Cas9 has proven to be a versatile tool for genome engineering and gene regulation in a large range of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cell types, and in whole organisms, but it has been thought to be incapable of targeting RNA. Here we show that Cas9 binds with high affinity to single-stranded RNA (ssRNA) targets matching the Cas9-associated guide RNA sequence when the PAM is presented in trans as a separate DNA oligonucleotide. Furthermore, PAM-presenting oligonucleotides (PAMmers) stimulate site-specific endonucleolytic cleavage of ssRNA targets, similar to PAM-mediated stimulation of Cas9-catalysed DNA cleavage. Using specially designed PAMmers, Cas9 can be specifically directed to bind or cut RNA targets while avoiding corresponding DNA sequences, and we demonstrate that this strategy enables the isolation of a specific endogenous messenger RNA from cells. These results reveal a fundamental connection between PAM binding and substrate selection by Cas9, and highlight the utility of Cas9 for programmable transcript recognition without the need for tags.

  11. FILTWAM and Voice Emotion Recognition

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Bahreini, Kiavash; Nadolski, Rob; Westera, Wim

    2014-01-01

    This paper introduces the voice emotion recognition part of our framework for improving learning through webcams and microphones (FILTWAM). This framework enables multimodal emotion recognition of learners during game-based learning. The main goal of this study is to validate the use of microphone

  12. Random-Profiles-Based 3D Face Recognition System

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Joongrock Kim

    2014-03-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, a noble nonintrusive three-dimensional (3D face modeling system for random-profile-based 3D face recognition is presented. Although recent two-dimensional (2D face recognition systems can achieve a reliable recognition rate under certain conditions, their performance is limited by internal and external changes, such as illumination and pose variation. To address these issues, 3D face recognition, which uses 3D face data, has recently received much attention. However, the performance of 3D face recognition highly depends on the precision of acquired 3D face data, while also requiring more computational power and storage capacity than 2D face recognition systems. In this paper, we present a developed nonintrusive 3D face modeling system composed of a stereo vision system and an invisible near-infrared line laser, which can be directly applied to profile-based 3D face recognition. We further propose a novel random-profile-based 3D face recognition method that is memory-efficient and pose-invariant. The experimental results demonstrate that the reconstructed 3D face data consists of more than 50 k 3D point clouds and a reliable recognition rate against pose variation.

  13. Flexible Piezoelectric Sensor-Based Gait Recognition

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Youngsu Cha

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available Most motion recognition research has required tight-fitting suits for precise sensing. However, tight-suit systems have difficulty adapting to real applications, because people normally wear loose clothes. In this paper, we propose a gait recognition system with flexible piezoelectric sensors in loose clothing. The gait recognition system does not directly sense lower-body angles. It does, however, detect the transition between standing and walking. Specifically, we use the signals from the flexible sensors attached to the knee and hip parts on loose pants. We detect the periodic motion component using the discrete time Fourier series from the signal during walking. We adapt the gait detection method to a real-time patient motion and posture monitoring system. In the monitoring system, the gait recognition operates well. Finally, we test the gait recognition system with 10 subjects, for which the proposed system successfully detects walking with a success rate over 93 %.

  14. Iris recognition via plenoptic imaging

    Science.gov (United States)

    Santos-Villalobos, Hector J.; Boehnen, Chris Bensing; Bolme, David S.

    2017-11-07

    Iris recognition can be accomplished for a wide variety of eye images by using plenoptic imaging. Using plenoptic technology, it is possible to correct focus after image acquisition. One example technology reconstructs images having different focus depths and stitches them together, resulting in a fully focused image, even in an off-angle gaze scenario. Another example technology determines three-dimensional data for an eye and incorporates it into an eye model used for iris recognition processing. Another example technology detects contact lenses. Application of the technologies can result in improved iris recognition under a wide variety of scenarios.

  15. Face Recognition using Approximate Arithmetic

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Marso, Karol

    Face recognition is image processing technique which aims to identify human faces and found its use in various different fields for example in security. Throughout the years this field evolved and there are many approaches and many different algorithms which aim to make the face recognition as effective...... processing applications the results do not need to be completely precise and use of the approximate arithmetic can lead to reduction in terms of delay, space and power consumption. In this paper we examine possible use of approximate arithmetic in face recognition using Eigenfaces algorithm....

  16. Pedestrian recognition using automotive radar sensors

    OpenAIRE

    A. Bartsch; F. Fitzek; R. H. Rasshofer

    2012-01-01

    The application of modern series production automotive radar sensors to pedestrian recognition is an important topic in research on future driver assistance systems. The aim of this paper is to understand the potential and limits of such sensors in pedestrian recognition. This knowledge could be used to develop next generation radar sensors with improved pedestrian recognition capabilities. A new raw radar data signal processing algorithm is proposed that allows deep insight...

  17. Cognitive object recognition system (CORS)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Raju, Chaitanya; Varadarajan, Karthik Mahesh; Krishnamurthi, Niyant; Xu, Shuli; Biederman, Irving; Kelley, Troy

    2010-04-01

    We have developed a framework, Cognitive Object Recognition System (CORS), inspired by current neurocomputational models and psychophysical research in which multiple recognition algorithms (shape based geometric primitives, 'geons,' and non-geometric feature-based algorithms) are integrated to provide a comprehensive solution to object recognition and landmarking. Objects are defined as a combination of geons, corresponding to their simple parts, and the relations among the parts. However, those objects that are not easily decomposable into geons, such as bushes and trees, are recognized by CORS using "feature-based" algorithms. The unique interaction between these algorithms is a novel approach that combines the effectiveness of both algorithms and takes us closer to a generalized approach to object recognition. CORS allows recognition of objects through a larger range of poses using geometric primitives and performs well under heavy occlusion - about 35% of object surface is sufficient. Furthermore, geon composition of an object allows image understanding and reasoning even with novel objects. With reliable landmarking capability, the system improves vision-based robot navigation in GPS-denied environments. Feasibility of the CORS system was demonstrated with real stereo images captured from a Pioneer robot. The system can currently identify doors, door handles, staircases, trashcans and other relevant landmarks in the indoor environment.

  18. An audiovisual emotion recognition system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Han, Yi; Wang, Guoyin; Yang, Yong; He, Kun

    2007-12-01

    Human emotions could be expressed by many bio-symbols. Speech and facial expression are two of them. They are both regarded as emotional information which is playing an important role in human-computer interaction. Based on our previous studies on emotion recognition, an audiovisual emotion recognition system is developed and represented in this paper. The system is designed for real-time practice, and is guaranteed by some integrated modules. These modules include speech enhancement for eliminating noises, rapid face detection for locating face from background image, example based shape learning for facial feature alignment, and optical flow based tracking algorithm for facial feature tracking. It is known that irrelevant features and high dimensionality of the data can hurt the performance of classifier. Rough set-based feature selection is a good method for dimension reduction. So 13 speech features out of 37 ones and 10 facial features out of 33 ones are selected to represent emotional information, and 52 audiovisual features are selected due to the synchronization when speech and video fused together. The experiment results have demonstrated that this system performs well in real-time practice and has high recognition rate. Our results also show that the work in multimodules fused recognition will become the trend of emotion recognition in the future.

  19. Mediation Analysis with Multiple Mediators.

    Science.gov (United States)

    VanderWeele, T J; Vansteelandt, S

    2014-01-01

    Recent advances in the causal inference literature on mediation have extended traditional approaches to direct and indirect effects to settings that allow for interactions and non-linearities. In this paper, these approaches from causal inference are further extended to settings in which multiple mediators may be of interest. Two analytic approaches, one based on regression and one based on weighting are proposed to estimate the effect mediated through multiple mediators and the effects through other pathways. The approaches proposed here accommodate exposure-mediator interactions and, to a certain extent, mediator-mediator interactions as well. The methods handle binary or continuous mediators and binary, continuous or count outcomes. When the mediators affect one another, the strategy of trying to assess direct and indirect effects one mediator at a time will in general fail; the approach given in this paper can still be used. A characterization is moreover given as to when the sum of the mediated effects for multiple mediators considered separately will be equal to the mediated effect of all of the mediators considered jointly. The approach proposed in this paper is robust to unmeasured common causes of two or more mediators.

  20. Face recognition in the thermal infrared domain

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kowalski, M.; Grudzień, A.; Palka, N.; Szustakowski, M.

    2017-10-01

    Biometrics refers to unique human characteristics. Each unique characteristic may be used to label and describe individuals and for automatic recognition of a person based on physiological or behavioural properties. One of the most natural and the most popular biometric trait is a face. The most common research methods on face recognition are based on visible light. State-of-the-art face recognition systems operating in the visible light spectrum achieve very high level of recognition accuracy under controlled environmental conditions. Thermal infrared imagery seems to be a promising alternative or complement to visible range imaging due to its relatively high resistance to illumination changes. A thermal infrared image of the human face presents its unique heat-signature and can be used for recognition. The characteristics of thermal images maintain advantages over visible light images, and can be used to improve algorithms of human face recognition in several aspects. Mid-wavelength or far-wavelength infrared also referred to as thermal infrared seems to be promising alternatives. We present the study on 1:1 recognition in thermal infrared domain. The two approaches we are considering are stand-off face verification of non-moving person as well as stop-less face verification on-the-move. The paper presents methodology of our studies and challenges for face recognition systems in the thermal infrared domain.

  1. Micro-Recognition - Erving Goffman as Recognition Thinker

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jacobsen, Michael Hviid; Kristiansen, Søren

    2009-01-01

    and civil inattention guide the conduct of people in many of their face-to-face encounters with each other. This article therefore shows how Goffman may in fact supplement many of the most fashionable and celebrated contemporary recognition theories as advanced by e.g. Nancy Fraser, Charles Taylor or Axel...

  2. Enhanced host–guest electrochemical recognition of herbicide MCPA using a b-cyclodextrin carbon nanotube sensor

    OpenAIRE

    Rahemi, V.; Vandamme, J.J.; Garrido, J.M.P.J.; Borges, F.; Brett, C.M.A.; Garrido, E.M.P.J.

    2012-01-01

    An electrochemical sensor for the determination of the chlorophenoxy herbicide MCPA has been developed, based on a combination of multi-walled carbon nanotubes with incorporated b-cyclodextrin and a polyaniline film modified glassy carbon electrode. The proposed molecular host–guest recogni-tion based sensor has a high electrochemical sensitivity for the determination of MCPA. The electrochemical behaviour of MCPA at the chemically modified electrode was investigated in detail by cyclic volta...

  3. A wearable fingernail chemical sensing platform: pH sensing at your fingertips.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Jayoung; Cho, Thomas N; Valdés-Ramírez, Gabriela; Wang, Joseph

    2016-04-01

    This article demonstrates an example of a wearable chemical sensor based on a fingernail platform. Fingernails represent an attractive wearable platform, merging beauty products with chemical sensing, to enable monitoring of our surrounding environment. The new colorimetric pH fingernail sensor relies on coating artificial nails with a recognition layer consisted of pH indicators entrapped in a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) matrix. Such color changing fingernails offer fast and reversible response to pH changes, repeated use, and intense color change detected easily with naked eye. The PVC matrix prevents leaching out of the indicator molecules from the fingernail sensor toward such repeated use. The limited narrow working pH range of a single pH indicator has been addressed by multiplexing three different pH indicators: bromothymol blue (pH 6.0-7.6), bromocresol green (pH 3.8-5.4), and cresol red (pH 7.2-8.8), as demonstrated for analyses of real-life samples of acidic, neutral, and basic character. The new concept of an optical wearable chemical sensor on fingernail platforms can be expanded towards diverse analytes for various applications in connection to the judicious design of the recognition layer. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  4. The Rac Activator DOCK2 Mediates Plasma Cell Differentiation and IgG Antibody Production

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Miho Ushijima

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available A hallmark of humoral immune responses is the production of antibodies. This process involves a complex cascade of molecular and cellular interactions, including recognition of specific antigen by the B cell receptor (BCR, which triggers activation of B cells and differentiation into plasma cells (PCs. Although activation of the small GTPase Rac has been implicated in BCR-mediated antigen recognition, its precise role in humoral immunity and the upstream regulator remain elusive. DOCK2 is a Rac-specific guanine nucleotide exchange factor predominantly expressed in hematopoietic cells. We found that BCR-mediated Rac activation was almost completely lost in DOCK2-deficient B cells, resulting in defects in B cell spreading over the target cell-membrane and sustained growth of BCR microclusters at the interface. When wild-type B cells were stimulated in vitro with anti-IgM F(ab′2 antibody in the presence of IL-4 and IL-5, they differentiated efficiently into PCs. However, BCR-mediated PC differentiation was severely impaired in the case of DOCK2-deficient B cells. Similar results were obtained in vivo when DOCK2-deficient B cells expressing a defined BCR specificity were adoptively transferred into mice and challenged with the cognate antigen. In addition, by generating the conditional knockout mice, we found that DOCK2 expression in B-cell lineage is required to mount antigen-specific IgG antibody. These results highlight important role of the DOCK2–Rac axis in PC differentiation and IgG antibody responses.

  5. Data structures, computer graphics, and pattern recognition

    CERN Document Server

    Klinger, A; Kunii, T L

    1977-01-01

    Data Structures, Computer Graphics, and Pattern Recognition focuses on the computer graphics and pattern recognition applications of data structures methodology.This book presents design related principles and research aspects of the computer graphics, system design, data management, and pattern recognition tasks. The topics include the data structure design, concise structuring of geometric data for computer aided design, and data structures for pattern recognition algorithms. The survey of data structures for computer graphics systems, application of relational data structures in computer gr

  6. Auditory Modeling for Noisy Speech Recognition

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    2000-01-01

    ... digital filtering for noise cancellation which interfaces to speech recognition software. It uses auditory features in speech recognition training, and provides applications to multilingual spoken language translation...

  7. Forensic Face Recognition: A Survey

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ali, Tauseef; Veldhuis, Raymond N.J.; Spreeuwers, Lieuwe Jan

    2010-01-01

    Beside a few papers which focus on the forensic aspects of automatic face recognition, there is not much published about it in contrast to the literature on developing new techniques and methodologies for biometric face recognition. In this report, we review forensic facial identification which is

  8. Journal of Chemical Sciences | Indian Academy of Sciences

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Home; Journals; Journal of Chemical Sciences; Volume 129; Issue 6. Metal free synthesis of functionalized 1-aryl isoquinolines via iodine mediated oxidative dehydrogenation and ring opening of lactam in isoindoloisoquinolinones. KAMSALI MURALI MOHAN ACHARI MUTHUPANDI KARTHICK CHINNASAMY RAMARAJ ...

  9. The recognition heuristic: a review of theory and tests.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pachur, Thorsten; Todd, Peter M; Gigerenzer, Gerd; Schooler, Lael J; Goldstein, Daniel G

    2011-01-01

    The recognition heuristic is a prime example of how, by exploiting a match between mind and environment, a simple mental strategy can lead to efficient decision making. The proposal of the heuristic initiated a debate about the processes underlying the use of recognition in decision making. We review research addressing four key aspects of the recognition heuristic: (a) that recognition is often an ecologically valid cue; (b) that people often follow recognition when making inferences; (c) that recognition supersedes further cue knowledge; (d) that its use can produce the less-is-more effect - the phenomenon that lesser states of recognition knowledge can lead to more accurate inferences than more complete states. After we contrast the recognition heuristic to other related concepts, including availability and fluency, we carve out, from the existing findings, some boundary conditions of the use of the recognition heuristic as well as key questions for future research. Moreover, we summarize developments concerning the connection of the recognition heuristic with memory models. We suggest that the recognition heuristic is used adaptively and that, compared to other cues, recognition seems to have a special status in decision making. Finally, we discuss how systematic ignorance is exploited in other cognitive mechanisms (e.g., estimation and preference).

  10. The Recognition Heuristic: A Review of Theory and Tests

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Thorsten ePachur

    2011-07-01

    Full Text Available The recognition heuristic is a prime example of how, by exploiting a match between mind and environment, a simple mental strategy can lead to efficient decision making. The proposal of the heuristic initiated a debate about the processes underlying the use of recognition in decision making. We review research addressing four key aspects of the recognition heuristic: (a that recognition is often an ecologically valid cue; (b that people often follow recognition when making inferences; (c that recognition supersedes further cue knowledge; (d that its use can produce the less-is-more effect—the phenomenon that lesser states of recognition knowledge can lead to more accurate inferences than more complete states. After we contrast the recognition heuristic to other related concepts, including availability and fluency, we carve out, from the existing findings, some boundary conditions of the use of the recognition heuristic as well as key questions for future research. Moreover, we summarize developments concerning the connection of the recognition heuristic with memory models. We suggest that the recognition heuristic is used adaptively and that, compared to other cues, recognition seems to have a special status in decision making. Finally, we discuss how systematic ignorance is exploited in other cognitive mechanisms (e.g., estimation and preference.

  11. The Recognition Heuristic: A Review of Theory and Tests

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pachur, Thorsten; Todd, Peter M.; Gigerenzer, Gerd; Schooler, Lael J.; Goldstein, Daniel G.

    2011-01-01

    The recognition heuristic is a prime example of how, by exploiting a match between mind and environment, a simple mental strategy can lead to efficient decision making. The proposal of the heuristic initiated a debate about the processes underlying the use of recognition in decision making. We review research addressing four key aspects of the recognition heuristic: (a) that recognition is often an ecologically valid cue; (b) that people often follow recognition when making inferences; (c) that recognition supersedes further cue knowledge; (d) that its use can produce the less-is-more effect – the phenomenon that lesser states of recognition knowledge can lead to more accurate inferences than more complete states. After we contrast the recognition heuristic to other related concepts, including availability and fluency, we carve out, from the existing findings, some boundary conditions of the use of the recognition heuristic as well as key questions for future research. Moreover, we summarize developments concerning the connection of the recognition heuristic with memory models. We suggest that the recognition heuristic is used adaptively and that, compared to other cues, recognition seems to have a special status in decision making. Finally, we discuss how systematic ignorance is exploited in other cognitive mechanisms (e.g., estimation and preference). PMID:21779266

  12. Research on Face Recognition Based on Embedded System

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hong Zhao

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Because a number of image feature data to store, complex calculation to execute during the face recognition, therefore the face recognition process was realized only by PCs with high performance. In this paper, the OpenCV facial Haar-like features were used to identify face region; the Principal Component Analysis (PCA was employed in quick extraction of face features and the Euclidean Distance was also adopted in face recognition; as thus, data amount and computational complexity would be reduced effectively in face recognition, and the face recognition could be carried out on embedded platform. Finally, based on Tiny6410 embedded platform, a set of embedded face recognition systems was constructed. The test results showed that the system has stable operation and high recognition rate can be used in portable and mobile identification and authentication.

  13. L2 Word Recognition: Influence of L1 Orthography on Multi-Syllabic Word Recognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hamada, Megumi

    2017-01-01

    L2 reading research suggests that L1 orthographic experience influences L2 word recognition. Nevertheless, the findings on multi-syllabic words in English are still limited despite the fact that a vast majority of words are multi-syllabic. The study investigated whether L1 orthography influences the recognition of multi-syllabic words, focusing on…

  14. Recognition of Prior Learning, Self-Realisation and Identity within Axel Honneth's Theory of Recognition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sandberg, Fredrik; Kubiak, Chris

    2013-01-01

    This paper argues for the significance of Axel Honneth's theory of recognition for understanding recognition of prior learning (RPL). Case studies of the experiences of RPL by paraprofessional workers in health and social care in the UK and Sweden are used to explicate this significance. The results maintain that there are varying conditions of…

  15. Hidden neural networks: application to speech recognition

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Riis, Søren Kamaric

    1998-01-01

    We evaluate the hidden neural network HMM/NN hybrid on two speech recognition benchmark tasks; (1) task independent isolated word recognition on the Phonebook database, and (2) recognition of broad phoneme classes in continuous speech from the TIMIT database. It is shown how hidden neural networks...

  16. Pattern recognition and string matching

    CERN Document Server

    Cheng, Xiuzhen

    2002-01-01

    The research and development of pattern recognition have proven to be of importance in science, technology, and human activity. Many useful concepts and tools from different disciplines have been employed in pattern recognition. Among them is string matching, which receives much theoretical and practical attention. String matching is also an important topic in combinatorial optimization. This book is devoted to recent advances in pattern recognition and string matching. It consists of twenty eight chapters written by different authors, addressing a broad range of topics such as those from classifica­ tion, matching, mining, feature selection, and applications. Each chapter is self-contained, and presents either novel methodological approaches or applications of existing theories and techniques. The aim, intent, and motivation for publishing this book is to pro­ vide a reference tool for the increasing number of readers who depend upon pattern recognition or string matching in some way. This includes student...

  17. Mobile Visual Recognition on Smartphones

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zhenwen Gui

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper addresses the recognition of large-scale outdoor scenes on smartphones by fusing outputs of inertial sensors and computer vision techniques. The main contributions can be summarized as follows. Firstly, we propose an ORD (overlap region divide method to plot image position area, which is fast enough to find the nearest visiting area and can also reduce the search range compared with the traditional approaches. Secondly, the vocabulary tree-based approach is improved by introducing GAGCC (gravity-aligned geometric consistency constraint. Our method involves no operation in the high-dimensional feature space and does not assume a global transform between a pair of images. Thus, it substantially reduces the computational complexity and memory usage, which makes the city scale image recognition feasible on the smartphone. Experiments on a collected database including 0.16 million images show that the proposed method demonstrates excellent recognition performance, while maintaining the average recognition time about 1 s.

  18. Recognition Using Classification and Segmentation Scoring

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Kimball, Owen; Ostendorf, Mari; Rohlicek, Robin

    1992-01-01

    .... We describe an approach to connected word recognition that allows the use of segmental information through an explicit decomposition of the recognition criterion into classification and segmentation scoring...

  19. [Measuring impairment of facial affects recognition in schizophrenia. Preliminary study of the facial emotions recognition task (TREF)].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gaudelus, B; Virgile, J; Peyroux, E; Leleu, A; Baudouin, J-Y; Franck, N

    2015-06-01

    The impairment of social cognition, including facial affects recognition, is a well-established trait in schizophrenia, and specific cognitive remediation programs focusing on facial affects recognition have been developed by different teams worldwide. However, even though social cognitive impairments have been confirmed, previous studies have also shown heterogeneity of the results between different subjects. Therefore, assessment of personal abilities should be measured individually before proposing such programs. Most research teams apply tasks based on facial affects recognition by Ekman et al. or Gur et al. However, these tasks are not easily applicable in a clinical exercise. Here, we present the Facial Emotions Recognition Test (TREF), which is designed to identify facial affects recognition impairments in a clinical practice. The test is composed of 54 photos and evaluates abilities in the recognition of six universal emotions (joy, anger, sadness, fear, disgust and contempt). Each of these emotions is represented with colored photos of 4 different models (two men and two women) at nine intensity levels from 20 to 100%. Each photo is presented during 10 seconds; no time limit for responding is applied. The present study compared the scores of the TREF test in a sample of healthy controls (64 subjects) and people with stabilized schizophrenia (45 subjects) according to the DSM IV-TR criteria. We analysed global scores for all emotions, as well as sub scores for each emotion between these two groups, taking into account gender differences. Our results were coherent with previous findings. Applying TREF, we confirmed an impairment in facial affects recognition in schizophrenia by showing significant differences between the two groups in their global results (76.45% for healthy controls versus 61.28% for people with schizophrenia), as well as in sub scores for each emotion except for joy. Scores for women were significantly higher than for men in the population

  20. Object feature extraction and recognition model

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wan Min; Xiang Rujian; Wan Yongxing

    2001-01-01

    The characteristics of objects, especially flying objects, are analyzed, which include characteristics of spectrum, image and motion. Feature extraction is also achieved. To improve the speed of object recognition, a feature database is used to simplify the data in the source database. The feature vs. object relationship maps are stored in the feature database. An object recognition model based on the feature database is presented, and the way to achieve object recognition is also explained

  1. A Bayesian classifier for symbol recognition

    OpenAIRE

    Barrat , Sabine; Tabbone , Salvatore; Nourrissier , Patrick

    2007-01-01

    URL : http://www.buyans.com/POL/UploadedFile/134_9977.pdf; International audience; We present in this paper an original adaptation of Bayesian networks to symbol recognition problem. More precisely, a descriptor combination method, which enables to improve significantly the recognition rate compared to the recognition rates obtained by each descriptor, is presented. In this perspective, we use a simple Bayesian classifier, called naive Bayes. In fact, probabilistic graphical models, more spec...

  2. Hierarchical Recognition Scheme for Human Facial Expression Recognition Systems

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Muhammad Hameed Siddiqi

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available Over the last decade, human facial expressions recognition (FER has emerged as an important research area. Several factors make FER a challenging research problem. These include varying light conditions in training and test images; need for automatic and accurate face detection before feature extraction; and high similarity among different expressions that makes it difficult to distinguish these expressions with a high accuracy. This work implements a hierarchical linear discriminant analysis-based facial expressions recognition (HL-FER system to tackle these problems. Unlike the previous systems, the HL-FER uses a pre-processing step to eliminate light effects, incorporates a new automatic face detection scheme, employs methods to extract both global and local features, and utilizes a HL-FER to overcome the problem of high similarity among different expressions. Unlike most of the previous works that were evaluated using a single dataset, the performance of the HL-FER is assessed using three publicly available datasets under three different experimental settings: n-fold cross validation based on subjects for each dataset separately; n-fold cross validation rule based on datasets; and, finally, a last set of experiments to assess the effectiveness of each module of the HL-FER separately. Weighted average recognition accuracy of 98.7% across three different datasets, using three classifiers, indicates the success of employing the HL-FER for human FER.

  3. Hierarchical Recognition Scheme for Human Facial Expression Recognition Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Siddiqi, Muhammad Hameed; Lee, Sungyoung; Lee, Young-Koo; Khan, Adil Mehmood; Truc, Phan Tran Ho

    2013-01-01

    Over the last decade, human facial expressions recognition (FER) has emerged as an important research area. Several factors make FER a challenging research problem. These include varying light conditions in training and test images; need for automatic and accurate face detection before feature extraction; and high similarity among different expressions that makes it difficult to distinguish these expressions with a high accuracy. This work implements a hierarchical linear discriminant analysis-based facial expressions recognition (HL-FER) system to tackle these problems. Unlike the previous systems, the HL-FER uses a pre-processing step to eliminate light effects, incorporates a new automatic face detection scheme, employs methods to extract both global and local features, and utilizes a HL-FER to overcome the problem of high similarity among different expressions. Unlike most of the previous works that were evaluated using a single dataset, the performance of the HL-FER is assessed using three publicly available datasets under three different experimental settings: n-fold cross validation based on subjects for each dataset separately; n-fold cross validation rule based on datasets; and, finally, a last set of experiments to assess the effectiveness of each module of the HL-FER separately. Weighted average recognition accuracy of 98.7% across three different datasets, using three classifiers, indicates the success of employing the HL-FER for human FER. PMID:24316568

  4. Deficits in recognizing disgust facial expressions and Internet addiction: Perceived stress as a mediator.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Zhongting; Poon, Kai-Tak; Cheng, Cecilia

    2017-08-01

    Studies have examined social maladjustment among individuals with Internet addiction, but little is known about their deficits in specific social skills and the underlying psychological mechanisms. The present study filled these gaps by (a) establishing a relationship between deficits in facial expression recognition and Internet addiction, and (b) examining the mediating role of perceived stress that explains this hypothesized relationship. Ninety-seven participants completed validated questionnaires that assessed their levels of Internet addiction and perceived stress, and performed a computer-based task that measured their facial expression recognition. The results revealed a positive relationship between deficits in recognizing disgust facial expression and Internet addiction, and this relationship was mediated by perceived stress. However, the same findings did not apply to other facial expressions. Ad hoc analyses showed that recognizing disgust was more difficult than recognizing other facial expressions, reflecting that the former task assesses a social skill that requires cognitive astuteness. The present findings contribute to the literature by identifying a specific social skill deficit related to Internet addiction and by unveiling a psychological mechanism that explains this relationship, thus providing more concrete guidelines for practitioners to strengthen specific social skills that mitigate both perceived stress and Internet addiction. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  5. Applying the social cognitive perspective to volunteer intention in China: the mediating roles of self-efficacy and motivation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Ji-Wei; Wei, Chang-Nian; Harada, Koichi; Minamoto, Keiko; Ueda, Kimiyo; Cui, Hong-Wei; Zhang, Cheng-Gang; Cui, Zhi-Ting; Ueda, Atsushi

    2011-06-01

    When predicting volunteer intention, much attention is paid to the volunteer organization environment (VOE). Given that self-efficacy and motivation have emerged as important predictors of volunteer intention, we adopted a combination of ideas of Bandura's social cognitive theory and Ajzen's theory of planned behavior integrating VOE, self-efficacy and motivation to examine their effects on volunteer intention and to determine whether self-efficacy and motivation mediate the relationship between VOE and volunteer intention. The subjects of this study consisted of 198 community health volunteers in Shanghai city, China. Exploratory factor analysis was performed to identify the factor structure using standard principal component analysis. Six new factors were revealed, including two VOE factors, relation with organization and support from government; two motivation factors, personal attitude and social recognition; self-efficacy and volunteer intention. The results of a hierarchical regression analysis indicated that relation with organization accounted for 14.8% of the variance in volunteer intention, and support from government failed to add significantly to variance in volunteer intention; self-efficacy and personal attitude motivation partially mediated the effects of relation with organization on volunteer intention; social recognition motivation did not mediate the relationship between relation with organization and volunteer intention; and relation with organization, self-efficacy and personal attitude motivation accounted for 33.7% of the variance in volunteer intention. These results provide support for self-efficacy and personal attitude motivation as mediators and provide preliminary insight into the potential mechanisms for predicting volunteer intention and improving volunteering by integrating VOE, self-efficacy and motivation factors.

  6. Improved RGB-D-T based Face Recognition

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Oliu Simon, Marc; Corneanu, Ciprian; Nasrollahi, Kamal

    2016-01-01

    years. At the same time a multimodal facial recognition is a promising approach. This paper combines the latest successes in both directions by applying deep learning Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) to the multimodal RGB-D-T based facial recognition problem outperforming previously published results......Reliable facial recognition systems are of crucial importance in various applications from entertainment to security. Thanks to the deep-learning concepts introduced in the field, a significant improvement in the performance of the unimodal facial recognition systems has been observed in the recent...

  7. Unequal recognition, misrecognition and injustice

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lægaard, Sune

    2012-01-01

    by the state of religious minorities. It argues that state–religion relations can be analysed as relations of recognition, which are not only unequal but also multi-dimensional, and that it is difficult to answer the question whether multi-dimensional recognitive inequalities are unjust or wrong if one...

  8. Degraded character recognition based on gradient pattern

    Science.gov (United States)

    Babu, D. R. Ramesh; Ravishankar, M.; Kumar, Manish; Wadera, Kevin; Raj, Aakash

    2010-02-01

    Degraded character recognition is a challenging problem in the field of Optical Character Recognition (OCR). The performance of an optical character recognition depends upon printed quality of the input documents. Many OCRs have been designed which correctly identifies the fine printed documents. But, very few reported work has been found on the recognition of the degraded documents. The efficiency of the OCRs system decreases if the input image is degraded. In this paper, a novel approach based on gradient pattern for recognizing degraded printed character is proposed. The approach makes use of gradient pattern of an individual character for recognition. Experiments were conducted on character image that is either digitally written or a degraded character extracted from historical documents and the results are found to be satisfactory.

  9. Deep neural networks rival the representation of primate IT cortex for core visual object recognition.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Charles F Cadieu

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available The primate visual system achieves remarkable visual object recognition performance even in brief presentations, and under changes to object exemplar, geometric transformations, and background variation (a.k.a. core visual object recognition. This remarkable performance is mediated by the representation formed in inferior temporal (IT cortex. In parallel, recent advances in machine learning have led to ever higher performing models of object recognition using artificial deep neural networks (DNNs. It remains unclear, however, whether the representational performance of DNNs rivals that of the brain. To accurately produce such a comparison, a major difficulty has been a unifying metric that accounts for experimental limitations, such as the amount of noise, the number of neural recording sites, and the number of trials, and computational limitations, such as the complexity of the decoding classifier and the number of classifier training examples. In this work, we perform a direct comparison that corrects for these experimental limitations and computational considerations. As part of our methodology, we propose an extension of "kernel analysis" that measures the generalization accuracy as a function of representational complexity. Our evaluations show that, unlike previous bio-inspired models, the latest DNNs rival the representational performance of IT cortex on this visual object recognition task. Furthermore, we show that models that perform well on measures of representational performance also perform well on measures of representational similarity to IT, and on measures of predicting individual IT multi-unit responses. Whether these DNNs rely on computational mechanisms similar to the primate visual system is yet to be determined, but, unlike all previous bio-inspired models, that possibility cannot be ruled out merely on representational performance grounds.

  10. Recognition of microbial glycolipids by Natural Killer T cells

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dirk Michael Zajonc

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available T cells can recognize microbial antigens when presented by dedicated antigen-presenting molecules. While peptides are presented by classical members of the Major Histocompatibility (MHC family (MHC I and II, lipids, glycolipids and lipopeptides can be presented by the non-classical MHC member CD1. The best studied subset of lipid-reactive T cells are Type I Natural killer T (iNKT cells that recognize a variety of different antigens when presented by the non-classical MHCI homolog CD1d. iNKT cells have been shown to be important for the protection against various microbial pathogens, including B. burgdorferi the causative agents of Lyme disease and S. pneumoniae, which causes pneumococcal meningitis and community-acquired pneumonia. Both pathogens carry microbial glycolipids that can trigger the T cell antigen receptor (TCR, leading to iNKT cell activation. iNKT cells have an evolutionary conserved TCR alpha chain, yet retain the ability to recognize structurally diverse glycolipids. They do so using a conserved recognition mode, in which the TCR enforces a conserved binding orientation on CD1d. TCR binding is accompanied by structural changes within the TCR binding site of CD1d, as well as the glycolipid antigen itself. In addition to direct recognition of microbial antigens, iNKT cells can also be activated by a combination of cytokines (IL-12/IL-18 and TCR stimulation. Many microbes carry TLR antigens and microbial infections can lead to TLR activation. The subsequent cytokine response in turn lower the threshold of TCR mediated iNKT cell activation, especially when weak microbial or even self-antigens are presented during the cause of the infection. In summary, iNKT cells can be directly activated through TCR triggering of strong antigens, while cytokines produced by the innate immune response may be necessary for TCR triggering and iNKT cell activation in the presence of weak antigens. Here we will review the molecular basis of iNKT cell

  11. Cooperation between Epstein-Barr Virus Immune Evasion Proteins Spreads Protection from CD8+ T Cell Recognition across All Three Phases of the Lytic Cycle

    Science.gov (United States)

    Quinn, Laura L.; Zuo, Jianmin; Abbott, Rachel J. M.; Shannon-Lowe, Claire; Tierney, Rosemary J.; Hislop, Andrew D.; Rowe, Martin

    2014-01-01

    CD8+ T cell responses to Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) lytic cycle expressed antigens display a hierarchy of immunodominance, in which responses to epitopes of immediate-early (IE) and some early (E) antigens are more frequently observed than responses to epitopes of late (L) expressed antigens. It has been proposed that this hierarchy, which correlates with the phase-specific efficiency of antigen presentation, may be due to the influence of viral immune-evasion genes. At least three EBV-encoded genes, BNLF2a, BGLF5 and BILF1, have the potential to inhibit processing and presentation of CD8+ T cell epitopes. Here we examined the relative contribution of these genes to modulation of CD8+ T cell recognition of EBV lytic antigens expressed at different phases of the replication cycle in EBV-transformed B-cells (LCLs) which spontaneously reactivate lytic cycle. Selective shRNA-mediated knockdown of BNLF2a expression led to more efficient recognition of immediate-early (IE)- and early (E)-derived epitopes by CD8+ T cells, while knock down of BILF1 increased recognition of epitopes from E and late (L)-expressed antigens. Contrary to what might have been predicted from previous ectopic expression studies in EBV-negative model cell lines, the shRNA-mediated inhibition of BGLF5 expression in LCLs showed only modest, if any, increase in recognition of epitopes expressed in any phase of lytic cycle. These data indicate that whilst BNLF2a interferes with antigen presentation with diminishing efficiency as lytic cycle progresses (IE>E>>L), interference by BILF1 increases with progression through lytic cycle (IEevasion functions are actually relevant in the context of lytic virus replication, and secondly identify lytic-cycle phase-specific effects that provide mechanistic insight into the immunodominance pattern seen for CD8+ T cell responses to EBV lytic antigens. PMID:25144360

  12. Role of free radicals in radiation chemical aging

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Greenstock, C L

    1986-01-01

    Ionizing radiation initiates chemical changes in DNA, phospholipid membranes and other critical cell targets, that, if allowed to accumulate unrepaired, may lead to aging and other chronic effects. The chemical effects are free radical mediated, the principal damaging species being radical OH and to a lesser extent O2-anion radical and the molecular product H/sub 2/O/sub 2/. Many compounds can act in combination with ionizing radiation, to amplify the potential oxidative stress. Chemicals, ultra-violet light, lipid peroxides and their breakdown products may increase the extent of acute and chronic radiobiological effects.

  13. [Face recognition in patients with autism spectrum disorders].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kita, Yosuke; Inagaki, Masumi

    2012-07-01

    The present study aimed to review previous research conducted on face recognition in patients with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Face recognition is a key question in the ASD research field because it can provide clues for elucidating the neural substrates responsible for the social impairment of these patients. Historically, behavioral studies have reported low performance and/or unique strategies of face recognition among ASD patients. However, the performance and strategy of ASD patients is comparable to those of the control group, depending on the experimental situation or developmental stage, suggesting that face recognition of ASD patients is not entirely impaired. Recent brain function studies, including event-related potential and functional magnetic resonance imaging studies, have investigated the cognitive process of face recognition in ASD patients, and revealed impaired function in the brain's neural network comprising the fusiform gyrus and amygdala. This impaired function is potentially involved in the diminished preference for faces, and in the atypical development of face recognition, eliciting symptoms of unstable behavioral characteristics in these patients. Additionally, face recognition in ASD patients is examined from a different perspective, namely self-face recognition, and facial emotion recognition. While the former topic is intimately linked to basic social abilities such as self-other discrimination, the latter is closely associated with mentalizing. Further research on face recognition in ASD patients should investigate the connection between behavioral and neurological specifics in these patients, by considering developmental changes and the spectrum clinical condition of ASD.

  14. Progesterone impairs social recognition in male rats.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bychowski, Meaghan E; Auger, Catherine J

    2012-04-01

    The influence of progesterone in the brain and on the behavior of females is fairly well understood. However, less is known about the effect of progesterone in the male system. In male rats, receptors for progesterone are present in virtually all vasopressin (AVP) immunoreactive cells in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BST) and the medial amygdala (MeA). This colocalization functions to regulate AVP expression, as progesterone and/or progestin receptors (PR)s suppress AVP expression in these same extrahypothalamic regions in the brain. These data suggest that progesterone may influence AVP-dependent behavior. While AVP is implicated in numerous behavioral and physiological functions in rodents, AVP appears essential for social recognition of conspecifics. Therefore, we examined the effects of progesterone on social recognition. We report that progesterone plays an important role in modulating social recognition in the male brain, as progesterone treatment leads to a significant impairment of social recognition in male rats. Moreover, progesterone appears to act on PRs to impair social recognition, as progesterone impairment of social recognition is blocked by a PR antagonist, RU-486. Social recognition is also impaired by a specific progestin agonist, R5020. Interestingly, we show that progesterone does not interfere with either general memory or olfactory processes, suggesting that progesterone seems critically important to social recognition memory. These data provide strong evidence that physiological levels of progesterone can have an important impact on social behavior in male rats. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  15. Host cell virus entry mediated by Australian bat lyssavirus G envelope glycoprotein occurs through a clathrin-mediated endocytic pathway that requires actin and Rab5.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weir, Dawn L; Laing, Eric D; Smith, Ina L; Wang, Lin-Fa; Broder, Christopher C

    2014-02-27

    Australian bat lyssavirus (ABLV), a rhabdovirus of the genus Lyssavirus which circulates in both pteropid fruit bats and insectivorous bats in mainland Australia, has caused three fatal human infections, the most recent in February 2013, manifested as acute neurological disease indistinguishable from clinical rabies. Rhabdoviruses infect host cells through receptor-mediated endocytosis and subsequent pH-dependent fusion mediated by their single envelope glycoprotein (G), but the specific host factors and pathways involved in ABLV entry have not been determined. ABLV internalization into HEK293T cells was examined using maxGFP-encoding recombinant vesicular stomatitis viruses (rVSV) that express ABLV G glycoproteins. A combination of chemical and molecular approaches was used to investigate the contribution of different endocytic pathways to ABLV entry. Dominant negative Rab GTPases were used to identify the endosomal compartment utilized by ABLV to gain entry into the host cell cytosol. Here we show that ABLV G-mediated entry into HEK293T cells was significantly inhibited by the dynamin-specific inhibitor dynasore, chlorpromazine, a drug that blocks clathrin-mediated endocytosis, and the actin depolymerizing drug latrunculin B. Over expression of dominant negative mutants of Eps15 and Rab5 also significantly reduced ABLV G-mediated entry into HEK293T cells. Chemical inhibitors of caveolae-dependent endocytosis and macropinocytosis and dominant negative mutants of Rab7 and Rab11 had no effect on ABLV entry. The predominant pathway utilized by ABLV for internalization into HEK293T cells is clathrin-and actin-dependent. The requirement of Rab5 for productive infection indicates that ABLV G-mediated fusion occurs within the early endosome compartment.

  16. Potential health effects associated with dermal exposure to occupational chemicals.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Anderson, Stacey E; Meade, B Jean

    2014-01-01

    There are a large number of workers in the United States, spanning a variety of occupational industries and sectors, who are potentially exposed to chemicals that can be absorbed through the skin. Occupational skin exposures can result in numerous diseases that can adversely affect an individual's health and capacity to perform at work. In general, there are three types of chemical-skin interactions of concern: direct skin effects, immune-mediated skin effects, and systemic effects. While hundreds of chemicals (metals, epoxy and acrylic resins, rubber additives, and chemical intermediates) present in virtually every industry have been identified to cause direct and immune-mediated effects such as contact dermatitis or urticaria, less is known about the number and types of chemicals contributing to systemic effects. In an attempt to raise awareness, skin notation assignments communicate the potential for dermal absorption; however, there is a need for standardization among agencies to communicate an accurate description of occupational hazards. Studies have suggested that exposure to complex mixtures, excessive hand washing, use of hand sanitizers, high frequency of wet work, and environmental or other factors may enhance penetration and stimulate other biological responses altering the outcomes of dermal chemical exposure. Understanding the hazards of dermal exposure is essential for the proper implementation of protective measures to ensure worker safety and health.

  17. RGB-D-T based Face Recognition

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nikisins, Olegs; Nasrollahi, Kamal; Greitans, Modris

    2014-01-01

    Facial images are of critical importance in many real-world applications from gaming to surveillance. The current literature on facial image analysis, from face detection to face and facial expression recognition, are mainly performed in either RGB, Depth (D), or both of these modalities. But......, such analyzes have rarely included Thermal (T) modality. This paper paves the way for performing such facial analyzes using synchronized RGB-D-T facial images by introducing a database of 51 persons including facial images of different rotations, illuminations, and expressions. Furthermore, a face recognition...... algorithm has been developed to use these images. The experimental results show that face recognition using such three modalities provides better results compared to face recognition in any of such modalities in most of the cases....

  18. Intact suppression of increased false recognition in schizophrenia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weiss, Anthony P; Dodson, Chad S; Goff, Donald C; Schacter, Daniel L; Heckers, Stephan

    2002-09-01

    Recognition memory is impaired in patients with schizophrenia, as they rely largely on item familiarity, rather than conscious recollection, to make mnemonic decisions. False recognition of novel items (foils) is increased in schizophrenia and may relate to this deficit in conscious recollection. By studying pictures of the target word during encoding, healthy adults can suppress false recognition. This study examined the effect of pictorial encoding on subsequent recognition of repeated foils in patients with schizophrenia. The study included 40 patients with schizophrenia and 32 healthy comparison subjects. After incidental encoding of 60 words or pictures, subjects were tested for recognition of target items intermixed with 60 new foils. These new foils were subsequently repeated following either a two- or 24-word delay. Subjects were instructed to label these repeated foils as new and not to mistake them for old target words. Schizophrenic patients showed greater overall false recognition of repeated foils. The rate of false recognition of repeated foils was lower after picture encoding than after word encoding. Despite higher levels of false recognition of repeated new items, patients and comparison subjects demonstrated a similar degree of false recognition suppression after picture, as compared to word, encoding. Patients with schizophrenia displayed greater false recognition of repeated foils than comparison subjects, suggesting both a decrement of item- (or source-) specific recollection and a consequent reliance on familiarity in schizophrenia. Despite these deficits, presenting pictorial information at encoding allowed schizophrenic subjects to suppress false recognition to a similar degree as the comparison group, implying the intact use of a high-level cognitive strategy in this population.

  19. Prevalence of face recognition deficits in middle childhood.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bennetts, Rachel J; Murray, Ebony; Boyce, Tian; Bate, Sarah

    2017-02-01

    Approximately 2-2.5% of the adult population is believed to show severe difficulties with face recognition, in the absence of any neurological injury-a condition known as developmental prosopagnosia (DP). However, to date no research has attempted to estimate the prevalence of face recognition deficits in children, possibly because there are very few child-friendly, well-validated tests of face recognition. In the current study, we examined face and object recognition in a group of primary school children (aged 5-11 years), to establish whether our tests were suitable for children and to provide an estimate of face recognition difficulties in children. In Experiment 1 (n = 184), children completed a pre-existing test of child face memory, the Cambridge Face Memory Test-Kids (CFMT-K), and a bicycle test with the same format. In Experiment 2 (n = 413), children completed three-alternative forced-choice matching tasks with faces and bicycles. All tests showed good psychometric properties. The face and bicycle tests were well matched for difficulty and showed a similar developmental trajectory. Neither the memory nor the matching tests were suitable to detect impairments in the youngest groups of children, but both tests appear suitable to screen for face recognition problems in middle childhood. In the current sample, 1.2-5.2% of children showed difficulties with face recognition; 1.2-4% showed face-specific difficulties-that is, poor face recognition with typical object recognition abilities. This is somewhat higher than previous adult estimates: It is possible that face matching tests overestimate the prevalence of face recognition difficulties in children; alternatively, some children may "outgrow" face recognition difficulties.

  20. Low levels of chemical anthropogenic pollution may threaten amphibians by impairing predator recognition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Polo-Cavia, Nuria; Burraco, Pablo; Gomez-Mestre, Ivan

    2016-03-01

    Recent studies suggest that direct mortality and physiological effects caused by pollutants are major contributing factors to global amphibian decline. However, even sublethal concentrations of pollutants could be harmful if they combined with other factors to cause high mortality in amphibians. Here we show that sublethal concentrations of pollutants can disrupt the ability of amphibian larvae to recognize predators, hence increasing their risk of predation. This effect is indeed much more important since very low amounts of pollutants are ubiquitous, and environmental efforts are mostly directed towards preventing lethal spills. We analyzed the effects of two common contaminants (humic acid and ammonium nitrate) on the ability of tadpoles of the western spadefoot toad (Pelobates cultripes) to recognize chemical cues from a common predator, nymphs of the dragonfly Anax imperator. We compared the swimming activity of tadpoles in the presence and absence of water-borne chemical cues from dragonflies at different concentrations of humic acid and ammonium nitrate. Tadpoles reduced swimming activity in response to predator cues in the absence of pollutants, whereas they remained unresponsive to these cues when either humic acid or ammonium nitrate was added to the water, even at low concentrations. Moreover, changes in tadpole activity associated with the pollutants themselves were non-significant, indicating no toxic effect. Alteration of the natural chemical environment of aquatic systems by pollutants may be an important contributing cause for declines in amphibian populations, even at sublethal concentrations. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.