Full issue

Full issue of Humboldt Journal of Social Relations Volume 47, Place-Based Digital Inquir

A kinematic examination of dual-route processing for action imitation

The dual-route model of imitation suggests that meaningful and meaningless actions are processed through either an indirect or direct route, respectively. Evidence indicates that the direct route is more cognitively demanding, since it relies on mapping visuospatial properties of the observed action on to a performed one. These cognitive demands might negatively influence reaction time and accuracy for actions performed following a meaningless action under time constraints. However, how meaningful and meaningless action imitation processing is reflected in movement kinematics is not yet clear. We wanted to confirm whether meaningless action performance incurs a reaction time cost, whether the cost is reflected in kinematics, and, more generally, to examine kinematic markers of emblematic meaningful and meaningless action imitation. We examined participants’ reaction time and wrist movements when they imitated emblematic meaningful or matched meaningless gestures in either blocks of the same action type, or mixed blocks. Meaningless actions were associated with a greater correction period at the end of the movement, possibly reflecting a strategy designed to ensure accurate completion for less familiar actions under time constraints. Furthermore, in mixed blocks, trials following meaningless actions had a significantly increased reaction time, supporting previous claims that route selection for action imitation may be stimulus-driven. However, there was only convincing evidence for this effect with an interval of ~2948ms, but not ~3573ms or ~2553ms, between movements. Future work motion-tracking the entire hand to assess imitation accuracy, and more closely examining the influence of duration between movements, may help to explain these effects

Freedom and constraints in the K3 landscape

We consider ``magnetized brane'' compactifications of the type I/heterotic string on K3 with U(1) background fluxes. The gauge group and matter content of the resulting six-dimensional vacua are parameterized by a matrix encoding a lattice contained within the even, self-dual lattice Γ[superscript 3,19]. Mathematical results of Nikulin on lattice embeddings make possible a simple classification of all such solutions. We find that every six-dimensional theory parameterized in this way by a negative semi-definite matrix whose trace satisfies a simple tadpole constraint can be realized as a K3 compactification. This approach makes it possible to explicitly and efficiently construct all models in this class with any particular allowed gauge group and matter content, so that one can immediately ``dial-a-model'' with desired properties

Medicinal plants used by women in Mecca: urban, Muslim and gendered knowledge

Background: This study explores medicinal plant knowledge and use among Muslim women in the city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Ethnobotanical research in the region has focused on rural populations and male herbal healers in cities, and based on these few studies, it is suggested that medicinal plant knowledge may be eroding. Here, we document lay, female knowledge of medicinal plants in an urban centre, interpreting findings in the light of the growing field of urban ethnobotany and gendered knowledge and in an Islamic context. Methods: Free-listing, structured and semi-structured interviews were used to document the extent of medicinal plant knowledge among 32 Meccan women. Vernacular names, modes of preparation and application, intended therapeutic use and emic toxicological remarks were recorded. Women were asked where they learnt about medicinal plants and if and when they preferred using medicinal plants over biomedical resources. Prior informed consent was always obtained. We compared the list of medicinal plants used by these Meccan women with medicinal plants previously documented in published literature. Results: One hundred eighteen vernacular names were collected, corresponding to approximately 110 plants, including one algae. Of these, 95 were identified at the species level and 39 (41%) had not been previously cited in Saudi Arabian medicinal plant literature. Almost one half of the plants cited are food and flavouring plants. Meccan women interviewed learn about medicinal plants from their social network, mass media and written sources, and combine biomedical and medicinal plant health care. However, younger women more often prefer biomedical resources and learn from written sources and mass media. Conclusions: The fairly small number of interviews conducted in this study was sufficient to reveal the singular body of medicinal plant knowledge held by women in Mecca and applied to treat common ailments. Plant availability in local shops and markets and inclusion in religious texts seem to shape the botanical diversity used by the Meccan women interviewed, and the use of foods and spices medicinally could be a global feature of urban ethnobotany. Ethnobotanical knowledge among women in Islamic communities may be changing due to access to mass media and biomedicine. We recognise the lack of documentation of the diversity of medicinal plant knowledge in the Arabian Peninsula and an opportunity to better understand gendered urban and rural knowledge

UMaine Libraries Magazine, 2024

UMaine Libraries Magazine is an annual publication of Raymond H. Fogler Library, University of Maine, Merrill Library at the University of Maine at Machias, Maine InfoNet, and the University of Maine Press. In this issue 5 Best Practices, Best Care : Nursing Students in DigitalCommons 6 Home on the Hill : Your Inventor, My Family 7 Once a Black Bear, Always a Black Bear 8 Can Fogler Help Save a Vanishing Coastal Maine Marsh? 10 Funding Neverland : Resources for Seeking Funding12 Book Talk Has Come to Fogler Library 13 Turning the Page : UMaine Press Celebrates Its Legacy and Looks Toward Its Future14 Patently Irresistible : Maine\u27s 21st Century Patent and Trademark Resource Center16 Salon and Thanks for Everything! 18 Remembering Raymond H. Fogler21 A New System and a New Era : Introducing Alma and Primo22 Merrill Library\u27s Washingtonia Digitization Project23 This Year in (Call) Numbershttps://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/librariesmagazine/1000/thumbnail.jp

Chylous ascites as the main manifestation of left ventricular dysfunction: a case report

BACKGROUND: Ascites is one of the most common complications of liver diseases, even though in 15% of the cases it is related to extrahepatic diseases; 3% are of cardiac nature and they appear associated with signs and symptoms of heart failure. CASE PRESENTATION: A 70 year old man was admitted with more than one year history of abdominal distension and a weight gain of 10 kilograms. He is asymptomatic and walks 2000–3000 meters a day without angor or dyspnea. The physical examination shows moderate abdominal distension, with no hepatosplenomegaly or edema, and there is mild jugular vein distension. The studies performed (complete laboratory work up, paracentesis, liver biopsy, echocardiogram, intrahepatic pressure measurements, etc.) showed a chylous ascites related to portal hypertension, and left ventricular dysfunction was the only probable cause found. CONCLUSION: Asymptomatic heart dysfunction can mimic liver disease and should be kept in mind as a cause of chylous ascites

Reverting estrogen-receptor-negative phenotype in HER-2-overexpressing advanced breast cancer patients exposed to trastuzumab plus chemotherapy

INTRODUCTION: The amounts of estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PgR) in a primary tumor are predictive of the response to endocrine therapies of breast cancer. Several patients with ER-positive primary tumors relapse after adjuvant endocrine therapy with no ER expression in the recurrent tissue; much fewer with a recurrent disease after an ER-negative primary tumor may become endocrine responsive. These sequences of events indicate that a phenotype based on ER expression may not be a permanent feature of breast cancer. METHODS: Ten patients with advanced breast cancer whose tumors overexpressed HER-2, but not ER or PgR, were treated with weekly trastuzumab at standard doses with or without chemotherapy. RESULTS: Three out of 10 patients showed overexpression of ERs first appearing after 9, 12 and 37 weeks, respectively, from the initiation of trastuzumab. Two of these patients were subsequently treated with endocrine therapy alone: one of them received letrozole for 3 years without evidence of progression. CONCLUSION: Therapeutic targets enabling the appearance of an endocrine responsive disease may increase treatment options for patients with breast cancer. Furthermore, these clinical data suggest that an ER-negative phenotype is a multi-step process with a reversible repression modality, and that some ER-negative tumors may either revert to an ER-positive phenotype, allowing an endocrine treatment to be effective

Molecular signatures of liver dysfunction are distinct in fungal and bacterial infections in mice

Rationale: The liver is a central organ not only for metabolism but also immune function. Life-threatening infections of both bacterial and fungal origin can affect liver function but it is yet unknown whether molecular changes differ depending on the pathogen. We aimed to determine whether the hepatic host response to bacterial and fungal infections differs in terms of hepatic metabolism and liver function. // Methods: We compared murine models of infection, including bacterial peritoneal contamination and infection (PCI), intraperitoneal and systemic C. albicans infection, at 6 and 24 h post-infection, to sham controls. The molecular hepatic host response was investigated by the detection of regulatory modules based on large-scale protein-protein interaction networks and expression data. Topological analysis of these regulatory modules was used to reveal infection-specific biological processes and molecular mechanisms. Intravital microscopy and immunofluorescence microscopy were used to further analyze specific aspects of pathophysiology such as cholestasis. // Results: Down-regulation of lipid catabolism and bile acid synthesis was observed after 6 h in all infection groups. Alterations in lipid catabolism were characterized by accumulation of long chain acylcarnitines and defective beta-oxidation, which affected metabolism by 6 h. While PCI led to an accumulation of unconjugated bile acids (BA), C. albicans infection caused accumulation of conjugated BA independent of the route of infection. Hepatic dye clearance and transporter expression revealed reduced hepatic uptake in fungal infections vs. defects in secretion following polybacterial infection. // Conclusion: Molecular phenotypes of lipid accumulation and cholestasis allow differentiation between pathogens as well as routes of infection at early stages in mice. Targeted metabolomics could be a useful tool for the profiling of infected/septic patients and the type of pathogen, with subsequent customization and targeting of therapy

Transcriptome-scale similarities between mouse and human skeletal muscles with normal and myopathic phenotypes

BACKGROUND: Mouse and human skeletal muscle transcriptome profiles vary by muscle type, raising the question of which mouse muscle groups have the greatest molecular similarities to human skeletal muscle. METHODS: Orthologous (whole, sub-) transcriptome profiles were compared among four mouse-human transcriptome datasets: (M) six muscle groups obtained from three mouse strains (wildtype, mdx, mdx(5cv)); (H1) biopsied human quadriceps from controls and Duchenne muscular dystrophy patients; (H2) four different control human muscle types obtained at autopsy; and (H3) 12 different control human tissues (ten non-muscle). RESULTS: Of the six mouse muscles examined, mouse soleus bore the greatest molecular similarities to human skeletal muscles, independent of the latters' anatomic location/muscle type, disease state, age and sampling method (autopsy versus biopsy). Significant similarity to any one mouse muscle group was not observed for non-muscle human tissues (dataset H3), indicating this finding to be muscle specific. CONCLUSION: This observation may be partly explained by the higher type I fiber content of soleus relative to the other mouse muscles sampled

Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced MRI Assessment of Hyperemic Fractional Microvascular Blood Plasma Volume in Peripheral Arterial Disease: Initial Findings

OBJECTIVES: The aim of the current study was to describe a method that assesses the hyperemic microvascular blood plasma volume of the calf musculature. The reversibly albumin binding contrast agent gadofosveset was used in dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE MRI) to assess the microvascular status in patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD) and healthy controls. In addition, the reproducibility of this method in healthy controls was determined. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Ten PAD patients with intermittent claudication and 10 healthy control subjects were included. Patients underwent contrast-enhanced MR angiography of the peripheral arteries, followed by one DCE MRI examination of the musculature of the calf. Healthy control subjects were examined twice on different days to determine normative values and the interreader and interscan reproducibility of the technique. The MRI protocol comprised dynamic imaging of contrast agent wash-in under reactive hyperemia conditions of the calf musculature. Using pharmacokinetic modeling the hyperemic fractional microvascular blood plasma volume (V(p), unit: %) of the anterior tibial, gastrocnemius and soleus muscles was calculated. RESULTS: V(p) was significantly lower for all muscle groups in PAD patients (4.3±1.6%, 5.0±3.3% and 6.1±3.6% for anterior tibial, gastrocnemius and soleus muscles, respectively) compared to healthy control subjects (9.1±2.0%, 8.9±1.9% and 9.3±2.1%). Differences in V(p) between muscle groups were not significant. The coefficient of variation of V(p) varied from 10-14% and 11-16% at interscan and interreader level, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Using DCE MRI after contrast-enhanced MR angiography with gadofosveset enables reproducible assessment of hyperemic fractional microvascular blood plasma volume of the calf musculature. V(p) was lower in PAD patients than in healthy controls, which reflects a promising functional (hemodynamic) biomarker for the microvascular impairment of macrovascular lesions