Dogs and humans respond to emotionally competent stimuli by producing different facial actions

The commonality of facial expressions of emotion has been studied in different species since Darwin, with most of the research focusing on closely related primate species. However, it is unclear to what extent there exists common facial expression in species more phylogenetically distant, but sharing a need for common interspecific emotional understanding. Here we used the objective, anatomically-based tools, FACS and DogFACS (Facial Action Coding Systems), to quantify and compare human and domestic dog facial expressions in response to emotionally-competent stimuli associated with different categories of emotional arousal. We sought to answer two questions: Firstly, do dogs display specific discriminatory facial movements in response to different categories of emotional stimuli? Secondly, do dogs display similar facial movements to humans when reacting in emotionally comparable contexts? We found that dogs displayed distinctive facial actions depending on the category of stimuli. However, dogs produced different facial movements to humans in comparable states of emotional arousal. These results refute the commonality of emotional expression across mammals, since dogs do not display human-like facial expressions. Given the unique interspecific relationship between dogs and humans, two highly social but evolutionarily distant species sharing a common environment, these findings give new insight into the origin of emotion expression

Consensus guidelines for the use and interpretation of angiogenesis assays

The formation of new blood vessels, or angiogenesis, is a complex process that plays important roles in growth and development, tissue and organ regeneration, as well as numerous pathological conditions. Angiogenesis undergoes multiple discrete steps that can be individually evaluated and quantified by a large number of bioassays. These independent assessments hold advantages but also have limitations. This article describes in vivo, ex vivo, and in vitro bioassays that are available for the evaluation of angiogenesis and highlights critical aspects that are relevant for their execution and proper interpretation. As such, this collaborative work is the first edition of consensus guidelines on angiogenesis bioassays to serve for current and future reference

Predicting Total Nitrogen, Total Phosphorus, Total Organic Carbon, Dissolved Oxygen and Iron in Deep Waters of Swedish Lakes

In many lakes, the physical and chemical characteristics are monitored for surface waters but not for deep waters. Yet, deep waters may be important for understanding the dynamics of lake water chemistry variables over the year. In this study, multiple regression models have been created for five different variables, total phosphorus, total nitrogen, total organic carbon, dissolved oxygen (DO) and iron, in the deep water for 61 Swedish temperate or subarctic lakes. The investigated season was February to October, depending on the data availability. Regressions used the corresponding variables from the surface water as well as different morphometric parameters as independent variables. It was possible to construct meaningful models (r2 &gt; 0.65; p &lt; 0.05) for most of the variables and months. However, it was not possible to attain this criterion for some months regarding the DO concentration. Surface water concentrations were in general most important for predicting corresponding deep water concentrations. An exception was that during summer, DO differed considerably between surface waters and deep waters and voluminous lakes had particularly high DO concentrations in deep waters. No cross-systems relationship could be found between deepwater hypoxia and total phosphorus in deep waters during summer when phosphorus diffusion from sediments is most likely. A mass-balance modelling example was applied to illustrate the use of the produced models. These findings may provide a better understanding of the dynamics of these five variables in temperate or subarctic lakes.</p

The other in me

Recent studies have shown that the well-known effect of multisensory stimulation on body-awareness can be extended to self-recognition. Seeing someone else's face being touched at the same time as one's own face elicits changes in the mental representation of the self-face. We sought to further elucidate the underlying mechanisms and the effects of interpersonal multisensory stimulation (IMS) on the mental representation of the self and others