A study of bird frugivory in Desamparaditos de Puriscal in Costa Rica in 2021 showed the importance of two tropical trees, Gumbo Limbo (Bursera simaruba) and Huevos de Caballo (the common Spanish name of Tabernaemontana donnell-smithii) within habited areas. The study also focused on which species fed on lipid-rich fruits and which fed on lipid-poor fruits — Gumbo Limbo fruits are lipid-poor, whereas Huevos de Caballo “fruits” are lipid-rich — and whether the feeding choices of various birds in this community would reflect the distinction in lipid content. The study was done during the beginning of the rainy season, and compared with a recent analysis of bird frugivory studies. Results showed numerous similarities regarding the birds feeding on Gumbo Limbo, but more differences were found for the birds feeding on Huevos de Caballo. Most significant was that a number of species were observed feeding on both of these fruits that had not been observed in the other studies. Additionally, the study indicated that both trees might be important nutritional sources for young birds. A follow-up study was conducted in 2022. That study showed more feeding by some species on Gumbo Limbo fruits, and demonstrated the importance of Gumbo Limbo for these species during the late dry season. The 2022 study began on 26 January and ended on 7 March, the date when the 2021 study began. Data from 2022 (summarized in Appendices 3 and 3A) will not be fully analyzed, but may be referred to in the discussion.

A document by Chun Tao. Click on the document to view its contents.

With global climates changing rapidly, animals must adapt to new environmental conditions with altered weather and phenology. Key to adapting to these new conditions is adjusting the timing of reproduction to maximize fitness. Using a long-term dataset on a wild population of yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventer) at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL), we investigated how the timing of reproduction changed with changing spring conditions over the past 50 years. Marmots are hibernators with a four-month active season. It is thus crucial to reproduce early enough in the season to have time to prepare for hibernation, but not too early so as snow cover prevents access to food. Importantly, climate change in this area has increased spring temperatures by 5 oC and decreased spring snowpack by 50 cm over the past 50 years. We evaluated how female marmots adjust the timing of their reproduction in response to the changing conditions and estimated the importance of both genetic variance and plasticity in the variation in this timing. We showed that, within a year, the timing of reproduction is not as tightly linked to the date a female emerges from hibernation as previously thought. We reported a positive effect of spring snowpack but not of spring temperature on the timing of reproduction. We found inter-individual variation in the timing of reproduction, including low heritability, but not in its response to changing spring conditions. There was directional selection for earlier pup emergence date since it increased the number and proportion of pups surviving their first winter. Taken together, the timing of marmot reproduction might evolve via natural selection, however, plastic changes will also be extremely important as long as plasticity is not limited. Further, future studies on the marmots should not operate under the assumption that females reproduce immediately following their emergence.

In the past decade, two large marine heatwaves (MHWs) formed in the northeast Pacific near Ocean Station Papa (OSP), one of the oldest oceanic time series stations. Physical, biogeochemical and biological parameters observed at OSP from 2013 to 2020 are used to assess ocean response and potential impacts on marine life from the 2019 northeast Pacific MHW. The 2019 MHW was preceded by calm and stratified surface conditions, lower dissolved inorganic carbon, and higher pH of surface waters relative to the 2013-2020 period. A spike in the summertime chlorophyll followed by a decrease in surface macronutrients suggests increased productivity in the well-lit stratified upper ocean during summer 2019. More blue whale calls were recorded at OSP in 2019 compared to the prior year. Large subsurface temperature anomalies were also found, suggesting that the earlier northeast Pacific MHW (2013-2015, previously referred to as “Blob”) as well as the long-term increase in sea surface temperatures in the region contributed to the intensity of the 2019 MHW. This study shows how the utility of long-term, continuous oceanographic datasets and analysis with an interdisciplinary lens is necessary to understand the potential impact of MHWs on marine ecosystems.

The subgenus Aschizomys belongs to the genus Alticola (Central Asian mountain vole) and consists of two species: Alticola macrotis and Alticola lemminus. Phylogenetic relationships within the subgenus Aschizomys remain obscure due to limited sampling, an insufficient number of molecular markers used in phylogenetic studies, and paraphyly observed on mitochondrial trees. In this work, to infer reliable phylogenetic relationships and evaluate putative scenarios of ancient hybridization within the subgenus, we applied double-digest restriction site–associated DNA paired-end (quaddRAD) sequencing to 20 DNA samples (20 individuals), including five species of the genus Alticola, and dated the divergence of cytochrome b (cytb) lineages within Aschizomys using a “second calibration” approach. We showed monophyly of the two species on the basis of thousands of nuclear loci and demonstrated traces of introgression also in the nuclear genome. Observed paraphyly in cytb could be explained by an introgression event rather than incomplete lineage sorting. This explanation was confirmed by an analysis of the cytb divergence time. Overall, our results support the hypothesis of extensive migration of the Aschizomys species during the Late Pleistocene, with this migration leading to population divergence and introgression. We expect our article to become a starting point for a series of rigorous studies on the population history of the genus Alticola as a whole.

Background: A significant proportion of patients with recurrent [atrial fibrillation](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/atrial-fibrillation) (AF) require repeat [radiofrequency](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/radiofrequency) (RFC) or cryoballoon (CB) ablation after the blanket period (90 days) following the initial cryoablation. However, little is known about the efficacy of pulmonary vein isolation using either of the technique as a redo procedure. Therefore, the present study aimed to analyze the electrophysiological characteristics of pulmonaary veins (PVs) during redo ablation procedures and clinical outcomes in patients undergoing CB-vs-RFC ablation as redo procedures. Methods: 61 Patients with paroxysmal and persistent atrial fibrillation were retrospectively included in the analysis. The number and location of reconnected PVs, another arrhythmic drug before the reablation, structural heart disease and antiarrhythmic drugs were determined. Results: Before the redo procedure, paroxysmal atrial fibrillation was the predominant recurrent arrhythmia (60%). However,20 patients (70%) had paroxysmal atrial fibrillation in the RFC and 16 Patients (50%) in the CB group 29 Patients (47,5%) underwent a catheter ablation with radiofrequency, and 32 Patients (50,8%) underwent a catheter ablation with a cryoballoon. The Median of reablation occurred of 238 and 323 days (P= 0,0008). The Number of the reconnected PVs was 42 in the RFC group and was 99 in the CB group, which means the number of lesions applied during the redo Procedure was significantly greater in the CB cohort. The reconnection was driven by more reconnection in the left superior PV. After Reablation, there were no differences in the antiarrhythmic drug between the cohorts, but significantly more patients required amiodarone in the RFC Cohort. Conclusion: This analysis revealed an overall success rate of 70% in patients with recurrent atrial fibrillation who underwent a redo treatment using either radiofrequency or cryoballoon, implying equivalent performance effectiveness between both modalities.

Unexpected Gifts from a Cruel Monster: Caring for Children with DIPGMegan R. Schaefer, PhD1-21Department of Pediatric Psychology, Nationwide Children’s Hospital2Department of Clinical Pediatrics, The Ohio State University*Correspondence to:Megan Schaefer, PhD; Department of Pediatric Psychology, Nationwide Children’s Hospital; Columbus, OH; 700 Children’s Drive Columbus OH, 43205; Email: megan.schaefer@nationwidechildrens.orgText word count: 1, 199Brief running title: Caring for Children with DIPGKey words: brain tumors, gliomas, pediatric palliative care, end of life careTables: 0Figures: 0Abbreviations: DIPG (diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma)Dear Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG),You are a terrible and cruel disease. You are rare and aggressive, developing in a critical part of a child’s brain, often limiting the ability to biopsy, resect, or treat. You cheat children of the life they deserve. Because of you, the world loses out on future firefighters, scientists, teachers, and presidents. Hearing about your existence is unimaginable to a parent as you limit a child’s life expectancy to less than a year on average. Given your aggressive nature, children gradually lose parts of themselves, bit by bit. Weakness, difficulties breathing, confusion, unable to swallow, loss of speech. You trap children in their bodies, and they report feeling as if their body is an unrecognizable, foreign object. You wreak havoc on family’s lives as they try to comprehend the news that their sweet child will not live to graduate high school, become an engineer, get married, have children, and likely not play their next baseball game.The grief starts from the moment families hear your crushing acronym. Parents immediately begin to question their identity and how they will navigate life without their child. Will they be able to parent their other children? Who are they if not a parent to this special child? It becomes impossible not to imagine burying their child and planning their funeral. Siblings feel as if they lost their playmate at diagnosis and also their caregivers as they watch them slowly cocoon in a shell, enveloped with immense grief. Life becomes a ticking time bomb, and the pressure to make every birthday and holiday celebration perfect becomes crippling.You tear the hearts of pediatric neuro-oncologists around the world as they enter the room to be the bearer of excruciatingly painful news. You make families and healthcare providers feel helpless as no treatment has yet been found to fight against your awfulness. Your existence is unfair. You have turned the worlds of families upside down such that the order of the world no longer makes any sense and families feel they are constantly living in a nightmare. You are equivalent to the “D word” in invoking fear and panic, as of right now, you are a death sentence. But, I would like to remind you, you have not won, and you will not win. Despite how powerful and almighty you feel you are, our patients, families, and pediatric neuro-oncology community are stronger.As a pediatric psychologist who specializes in seeing children with brain tumors, I have walked alongside many children and families impacted by you. Despite the immense physical and emotional pain you have imposed on children and families, I have truly witnessed unexpected beautiful gifts along these journeys. While I could continue on sharing how much I hate your existence, I want to thank you for the beautiful, yet unexpected, gifts you have provided. You have taught us that joy, beauty, and love can co-exist with fear, distress, and grief. As you significantly limit life expectancy, you teach us to cherish every little moment and to find joy in the small things. You have shown us what is truly important in life, time with family and friends and following our dreams. You have reminded me to hug my loved ones a little tighter and to take the trip, chase the experience as responsibilities can always wait. You have shown us how to weather the storm and taught us about a level of faith and strength many of us never knew existed. You have strengthened our motivation and persistence to show up every day at our jobs and give 110% effort to finding a cure because no child or family ever deserves to hear the heart-wrenching news that their child has you.Many times, I have left the hospital after a day supporting children and families affected by you and felt defeated, helpless, and angry. As a helper, I want to alleviate children and families of the emotional pain and worries they are carrying. Caring for children and families impacted by you often leads to secondary trauma. It is bravely walking into situations day in and day out, expressing vulnerability and opening yourself to love on a child who we know will not survive because of you. And each clinic visit, we watch the patient’s functioning slowly fade away, and as this happens, we witness the heartache of families as they desperately seek options to prolong time together while prioritizing their child’s quality of life. Even though the child loses their ability to communicate or move their arms to give a hug, I find comfort in still seeing the sparkle in their eye, the small smirk, the head nod, the blink; the love is always there. It may be expressed differently but the room remains filled with love. Although you are pervasive and hard to ignore, I do not give my attention or memory to all the changes and losses you unfairly force on children. I remember the bell ringing after radiation, the Make-A-Wish pictures and videos, the winks, the celebration of small moments where smiles and laughter were shared through the tears. You have made us all cry more times than we would like to share, but you have also made us smile because life is messy and hard, but it is also beautiful. My heart is heavy, but it is not just filled with grief. In between the dark and torn spaces, there is love and appreciation for the children who have selflessly given me unexpected gifts through their tumultuous journey with you, and for that, I will forever be thankful. If I did not let down my walls and love on these children, I may save myself from heartache, but it would come at the cost of not getting to witness the lives of extraordinary children, so the grief is worth every ounce of pain.With a 0% cure rate, you may think you are winning this battle, but we will not give in. We will continue fighting the good fight until no child, parent, and sibling ever has to hear the devastating news that shatters their heart in a million pieces that their child is diagnosed with you. We will rise up to the challenge because the world is a much better place with our children growing up to achieve their wildest dreams. To everyone in the neuro-oncology community, thank you for your courage, persistence, and dedication to destroy DIPG. One day, we will prevail. I hope it is in my lifetime, but if not, I will continue to express my gratitude to the patients, families, and colleagues who have touched my heart and inspired me to face insurmountable obstacles with humility and grace. D iffuse I ntrinsic P ontineG lioma or D etermination, I nspiration,P assion, G ratitude. The first is you, the terrible monster who has placed heavy emotional burdens on my heart. The second is the gifts I have received from you. Not all cruel things are pure evil. There is goodness in the hard. So as I grieve the lives of change-makers whose time was cut way too short, I will find gratitude for the unexpected gifts.From a grieving yet grateful and hopeful pediatric psychologist, Dr. Megan

We recently proposed an equation to estimate the glomerular filtration rate (GFR) in children with cancer based on plasma cystatin C and serum creatinine levels together with body weight (the “CysPed equation”). The current clinical study reports a prospective evaluation of this equation in 18 children treated by nephrotoxic chemotherapy. The CysPed equation resulted in less bias and greater precision compared to two equations previously proposed equations by Schwartz, with or without plasma cystatin C. Moreover, the decrease in GFR due to chemotherapy was clearly identified by the CysPed equation. This equation deserves to be evaluated by other teams and routinely used in childhood cancer units.

Real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) has been widely used to quantify gene copy numbers in microbial ecology. Despite its simplicity and straightforwardness, establishing qPCR assays is often impeded by the tedious process of producing qPCR standards by cloning the target DNA into plasmids. Here, we designed double-stranded synthetic DNA fragments from consensus sequences as qPCR standards by aligning microbial gene sequences. Efficiency of standards from synthetic DNA was compared with plasmid standards by qPCR assays for different taxonomic and functional genes involved in C and N cycling, tested with DNA extracted from a broad range of soils. Results showed that qPCR standard curves using synthetic DNA performed equally well to those from plasmids for all the genes tested. Furthermore, gene copy numbers from DNA extracted from soils obtained by using synthetic standards or plasmid standards were comparable. Our approach therefore demonstrates that a synthetic DNA fragment as qPCR standard provides comparable sensitivity and reliability to a traditional plasmid standard, while being more time- and cost-efficient.

Background: The release of the Healthy China Strategy and the aftermath of COVID-19 have prompted us to deliver more high-level medical talents to meet the urgent needs in the up-coming future. The purpose of this study is to review the current medical education systems in China and analyze its developing direction of medical education from a long-term perspective. Main text: The comprehensive medical education systems in China are analyzed as follows. Current conditions of medical education in China:1. Parallel running of multiple medical education systems; 2. Synergistic development of medical education in different regions; 3. Continuous improvement of the diversified medical curriculum; 4. Multiple departments collaborative management mechanism in medical education. The model of foreign medical education: 1. American model; 2. British model; 3. Japanese model. Prospects for the future of medical education in China: 1. Establishing unified medical degrees with clear objectives; 2. Focusing on general practitioners and primary care; 3. Strengthening medical humanities and public health education; 4. Improving the management mechanism between colleges and affiliated hospitals. Conclusions: This review integrates the current situation of medical education in China and successful foreign medical education models, and then proposes interventions for reform in order to cultivate medical personnel that meet future needs in China. This review may serve as a reference for the educational efforts of medical schools in China.

objective: The objective of this bibliometric inquiry was to scrutinize domains that delve into the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic on individuals afflicted with ASD, worldwide scholarly findings of interrelated research, and forthcoming trajectories. Method. To perform a literature analysis, the Web of Science Core Collection (WoScc) database is recommended. Look for literature related to ASD and COVID-19. For visual analysis and network creation of authors, organizations, countries, and keywords, CiteSpace and VosViewer can be utilized. Result. This study analyzed 771 papers and found increasing publications, with the United States, United Kingdom, and Italy leading in relevant literature. The University of London and Happe_Francesca were the most productive in terms of papers and researchers, respectively. Research on the impact of COVID-19 on autism spectrum disorder was mainly found in J AUTISM DEV DISORD. Parenting stress, enhancing adherence, and acute stress disorder were popular topics of investigation. Future research may focus on interventions, qualitative research, Disabilities Monitoring Network, neurodevelopmental disabilities, perceived stress, and barriers. Conclusion. This bibliometric analysis delineates the fundamental structure for assessing the impact of COVID-19 on ASD by scrutinizing crucial indicators. Future research could explore the stress, anxiety, and strategies for individuals with ASD and their The use of telemedicine can be studied in depth, as a new idea for ASD diagnosis and intervention training, it is worthwhile. The use of telemedicine can be studied in depth, as a new idea for ASD diagnosis and intervention training, it is worth exploring, such as Disabilities Monitoring Network, etc.

This paper explains how to use difference equations to directly obtain instantaneous/periodic values of periodically switched circuits at a desired time. Switched circuits, by their nature, have system equations of variable nature. Differential equations used in the analysis of continuous-time systems do not allow direct access to the instantaneous values of the switched circuits at any time or to their values at certain multiples of the period. For the analysis of these circuits, it is necessary to obtain differential equations for each switched mode/state separately and solve these equations sequentially in the correct order. In this study, the problem of direct access to the desired instantaneous values of the switched circuits is solved with the new approach proposed based on the difference equations used in discrete-time systems. By the developed formulations, the desired instantaneous values of the switched circuits at any time or the values in certain multiples of the period can be obtained directly. Therefore, solutions do not need to be started from beginning (t=0) of the simulation. The analytical solutions of examples and the results of the developed method are compared and the accuracy of the formulations is confirmed.

Tectoridin is one of the most active components extracted from flowers of P. lobate and has a variety of activities including antioxidative and anti-inflammatory activities. The functions and potential mechanisms underlying Tectoridin in cerebral ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury have not been well interpreted. This study was carried out from the neuroprotection of the nervous system. 2,3,5-triphenyltetra-zolium (TTC) chloride staining assay served for evaluating the neurological deficit score as well as measuring the brain infarct size. HE staining served for examining the brain tissue pathological change. Measurement of the superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity, glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) and the malondialdehyde (MDA) level was also carried out. Moreover, the expressions of PI3K/AKT/mTOR, TLR4/MyD88/NF-κB and Nrf2/HO-1 signaling pathway related proteins were measured by Western blot. The results showed that, relative to the sham group, the Tectoridin group could more remarkably prevent neurological deficit, manifested as decreased brain infarct volume. Besides, the Tectoridin treatment assisted in decreasing the inflammation level by reducing MDA level significantly and the enhanced GSH–Px level and SOD activity significantly, thereby leading to the brain damage reduction. In addition, Tectoridin led to the activation of the protective antioxidative Nrf2/HO-1 pathway. Tectoridin exerted protective effect by suppressing the expression of TLR4, MYD88 and NF-κB, which were two pivotal inflammatory mediators. At last, Tectoridin hindered apoptosis based on the up-regulation of p-AKT, Bcl-2/Bax and p-mTOR expressions. This research preliminarily revealed the mechanism of Tectoridin in the treatment of ischemic stroke and provided support for the further application of Tectoridin.

Due to the anatomic variability, pre-procedural clinical decision making for transcatheter pulmonary valve replacement in congenital heart disease patients is complex. This work describes a Fit Analysis software support application for the Harmony Transcatheter Pulmonary Valve device. This tool provides a comprehensive computational patient screening framework that predicts the feasibility of device implantation and recommends an acceptable device deployment location. The retrospective study results indicate that the Fit Analysis application was sufficiently accurate for clinical use. The Fit Analysis framework demonstrates that computational models may be used for structural heart patient screening and procedural planning.

In this study, a new short-term wind power prediction model based on a temporal convolutional network (TCN) and the Informer model is proposed to solve the problem of low prediction accuracy caused by large wind speed fluctuations in short-term prediction. First, an input feature selection method based on the maximum information coefficient is proposed after considering the problem of information interference caused by excessively large input features. A dynamic time planning method is used to select the optimal input step of historical power. Then, the combined forecasting model composed of TCN and the Informer is constructed in accordance with the numerical weather forecast and historical power data. Lastly, the pinball loss function is used to expand the prediction model into a quantile regression model, measure the effect of volatility, quantify the volatility range of prediction, and finally, obtain a deterministic prediction result. The actual measured data of wind farms in the Bohai Sea area are selected for analysis and calculation. Results show that the prediction model proposed in this study achieves better accuracy in deterministic prediction and interval prediction than the traditional model.

The current power grid is undergoing digital transformation and upgrading, and the intelligent health management technology of power transformers is rapidly advancing. However, there are issues of weak information correlation and low decision-making efficiency in the operation and maintenance process and there are few papers on knowledge graph construction specifically related to power transformer maintenance. Additionally, there is limited public data available specifically for power transformer operation and maintenance, making it difficult to effectively construct maintenance knowledge. This paper proposes a method for constructing a knowledge graph for power transformer operation and maintenance based on Roberta-GPliner. Firstly, public literature in the field of power transformers is obtained to enhance the training dataset of power transformer operation and maintenance. Then, we use Roberta as the embedding layer and employ the GPliner joint extraction model to extract knowledge triplets on power transformer operation and maintenance. Roberta-GPliner is compared with other pre-training models, validating that the joint knowledge extraction algorithm based on Roberta-GPliner performs better. Finally, an intelligent operation and maintenance platform is built for power transformers, enabling knowledge retrieval and decision-making support.

Effort estimation is an important activity in agile software development. The goal of the presented study was to determine the influence of individual competence on software development effort estimation. In particular, we measured both the accuracy of effort estimation and the duration of the estimation process itself, both for three different estimation methods. The subjects of our study were teams of students of a graduate-level software engineering course at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Computer and Information Science. Based on the grades that individual students attained in their undergraduate study, we classified each team as ‘high-competence’ or ‘low-competence’ and additionally as ‘heterogeneous’ or ‘homogeneous’ (the criterion here being the variance of the members’ average grades). We found out that there was no significant difference in effort estimation accuracy neither between high-competence and low-competence teams nor between heterogeneous and homogeneous teams, regardless of which estimation method was used. However, high-competence teams spent significantly less time on effort estimation than low-competence ones. Likewise, for two of the employed estimation methods, heterogeneous teams completed effort estimation in a significantly shorter time than homogeneous teams. These results might benefit both academic and professional community.

A document by Lee DeHaan. Click on the document to view its contents.

Preadolescence is a critical period for the onset of puberty and eating-related psycho-pathology. More advanced pubertal status is associated with elevated eating pathology. However, it was unclear whether this association was moderated by self-referential processing, an important, modifiable cognitive risk for various forms of psychopathology, including eating problems. Fur-ther, no study has examined the neural correlates of self-referential processing in relation to eating pathology. To address these gaps, we examined how the association between pubertal status and disordered eating was moderated by self-referential processing in a community sample of 115 nine-to-12-year-old preadolescents (66 girls; Mean age/SD =10.98/1.18 years; 87.5% White). Youths reported their pubertal status and disordered eating behaviors and completed an ERP ver-sion of the Self-Referent Encoding Task (SRET) to assess self-referential processing. A Principal Component Analysis of the ERP data identified an anterior late positive potential (LPP) in both the positive and negative SRET conditions. The LPP in the positive condition moderated the positive association between pubertal status and disordered eating behaviors, such that this association was significant for youths with a smaller LPP toward positive self-referential cues, but non-significant for those showing a larger LPP toward positive self-referential cues. These results suggest that a deeper processing of positive self-referential information, indicated by a potentiated LPP, may weaken the negative impact of pubertal status on disordered eating. Our findings also suggest that enhancing positive self-referential processing may be a useful tool in preventing the development of eating pathology in preadolescents, especially for those with more advanced pubertal status.

Fosfomycin is an antibiotic often used to treat urinary tract infections (UTIs) with only rare transient hepatotoxicity. We present a case of fosfomycin-induced liver injury and describe the histopathologic findings on biopsy. A 64 year-old female patient with no prior liver disease or risk factors was started on fosfomycin as prophylaxis for recurrent UTIs. Within a week of her first dose she presented with fatigue, jaundice, and mixed liver enzyme elevation. Clinical workup for acute liver injury was unremarkable, and biopsy showed panacinar and portal necroinflammation with predominantly lymphocytic infiltrate and cholestasis. This was thought to be likely related to fosfomycin exposure. While liver enzymes trended down, bilirubin initially remained elevated. However, within three months the patient achieved clinical and biochemical recovery. Only two other reports of fosfomycin-induced liver injury requiring biopsy were found. Both developed acute cholestatic hepatitis within days of exposure, and subsequent biopsy similarly showed lymphocytic necroinflammation. Although one patient initially developed acute liver failure, both recovered fully within few months. Overall, these cases suggest likely an idiosyncratic or immune-mediated liver toxicity of fosfomycin which is typically self-limited with rapid recovery. Liver biopsy may be useful in confirming the diagnosis.

Apicomplexan parasites comprise significant pathogens of humans, livestock, and wildlife, but also represent a diverse group of eukaryotes with interesting and unique cell biology. Study of cell biology in apicomplexan parasites is complicated by their small size, and historically this has required the application of cutting-edge microscopy techniques to investigate fundamental processes like mitosis or cell division in these organisms. Recently, a technique called expansion microscopy has been developed, which rather than increasing instrument resolution like most imaging modalities, physically expands a biological sample >4-fold. In only a few years since its development, a derivative of expansion microscopy known as ultrastructure-expansion microscopy (U-ExM) has been widely adopted and proven extremely useful for studying cell biology of Apicomplexa. Here we review the insights into apicomplexan cell biology that have been enabled through the use of U-ExM, with a specific focus on Plasmodium, Toxoplasma, and Cryptosporidium. Further, we summarise emerging expansion microscopy modifications and modalities and forecast how these may influence the field of parasite cell biology in future.

Disorders marked by high levels of impulsivity and compulsivity have been linked to changes in performance monitoring, specifically the error-related negativity (ERN). We investigated the relationship between performance monitoring and individual differences in impulsivity and compulsivity. A total of 142 participants were recruited into four groups, each with different combinations of impulsivity and compulsivity, and they performed a flanker task to assess error-related brain activity. We defined error-related brain activity as ERN amplitude and theta power. Single trial regression was employed to analyze the amplitude differences between incorrect and correct trials within the ERN time window. The findings revealed that impulsivity, compulsivity and different measures of response processing exhibited distinct interactions, which were influenced by the configuration of impulsivity and compulsivity, but also depending on the measure of response processing. Specifically, high compulsivity predicted larger ERN amplitudes in individuals with low impulsivity, whereas high impulsivity had no effect on ERN amplitude in individuals with low compulsivity. Furthermore, when both impulsivity and compulsivity were high, no increase in ERN amplitude was observed; instead, there was a reduced difference between incorrect and correct trials. No significant differences were found for theta power. While the association between error-related brain activity and transdiagnostic markers or psychopathology may be smaller than generally assumed, considering the interaction between different transdiagnostic markers and their facets can enhance our understanding of the complex associations that arise during the investigation of neural correlates of performance monitoring, specifically the ERN.

Based on the linearization of the structure’s vibration equation in the state space, the stochastic subspace (SSI) approach is often used for system identification in the time domain of structures. As a consequence of using singular value decomposition (SVD) and QR factorization, the non-linear optimization solution may be avoided, and the identification issue can be solved as a linear least-squares problem. Although SSI does not explicitly minimize a cost function to produce the system matrices, the statistical analysis is significantly more involved for subspace approaches. Alternatively, in system identification, one might choose an output-error method (OEM), whereby the model parameters are repeatedly tweaked to match the outputs of the simulated model and the observed system. The purpose of this study is to modify the OEM to obtain structural features in the following manner: First, to reduce the number of optimization iterations, the initial term is derived using the SSI. Second, the objective function’s nonlinearity is reduced by considering the second-order derivatives as a linear system to optimize parameters using the Gauss-Newton approach. Finally, perform a gradient project minimization in state-space systems to prevent non-injectivity. After applying OEM to the results of a model of a three-story structure activated by seismic acceleration at SNR=1dB, the model’s damping ratio and mode shapes became more precise.

Left atrial (LA) compression by an esophageal mass is a rare structural finding and may lead to life-threatening manifestations. Often, LA compression is the result of the neighboring organs of the heart. Extracardiac etiologies of LA compressions are usually incidentally noted and better characterized with multiple imaging techniques. We present a case of a middle-aged man evaluated for sinus tachycardia, who was found to have severe LA compression secondary to an esophageal mass. This patient’s pathology was uniquely depicted in multiple imaging modalities.