Potential of electric fields to reduce bycatch of highly threatened sawfishes

Sawfishes are among the most threatened families of marine fishes and are susceptible to incidental capture in net fisheries. Since bycatch reduction devices currently used in trawl fisheries are not effective at reducing sawfish catches, new methods to minimise sawfish bycatch are needed. Ideally, these should affect sawfish behaviour and prevent contact with the fishing gear. We tested the effects of electric fields on sawfish behaviour to assess the potential of electric pulses in mitigating sawfish bycatch. Experiments were conducted in a tank where 2 electrodes were suspended in the water column, connected to a pulse generator, and placed across the swimming path of sawfish. Two largetooth sawfish Pristis pristis were tested in control conditions, in the presence of a baseline pulse, and of 5 variations of that pulse where 1 parameter (polarity, voltage, frequency, pulse shape, pulse duration) was altered at a time. Conditional inference trees were used to identify the effects of various parameters (e.g. treatment, individual) on reaction type, reaction distance, twitching presence and duration, and inter-approach times. Sawfish reacted to electric fields, but reaction distances were small (typically <1.2 m), and no field tested consistently led to reactions conducive to escaping from moving nets. The following parameters induced the most response in both individuals: bipolar current, rectangular shaped, 5-10 Hz, ~1500 µs duration, and 100 V. We recommend further research focussing on moving nets, testing a V-shaped electric array preceding the net mouth by at least 5 m, and testing a setup similar to electrotrawling.

218 The Impact on Minimally Invasive Urological Cancer Surgery During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Aim

Learned bodies recommended restricted use of, or extensive precautions when using, laparoscopic/robotic surgery during the Covid-19 pandemic. We aimed to determine whether minimally invasive surgery (MIS) in uro-oncology patients was safe for patients and staff.

Method

From 16 March to 16 June 2020, patients having MIS in a tertiary referral urology centre were identified from a prospectively collected database. Patient characteristics, operative details and 30-day follow-up for adverse events were recorded including Covid-19 tests and results. Any theatre staff Covid-19 event was traced back 14 days to determine any involvement in these cases.

Results

87 patients were eligible for inclusion (33 robotic prostatectomies, 38 laparoscopic prostatectomies, 11 laparoscopic nephrectomies, 5 robotic nephrectomies). All patients were assessed for symptoms of Covid-19 on the day of theatre. 18(21%) patients had pre-operative screening (all swabs, no CT chest). 46(53%) underwent 14 days pre-operative self-isolation. 38(44%) cases were performed with FFP3 protection. No modification to operating procedure was made for any cases. No patients tested positive for Covid-19 in the 30-day postoperative period. No staff member involved tested positive in the postoperative period. 1 patient tested positive pre-operatively, delaying the operation by 7 weeks. No patients tested positive after the introduction of mandatory screening.

Conclusions

Based on our case-series MIS urological surgery appears to be safe for patients and staff, with no increased risk of Covid-19 complications in patients who are asymptomatic pre-operatively. The introduction of mandatory pre-operative swabs for elective patients, and the use of FFP3 protection, did not significantly alter results.

Neural correlates of affective and non-affective cognition in obsessive compulsive disorder: A meta-analysis of functional imaging studies

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is characterized by intrusive thoughts and repetitive ritualistic behaviors and has been associated with diverse functional brain abnormalities. We sought to synthesize current evidence from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies and examine their alignment to pathogenetic models of OCD. Following systematic review, we identified 54 task-fMRI studies published in the last decade comparing adults with OCD (n=1186) to healthy adults (n=1159) using tasks of affective and non-affective cognition. We used voxel-based quantitative meta-analytic methods to combine primary data on anatomical coordinates of case-control differences, separately for affective and non-affective tasks. We found that functional abnormalities in OCD cluster within cortico-striatal thalamic circuits. Within these circuits, the abnormalities identified showed significant dependence on the affective or non-affective nature of the tasks employed as circuit probes. In studies using affective tasks, patients overactivated regions involved in salience, arousal and habitual responding (anterior cingulate cortex, insula, caudate head and putamen) and underactivated regions implicated in cognitive and behavioral control (medial prefrontal cortex, posterior caudate). In studies using non-affective cognitive tasks, patients overactivated regions involved in self-referential processing (precuneus, posterior cingulate cortex) and underactivated subcortical regions that support goal-directed cognition and motor control (pallidum, ventral anterior thalamus, posterior caudate). The overall pattern suggests that OCD-related brain dysfunction involves increased affective and self-referential processing, enhanced habitual responding and blunted cognitive control.

Meta-analysis of aberrant brain activity in psychopathy

Introduction

Psychopathy is characterized by superficial charm, untruthfulness, lack of remorse, antisocial behavior, egocentricity as well as poverty in major affective reactions. This clinical profile has been empirically conceptualized and validated. Recent brain imaging studies suggest abnormal brain activity underlying psychopathic behavior. However, no reliable pattern of altered neural activity has been disclosed so far.

Objective

To identify consistent changes of brain activity in psychopaths and to investigate whether these could explain known psychopathology.

Methods

First, we used activation likelihood estimation to meta-analyze brain activation changes in psychopaths across 28 functional magnetic resonance imaging studies reporting 753 foci from 155 analyses (P < 0.05, corrected). Second, we functionally characterized the ensuing regions employing meta-data of a large-scale neuroimaging database (P < 0.05, corrected).

Results

Psychopathy was consistently associated with decreased brain activity in the right amygdala, the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC), and bilaterally in the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC). Consistently increased activity was observed bilaterally in the fronto-insular cortex (FIC) (Fig. 1). Moreover, we found that the physiological functional role of the candidate regions related to social cognition (DMFPC), cognitive speech and semantic processing (left FIC/LPFC), emotional and cognitive reward processing (right amygdala/FIC) as well as somesthesis and executive functions (RLPFC).

Conclusion

Psychopathy is characterized by abnormal brain activity of bilateral prefrontal cortices and the right amygdala, which mediate psychological functions known to be impaired in psychopaths. Hence, aberrant neural activity can account for pertinent psychopathology in psychopathy.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

An assessment on the quality of abstracts presented at the British Association of Urological Surgeons annual meeting

Objectives:

To assess the quality of abstracts presented at the British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS) annual meeting using standardized reporting guidelines and examine whether abstract quality is associated with conversion to full-text publication.

Materials and methods:

Two standardized assessment forms based on CONSORT/STROBE guidelines were used to score abstracts from the 2009 BAUS meeting retrospectively. A high score ratio was defined as >50% of criteria. Kaplan–Meier analysis examined effect of score ratio on time to publication; logistic regression examined predictive potential of variables including; session topic, study design, country of origin and number of institutions to high score ratio and the effects the above factors and a high score ratio on the likelihood of full-text publication.

Results:

In total, 127 abstracts were included. The mean score ratio was 63.6% (SD 13.3%) for observational studies and 62.7% (SD 9.5%) for randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Nine RCT abstracts and 91 non-RCT abstracts achieved a high score ratio. Abstract topic, study design, country of origin and number of institutions did not predict a high score ratio or subsequent full-length publication using multivariate logistic regression. Full-length publication was achieved for 43 (33.9%) abstracts. Mean time to publication was 17.2 months. Abstract quality did not predict time to publication ( p=0.706).

Conclusion:

BAUS abstracts are of high quality, and compare favourably with other urological meetings. While abstract quality does not independently predict full-length publication, most abstracts do not progress to full-length publication and thus we advocate the use of standardized reporting guidelines to ensure accurate interpretation of study methodology and results.

Matched pair analysis of laparoscopic versus open radical nephrectomy for the treatment of T3 renal cell carcinoma

PURPOSE

The perioperative and oncological outcomes of laparoscopic radical nephrectomy (LRN) for T1-T2 renal cell carcinoma (RCC) are well established. We aim to determine whether LRN is a comparable alternative to open radical nephrectomy (ORN) in the treatment of T3 RCC using a matched pair analysis study design.

METHODS

A review of a prospectively collected database at the Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, between 2000 and 2011 was conducted. Patient pairs were matched based on age at operation, gender, histological subgroup, maximal tumour diameter, TNM stage and grade. Patient demographics, operative and post-operative outcomes were compared. Overall, cancer-specific and progression-free survival [overall survival, cancer-specific survival (CSS) and progression-free survival (PFS)] were estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method.

RESULTS

From 252 patients with T3 disease, 25 pairs were matched. Patients were of median age 66.2 years, 64 % male. Tumours were all clear cell RCC, were stage pT3a (32 %) or pT3b and had maximal tumour diameters of 8.7 cm for LRN and 10.0 cm for ORN. Estimated blood loss (100 ml LRN; 650 ml ORN, p < 0.001) and length of post-operative hospital stay (4 days LRN: 9 days ORN, p < 0.001) were lower in the LRN group. Operation time and post-operative complication rates were comparable. CSS and PFS were comparable with a mean CSS of 91.3 months for LRN and 88.7 months for ORN.

CONCLUSION

This study reports the longest median follow-up in a T3 LRN cohort. In matched patients, LRN has been shown to have a superior perioperative profile to ORN for the treatment of pT3a/b RCC, with no adverse effect on midterm oncological outcomes.

ALE meta-analysis on facial judgments of trustworthiness and attractiveness

Faces convey a multitude of information in social interaction, among which are trustworthiness and attractiveness. Humans process and evaluate these two dimensions very quickly due to their great adaptive importance. Trustworthiness evaluation is crucial for modulating behavior toward strangers; attractiveness evaluation is a crucial factor for mate selection, possibly providing cues for reproductive success. As both dimensions rapidly guide social behavior, this study tests the hypothesis that both judgments may be subserved by overlapping brain networks. To this end, we conducted an activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis on 16 functional magnetic resonance imaging studies pertaining to facial judgments of trustworthiness and attractiveness. Throughout combined, individual, and conjunction analyses on those two facial judgments, we observed consistent maxima in the amygdala which corroborates our initial hypothesis. This finding supports the contemporary paradigm shift extending the amygdala's role from dominantly processing negative emotional stimuli to processing socially relevant ones. We speculate that the amygdala filters sensory information with evolutionarily conserved relevance. Our data suggest that such a role includes not only "fight-or-flight" decisions but also social behaviors with longer term pay-off schedules, e.g., trustworthiness and attractiveness evaluation.

The efficiency of clinical trial designs for predictive biomarker validation

BACKGROUND

The rapid advance of molecular genetic technology and of molecular diagnostics companies have set the stage for a new era in personalized treatments. Biomarkers such as gene expressions may be integrated into the anatomically based tumor-node-metastasis staging system to provide information for risk stratification and treatment selection. With the assumption that preliminary results show evidence that a biomarker has predictive value, the marker-based designs are geared to assess the purported predictive value in a clinical trial.

PURPOSE

In this article, we compared the efficiency of the traditional design, which does not involve a biomarker, to several alternative designs in terms of the sample size required in each trial.

METHODS

We first derived the variance formulas for the two-sample t-tests under the various designs when the biomarker assay is imperfect, and then conducted numerical and simulation studies to evaluate the performance of the various designs.

RESULTS

Based on numerical and simulation studies, we conclude that the marker-based strategy designs are less efficient than the traditional design in general. Since the biomarker assay is imperfect in a realistic setting, the estimated sample size for each alternative design is influenced by the sensitivity and specificity of the assay and the prevalence of the biomarker in the population of interest as well as the parameters involved in a standard sample size calculation.

LIMITATIONS

Due to limitations of a simulation study, it is not clear whether our results can be generalized to other parameter settings that are different from the ones used in the simulation study.

CONCLUSIONS

The marker-based strategy designs are less efficient than the traditional design in general. If there is no treatment effect among marker-negative patients, it is still feasible to use the marker-based strategy design I if the assay sensitivity is high. If the treatment effect among marker-negative patients is half of the effect among marker-positive patients, the marker prevalence must be relatively high and the sensitivity of the assay must be very high for the marker-based strategy design I to approximate the efficiency of the traditional design. The efficiency of the marker-based strategy design II relative to the traditional design is low in all scenarios considered under the current study.

Relationship between white matter fractional anisotropy and other indices of cerebral health in normal aging: Tract-based spatial statistics study of aging

White matter (WM) fractional anisotropy (FA) is thought to be related to WM integrity and decline in FA is often used as an index of decreasing WM health. However, the relationship of FA to other structural indices of cerebral health has not been well studied. We hypothesized that the decline in WM health will be associated with changes in several other indices of cerebral health. In this manuscript we studied the correlation between whole-brain/hemispheric/corpus callosum FA and gray matter (GM) thickness, sulcal span, and the volume of T2-hyperintense WM in a group of 31 healthy aging individuals (12 males/19 females) aged 57-82 years old. Individual subjects' FA measures were calculated from diffusion tracing imaging (DTI) data using tract-based spatial statistics--an approach specifically designed and validated for voxel-wise multi-subject FA analysis. Age-controlled correlation analysis showed that whole-brain average FA values were significantly and positively correlated with the subject's average GM thickness and negatively correlated with hyperintense WM volume. Intra-hemispheric correlations between FA and other measures of cerebral health had generally greater effect sizes than inter-hemispheric correction, with correlation between left FA and left GM thickness being the most significant (r=0.6, p<0.01). Regional analysis of FA values showed that late-myelinating fiber tracts of the genu of corpus callosum had higher association with other cerebral health indices. These data are consistent with the hypothesis that late-myelinating regions of the brain bear the brunt of age-related degenerative changes.

Measurement of the cascade transition via the first excited state of 16O in the 12C(alpha,gamma)16O reaction, and its S factor in stellar helium burning

Radiative alpha-particle capture into the first excited, J(pi)=0+ state of 16O at 6.049 MeV excitation energy has rarely been discussed as contributing to the 12C(alpha,gamma)16O reaction cross section due to experimental difficulties in observing this transition. We report here measurements of this radiative capture in 12C(alpha,gamma)16O for center-of-mass energies of E=2.22 MeV to 5.42 MeV at the DRAGON recoil separator. To determine cross sections, the acceptance of the recoil separator has been simulated in GEANT as well as measured directly. The transition strength between resonances has been identified in R-matrix fits as resulting both from E2 contributions as well as E1 radiative capture. Details of the extrapolation of the total cross section to low energies are then discussed [S6.0(300)=25(-15)(+16) keV b] showing that this transition is likely the most important cascade contribution for 12C(alpha,gamma)16O.

Acetabular fractures: a 16-year prospective epidemiological study

We prospectively analysed the epidemiology of acetabular fractures over a period of 16 years in order to identify changes in their incidence or other demographic features. Our study cohort comprised a consecutive series of 351 patients with acetabular fractures admitted to a single institution between January 1988 and December 2003. There was no significant change in the overall incidence of acetabular fractures, which remained at 3 patients/100 000/year. There was, however, a significant reduction in the number of men sustaining an acetabular fracture over the period (p < 0.02). The number of fractures resulting from falls from a height < 10 feet showed a significant increase (p < 0.002), but there was no change in those caused by motor-vehicle accidents. There was a significant reduction in the median Injury Severity score over the period which was associated with a significant decrease in mortality (p < 0.04) and a reduction in the length of hospital stay. The incidence of osteoarthritis noted during follow-up of operatively-treated fractures declined from 31% to 14%, reflecting improved results with increasing subspecialisation. Our findings suggest that there will be a continuing need for some orthopaedic surgeons to specialise in the management of these fractures. In addition, the reductions in the Injury Severity score and mortality may be associated with improved road and vehicle safety.

Indole alkaloids from the seeds of Centaurea cyanus (Asteraceae)

Preparative RP-HPLC analysis of a methanol extract of the seeds of Centaurea cyanus afforded four indole alkaloids: moschamine, cis-moschamine, centcyamine and cis-centcyamine, the latter two being new natural products. Structures of these compounds were elucidated by comprehensive spectroscopic analyses. General toxicity of the isolates was determined by Brine Shrimp Lethality bioassay.

Positron emission tomography and histopathology in Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

We studied a 62-year-old man with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), using positron emission tomography (PET) and (18F)-2-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (FDG). Glucose metabolism was heterogeneously decreased throughout the brain. At autopsy, regional distributions of spongiosis, astrogliosis, and neuronal loss correlated with premortem regional metabolic deficits. These results suggest that PET with FDG may provide metabolic regional markers for CJD neuropathology.

Isolation and molecular analysis of the maize P locus

The maize P locus is involved in the synthesis of a red flavonoid pigment in the pericarp, cob and other floral tissues. The tissue-specific pattern of expression of certain P alleles suggests that P may be a complex locus, with more than one functional unit. The P-VV allele, which specifies variegated pericarp and variegated cob, however, shows that insertion and excision of the transposable element Ac affects both pericarp and cob expression as though cob and pericarp pigmentation are controlled by a single gene. Using Ac as a transposon tag, we have isolated 34 kb of genomic DNA from the P-VV and P-RR allele. The cloned DNA contains two 5.8 kb cross-hybridizing regions, in direct orientation relative to each other, separated by 6.6 kb of intervening DNA. A sequence motif of 250 bp is repeated at three locations within the cloned region: once within each of the 5.8 kb repeats, and once outside the 5.8 kb repeats. DNA fragments flanking the Ac element detect five transcripts in RNA from wild type (P-RR) that are absent from mutant (P-VV) tissues. To localize the transcribed sequences, DNA probes spanning the 34 kb of cloned DNA were used in Northern analysis of RNA from mutant and wild-type kernels. The results suggest the presence of a single transcriptional unit located primarily within the DNA between the 5.8 kb repeats. The five RNAs transcribed from this region may be formed by alternative splicing. The size of the P gene derived from the length of the transcribed region seems much smaller than the gene size estimated from Ac-induced P-VV mutations.

Beam-diagnostics techniques for multiterawatt CO(2) lasers

The requirements of the Laser Fusion Program place severe demands on the ability to monitor the important parameters of the laser beams. This has resulted in the development of novel and imaginative methods to provide the various required measurements. The design and implementation of a beam-diagnostics system for the Helios laser fusion facility at Los Alamos are described.