Letter to the editor on "in vitro & in silico study of hypoglycaemic potential of pterocarpus marsupium heartwood extract"

The Short Communication "In vitro & in silico study of hypoglycemic potential of Pterocarpus marsupium heartwood extract" published in Natural Product Research is praised for its depth of inquiry and exploration of hypoglycemic and antioxidant properties. However, there are areas for refinement, such as clearer definitions of key terms related to type 2 diabetes mellitus, updated literature review, improved organization and contextualization of the Results and Discussion section, and a more balanced discussion of the study's implications.

Concerns About the Generalizability Associated With a South African Randomized Controlled Trial on Prenatal Mothers

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Psychiatric emergency associated with depressive disorders

no summary.

Transposition Effects in an Aksharic Writing System: The Case of Hindi

We tested for transposition effects (TEs) in Hindi (a Modern Indo-Aryan language) using unprimed lexical decision. TEs are defined as less accurate and slower responses to transposed-nonwords (e.g., ‹psate›, formed from base-word ‹paste›) than corresponding replaced-nonwords (e.g., ‹pzute›). In Hindi's orthography, letters map transparently to phonemes (except schwa), but the letters are arranged into "akshars," (‹[C_n]V›) which encode open syllables. This formal characteristic makes Hindi's orthography typologically "aksharic." We used TEs to determine whether the orthography's typological units, letters and akshars, are also functional units for readers. We conducted three visual word recognition experiments with adult readers whose native language was Hindi. In Experiment 1, we found TEs for consonant (‹C›) and matra (‹M›, a vowel diacritic) letters, using different stimulus sets for each type of transposition. In the next two experiments, we used the same base words to form all of the transposed and replaced items. In Experiment 2, we replicated the findings of Experiment 1 in a different stimulus set; additionally, we found TEs for transpositions between a ‹C› letter and a ‹CM› akshar. In Experiment 3, we replicated results of the first two experiments by finding TEs for both consonants and matras in another stimulus set; additionally, we found similar TEs for ‹CM› akshars. These results show that ‹C› and ‹M› letters are functional units for Hindi readers; the transposition results for ‹CM› akshars are tentative. TEs for letters show that the aksharic grouping of letters does not prevent readers from decoding the constituent letters of akshars. Hindi is read alphabetically.

What Drives Task Performance in Fluency Tasks in People With HIV?

Introduction: Fluency tasks require language (i.e., semantics, phonological output lexicon, and phonological assembly) and executive functions (i.e., inhibition; mental set shifting; updating, and monitoring). Little is known about whether people with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are more impaired on a specific type of fluency task and what aspects of language and executive functions drive such performance.

Aims: To understand (1) whether people with HIV are more impaired in animal, letter, or unconstrained fluency relative to a normative sample; (2) whether there exist differences between tasks relative to the total number of words; and (3) which aspects of executive function and language are involved in their performance.

Methods: Data from animal, letter, and unconstrained fluency of 50 Spanish-speaking people with HIV were analyzed. The number of switches and mean cluster size for each task and 10 word properties (e.g., frequency, age of acquisition, length in graphemes) for each of the correct words were measured. A chi-square test was used to address Aim 1, linear mixed effects models for Aim 2, and random forests and conditional inference trees for Aim 3. The results were cross-validated with a normative sample.

Results: People with HIV were not more impaired in animal, letter, or unconstrained fluency relative to a normative sample. People with HIV produced fewer words in letter fluency compared to animal and unconstrained fluency. In addition, they produced fewer words in animal fluency compared to unconstrained fluency. Number of switches emerged as the most important variable to predict the total number of correct words when considering the three tasks together and for each task separately. Word frequency was relevant to predict animal fluency, age of acquisition to predict letter fluency, and cluster size to predict unconstrained fluency. These results were cross-validated with the exception cluster size.

Conclusion: People with HIV rely on language (phonological output lexicon, not necessarily semantics) and executive functioning (updating and monitoring) to produce words in fluency tasks. These results concur with the current literature. Future work may correlate fluency scores with other tests measuring language and executive functions or study other types of fluency tasks (e.g., action, cities, supermarket, and professions).

Unresolvable Pixels Contribute to Character Legibility: Another Reason Why High-Resolution Images Appear Clearer

This study examined the effect of character sample density on legibility. As the spatial frequency component important for character recognition is said to be 1 to 3 cycles/letter (cpl), six dots in each direction should be sufficient to represent a character; however, some studies have reported that high-density characters are more legible. Considering that these seemingly contradictory findings could be compatible, we analyzed the frequency component of the character stimulus with adjusted sample density and found that the component content of 1 to 3 cpl increased in the high-density character. In the following three psychophysical experiments, high sample density characters tended to have lower contrast thresholds, both for normal and low vision. Furthermore, the contrast threshold with characters of each sample density was predicted from the amplitude of the 1 to 3 cpl component. Thus, while increasing the sample density improves legibility, adding a high frequency is not important in itself. The findings suggest that enhancing the frequency components important for recognizing characters by adding the high-frequency component contributes to making characters more legible.

The Role of Word Properties in Performance on Fluency Tasks in People with Primary Progressive Aphasia

People with primary progressive aphasia (PPA) present language difficulties that require lengthy assessments and follow-ups. Despite individual differences, people with PPA are often classified into three variants that present some distinctive language difficulties. We analyzed the data of 6 fluency tasks (i.e., "F", "A", "S", "Fruits", "Animals", "Vegetables"). We used random forests to pinpoint relevant word properties and error types in the classification of the three PPA variants, conditional inference trees to indicate how relevant variables may interact with one another and ANOVAs to cross-validate the results. Results indicate that total word count helps distinguish healthy individuals (N = 10) from people with PPA (N = 29). Furthermore, mean familiarity differentiates people with svPPA (N = 8) from people with lvPPA (N = 10) and nfvPPA (N = 11). No other word property or error type was relevant in the classification. These results relate to previous literature, as familiarity effects have been reported in people with svPPA in naming and spontaneous speech. Also, they strengthen the relevance of using familiarity to identify a specific group of people with PPA. This paper enhances our understanding of what determines word retrieval in people with PPA, complementing and extending data from naming studies.

An Evaluation of Three Ways of Communicating Carrier Status Results to the Parents of Children in a Neonatal Sickle Cell Screening Programme

Aim: Sickle cell disease (SCD) is the most frequent monogenic disease worldwide; ~5-7% of the world population carry a hemoglobin disorder trait. In the US, one in every 1,941 newborns has SCD, whereas one in every 3,000 newborns in France is affected - resulting in 385 new cases and 5,883 newly identified carriers per year. The objective of the present study was to evaluate three different ways of providing information to parents at risk of having a child with SCD, with a view to increasing the parental screening rate and decreasing the number of new cases per year in France. Method: In a randomized study, we contacted 300 couples of parents after their child had been identified as a SCD carrier in the French national newborn screening programme: 100 couples received an information letter (the standard procedure in France: arm A), 100 couples received a letter and then a follow-up phone call (arm B), and 100 received a letter and then three follow-up text messages at 5-day intervals (arm C). The primary endpoint was the number of parents in each arm screened in the 120 days after the letter had been sent. In a modified intention-to-treat analysis, the screening rate was 17% in arm A, 35% in arm B, and 30% in arm C. Results: Telephone and text message follow-ups were associated with higher screening rates, compared with no follow-up. After being informed of their child's carrier status, some parents had consulted a healthcare professional but had not been referred for screening (16% in arm A, 19% in arm B, and 13% in arm C). Conclusion: A letter followed by a phone call or three text messages is more effective than a letter alone for informing parents at risk of having a child with SCD. The effective implementation of this follow-up programme probably requires better training of all the healthcare professionals involved.

Fate of Selected Bacterial Pathogens and Indicators in Fractionated Poultry Litter During Storage

A study of broiler litter re-utilization potential was conducted with the goal of determining if storage of litter significantly reduced potential pathogens to levels safe for re-utilization. Litter from four broiler houses was separated into a fine fraction for fertilizer use and a coarse fraction for use as a supplement to wood shavings in growing subsequent flocks of birds. Fractions and whole litter were stored in indoor piles for four months with periodic analysis for culturable pathogenic and indicator bacteria. Significant reductions in microbial concentrations occurred in a majority of samples tested during four months of storage (in most cases to below detection limits of approximately 30 CFU/g dry weight). Poultry feed was found to be one possible source of litter contamination.

Analysis of Small Animal Rotating Internship Applicants' Personal Statements

The primary purpose of this study was to identify themes that are consistent across veterinary internship applicants' personal statements and that are correlated with the statements' perceived overall quality. A secondary purpose was to investigate the reliability in personal statement quality scoring among six experienced internship candidate evaluators. One hundred applications to the University of Georgia Small Animal Rotating Internship program were evaluated. Each evaluator wrote a description of what he or she values in personal statements and his or her beliefs about content and presentation in high- and low-quality statements. After statement de-identification, each evaluator reviewed 15 randomly selected personal statements from internship applicants and assigned each a score ranging from 1 to 4 according to the following criteria: 1 = would not rank for an internship; 2 = would rank in the bottom third; 3 = would rank in the middle third; and 4 = would rank in the top third. A subset of these scored personal statements was chosen for qualitative analysis. A qualitative document analysis using grounded theory was performed for both the evaluators' descriptions of preferences in personal statements and the subset of personal statements. Agreement among evaluators' assigned scores was slight (Fleiss's κ = 0.11). Analysis of the evaluator statements and the scored candidate statements indicated that important factors in a personal statement include the applicant's ability to articulate experiences, to convey maturity, to demonstrate understanding of what an internship entails, and to describe reasons for pursuing an internship.

Effects of age, education, and gender on verbal fluency in healthy adult Arabic-speakers in Egypt

The objective of this study is to establish the effects of age, gender, and education and to provide preliminary normative data for letter and category fluency tasks in the Egyptian Arabic-speaking population. We evaluated 139 cognitively healthy volunteers aged 20-93 by adapting the letter and category verbal fluency tasks for the Egyptian population. On the letter fluency task, mean number of words generated in one-minute beginning with the Arabic letter "Sheen" (pronounced "sh") was 8.14 words per minute (SD = 3.25). Letter fluency was significantly influenced by education. On category fluency tasks, mean number of animal names generated in one minute was 14.63 words (SD = 5.28). Category fluency was significantly influenced by age and education. We were able identify that age significantly affects category fluency while education significantly affected both letter and category fluency. We were also able to provide preliminary normative data for both tasks in the Egyptian population.

Neuroimaging Evidence of a Bilateral Representation for Visually Presented Numbers

The clustered architecture of the brain for different visual stimulus categories is one of the most fascinating topics in the cognitive neurosciences. Interestingly, recent research suggests the existence of additional regions for newly acquired stimuli such as letters (letter form area; LFA; Thesen et al., 2012) and numbers (visual number form area; NFA; Shum et al., 2013). However, neuroimaging methods thus far have failed to visualize the NFA in healthy participants, likely due to fMRI signal dropout caused by the air/bone interface of the petrous bone (Shum et al., 2013). In the current study, we combined a 64-channel head coil with high spatial resolution, localized shimming, and liberal smoothing, thereby decreasing the signal dropout and increasing the temporal signal-to-noise ratio in the neighborhood of the NFA. We presented subjects with numbers, letters, false numbers, false letters, objects and their Fourier randomized versions. A group analysis showed significant activations in the inferior temporal gyrus at the previously proposed location of the NFA. Crucially, we found the NFA to be present in both hemispheres. Further, we could identify the NFA on the single-subject level in most of our participants. A detailed analysis of the response profile of the NFA in two separate experiments confirmed the whole-brain results since responses to numbers were significantly higher than to any other presented stimulus in both hemispheres. Our results show for the first time the existence and stimulus selectivity of the NFA in the healthy human brain.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT

This fMRI study shows for the first time a cluster of neurons selective for visually presented numbers in healthy human adults. This visual number form area (NFA) was found in both hemispheres. Crucially, numbers have gained importance for humans too recently for neuronal specialization to be established by evolution. Therefore, investigations of this region will greatly advance our understanding of learning and plasticity in the brain. In addition, these results will aid our knowledge regarding related neurological illnesses (e.g., dyscalculia). To overcome the fMRI signal dropout in the neighborhood of the NFA, we combined high spatial resolution with liberal smoothing. We believe that this approach will be useful to the broad neuroimaging community.

How to write an editorial letter?

In most journals, there are letters or answers sections. Letters to the editor are usually a type of short communication that can be written on any topic that attracts the attention of the readers. Although articles are stringently vetted before publication in a journal, some issues can still go unnoticed. In this situation, readers can offer their interpretations by writing a letter to the editor. Thus, letters are also a control mechanism that facilitates progress after an article has been published. One of the most important aspects of a letter to the editor is that it must be short. It is known that a letter is more easily accessible to readers when the message is short and brief. The letter to the editor or author must make reference to objectives or discussions on medical, scientific or general topics that may attract attention. A letter must have a purpose, and it should convey its message in a short and definitive fashion.

Doctor-to-doctor communication of prognosis in metastatic cancer: a review of letters from medical oncologists to referring doctors

BACKGROUND

Shared understanding of prognosis is vital for optimal, multidisciplinary, clinical decision making.

AIMS

This study aims to determine the frequency and nature of prognostic information in medical oncologists' letters to referring doctors for patients with metastatic cancer.

METHODS

We reviewed all consultation letters (to June 2014) for new patients with metastatic cancer presenting to medical oncologists at Concord and Macarthur Cancer Centres between June 2012 and June 2013. We recorded the presence and nature of prognostic information in the letters, patients' characteristics and survival. Characteristics associated with inclusion of prognostic information were explored.

RESULTS

We analysed 1344 letters pertaining to 272 patients with a median survival of 13 months. The median number of letters per patient was 4 (interquartile range 1-7), with 50% written by trainees. The terms 'metastatic' or 'stage IV cancer' were included in letters for 253 patients (93%), treatment was described as 'palliative' for 174 patients (64%) and the word 'incurable' was included for 93 (34%). Only 31 patients (11%) had a quantitative estimate of prognosis in any correspondence: median or average survival in 14, general time frame in 12 and, best case, typical and worst case scenarios in 5. Inclusion of quantitative prognostic information was not associated with patient age, cancer type, treatment plan, trainee authoring letter or shorter survival.

CONCLUSION

Inclusion of quantitative prognostic information in written correspondence from medical oncologists regarding patients with metastatic cancer was infrequent. Encouraging oncologists to include quantitative prognostic information in their letters could improve communication between oncologists, referring doctors and patients.

Analysis of Suicide Notes: An experience in Eskişehir City

INTRODUCTION

It is estimated that a million people around the world die by suicide each year. It has been reported that a note was left in 5%-43% of the suicides. In this study, it we aimed to evaluate and discuss suicide notes in our city which is situated in Western Anatolia and where several universities are located.

METHOD

All forensic deaths in Eskişehir in 10-year period between 2001 and 2011 were evaluated. Forensic investigation files were assessed. After investigation, Out of 399 cases, 168 (42.1%) cases, who were determined to have left a suicide letter, telephone message (sms) or message via social network sites, were included in the scope of the study.

RESULTS

It was found that 95 (56.5%) of all cases had left a suicide letter, 69 (41.1%) cases had sent a telephone message to a person or more than one person, 4 (2.4%) cases had written notes about suicide and death in social networking sites.

CONCLUSION

A suicide note is an important finding in suicide cases to clarify the case. However, the note should be confirmed by investigation to be accepted as evidence.

Repetition probability effects depend on prior experiences

The magnitude of repetition suppression (RS) in the Fusiform Face Area is influenced by the probability of repetitions of faces (Summerfield et al., 2008), implying that perceptual expectations affect repetition-related processes. Surprisingly, however, macaque single-cell (Kaliukhovich and Vogels, 2011) and human fMRI (Kovács et al., 2013) studies have failed to find repetition probability [P(rep)] modulations of RS with nonface stimuli in the occipitotemporal cortex, suggesting that the effect is face specific. One possible explanation of this category selectivity is that the extensive experience humans have with faces affects the neural mechanisms of RS specifically, creating P(rep) modulatory effects. To address this question, we used fMRI to test the P(rep) effects for another well trained stimulus category, upright letters of the roman alphabet as well as for unfamiliar false fonts. We observed significant RS for both stimulus sets in the Letter Form Area as well as in the caudodorsal part of the lateral occipital complex. Interestingly, the influence of P(rep) on RS was dependent on the stimulus: while we observed P(rep) modulations for the roman letters, no such effects were found for the unfamiliar false fonts in either area. Our findings suggest that P(rep) effects on RS are manifest for nonface stimuli as well, but that they depend on the experience of the subjects with the stimulus category. This shows, for the first time, that prior experience affects the influence of contextual predictive information on RS in the human occipitotemporal cortex.

Letter representations in writing: an fMRI adaptation approach

Behavioral and neuropsychological research in reading and spelling has provided evidence for the role of the following types of orthographic representations in letter writing: letter shapes, letter case, and abstract letter identities. We report on the results of an fMRI investigation designed to identify the neural substrates of these different representational types. Using an fMRI adaptation paradigm we examined the neural distribution of inhibition and release from inhibition in a letter-writing task in which, on every trial, participants produced three repetitions of the same letter and a fourth letter that was either identical to (no-change trial) or different from the previous three (change trial). Change trials involved a change in the shape, case, and/or identity of the letter. After delineating the general letter writing network by identifying areas that exhibited significant neural adaptation effects on no-change trials, we used deconvolution analysis to examine this network for effects of release from inhibition on change trials. In this way we identified regions specifically associated with the representation of letter shape (in the left SFS and SFG/pre-CG) and letter identity [in the left fusiform gyrus (FG)] or both [right cerebellum, left post-central gyrus (post-CG), and left middle frontal gyrus (MFG)]. No regions were associated with the representation of letter case. This study showcases an investigational approach that allows for the differentiation of the neurotopography of the representational types that are key to our ability to produce written language.

Psychiatric discharge summaries: what do general practitioners want?

Aims As part of an initiative to improve and standardise our discharge summaries, we investigated the preferences of general practitioners (GPs) with regards to the information provided in summaries.Method Our study methods included sending a questionnaire to all GPs in our area gathering their views on what information to include in discharge summaries on first and on subsequent inpatient episodes.Results The response rate was 68%. Most GPs wanted a comprehensive first discharge summary, particularly stressing the importance of practical information. Subsequent discharge summaries could exclude case histories.Clinical implications Contrary to previous studies indicating a demand for brief reports, this survey indicates that the GPs surveyed value considerable detail in adult psychiatry discharge summaries. It is important to include these views in setting standards for the auditing process and before implementing changes.