Discovery of herpesviruses in bats

Seven novel gammaherpesviruses (GHV) and one novel betaherpesvirus were discovered in seven different European bat species (order Chiroptera, family Vespertilionidae) with a pan-herpesvirus PCR assay, targeting the DNA polymerase (DPOL) gene. The sequences of six bat GHV were similarly related to members of the gammaherpesvirus genera Percavirus and Rhadinovirus. The seventh GHV was related to the porcine lymphotropic herpesvirus 1 (genus Macavirus). The betaherpesvirus appeared to be a distant relative of human cytomegalovirus. For three bat GHV a 3.6 kbp locus was amplified and sequenced, spanning part of the glycoprotein B gene and the majority of the DPOL gene. In phylogenetic analysis, the three bat GHV formed a separate clade with similar distance to the Percavirus and Rhadinovirus clades. These novel viruses are the first herpesviruses to be described in bats.

[Influence of the type of visualization on the construction of mental models during picture and text comprehension]

The following article describes an integrative model of text and picture comprehension. Text and picture comprehension is considered as a task oriented process of constructing descriptive and depictive mental representations by selection and organisation of information, parsing of symbols, mapping of analog structures as well as mental model construction and model inspection. Based on this theoretical model an experiment was conducted in which subjects had to acquire knowledge about a complex learning content (time and date differences on the earth) through self directed learning with a hypertext and different, but informationally equivalent pictures. The study aimed to investigate under which conditions learners prefer which kind of information and whether the kind of visualisation has an effect on the mental model structure created during the comprehension of texts and pictures. The results indicate that simple pictures induce more superficial processing, in which picture comprehension replaces text comprehension to some extent and vice versa. Demanding pictures, on the contrary, induce more intensive processing in which text comprehension and picture comprehension stimulate each other. Furthermore, the results suggest that the surface structure of pictures affects the structure of mental models. Accordingly, the presentation of a visualisation which is not task adequate may interfere with the required mental model construction. In designing texts combined with pictures the form of visualisation deserves therefore special attention.