So-called 'naturalistic' stimuli have risen in popularity in cognitive, social and affective neuroscience over the last 15 years. However, a critical property of these stimuli is frequently ...overlooked: Media--like film, television, books and podcasts--are 'fundamentally not natural'. They are deliberately crafted products meant to elicit particular human thought, emotion and behavior. Here, we argue for a more informed approach to adopting media stimuli in experimental paradigms. We discuss the pitfalls of combining stimuli that are designed for research with those that are designed for other purposes (e.g. entertainment) under the umbrella term of 'naturalistic' and present strategies to improve rigor in the stimulus selection process. We assert that experiencing media should be considered a task akin to any other experimental task(s) and explain how this shift in perspective will compel more nuanced and generalizable research using these stimuli. Throughout, we offer theoretical and practical knowledge from multidisciplinary media research to raise the standard for the treatment of media stimuli in neuroscience research.
Two new coffee relatives (tribe Coffeeae, Rubiaceae), discovered during botanical expeditions to Cameroon, are examined for generic placement, and the placement of three previously known species ...(Argocoffeopsis fosimondi, A. spathulata and Calycosiphonia pentamera) is reinvestigated using plastid sequence (accD-psa1, rpl16, trnL-F) and morphological data. Seed biochemistry of the new species and pollen micromorphology (only one of the two species) are also studied. Based on the plastid sequence data, the new taxa are nested in a well-supported monophyletic group that includes Argocoffeopsis and Calycosiphonia. Within this clade, three well-supported subclades are recovered that are morphologically easy to diagnose: (1) Calycosiphonia (excluding C. pentamera), (2) Argocoffeopsis (excluding A. fosimondi and A. spathulata), and (3) a clade including the above excluded species, in addition to the new species. Based on the results, Kupeantha, a new genus of five species, is described, including two new Critically Endangered taxa from the Highlands of Cameroon: Kupeantha ebo and K. kupensis. Phytochemical analysis of Kupeantha seeds reveals compounds assigned as hydroxycinnamic acid derivatives, amino acids and ent-kaurane diterpenoids; caffeine was not detected. Kupeantha is the first new genus described in tribe Coffeeae in 40 years.
Premise of the Study
For many crops, research into the origin and partitioning of genetic variation is limited and this can slow or prevent crop improvement programs. Many of these underutilized ...crops have traits that could be of benefit in a changing climate due to stress tolerance or nutritional properties. Winged bean (Psophocarpus tetragonolobus (L.) DC.) is one such crop. All parts of the plant can be eaten, from the roots to the seeds, and is high in protein as well as other micronutrients. The goal of our study was to identify the wild progenitor and analyze the partitioning of genetic variation in the crop.
Methods
We used molecular phylogenetic analyses (cpDNA and nuclear ITS sequencing) to resolve relationships between all species in the genus, and population genetics (utilizing microsatellites) to identify genetic clusters of winged bean accessions and compare this to geography.
Key Results
We find that winged bean is genetically distinct from all other members of the genus. We also provide support for four groups of species in the genus, largely, but not completely, corresponding to the results of previous morphological analyses. Within winged bean, population genetic analysis using 10 polymorphic microsatellite markers suggests four genetic groups; however, there is little correspondence between the genetic variation and the geography of the accessions.
Conclusions
The true wild progenitor of winged bean remains unknown (or is extinct). There has likely been large‐scale cross‐breeding, trade, and transport of winged bean and/or multiple origins of the crop.
Over the last few decades, many efforts have been invested in improving the economic performances of maintenance policies for stochastically deteriorating production systems. However, with the ...development of complex production systems, maintenance managers are interested not only in cost saving, but also in how to trustworthily plan and allocate the required maintenance budget. In this context, the robustness of maintenance policies which is related to the maintenance cost variability from a renewal cycle to another plays a pivotal role. This research deals with a quantitative approach to jointly assess the economic performance and robustness of some representatives of two most well-known classes of maintenance policies: time-based and condition-based maintenance. To this end, we first propose a new cost criterion which combines the long-run expected cost rate and standard deviation of maintenance cost per renewal cycle. Then, we develop and compare the associated mathematical cost models of the considered maintenance policies on the basis of the Gamma degradation process and the theory of stochastic renewal processes. The comparison results under different situations of maintenance costs and system characteristics show that the optimal configuration of maintenance policies gives the best compromise between the performance and robustness, and is mostly affected by the system downtime. Under this aspect, the condition-based maintenance remains more profitable than the time-based maintenance. Still, maintenance managers could implement condition-based maintenance policies that efficiently control the downtime to maximise the maintenance effectiveness of production systems from both performance and robustness viewpoints.
Degradation-based prognostics is crucial for the health management of technological systems. In this work, we are interested in the degradation index construction and remaining useful life ...prognostics for stochastically deteriorating feedback control systems. The main challenges reside in the lack of knowledge about the system structure and the latent internal damage, as well as in the fault tolerance nature of feedback control systems. Our solution is to consider the whole system as a black-box, and use its easy-to-observe reference input/time response output to estimate the system transfer function. The associated H∞ norm, also called maximum energy gain, is defined as a system degradation index. Since the system fault tolerance does not allow to efficiently model the index evolution by common stochastic processes, traditional prognostics based on degradation processes are no longer applicable. To remedy, we propose to fit the system remaining useful life population to the versatile Birnbaum–Saunders distribution, and adopt a segmenting piecewise polynomials algorithm to learn the mapping between the distribution parameters and degradation index from degradation and failure data of similar systems. By this way, the remaining useful life distribution of deteriorating feedback control systems can be predicted in real-time given the system input/output at an inspection time. We numerically experiment our method on a stabilization loop control device driven by proportional–integral–differential controller in an inertial platform. Numerous sensitivity results under various configurations of system characteristics and training data corroborate the outperformance of proposed degradation index and the learning-based prognostics method.
•Degradation-based prognostics for stochastically deteriorating feedback control systems.•Maximum energy gain constructed from the system input–output as degradation index.•Development of a learning-based method for remaining useful life prognosis.•Numerical experiments on a deteriorating stabilization loop control device.
This paper is devoted to proposing a flexible continuous wind speed model based on mixtures of Markov chain and stochastic differential equations. The motivations are as follows: (a) the model is ...intended to generate wind speed sequence with statistical properties similar to the observed wind speed for a particular site. (b) The model is intended to generate long-term wind speed patterns with high frequency when necessary. This model is flexible enough to generate wind speed at different timescales without time-length limitation. Different stochastic differential equations which express various environmental conditions and behaviors can be used in the model, make the proposed model adapt for various configurations. Two forms of stochastic differential equations have already been studied in this paper; other forms could be applied to this model according to the user's requirement. A sequence of generated wind speed is applied to a wind turbine simulator as an application example. Having low computational requirement is another advantage of the model.
•Wind speed generation model based on stochastic process.•Different timescales wind speed generation.•Modelling of the same average wind speed with various wind speed turbulence intensity.•Merge with wind turbine power estimation and key component deterioration.
ObjectiveTo evaluate real-world treatment patterns and clinical outcomes in recurrent/advanced endometrial cancer patients who progressed following prior systemic therapy in clinical practice in ...Europe.DesignEndometrial Cancer Health Outcomes-Europe (ECHO-EU) is a retrospective patient chart review study.SettingECHO-EU is a multicentre study conducted in the UK, Germany, Italy, France and Spain.ParticipantsPatients with recurrent/advanced endometrial cancer who progressed between 1 July 2016 and 30 June 2019 following prior first-line systemic therapy were eligible and data were collected until last available follow-up through November 2021.Primary and secondary outcome measuresData collected included patient demographics, clinical and treatment characteristics, and clinical outcomes. Kaplan-Meier analyses were performed since initiation of second-line therapy to estimate time to treatment discontinuation, real-world progression-free survival (rwPFS) and overall survival (OS).ResultsA total of 475 patients were included from EU5 countries. Median age was 69 years at advanced endometrial cancer diagnosis, 78.7% had stage IIIB–IV disease, 45.9% had Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group status ≥2 at second-line therapy initiation. In second line, a majority of patients initiated either non-platinum-based chemotherapy (55.6%) or endocrine therapy (16.2%). Physician-reported real-world overall response rate (classified as complete or partial response) to second-line therapy was 34.5%, median rwPFS was 7.4 months (95% CI 6.2 to 8.0) and median OS was 11.0 months (95% CI 9.9 to 12.3).ConclusionsPatients had poor clinical outcomes with a median OS of <1 year and rwPFS of approximately 7 months, highlighting the significant unmet medical need in pretreated recurrent/advanced endometrial cancer patients. Novel therapies with potential to improve PFS and OS over conventional therapies could provide significant clinical benefit.
There is a growing need to improve robustness of fattening pigs, but this trait is difficult to phenotype. Our first objective was to develop a proxy for robustness of fattening pigs by modelling the ...longitudinal energy allocation coefficient to growth, with the resulting environmental variance of this allocation coefficient considered as a proxy for robustness. The second objective was to estimate its genetic parameters and correlations with traits under selection and with phenotypes that are routinely collected. In total, 5848 pigs from a Pietrain NN paternal line were tested at the AXIOM boar testing station (Azay-sur-Indre, France) from 2015 to 2022. This farm is equipped with an automatic feeding system that records individual weight and feed intake at each visit. We used a dynamic linear regression model to characterize the evolution of the allocation coefficient between the available cumulative net energy, which was estimated from feed intake, and cumulative weight gain during the fattening period. Longitudinal energy allocation coefficients were analysed using a two-step approach to estimate both the genetic variance of the coefficients and the genetic variance in their residual variance, which will be referred to as the log-transformed squared residual (LSR). The LSR trait, which could be interpreted as an indicator of the response of the animal to perturbations/stress, showed a low heritability (0.05 + or - 0.01), a high favourable genetic correlation with average daily growth (- 0.71 + or - 0.06), and unfavourable genetic correlations with feed conversion ratio (- 0.76 + or - 0.06) and residual feed intake (- 0.83 + or - 0.06). Segmentation of the population in four classes using estimated breeding values for LSR showed that animals with the lowest estimated breeding values were those with the worst values for phenotypic proxies of robustness, which were assessed using records routinely collected on farm.
Objective
To identify the molecular basis of a severe systemic autoinflammatory disorder (SAID) and define its main phenotypic features, and to functionally assess the sequence variations identified ...in LYN, a gene encoding a nonreceptor tyrosine kinase.
Methods
We used targeted next‐generation sequencing and in vitro functional studies of Lyn phosphorylation state and Lyn‐dependent NF‐κB activity after expression of recombinant Lyn isoforms carrying different sequence variations.
Results
We identified a de novo LYN variation (p.Tyr508His) in a patient presenting since birth with recurrent fever, chronic urticaria, atopic dermatitis, arthralgia, increased inflammatory biomarkers, and elevated plasma cytokine levels. We studied the consequences on Lyn phosphorylation state of the p.Tyr508His variation and of the 2 LYN variations reported so far (p.Tyr508Phe and p.Tyr508*), and found that all 3 variations prevent phosphorylation of residue 508 and lead to autophosphorylation of Tyr397. Additionally, these 3 LYN variations activate the NF‐κB pathway. These results show a gain‐of‐function effect of the variations involving Tyr508 on Lyn activity.
Conclusion
This study demonstrates the pathogenicity of the first 3 LYN variations identified in SAID patients and delineates the phenotypic spectrum of a disease entity characterized by severe, early‐onset, systemic inflammatory disease affecting neonates with no family history of SAID. All 3 LYN variations affect the same tyrosine residue located in the C‐terminus of Lyn, thereby demonstrating the critical role of this residue in the proper regulation of Lyn activity in humans.
•Lifetime distribution parameter estimation with large size data.•The impact of parameter estimation on maintenance decision rule.•Age-based and periodic replacement maintenance policies.•Confidence ...bounds for the optimal maintenance decision variables.
This paper analyzes three time-based replacement policies when the parameters of the time-to-failure distribution are unknown. Under the hypothesis of a large sample data, the unknown parameters are estimated via maximum likelihood method. The uncertainty around the point estimates impacts the maintenance decision rules. Based on the asymptotic normality of the parameter estimators and delta-method, the asymptotic distribution of the optimal decision parameter and the average cost is derived. This distribution permits to measure the uncertainty around the optimal maintenance decision rule induced by the point estimates. The sensitivity analysis of the replacement policies to the maintenance unit costs and lifetime distribution parameters is carried out. Application to two time-to-failure distributions is provided.
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