Search Results (11)

Claudin-4 is a key component of tight junctions, which play an important role in the formation of the epidermal barrier by forming a circumferential network in the granular layer that serves as a gatekeeper of the paracellular pathway. The aim of this study is to illustrate claudin-4 immunohistochemical staining patterns of different blistering disorders. We collected 35 cases, including two Hailey–Hailey disease, one Darier disease, three Grover disease, one acantholytic acanthoma, two warty dyskeratoma, 11 pemphigus vulgaris (PV) including six mucosal PV, and two pemphigus foliaceus. For comparison, we included five cases of normal skin, five eczema, and three bullous pemphigoid cases. Claudin-4 demonstrated weak-to-moderate expression in keratinocytes located in the stratum granulosum, keratinocytes surrounding hair follicles, and adnexal glands. Further, claudin-4 exhibited moderate-to-strong membranous staining in disrupted keratinocytes surrounding and within the acantholytic and bullous areas in 16/22 of the acantholytic cases (not seen in the six cases of mucosal PV) and all three bullous pemphigoids. This finding suggests that claudin-4 is upregulated in these conditions, which may be a compensatory response to the disrupted barrier function. This finding could shed light on the molecular mechanisms underlying disrupted barrier function in blistering disorders, independent of the specific underlying disease mechanism. Full article

Coastal dunes are valuable and vulnerable habitats that require scientific exploration and understanding of their natural processes; therefore, the aims of this study were to determine the current vegetation characteristics of dune habitats along the Bulgarian Coast in terms of species richness and cover of typical psammophytes and different non-psammophytic plant groups, and to analyze how they respond to certain environmental drivers. Data were collected from 12 dune systems. The research was focused on embryonic, white and grey dunes. The field work was conducted throughout July and August 2017. The vegetation was sampled at 154 phytosociological plots (5 m × 5 m). To understand how the vegetation responds to different drivers, we tested the correlation of defined species group richness and cover in relation to (1) the soil pH and EC values, (2) the distance from inland to the sea and (3) the range of different categories of land cover in the surrounding area. In order to track temporal vegetation changes, we compared the cover of defined species groups between 2003 and 2017. We registered a total number of 269 vascular plants, 12 bryophytes and 5 lichens. The strongest presence in all dune types, both in species richness and cover, was the group of grass- and shrubland plants. Weeds and ruderal plants had significant coverage in grey dunes, while the richness and cover of forest and alien plants were negligible among the studied dune habitats. The comparison of data between 2003 and 2017 revealed a substantial decline in the cover of psammophytes. We observed a clear pattern regarding the share of species richness of psammophytes and non-psammophytes among different locations. We detected that grey dunes were the most affected by the penetration of non-psammophytes. Full article

Rhythm is a ubiquitous feature of music that induces specific neural modes of processing. In this paper, we assess the potential of a stimulus-driven linear oscillator model (⁵⁷) to predict dynamic attention to complex musical rhythms on an instant-by-instant basis. We use perceptual thresholds and pupillometry as attentional indices against which to test our model predictions. During a deviance detection task, participants listened to continuously looping, multiinstrument, rhythmic patterns, while being eye-tracked. Their task was to respond anytime they heard an increase in intensity (dB SPL). An adaptive thresholding algorithm adjusted deviant intensity at multiple probed temporal locations throughout each rhythmic stimulus. The oscillator model predicted participants’ perceptual thresholds for detecting deviants at probed locations, with a low temporal salience prediction corresponding to a high perceptual threshold and vice versa. A pupil dilation response was observed for all deviants. Notably, the pupil dilated even when participants did not report hearing a deviant. Maximum pupil size and resonator model output were significant predictors of whether a deviant was detected or missed on any given trial. Besides the evoked pupillary response to deviants, we also assessed the continuous pupillary signal to the rhythmic patterns. The pupil exhibited entrainment at prominent periodicities present in the stimuli and followed each of the different rhythmic patterns in a unique way. Overall, these results replicate previous studies using the linear oscillator model to predict dynamic attention to complex auditory scenes and extend the utility of the model to the prediction of neurophysiological signals, in this case the pupillary time course; however, we note that the amplitude envelope of the acoustic patterns may serve as a similarly useful predictor. To our knowledge, this is the first paper to show entrainment of pupil dynamics by demonstrating a phase relationship between musical stimuli and the pupillary signal. Full article

Visual capacity generally declines as people age, yet its impact on the visual search patterns along sections of different road during actual driving still remains undocumented. This on-road driving study simultaneously recorded 30 older drivers’ eye movement and precise vehicle movement trajectories. The vehicle positions were linked to every identified eye fixation for each individual driver, so that the locations of the driver's gaze origin in geo-spatial coordinates were obtained. Spatial distribution pattern of drivers’ eye fixations were then mapped and analysed. In addition, the associations between older drivers’ visual capacity (processing speed, divided and selective attention) and their eye fixation patterns in various driving manoeuvres were investigated. The results indicate that driving scenarios have a significant impact on older drivers’ visual patterns. Older drivers performed more frequent eye fixations at roundabouts, while they tended to fixate on certain objects for longer periods during straight road driving. The key findings show that the processing speed and divided attention of older drivers were associated with their eye fixations at complex right-turns; drivers with a lower capacity in selective attention performed less frequent eye fixations at roundabouts. This study has also demonstrated that visualisation and spatial statistics are effective and intuitive approaches to eye movement analysis. Full article

Graphs are commonly believed to facilitate users’ comprehension. We explored the effect of graphs on comprehension compared to text, manipulating content complexity (single bar vs. double bar graphs) and question type (point-locating vs. comparison questions). A total 78 college students viewed graph and text stimuli and answered comprehension questions while their eye movements were recorded. The results indicate that students do not always process graphs more efficiently than text conveying the same information. Students processed graphs significantly faster than text only when the more complex questions were shown. When the more complex graphic patterns were presented, the advantage of graphs over text became less apparent. The students also spent the majority of their time looking at specific information on the axes and label regions of the graphs with the increasing complexity of graphs and tasks. These findings are discussed related to theories of learning including cognitive load theory and perceptual salience theory. Full article

The effect of strain background on gene function in growth and development has been well documented. However, it has not been extensively reported whether the strain background affects the gene expression pattern. Here, we found that the expression of homeobox gene Meox-2 and FGF receptor 1 gene Fgfr1 during mouse palate development is strain-dependent. On the C57B6 inbred background, Meox-2 is expressed in the palatal outgrowth on Embryonic Day 11.5 (E11.5); the expression shifts posteriorly and is restricted to the back of palate on E14.5. On the Swiss Webster outbred background, Meox-2 expression covers both anterior and posterior regions with the same intensity from E12.5 to E14.5. On the Black Swiss background, Meox-2 expression also covers the entire palate A-P axis, but is much weaker in the anterior region on E14.5. Fgfr1 also displays distinct expression patterns in the palatal outgrowth on E11.5 in these three strains. On the Black Swiss outbred background, the expression is restricted to the anterior palatal outgrowth. In marked contrast, the expression in the Swiss Webster outbred strain is located exclusively in the posterior palate outgrowth on E11.5, whereas in the C57B6 inbred strain, the expression is undetectable in the palatal outgrowth on E11.5. Full article

Eyetrackers which allow for free head movements are in many cases imprecise to the extent that reading patterns become heavily distorted. The poor usability and interpretability of these gaze patterns is corroborated by a “naïve” fixation-to-symbol mapping, which often wrongly maps the possibly drifted center of the observed fixation onto the symbol directly below it. In this paper I extend this naïve fixation-to-symbol mapping by introducing background knowledge about the translation task. In a first step, the sequence of fixation-tosymbol mappings is extended into a lattice of several possible fixated symbols, including those on the line above and below the naïve fixation mapping. In a second step a dynamic programming algorithm applies a number of heuristics to find the best path through the lattice, based on the probable distance in characters, in words and in pixels between successive fixations and the symbol locations, so as to smooth the gazing path according to the background gazing model. A qualitative and quantitative evaluation shows that the algorithm increases the accuracy of the re-mapped symbol sequence. Full article

Observers performed working memory tasks at varying retinal eccentricities, fixating centrally while microsaccade rates and directions were monitored. We show that microsaccades generate no interference in a working memory task, indicating that spatial working memory is at least partially insulated from oculomotor activity. Intervening tasks during the memory interval affected memory as well as microsaccade patterns. Average microsaccade rate peaks after appearance of a fixation cross at the start of a trial, and dips at cue onset and offset. Direction of stimuli in choice tasks did not influence microsaccade direction, however. Poorer memory accuracy for locations at greater retinal eccentricity calls for revising ideas of short-term spatial representations to include retinotopic or allocentric codes. Full article

Genes have been in the scientific vocabulary for a hundred years. The term "gene" was proposed by the Danish plant scientist Wilhelm Johannsen in the first decade of the 20th century. For Johannsen, the gene remained an abstract concept, "free of any hypothesis" [1], but others were already pointing to chromosomes as the likely location of genes. The science of genetics was born at that time, and genes were rapidly connected with mutations, with patterns of inheritance, with development, with quantitative traits, with evolution and with biochemical pathways. All this was achieved without knowledge of the physical nature of genes, but this changed in mid-century with the discoveries of molecular biology. DNA was revealed as the genetic material, and the mechanisms were elucidated by which the information was encoded, and propagated, and linked to the phenotype. However, the concept of a "gene" did not become clearer. Quite the reverse, as the units of mutation, of recombination, of inheritance, of expression, of regulation, etc. did not necessarily coincide. [...] Full article

This article presents a new method for the quantitative analyses of fixation patterns in eye tracking data. The Fixation Region Overlap Analysis (FROA) uses thresholded spatial distributions of fixation frequency or duration to determine regions-of-interest (ROIs). The locations of these ROIs are contrasted with fixation regions of other empirically-derived, or modeled, data patterns by comparing region pixel overlap. A Monte Carlo procedure is used to assess the statistical significance of fixation region overlap based on 95% confidence intervals (C.I.) of the distribution of random overlap for each set of thresholded ROIs. The value of the FROA method is demonstrated by applying it to data acquired in an object recognition task to determine which of two potential models best account for the observed fixation patterns. Full article

In the present paper, I review evidence for the universality of the global effect, i.e. the general tendency to move the eyes towards the centre of gravity of the peripheral configuration, and show that the effect is strongly constrained by the retinal location of the stimuli. First, stimuli that are displayed in a central foveal region of a 1–1.5° radius fail to deviate the eyes in a centre-of-gravity manner; this is referred to as the foveal dead zone. Second, the stimuli that are too eccentric relative to the saccade target and/or the main stimulation site are filtered out. These limitations reflect physiological constraints and the dynamics of the patterns of activity in a visual saliency map. They form the basis for a low-level centre-of-gravity type account of eye guidance in natural perceptual tasks such as reading. Full article