BACKGROUND: The results from recent studies suggest that alexithymia, a disorder characterized by impairments in understanding personal experiences of emotion, is frequently co-morbid with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, the extent that alexithymia is associated with primary deficits in recognizing external emotional cues, characteristic in ASD, has yet to be determined.MethodTwenty high-functioning adults with ASD and 20 age- and intelligence-matched typical controls categorized vocal and verbal expressions of emotion and completed an alexithymia assessment. RESULTS: Emotion recognition scores in the ASD group were significantly poorer than in the control group and performance was influenced by the severity of alexithymia and the psycho-acoustic complexity of the presented stimuli. For controls, the effect of complexity was significantly smaller than for the ASD group, although the association between total emotion recognition scores and alexithymia was still strong. CONCLUSIONS: Higher levels of alexithymia in the ASD group accounted for some, but not all, of the group difference in emotion recognition ability. However, alexithymia was insufficient to explain the different sensitivities of the two groups to the effects of psycho-acoustic complexity on performance. The results showing strong associations between emotion recognition and alexithymia scores in controls suggest a potential explanation for variability in emotion recognition in non-clinical populations.

An experimental and theoretical methodology is proposed to calculate the permeability of microcapsules that contain a core of oil-based active ingredient. Theoretical analysis is performed considering the polydispersity of the measurable capsule size, which allows the estimation of the permeability polydispersity via three different methods. The models proposed were applied in order to determine the permeability of melamine-formaldehyde microcapsules with hexyl salicylate as core oil. Release experiments were performed with four different co-solvents (ethanol, propan-1-ol, propan-2-ol and 1,3-butanediol) of different concentration. Permeability values were found to be constant, despite a two order magnitude of difference in the solubility concentrations.

BACKGROUND: Drug-drug interactions complicate management of co-infection with HIV-1 and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Bedaquiline (formerly TMC207), an investigational agent for the treatment of tuberculosis, is metabolized by cytochrome P450 (CYP) 3A which may be induced by the antiretroviral drug efavirenz. METHODS: This was a Phase I pharmacokinetic drug interaction trial. Each healthy volunteer received two 400 mg doses of bedaquiline, the first alone, and the second with concomitant steady-state efavirenz. Plasma pharmacokinetic sampling for bedaquiline and its N-monodesmethyl metabolite (M2) was performed over 14 days after each bedaquiline dose. Steady-state efavirenz pharmacokinetics were also determined. Efavirenz metabolizer status was based on CYP2B6 composite 516/983 genotype. RESULTS: Thirty-three of 37 enrolled subjects completed the study. Geometric mean ratios (GMR) for bedaquiline with efavirenz versus bedaquiline alone were 0.82 (90% CI 0.75 to 0.89) for the 14-day area under the concentration-time curve (AUC0-336h) and 1.00 (90% CI 0.88 to 1.13) for the maximum concentration (Cmax). For M2, the GMR was 1.07 (90% CI 0.97 to 1.19) for AUC0-336h and 1.89 (90% CI 1.66 to 2.15) for Cmax. There were no Grade 3 or 4 clinical adverse events. One subject developed asymptomatic Grade 3 serum transaminase elevation, prompting study drug discontinuation. Efavirenz concentrations stratified by CYP2B6 genotype were similar to historical data. CONCLUSIONS: Single-dose bedaquiline was well-tolerated alone and with steady-state efavirenz. The effect of efavirenz on bedaquiline concentrations is unlikely to be clinically significant.

To determine how many steps·day(-1) equate to current moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) guidelines in a population from the Lower Mississippi Delta (LMD) of the United States, 58 overweight adults wore an Actigraph accelerometer (GT3X) for up to 2 weeks. Min·day(-1) in MVPA was a good predictor of steps·day(-1)(r(2)= 0.62; p < 0.001; linear regression), such that 30 min of daily MVPA equated to 9154 steps·day(-1)(mixed-model approach). Using receiver operating characteristic analysis, sensitivity and specificity were optimized at 8357 steps·day(-1). Results indicate that overweight residents of the LMD should be accumulating at least 8300-9100 steps·day(-1) to meet the recommendation of 30 min·day(-1) MVPA.

Diagnosis of low back pain and other degenerative spinal pathologies can be extremely difficult and, so far, there are not accepted standards. In general, such pathologies are associated with alteration of mechanical properties of spine and, in particular, with the instability of spinal motion. Intervertebral kinematics can be a valuable, objective method to assess the functionality of spinal segments. Fluoroscopic imaging system can provide continuous screening of lumbar tracts during patient's motion, with an acceptable low X-ray dose. Estimation of intervertebral kinematics relies on accurate recognition of vertebrae positions throughout the fluoroscopic sequence: specific vertebrae features are identified and tracked either by manual selection or by automated methods. This study presents a new method of vertebra tracking, based on image template matching of the contour of the vertebral body for an accurate intervertebral kinematics analysis. An image gradient operator was utilized to obtain the vertebral contours; it operates after an edge-preserving smoothing filter designed to reduce low dose X-ray image noise. Once a template is defined for each vertebra, this is used to determine the best vertebral location in each image throughout the fluoroscopic sequence. Accuracy of the proposed method was tested using images of a calibration model. Average error achieved for the intervertebral angle is of the order of 0.4° and approximately 2mm for the intervertebral centre of rotation. Five fluoroscopic lumbar sequences of healthy volunteers undergoing passive flexion-extension motion were processed. The intervertebral kinematics was compared with other methods (automated and manual) by an estimation of measurement error. Results showed that the current method provides a better representation of the evolution over time of kinematic parameters. In particular, root mean square differences between the current method and a manual selection procedure performed by an experienced and trained clinician resulted 1.3° for the intervertebral angles and 0.9 mm for the intervertebral trajectory. The proposed method provides an effective, automated and objective technique for estimation of intervertebral kinematics of lumbar spine.

This commentary considers the paper by Furley and Memmert (2010) who sought to test the respective validities of the specific processing and cognitive adaptation hypotheses. That they found no evidence of a difference between experienced basketball players and nonathletes on the Corsi block task, a measure of spatial memory, led them to infer support for the specific processing hypothesis, namely that differences between experts and novices manifest themselves only in processes related specifically to the domain of expertise. An alternative interpretation is offered, indicating possible confounds and referring to recent research that suggests Corsi block and dynamic spatial tasks depend upon different neuronal networks.

Identifying parasitism genes encoding proteins secreted from a plant-parasitic nematode's esophageal gland cells and injected through its stylet into plant tissue is the key to understanding the molecular basis of nematode parasitism of plants. Parasitism genes have been cloned by directly microaspirating the cytoplasm from the esophageal gland cells of different parasitic stages of cyst or root-knot nematodes to provide mRNA to create a gland cell-specific cDNA library by long-distance reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction. cDNA clones are sequenced and deduced protein sequences with a signal peptide for secretion are identified for high-throughput in situ hybridization to confirm gland-specific expression.

The evaluation of bilingual children is a complicated endeavor because there are various views of how bilingualism affects brain organization and functioning. Added to that is the challenge of determining language development of Hispanic children living in a monolingual Spanish-speaking home in a Spanish-speaking country, but mostly exposed to English language television programming and, in some cases, English language school curriculum. Our case will review the evaluation process of a 14-year-old Puerto Rican boy with previous diagnoses of expressive language disorder and Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The neuropsychological evaluation revealed an IQ within the average range, with significant differences between the perceptual reasoning, verbal comprehension, and processing speed. The case will summarize performance in verbal, executive, and psycho-educational measures with a thorough review of his developmental history and the interpretation of these neuropsychological achievement and behavioral measures in light of other variables influencing his difficulties.