Refits, cobbles, and fire: Approaching the temporal nature of an expedient Gravettian lithic assemblage from Lagar Velho (Leiria, Portugal).

Upper Paleolithic lithic assemblages have traditionally been considered a paramount example of the high level of complexity characterizing the technological behavior of prehistoric modern humans. The diversity and standardization of tools, as well as the systematic production of blades and bladelets, show the high investment of time, energy and knowledge often associated with Upper Paleolithic technocomplexes. However, more expedient behaviors have also been documented. In some cases, such low-cost behaviors can be dominant or almost exclusive, giving assemblages of Upper Paleolithic age an "archaic" appearance. In this paper, we address these expedient Upper Paleolithic technologies through the study of a lithic assemblage recovered from a Gravettian-age layer from the Lagar Velho rockshelter (Leiria, Portugal). Due to the specific formation processes characterizing this site, we also discuss the distinction between artifacts and geofacts, an aspect that is particularly difficult in expedient assemblages. Moreover, the combination of lithic refitting and data on thermal damage allows us to approach the temporal nature of the lithic assemblage and the timing of the different agents contributing to its formation.

RGB image-based method for phenotyping rust disease progress in pea leaves using R.

BACKGROUND: Rust is a damaging disease affecting vital crops, including pea, and identifying highly resistant genotypes remains a challenge. Accurate measurement of infection levels in large germplasm collections is crucial for finding new resistance sources. Current evaluation methods rely on visual estimation of disease severity and infection type under field or controlled conditions. While they identify some resistance sources, they are error-prone and time-consuming. An image analysis system proves useful, providing an easy-to-use and affordable way to quickly count and measure rust-induced pustules on pea samples. This study aimed to develop an automated image analysis pipeline for accurately calculating rust disease progression parameters under controlled conditions, ensuring reliable data collection. RESULTS: A highly efficient and automatic image-based method for assessing rust disease in pea leaves was developed using R. The method's optimization and validation involved testing different segmentation indices and image resolutions on 600 pea leaflets with rust symptoms. The approach allows automatic estimation of parameters like pustule number, pustule size, leaf area, and percentage of pustule coverage. It reconstructs time series data for each leaf and integrates daily estimates into disease progression parameters, including latency period and area under the disease progression curve. Significant variation in disease responses was observed between genotypes using both visual ratings and image-based analysis. Among assessed segmentation indices, the Normalized Green Red Difference Index (NGRDI) proved fastest, analysing 600 leaflets at 60% resolution in 62 s with parallel processing. Lin's concordance correlation coefficient between image-based and visual pustule counting showed over 0.98 accuracy at full resolution. While lower resolution slightly reduced accuracy, differences were statistically insignificant for most disease progression parameters, significantly reducing processing time and storage space. NGRDI was optimal at all time points, providing highly accurate estimations with minimal accumulated error. CONCLUSIONS: A new image-based method for monitoring pea rust disease in detached leaves, using RGB spectral indices segmentation and pixel value thresholding, improves resolution and precision. It rapidly analyses hundreds of images with accuracy comparable to visual methods and higher than other image-based approaches. This method evaluates rust progression in pea, eliminating rater-induced errors from traditional methods. Implementing this approach to evaluate large germplasm collections will improve our understanding of plant-pathogen interactions and aid future breeding for novel pea cultivars with increased rust resistance.

Multidisciplinary evidence of an isolated Neanderthal occupation in Abric del Pastor (Alcoi, Iberian Peninsula).

Testing Neanderthal behavioural hypotheses requires a spatial-temporal resolution to the level of a human single occupation episode. Yet, most of the behavioural data on Neanderthals has been obtained from coarsely dated, time-averaged contexts affected by the archaeological palimpsest effect and a diversity of postdepositional processes. This implies that time-resolved Neanderthal behaviour remains largely unknown. In this study, we performed archaeostratigraphic analysis on stratigraphic units IVe, IVf, IVg, Va, Vb and Vc from Abric del Pastor (Alcoi, Iberian Peninsula). Further, we isolated the archaeological remains associated with the resulting archaeostratigraphic unit and applied raw material, technological, use-wear, archaeozoological and spatial analyses. Our results show a low-density accumulation of remains from flintknapping, flint tool-use and animal processing around a hearth. These data provide a time-resolved human dimension to previous high-resolution environmental and pyrotechnological data on the same hearth, representing the first comprehensive characterisation of a Neanderthal single occupation episode. Our integrated, multidisciplinary method also contributes to advance our understanding of archaeological record formation processes.

Biomarkers in Shock Patients and Their Value as A Prognostic Tool; A Prospective Multi-Center Cohort Study.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the prognostic value of clinical and laboratory tests in prediction of outcome in patients at day 30 post presentation to hospital with shock and to determine the prognostic value of mid regional pro-adrenomedullin (MR-proADM) on mortality prediction at 30 days in the same patient cohort. METHOD: This prospective multicenter cohort study analyzed data from patients who had presenting with shock to the emergency departments of eleven urban, tertiary-care University hospitals in Spain between March, 2011 and May, 2011. Recruitment of patients was via convenience sampling. Inclusion criteria included age between 14 and 100 years with clinical diagnostic criteria of shock on admission. Various patient parameters were analysed, such as age, sex, past medical history. Other clinical variables were measured on arrival to hospital, including sequential organ failure assessment score (score SOFA), blood pressure, oxygen saturations, capillary refill time and shock index (SI). Laboratory variables investigated included base excess, MR-proADM, lactate, C-Reactive Protein (CRP) and procalcitonin (PCT). RESULTS: There were 212 patients included in the study from the eleven hospitals involved. The mean age was 72.2 years old and 60.4% of the patients were men. In the discriminant analysis only age, MR-proADM and PCT remained in the final discriminant equation. The separate analysis of MR-proADM showed that, in the non-survivors group, MR-proADM levels are significantly higher than those found in the group of survivors (p<0.001). CONCLUSION: Age, PCT and MR-proADM were useful to predict short-term mortality in patients presenting to the emergency department shock. This suggests that PCT and MR-proADM in combination with the most common prediction models will improve prognostic value.

In Vitro Activity of Tedizolid against Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Tedizolid is a novel oxazolidinone with activities against Gram-positive microorganisms, including mycobacteria. We studied the in vitro activity of tedizolid against 120 Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains, including susceptible, first-line-resistant, and multidrug-resistant isolates. MIC was tested using the Bactec 960 MGIT system. MIC90 and MIC50 were 0.5 and 0.25 µg/ml, respectively, in susceptible and resistant strains. Tedizolid may be an alternative in the treatment of resistant M. tuberculosis.

Surveillance of Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis in Spain (2001-2015).

Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is a cause of increasing concern. This study investigated first-line anti-TB drug resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains submitted to the Tuberculosis Reference Center in Córdoba (Spain) between 2001 and 2015. A total of 1,207 cultures were tested against first-line drugs using the BACTEC MGIT 960 system. Resistance to first-line drugs was detected in 207 strains (17.2%), the greatest resistance being found in INH (5.3%) followed by streptomycin (3%), pyrazinamide (2.2%), rifampicin (1%), and ethambutol (0.2%). A total of 1.9% of strains were MDR-TB. Six strains displayed resistance to four drugs, and three strains to five drugs. In view of resistance observed, careful surveillance of drug resistance is recommended.

Evaluation of a new automated Abbott RealTime MTB RIF/INH assay for qualitative detection of rifampicin/isoniazid resistance in pulmonary and extra-pulmonary clinical samples of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

A new automated real-time PCR assay for the detection of rifampicin (RIF) and isoniazid (INH) resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) was evaluated. A total of 163 clinical samples (128 pulmonary and 35 extra-pulmonary) were processed using four PCR assay kits: Abbott RealTime MTB RIF/INH, Genotype MTBDRplus, Xpert/MTB RIF, and Anyplex MTB/MDR. The results of phenotypic drug-susceptibility testing using BACTECMGIT 960 were used as reference. The sensitivity and specificity of the new Abbott RealTime MTB RIF/INH assay in comparison with phenotypic testing was 96.3% (95%CI 87.32%-100%) for RIF and 100% (95%CI 99.3%-100%) for INH; the sensitivity was 78.8% (95%CI 66.8%-90.9%) and the specificity was 100% (95%CI 98.9%-100%). The Abbott RealTime MTB RIF/INH test could be a valid method for detecting the most common mutations in strains resistant to RIF and INH.

Looking at the Camp: Paleolithic Depiction of a Hunter-Gatherer Campsite.

Landscapes and features of the everyday world were scarcely represented in Paleolithic art, especially those features associated with the human landscape (huts and campsites). On the contrary, other figurative motifs (especially animals) and signs, traditionally linked to the magic or religious conceptions of these hunter-gatherer societies, are the predominant themes of Upper Paleolithic art. This paper seeks to present an engraved schist slab recently found in the Molí del Salt site (North-eastern Iberia) and dated at the end of the Upper Paleolithic, ca. 13,800 years ago. This slab displays seven semicircular motifs that may be interpreted as the representation of dome-shaped huts. The analysis of individual motifs and the composition, as well as the ethnographic and archeological contextualization, suggests that this engraving is a naturalistic depiction of a hunter-gatherer campsite. Campsites can be considered the first human landscape, the first area of land whose visible features were entirely constructed by humans. Given the social meaning of campsites in hunter-gatherer life-styles, this engraving may be considered one of the first representations of the domestic and social space of a human group.

Convergent evidence of eagle talons used by late Neanderthals in Europe: a further assessment on symbolism.

To contribute to have a better understanding of the symbolic or not use of certain items by Neanderthals, this work presents new evidence of the deliberate removal of raptor claws occurred in Mediterranean Europe during the recent phases of the Mousterian. Rio Secco Cave in the north-east of Italy and Mandrin Cave in the Middle Rhône valley have recently produced two golden eagle pedal phalanges from contexts not younger than 49.1-48.0 ky cal BP at Rio Secco and dated around 50.0 ky cal BP at Mandrin. The bones show cut-marks located on the proximal end ascribable to the cutting of the tendons and the incision of the cortical organic tissues. Also supported by an experimental removal of large raptor claws, our reconstruction explains that the deliberate detachment occurred without damaging the claw, in a way comparable at a general level with other Mousterian contexts across Europe. After excluding that these specimens met the nutritional requirements for human subsistence, we discuss the possible implications these findings perform in our current knowledge of the European Middle Palaeolithic context.

Detecting human presence at the border of the Northeastern Italian Pre-Alps. 14C dating at Rio Secco cave as expression of the first Gravettian and the late mousterian in the Northern Adriatic Region.

In the northern Adriatic regions, which include the Venetian region and the Dalmatian coast, late Neanderthal settlements are recorded in few sites and even more ephemeral are remains of the Mid-Upper Palaeolithic occupations. A contribution to reconstruct the human presence during this time range has been produced from a recently investigated cave, Rio Secco, located in the northern Adriatic region at the foot of the Carnic Pre-Alps. Chronometric data make Rio Secco a key site in the context of recording occupation by late Neanderthals and regarding the diffusion of the Mid-Upper Palaeolithic culture in a particular district at the border of the alpine region. As for the Gravettian, its diffusion in Italy is a subject of on-going research and the aim of this paper is to provide new information on the timing of this process in Italy. In the southern end of the Peninsula the first occupation dates to around 28,000 14C BP, whereas our results on Gravettian layer range from 29,390 to 28,995 14C years BP. At the present state of knowledge, the emergence of the Gravettian in eastern Italy is contemporaneous with several sites in Central Europe and the chronological dates support the hypothesis that the Swabian Gravettian probably dispersed from eastern Austria.

Learning by heart: cultural patterns in the faunal processing sequence during the middle pleistocene.

Social learning, as an information acquisition process, enables intergenerational transmission and the stabilisation of cultural forms, generating and sustaining behavioural traditions within human groups. Archaeologically, such social processes might become observable by identifying repetitions in the record that result from the execution of standardised actions. From a zooarchaeological perspective, the processing and consumption of carcasses may be used to identify these types of phenomena at the sites. To investigate this idea, several faunal assemblages from Bolomor Cave (Valencia, Spain, MIS 9-5e) and Gran Dolina TD10-1 (Burgos, Spain, MIS 9) were analysed. The data show that some butchery activities exhibit variability as a result of multiple conditioning factors and, therefore, the identification of cultural patterns through the resulting cut-marks presents additional difficulties. However, other activities, such as marrow removal by means of intentional breakage, seem to reflect standardised actions unrelated to the physical characteristics of the bones. The statistical tests we applied show no correlation between the less dense areas of the bones and the location of impacts. Comparison of our experimental series with the archaeological samples indicates a counter-intuitive selection of the preferred locus of impact, especially marked in the case of Bolomor IV. This fact supports the view that bone breakage was executed counter-intuitively and repetitively on specific sections because it may have been part of an acquired behavioural repertoire. These reiterations differ between levels and sites, suggesting the possible existence of cultural identities or behavioural predispositions dependant on groups. On this basis, the study of patterns could significantly contribute to the identification of occupational strategies and organisation of the hominids in a territory. In this study, we use faunal data in identifying the mechanics of intergenerational information transmission within Middle Pleistocene human communities and provide new ideas for the investigation of occupational dynamics from a zooarchaeological approach.

Bcl-2 and BLIMP-1 expression predict worse prognosis in gastric diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLCBL) while other markers for nodal DLBCL are not useful.

AIMS: Previous studies have identified clinicopathological and immunohistochemical differences among diffuse large B cell lymphomas (DLBCL) as a function of disease location. Nevertheless, there is a continuing tendency to generalize the prognostic value of various identified markers without taking into account tumour site. Accordingly, we analysed the prognostic value of several of the immunohistochemical markers that have been proposed for nodal DLBCL in a group of patients with gastric DLBCL. METHODS AND RESULTS: Using histochemical methods, CD10, Bcl-6, Gcet1, MUM-1, Bcl-2 and BLIMP-1 expression was investigated in 43 cases of gastric DBLCL. As in nodal DLBCLs, expression of BLIMP-1, and of Bcl-2 in non-germinal centre B cell-like (non-GCB) patients, was associated with a worse prognosis. However, unlike nodal DBLCL, there was no significant association of prognosis with expression of CD10, Bcl-6, Gcet1 or MUM-1, or with categorization according to Hans or Muris algorithms. CONCLUSIONS: Although most markers of prognosis in nodal DLBCL are not useful indicators for gastric DLBCL, Bcl-2 or BLIMP-1 expression does correlate with worse prognosis. These data support the notion that clinicopathological features in DLBCL vary according to the disease location.

Paragastric paraganglioma: a case report with unusual alveolar pattern and myxoid component.

Paragangliomas are neural crest-derived neuroendocrine tumors. Nearly 5 to 10% occur in extraadrenal sites, from the upper cervical region to the pelvis, related to the autonomic nervous system. Very few cases of gastric or paragastric paragangliomas have been reported. We report a paraganglioma attached to the stomach of an 85-year-old man. The tumor was 15 cm in diameter and was surgically resected via a subtotal gastrectomy. Fine-needle aspiration smears showed round epithelioid cells forming acini and spindle cells attached to capillaries. Occasional cells showed excentric nuclei and pale vesicular cytoplasm. Microscopically, the tumor was characterized by an alveolar and solid pattern of growth with some unusual features, such as myxoid stroma and pseudoalveoli that contained myxoid material. Spindle cells stained with vimentin and S-100 protein, whereas epithelioid cells showed diffuse cytoplasmic staining with chromogranin A. Electron microscopy of the tumor tissue revealed the presence of neurosecretory granules. To the best of our knowledge, this pattern of growth has yet to be described in the literature and may result in a misdiagnosis if sufficient immunohistochemical markers are not employed. We briefly discuss the cytomorphological features and differential diagnosis of this tumor, which was discovered in a rare location.

Changes in vertical jump height, anthropometric characteristics, and biochemical parameters after contrast training in master athletes and physically active older people.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of 16 weeks of contrast training (CT) on older adults (with different levels of physical conditioning) in vertical jump performance (squat jump [SJ], countermovement jump [CMJ], CMJ during 15 seconds [CMJ15], depth jump [DJ]), body weight, fat percentage, muscle mass (MM), muscle cross-sectional area ([CSA] of the arm and thigh) and biochemical parameters (creatine kinase [CK], creatinine, and urea). Sixteen older (63.55 ± 6.89 years) recreational master runners (A) and 16 physically active older people (60.30 ± 5.18 years) though not athletes (NA), participated in the CT using a combination of heavy-resistance and explosive exercise. The dependent variables were measured pretraining and posttraining. The CT resulted in significant improvements (α = 0.05) for both groups in jump performance. The SJ height improved in NA by 21.68% and in A by 21.81%, the CMJ height increased in NA by 21.51% and in A by 14.81%, the DJ height increased in NA by 26.45% and in A by 7.43%, and CMJ15 increased in NA by 6.20% and in A by 6.17%). Significant improvements in MM (16.44% in NA and 14.78% in A), thigh CSA (19.68% in NA and 21.67% in A), and arm CSA (7.43% in NA and 5.52% in A), and significant decreases in creatinine (8.65%) and CK (25.49%) in A were observed. In conclusion, CT improved vertical jump performance and MM in both groups, regardless of the training history and current physical activity of each group. These improvements were accompanied by a slight decrease in body fat but no changes in total body weight. These findings suggest that CT can have a significant effect on maximal jump height and MM in NA and A.

Potential misdiagnosis of angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma with Hodgkin's lymphoma: a case report.

BACKGROUND: Angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma (AITL) is an aggressive neoplasm. We investigated the potential utility of touch imprints evaluated in conjunction with the histology of lymph nodes in the diagnosis of AITL. CASE A 58-year-old man presented with generalized lymphadenopathy, splenomegaly, and autoimmune phenomena, which complicated the diagnosis. Touch imprints were obtained from the lymph node biopsy, which were valuable in making the correct diagnosis. The cytologic and microscopic features of these imprints and lymph node samples showed a heterogeneous population of hematolymphoid cells, including small to intermediate lymphoid cells, immunoblasts, plasma cells, dendritic cells, and eosinophils, as well as small vessels that were surrounded by some of the abnormal cells. Neoplastic cells stained positive for CD3, CD4, and CD5. Isolated immunoblasts stained with CD20 and CD30. CONCLUSION: We draw attention to this neoplastic diagnosis and correlate the cytomorphologic and immunohistochemical findings with the adequate clinical setting in order to avoid misdiagnosis, primarily with Hodgkin's lymphoma and reactive hyperplasia. Touch imprints are useful in the diagnosis of AITL if the broad population of proliferating cells is distinguished. However, some cases display binucleated or mononucleated cells with prominent nucleoli and many eosinophils, which may induce a potential misdiagnosis with Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Littoral-cell angioma of the spleen: a case report.

Littoral-cell angioma (LCA) is a primary splenic vascular tumor that arises from the normal littoral cells lining the sinus channels of the splenic red pulp. We report a case of LCA of the spleen, which has been infrequently communicated in the literature. A 76-year-old man with a 2-wk history of weight loss, abdominal pain and changes in bowel habits was admitted to our hospital. Imaging studies (CT and MRI) showed multiple lesions in the spleen. Splenectomy was performed. Lining cells were positive for CD31/CD68 markers. Our case was associated with a serrated colonic adenoma. LCA is a benign vascular tumor of the spleen that needs to be included in the differential diagnosis of multiple splenic nodules.