A Web Application for Biomedical Text Mining of Scientific Literature Associated with Coronavirus-Related Syndromes: Coronavirus Finder.

In this study, a web application was developed that comprises scientific literature associated with the Coronaviridae family, specifically for those viruses that are members of the Genus Betacoronavirus, responsible for emerging diseases with a great impact on human health: Middle East Respiratory Syndrome-Related Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Related Coronavirus (SARS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2). The information compiled on this webserver aims to understand the basics of these viruses' infection, and the nature of their pathogenesis, enabling the identification of molecular and cellular components that may function as potential targets on the design and development of successful treatments for the diseases associated with the Coronaviridae family. Some of the web application's primary functions are searching for keywords within the scientific literature, natural language processing for the extraction of genes and words, the generation and visualization of gene networks associated with viral diseases derived from the analysis of latent semantic space, and cosine similarity measures. Interestingly, our gene association analysis reveals drug targets in understudies, and new targets suggested in the scientific literature to treat coronavirus.

Construindo nós: paralelos e lições entre HIV/aids e covid-19 a partir da análise de redes semânticas no Twitter / Building knots: parallels and lessons between HIV/aids and covid-19 from the analysis of semantic networks on Twitter / Construyendo nudos: paralelismos y lecciones entre el VIH/sida y covid-19 del análisis de redes semánticas en Twitter

O presente artigo busca analisar postagens na rede social digital Twitter que contêm os termos 'HIV/aids' e 'covid-19' publicadas em abril de 2021, quando o Ministério da Saúde amplia a vacinação contra a covid-19 para pessoas com HIV/aids. Nosso objetivo foi o de comparar os dois acontecimentos epidemiológicos do país, evidenciar paralelos, subjetividades e lições a partir do corpus. Para tanto, optamos por um método quantiqualitativo de análise de redes semânticas baseada na coleta de conteúdos digitais, identificandose os pares ou o conjunto de palavras que mais se conectam, formando redes de significações análogas, denominadas clusters. Como resultado, identificamos a polarização político-partidária dos comentários sobre covid-19 e HIV/aids no Twitter, a reemergência dos estigmas associados a grupos específicos, como de homossexuais e asiáticos, o espalhamento em larga escala de desinformação sobre as duas doenças, revelando um campo de tensões e de disputas narrativas e midiáticas como ferramenta 'necropolítica'.

This article seeks to analyze posts on the digital social network Twitter containing the terms 'HIV/aids' and 'covid-19' published in April 2021, when the Ministry of Health expands vaccination against covid-19 for people with HIV/aids. Our objective was to compare the two epidemiological events in the country, highlighting parallels, subjectivities and lessons from the corpus. In order to do that, we chose a quanti-qualitative method of analysis of semantic networks based on the collection of digital content, identifying the pairs or sets of words that most connect, forming networks of analogous meanings, called clusters. As a result, we identified the political-partisan polarization of comments on covid-19 and HIV/aids on Twitter, the re-emergence of stigmas associated with specific groups, such as homosexuals and Asians, the largescale spread of misinformation about the two diseases, revealing a field of tensions and narrative and media disputes as a 'necropolitical' tool.

Este artículo busca analizar publicaciones em la red social digital Twitter que contienen los términos 'VIH/sida' y 'covid-19' publicados en abril de 2021, cuando el Ministerio de Salud amplía la vacunación contra covid-19 para personas con VIH/sida. Nuestro objetivo fue comparar los dos eventos epidemiológicos en el país, destacando paralelos, subjetividades y lecciones del corpus. Por ello, optamos por un método cuanticualitativo de análisis de redes semánticas basado en la recolección de contenido digital, identificando los pares o conjuntos de palabras que más conectan, formando redes de significados análogos, llamados clusters. Como resultado, identificamos la polarización político-partidista de los comentarios sobre el covid-19 y el VIH/sida en Twitter, el resurgimiento de estigmas asociados con grupos específicos, como los homosexuales y los asiáticos, la difusión a gran escala de información errónea sobre las dos enfermedades, revelando un campo de tensiones y disputas narrativas y mediáticas como herramienta 'necropolítica'.

Semantic Feature Extraction Using SBERT for Dementia Detection.

Dementia is a neurodegenerative disease that leads to the development of cognitive deficits, such as aphasia, apraxia, and agnosia. It is currently considered one of the most significant major medical problems worldwide, primarily affecting the elderly. This condition gradually impairs the patient's cognition, eventually leading to the inability to perform everyday tasks without assistance. Since dementia is an incurable disease, early detection plays an important role in delaying its progression. Because of this, tools and methods have been developed to help accurately diagnose patients in their early stages. State-of-the-art methods have shown that the use of syntactic-type linguistic features provides a sensitive and noninvasive tool for detecting dementia in its early stages. However, these methods lack relevant semantic information. In this work, we propose a novel methodology, based on the semantic features approach, by using sentence embeddings computed by Siamese BERT networks (SBERT), along with support vector machine (SVM), K-nearest neighbors (KNN), random forest, and an artificial neural network (ANN) as classifiers. Our methodology extracted 17 features that provide demographic, lexical, syntactic, and semantic information from 550 oral production samples of elderly controls and people with Alzheimer's disease, provided by the DementiaBank Pitt Corpus database. To quantify the relevance of the extracted features for the dementia classification task, we calculated the mutual information score, which demonstrates a dependence between our features and the MMSE score. The experimental classification performance metrics, such as the accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score (77, 80, 80, and 80%, respectively), validate that our methodology performs better than syntax-based methods and the BERT approach when only the linguistic features are used.

Low-dose LSD and the stream of thought: Increased Discontinuity of Mind, Deep Thoughts and abstract flow.

RATIONALE: Stream of thought describes the nature of the mind when it is freely roaming, a mental state that is continuous and highly dynamic as in mind-wandering or free association. Classic serotonergic psychedelics are known to profoundly impact perception, cognition and language, yet their influence on the stream of thought remains largely unexplored. OBJECTIVE: To elucidate the effects of LSD on the stream of thought. METHODS: In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study, 24 healthy participants received 50 µg lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) or inactive placebo. Mind-wandering was measured by the Amsterdam Resting State Questionnaire (ARSQ), free association by the Forward Flow Task (FFT) for three seed word types (animals, objects, abstract words). ARSQ and FFT were assessed at +0 h, +2 h, +4 h, +6 h, +8 h and +24 h after drug administration, respectively. RESULTS: LSD, compared to placebo, induced different facets of mind-wandering we conceptualized as "chaos" (Discontinuity of Mind, decreased Sleepiness, Planning, Thoughts under Control, Thoughts about Work and Thoughts about Past), "meaning" (Deep Thoughts, Not Sharing Thoughts) and "sensation" (Thoughts about Odours, Thoughts about Sounds). LSD increased the FFT for abstract words reflecting an "abstract flow" under free association. Overall, chaos was strongest pronounced (+2 h to +6 h), followed by meaning (+2 h to +4 h), sensation (+2 h) and abstract flow (+4 h). CONCLUSIONS: LSD affects the stream of thought within several levels (active, passive), facets (chaos, meaning, sensation, abstractness) and time points (from +2 h to +6 h). Increased chaos, meaning and abstract flow at +4 h indicate the utility of a late therapeutic window in psycholytic therapy.

The Varieties of the Psychedelic Experience: A Preliminary Study of the Association Between the Reported Subjective Effects and the Binding Affinity Profiles of Substituted Phenethylamines and Tryptamines.

Classic psychedelics are substances of paramount cultural and neuroscientific importance. A distinctive feature of psychedelic drugs is the wide range of potential subjective effects they can elicit, known to be deeply influenced by the internal state of the user ("set") and the surroundings ("setting"). The observation of cross-tolerance and a series of empirical studies in humans and animal models support agonism at the serotonin (5-HT)2A receptor as a common mechanism for the action of psychedelics. The diversity of subjective effects elicited by different compounds has been attributed to the variables of "set" and "setting," to the binding affinities for other 5-HT receptor subtypes, and to the heterogeneity of transduction pathways initiated by conformational receptor states as they interact with different ligands ("functional selectivity"). Here we investigate the complementary (i.e., not mutually exclusive) possibility that such variety is also related to the binding affinity for a range of neurotransmitters and monoamine transporters including (but not limited to) 5-HT receptors. Building on two independent binding affinity datasets (compared to "in silico" estimates) in combination with natural language processing tools applied to a large repository of reports of psychedelic experiences (Erowid's Experience Vaults), we obtained preliminary evidence supporting that the similarity between the binding affinity profiles of psychoactive substituted phenethylamines and tryptamines is correlated with the semantic similarity of the associated reports. We also showed that the highest correlation was achieved by considering the combined binding affinity for the 5-HT, dopamine (DA), glutamate, muscarinic and opioid receptors and for the Ca+ channel. Applying dimensionality reduction techniques to the reports, we linked the compounds, receptors, transporters and the Ca+ channel to distinct fingerprints of the reported subjective effects. To the extent that the existing binding affinity data is based on a low number of displacement curves that requires further replication, our analysis produced preliminary evidence consistent with the involvement of different binding sites in the reported subjective effects elicited by psychedelics. Beyond the study of this particular class of drugs, we provide a methodological framework to explore the relationship between the binding affinity profiles and the reported subjective effects of other psychoactive compounds.

Welfare Status of Working Horses and Owners' Perceptions of Their Animals.

Appropriate interventions to improve working equine welfare should be proposed according to scientific evidence that arises from different geo-cultural contexts. This study aims to assess and compare the welfare status of working horses in two administrative regions of Chile and to determine how owners perceive their horses. Horses' welfare status was assessed through direct indicators (direct observation and clinical examination) and indirect indicators (an interview with the owner). Owners' perceptions of their horses were determined through a discourse analysis of their statements. In total, 100 horses and 100 owners were assessed. Results showed a low prevalence of health problems and negative behavior responses among horses in the two regions evaluated. Significant associations were found between inadequate body condition and the absence of deworming, and between hoof abnormalities and a low frequency of shoeing. Between regions, significant differences were found in the presence of lesions and the person responsible for horseshoeing. In regards to the owners' appreciations, two differing perceptions of working horses were found: a predominantly affective perception and a perception of the animal as a working instrument. Although the instrumental perception was more frequent in the Araucania region, the affective perception was widely shared by both owner populations. The results reveal a good welfare status in working horses and suggest that both affective and instrumental perceptions of these animals can coexist.

Tradução, Adaptação e Evidências Iniciais de Validade da Magical Ideation Scale / Translation, Adaptation and Initial Validity Study of the Magical Ideation Scale

RESUMO Magical Ideation Scale (MIS) é uma escala de autorrelato que avalia pensamentos mágicos, fenômeno ligado à esquizofrenia. Este trabalho procurou adaptar a MIS à cultura brasileira, bem como investigar sua sensibilidade discriminativa a partir de um estudo de validade. Na etapa de adaptação, 283 sujeitos responderam a MIS, marcando palavras e itens incompreendidos. Posteriormente, administrou-se a escala a 70 sujeitos divididos em grupos: Pacientes e Não-pacientes. A comparação do desempenho de ambos foi obtida por meio do teste t de Student, revelando diferença significativa e de acentuada magnitude, conforme d de Cohen. A correlação de Pearson entre o diagnóstico de esquizofrenia e a MIS evidenciou associação positiva de expressiva magnitude. Interpretam-se os resultados como evidências de validade para a MIS.

ABSTRACT Magical Ideation Scale (MIS) is a self-report scale that assesses magical thinking, a phenomenon linked to schizophrenia. This study aimed to adapt the MIS to Brazilian culture, as well as investigate its discriminative sensitivity based on a validity study. In the adaptation stage, 283 subjects completed MIS, marking words and misunderstood items. Subsequently, the scale was administered to 70 subjects divided into groups: Patients and Non-patients. A comparison of the performance of both groups was realized using Student’s t, which revealed significant differences, while Cohen’s d showed a strong discrepancy between the two groups. The Pearson correlation between the diagnosis of schizophrenia and MIS showed a positive association of significant magnitude. The results are interpreted as evidence of validity for the MIS.

Phase synchronization of delta and theta oscillations increase during the detection of relevant lexical information.

During monitoring of the discourse, the detection of the relevance of incoming lexical information could be critical for its incorporation to update mental representations in memory. Because, in these situations, the relevance for lexical information is defined by abstract rules that are maintained in memory, a central aspect to elucidate is how an abstract level of knowledge maintained in mind mediates the detection of the lower-level semantic information. In the present study, we propose that neuronal oscillations participate in the detection of relevant lexical information, based on "kept in mind" rules deriving from more abstract semantic information. We tested our hypothesis using an experimental paradigm that restricted the detection of relevance to inferences based on explicit information, thus controlling for ambiguities derived from implicit aspects. We used a categorization task, in which the semantic relevance was previously defined based on the congruency between a kept in mind category (abstract knowledge), and the lexical semantic information presented. Our results show that during the detection of the relevant lexical information, phase synchronization of neuronal oscillations selectively increases in delta and theta frequency bands during the interval of semantic analysis. These increments occurred irrespective of the semantic category maintained in memory, had a temporal profile specific for each subject, and were mainly induced, as they had no effect on the evoked mean global field power. Also, recruitment of an increased number of pairs of electrodes was a robust observation during the detection of semantic contingent words. These results are consistent with the notion that the detection of relevant lexical information based on a particular semantic rule, could be mediated by increasing the global phase synchronization of neuronal oscillations, which may contribute to the recruitment of an extended number of cortical regions.

Automatic annotation of histopathological images using a latent topic model based on non-negative matrix factorization.

Histopathological images are an important resource for clinical diagnosis and biomedical research. From an image understanding point of view, the automatic annotation of these images is a challenging problem. This paper presents a new method for automatic histopathological image annotation based on three complementary strategies, first, a part-based image representation, called the bag of features, which takes advantage of the natural redundancy of histopathological images for capturing the fundamental patterns of biological structures, second, a latent topic model, based on non-negative matrix factorization, which captures the high-level visual patterns hidden in the image, and, third, a probabilistic annotation model that links visual appearance of morphological and architectural features associated to 10 histopathological image annotations. The method was evaluated using 1,604 annotated images of skin tissues, which included normal and pathological architectural and morphological features, obtaining a recall of 74% and a precision of 50%, which improved a baseline annotation method based on support vector machines in a 64% and 24%, respectively.

Evaluación de resúmenes de textos narrativos y expositivos utilizando análisis semántico latente / Evaluation of narative text and presentation text summaries using latent semantic análisis

El objetivo de este trabajo es identificar un método de evaluación automática de resúmenes realizados a partir de textos de tipo narrativo y expositivo en español. Para llevar a cabo esta tarea se correlaciona la evaluación realizada por tres docentes a 373 resúmenes con los resultados entregados por el análisis semántico latente. Los puntajes asignados por el análisis semántico latente se obtienen utilizando tres métodos 1) Comparación de los resúmenes con el texto fuente, 2) Comparación de los resúmenes con un resumen consensuado 3) Comparación de los resúmenes con tres resúmenes construidos por tres evaluadores. Entre los resultados más relevantes se destacan: a) una alta correlación entre la evaluación realizada por los evaluadores ( 0,63); b) una alta correlación entre los métodos computacionales utilizados ( 0,62) y c) una correlación promedio positiva media-alta entre las evaluaciones realizadas por los docentes y el análisis semántico latente en el segundo y tercer método ( 0,53 en ambos casos y tipos de textos). Ambos métodos presentaron mayor correlación promedio con los evaluadores cuando los textos evaluados eran predominantemente narrativos ( 0,59 y 0,45 respectivamente).(AU)

The objective of this study is to identify a method for the automatic evaluation of the summaries developed from narrative and expository Spanish texts. In order to fulfill this task evaluation of 373 summaries carried out by three teachers is correlated with the results delivered by latent semantic analysis. Scores assigned by the latent semanticanalysis are obtained through three methods: 1) Comparison of the summaries with the source text, 2) Comparison of the summaries with a consensuated one, 3) Comparison of the summaries with three summaries developed by three evaluators. The mostrelevant results include: a) a high correlation between assessments by the evaluators (:0.63), b) a high correlation between the computational methods used (:0.62) and c) a positive medium-high average correlation between assessments undertaken bythe teachers and the latent semantic analysis in the second and third method (;0.53 in both cases and types of texts). Both methods presented greater average correlation with testers when the texts evaluated were predominantly narratives (;0.59 and 0.45 respectively).(AU)

Evaluación de resúmenes de textos narrativos y expositivos utilizando análisis semántico latente / Evaluation of narative text and presentation text summaries using latent semantic análisis

El objetivo de este trabajo es identificar un método de evaluación automática de resúmenes realizados a partir de textos de tipo narrativo y expositivo en español. Para llevar a cabo esta tarea se correlaciona la evaluación realizada por tres docentes a 373 resúmenes con los resultados entregados por el análisis semántico latente. Los puntajes asignados por el análisis semántico latente se obtienen utilizando tres métodos 1) Comparación de los resúmenes con el texto fuente, 2) Comparación de los resúmenes con un resumen consensuado 3) Comparación de los resúmenes con tres resúmenes construidos por tres evaluadores. Entre los resultados más relevantes se destacan: a) una alta correlación entre la evaluación realizada por los evaluadores ( 0,63); b) una alta correlación entre los métodos computacionales utilizados ( 0,62) y c) una correlación promedio positiva media-alta entre las evaluaciones realizadas por los docentes y el análisis semántico latente en el segundo y tercer método ( 0,53 en ambos casos y tipos de textos). Ambos métodos presentaron mayor correlación promedio con los evaluadores cuando los textos evaluados eran predominantemente narrativos ( 0,59 y 0,45 respectivamente).

The objective of this study is to identify a method for the automatic evaluation of the summaries developed from narrative and expository Spanish texts. In order to fulfill this task evaluation of 373 summaries carried out by three teachers is correlated with the results delivered by latent semantic analysis. Scores assigned by the latent semanticanalysis are obtained through three methods: 1) Comparison of the summaries with the source text, 2) Comparison of the summaries with a consensuated one, 3) Comparison of the summaries with three summaries developed by three evaluators. The mostrelevant results include: a) a high correlation between assessments by the evaluators (:0.63), b) a high correlation between the computational methods used (:0.62) and c) a positive medium-high average correlation between assessments undertaken bythe teachers and the latent semantic analysis in the second and third method (;0.53 in both cases and types of texts). Both methods presented greater average correlation with testers when the texts evaluated were predominantly narratives (;0.59 and 0.45 respectively).