RESUMO
Coordinated emotional responses across psychophysiological and subjective indices is a cornerstone of adaptive emotional functioning. Using clustering to identify cross-diagnostic subgroups with similar emotion response profiles may suggest novel underlying mechanisms and treatments.However, many psychophysiological measures are non-normal even in homogenous samples, and over-reliance on traditional elliptical clustering approaches may inhibit the identification of meaningful subgroups. Finite mixture models that allow for non-elliptical cluster distributions is an emerging methodological field that may overcome this hurdle. Furthermore, succinctly quantifying pairwise cluster separation could enhance the clinical utility of the clustering solutions. However, a comprehensive examination of distance measures in the context of elliptical and non-elliptical model-based clustering is needed to provide practical guidance on the computation, benefits, and disadvantages of existing measures. We summarize several measures that can quantify the multivariate distance between two clusters and suggest practical computational tools. Through a simulation study, we evaluate the measures across three scenarios that allow for clusters to differ in location, scale, skewness, and rotation. We then demonstrate our approaches using psychophysiological and subjective responses to emotional imagery captured through the Transdiagnostic Anxiety Study. Finally, we synthesize findings to provide guidance on how to use distance measures in clustering applications.
RESUMO
In this study, we examined the activation of natural killer(NK)-lymphocytes mediated by Toll-like receptor 3(TLR3), in the group of children with recurrent infections and the group of children with invasive bacterial infections. We examined level of CD69 (marker, of activation) expression on NK - lymphocytes after incubation with TLR3 ligand. There was a significant decrease in the level of an activation marker - 36,3±4,4% in the group of children with recurrent infections, compared with a control group of healthy children (56,5±4,9%) and the group of children with invasive bacterial infections (55,9±4,4%). Also, decreased was an activation potential of NK-lymphocytes - 24,9±L4,5% which was calculated as the difference between the percentage of CD69+ NK - lymphocytes after incubation and spontaneous value (without the addition of activator). There were no correlations between markers of TLR3 mediated activation of NK-cells and the age. Thus, the ability to activate NK - lymphocyte mediated by TLR3, independent of age and reduced in the group of children with recurrent infections. Reduced activation of NK-lymphocytes may contribute to increased susceptibility to viral infections and bacterial complications.
Assuntos
Antígenos CD/genética , Antígenos de Diferenciação de Linfócitos T/genética , Infecções Bacterianas/imunologia , Células Matadoras Naturais/efeitos dos fármacos , Lectinas Tipo C/genética , Infecções Respiratórias/imunologia , Receptor 3 Toll-Like/genética , Adolescente , Antígenos CD/imunologia , Antígenos de Diferenciação de Linfócitos T/imunologia , Infecções Bacterianas/genética , Infecções Bacterianas/microbiologia , Estudos de Casos e Controles , Criança , Pré-Escolar , Feminino , Regulação da Expressão Gênica , Humanos , Lactente , Células Matadoras Naturais/imunologia , Células Matadoras Naturais/microbiologia , Lectinas Tipo C/imunologia , Ativação Linfocitária , Masculino , Poli I-C/farmacologia , Cultura Primária de Células , Recidiva , Infecções Respiratórias/genética , Infecções Respiratórias/microbiologia , Receptor 3 Toll-Like/imunologiaRESUMO
An electrophoretic study of zein in 115 lines of common maize resulted in detecting 7 types of spectra. The analysis of opaque-2 sources showed that they differ between each other in the number and component composition, similar to the norm. The study of isogenic lines revealed that in different genotypes the gene opaque-2 behaves unsynonymously: it either does not influence the component composition of zein or changes it qualitatively.
