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Biorefinery side streams have the potential to be utilized for the production of biobased polymers, which can serve as viable substitutes for synthetic and food-based alternatives not only enhancing the sustainability of biorefineries but also contributing to their profitability. One interesting material with potential as barrier coatings for paper and board is the lignin-carbohydrate complex (LCC). However, the chemical structure and molecular weight of the LCCs varies a lot depending on the process conditions and modifications. To be able to optimize their performance it is imperative to obtain a comprehensive understanding of their interactions with cellulosic surfaces and more specifically to correlate these interactions with the chemical structure. For this purpose, we combined adsorption studies using surface-sensitive Quartz Crystal Microbalance with Dissipation (QCM-D) and bulk spray coating of cardboard with detailed structural analysis using 2D HSQC NMR spectroscopy. To elucidate the effect of carbohydrate content and molecular weight, varying LCC samples were compared to lignosulphonate. The QCM-D results revealed that LCCs with higher carbohydrate content adsorbed better on cellulose surface. Increasing the pH from 7 to 10 increased the repulsion leading to lower adsorption. The spray coating results further supported the importance of polymer size and carbohydrate fraction.

Abstract Background Archaea and Bacteria are distinct domains of life that are adapted to a variety of ecological niches. Several genome-based methods have been developed for their accurate classification, yet many aspects of the specific genomic features that determine these differences are not fully understood. In this study, we used publicly available whole-genome sequences from bacteria ( $$N=2546$$ N = 2546 ) and archaea ( $$N=109$$ N = 109 ). From these, a set of genomic features (nucleotide frequencies and proportions, coding sequences (CDS), non-coding, ribosomal and transfer RNA genes (ncRNA, rRNA, tRNA), Chargaff’s, topological entropy and Shannon’s entropy scores) was extracted and used as input data to develop machine learning models for the classification of archaea and bacteria. Results The classification accuracy ranged from 0.993 (Random Forest) to 0.998 (Neural Networks). Over the four models, only 11 examples were misclassified, especially those belonging to the minority class (Archaea). From variable importance, tRNA topological and Shannon’s entropy, nucleotide frequencies in tRNA, rRNA and ncRNA, CDS, tRNA and rRNA Chargaff’s scores have emerged as the top discriminating factors. In particular, tRNA entropy (both topological and Shannon’s) was the most important genomic feature for classification, pointing at the complex interactions between the genetic code, tRNAs and the translational machinery. Conclusions tRNA, rRNA and ncRNA genes emerged as the key genomic elements that underpin the classification of archaea and bacteria. In particular, higher nucleotide diversity was found in tRNA from bacteria compared to archaea. The analysis of the few classification errors reflects the complex phylogenetic relationships between bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes.

Abstract Background Response inhibition can be classified into stimulus-driven inhibition and intentional inhibition based on the degree of endogenous volition involved. In the past decades, abundant research efforts to study the effects of alcohol on inhibition have focused exclusively on stimulus-driven inhibition. The novel Chasing Memo task measures stimulus-driven and intentional inhibition within the same paradigm. Combined with the stop-signal task, we investigated how alcohol use affects behavioral and psychophysiological correlates of intentional inhibition, as well as stimulus-driven inhibition. Methods Experiment I focused on intentional inhibition and stimulus-driven inhibition in relation to past-year alcohol use. The Chasing Memo task, the stop-signal task, and questionnaires related to substance use and impulsivity were administered to 60 undergraduate students (18–25 years old). Experiment II focused on behavioral and neural correlates acute alcohol use on performance on the Chasing Memo task by means of electroencephalography (EEG). Sixteen young male adults (21–28 years old) performed the Chasing Memo task once under placebo and once under the influence of alcohol (blood alcohol concentration around 0.05%), while EEG was recorded. Results In experiment I, AUDIT (Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test) total score did not significantly predict stimulus-driven inhibition or intentional inhibition performance. In experiment II, the placebo condition and the alcohol condition were comparable in terms of behavioral indices of stimulus-driven inhibition and intentional inhibition as well as task-related EEG patterns. Interestingly, a slow negative readiness potential (RP) was observed with an onset of about 1.2 s, exclusively before participants stopped intentionally. Conclusions These findings suggest that both past-year increases in risky alcohol consumption and moderate acute alcohol use have limited effects on stimulus-driven inhibition and intentional inhibition. These conclusions cannot be generalized to alcohol use disorder and high intoxication levels. The RP might reflect processes involved in the formation of an intention in general.

It is widely known that individuals have a tendency to imitate each other. However, different psychological disciplines assess imitation in different manners. While social psychologists assess mimicry by means of action observation, cognitive psychologists assess automatic imitation with reaction time based measures on a trial-by-trial basis. Although these methods differ in crucial methodological aspects, both phenomena are assumed to rely on similar underlying mechanisms. This raises the fundamental question whether mimicry and automatic imitation are actually correlated. In the present research we assessed both phenomena and did not find a meaningful correlation. Moreover, personality traits such as empathy, autism traits, and traits related to self- versus other-focus did not correlate with mimicry or automatic imitation either. Theoretical implications are discussed.

BackgroundPeople have fought for their civil rights, primarily the right to live in dignity. At present, the development of technology in medicine and healthcare led to an apparent paradox: many people are fighting for the right to die. This study was aimed at testing whether different moral principles are associated with different attitudes towards end-of-life decisions for patients with a severe brain damage.MethodologyWe focused on the ethical decisions about withdrawing life-sustaining treatments in patients with severe brain damage. 202 undergraduate students at the University of Padova were given one description drawn from four profiles describing different pathological states: the permanent vegetative state, the minimally conscious state, the locked-in syndrome, and the terminal illness. Participants were asked to evaluate how dead or how alive the patient was, and how appropriate it was to satisfy the patient's desire.Principal findingsWe found that the moral principles in which people believe affect not only people's judgments concerning the appropriateness of the withdrawal of life support, but also the perception of the death status of patients with severe brain injury. In particular, we found that the supporters of the Free Choice (FC) principle perceived the death status of the patients with different pathologies differently: the more people believe in the FC, the more they perceived patients as dead in pathologies where conscious awareness is severely impaired. By contrast, participants who agree with the Sanctity of Life (SL) principle did not show differences across pathologies.ConclusionsThese results may shed light on the complex aspects of moral consensus for supporting or rejecting end-of-life decisions.

Despite the advances in the understanding of neural and genetic foundations of violence, the investigation of the biological bases of a mental disorder is rarely included in psychiatric evaluation of mental insanity. Here we report on a case in which cognitive neuroscience and behavioral genetics methods were applied to a psychiatric forensic evaluation conducted on a young woman, J.F., tried for a violent and impulsive murder. The defendant had a history of multidrug and alcohol abuse and non-forensic clinical evaluation concluded for a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. We analyzed the defendant’s brain structure in order to underlie possible brain structural abnormalities associated with pathological impulsivity. Voxel-Based Morphometry indexed a reduced gray matter volume in the left prefrontal cortex, in a region specifically associated with response inhibition. Furthermore, J.F.’s DNA was genotyped in order to identify genetic polymorphisms associated with various forms of violence and impulsive behaviour. Five polymorphisms that are known to be associated with impulsivity, violence, and other severe psychiatric illnesses were identified in J.F.’s DNA. Taken together, these data provided evidence for the biological correlates of a mental disorder characterized by high impulsivity and aggressive tendencies. Our claim is that the use of neuroscience and behavioral genetics do not change the rationale underlying the determination of criminal liability, which must be based on a causal link between the mental disorder and the crime. Rather, their use is crucial in providing objective data on the biological bases of a defendant’s mental disorder.

The question of whether our behaviour is guided by our conscious intentions is gaining momentum within the field of cognitive neuroscience. It has been demonstrated that the subjective experience that conscious intentions are the driving force of our actions, is built partially on a post hoc reconstruction. Our hypothesis was that this reconstructive process is mediated by an action-monitoring system that compares the predicted and the actual sensory consequences of an action. We applied Event Related Potentials (ERP) to a variant of the Libet’s task in which participants were asked to press a button and to report the time of decision –will judgment (W) – to press. We provided delayed auditory feedbacks after participants’ action to signify an action time later than the actual action. We found that auditory feedbacks evoked a negative component in the 250–300 time range, namely action-effect negativity (NAE), that is thought to reflect the activity of a system that detects violation from expectancies. We showed that the amplitude of the NAE was sensitive to the delay of the auditory feedback, with a larger amplitude for more delayed feedbacks. Furthermore, changes in the NAE were also associated with changes in the reported W. These results not only confirm that we infer the time we decided to act from events occurring after the response, but these results also indicate that the subjective experience of when an action is decided is influenced by the activity of an action-monitoring system that detects mismatches between predicted and actual sensory consequences of the actions.