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Recent studies have shown that video games alter cognition in teenagers, but it is unknown how teen cognition changes in the short-term directly after playing video games. This study measured the differences in selective attention, processing speed, sustained attention, and cognitive flexibility of video-game playing (VGP) adolescents at different time intervals after playing video games. Three different reasoning tests were used: the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT), the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART), and the Stroop Task. A custom 250 question arithmetic test was also used, but was unable to uncover processing speed differences between VGPs after playing video games. All VGP participants in the study underwent reasoning tests before playing video games, played League of Legends (LoL)—known for its intensive use of spatial awareness, cognitive decision making, and working memory—for an hour, and then took reasoning tests once again at different times after having played LoL. This experiment affirms that video games create cognitive enhancement, though the experiment uncovered that VGP teens have worsened selective and sustained attention as time elapses after playing video games. Future research may want to extend the variable of time to test how video games affect attention or cognition by time in a longer term with a larger sample size.

High-resolution palaeolimnological analysis was implemented on a sediment core from Lough Muckno, a historically polluted inter-drumlin lake located in northeast Ireland. Focusing on chironomid and fossil pollen analyses, catchment conditions and human impacts on the lake environment during the last c. 200 years are identified and characterized. Chironomid community response to historical land-use change, reconstructed through a combination of pollen analysis and documentary evidence is evaluated in detail. The results provide insights into lake ecological conditions from a meso-eutrophic state in a nineteenth century agricultural setting to a highly eutrophic system in a landscape under modern pastoral management. Increasing livestock numbers and concomitant land fertilization are considered to be the main drivers affecting chironomid assemblages. Redundancy analysis indicates that grassland-based agriculture, inferred from Poaceae (grasses), the dominant component of palynological pastoral indicators, was the main variable controlling chironomid community composition. Lake resilience to nutrient abatement is reflected in a limited chironomid response to declining agricultural activity during the Great Irish Famine (c. 1846) and attempts at point and non-point pollution controls. Integrated interpretation of chironomid, pollen and non-pollen palynomorphs is shown to be a powerful tool for assessing the impacts of modern land-use change on lake ecology through time.

Analysis of short tandem repeats (STR) is the predominant method for post-transplant monitoring of donor engraftment. It can enable early detection of disease relapse, level of engraftment and provide useful information on the graft-versus-host disease (GVHD)/graft-versus-tumour (GVT) effect, facilitating therapeutic intervention. Harmonization and standardization of techniques and result interpretation is essential to reduce the impact of laboratory variability on both clinical management and the results of multi-centre clinical trials. However, the United Kingdom National External Quality Assessment Service for Leucocyte Immunophenotyping (UK NEQAS LI) has highlighted significant issues inherent in STR testing that impact upon inter- and intra- laboratory variation. We present here consensus best practice guidelines and recommendations for STR chimerism testing, data interpretation and reporting that have been drawn up and agreed by a consortium of 11 UK and Eire clinical laboratories. This document uses data obtained from the UK NEQAS LI Post-Stem Cell Transplant (SCT) Chimerism Monitoring Programme.

The Aran Islands are exceptional cultural landscapes at the Atlantic fringe of Europe. They are strongly influenced by human settlement and small-scale farming that is still pursued according to traditional practices. Reconstruction of changes in farming from the beginning of the early 20th century onwards, and demographic changes beginning in the early 19th century, are discussed in the light of official statistics. Field surveys, aimed mainly at documenting the extent of Secale cereale (rye) cultivation, provide more precise information on the extent of rye cultivation in recent decades and give fresh insights into present-day flora, vegetation, and plant biodiversity. Results from a previously published, lake sediment-based Holocene pollen profile from Inis Oírr are re-assessed in the light of modern-day pollen deposition studies that we carried out. We discuss the implications of long-distance pollen transport for the interpretation of Holocene pollen diagrams in relation to the history of trees, including Pinus sylvestris (Scots pine), in Ireland, and we emphasize the importance of supporting traditional farming practices, particularly as regards cereal growing, on the Aran Islands. peer-reviewed

We describe an unexpected finding of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma associated with mature cystic teratoma of the ovary. A 68-yr-old woman with a complex left ovarian cystic mass on imaging underwent bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, lymphadenectomy, appendicectomy, and omentectomy. Histopathologic examination revealed nodules of malignant non-Hodgkin lymphoma within the teratoma. A diagnosis of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, germinal center cell subtype by Hans criteria was made after immunostaining and molecular studies. The patient was treated with R-CHOP chemotherapy and remains disease-free at 14-mo follow-up.

Hematopoietic chimerism is a measure of the number of donor and recipient cells in the host following stem cell transplantation (SCT). The type of conditioning therapy prior to SCT has a major impact on the chimeric status in the recipient. Different techniques of measurement have varying sensitivities. The use of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) of short tandem repeats (STR) using fluorescent amplification permits quantification using Genescan analysis. When SCT is used for malignant haematological disorders, measurement of chimeric status may indicate early relapse and in aplastic anemia graft rejection. Reduced intensity or T-cell depletion is associated with mixed haemopoietic chimerism. SCT for benign haematological disorders does not require complete donor chimerism for a successful outcome.

1. Results are presented of palaeoecological investigations at Derryinver Hill, an important archaeological site in the Renvyle Peninsula, Connemara, western Ireland. 2. Four short radiocarbon-dated pollen diagrams have enabled land-use history on the Hill during late prehistory and the early historical period to be reconstructed in considerable detail. 3. It is shown that pre-bog walls on the Hill — the first to be dated in Connemara — were laid out at 2400 BP, but it was not until 1700 BP that peat accumulation began locally. 4. The evidence indicates that, though grassy heath conditions existed prior to the stone wall construction, peat initiation was retarded through land-use management. When management ceased, the grassy heathland gave way to blanket bog. 5. These findings are discussed in the light of results from a long radiocarbon-dated peat pollen profile from the base of Derryinver Hill and of other palaeoecological investigations in north-western Connemara.

Summary Results of palaeoecological investigations on a core from Lough Sheeauns, N.W. Connemara, a small lake sited in an area with a dense concentration of megaliths datable to the Neolithic, are reported. Pollen analysis, involving continuous sampling over a 41 cm interval spanning the elm decline (c. 5000 B.P.), permitted a detailed reconstruction of the vegetational changes and the nature of human impact. The pollen data are supplemented by chemical analysis and a chronology is provided by radiocarbon dating. Farming, including cereal cultivation, in the century prior to the elm decline is demonstrated. The elm decline emerges as a distinct feature in both percentage and concentration pollen diagrams. It is argued that neither an anthropogenic nor a climatic explanation for that event is sustainable in the light of the available evidence; a disease hypothesis is favoured. In the immediate post-elm decline period, Landnam, involving major woodland clearance in the context of a pastoral-based Neolithic economy, is recorded as a distinctive feature in the pollen record.