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Epidemiological studies of the Guamanian variants of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and parkinsonism, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis–parkinsonism dementia complex (ALS–PDC), have shown a positive correlation between consumption of washed cycad seed flour and disease occurrence. Previous in vivo studies by our group have shown that the same seed flour induces ALS and PDC phenotypes in out bred adult male mice. In vitro studies using isolated cycad compounds have also demonstrated that several of these are neurotoxic, specifically, a number of water insoluble phytosterol glucosides of which β-sitosterol β- d-glucoside (BSSG) forms the largest fraction. BSSG is neurotoxic to motor neurons and other neuronal populations in culture. The present study shows that an in vitro hybrid motor neuron (NSC-34) culture treated with BSSG undergoes a dose-dependent cell loss. Surviving cells show increased expression of HSP70, decreased cytosolic heavy neurofilament expression, and have various morphological abnormalities. CD-1 mice fed mouse chow pellets containing BSSG for 15 weeks showed motor deficits and motor neuron loss in the lumbar and thoracic spinal cord, along with decreased glutamate transporter labelling, and increased glial fibrillary acid protein reactivity. Other pathological outcomes included increased caspase-3 labelling in the striatum and decreased tyrosine-hydroxylase labelling in the striatum and substantia nigra. C57BL/6 mice fed BSSG-treated pellets for 10 weeks exhibited progressive loss of motor neurons in the lumbar spinal cord that continued to worsen even after the BSSG exposure ended. These results provide further support implicating sterol glucosides as one potential causal factor in the motor neuron pathology previously associated with cycad consumption and ALS–PDC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human prion diseases are characterized by the accumulation in the brain of proteinase K (PK)-resistant prion protein designated PrP27 – 30 detectable by the 3F4 antibody against human PrP109 – 112. We recently identified a new PK-resistant PrP species, designated PrP*20, in uninfected human and animal brains. It was preferentially detected with the 1E4 antibody against human PrP 97 – 108 but not with the anti-PrP 3F4 antibody, although the 3F4 epitope is adjacent to the 1E4 epitope in the PrP*20 molecule. The present study reveals that removal of the N-terminal amino acids up to residue 91 significantly increases accessibility of the 1E4 antibody to PrP of brains and cultured cells. In contrast to cells expressing wild-type PrP, cells expressing pathogenic mutant PrP accumulate not only PrP*20 but also a small amount of 3F4-detected PK-resistant PrP27 – 30. Remarkably, during the course of human prion disease, a transition from an increase in 1E4-detected PrP*20 to the occurrence of the 3F4-detected PrP27 – 30 was observed. Our study suggests that an increase in the level of PrP*20 characterizes the early stages of prion diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the development of a conversational interface for interactive TV. With the advent of multi-channel digital TV, accessing Electronic Programme Guides (EPGs) will become increasingly complex. We claim that a conversational interface can support incremental refinement of user selections, thus assisting user choice without requiring extensive knowledge of the editorial categories used in the EPG. We present the system architecture and describe the building blocks of this system in terms of underlying technologies, namely speech recognition, Natural Language Processing, dialogue modelling, character animation and multi-modal presentation. The use of an animated character appears to influence the implementation of each of these basic techniques. After giving an overview of the system behaviour and architecture, we describe the various building blocks of a conversational agent as implemented in our system and to what extent each of the underlying technologies are influenced by the use of a conversational character. We report current results by describing example dialogues from the system. Finally, we compare our approach with other interface agents' paradigms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]