READ MONOGRAPH Dentons‘ Real Estate and Finance teams have advised Arganda Residential Leasehold on securing up to €20.2 million in financing from the Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO) for the development of 210 affordable rental homes in Arganda del Rey The financing is part of the VIVE III Plan of the Community of Madrid and is managed by DeA Capital Real Estate executed by Grupo Inmobiliario Ferrocarril will provide much-needed affordable rental housing for individuals and families whose financial circumstances prevent them from accessing homes in the open market The rental prices will be significantly below market rates for comparable properties in the area In line with environmental sustainability and energy efficiency standards the project will comprise 210 homes with two- and three-bedroom layouts as well as storage units and 290 parking spaces including up to three years of grace period The financing aligns with the ICO’s long-standing commitment to supporting affordable housing initiatives This focus has been further strengthened through the management of the ICO Housing Line backed by #NextGenerationEU funds under the Spanish Government’s Recovery which allocates €4 billion to expanding and improving the stock of social and affordable rental housing in Spain Dentons’ legal advisory team was led by Real Estate partner Itxaso López supported by senior associate Manuel de Cueto and associate Carlota García Ovies with partner Jabier Badiola and senior associate Ignacio Fernández advising on the financing aspects of the transaction Vincent AI introduces its Winter ’25 update It represents the main source of information in the legal business sector in Spain and Portugal The digital magazine – and its portal – address to the protagonists of law firms and in-house lawyers The magazine is available for free on the website and on Google Play and App Store information about deals and their advisors For further information, please visit the Group’s website www.lcpublishinggroup.com User login The Ciudad del Rock in Arganda del Rey will host a new edition of this festival on 27 and 28 June 2025 trap and hip-hop music by acclaimed artists of the genre The third edition has already confirmed the presence of trap artist Bad Gyal which fuses urban genres with Latin dance music.  After a successful second edition of Puro Latino Madrid Fest which was held in 2024 with over 70,000 attendees this event is set to become one of the most important Latin music festivals in Spain bringing together great national and international stars in a single event such as the Ciudad del Rock in the Madrid municipality of Arganda del Rey The event has prepared two days in which those present will be able to dance to the rhythm of hits by artists of the genre like Bad Gyal an artist who continues to conquer the music scene after releasing iconic hits such as Chulo Zorra or La Prendo in addition to her own list of hits that have won more than 30 Platinum Discs and 10 Gold Discs After winning the award for Best Spanish Artist at the MTV EMA (Europe Music Awards) Bad Gyal kicked off 2023 with a sold out concert at the WiZink Center as part of a new phase in which she began to unveil the songs that would form part of her debut album This album consisting of 15 songs fuses urban genres with Latin dance music and features collaborations with Myke Towers Bad Gyal will make those present at Puro Latino Fest Madrid vibrate in the same way as artists like Anuel AA See Full Programme Check official webpage Check official webpage festivals and classical concerts held in the Spanish capital Take your pick from Madrid's eclectic festivals spanning from jazz and fado to rock and electronic music From small gigs in hidden bars to jam-packed concerts in popular cafés The city’s new official sightseeing and tourist travel pass Our online store (in Spanish) sells artisan souvenirs Volume 9 - 2021 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2021.745707 Current methods used to quantify brain size and compartmental scaling relationships in studies of social insect brain evolution involve manual annotations of images from histological samples This process is susceptible to human bias and error and requires time-consuming effort by expert annotators constructed through 3D registration and automatic segmentation surmount these issues while increasing throughput to robustly sample diverse morphological and behavioral phenotypes Here we design and evaluate three strategies to construct statistical brain atlases The first technique creates a template by registering multiple brains of the same species Brain regions are manually annotated on the template and the labels are transformed back to each individual brain to obtain an automatic annotation or to any other brain aligned with the template The second strategy also creates a template from multiple brain images but obtains labels as a consensus from multiple manual annotations of individual brains comprising the template The third technique is based on a template comprising brains from multiple species and the consensus of their labels We used volume similarity as a metric to evaluate the automatic segmentation produced by each method against the inter- and intra-individual variability of human expert annotators We found that automatic and manual methods are equivalent in volume accuracy making the template technique an extraordinary tool to accelerate data collection and reduce human bias in the study of the evolutionary neurobiology of ants and other insects This technique of recording neuroanatomical data is both time consuming and susceptible to human bias and error Three brain slices have been selected to show all the subregions analyzed where a template brain is created in a similar way to ours but individual brains are first labeled using a statistical shape model and then registered against the template using the label volumes instead of the gray-value ones This approach has the advantage of a label-oriented registration where each anatomical region can be treated independently its performance may be too sensitive to the segmentation result obtained by the model which should correctly estimate the sometimes very large shape diversity of the dataset spadonia minors are combined on a single group-wise template which is manually traced (creating “direct labels”) Each brain used to build the template (and other new brains) can be registered against the template with a transformation function T The inverse function T–1 can be used on the manual labels of the template to automatically label the registered brain The existing manual labels of each brain are registered against the template and every voxel is assigned to one label by majority voting (creating “consensus labels”) New brains can be registered against the template with a transformation function T The inverse function T–1 can be used on the consensus labels of the template to automatically label the registered brain obtusospinosa (three of each species) are combined on a single multispecies group-wise template Consensus labels are created for the template as in B and the same procedure is applied to automatically trace new brains A single slice per brain has been shown for illustration clarity Using careful annotations by trained researchers as our standard we evaluate template-based strategies to automatically segment ant brain confocal images allowing more efficient and less biased volumetric data acquisition We validate the template method by evaluating its application to workers of species in the ant genus Pheidole thus enabling the expansion of species sampling We next describe the ant brain dataset used the methods to generate the different templates and labels and how to evaluate the efficacies of the different methods Minor workers were decapitated and their brains were dissected from the head capsule in ice cold HEPES-buffered saline. Brains were fixed and immunohistochemically stained using SYNORF1 (a monoclonal Drosophila synapsin I antibody obtained from the Developmental Studies Hybridoma Bank, catalog 3C11) and secondarily stained using Alexa Fluor 488 for visualization of neuropil (slightly modified from Ott, 2008) brains were imaged on an Olympus Fluoview BX50 laser (488 nm) scanning confocal microscope with a × 20 air objective (NA = 0.5) at a resolution of ∼0.7 × 0.7 × 5μm/voxel producing gray images of 16 bits (in TIFF format) Each brain image was manually labeled as described in the “Manual labeling of original brain images and template” section below Seven group-wise templates were generated for this study (Supplementary Table 1) with 9 (“consensus label method”) 10 (“direct label method”) or 12 (multispecies template method) original gray value brain images spadonia minor gray value brain images (“direct/consensus label methods”) obtusospinosa minors (“multispecies template method”) Templates were also associated with anatomical brain label values obtained either by manual or consensus labeling (see below) Studies aiming to analyze differences between the right and the left sides of the brains would require A single dataset of manual labels for the template generated for the “direct label method” was obtained using the same methodology described above To automatically label gray value brain images, individual brain images were registered against a group-wise template performing the same two-step method described above—initial affine registration maximizing mutual information followed by a non-rigid registration optimizing cross-correlation. The inverse transformations (T–1, Figure 2) were then applied to the template regional labels (regardless of the method chosen to generate them) automatically building label values for individual gray value brain images registered against the template To avoid always tracing the same side and prevent bias due to natural brain asymmetries a proportion of the gray value brain image datasets to be traced can be flipped spadonia gray value brain images were automatically traced using the three methods described before It is important to notice that for the “direct label method,” these five gray value brain images were also used to build the template these five brains were left out of the templates This is because the consensus labels integrate the information from the manual labels of the brain anatomies used for the template: on one hand it would seem unnecessary to relabel those brains the original manual labels and the automatically obtained labels would be basically the same and the objectivity of the evaluation of the method would be compromised Because automatic and manual labels are expected to produce slightly different results, we needed to determine whether these differences were acceptable. To do so, we compared differences between automatic and manual labels with the differences between manual labels generated by several expert annotators (“Inter-Person”) and by the same annotator (“Intra-Person”) tracing the same gray value brain image more than once (Supplementary Table 3) Three annotators (with at least 2 years of experience tracing brains) traced the same five brains (to have an acceptable measure of interpersonal differences and one of them traced the same five brains three times (to have an acceptable measure of intrapersonal differences The three expert annotators also traced the single species (P spadonia) template for the “direct label method.” As explained for consensus label creation the gray value brain anatomy and the labels were flipped to be on the right side Volume similarity between labels annotated for the same compartment obtained by different methods was calculated within the same gray value brain image, and for the automatic and manual labels pairing labels always related to the same original annotator (e.g., OL volume obtained by the “multispecies template” strategy using consensus labels built from manual labels by annotator 1 + OL volume obtained by manual labels from annotator 1; see Supplementary Table 3) We used bootstrapping to perform statistical analyses (Efron and Tibshirani, 1994) This method has the advantage of making no assumptions about the distributions underlying the data and of being able to handle datasets where data are not fully independent as is the case in our dataset for different measurements performed on the same brain To make pairwise comparisons between volume similarity measurements of one brain center provided by two methods we first we selected one brain at random and pooled all volume similarity measurements for the same brain center from the control and the method we selected volume similarity measurements randomly and with replacement creating two randomized sets of measurements We then selected a new brain at random with replacement (the same brain can be selected several times) and repeated the same procedure 5 times because our dataset to evaluate the methods has a total of 5 brains We thus obtained a randomized dataset with the same statistical characteristics as the original but in which measurements in the two groups came from the same distribution We then computed the difference between the means of the measurements of the two groups This distribution is centered at 0 by construction and its width represents the differences between method and control that we could expect by chance if both belonged to the same distribution We then computed the difference between each method and control from the dataset and defined our p-value as the proportion of d_rand that had a value greater than the actual difference between the two methods found in our study We set the significance level at p < 0.05 Variability between annotations for brain compartments and the whole brain Variation (using volume similarity) given is for the (A) optic lobe (OL) (H) For the rest of the central brain (ROCB) Statistical comparisons are made using bootstrapping tests for comparing the volume differences found between the manual and the automatic labels (“Direct labels,” “Cons temp.”) and between individuals (“Inter-Person”) or within the same individual (“Intra-Person”) “*” indicates p-values smaller than 0.05 The “consensus label method” produced variabilities similar to those among and within annotators for all compartments. Some differences were marginally significant (Supplementary Table 4) in comparison to the variability among annotators (5% smaller in the OL and 6% smaller in the CX) and within the same annotator (4% larger in the MB-LC and 3% larger in the SEZ Statistical templates serve as representative neuroanatomies that integrate variation in brain structure across samples When associated with neuroanatomical labels they are a valuable tool to automatically and efficiently segment compartments in similar brains that have not been previously traced With these annotations we can calculate descriptive metrics such as brain compartment volumes useful to understand differential investment in brain centers and their associated neural functions in behavior We presented and evaluated three methods to determine whether their results are comparable to manual annotations we compared volumetric differences between automatic and manual labels to volumetric differences due to inter- and intra-individual variability of annotators We found that automatic segmentation produced satisfactory results Our three automatic methods produced compartmental volumetric data similar to those obtained via manual annotations by different annotators or by the same annotator repeatedly tracing the same brain we found that the variability between automatic and manual data was even smaller than inter-person variability the “multispecies template method” produced a variability 2% larger than the inter-person one This error level might be acceptable considering the benefits of automation and the reduction in human bias We expected to find more differences in comparison with intra-person variability the “direct label method” and the “multispecies template method” produced larger differences (2–6% larger) between automatic and manual data than intra-person variability Here we validate these different methods using the variability of human annotations as the “gold standard.” All the methods presented reduce the time required for manually tracing each brain and help decrease potential errors of multiple annotators either by allocating a single annotator to a large dataset or by combining labels that integrate variability between samples Group-wise templates also advantageously ensure blind annotations for samples of different origins known to the annotator (for example different treatments or species) thus minimizing biases we plan to build single templates for polymorphic species in future studies Each strategy might be more suitable to answer some research questions than others; for example the “direct label method” is recommendable for blind studies comparing individuals under different treatments The “consensus label method” might provide with robust reference anatomical atlases that consider interindividual variability And the “multispecies template method” can make evolutionary and comparative studies requiring large datasets from multiple species more robust While our methods have been evaluated using descriptions of major neuropils testing them on finer neuropil sub-structures will be a logical next step that will increase their potentiality the use of templates to accurately and rapidly collect volumetric neuroanatomical data or neurochemical analyses can help elucidate macroevolutionary and microevolutionary patterns of brain evolution This will allow to better understand encephalization and allometric scaling in regard to the behavioral ecology and sociobiology of individual workers and the impact of emergent colony-level processes on the brain The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/Supplementary Material further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author/s and manually labeled all brain images and the templates AH manually labeled a sample of brain images and the templates SA manually labeled a sample of brain images and the templates and prepared all brain images for template creation IA-C implemented the software to create the templates and to automatically label brain subregions SA and AP-E designed the methodology to evaluate automatic labeling and performed the statistical analysis and JT conceptualized and designed the study and wrote the first draft of the manuscript All authors edited and approved the final content of the manuscript This research was supported by the National Science Foundation grants IOS 1354291 and IOS 1953393 to JT a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship BrainiAnts-660976 and Ayudas destinadas a la atracción de talento investigador a la Comunidad de Madrid en centros de I+D to SA the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU grant GIU19/027 to IA-C and by the Institut Universitaire de France to MG The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher Ming Huang for kindly supplying us with colonies of Pheidole spadonia The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2021.745707/full#supplementary-material Specialization and group size: brain and behavioural correlates of colony size in ants lacking morphological castes The neuroplasticity of division of labor: worker polymorphism compound eye structure and brain organization in the leafcutter ant Atta cephalotes “Group-wise 3D registration based templates to study the evolution of ant worker neuroanatomy,” in Proceedings of the International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging A statistically representative atlas for mapping neuronal circuits in the Drosophila adult brain Symmetric diffeomorphic image registration 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This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited in accordance with accepted academic practice distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms *Correspondence: Sara Arganda, c2FyaWp1ZWxhQGdtYWlsLmNvbQ== Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher 94% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or goodLearn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page The Seafood Fair comes to Arganda del Rey with a 250 m² tent octopus as the star dish and a promotion of free mussels on the opening day If the RAE accepted “mariscadear” as a verb this weekend we could only conjugate it in Arganda del Rey organized by Feria Marisco Archy in collaboration with the City Council of Arganda del Rey lands in the Plaza de la Constitución with a 250 square meter tent where you can enjoy the best of Galician gastronomy The kick-off will be on Thursday April 3 at 19:00 h with a hook hard to refuse: with each drink attendees will receive a free tapa of mussels (only valid on Thursday the fair will be open from 12:00 noon to midnight The menu will not lack the essential repertoire: octopus -the star dish- all freshly brought and with adjusted prices Metrics details Fiji is a distribution of the popular open-source software ImageJ focused on biological-image analysis Fiji uses modern software engineering practices to combine powerful software libraries with a broad range of scripting languages to enable rapid prototyping of image-processing algorithms Fiji facilitates the transformation of new algorithms into ImageJ plugins that can be shared with end users through an integrated update system We propose Fiji as a platform for productive collaboration between computer science and biology research communities Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout Phenotypic profiling of the human genome by time-lapse microscopy reveals cell division genes Systems survey of endocytosis by multiparametric image analysis Automated image analysis for high-content screening and analysis Reconstruction of zebrafish early embryonic development by scanned light sheet microscopy A quantitative spatiotemporal atlas of gene expression in the Drosophila blastoderm A computational framework for ultrastructural mapping of neural circuitry As-rigid-as-possible mosaicking and serial section registration of large ssTEM datasets Automated analysis of embryonic gene expression with cellular resolution in C Imaging plant growth in 4D: robust tissue reconstruction and lineaging at cell resolution Automated cell lineage tracing in Caenorhabditis elegans elegans and its application to single-cell analyses Open source bioimage informatics for cell biology Bioimage informatics: a new area of engineering biology CellProfiler: image analysis software for identifying and quantifying cell phenotypes V3D enables real-time 3D visualization and quantitative analysis of large-scale biological image data sets ICY: a new open-source community image processing software in and Knowledge Organization (GfKL 2007) 319–326 (Springer TrakEM2 software for neural circuit reconstruction A high-level 3D visualization API for Java and ImageJ Software for bead-based registration of selective plane illumination microscopy data Robust wide baseline stereo from maximally stable extremal regions in Handbook of Computer Vision and Applications Vol & Geissler P.) 103–132 (San Diego: Academic Press Globally optimal stitching of tiled 3D microscopic image acquisitions An integrated micro- and macroarchitectural analysis of the Drosophila brain by computer-assisted serial section electron microscopy Network anatomy and in vivo physiology of visual cortical neurons Fully automatic stitching and distortion correction of transmission electron microscope images Elastic volume reconstruction from series of ultrathin microscopy sections Consistent and elastic registration of histological sections using vector-spline regularization Distinctive image features from scale-invariant keypoints Level Set Methods and Fast Marching Methods: Evolving Interfaces in Computational Geometry and Materials Science (Cambridge University Press Geometrical consistent 3D tracing of neuronal processes in ssTEM data Identifying neuronal lineages of Drosophila by sequence analysis of axon tracts Simple Neurite Tracer: open source software for reconstruction visualization and analysis of neuronal processes Computer control of microscopes using μManager in Current Protocols in Molecular Biology (John Wiley & Sons Download references Rasband for developing ImageJ and helping thousands of scientists those who contributed to the Fiji movement by financing and organizing the hackathons Baines for hackathons at Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden Douglas for a hackathon at Institute of Neuroinformatics in Zurich Miura for the hackathon at European Molecular Biology Laboratory and International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility for Fiji image-processing school Pereanu for the confocal image of the larval fly brain the scientists who released their code under open-source licenses and made the Fiji project possible We want to thank Carl Zeiss Microimaging for access to the SPIM demonstrator were supported by US National Institutes of Health grant RC2GM092519 were funded by Human Frontier Science Program Young Investigator grant RGY0083 was supported by The European Research Council Community′s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) grant agreement 260746 Present address: Present addresses: Laboratory for Optical and Computational Instrumentation Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics Germany (B.S.) and Janelia Farm Research Campus Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department of Computer Science of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich Institute of Neuroinformatics of the University of Zurich and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich Laboratory for Optical and Computational Instrumentation The authors declare no competing financial interests Supplementary Figures 1–3 and Supplementary Table 1 (PDF 1230 kb) visualizes the changes to Fiji source code repository from 15 March 2009 to 16 May 2009 The class hierarchy is visualized as a dynamic tree the developers are flying pawns that extend rays to classes that they newly created or into which they introduced changes Between 23 March and 3 April 2009 there was a Fiji hackathon in Dresden marked by increased developer activity that carries over the period after the hackathon ended Visualization of SIFT-mediated stitching of large ssTEM mosaics The ventral nerve cord of Drosophila first instar larva was sectioned and imaged in electron microscope as a series of overlapping image tiles The video visualizes the process of reconstruction of such large section series on seven exemplary sections The corresponding SIFT features that connect images within section and across section are shown as green dots the residual error of their displacement at a given iteration of the global optimizer is shown as cyan line (iteration number and minimal average and maximal error are shown in lower left corner) The global optimization proceeds section by section and at each step distributes the registration error equally across the increasing set of tiles To emphasize the visualization effect all tiles within section are initially placed at the same location discarding their known configuration within section Visualization of bead-based registration of multiview microscopy scan of Drosophila embryo Drosophila embryo expressing His-YFP marker has been imaged in a spinning disc confocal microscope from 18 different angles improvising rotation using custom made sample chamber The video visualizes the global optimization that is using local geometric bead descriptor matches to recover the shape of the embryo specimen The bead descriptors (representing constellations of sub-resolution fluorescent beads added to the rigid agarose medium in which the embryo was mounted) are colored according to their displacement at each iteration of the optimizer (red The nuclei of the embryo specimen are shown in grey The displacement at each iteration averaged across all descriptors is shown in the lower left corner Segmentation and tracking of nuclei in Drosophila embryo Cellular blastoderm stage Drosophila embryo expressing His-YFP marker in all cells was imaged from five angles using SPIM throughout gastrulation The video shows a result of segmentation and tracking algorithm that follows the movements of cells through the gastrulation process The nuclei are colored according to the angle at which they were detected Reprints and permissions Download citation Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: a shareable link is not currently available for this article Chemical and Biological Technologies in Agriculture (2024) Sign up for the Nature Briefing: AI and Robotics newsletter — what matters in AI and robotics research about 100 people participated in a ruck march Saturday from Huntington Beach to Newport Beach It was the first such event organized by American Legion Newport Harbor Post 291 “We’re trying to bring veteran suicide awareness to the actual public,” Arganda said in a recent interview “That’s part of the reason we [marched] from Huntington Beach to Newport Beach it’s one way to get people to see what we’re doing We also were trying to bridge gaps between other organizations within the community because I feel that we should be working together,” said Arganda That includes organizations like the Elks Lodge White and Blue and the Quick Reaction Foundation said the idea to organize the march came to him after other groups did similar events He thought a local march would not only be a way to bring awareness to the problem but could also serve as a fundraiser for the post’s charitable work Argand reported the march raised $2,156 Saturday for his organization’s veteran emergency assistance fund, which helps more than 20 people a month Ruck march participants bow their head in prayer for 22 veterans that die by suicide a day (James Carbone) “I don’t think a lot of people realize [the problem of veteran suicide] is actually something to combat as much as possible because these guys have sacrificed for our country,” said Arganda “The 22 pounds is the weight of the 22 veterans a day we carry.” but the average rate of suicides per day for veterans rose from 16.4 in 2001 to 17.5 in 2021 About 100 people take part in the ruck march to bring awareness to the statistic that 22 veterans die by suicide a day Each participant is carrying 22 pounds of weight representing 22 veterans (James Carbone) Saturday’s ruck march started at Huntington Beach Pier and ended at the American Legion Newport Harbor Post 291 — a distance of about 6.8 miles Arganda said that despite the solemn nature of the event participants were in high spirits even as a brief storm hit the area it started raining a bit but everyone pushed on and persevered People were having a blast,” he said on Monday the group brought out a color guard and the national anthem was played The Combat Veterans Motorcycle Assn. prepares to lead the ruck march at Huntington Beach pier on Saturday. (James Carbone) NewsNewport Beach Lilly Nguyen Follow Us Lilly Nguyen is a former staff writer for the Daily Pilot, where she covered Newport Beach. Before joining the Pilot, she worked for the Orange County Register as a freelance reporter and general assignment intern. She earned her bachelor’s in journalism at Cal State Long Beach. News Subscribe for unlimited accessSite Map Lourdes Yldefonzo Arganda assured her sister she would be safe in her job at a Marysville nursing home she had accepted that her work as a certified nursing assistant — with long and late hours it was that co-workers sometimes could not help patients quickly enough during busy shifts “She always wanted to take care of people,” her sister said in a phone interview from her home in Sacramento “She wants to take care of her patients but she doesn’t want to be the patient.” caught the coronavirus in late November amid an outbreak at the Marysville Care Center a facility with a history of short staffing she questioned what she could have done wrong after trying to help as much as she could A new state inspection report shows the toll of her concerns about time-strapped staff at Marysville Care Center The 339-page review released by the state Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) in late January paints an especially bleak portrait of the situation inside the facility in the fall around the time of a major coronavirus outbreak that killed Yldefonzo Arganda and 17 residents It is also one of the first deep looks inside a long-term care center since the pandemic began when lockdowns left families and the public largely in the dark on how facilities were dealing with the twin crises of short staffing and COVID-19 State inspections had been limited to infection-control issues early in the pandemic before returning to review neglect and abuse allegations Starting Feb. 18, the state plans to deny Medicare and Medicaid payments for all new admissions as a result of inspectors’ findings, and the facility has two months to reach compliance. The facility was fined $18,000 by the state She was able to drive and dance with her grandkids before going to Marysville Care Center “She smelled really dirty,” her son told inspectors adding that one of her toenails was so long it curled under her toe Administrators continued to admit new patients despite what the report called “squalid” conditions Turnover and insufficient oversight left the building “understaffed and unprepared” when the coronavirus struck, ultimately spreading to 60 people. The state found that corporate leadership knew or should have known about the issues Executive Director David Duvall said in a statement that administrators are addressing the issues to prevent them from reoccurring said new leadership has more oversight from those at the corporate level The report on Marysville echoes findings of a Seattle Times investigation in September which found the state’s low standards for staffing levels left residents in many Washington long-term care facilities vulnerable to suffering in the years leading up to the pandemic The new findings against Marysville also do not represent the first time inspectors cited the facility operated by Life Care Centers of America, one of the nation’s largest nursing home chains, for staffing struggles, as The Seattle Times reported.  Marysville Care Center was cited just before the pandemic for insufficient staffing and for neglect as its most vulnerable residents in one particular unit went without showers responding to 21 complaints to DSHS from residents and their families they found the neglect had spread to the whole building of 72 residents A third of the residents hadn’t received a shower in a month One resident suffered from “a rotten odor” and pressure injury resulting in an open wound about 3 inches wide and 2 inches deep crusty skin,” making part of her bed look as if it was covered in “a slight layer of snow.” “It’s hard not to neglect residents when you don’t have enough staff,” one staff member told inspectors two nursing assistants worked a 12-hour shift caring for 29 residents Most of the residents required two-person lifts Call lights were left blinking for an hour and a half The facility was in a precarious position when it had an outbreak in November The assistants told inspectors they often didn’t have time to clean The state Department of Health expressed concern that the facility was understaffed during the outbreak and that there was not an active director of nursing or infection-prevention specialist. The facility also failed to provide updates on new cases. Toward the end of November, Yldefonzo Arganda told her sister how upset she was — that she believed someone had come to work sick and that others were beginning to cough during shifts. The facility kept coronavirus tests on site, had a strict screening process for workers that required temperature checks and did not allow them to work if they showed virus symptoms, said Nancy Butner, vice president of Life Care’s northwest division. But the virus still entered the facility. Butner added that the company has made numerous efforts to recruit and hire more staff. Yldefonzo Arganda, who started at Marysville in 2019, began to worry about her health and safety after long being the type to tell others she was OK. She had taken so many coronavirus precautions in 2020, and made it to the final months of a devastating year for nursing homes without getting sick. She had always been the one in the family to push others to be extra careful about the virus, her sister said. Always fun-loving, she had chosen a favorite song — “Mambo No. 5” — that they could sing or think of while washing their hands for a full 20 seconds. She put masks inside Ziploc bags for loved ones to keep in their cars. “None of us can really comprehend what happened,” said her sister, who said Lourdes, a widow since 2016, was survived by siblings and nieces and nephews. “It’s just really hard every single day.” Lourdes visited an emergency room in Everett on Nov. 30 for her COVID-19 symptoms. That day, doctors sent her home because her temperature was going down. But she still had trouble breathing and returned at 5 a.m. the next day. She never left the hospital again, learning while there from state health officials that other co-workers had been infected, too. Lourdes made her last call to her sister on Dec. 5, a Saturday, saying doctors were putting her on a ventilator. She still believed she would recover, she said on the phone. “Don’t worry about me, don’t cry,” her sister recalls her saying. Her sister wept as she recalled the memory. Stay secure and make sure you have the best reading experience possible by upgrading your browser! Volume 11 - 2017 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fnsys.2017.00074 This article is part of the Research TopicBiogenic Amines and Neuromodulation of Animal BehaviorView all 21 articles Neuromodulators are conserved across insect taxa but how biogenic amines and their receptors in ancestral solitary forms have been co-opted to control behaviors in derived socially complex species is largely unknown Here we explore patterns associated with the functions of octopamine (OA) serotonin (5-HT) and dopamine (DA) in solitary ancestral insects and their derived functions in eusocial ants Synthesizing current findings that reveal potential ancestral roles of monoamines in insects we identify physiological processes and conserved behaviors under aminergic control consider how biogenic amines may have evolved to modulate complex social behavior and present focal research areas that warrant further study Insect social decision-making systems are poorly understood in comparison although behavioral influences of neuromodulators are well known (Supplementary Table S2) OA may thus enhance sensitivity to pheromonal cues and regulate social interactions similarly in both solitary and social insects These studies suggest that in both solitary and eusocial insects DA regulates reproductive state and DA additionally may be integral to the maintenance of reproductive division of labor and the resolution of reproductive competition in eusocial species that are significant in the study of the neuromodulation of complex eusocial behavior Soldiers are more tolerant of risk; elevated monoamine levels or subcaste-specific receptor profiles may underscore their self-sacrificing behavior and that monoamine titers could regulate cyclical activity Control processes analogous to neural synchronization in vertebrate brains may underscore colony-level behavior Biogenic amines may thus influence division of labor and collective action through changes in olfactory responsiveness 5-HT may thus have been co-opted for food sharing reducing individual feeding behavior and enabling trophallaxis when the crop is full Nutritional ecology varies across social insect clades and may significantly impact monoamine levels and trophic behavior Social insects may have evolved distinct neural circuits to regulate social behaviors using the same signaling molecules as solitary species Exploring biogenic amine receptors and downstream regulatory pathways involved in insect behavior and derived social functions will advance our understanding of how the eusocial insect brain evolved perceptual and cognitive capacities in association with sociality SA performed statistical analyses and created associated figures and CSM created the phylogenetic presentation of aminergic control of behavior SA and JFAT prepared drafts of the manuscript All authors contributed to the conception of the perspective manuscript revision and gave final approval for publication The reviewer VM declared a past collaboration with one of the authors CSM to the handling Editor Alfonso Pérez-Escudero commented on the manuscript Iulian Ilies gave helpful statistical advice This work was supported by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship (funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No JFK was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant (DP150101172) The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnsys.2017.00074/full#supplementary-material Foraging activity and dietary spectrum of the Argentine ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in invaded natural areas of the northeast Iberian Peninsula doi: 10.1603/0046-225x(2007)36[1166:faadso]2.0.co;2 Single serotonergic neurons that modulate aggression in Drosophila Targeted manipulation of serotonergic neurotransmission affects the escalation of aggression in adult male Drosophila melanogaster Serotonin mediates behavioral gregarization underlying swarm formation in desert locusts Specific dopaminergic neurons for the formation of labile aversive memory Evolution of sweet taste perception in hummingbirds by transformation of the ancestral umami receptor Octopamine modulates honey bee dance behavior The roles of dopamine and related compounds in reward-seeking behavior across animal phyla tyramine and octopamine signaling in bilaterians Queen pheromone modulates brain dopamine function in worker honey bees Neural computation and neuromodulation underlying social behavior Characterization of a dopamine D1 receptor from Apis mellifera: cloning Distribution of serotonin (5-HT) and its receptors in the insect brain with focus on the mushroom bodies Lessons from Drosophila melanogaster and Apis mellifera Oviposition and oogenesis in virgin fire ant females Solenopsis invicta are associated with a high level of dopamine in the brain The evolutionary history of termites as inferred from 66 mitochondrial genomes 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This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited *Correspondence: J. Frances Kamhi, ZnJhbm5lLmthbWhpQG1xLmVkdS5hdQ== Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher. 94% of researchers rate our articles as excellent or goodLearn more about the work of our research integrity team to safeguard the quality of each article we publish. Volume 12 - 2018 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fninf.2018.00013 Imaging the expression patterns of reporter constructs is a powerful tool to dissect the neuronal circuits of perception and behavior in the adult brain of Drosophila one of the major models for studying brain functions several Drosophila brain templates and digital atlases have been built to automatically analyze and compare collections of expression pattern images there has been no systematic comparison of performances between alternative atlasing strategies and registration algorithms we objectively evaluated the performance of different strategies for building adult Drosophila brain templates and atlases we used state-of-the-art registration algorithms to generate a new group-wise inter-sex atlas Our results highlight the benefit of statistical atlases over individual ones and show that the newly proposed inter-sex atlas outperformed existing solutions for automated registration and annotation of expression patterns Over 3,000 images from the Janelia Farm FlyLight collection were registered using the proposed strategy These registered expression patterns can be searched and compared with a new version of the BrainBaseWeb system and BrainGazer software We illustrate the validity of our methodology and brain atlas with registration-based predictions of expression patterns in a subset of clock neurons The described registration framework should benefit to brain studies in Drosophila and other insect species Powerful image processing algorithms and tools are required for the spatially accurate co-analysis of expression patterns acquired on different specimens The potential and benefits of such advanced registration methods has not been investigated yet in the context of Drosophila adult brain atlasing where the targeted resolution should allow the comparison of neuronal processes from individual cells The precision of the method used for registering images and its capacity to compensate for anatomical variations between individuals is essential to preserve local contrast when averaging images since anatomical details condition the precision of the spatial requests that can be performed using an atlas these approaches have not been fully translated yet into the insect brain communities we chose a w;+;+ background that had been pre-isogenized to CantonS (wild-type) Janelia Farm lines and non-gal4 lines were obtained from the Bloomington stock center Four to six day-old male brains were dissected in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) The samples were transferred immediately after dissection into 4% paraformaldehyde (PFA) in PBS on ice and protected from light After ensuring that the samples settled to the bottom of the well the brains were placed at 4°C overnight or room temperature (RT) for 1 h Samples were washed six times at RT with cold PAT (Jenett et al., 2012) on the rocking mixer for 10 min per wash and then in PAT with 1% Triton X-100 for 10 min samples were returned to RT and were given six washes as previously described brains were incubated with a secondary antibody solution The secondary antibodies used were Alexa Fluor 488 goat anti-chicken (Invitrogen A11039) Alexa Fluor 647 goat anti-mouse (Invitrogen A21236) and FluoProbes 547H goat anti-rabbit (Interchim FP-CB1050) all diluted (1:1,000) in PAT and incubated for 48–72 h at 4°C in the dark tissues were washed six times with PAT as in previous steps Whole-mount brains were mounted on a 76 × 26 mm glass microscope slide (KnittelGlass) to which pairs of Paper Reinforcement Rings had been applied The samples were mounted in Prolong Gold mounting solution (Invitrogen) Spacers were covered with a cover glass (KnittelGlass Image acquisition was done sequentially on a Leica TCS SP8 upright microscope with a 25 × 0.95 NA plan-apochromat water immersion objective with a voxel size of 0.60 × 0.60 × 0.98 μm Images were acquired with a 12-bit dynamic range A frame average of two successive scans was applied The laser power was increased along the z-axis to compensate for signal attenuation For combining the co-registered images into a final template image we experimented with the default ANTs strategy (state-of-the-art method in MRI) which generates a normalized average image by voxel-wise averaging followed by sharpening with a Laplacian kernel we implemented in Matlab an alternative strategy in which the template intensity image was generated by computing a voxel-wise median over the co-registered images The anatomical label image associated with the template was obtained by applying to each individual label image the diffeomorphic transformations computed from the corresponding reference (nc82) image followed by a per-voxel majority voting over all warped label images Labels were interpolated using the nearest neighbor method Individual (non atlas) brain images were registered against atlas templates using the antsIntroduction.sh ANTs script (Avants et al., 2010) which performs an initial rigid registration with mutual information as similarity metric followed by non-rigid registration with SyN and cross-correlation as similarity measure each providing an intensity image and its associated label image different atlases were evaluated for their performances regarding either segmentation or registration the atlas labels were transformed into the coordinate system of each individual test brain to be compared with its labels the labels of each individual test brain were mapped into the atlas coordinate system to be compared with the labels of other test brains Region-to-region matching in individual or atlas coordinate system was quantified using the Dice coefficient the Dice coefficient provides a normalized measure of the overlap between two instances RiA and RiB that have been transformed into a common space by the registration procedure where |·| denotes the size (number of voxels) of a region was computed as the mean symmetric Euclidean distance we computed the mean Euclidean distance diA,B between each boundary point on RiA and the closest point on RiB The symmetric computation was performed to obtain diB,A The symmetric Euclidean distance for region Ri was then defined as was computed as the mean symmetric Hausdorff distance the Hausdorff distance hiA,B was computed as the maximum distance between any boundary point on RiA and its closest neighbor on RiB and the symmetric Hausdorff distance was obtained as The mean symmetric Euclidean distance was also used to quantify residual distances between axonal traces in the template space replacing anatomical regions with the 3D skeletons of individual traces the obtained distances were divided by the equivalent spherical radius of the templates This normalization was applied to compensate for size variations between templates The BrainBaseWeb interface of VRVis (http://vrvis.at) was widely redesigned and functionally enhanced to access the registered images stored in the Tefor database. BrainBaseWeb is the primary user interface to efficiently browse and retrieve confocal microscopy data and related metadata like annotated anatomical structures of imaging and registration parameters from the BrainBase (http://braingazer.org) storage framework It provides the user with reactive client side slice viewers as well as 3D visualization of the expression patterns in a standard web client as Chrome data are loaded and temporarily stored on demand only which accelerates data access and visualization Besides a traditional semantic search engine BrainBaseWeb 2.0 presents as a new feature the spatial query which previously was only available in the desktop application BrainGazer (see below): using a brush-tool complex queries for expression patterns can be submitted without any prior knowledge Even more complex, annotation based queries on the BrainBase can be constructed with VRVis' BrainGazer desktop application for Windows or OSX (Bruckner et al., 2009) In addition to the above described spatial query BrainGazer provides tools for combinatorial semantic and non-semantic queries which are constructed through intuitive graphical user interfaces BrainGazer is installed on the local computer and has full access to the graphics hardware of the local system This allows for high-end 3D rendering of high resolution data which can be directly downloaded from the data pool or results page of a query On modern hardware this point makes the BrainGazer a powerful tool for in-detail analysis of atlas data At least four of the most popular adult Drosophila templates are brains of single individuals (Rein et al., 2002; Jenett et al., 2006, 2012; Chiang et al., 2011) The brains in individual templates are frequently chosen for their apparent or objective representativeness of a whole population of specimens we evaluated quantitatively to what extent the arbitrary selection of a reference brain potentially affects the performance of the template in registration and segmentation tasks we also evaluated how using group-wise templates built by pooling several individuals may improve these performances We exploited the Würzburg dataset (see section 2.1), composed of male and female brain images containing each a nc82 intensity channel (reference channel; Figures 1A,B) and the corresponding anatomical region labels delineated by human experts (Rein et al., 2002; Jenett et al., 2006) The same experiment was separately performed for females and for males Ten specimens (the template set) were used both as individual templates and for building group-wise templates Twelve distinct samples (the test set) were used for evaluating these templates To prevent biasing the evaluation process by size effects the template and test sets were created so they presented comparable distributions of brain volumes combining linear then non-linear (diffeomorphic) transforms was applied to co-register the intensity images in the set The two atlases differed by their template intensity images which were either a sharpened average image computed according to the default ANTs method (Mean template) or a median image (Median template) The two atlases shared the same anatomical label image which was calculated by applying majority voting to the co-registered individual label images The 12 test brains were independently registered to each of the 10+2 individual and group-wise templates The test brains were registered on these templates using the same diffeomorphic approach as used for generating the group-wise templates Segmentation performances of individual and group-wise templates the inverse standard error of the mean (s.e.m.) as a function of the mean of each segmentation metric computed in the original space of test brains and over all anatomical regions (B) Average inter-surface Euclidean distance (C) Maximum (symmetric Hausdorff) inter-surface distance The single male and female brains used as individual templates are labeled as FN or MN Mean and Median design the mean and median intensity group-wise templates To quantify the average absolute amplitude of misalignment, we measured the Euclidean surface distance between label regions from atlases and test brains (the smaller this measure, the better the matching). On average, the border to border distance was below voxel size (voxel diagonal = 1.4 μm), suggesting sub-voxel accuracy (Figure 2B) the group-wise templates exhibited smaller and less variable residual distances between registered regions and the Median template showed better performance compared with the ANTs average one (Mean template) Since large deviations may be smoothed out by computing a mean Euclidean distance, we next examined the average maximum border to border distance, as quantified by the symmetric Hausdorff distance. We obtained that the maximum error between registered label regions could, on average, span the equivalent of about 10 voxels (Figure 2C) the group-wise templates outperformed the individual ones with both mean and maximum residual distances the group-wise atlases yielded about 40% reduction in segmentation error compared with individual ones For males as well as for females, we observed that the individual atlases ranked differently depending on the considered evaluation criterion. For example, M24 performed the worst, second worst, and third worst, according to Dice coefficient, average Euclidean distance, and Hausdorff distance, respectively (Figure 2). Conversely, the group-wise Mean and Median atlases consistently ranked second and first with the three criteria (Figure 2) we concluded that group-wise templates outperformed individual ones by increasing both the precision and accuracy of registration-based automatic segmentation and that computing a median rather than an average intensity image further improved the performances of the group-wise template group-wise templates yielded increased precision and accuracy as observed for the segmentation task Registration performances of individual and group-wise templates the inverse standard error of the mean (s.e.m.) as a function of the mean of the Dice coefficient computed in the template space and over all anatomical regions We thus asked whether inter-sex atlases could be used in place of sex-specific atlases We addressed this question using five female brains and five male brains as individual atlases and as components of two inter-sex group-wise Mean and Median atlases (with average- and median-intensity templates The two obtained group-wise templates retained the crisp local contrast associated with neuropil structures visible on individual images (Figures 1A–F). However, the Median template exhibited a better signal-to-noise ratio than the Mean one (compare Figures 1E,F to Figures 1C,D) the template image obtained with the median operator was smoother compared to the sharpened mean The higher intensity heterogeneity in the mean-based template likely resulted from the sharpening step coupled to the averaging procedure in the ANTs toolkit We evaluated the segmentation and registration performances of the 10+2 atlases using a test set of twelve additional samples, containing six female and six male brains. For both tasks and for all evaluation criteria, the range of variations between individual templates was comparable to the one observed in the single sex cases, suggesting the absence of impact of gender on the performance of the templates (Figure 4) the group-wise atlases again outperformed the individual ones and the median-intensity template was globally superior to the average-intensity one Evaluation of inter-sex templates in segmentation (A–C) and registration (D) tasks The graphs plot the inverse standard error of the mean (s.e.m.) as a function of the mean of each segmentation metric computed over all anatomical regions either in the test brain spaces (A–C) or in the template spaces (D) (B) Average Euclidean inter-surface distance Mean and Median are the mean and median intensity group-wise inter-sex templates suggesting that the inter-sex atlas compared similarly to the sex-specific ones The protocerebral bridge was a noticeable exception the inter-sex template exhibited better performance than the two sex-specific ones for the automatic segmentation of this structure in the test brain coordinate frame effect was also observed for the noduli in the male group Comparison of the performances of inter-sex and sex-specific templates in the segmentation task the difference between the average Dice coefficient computed with either the inter-sex or the sex-specific templates as a function of the Dice coefficient computed with the sex-specific template we objectively compared the distributions of the Dice coefficient obtained with the inter-sex and sex-specific atlases there was no significant difference between female-specific and inter-sex distributions (Wilcoxon signed rank test this difference was significant (P < 0.01) This could be attributed mainly to the results obtained for the protocerebral bridge since excluding this region from the test abolished the difference (P = 0.18) Given the low average Dice coefficient values obtained with sex-specific atlases for the protocerebral bridge and the difficulty to accurately manually delineate this narrow and elongated structure we concluded that overall the median-intensity group-wise inter-sex atlas performed similarly to sex-specific atlases The results reported above show that group-wise atlases yield better performances in the segmentation and registration tasks than individual ones the performances of group-wise templates likely depend on the number of individuals used to establish these templates We thus asked whether the number of individuals in our templates (set to ten above) was optimal or not We generated ten series of inter-sex atlases each series containing an increasing number of individual brains with a final maximum value of twelve individuals Female and male specimens were successively introduced in a random order The first individual in five series was a female The obtained incremental atlases were used to automatically segment and register an independent set of twelve manually segmented brains (six female and six male) Segmentation and registration performances were evaluated using the Dice coefficient measured in the individual or the atlas space The average segmentation performance globally increased with the number of individuals and converged to a plateau around n ≃ 9–10 individuals (Figure 6) The average registration performance exhibited a similar pattern convergence was reached sooner than for segmentation the performance level reached upon convergence was higher for segmentation than for registration This was a probable consequence of the fact that the label images of group-wise atlases (which are only used in the segmentation task) are smoother than individual ones there was a pronounced increase in performance at the transition between 2 and 3 brains per atlas thus further emphasizing the benefits of statistical atlases It is likely that the poor performance of some of the individual atlas brains is smoothed out in statistical atlases as soon as they are in a minority which generally happens as soon as there are two other individuals the results of this experiment strongly suggested that convergence had been reached in the inter-sex group-wise atlas after the integration of about ten individuals Influence of the number of brains on inter-sex atlas performance in segmentation and registration tasks Group-wise inter-sex atlases were created with an increasing number of brains Performance was quantified by computing the average Dice coefficient of segmented anatomical regions of male and female test brains after segmentation (blue) or registration (orange) Performance measures were averaged over 10 repeats Since not all public templates share the same anatomical labels (some do not have labels at all) the comparison was done for the registration task only Twelve anatomically annotated test brains (six females and six males) were registered and warped into the coordinate system of each evaluated template The Dice coefficient was averaged over all structures and pairs of registered test brains the two distance metrics were not used in this evaluation because of size differences across templates Since the evaluated set of templates contained both sex-specific and inter-sex templates we performed three evaluations using female only The results show that our templates yielded the highest mean Dice coefficient between registered anatomical labels in template space for the three evaluation cases (Figure 7) the only single-individual template involved in this comparison (JFRC2010) had the lowest scores independent support to the conclusion that group-wise templates are superior The FCWB template had lower performance compared with the three nc82-based average templates from Jefferis' lab As the FCWB was built using more individual brains (26) than the two sex-specific DmelM an DmelF templates (18 and 14 we interpreted this difference in performance as a possible consequence of having different staining between the template and the test brains despite they rely on larger numbers of individuals and DmelIS templates tended to exhibit lower Dice scores compared with our group-wise templates Since the intensity contrast was derived from the same nc82 staining in these templates this suggested an improved performance due to the symmetric diffeomorphic registration algorithm used to generate our templates Comparison with other templates (registration task) Dice coefficient obtained with our proposed group-wise templates (Median and Mean) and with other publicly available templates evaluated by registering female brains (Left) or both female and male brains (evaluation in template space) The male test set (Middle) was also used to evaluate the performance of an additional male-specific template (GifM) built using newly acquired nc82-stained samples JFRC2010: single female template from the FlyLight database; FCWB: an inter-sex template that combines female and male brains from the FlyCircuit database; DmelF and DmelIS: symmetric group-wise female-specific All evaluations of our group-wise atlases reported above have been against test brains belonging to the same “Würzburg” dataset can the success of our strategy compared with alternative templates be explained by the common origin of template and test brains what is the robustness of our strategy to changes in the image acquisition conditions we constructed a new template (GifM) using ten male nc82-stained samples acquired in this study (the “Gif” dataset) and checked its performance by co-registering independent “Würzburg” male individuals We used the same twelve male brains that were used as a test set in the above comparison with other templates The results obtained by evaluating registration using the Dice coefficient showed a partial sensitivity of template performance to image acquisition conditions (Figure 7 the GifM template yielded lower precision and accuracy compared with our Mean and Median templates the GifM template was still superior to the alternative templates This suggested that differences in image characteristics alone could not completely explain the better performances of our strategy over the alternatives (A) Z-projections of individual 3D image stacks showing nc82-staining (Gray) and manually delineated 3D axonal traces (Magenta) (B) Distribution of the normalized distances between axonal projections after registering nc82-stained sample brains from Clk6.1-gal4 Registration was performed using either the FlyLight template (JFRC2010) the Jefferis' lab symmetric inter-sex template (DmelIS) or our median-intensity inter-sex template (Median) The results of the statistical comparison (paired Wilcoxon test) between the JFRC2010 or DmelIS templates with the Median template are indicated as: ns The normalized residual distances were variable from one line to the other, and the variability between lines was larger than the variability between templates. However, the median-intensity template produced lower residual inter-trace distances than the other two templates (Figure 8B) for which there was no difference between our Median and the JFRC2010 templates applying the Wilcoxon paired test confirmed the statistical significance of these differences We thus concluded that the median-intensity inter-sex group-wise template was producing better trace registration compared with the alternatives thus providing a comprehensive anatomical annotation of our statistical template the Tefor database is able to support a wide variety of atlas-based queries whereas the AstC-R1 gene encodes an Allatostatin neuropeptide receptor whose expression profile is not characterized Our search thus identified a new transcriptional enhancer that drives expression in the PDF cells and suggests that an Allatostatin signaling pathway plays a role in these clock neurons BrainGazer 3D space query over axonal tracts of five individual PDF-expressing sLNv profiles registered on the standard brain (Top) The 3D space query brush tool is drawn (red) over one PDF profile (pink) in both brain hemispheres (Bottom) The same PDF profile is shown with the four other PDF profiles on one hemisphere to illustrate individual variability Three Janelia Farm lines identified with the BrainGazer 3D space query using PDF-expressing sLNv axonal tracts as a query template (Top) Overlay of the PDF (pink) and GAL4-driven GFP (green) profiles registered on the standard brain (Middle) Overlap (red) between the PDF profile 1 and the GAL4-driven GFP profile (left) and co-labeling of anti-PDF (pink) and anti-GFP (green) shown in the overlap region (right) Bottom: co-labeling of anti-PDF (pink) and anti-GFP (green) shown for one hemisphere Numbers refer to Janelia Farm lines with associated gene names Our study provides several new insights on the building of atlases of Drosophila adult brain Based on an objective evaluation methodology we first quantitatively established the importance of relying on group-wise atlases and provided guidelines for generating them We then showed that state-of-the-art atlases many of which have been built using the same computational procedure based on an affine transform followed by B-spline deformations can be out-performed using alternative image registration algorithms that provide increased spatial accuracy we provided a web-based resource to access and query more than 3,000 GAL4 lines of the Janelia Farm FlyLight collection that we have registered onto a new average inter-sex atlas The possibility of searching this database with the BrainGazer software allows to find axonal projections that are similar to any registered brain expression pattern and thus represents a unique tool to analyze neuronal circuits in the Drosophila brain The selection of the number of brains in a statistical atlas should satisfy a compromise between statistical value and the human cost for manually annotating 3D images of reference brains We provided here for the first time an objective study on the optimal number of individuals for a Drosophila adult brain atlas and showed that this optimum is task dependent the average registration performance had already converged we observed a slower convergence for the automated segmentation task This probably corresponded to the need for more individuals to compensate variability in the manual segmentation of neuropil regions The difference between the convergence for segmentation and for registration suggests that a smaller number of individuals may be required when building an atlas for the purpose of comparing individual patterns rather than for the purpose of automatically annotating them ten individuals were sufficient to reach convergence This figure is at least twice below the number of individuals that have been used in several Drosophila average atlases until now Our study thus suggests that these atlases may integrate more individuals than actually needed for optimal performance Investigating this hypothesis would require a detailed comparative analysis of algorithmic strategies which was beyond the scope of the present study using the Iterative Shape Averaging algorithm The atlases that were out-performed in the present study by our group-wise atlas have also been generated using this algorithm Because of the shared evolutionary history between insect classes brain anatomical organizations exhibit common patterns and 3D images of neuropil-stained brains show similar contrasts we expect the group-wise registration algorithm introduced here for atlas building and the evaluation results we reported in Drosophila should also be relevant and beneficial to brain atlasing projects in many insect species and PA contributed to the design of the study and of experiments FS and KB implemented the database and its web interface We thank Gerry Rubin for providing the Janelia Farm dataset of confocal images Martin Heisenberg and Kornelia Grübel for their help obtaining the Würzburg data set Elisabeth Chélot for help with immunolabeling experiments and Eric Biot and Lionel Moreira for their help with storage and computing facilities at Institut Jean-Pierre Bourgin and at Institut des Neurosciences Paris-Saclay and AJ were funded by the Tefor Infrastructure under the Investments for the Future program of the French National Research Agency (Grant #ANR-11-INBS-0014) Work at Institut des Neurosciences Paris-Saclay was supported by ANR Infrastructure Tefor and by ANR ClockEye(#ANR-14-CE13-0034-01) JI was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (TEC2014-51882-P) the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant 654911 and the European Research Council (ERC Starting Grant no SFG and Vienna Business Agency in the scope of COMET - Competence Centers for Excellent Technologies (854174) which is managed by FFG The Institut Jean-Pierre Bourgin benefits from the support of the LabEx Saclay Plant Sciences-SPS (#ANR-10-LABX-0040-SPS) The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fninf.2018.00013/full#supplementary-material Supplementary Figure 1. 3D renderings of the 14 regions used for quantitative evaluation of atlas performances in segmentation and registration tasks. The 14 regions shown here were extracted from the atlas of Ito et al. (2014) that has been registered onto the group-wise inter-sex atlas (available from http://fruitfly.tefor.net) Selected lines from the Janelia Farm collection showing an overlap value with the search pattern ranking among the first 50 for at least three of the five PDF profiles (Left) GAL4-driven GFP profile registered on the standard brain (Right) overlap between the first PDF profile and the GAL4-driven GFP profile Supplementary Table 1. Results of the 3D space query for each of the five PDF profiles. Overlap values are indicated for each Janelia Farm line and the corresponding gene name (FlyBase nomenclature) is indicated for the overlap values ranking among the first 50 for at least three of the five PDF profiles (blue). Bold names correspond to the three lines shown in Figure 10 Supplementary Movie 1. Animated rendering of the group-wise inter-sex atlas. Successively: nc82 template image (2D sections then 3D volume rendering, opaque then transparent); label image (3D surface rendering of anatomical regions, defined following Ito et al. 2014); six registered patterns of GAL4-GFP expression (3D surface rendering of intensity-thresholded pattern images); same patterns (left half of the brain) with the anatomical regions (right half of the brain) Circuit modules linking internal states and social behaviour in flies and mice The optimal template effect in hippocampus studies of diseased populations Communication between circadian clusters: the key to a plastic network Visual circuits in flies: beginning to see the whole picture The transcription factor Mef2 is required for normal circadian behavior in Drosophila Principal warps: thin-plate splines and the decomposition of deformations CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar Targeted gene expression as a means of altering cell fates and generating dominant phenotypes PubMed Abstract | Google 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High-performance probes for light and electron microscopy is required for structural integrity and function of synaptic active zones in Drosophila Rouyer F and Andrey P (2018) A Statistically Representative Atlas for Mapping Neuronal Circuits in the Drosophila Adult Brain Received: 22 November 2017; Accepted: 01 March 2018; Published: 23 March 2018 Copyright © 2018 Arganda-Carreras, Manoliu, Mazuras, Schulze, Iglesias, Bühler, Jenett, Rouyer and Andrey. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited *Correspondence: François Rouyer, ZnJhbmNvaXMucm91eWVyQGluYWYuY25ycy1naWYuZnI= Philippe Andrey, cGhpbGlwcGUuYW5kcmV5QGlucmEuZnI= Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle épinière We use terms like "pigging out" and "eating like a pig" to channel their skill and spirit at the buffet table after all Since our prized porkers are always on the munch some of what they’ll ingest will invariably be laden with pathogens As the largest organ which deals with immune functions the gut is often the unseen first-line of defence against disease but understanding it can directly translate to happier healthier and faster-growing pigs – meaning bigger hogs and better profit margins for all Stephan Bischoff defines gut health as the "effective digestion and absorption of feeds coupled with an absence of gastrointestinal tract illnesses" “Nutrition accounts for 70 percent of hog production costs and is the most important driver in hog-raising,” explains Arlon Arganda a nutrition consultant for commercial and industrial pig farms in the Philippines “A good feeding programme satisfies not just the nutritional requirements of pigs About 70 percent of immune system tissues are found in the gastrointestinal tract so keeping it sound pays off with a stronger immune system and better feed conversion.” Starting at the mouth and ending at the anus, the gastrointestinal tract is essentially a 20-plus meter long tube which extracts energy from feed pellets wet and nutrient-rich tract is home to thousands of species of symbiotic bacteria most of which help its host resist pathogens and better absorb nutrients from food pathogens like Clostridium perfringens and Coccidia also naturally occur in the gut A shift in diet – such as when piglets are weaned away from milk – can dramatically alter gut flora leaving the host more vulnerable to sickness Bad bacteria can multiply and cause wounds reducing piglets’ digestive and absorptive capacity Energy and nutrients which would otherwise be used to put on extra pounds will be diverted to keeping sickness at bay – leading to lower feed-to-mass conversion rates and even death particularly during the critical weaning period The traditional solution to this would be to administer antibiotics, but consumers around the globe are demanding that more pork be antibiotic-free so the search is on for natural alternatives intestinal immunity and the intestinal lining is the secret to a healthy gut Arlon, whose expertise covers natural feed formulation and nutritional strategies for both feed-millers and hog raisers says that there are four major factors to consider in maintaining good gut health “Remember that gut health starts right after birth The nutritional capacity of lactating sows should be prioritised to give their new-born piglets a head-start in terms of gut capacity via milk and colostrum," he explains "Second is to give pigs only high-quality ingredients which can be easily digested Good food will strengthen the gut while bad food can lead to diarrhoea "Third is to keep a constant lookout for new ingredients and nutritive additives to maintain good gut flora "Last and perhaps most important is to recognise that water is also an excellent medium to administer nutrients I am a big proponent of this and our initial studies have shown outstanding results.” Preventative measures like good biosecurity can also minimise the entry of disease, particularly with global outbreaks like the African swine fever (ASF) hurtling at full-speed Other solutions which have proven to curb gut pathogens include additives such as organic acids prebiotics to stimulate the growth of good bacteria and probiotics or the direct introduction of good gut bacteria embracing these products can potentially reap good business returns Arlon cautions that gut health has always been a complex topic and there are many inputs and variables to consider to optimise results Actual farm testing via monthly or even weekly monitoring of animal responses is an absolute must as the responses of different hog breeds in various localities to different natural or commercial solutions can vary widely “Vigilance and total quality assurance is your farm’s first line of defence,” he concludes “Each delivery of ingredients should be high-quality and tested before acceptance Remember that when it comes to hog nutrition and maintaining gut health With continuous research by scientists and farmers worldwide our porkers might soon be dining on antibiotic-free food which promotes great gut health Environmentalist Gregg Yan is the founder of the Best Alternatives Campaign which works to promote sustainable seafood while transforming the trade in wild-caught ornamental fish and invertebrates He formerly helmed communications for WWF and Oceana and now leads CSR efforts for the Asia Pacific Association of Communication Directors Global Ag Media provides a knowledge sharing platform offering premium news analysis and information resources for the global agriculture industry Sign up to our regular newsletter and access news from across the Global AG Media network InstantEye Robotics demonstrated its Mk-3 Gen5-D1/D2 (E) Echo palm-sized unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) at the recent US Army Expeditionary Warrior Experiment (AEWE) the director of operations at InstantEye Robotics told Janes on 26 April that the Echo is an enhanced version of the company’s Generation 5 aircraft and has the Gluon 640x512 long-wave infrared (LWIR) imaging camera which is a military-only sensor in development The Echo weighs 193 g and has an endurance exceeding 20 minutes with an operational range exceeding 4.5 km The InstantEye Robotics Mk-3 Gen5-D1/D2(E) Echo palm-sized UAV The company demonstrated the aircraft at the 2021 US Army Expeditionary Warrior Experiment The US Army used the Echo in both urban and rural settings at the 2021 AEWE which took place from 5 February to 5 March at Fort Benning in Georgia told Janes on 14 April that US Army soldiers used the Echo in both attack and defence scenarios They launched the aircraft in the defence situation and used its infrared (IR) camera to see attacking positions Arganda said the US Army also used the Echo as part of an attack on buildings Soldiers used the aircraft to see adversaries in windows and on rooftops Mackiewicz told Janes on 14 April that this was part of infantry element situational training exercises Arganda said the US Army soldiers provided feedback that they appreciated improvements in digital stabilisation with the Echo Soldiers also appreciated using the aircraft to identify targets and hazards Gain unlimited access to Janes news and more.. Delivering trusted intelligence to warfighters to protect national interests Providing mission users with faster access to quality data to pre-empt threats and protect national security Assured interconnected OSINT to deliver informed Solutions Insights About Contact Request a demo Customer Login Store Receive the latest developments in defence and security as well as keep informed on Janes news and events Janes Intelligence SummaryA fortnightly update featuring the latest analysis Graeme Batsman says his Filipina wife’s passport has been caught up in an ‘admin issue’ in Britain A British man and his Filipina wife say they are facing imprisonment in Belarus and will miss out on starting a family via surrogacy because of UK delays in visa processing in February to arrange a surrogate birth that would cost them £25,000 they face losing that arrangement and their liberty in a plight that exposes the human cost of visa processing problems in the UK As their Belarus travel visa expires this week they have been warned by local officials that if they do not leave the country by Friday they will be imprisoned and fined But they cannot leave because Arganda submitted her passport to the UK as part of a separate attempt to apply for a British visa that appears to be stuck in a mounting backlog of cases they face a five-year travel ban to Belarus so would miss out on a surrogacy arrangement that has already cost them $18,000 (£14,582) with a further $13,000 to pay when the baby is born Batsman said: “I’ve told the Foreign Office that I’m going to be calling them from a jail soon and they haven’t done anything.” the UK government will be responsible for imprisoning us No one wants to stay in a jail and it will mean no baby for us.” Their predicament emerged as evidence grew about the scale of problems caused by visa delays. More than 150 couples have complained to the BBC that they have also been hit by visa processing problems. Many have been waiting more than double the expected time for processing visas, the BBC reported. “It’s an admin issue – but that admin issue has now just stopped life,” Deon Barnard said as he and his wife wait for a spousal visa. Batsman said he had repeatedly called in vain for help from UK officials, ministers, and to a 69p-a-minute visa helpline. “I’ve emailed all sorts of ministers. Everyone has been a jobsworth and has just passed us on. I have said to many people by email, or phone call, you will be responsible for endangering a British citizen and his Filipina wife.” Arganda first applied for a six-month visa to the UK in October last year. Despite 40 pages of supporting documents, supplied by Batsman, the application was refused on the basis that she had insufficient means. The couple got married in Odesa in January on a trip to Ukraine, where before the war more than 2,000 babies a year were born through surrogacy. As Russian troops massed on the border, the newlyweds abandoned their search for a surrogate mother in the country. After a failed search for surrogacy in Armenia, they then applied in February for a Belarusian visa with the sponsorship of a surrogacy clinic. Arganda applied for a UK visa again at the start of March, now as Batsman’s wife. The couple were told a decision was made on 7 April but they have received nothing since and her passport has not been returned. The Home Office blamed visa delays on the situation in Ukraine, but after the Guardian raised Batsman and Arganda’s plight it said her case was being dealt with as a matter of urgency. A spokesperson said: “We are prioritising Ukraine family scheme and Homes for Ukraine applications in response to the humanitarian crisis caused by Putin’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine, so applications for study, work and family visas have taken longer to process. “We are working at pace to ensure these are issued as quickly as possible. A visa has been issued to Arganda and we are working urgently to make arrangements to return her travel documents and visa.” At 5-foot-8, Eddie Santos is about average size, but on a recent flight from Los Angeles to Washington, a trip to the plane's lavatory left him feeling like Gulliver in the land of Lilliputians. "I had to twist my shoulder just to get in," he said. "It was uncomfortable." Flier Melody Arganda was able to squeeze inside, but she said the space was so narrow her thighs brushed against the walls. "Absolutely ridiculous," hrumphed the retired teacher from Riverside, California. "If I were any bigger, I wouldn't have fit." Flying has become a game of inches, with airlines trying to squeeze as many passengers as possible on planes. They have made seats smaller, shrunk legroom and now, as Santos and Arganda discovered on a recent cross-country flight, made the bathrooms so small an average-size person feels squeezed. On some of the newer planes flown by American, Delta and United airlines, the bathrooms in coach are just 24 inches wide. For comparison, that's roughly the width of the average dishwasher or the size of Kim Kardashian's waist. By comparison, the average porta-potty is roughly 34 inches wide. Same with the stalls in the women's restrooms at Reagan National Airport. According to the manufacturer, the new-style bathrooms free up enough space to fit six more passengers onboard. Delta was the first to introduce the smaller bathrooms in 2014, but the shift gained more attention late last year when American began using new jets equipped with the tiny lavatories. United debuted theirs in June. Joseph "Pep" Valdes, a parking executive from Los Angeles, who is 5-foot-10, described his experience trying to use the bathroom on a recent American flight to Washington. "If you are one inch taller, I don't know how you'd get in there," he said. "I saw some big guys [on the flight] and wondered . . ." Travelers and consumer groups have bemoaned the downsizing of personal space on planes for years, watching as the average seat, once 18 inches wide, shrank by an inch and a half, and the distance between rows went from an average of 35 inches to 31 inches — 28 inches on some airlines. "Given the trend line in the decreasing of personal space, this is just another instance of the airlines treating their customers as profit points, not as actual people," said John Breyault, a vice president of the National Consumers League. "I challenge any airline executive at any airline to have to change the diaper of a screaming infant in a two-foot-wide bathroom." (Note: The tiny bathrooms are equipped with pull-down changing tables. But fitting an adult, a baby and a diaper bag in the space would require some maneuvering.) At 6-foot-1, Zach Guimond, a manufacturing engineer from Iowa has grown accustomed to being squeezed when he travels. But on a recent flight — he can't remember the model of plane — he found himself in a bathroom so tiny, he had to lean to one side to fit inside. "Not only was there barely enough room to turn around, the ceiling was sloped, and I couldn't even stand up straight," he said. "It was pretty uncomfortable." He pulled out his phone and scrolled to a selfie he had taken. His head is angled against one of the walls, a grimace on his face. Shirley Sosin, a retiree from California, remembers the good old days of flying when "you could put our makeup on" in a plane bathroom. "Men could shave. Things have changed," she said. But the reality is this: The nation's airspace can handle only so many flights per day, so airlines have done the next best thing — they have found ways to put more passengers on every flight. A few inches here and there can make a big difference to an airline's bottom line. Gary Weissel, managing officer of Tronos Aviation Consulting, estimated that airlines like American could generate about $400,000 a year in additional revenue for each seat added. Weissel based his calculation on typical jet usage and the average fare. Last fall, American told investors it could make an additional $500 million in revenue through 2021 by revamping its 737-800 jets to fit 12 more passengers and its Airbus SE A321 planes to fit nine additional travelers. According to SeatGuru.com, American's 737 MAX 8 has 172 seats — 12 more than the 737-800, which had 160. For those keeping track, that's two additional rows. United's 737-700 jets had 118 seats, but its newer 737-800V3 jets have 166. Translation: That is 48 more people competing for overhead storage. It does not take an engineer to know that all that space for seats has to come from somewhere. On its website, Rockwell Collins, the Iowa-based company that manufactures bathrooms for Boeing's 737, boasts that installing its Advanced Spacewell lavatories can free up space for six additional passengers. All this downsizing comes as the average American's waistline is expanding. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the average American man weighs 196 pounds — nearly 30 pounds more than he did in the 1960s. The average American woman weighs 166 — nearly 19 pounds more than she did in the 1960s. In addition, nearly 79 million Americans are obese — that is 35 percent of the population, and the number is projected to reach 50 percent by 2030. But you do not have to be overweight to feel the squeeze when you fly. There is no federal standard for bathroom size on single-aisle aircraft, so the decision is largely left to the airlines and manufacturers. However, aircraft with 60 or more seats that do not have an accessible bathroom for people with disabilities must provide an onboard wheelchair to provide access as long they have been given 48 hours notice. The chairs are designed to help disabled passengers get to the bathroom door — but not necessarily inside the lavatory. Alison McAfee, a spokeswoman for Airlines for America, which represents some of the nation's largest carriers, counters that airlines have invested billions to upgrade their fleets and give travelers — at every price point — more options. Indeed, airlines brag that today's planes are lighter and more fuel-efficient, with roomier overhead bins and WiFi connections so speedy that travelers may forget they are hurtling through the air 30,000 feet above the ground. Though in many cases, passengers have to pay extra to connect or even to use the overhead bins. "In 2017 alone, airlines invested an estimated $19.9 billion to enhance their product and customer experience, including newer larger aircraft, larger overhead bins and various amenities that customers want when they travel," McAfee said. "The idea that airlines would intentionally downgrade the flying experience or undermine safety is a flawed premise," she said. On a United flight from Houston and Orlando, Zach Honig, editor-at-large for ThePointsGuy.com, a travel-advice website, watched passengers as they emerged from the smaller lavatories. "All of them seemed really surprised," he said. Not just by the size, he said, but by the sink, which was so tiny it was impossible to emerge without getting soaked. The bathrooms, Honig later wrote on his blog, were "shockingly bad." Maddie King, a spokeswoman for United, said lavatories on the airline's newer 737s are the "industry standard." Joshua Freed, spokesman for American Airlines, said the company is "not unique and not alone" in lavatory size. Delta Air Lines declined to say how many of its planes have been equipped with the smaller bathrooms, but they do include jets that fly out of National. All said they are not aware of passenger complaints about the bathrooms. However, earlier this year, flight attendants from American Airlines raised safety concerns about the smaller bathrooms with chief executive Doug Parker. "We certainly hear about it from passengers," said Jeffrey Ewing, national safety and security chair for the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, which represents American's flight attendants. "The bathrooms are very small. The sinks are tiny. They are not very comfortable." Flight attendants from other unions have also raised concerns. "These 'space-saving' bathrooms have created accessibility issues for passengers of size and passengers with disabilities," said Taylor Garland, spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA. "Depending on the airline's configuration, the aft bathroom doors have caused physical injuries to passengers and crew. We continue to press airlines to mitigate these issues and ensure accessibility for all passengers. But this issue deserves attention and needs to be addressed." So how much have bathrooms shrunk? Airlines won't comment on specific dimensions, and manufacturers such as Boeing said the information is proprietary. A spokeswoman for Rockwell Collins, the Iowa-based company that manufactures lavatories for the Boeing 737, said they, too, are barred from commenting on bathroom dimensions but directed a reporter to the company's website, which details the benefits of the lavatory options offered. Its Advanced Spacewell lavatory frees "up to seven additional inches of cabin space." Airlines interested in installing the lavatories on existing aircraft could free up space for "an additional 6 passengers in certain configurations," the website notes. The company indicated that the trend toward smaller lavatories is driven in part by the rise of low-cost carriers like Spirit and Allegiant that are catering to fliers who care more about price than comfort. "As the industry continues its move toward a multitiered model of travel, so has the need for different lavatory options," said Pam Tvrdy-Cleary, a spokeswoman for Rockwell Collins. Consumer groups, however, are fighting back. They argue that downsizing on planes — whether seats or bathrooms — isn't just a matter of comfort but also of safety. As part of the FAA reauthorization legislation passed in September, lawmakers directed the FAA to issue regulations that establish standards for minimum seat size. Whether that will lead to more comfortable seating, however, is unclear. Paul Hudson, president of Flyers Rights, the group that filed the petition, is concerned that the FAA will only reiterate its earlier position. The U.S. Department of Transportation's inspector general, however, has launched an audit that will look at whether changes in seat design may have an impact on evacuation procedures. The audit comes at the request of Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., who is likely to become the next chairman of the House Transportation Committee when Democrats take control of the chamber in January. Weissel, the aviation consultant, said complaints about the bathrooms are unlikely to discourage airlines from trying to find new ways to add even more seats. There is too much revenue at stake. Add to that this: The vast majority of the public flies so infrequently that people may not even realize the bathrooms have gotten smaller. Even if they do, they may not care, he said. He may be right. Personal space may be shrinking, but the appetite for travel remains robust. Airlines for America said it expects record numbers of people to travel this holiday season. And officials with the Transportation Security Administration expect to screen more than 25 million passengers nationwide between now and Nov. 26 — a 5 percent increase over last year. Breyault, of the National Consumers League, said he thinks the demand is tied to the economy rather than better service. "We live in a big country, and people have to fly all the time because they don't really have a lot of great alternatives." For some, upgraded wireless and roomier overhead bins may be enough. Honig said the WiFi on the flight was the best he has ever experienced, though he noted that it was not free. As for the bathroom, he figures there is only so much give. He is looking on the bright side. After all, he said: "There's no way they can get any smaller unless they shrink the passenger." The Washington Post's Susan Levine contributed to this report. Madrid, Feb 15 (EFE).- A man who was arrested last month and is facing trial for the murder of three siblings in a town near the Spanish capital Madrid has allegedly beaten his cellmate to death, police told EFE on Thursday. Dilawar Hussein F.C., a 42-year-old of Pakistani origin, has been held since Jan. 24 at the Estremera prison outside Madrid, in an area of the penitentiary that houses difficult inmates. He was sharing a cell with an inmate of Bulgarian origin, identified as 39-year-old A.A.V, during his pre-trial detention. Hussein was arrested on Jan. 22 after turning himself into the Spanish Civil Guard and confessing to the murder of three elderly siblings in Morata de Tajuña over a reported debt of 60,000 euros (just over 64,000 dollars). The sisters had taken out a high-interest loan with the suspect after falling victim to an online love scam, leaving them bankrupt. They had also been seeking financial assistance from loved ones and neighbors. Their bodies had been found days before his confession although, according to his testimony in court, he had killed them on Dec. 17 with an iron bar, over a month before their burned bodies were found in the early stage of decomposition. EFE EmailAmy Winehouse performs during the Rock in Rio music festival in Arganda del Rey the beehived soul-jazz diva whose self-destructive habits overshadowed a distinctive musical talent was found dead Saturday in her London home Winehouse shot to fame in 2006 with the album "Back to Black," whose blend of jazz It won five Grammys and made Winehouse - with her black beehive hairdo and old-fashioned sailor tattoos - one of music's most recognizable stars eating disorders and destructive relationships Police confirmed that a 27-year-old female was pronounced dead at the home in Camden Square northern London; the cause of death was not immediately known London Ambulance Services said Winehouse had died before the two ambulance crews it sent arrived at the scene who helped Winehouse check into a drug addiction treatment facility in 2008 was one of many who grieved for the singer on Twitter "I cant even breath right now im crying so hard i just lost 1 of my best friends i love you forever Amy and will never forget the real you!" she tweeted had arrived in New York this weekend to prepare for his U.S performing debut Monday night at the Blue Note jazz club but upon receiving news of his daughter's death was heading back home to London to be with his family An ambulance could be seen parked beneath the trees outside her London home and the whole street was cordoned off by police tape Officers kept onlookers away from the scene Winehouse canceled her European comeback tour after she swayed and slurred her way through barely recognizable songs in her first show in the Serbian capital of Belgrade she flew home and her management said she would take time off to recover Winehouse was last publicly seen on at a London concert on Wednesday when she joined her goddaughter Dionne Bromfield on stage Winehouse danced with Bromfield and encouraged the audience to buy her album "I didn't go out looking to be famous," Winehouse told the Associated Press when "Back to Black" was released Tabloids lapped up the erratic stage appearances Winehouse grew up in the north London suburbs and was set on a showbiz career from an early age Sweet 'n' Sour - Winehouse was Sour - that she later described as "the little white Jewish Salt 'n' Pepa." She attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School a factory for British music and acting moppets a performing arts academy in the "Fame" mold and was originally signed to "Pop Idol" svengali Simon Fuller's 19 Management But Winehouse was never a packaged teen star "Frank," was critically praised and sold well in Britain It earned Winehouse an Ivor Novello songwriting award two Brit nominations and a spot on the shortlist for the Mercury Music Prize But Winehouse soon expressed dissatisfaction with the disc saying she was "only 80 percent behind" the album "Frank" was followed by a slump during which Winehouse broke up with her boyfriend suffered a long period of writer's block and "I had writer's block for so long," she said in 2007 your self-worth is literally based on the last thing you wrote "At one point it had been two years since the last record and (the record company) actually said to me 'Do you even want to make another record?' I was like 'Once I start writing I will write and write and write The album she eventually produced was a sensation "Back to Black" brought Winehouse global fame Working with producers Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi and soul-funk group the Dap-Kings a love of the girl-groups of the early 1960s with lyrical tales of romantic obsession and emotional excess "Back to Black" was released in the United States in March 2007 and went on to win five Grammy awards including song and record of the year for "Rehab." Music critic John Aizlewood attributed her trans-Atlantic success to a fantastic voice and a genuinely original sound "A lot of British bands fail in America because they give America something Americans do better - that's why most British hip-hop has failed," he said "But they won't have come across anything quite like Amy Winehouse." Winehouse's rise was helped by her distinctive look - black beehive of hair She was famously blunt in her assessment of her peers once describing Dido's sound as "background music - the background to death" and saying of pop princess Kylie Minogue The songs on "Black to Black" detailed breakups and breakdowns with a similar frankness but society is different now," Winehouse said in 2007 "I'm a young woman and I'm going to write about what I know." Winehouse's performances were sometimes shambolic and she admitted she is "a terrible drunk." She acknowledged struggling with eating disorders and told a newspaper that she had been diagnosed as manic depressive but refused to take medication canceled concerts and drink- and drug-fueled nights began to multiply Photographs caught her unsteady on her feet or vacant-eyed with scabs on her face and marks on her arms There were embarrassing videos released to the world on the Internet One showed an addled Winehouse and Babyshambles singer Pete Doherty playing with newborn mice showed her singing a racist ditty to the tune of a children's song Winehouse's managers went to increasingly desperate lengths to keep the wayward star on the straight and narrow Though she was often reported to be working on new material fans got tired of waiting for the much-promised followup to "Back to Black." Occasional bits of recording saw the light of day Her rendition of The Zutons' "Valerie" was a highlight of producer Mark Ronson's 2007 album "Version," and she recorded the pop classic "It's My Party" for the 2010 Quincy Jones album "Q: Soul Bossa Nostra." one of the architects of the success of "Back to Black," came to nothing Winehouse was cautioned by police for assault after she slapped a man during a raucous night out The same year she was investigated by police after a tabloid newspaper published a video that appeared to show her smoking crack cocaine Winehouse pleaded guilty to assaulting a theater manager who asked her to leave a family Christmas show because she'd had too much to drink She was given a fine and a warning to stay out of trouble by a judge who praised her for trying to clean up her act she married music industry hanger-on Blake Fielder-Civil Fielder-Civil was arrested for an attack on a pub manager the year before Fielder-Civil later pleaded guilty to assaulting barman James King and then offering him 200,000 pounds (US$400,000) to keep quiet about it Winehouse stood by "my Blake" throughout his trial often blowing kisses at him from the court's public gallery and wearing a heart-shaped pin labeled "Blake" in her hair at concerts But British newspapers reported extramarital affairs while Fielder-Civil was behind bars she was taken to hospital and treated for injuries after fainting and falling at home Her father said she had developed the lung disease emphysema from smoking cigarettes and crack although her spokeswoman later said Winehouse only had "early signs of what could lead to emphysema." She left the hospital to perform at Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday concert in Hyde Park in June 2008 and at the Glastonbury festival the next day where she received a rousing reception but scuffled with a member of the crowd Then it was back to a London clinic for treatment excess and recuperation that marked her career The audio for this program is not available Sign in to listen to groundbreaking journalism How she describes her childhood: My childhood years were filled with happy memories My family always made sure that we’d go out of town whenever we had the chance I enjoyed outdoors and sports so much that it pushed me to join our volleyball varsity team I excelled both in academics and extra-curricular and I’ve learned how to balance things at such young age Lessons learned from childhood: Time is very precious Seize every moment that we have because we cannot turn back time Most memorable moment: My most memorable moment is when I decided to start working because I was able to prove that I can stand on my own Environmental advocacy: Educate and Participate: For a Better Water System because Water is Life This is my advocacy because I want my generation to experience also the joys of my dad’s time They enjoyed bathing and playing in the river It was easy for them to put food on the table because they harvested fresh sea foods My grandfather had a balut business and the river for them had a big impact on their everyday living and people from other provinces would even go to Pateros to witness it Everything banished and all that was left were stories My advocacy calls for the whole country to take part in restoring a clean water system Queen Sofía Distances Herself from the Royal Family to Help Animals | Europa Press LIFESTYLE Queen Sofía's Important Step: Away from the Royal Family and for a Good ReasonQueen Sofía Distances Herself from the Royal Family at the Most Delicate Moment but for a Good Cause04/04/2025 13:38:00h by Beatriz Paricio Queen Sofía has taken an important step far from the Royal Family: actively collaborating on a project to protect animals The emeritus has shown throughout her life a deep affection for animals which has led her to actively participate in various initiatives for their protection the main reason is to learn firsthand about the construction of an Animal Protection Center in Arganda del Rey Queen Sofía was accompanied by the town's mayor who explained the entire project to her in detail She was enthusiastic about the idea and will collaborate through the Reina Sofía Foundation Queen Sofía Stands Out Again for Her Solidarity | Instagram @casareal.esQueen Sofía Distances Herself from the Royal FamilyWhile the Royal Family deals with their own battles Queen Sofía has kept her distance by focusing on her own interests she was seen far from Zarzuela to support a project aimed at animal protection The step Queen Sofía has taken away from the Royal Family was to travel to Arganda del Rey she showed interest in the future construction of an Animal Protection Center that will shelter and care for those most in need has dedicated much of her life to defending animal rights Her commitment is reflected in her support for numerous organizations working in this field This is one of them and will be carried out thanks to the collaboration of the Reina Sofía Foundation and the Arganda City Council It is not the first time we see the queen interested in animal welfare she received the canine team of the State Forces and Security at Zarzuela she has also participated in numerous initiatives aimed at raising society's awareness about the importance of caring for and protecting living beings Her involvement in initiatives such as supporting animal shelters shows her commitment to this cause. Moreover, her closeness to organizations fighting for their rights makes her Spain's most influential advocate in this field This week, the Royal Family has faced very complicated days following the publication of Leonor's bikini photos. To this, we must add the lawsuit Juan Carlos has filed against Miguel Ángel Revilla for statements that attacked his honor. In the midst of all this, Queen Sofía has wanted to focus her attention and find refuge in animals. She has always had a special fondness for them and has taken advantage of her privileged position to contribute her bit. The queen is passionate about animals and nature | Instagram, @casareal.esHer commitment to the animal cause is unquestionable. Queen Sofía has shown her interest in fauna and flora by visiting nature reserves and sanctuaries. Her participation is very active, and she ensures that her presence doesn't go unnoticed. She is aware that by doing so, she contributes to giving visibility to those organizations that need more help. Her support for scientific research has also allowed significant advances in conservation. These advances have helped protect endangered species, with Queen Sofía's collaboration being of great help. Another aspect in which the emeritus's help has been essential is in promoting animal adoption. In fact, Zarzuela once had a dog that retired and had belonged to the State Forces and Security. The Royal Household adopted it, and it spent its last years enjoying the tranquility of the palace. Another proof of how far Queen Sofía's commitment to animals goes and how involved she is in protecting them. Notifications can be managed in browser preferences. Video footage shows cars and rubbish bins being swept down roads I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our Privacy notice The streets of Madrid have been turned to rivers as flash flooding, hailstones and a tornado hit Spain Video footage shows cars and rubbish bins being swept down flooded streets while people dressed in shorts and T-shirts attempt to clear mounds of hail with shovels The worst-affected neighbourhood was Arganda del Rey which was cut off from the rest of Madrid after one of the Spanish capital’s main railway lines was closed The day-long storm also caused delays to flights and underground train services and flooded tunnels and car parks Spain’s meteorological agency said it registered more than 9,000 bolts of lightning in six hours The agency added that by Tuesday the rain had moved to the east coast and the Mediterranean Balearic Islands Seventy goats were reportedly killed when two barns collapsed, and another four barns, olive groves and crops were destroyed by the storm, according to regional newspaper Diario Sur. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies hailstones and tornado hit Spain","description":"Video footage shows cars and rubbish bins being swept down roads Pet owners in Malaga will be able to bury their beloved furry friend at the province's first public pet cemetery from April after it passed final approval The city hall's environment commission this Monday gave the final tick of approval for the project which will be set up in Malaga's Parque Cementerio (Parcemasa) and is expected to open in two months It passed with Partido Popular's votes in favour of the project which the Socialist party said it does not agree with are as follows: The cremation of pets weighing less than 30kg will cost 170 euros and those weighing more than 30kg will cost 190 euros If the number of years of burial is increased to two decades it will cost 350 euros and if the owner chooses 30 years it will rise to 425 euros The council has also changed its local bylaws so that animal cremation and burial services can be carried out at the city's cemetery The project has involved an investment of just over one million euros as well as a crematorium and farewell room The site will also include a green space for the releasing of ashes the cemetery will also offer other services such as the transfer of dead animals the rental of niches and columbaria or the de-registration of pets Malaga is the Andalusian province with the largest number of pets 89% of people who own dogs would use the services offered by Parcemasa: cremation (64%) transfer (44%) and farewell ceremony (39%) Comentar es una ventaja exclusiva para registrados