A Longitudinal Investigation of Mandarin-speaking Preschoolers' Relation of Events in Narratives: From Unrelated to Related Events

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wen-hui Sah

2007-06-01

Full Text Available This study focuses on the way preschoolers relate events in a story. Twelve Mandarin-speaking preschoolers served as subjects; their narratives were elicited through the use of a picture book, Frog, where are you? Our data suggest that children’s progression from treating single, unrelated events to related ones requires proper linguistic and cognitive capacities. The data also support earlier findings that most 5-year-olds are not able to relate a chain of events well. Additionally, it is found that there is dissociation in abilities for producing linguistic expressions and for inferring relations between events. We try to interpret the dissociation in terms of Karmiloff-Smith’s problem-solving model.

Effects of zolpidem and zopiclone on cognitive and attentional function in young healthy volunteers: an event-related potential study.

Science.gov (United States)

Nakajima, T; Takazawa, S; Hayashida, S; Nakagome, K; Sasaki, T; Kanno, O

2000-02-01

The effects of zolpidem and zopiclone, non-benzodiazepine ultra-short-acting hypnotics, on cognitive function and vigilance level were investigated in the morning following nocturnal administration using event-related potentials (ERP) and a sleep latency test (SLT). Zopiclone significantly shortened the sleep latency the following morning, whereas zolpidem did not, perhaps due to the difference in the elimination half-lives between the compounds. No significant effect was observed for either drug on the ERP indices, including the P3, mismatch negativity and negative difference components. At a clinically prescribed dosage these sleep inducers have no remarkable effect on cognitive or attentional functions but increase sleepiness of the subjects.

Hidden Markov event sequence models: toward unsupervised functional MRI brain mapping.

Science.gov (United States)

Faisan, Sylvain; Thoraval, Laurent; Armspach, Jean-Paul; Foucher, Jack R; Metz-Lutz, Marie-Noëlle; Heitz, Fabrice

2005-01-01

Most methods used in functional MRI (fMRI) brain mapping require restrictive assumptions about the shape and timing of the fMRI signal in activated voxels. Consequently, fMRI data may be partially and misleadingly characterized, leading to suboptimal or invalid inference. To limit these assumptions and to capture the broad range of possible activation patterns, a novel statistical fMRI brain mapping method is proposed. It relies on hidden semi-Markov event sequence models (HSMESMs), a special class of hidden Markov models (HMMs) dedicated to the modeling and analysis of event-based random processes. Activation detection is formulated in terms of time coupling between (1) the observed sequence of hemodynamic response onset (HRO) events detected in the voxel's fMRI signal and (2) the "hidden" sequence of task-induced neural activation onset (NAO) events underlying the HROs. Both event sequences are modeled within a single HSMESM. The resulting brain activation model is trained to automatically detect neural activity embedded in the input fMRI data set under analysis. The data sets considered in this article are threefold: synthetic epoch-related, real epoch-related (auditory lexical processing task), and real event-related (oddball detection task) fMRI data sets. Synthetic data: Activation detection results demonstrate the superiority of the HSMESM mapping method with respect to a standard implementation of the statistical parametric mapping (SPM) approach. They are also very close, sometimes equivalent, to those obtained with an "ideal" implementation of SPM in which the activation patterns synthesized are reused for analysis. The HSMESM method appears clearly insensitive to timing variations of the hemodynamic response and exhibits low sensitivity to fluctuations of its shape (unsustained activation during task). Real epoch-related data: HSMESM activation detection results compete with those obtained with SPM, without requiring any prior definition of the expected

Functionally Independent Components of the Late Positive Event-Related Potential During Visual Spatial Attention

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Makeig, Scott; Westeifleld, Marissa; Jung, Tzyy-Ping; Covington, James; Townsend, Jeanne; Sejnowski, Terrence J; Courchesne, Eric

1999-01-01

Human event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 10 subjects presented with visual target and nontarget stimuli at five screen locations and responding to targets presented at one of the locations...

Relations between the functions of autobiographical memory and psychological wellbeing.

Science.gov (United States)

Waters, Theodore E A

2014-01-01

Researchers have proposed that autobiographical memory serves three basic functions in everyday life: self-definition, social connection, and directing behaviour (e.g., Bluck, Alea, Habermas, & Rubin, 2005). However, no research has examined relations between the functions of autobiographical memory and healthy functioning (i.e., psychological wellbeing). The present research examined the relations between the self, social, and directive functions of autobiographical memory and three factors of psychological wellbeing in single and recurring autobiographical memories. A total of 103 undergraduate students were recruited and provided ratings of each function for four autobiographical memories (two single, two recurring events). Results found that individuals who use their autobiographical memories to serve self, social, and directive functions reported higher levels of Purpose and Communion and Positive Relationships, and that these relations differ slightly by event type.

Multivariate evaluation of brain function by measuring regional cerebral blood flow and event-related potentials

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Koga, Yoshihiko; Mochida, Masahiko; Shutara, Yoshikazu; Nakagawa, Kazumi [Kyorin Univ., Mitaka, Tokyo (Japan). School of Medicine; Nagata, Ken

1998-07-01

To measure the effect of events on human cognitive function, effects of odors by measurement regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) and P300 were evaluated during the auditory odd-ball exercise. PET showed the increase in rCBF on the right hemisphere of the brain by coffee aroma. rCBF was measured by PET in 9 of right-handed healthy adults men, and P300 was by event-related potential (ERP) in each sex of 20 right-handed healthy adults. ERP showed the difference of the P300 amplitude between men and women, and showed the tendency, by odors except the lavender oil, that women had higher in the P300 amplitude than men. These results suggest the presence of effects on the cognitive function through emotional actions. Next, the relationship between rCBF and ERP were evaluated. The subjects were 9 of the right-handed healthy adults (average: 25.6{+-}3.4 years old). rCBF by PET and P300 amplitude by ERP were simultaneously recorded during the auditory odd-ball exercise using the tone-burst method (2 kHz of the low frequency aimed stimuli and 1 kHz of the high frequency non-aimed stimuli). The rCBF value was the highest at the transverse gyrus of Heschl and the lowest at the piriform cortex among 24 regions of interest (ROI) from both sides. The difference of P300 peak latent time among ROI was almost the same. The brain waves from Cz and Pz were similar and the average amplitude was highest at Pz. We found the high correlation in the right piriform cortex (Fz), and right (Fz, Cz) and left (Cz, Pz) transverse gyrus of Heschl between the P300 amplitude and rCBF. (K.H.)

Multivariate evaluation of brain function by measuring regional cerebral blood flow and event-related potentials

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Koga, Yoshihiko; Mochida, Masahiko; Shutara, Yoshikazu; Nakagawa, Kazumi; Nagata, Ken

1998-01-01

To measure the effect of events on human cognitive function, effects of odors by measurement regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) and P300 were evaluated during the auditory odd-ball exercise. PET showed the increase in rCBF on the right hemisphere of the brain by coffee aroma. rCBF was measured by PET in 9 of right-handed healthy adults men, and P300 was by event-related potential (ERP) in each sex of 20 right-handed healthy adults. ERP showed the difference of the P300 amplitude between men and women, and showed the tendency, by odors except the lavender oil, that women had higher in the P300 amplitude than men. These results suggest the presence of effects on the cognitive function through emotional actions. Next, the relationship between rCBF and ERP were evaluated. The subjects were 9 of the right-handed healthy adults (average: 25.6±3.4 years old). rCBF by PET and P300 amplitude by ERP were simultaneously recorded during the auditory odd-ball exercise using the tone-burst method (2 kHz of the low frequency aimed stimuli and 1 kHz of the high frequency non-aimed stimuli). The rCBF value was the highest at the transverse gyrus of Heschl and the lowest at the piriform cortex among 24 regions of interest (ROI) from both sides. The difference of P300 peak latent time among ROI was almost the same. The brain waves from Cz and Pz were similar and the average amplitude was highest at Pz. We found the high correlation in the right piriform cortex (Fz), and right (Fz, Cz) and left (Cz, Pz) transverse gyrus of Heschl between the P300 amplitude and rCBF. (K.H.)

INES rating of radiation protection related events

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hort, M.

2009-01-01

In this presentation, based on the draft Manual, a short review of the use of the INES rating of events concerning radiation protection is given, based on a new INES User's Manual edition. The presentation comprises a brief history of the scale development, general description of the scale and the main principles of the INES rating. Several examples of the use of the scale for radiation protection related events are mentioned. In the presentation, the term 'radiation protection related events' is used for radiation source and transport related events outside the nuclear installations. (authors)

Improved predictive value of GRACE risk score combined with platelet reactivity for 1-year cardiovascular risk in patients with acute coronary syndrome who underwent coronary stent implantation.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Shan; Liu, Hongbin; Liu, Jianfeng; Wang, Haijun

2016-11-01

Both high platelet reactivity (HPR) and Global Registry of Acute Coronary Events (GRACE) risk score have moderate predictive value for major adverse cardiovascular disease (CVD) events in patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), whereas the prognostic significance of GRACE risk score combined with platelet function testing remains unclear. A total of 596 patients with non-ST elevation ACS who underwent PCI were enrolled. The P2Y 12 reaction unit (PRU) value was measured by VerifyNow P2Y 12 assay and GRACE score was calculated by GRACE risk 2.0 calculator. Patients were stratified by a pre-specified cutoff value of PRU 230 and GRACE score 140 to assess 1-year risk of cardiovascular death, non-fatal myocardial infarction (MI), and stent thrombosis. Seventy-two (12.1%) patients developed CVD events during 1-year follow-up. Patients with CVD events had a higher PRU value (244.6 ± 50.9 vs. 203.7 ± 52.0, p risk independently. Compared to patients with normal platelet reactivity (NPR) and GRACE score risk (HR: 5.048; 95% CI: 2.268-11.237; p risk score yielded superior risk predictive capacity beyond GRACE score alone, which is shown by improved c-statistic value (0.871, p = 0.002) as well as net reclassification improvement (NRI 0.263, p risk of adverse CVD events. The combination of platelet function testing and GRACE score predicted 1-year CVD risk better.

Nicotine enhances an auditory Event-Related Potential component which is inversely related to habituation.

Science.gov (United States)

Veltri, Theresa; Taroyan, Naira; Overton, Paul G

2017-07-01

Nicotine is a psychoactive substance that is commonly consumed in the context of music. However, the reason why music and nicotine are co-consumed is uncertain. One possibility is that nicotine affects cognitive processes relevant to aspects of music appreciation in a beneficial way. Here we investigated this possibility using Event-Related Potentials. Participants underwent a simple decision-making task (to maintain attentional focus), responses to which were signalled by auditory stimuli. Unlike previous research looking at the effects of nicotine on auditory processing, we used complex tones that varied in pitch, a fundamental element of music. In addition, unlike most other studies, we tested non-smoking subjects to avoid withdrawal-related complications. We found that nicotine (4.0 mg, administered as gum) increased P2 amplitude in the frontal region. Since a decrease in P2 amplitude and latency is related to habituation processes, and an enhanced ability to disengage from irrelevant stimuli, our findings suggest that nicotine may cause a reduction in habituation, resulting in non-smokers being less able to adapt to repeated stimuli. A corollary of that decrease in adaptation may be that nicotine extends the temporal window during which a listener is able and willing to engage with a piece of music.

Event related desynchronisation predicts functional propriospinal myoclonus

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Meppelink, A. M.; Little, S.; Oswal, A.; Erro, R.; Kilner, J.; Tijssen, M. A. J.; Brown, P.; Cordovari, C.; Edwards, M.

2016-01-01

Objective: Recent diagnostic criteria for functional movement disorders have proposed a "laboratory supported" level of diagnostic certainty where the clinical diagnosis is supported by a positive test. For functional myoclonus the Bereitschaftspotential (BP) is generally accepted as a positive

Accident sequence precursor events with age-related contributors

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Murphy, G.A.; Kohn, W.E.

1995-12-31

The Accident Sequence Precursor (ASP) Program at ORNL analyzed about 14.000 Licensee Event Reports (LERs) filed by US nuclear power plants 1987--1993. There were 193 events identified as precursors to potential severe core accident sequences. These are reported in G/CR-4674. Volumes 7 through 20. Under the NRC Nuclear Plant Aging Research program, the authors evaluated these events to determine the extent to which component aging played a role. Events were selected that involved age-related equipment degradation that initiated an event or contributed to an event sequence. For the 7-year period, ORNL identified 36 events that involved aging degradation as a contributor to an ASP event. Except for 1992, the percentage of age-related events within the total number of ASP events over the 7-year period ({approximately}19%) appears fairly consistent up to 1991. No correlation between plant ape and number of precursor events was found. A summary list of the age-related events is presented in the report.

Safety related events at nuclear installations in 1995

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Korsbech, Uffe C C

1996-01-01

Nuclear safety related events of significance at least corresponding to level 2 of the International Nuclear Event Scale are described. In 1995 only two events occured at nuclear power plants, and four events occured at plants using ionizing radiation for processing or research.......Nuclear safety related events of significance at least corresponding to level 2 of the International Nuclear Event Scale are described. In 1995 only two events occured at nuclear power plants, and four events occured at plants using ionizing radiation for processing or research....

Spontaneous and Hierarchical Segmentation of Non-functional Events

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielbo, Kristoffer Laigaard

2012-01-01

information associations and, further, that the simulations’ ecological validity can be increased through the use of input based on a motion capture device, while the results still support the main findings. Part 4 is a general discussion, which reviews the empirical findings and the corresponding model...... four main parts that span research history and contemporary theories of perception and cognition (Theory), methodology of the dual approach (Methodology), empirical investigations (Synthesizing and analyzing perception of non-functional events), and a general discussion (General discussion). Part 1...... ritual behavior. Part 1 concludes with five primary theoretical hypotheses: I) non-functional events will increase the human event segmentation rate; II) transitions between events will increase the cognitive prediction error signal independent of event type, but this signal will be chronically high...

Megarectumsigma underwent surgery for chronic faecal impact action

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Canessa, C.; Gomez del Valle, M.; Caraballo, M.

2002-01-01

Seven patients with megarectumsigma underwent surgery for chronic faecal impaction,reviewing clinical diagnosis, aetiology and medical and surgical management.It is suggested medical management of chronic faecal impaction trying to achieve elective surgery.The curative surgery should include the resection of all pathologic bowel, but in Duhamel procedure and its modifications distal rectal tran section should be at the peritoneal reflection.Habr-Gama modification has shown to be technically easier and it has been communicated good functional results.Local unfavourable conditions may be resolve by staged surgery,which allows outline definitive bowel reconstruction after functional assessment

Attention in essential tremor: evidence from event-related potentials.

Science.gov (United States)

Pauletti, C; Mannarelli, D; Locuratolo, N; Vanacore, N; De Lucia, M C; Mina, C; Fattapposta, F

2013-07-01

Clinically subtle executive dysfunctions have recently been described in essential tremor (ET), though the presence of attentional deficits is still unclear. We investigated the psychophysiological aspects of attention in ET, using event-related potentials (ERPs). Twenty-one non-demented patients with ET and 21 age- and sex-matched healthy controls underwent a psychophysiological evaluation. P300 components and the Contingent Negative Variation (CNV) were recorded. The latencies and amplitudes of the P3a and P3b subcomponents and CNV areas were evaluated. Possible correlations between clinical parameters and ERP data were investigated. P3a latency was significantly longer in the ET group (p attentive circuits, while the memory context-updating process appears to be spared. This selective cognitive dysfunction does not appear to interfere with the attentional set linked to the expectancy evaluated during a complex choice-reaction time task, which is preserved in ET. This multitask psychophysiological approach reveals the presence of a peculiar attentional deficit in patients with ET, thus expanding the clinical features of this disease.

Task types and error types involved in the human-related unplanned reactor trip events

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Jae Whan; Park, Jin Kyun

2008-01-01

In this paper, the contribution of task types and error types involved in the human-related unplanned reactor trip events that have occurred between 1986 and 2006 in Korean nuclear power plants are analysed in order to establish a strategy for reducing the human-related unplanned reactor trips. Classification systems for the task types, error modes, and cognitive functions are developed or adopted from the currently available taxonomies, and the relevant information is extracted from the event reports or judged on the basis of an event description. According to the analyses from this study, the contributions of the task types are as follows: corrective maintenance (25.7%), planned maintenance (22.8%), planned operation (19.8%), periodic preventive maintenance (14.9%), response to a transient (9.9%), and design/manufacturing/installation (6.9%). According to the analysis of the error modes, error modes such as control failure (22.2%), wrong object (18.5%), omission (14.8%), wrong action (11.1%), and inadequate (8.3%) take up about 75% of the total unplanned trip events. The analysis of the cognitive functions involved in the events indicated that the planning function had the highest contribution (46.7%) to the human actions leading to unplanned reactor trips. This analysis concludes that in order to significantly reduce human-induced or human-related unplanned reactor trips, an aide system (in support of maintenance personnel) for evaluating possible (negative) impacts of planned actions or erroneous actions as well as an appropriate human error prediction technique, should be developed

Task types and error types involved in the human-related unplanned reactor trip events

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Jae Whan; Park, Jin Kyun [Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2008-12-15

In this paper, the contribution of task types and error types involved in the human-related unplanned reactor trip events that have occurred between 1986 and 2006 in Korean nuclear power plants are analysed in order to establish a strategy for reducing the human-related unplanned reactor trips. Classification systems for the task types, error modes, and cognitive functions are developed or adopted from the currently available taxonomies, and the relevant information is extracted from the event reports or judged on the basis of an event description. According to the analyses from this study, the contributions of the task types are as follows: corrective maintenance (25.7%), planned maintenance (22.8%), planned operation (19.8%), periodic preventive maintenance (14.9%), response to a transient (9.9%), and design/manufacturing/installation (6.9%). According to the analysis of the error modes, error modes such as control failure (22.2%), wrong object (18.5%), omission (14.8%), wrong action (11.1%), and inadequate (8.3%) take up about 75% of the total unplanned trip events. The analysis of the cognitive functions involved in the events indicated that the planning function had the highest contribution (46.7%) to the human actions leading to unplanned reactor trips. This analysis concludes that in order to significantly reduce human-induced or human-related unplanned reactor trips, an aide system (in support of maintenance personnel) for evaluating possible (negative) impacts of planned actions or erroneous actions as well as an appropriate human error prediction technique, should be developed.

Probabilistic delay differential equation modeling of event-related potentials.

Science.gov (United States)

Ostwald, Dirk; Starke, Ludger

2016-08-01

"Dynamic causal models" (DCMs) are a promising approach in the analysis of functional neuroimaging data due to their biophysical interpretability and their consolidation of functional-segregative and functional-integrative propositions. In this theoretical note we are concerned with the DCM framework for electroencephalographically recorded event-related potentials (ERP-DCM). Intuitively, ERP-DCM combines deterministic dynamical neural mass models with dipole-based EEG forward models to describe the event-related scalp potential time-series over the entire electrode space. Since its inception, ERP-DCM has been successfully employed to capture the neural underpinnings of a wide range of neurocognitive phenomena. However, in spite of its empirical popularity, the technical literature on ERP-DCM remains somewhat patchy. A number of previous communications have detailed certain aspects of the approach, but no unified and coherent documentation exists. With this technical note, we aim to close this gap and to increase the technical accessibility of ERP-DCM. Specifically, this note makes the following novel contributions: firstly, we provide a unified and coherent review of the mathematical machinery of the latent and forward models constituting ERP-DCM by formulating the approach as a probabilistic latent delay differential equation model. Secondly, we emphasize the probabilistic nature of the model and its variational Bayesian inversion scheme by explicitly deriving the variational free energy function in terms of both the likelihood expectation and variance parameters. Thirdly, we detail and validate the estimation of the model with a special focus on the explicit form of the variational free energy function and introduce a conventional nonlinear optimization scheme for its maximization. Finally, we identify and discuss a number of computational issues which may be addressed in the future development of the approach. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Declarative memory formation in hippocampal sclerosis: an intracranial event-related potentials study.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Mormann, F.; Fernandez, G.S.E.; Klaver, P.; Weber, B.; Elger, C.E.; Fell, J.

2007-01-01

The functional deficits associated with hippocampal sclerosis during declarative memory formation are largely unknown. In this study, we analyzed intracranial event-related potentials recorded from the medial temporal lobes of nine epilepsy patients performing a word memorization task. We used

Final Report on LDRD project 130784 : functional brain imaging by tunable multi-spectral Event-Related Optical Signal (EROS).

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Speed, Ann Elizabeth; Spahn, Olga Blum; Hsu, Alan Yuan-Chun

2009-09-01

Functional brain imaging is of great interest for understanding correlations between specific cognitive processes and underlying neural activity. This understanding can provide the foundation for developing enhanced human-machine interfaces, decision aides, and enhanced cognition at the physiological level. The functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) based event-related optical signal (EROS) technique can provide direct, high-fidelity measures of temporal and spatial characteristics of neural networks underlying cognitive behavior. However, current EROS systems are hampered by poor signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) and depth of measure, limiting areas of the brain and associated cognitive processes that can be investigated. We propose to investigate a flexible, tunable, multi-spectral fNIRS EROS system which will provide up to 10x greater SNR as well as improved spatial and temporal resolution through significant improvements in electronics, optoelectronics and optics, as well as contribute to the physiological foundation of higher-order cognitive processes and provide the technical foundation for miniaturized portable neuroimaging systems.

Systematic inference of functional phosphorylation events in yeast metabolism.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Yu; Wang, Yonghong; Nielsen, Jens

2017-07-01

Protein phosphorylation is a post-translational modification that affects proteins by changing their structure and conformation in a rapid and reversible way, and it is an important mechanism for metabolic regulation in cells. Phosphoproteomics enables high-throughput identification of phosphorylation events on metabolic enzymes, but identifying functional phosphorylation events still requires more detailed biochemical characterization. Therefore, development of computational methods for investigating unknown functions of a large number of phosphorylation events identified by phosphoproteomics has received increased attention. We developed a mathematical framework that describes the relationship between phosphorylation level of a metabolic enzyme and the corresponding flux through the enzyme. Using this framework, it is possible to quantitatively estimate contribution of phosphorylation events to flux changes. We showed that phosphorylation regulation analysis, combined with a systematic workflow and correlation analysis, can be used for inference of functional phosphorylation events in steady and dynamic conditions, respectively. Using this analysis, we assigned functionality to phosphorylation events of 17 metabolic enzymes in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae , among which 10 are novel. Phosphorylation regulation analysis cannot only be extended for inference of other functional post-translational modifications but also be a promising scaffold for multi-omics data integration in systems biology. Matlab codes for flux balance analysis in this study are available in Supplementary material. yhwang@ecust.edu.cn or nielsenj@chalmers.se. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com

Incidence and risk factors of bleeding-related adverse events in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia treated with ibrutinib

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lipsky, Andrew H; Farooqui, Mohammed Z H; Tian, Xin

2015-01-01

Ibrutinib is associated with bleeding-related adverse events of grade ≤2 in severity, and infrequently with grade ≥3 events. To investigate the mechanisms of bleeding and identify patients at risk, we prospectively assessed platelet function and coagulation factors in our investigator-initiated t......Ibrutinib is associated with bleeding-related adverse events of grade ≤2 in severity, and infrequently with grade ≥3 events. To investigate the mechanisms of bleeding and identify patients at risk, we prospectively assessed platelet function and coagulation factors in our investigator......-initiated trial of single-agent ibrutinib for chronic lymphocytic leukemia. At a median follow-up of 24 months we recorded grade ≤2 bleeding-related adverse events in 55% of 85 patients. No grade ≥3 events occurred. Median time to event was 49 days. The cumulative incidence of an event plateaued by 6 months...... 19 patients on ibrutinib (often transiently). Collagen and adenosine diphosphate induced platelet aggregation was tested using whole blood aggregometry. Compared to normal controls, response to both agonists was decreased in all patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, whether on ibrutinib or not...

Semantic ambiguity processing in sentence context: Evidence from event-related fMRI

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Zempleni, Monika-Zita; Renken, Remco; Hoeks, John C. J.; Hoogduin, Johannes M.; Stowe, Laurie A.

2007-01-01

Lexical semantic ambiguity is the phenomenon when a word has multiple meanings (e.g. 'bank'). The aim of this event-related functional MRI study was to identify those brain areas, which are involved in contextually driven ambiguity resolution. Ambiguous words were selected which have a most

Event-related oscillations (EROs) and event-related potentials (ERPs) comparison in facial expression recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Balconi, Michela; Pozzoli, Uberto

2007-09-01

The study aims to explore the significance of event-related potentials (ERPs) and event-related brain oscillations (EROs) (delta, theta, alpha, beta, gamma power) in response to emotional (fear, happiness, sadness) when compared with neutral faces during 180-250 post-stimulus time interval. The ERP results demonstrated that the emotional face elicited a negative peak at approximately 230 ms (N2). Moreover, EEG measures showed that motivational significance of face (emotional vs. neutral) could modulate the amplitude of EROs, but only for some frequency bands (i.e. theta and gamma bands). In a second phase, we considered the resemblance of the two EEG measures by a regression analysis. It revealed that theta and gamma oscillations mainly effect as oscillation activity at the N2 latency. Finally, a posterior increased power of theta was found for emotional faces.

Comparison of effects of valsartan and amlodipine on cognitive functions and auditory p300 event-related potentials in elderly hypertensive patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Katada, Eiichi; Uematsu, Norihiko; Takuma, Yuko; Matsukawa, Noriyuki

2014-01-01

We compared the antihypertensive effect of valsartan (VAL) and amlodipine (AML) treatments in elderly hypertensive patients by examining the long-term changes in cognitive function and auditory P300 event-related potentials. We enrolled 20 outpatients, including 12 men and 8 women in the age group of 56 to 81 years who had mild to moderate essential hypertension. The subjects were randomly allocated to receive either 80 mg VAL once a day (10 patients) or 5 mg AML once a day (10 patients). Neuropsychological assessment and auditory P300 event-related potentials were obtained before initiation of VAL or AML treatment and after 6 months of the treatment with VAL or AML. Neuropsychological assessment was evaluated by conducting the Mini-Mental State Examination, the verbal fluency, word-list memory, word-list recall test, word-list recognition, and Trails B tests. Both the groups showed significantly reduced-blood pressure after 6 months of treatment, and the intergroup difference was not significant. The mean baseline Mini-Mental State Examination scores of the VAL and AML groups were not significantly different. Amlodipine treatment did not significantly affect any test score, but VAL treatment significantly increased the word-list memory and word-list recall test scores. Valsartan, and not AML, significantly reduced the mean P300 latency after 6 months. These results suggest that VAL exerts a positive effect on cognitive functions, independent of its antihypertensive effect.

Mediators of the relationship between life events and memory functioning in a community sample of adults

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Korten, N.C.M.; Sliwinski, M.J.; Comijs, H.C.; Smyth, J.M.

2014-01-01

The present study examines the association of frequency and severity of life events with memory functioning in a community sample of adults. We tested the hypothesis that stress-related cognitive interference mediated the effects of recent life events on cognition, in addition to examining the

Event-related potential correlates of emergent inference in human arbitrary relational learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Ting; Dymond, Simon

2013-01-01

Two experiments investigated the functional-anatomical correlates of cognition supporting untrained, emergent relational inference in a stimulus equivalence task. In Experiment 1, after learning a series of conditional relations involving words and pseudowords, participants performed a relatedness task during which EEG was recorded. Behavioural performance was faster and more accurate on untrained, indirectly related symmetry (i.e., learn AB and infer BA) and equivalence trials (i.e., learn AB and AC and infer CB) than on unrelated trials, regardless of whether or not a formal test for stimulus equivalence relations had been conducted. Consistent with previous results, event related potentials (ERPs) evoked by trained and emergent trials at parietal and occipital sites differed only for those participants who had not received a prior equivalence test. Experiment 2 further replicated and extended these behavioural and ERP findings using arbitrary symbols as stimuli and demonstrated time and frequency differences for trained and untrained relatedness trials. Overall, the findings demonstrate convincingly the ERP correlates of intra-experimentally established stimulus equivalence relations consisting entirely of arbitrary symbols and offer support for a contemporary cognitive-behavioural model of symbolic categorisation and relational inference. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Attribution of extreme weather and climate-related events.

Science.gov (United States)

Stott, Peter A; Christidis, Nikolaos; Otto, Friederike E L; Sun, Ying; Vanderlinden, Jean-Paul; van Oldenborgh, Geert Jan; Vautard, Robert; von Storch, Hans; Walton, Peter; Yiou, Pascal; Zwiers, Francis W

2016-01-01

Extreme weather and climate-related events occur in a particular place, by definition, infrequently. It is therefore challenging to detect systematic changes in their occurrence given the relative shortness of observational records. However, there is a clear interest from outside the climate science community in the extent to which recent damaging extreme events can be linked to human-induced climate change or natural climate variability. Event attribution studies seek to determine to what extent anthropogenic climate change has altered the probability or magnitude of particular events. They have shown clear evidence for human influence having increased the probability of many extremely warm seasonal temperatures and reduced the probability of extremely cold seasonal temperatures in many parts of the world. The evidence for human influence on the probability of extreme precipitation events, droughts, and storms is more mixed. Although the science of event attribution has developed rapidly in recent years, geographical coverage of events remains patchy and based on the interests and capabilities of individual research groups. The development of operational event attribution would allow a more timely and methodical production of attribution assessments than currently obtained on an ad hoc basis. For event attribution assessments to be most useful, remaining scientific uncertainties need to be robustly assessed and the results clearly communicated. This requires the continuing development of methodologies to assess the reliability of event attribution results and further work to understand the potential utility of event attribution for stakeholder groups and decision makers. WIREs Clim Change 2016, 7:23-41. doi: 10.1002/wcc.380 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

Event-by-event simulation of single-neutron experiments to test uncertainty relations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Raedt, H De; Michielsen, K

2014-01-01

Results from a discrete-event simulation of a recent single-neutron experiment that tests Ozawa's generalization of Heisenberg's uncertainty relation are presented. The event-based simulation algorithm reproduces the results of the quantum theoretical description of the experiment but does not require the knowledge of the solution of a wave equation, nor does it rely on detailed concepts of quantum theory. In particular, the data from these non-quantum simulations satisfy uncertainty relations derived in the context of quantum theory. (paper)

Lower Limb Function in Elderly Korean Adults Is Related to Cognitive Function.

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Kim, A-Sol; Ko, Hae-Jin

2018-05-01

Patients with cognitive impairment have decreased lower limb function. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the relationship between lower limb function and cognitive disorders to determine whether lower limb function can be screened to identify cognitive decline. Using Korean National Health Insurance Service-National Sample Cohort database data, we assessed the cognitive and lower limb functioning of 66-year-olds who underwent national health screening between 2010 and 2014. Cognitive function was assessed via a questionnaire. Timed Up-and-Go (TUG) and one-leg-standing (OLS) tests were performed to evaluate lower limb function. Associations between cognitive and lower limb functions were analyzed, and optimal cut-off points for these tests to screen for cognitive decline, were determined. Cognitive function was significantly correlated with TUG interval ( r = 0.414, p cognitive disorders were >11 s and ≤12 s for TUG interval and OLS duration, respectively. Among 66-year-olds who underwent national health screening, a significant correlation between lower limb and cognitive function was demonstrated. The TUG and OLS tests are useful screening tools for cognitive disorders in elderly patients. A large-scale prospective cohort study should be conducted to investigate the causal relationship between cognitive and lower limb function.

Event-related brain potentials that distinguish false memory for events that occurred only seconds in the past.

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Chen, Hong; Voss, Joel L; Guo, Chunyan

2012-07-30

False memory often involves retrieving events from the distant past that did not actually happen. However, recent evidence obtained using the Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm for eliciting false memory experiences suggests that individuals can falsely believe that events occurred mere seconds in the past when they in fact did not. Subjects in these experiments endorsed unstudied critical lure words as having been studied, despite the fact that word lists were studied just moments before. We identified event-related brain potential (ERP) correlates of this experience, and included a repetition priming manipulation to better assess the functional significance of these ERPs. Behavioral and ERP data were collected from 21 Capital Normal University students using a short-term DRM task. Two categories of effects were identified that distinguished true from false short-term memory: (1) early semantic priming effects from 300 to 500 ms and (2) later retrieval and retrieval-monitoring effects after 500 ms. The repetition priming manipulation had distinct influences on these effects, consistent with their differential associations with semantic priming versus episodic retrieval. Characterization of ERPs related to semantic priming and episodic retrieval provides important information regarding the mechanisms of short-term false memory. In contrast, most studies examining false memory in standard long-delay DRM paradigms identify ERP effects related only to retrieval monitoring. These findings highlight the neural processing involved in illusions of memory after very brief delays and highlight the role of semantic processing in short-term false memory.

Event-related potentials reveal increased distraction by salient global objects in older adults

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wiegand, Iris; Finke, Kathrin; Töllner, Thomas

Age-related changes in visual functions influence how older individuals perceive and react upon objects in their environment. In particular, older individuals might be more distracted by highly salient, irrelevant information. Kanizsa figures induce a ‘global precedence’ effect, which reflects...... a processing advantage for salient whole-object representations relative to configurations of local elements not inducing a global form. We investigated event-related potential (ERP) correlates of age-related decline in visual abilities, and specifically, distractibility by salient global objects in visual...

Relating derived relations as a model of analogical reasoning: reaction times and event-related potentials.

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Barnes-Holmes, Dermot; Regan, Donal; Barnes-Holmes, Yvonne; Commins, Sean; Walsh, Derek; Stewart, Ian; Smeets, Paul M; Whelan, Robert; Dymond, Simon

2005-11-01

The current study aimed to test a Relational Frame Theory (RFT) model of analogical reasoning based on the relating of derived same and derived difference relations. Experiment 1 recorded reaction time measures of similar-similar (e.g., "apple is to orange as dog is to cat") versus different-different (e.g., "he is to his brother as chalk is to cheese") derived relational responding, in both speed-contingent and speed-noncontingent conditions. Experiment 2 examined the event-related potentials (ERPs) associated with these two response patterns. Both experiments showed similar-similar responding to be significantly faster than different-different responding. Experiment 2 revealed significant differences between the waveforms of the two response patterns in the left-hemispheric prefrontal regions; different-different waveforms were significantly more negative than similar-similar waveforms. The behavioral and neurophysiological data support the RFT prediction that, all things being equal, similar-similar responding is relationally "simpler" than, and functionally distinct from, different-different analogical responding. The ERP data were fully consistent with findings in the neurocognitive literature on analogy. These findings strengthen the validity of the RFT model of analogical reasoning and supplement the behavior-analytic approach to analogy based on the relating of derived relations.

Incidence and risk factors of bleeding-related adverse events in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia treated with ibrutinib

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Lipsky, Andrew H.; Farooqui, Mohammed Z.H.; Tian, Xin; Martyr, Sabrina; Cullinane, Ann M.; Nghiem, Khanh; Sun, Clare; Valdez, Janet; Niemann, Carsten U.; Herman, Sarah E. M.; Saba, Nakhle; Soto, Susan; Marti, Gerald; Uzel, Gulbu; Holland, Steve M.; Lozier, Jay N.; Wiestner, Adrian

2015-01-01

Ibrutinib is associated with bleeding-related adverse events of grade ≤2 in severity, and infrequently with grade ≥3 events. To investigate the mechanisms of bleeding and identify patients at risk, we prospectively assessed platelet function and coagulation factors in our investigator-initiated trial of single-agent ibrutinib for chronic lymphocytic leukemia. At a median follow-up of 24 months we recorded grade ≤2 bleeding-related adverse events in 55% of 85 patients. No grade ≥3 events occurred. Median time to event was 49 days. The cumulative incidence of an event plateaued by 6 months, suggesting that the risk of bleeding decreases with continued therapy. At baseline, von Willebrand factor and factor VIII levels were often high and normalized on treatment. Platelet function measured via the platelet function analyzer (PFA-100™) was impaired in 22 patients at baseline and in an additional 19 patients on ibrutinib (often transiently). Collagen and adenosine diphosphate induced platelet aggregation was tested using whole blood aggregometry. Compared to normal controls, response to both agonists was decreased in all patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, whether on ibrutinib or not. Compared to untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients, response to collagen showed a mild further decrement on ibrutinib, while response to adenosine diphosphate improved. All parameters associated with a significantly increased risk of bleeding-related events were present at baseline, including prolonged epinephrine closure time (HR 2.74, P=0.012), lower levels of von Willebrand factor activity (HR 2.73, P=0.009) and factor VIII (HR 3.73, P=0.0004). In conclusion, both disease and treatment-related factors influence the risk of bleeding. Patients at greater risk for bleeding of grade ≤2 can be identified by clinical laboratory tests and counseled to avoid aspirin, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and fish oils. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT01500733 PMID

Blind Source Separation of Event-Related EEG/MEG.

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Metsomaa, Johanna; Sarvas, Jukka; Ilmoniemi, Risto Juhani

2017-09-01

Blind source separation (BSS) can be used to decompose complex electroencephalography (EEG) or magnetoencephalography data into simpler components based on statistical assumptions without using a physical model. Applications include brain-computer interfaces, artifact removal, and identifying parallel neural processes. We wish to address the issue of applying BSS to event-related responses, which is challenging because of nonstationary data. We introduce a new BSS approach called momentary-uncorrelated component analysis (MUCA), which is tailored for event-related multitrial data. The method is based on approximate joint diagonalization of multiple covariance matrices estimated from the data at separate latencies. We further show how to extend the methodology for autocovariance matrices and how to apply BSS methods suitable for piecewise stationary data to event-related responses. We compared several BSS approaches by using simulated EEG as well as measured somatosensory and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) evoked EEG. Among the compared methods, MUCA was the most tolerant one to noise, TMS artifacts, and other challenges in the data. With measured somatosensory data, over half of the estimated components were found to be similar by MUCA and independent component analysis. MUCA was also stable when tested with several input datasets. MUCA is based on simple assumptions, and the results suggest that MUCA is robust with nonideal data. Event-related responses and BSS are valuable and popular tools in neuroscience. Correctly designed BSS is an efficient way of identifying artifactual and neural processes from nonstationary event-related data.

Event-related brain potentials that distinguish false memory for events that occurred only seconds in the past

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chen Hong

2012-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background False memory often involves retrieving events from the distant past that did not actually happen. However, recent evidence obtained using the Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM paradigm for eliciting false memory experiences suggests that individuals can falsely believe that events occurred mere seconds in the past when they in fact did not. Subjects in these experiments endorsed unstudied critical lure words as having been studied, despite the fact that word lists were studied just moments before. We identified event-related brain potential (ERP correlates of this experience, and included a repetition priming manipulation to better assess the functional significance of these ERPs. Methods Behavioral and ERP data were collected from 21 Capital Normal University students using a short-term DRM task. Results Two categories of effects were identified that distinguished true from false short-term memory: (1 early semantic priming effects from 300 to 500 ms and (2 later retrieval and retrieval-monitoring effects after 500 ms. The repetition priming manipulation had distinct influences on these effects, consistent with their differential associations with semantic priming versus episodic retrieval. Conclusion Characterization of ERPs related to semantic priming and episodic retrieval provides important information regarding the mechanisms of short-term false memory. In contrast, most studies examining false memory in standard long-delay DRM paradigms identify ERP effects related only to retrieval monitoring. These findings highlight the neural processing involved in illusions of memory after very brief delays and highlight the role of semantic processing in short-term false memory.

Callous-unemotional traits moderate executive function in children with ASD and ADHD: A pilot event-related potential study

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C. Tye

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD and autism spectrum disorder (ASD are associated with varied executive function (EF difficulties. Callous-unemotional (CU traits, a proposed antecedent of adult psychopathy, are often associated with intact or enhanced EF. Here we test whether CU traits may therefore modulate EF in ASD and ADHD, in which EF is typically impaired. We collected CU traits and measured event-related potentials (ERPs that index EF during a cued-continuous performance test (CPT-OX in boys with ASD, ADHD, comorbid ASD + ADHD and typical controls. We examined attentional orienting at cues (Cue-P3, inhibitory processing at non-targets (NoGo-P3 and conflict monitoring between target and non-target trials (Go-N2 vs. NoGo-N2. In children with ASD, higher CU traits were associated with an enhanced increase in N2 amplitude in NoGo trials compared to Go trials, which suggests relatively superior conflict monitoring and a potential cognitive strength associated with CU traits. The results emphasise the importance of considering the effects of co-occurring traits in the assessment of heterogeneity of EF profiles in neurodevelopmental disorders.

Functional network of glycan-related molecules: Glyco-Net in Glycoconjugate Data Bank

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Miura Nobuaki

2010-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Glycans are involved in a wide range of biological process, and they play an essential role in functions such as cell differentiation, cell adhesion, pathogen-host recognition, toxin-receptor interactions, signal transduction, cancer metastasis, and immune responses. Elucidating pathways related to post-translational modifications (PTMs such as glycosylation are of growing importance in post-genome science and technology. Graphical networks describing the relationships among glycan-related molecules, including genes, proteins, lipids and various biological events are considered extremely valuable and convenient tools for the systematic investigation of PTMs. However, there is no database which dynamically draws functional networks related to glycans. Description We have created a database called Glyco-Net http://www.glycoconjugate.jp/functions/, with many binary relationships among glycan-related molecules. Using search results, we can dynamically draw figures of the functional relationships among these components with nodes and arrows. A certain molecule or event corresponds to a node in the network figures, and the relationship between the molecule and the event are indicated by arrows. Since all components are treated equally, an arrow is also a node. Conclusions In this paper, we describe our new database, Glyco-Net, which is the first database to dynamically show networks of the functional profiles of glycan related molecules. The graphical networks will assist in the understanding of the role of the PTMs. In addition, since various kinds of bio-objects such as genes, proteins, and inhibitors are equally treated in Glyco-Net, we can obtain a large amount of information on the PTMs.

Does erotic stimulus presentation design affect brain activation patterns? Event-related vs. blocked fMRI designs.

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Bühler, Mira; Vollstädt-Klein, Sabine; Klemen, Jane; Smolka, Michael N

2008-07-22

Existing brain imaging studies, investigating sexual arousal via the presentation of erotic pictures or film excerpts, have mainly used blocked designs with long stimulus presentation times. To clarify how experimental functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) design affects stimulus-induced brain activity, we compared brief event-related presentation of erotic vs. neutral stimuli with blocked presentation in 10 male volunteers. Brain activation differed depending on design type in only 10% of the voxels showing task related brain activity. Differences between blocked and event-related stimulus presentation were found in occipitotemporal and temporal regions (Brodmann Area (BA) 19, 37, 48), parietal areas (BA 7, 40) and areas in the frontal lobe (BA 6, 44). Our results suggest that event-related designs might be a potential alternative when the core interest is the detection of networks associated with immediate processing of erotic stimuli.Additionally, blocked, compared to event-related, stimulus presentation allows the emergence and detection of non-specific secondary processes, such as sustained attention, motor imagery and inhibition of sexual arousal.

Does erotic stimulus presentation design affect brain activation patterns? Event-related vs. blocked fMRI designs

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Klemen Jane

2008-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Existing brain imaging studies, investigating sexual arousal via the presentation of erotic pictures or film excerpts, have mainly used blocked designs with long stimulus presentation times. Methods To clarify how experimental functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI design affects stimulus-induced brain activity, we compared brief event-related presentation of erotic vs. neutral stimuli with blocked presentation in 10 male volunteers. Results Brain activation differed depending on design type in only 10% of the voxels showing task related brain activity. Differences between blocked and event-related stimulus presentation were found in occipitotemporal and temporal regions (Brodmann Area (BA 19, 37, 48, parietal areas (BA 7, 40 and areas in the frontal lobe (BA 6, 44. Conclusion Our results suggest that event-related designs might be a potential alternative when the core interest is the detection of networks associated with immediate processing of erotic stimuli. Additionally, blocked, compared to event-related, stimulus presentation allows the emergence and detection of non-specific secondary processes, such as sustained attention, motor imagery and inhibition of sexual arousal.

Prefrontal-hippocampal-fusiform activity during encoding predicts intraindividual differences in free recall ability: an event-related functional-anatomic MRI study.

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Dickerson, B C; Miller, S L; Greve, D N; Dale, A M; Albert, M S; Schacter, D L; Sperling, R A

2007-01-01

The ability to spontaneously recall recently learned information is a fundamental mnemonic activity of daily life, but has received little study using functional neuroimaging. We developed a functional MRI (fMRI) paradigm to study regional brain activity during encoding that predicts free recall. In this event-related fMRI study, ten lists of fourteen pictures of common objects were shown to healthy young individuals and regional brain activity during encoding was analyzed based on subsequent free recall performance. Free recall of items was predicted by activity during encoding in hippocampal, fusiform, and inferior prefrontal cortical regions. Within-subject variance in free recall performance for the ten lists was predicted by a linear combination of condition-specific inferior prefrontal, hippocampal, and fusiform activity. Recall performance was better for lists in which prefrontal activity was greater for all items of the list and hippocampal and fusiform activity were greater specifically for items that were recalled from the list. Thus, the activity of medial temporal, fusiform, and prefrontal brain regions during the learning of new information is important for the subsequent free recall of this information. These fronto-temporal brain regions act together as a large-scale memory-related network, the components of which make distinct yet interacting contributions during encoding that predict subsequent successful free recall performance.

Analysis for Human-related Events during the Overhaul

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Ji Tae; Kim, Min Chull; Choi, Dong Won; Lee, Durk Hun [Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2011-10-15

The event frequency due to human error is decreasing among 20 operating Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) excluding the NPP (Shin-Kori unit-1) in the commissioning stage since 2008. However, the events due to human error during an overhaul (O/H) occur annually (see Table I). An analysis for human-related events during the O/H was performed. Similar problems were identified for each event from the analysis and also, organizational and safety cultural factors were also identified

Analysis of respiratory events in obstructive sleep apnea syndrome: Inter-relations and association to simple nocturnal features.

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Ghandeharioun, H; Rezaeitalab, F; Lotfi, R

2016-01-01

This study carefully evaluates the association of different respiration-related events to each other and to simple nocturnal features in obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome (OSAS). The events include apneas, hypopneas, respiratory event-related arousals and snores. We conducted a statistical study on 158 adults who underwent polysomnography between July 2012 and May 2014. To monitor relevance, along with linear statistical strategies like analysis of variance and bootstrapping a correlation coefficient standard error, the non-linear method of mutual information is also applied to illuminate vague results of linear techniques. Based on normalized mutual information weights (NMIW), indices of apnea are 1.3 times more relevant to AHI values than those of hypopnea. NMIW for the number of blood oxygen desaturation below 95% is considerable (0.531). The next relevant feature is "respiratory arousals index" with NMIW of 0.501. Snore indices (0.314), and BMI (0.203) take the next place. Based on NMIW values, snoring events are nearly one-third (29.9%) more dependent to hypopneas than RERAs. 1. The more sever the OSAS is, the more frequently the apneic events happen. 2. The association of snore with hypopnea/RERA revealed which is routinely ignored in regression-based OSAS modeling. 3. The statistical dependencies of oximetry features potentially can lead to home-based screening of OSAS. 4. Poor ESS-AHI relevance in the database under study indicates its disability for the OSA diagnosis compared to oximetry. 5. Based on poor RERA-snore/ESS relevance, detailed history of the symptoms plus polysomnography is suggested for accurate diagnosis of RERAs. Copyright © 2015 Sociedade Portuguesa de Pneumologia. Published by Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

Cognitive deficits in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis evaluated by event-related potentials.

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Ogawa, Tomohiro; Tanaka, Hideaki; Hirata, Koichi

2009-04-01

To determine the cognitive profiles in non-demented, relatively less handicapped patients with early-stage sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) by using neuropsychological tests, event-related potentials (ERPs) and clinical scale. We recruited 19 patients with sporadic ALS (eight with limb-onset, 11 with bulbar-onset) and 19 controls. In addition to the mini-mental state examination and the Wechsler adult intelligence scale-revised, we assessed the frontal lobe function with Wisconsin card sorting test, Stroop test and trail making test. We used auditory 'oddball' counting paradigm for the ERPs under 20-channel electroencephalogram (EEG) recording. Global field power (GFP) was computed, and its peak amplitudes and latencies of N1/N2/P3 were determined. The results of ERP and neuropsychological tests were correlated with respiratory function and clinical scale. No global cognitive impairment except for subtle frontal dysfunction was detected, although N1/N2/P3 GFP latencies were significantly prolonged in ALS patients than in the controls. Vital capacity correlated with P3 GFP amplitude, and the relative bulbar functional rating scale correlated with P3 GFP latency. Our findings indicated the presence of sub-clinical cognitive deficits in non-demented, sporadic ALS patients. In addition, clinical sub-types and respiratory function dependently influenced cognitive function in patients with sporadic ALS. ERP confirmed cognitive impairment in patients with sporadic ALS.

Event Shape Sorting: selecting events with similar evolution

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Tomášik Boris

2017-01-01

Full Text Available We present novel method for the organisation of events. The method is based on comparing event-by-event histograms of a chosen quantity Q that is measured for each particle in every event. The events are organised in such a way that those with similar shape of the Q-histograms end-up placed close to each other. We apply the method on histograms of azimuthal angle of the produced hadrons in ultrarelativsitic nuclear collisions. By selecting events with similar azimuthal shape of their hadron distribution one chooses events which are likely that they underwent similar evolution from the initial state to the freeze-out. Such events can more easily be compared to theoretical simulations where all conditions can be controlled. We illustrate the method on data simulated by the AMPT model.

Clinical Implications of Residual Urine in Korean Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH) Patients: A Prognostic Factor for BPH-Related Clinical Events.

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Ko, Young Hwii; Chae, Ji Yun; Jeong, Seung Min; Kang, Jae Il; Ahn, Hong Jae; Kim, Hyung Woo; Kang, Sung Gu; Jang, Hoon Ah; Cheon, Jun; Kim, Je Jong; Lee, Jeong Gu

2010-12-01

Although post-void residual urine (PVR) is frequently utilized clinically in patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), mainly because of its procedural simplicity, its role as a clinical prognostic factor, predictive of treatment goals, is still under much dispute. We investigated the predictive value of PVR for BPH-related clinical events including surgery, acute urinary retention (AUR), and admission following urinary tract infection (UTI). From January to June of 2006, patients over 50 years of age who were diagnosed with BPH for the first time at the outpatient clinic and were then treated for at least 3 years with medications were enrolled in this study. The variables of patients who underwent surgical intervention for BPH, had occurrences of AUR, or required admission due to UTI (Group 1, n=43) were compared with those of patients who were maintained with medications only (Group 2, n=266). Group 1 had a significantly higher PVR, more severe symptoms, and a larger prostate at the time of the initial diagnosis in both the univariate and the multivariate analysis. In the 39 patients who underwent BPH-related surgery, although there was a significant change in Qmax at the time of surgery (mean, 13.1 months), PVR and the symptom score remained unchanged compared with the initial evaluation. In the receiver-operating characteristic curve analysis, the area under the curve of Group 1 was in the order of prostate volume (0.834), PVR (0.712), and symptom score (0.621). When redivided by arbitrarily selected PVR cutoffs of 50 mL, 100 mL, and 150 mL, the relative risk of clinical BPH progression was measured as 3.93, 2.61, and 2.11. These data indicate that, in the symptomatic Korean population, increased PVR at baseline is a significant indicator of BPH-related clinical events along with increased symptom score or prostate volume.

Event-related potentials reflect impaired temporal interval learning following haloperidol administration.

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Forster, Sarah E; Zirnheld, Patrick; Shekhar, Anantha; Steinhauer, Stuart R; O'Donnell, Brian F; Hetrick, William P

2017-09-01

Signals carried by the mesencephalic dopamine system and conveyed to anterior cingulate cortex are critically implicated in probabilistic reward learning and performance monitoring. A common evaluative mechanism purportedly subserves both functions, giving rise to homologous medial frontal negativities in feedback- and response-locked event-related brain potentials (the feedback-related negativity (FRN) and the error-related negativity (ERN), respectively), reflecting dopamine-dependent prediction error signals to unexpectedly negative events. Consistent with this model, the dopamine receptor antagonist, haloperidol, attenuates the ERN, but effects on FRN have not yet been evaluated. ERN and FRN were recorded during a temporal interval learning task (TILT) following randomized, double-blind administration of haloperidol (3 mg; n = 18), diphenhydramine (an active control for haloperidol; 25 mg; n = 20), or placebo (n = 21) to healthy controls. Centroparietal positivities, the Pe and feedback-locked P300, were also measured and correlations between ERP measures and behavioral indices of learning, overall accuracy, and post-error compensatory behavior were evaluated. We hypothesized that haloperidol would reduce ERN and FRN, but that ERN would uniquely track automatic, error-related performance adjustments, while FRN would be associated with learning and overall accuracy. As predicted, ERN was reduced by haloperidol and in those exhibiting less adaptive post-error performance; however, these effects were limited to ERNs following fast timing errors. In contrast, the FRN was not affected by drug condition, although increased FRN amplitude was associated with improved accuracy. Significant drug effects on centroparietal positivities were also absent. Our results support a functional and neurobiological dissociation between the ERN and FRN.

Source space analysis of event-related dynamic reorganization of brain networks.

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Ioannides, Andreas A; Dimitriadis, Stavros I; Saridis, George A; Voultsidou, Marotesa; Poghosyan, Vahe; Liu, Lichan; Laskaris, Nikolaos A

2012-01-01

How the brain works is nowadays synonymous with how different parts of the brain work together and the derivation of mathematical descriptions for the functional connectivity patterns that can be objectively derived from data of different neuroimaging techniques. In most cases static networks are studied, often relying on resting state recordings. Here, we present a quantitative study of dynamic reconfiguration of connectivity for event-related experiments. Our motivation is the development of a methodology that can be used for personalized monitoring of brain activity. In line with this motivation, we use data with visual stimuli from a typical subject that participated in different experiments that were previously analyzed with traditional methods. The earlier studies identified well-defined changes in specific brain areas at specific latencies related to attention, properties of stimuli, and tasks demands. Using a recently introduced methodology, we track the event-related changes in network organization, at source space level, thus providing a more global and complete view of the stages of processing associated with the regional changes in activity. The results suggest the time evolving modularity as an additional brain code that is accessible with noninvasive means and hence available for personalized monitoring and clinical applications.

[Progress on neuropsychology and event-related potentials in patients with brain trauma].

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Dong, Ri-xia; Cai, Wei-xiong; Tang, Tao; Huang, Fu-yin

2010-02-01

With the development of information technology, as one of the research frontiers in neurophysiology, event-related potentials (ERP) is concerned increasingly by international scholars, which provides a feasible and objective method for exploring cognitive function. There are many advances in neuropsychology due to new assessment tool for the last years. The basic theories in the field of ERP and neuropsychology were reviewed in this article. The research and development in evaluating cognitive function of patients with syndrome after brain trauma were focused in this review, and the perspectives for the future research of ERP was also explored.

Two Cases of Nivolumab Re-Administration after Pneumonitis as Immune-Related Adverse Events

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Keisuke Imafuku

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Nivolumab is a recently approved medication for the treatment of unresectable malignant melanoma. Many immune-related adverse events (irAEs associated with nivolumab have been reported, such as pneumonitis, hepatitis, dermatitis, and thyroiditis. Prednisolone can effectively treat irAEs. However, it is unclear how or if nivolumab should be administered to patients after they have experienced an irAE. Herein, we show 2 patients who underwent pneumonitis as irAE. Case 1 demonstrated a cryptogenic organizing pneumonia pattern in the CT scan and case 2 had a diffuse alveolar damage (DAD pattern. Oral corticosteroids improved chest shadow of CT scan in both cases. However, when nivolumab was re-administrated, case 1 demonstrated no symptoms, but case 2 demonstrated pneumonia again. From our cases, it is difficult to re-administrate nivolumab for the patients with pneumonitis which shows a DAD pattern in CT, even if oral corticosteroids improve their symptoms.

The neural basis of love as a subliminal prime: an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging study.

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Ortigue, S; Bianchi-Demicheli, F; Hamilton, A F de C; Grafton, S T

2007-07-01

Throughout the ages, love has been defined as a motivated and goal-directed mechanism with explicit and implicit mechanisms. Recent evidence demonstrated that the explicit representation of love recruits subcorticocortical pathways mediating reward, emotion, and motivation systems. However, the neural basis of the implicit (unconscious) representation of love remains unknown. To assess this question, we combined event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with a behavioral subliminal priming paradigm embedded in a lexical decision task. In this task, the name of either a beloved partner, a neutral friend, or a passionate hobby was subliminally presented before a target stimulus (word, nonword, or blank), and participants were required to decide if the target was a word or not. Behavioral results showed that subliminal presentation of either a beloved's name (love prime) or a passion descriptor (passion prime) enhanced reaction times in a similar fashion. Subliminal presentation of a friend's name (friend prime) did not show any beneficial effects. Functional results showed that subliminal priming with a beloved's name (as opposed to either a friend's name or a passion descriptor) specifically recruited brain areas involved in abstract representations of others and the self, in addition to motivation circuits shared with other sources of passion. More precisely, love primes recruited the fusiform and angular gyri. Our findings suggest that love, as a subliminal prime, involves a specific neural network that surpasses a dopaminergic-motivation system.

Event-based text mining for biology and functional genomics

Science.gov (United States)

Thompson, Paul; Nawaz, Raheel; McNaught, John; Kell, Douglas B.

2015-01-01

The assessment of genome function requires a mapping between genome-derived entities and biochemical reactions, and the biomedical literature represents a rich source of information about reactions between biological components. However, the increasingly rapid growth in the volume of literature provides both a challenge and an opportunity for researchers to isolate information about reactions of interest in a timely and efficient manner. In response, recent text mining research in the biology domain has been largely focused on the identification and extraction of ‘events’, i.e. categorised, structured representations of relationships between biochemical entities, from the literature. Functional genomics analyses necessarily encompass events as so defined. Automatic event extraction systems facilitate the development of sophisticated semantic search applications, allowing researchers to formulate structured queries over extracted events, so as to specify the exact types of reactions to be retrieved. This article provides an overview of recent research into event extraction. We cover annotated corpora on which systems are trained, systems that achieve state-of-the-art performance and details of the community shared tasks that have been instrumental in increasing the quality, coverage and scalability of recent systems. Finally, several concrete applications of event extraction are covered, together with emerging directions of research. PMID:24907365

Mining known attack patterns from security-related events

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Nicandro Scarabeo

2015-10-01

Full Text Available Managed Security Services (MSS have become an essential asset for companies to have in order to protect their infrastructure from hacking attempts such as unauthorized behaviour, denial of service (DoS, malware propagation, and anomalies. A proliferation of attacks has determined the need for installing more network probes and collecting more security-related events in order to assure the best coverage, necessary for generating incident responses. The increase in volume of data to analyse has created a demand for specific tools that automatically correlate events and gather them in pre-defined scenarios of attacks. Motivated by Above Security, a specialized company in the sector, and by National Research Council Canada (NRC, we propose a new data mining system that employs text mining techniques to dynamically relate security-related events in order to reduce analysis time, increase the quality of the reports, and automatically build correlated scenarios.

Distinct and shared cognitive functions mediate event- and time-based prospective memory impairment in normal ageing

Science.gov (United States)

Gonneaud, Julie; Kalpouzos, Grégoria; Bon, Laetitia; Viader, Fausto; Eustache, Francis; Desgranges, Béatrice

2011-01-01

Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember to perform an action at a specific point in the future. Regarded as multidimensional, PM involves several cognitive functions that are known to be impaired in normal aging. In the present study, we set out to investigate the cognitive correlates of PM impairment in normal aging. Manipulating cognitive load, we assessed event- and time-based PM, as well as several cognitive functions, including executive functions, working memory and retrospective episodic memory, in healthy subjects covering the entire adulthood. We found that normal aging was characterized by PM decline in all conditions and that event-based PM was more sensitive to the effects of aging than time-based PM. Whatever the conditions, PM was linked to inhibition and processing speed. However, while event-based PM was mainly mediated by binding and retrospective memory processes, time-based PM was mainly related to inhibition. The only distinction between high- and low-load PM cognitive correlates lays in an additional, but marginal, correlation between updating and the high-load PM condition. The association of distinct cognitive functions, as well as shared mechanisms with event- and time-based PM confirms that each type of PM relies on a different set of processes. PMID:21678154

Functional definition of the N450 event-related brain potential marker of conflict processing: a numerical stroop study

OpenAIRE

Szűcs, Denes; Soltész, F

2012-01-01

BACKGROUND: Several conflict processing studies aimed to dissociate neuroimaging phenomena related to stimulus and response conflict processing. However, previous studies typically did not include a paradigm-independent measure of either stimulus or response conflict. Here we have combined electro-myography (EMG) with event-related brain potentials (ERPs) in order to determine whether a particularly robust marker of conflict processing, the N450 ERP effect usually related to the activity of t...

Effects of Grammatical Categories on Children's Visual Language Processing: Evidence from Event-Related Brain Potentials

Science.gov (United States)

Weber-Fox, Christine; Hart, Laura J.; Spruill, John E., III

2006-01-01

This study examined how school-aged children process different grammatical categories. Event-related brain potentials elicited by words in visually presented sentences were analyzed according to seven grammatical categories with naturally varying characteristics of linguistic functions, semantic features, and quantitative attributes of length and…

Glucose enhancement of event-related potentials associated with episodic memory and attention

OpenAIRE

Brown, Louise; Riby, Leigh

2013-01-01

Previous studies have reported that increasing glycaemia by a glucose-containing drink enhances memory functioning. The aim of the present study was to extend this literature by examining the effects of glucose on episodic memory as well as attention processes, and to investigate associated event-related potential (ERP) markers. Fifteen minutes after treatment (25 g glucose or placebo drink), 35 participants performed an old/new recognition memory task and a Stroop colour naming task. Consist...

Simple probabilistic method for relative risk evaluation of nuclear terrorism events

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang Songbai; Wu Jun

2006-01-01

On the basis of the event-tree and probability analysis methods, a probabilistic method of nuclear terrorism risk was built, and the risk of terrorism events was analyzed. With the statistical data for and hypothetical data for relative events, the relative probabilities of the four kinds of nuclear terrorism events were obtained, as well as the relative risks of these four kinds of nuclear terrorism events were calculated by using this probabilistic method. The illustrated case show that the descending sequence of damages from the four kinds of nuclear terrorism events for single event is as following: nuclear explosive and improvised nuclear explosive, nuclear facility attacked, and 'dirty bomb'. Under the hypothetical condition, the descending sequence of possibilities for the four kinds of nuclear terrorism events is as following: 'dirty bomb', nuclear facility attacked, improvised nuclear explosive and nuclear explosive, but the descending sequence of risks is as following: 'dirty bomb', improvised nuclear explosive, nuclear facility attacked, and nuclear explosive . (authors)

Cone pathway function in relation to asymmetric carotid artery stenosis

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kofoed, Peter Kristian; Munch, Inger Christine; Holfort, Stig K

2013-01-01

Purpose:  To examine retinal function in relation to retinal perfusion pressure in patients with carotid artery stenosis. Methods:  Thirteen patients with carotid artery stenosis without clinical eye disease underwent assessment of ophthalmic artery systolic blood pressure (OSP) by ocular...... pneumoplethysmography, carotid artery obstructive disease by ultrasonography, intraocular pressure by applanation tonometry, retinal perfusion by fluorescein angiography and retinal function by multifocal electroretinography (mfERG). Data analysis compared the eye on the most stenotic side with the fellow eye...... pressure (p = 0.0028, 0.011, 0.041 for N1, P1, N2 implicit times, respectively, and p = 0.0086, 0.016, 0.040 for N1, P1, N2 for amplitudes, respectively, corrected for OSP). Conclusion:  Cone function deviation was observed in clinically healthy eyes on the side with highest degree of carotid artery...

Clinical Outcomes of patients with coronary artery disease who underwent FFR evaluation of intermediate coronary lesionS– COFFRS study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Srinivasa Prasad

2017-07-01

Conclusion: In our experience, MACE events were not higher in patients with FFR > 0.8 and kept under medical therapy and were similarly lower in patients with FFR ≤0.8 and underwent revascularisation (p = 0.73. Also MACE events were higher in patients with FFR ≤ 0.8 and did not undergo revascularisation compared to other two appropriately treated groups (p = 0.03. FFR based revascularization decision appears to be a safe strategy in Indian patients.

Awareness of antiplatelet resistance in patient with repeated episodes of thrombotic events

Science.gov (United States)

Dalimunthe, N. N.; Hamonangan, R.; Antono, D.; Prasetya, I.; Rusdi, L.

2018-03-01

Antiplatelet has been the cornerstones management of acute coronary syndrome. However, numbers of patients on these agents had episodes of adverse cardiovascular events. A 65-year-old woman post cardiac coronary bypass surgery on dual antiplatelet therapy, Aspirin, and Clopidogrel underwent several episodes of thrombotic events despite good adhered to thedailyantiplatelet regimen.These recurrent events had led to clinical suspicious of antiplatelet resistance. Platelet function test was performed which indicates a poor platelet response to Clopidogrel. Clopidogrelwas discontinued and Ticagrelor was prescribed together with Aspirin. During two months of follow up, there is no episode of chest discomfort.

Event by event physics in ALICE

CERN Document Server

Christakoglou, Panos

2009-01-01

Fluctuations of thermodynamic quantities are fundamental for the study of the QGP phase transition. The ALICE experiment is well suited for precise event-by-event measurements of various quantities. In this article, we review the capabilities of ALICE to study the fluctuations of several key observables such as the net charge, the temperature, and the particle ratios. Among the observables related to correlations, we review the balance functions and the long range correlations.

Parahippocampal activation during successful recognition of words: a self-paced event-related fMRI study

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Daselaar, S. M.; Rombouts, S. A.; Veltman, D. J.; Raaijmakers, J. G.; Lazeron, R. H.; Jonker, C.

2001-01-01

In this study, we investigated retrieval from verbal episodic memory using a self-paced event-related fMRI paradigm, similar to the designs typically used in behavioral studies of memory function. We tested the hypothesis that the medial temporal lobe (MTL) is involved in the actual recovery of

Source Space Analysis of Event-Related Dynamic Reorganization of Brain Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andreas A. Ioannides

2012-01-01

Full Text Available How the brain works is nowadays synonymous with how different parts of the brain work together and the derivation of mathematical descriptions for the functional connectivity patterns that can be objectively derived from data of different neuroimaging techniques. In most cases static networks are studied, often relying on resting state recordings. Here, we present a quantitative study of dynamic reconfiguration of connectivity for event-related experiments. Our motivation is the development of a methodology that can be used for personalized monitoring of brain activity. In line with this motivation, we use data with visual stimuli from a typical subject that participated in different experiments that were previously analyzed with traditional methods. The earlier studies identified well-defined changes in specific brain areas at specific latencies related to attention, properties of stimuli, and tasks demands. Using a recently introduced methodology, we track the event-related changes in network organization, at source space level, thus providing a more global and complete view of the stages of processing associated with the regional changes in activity. The results suggest the time evolving modularity as an additional brain code that is accessible with noninvasive means and hence available for personalized monitoring and clinical applications.

Psychophysical function in age-related maculopathy.

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

Neelam, Kumari

2012-02-01

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the late stage of age-related maculopathy (ARM), is the leading cause of blind registration in developed countries. The visual loss in AMD occurs due to dysfunction and death of photoreceptors (rods and cones) secondary to an atrophic or a neovascular event. The psychophysical tests of vision, which depend on the functional status of the photoreceptors, may detect subtle alterations in the macula before morphological fundus changes are apparent ophthalmoscopically, and before traditional measures of visual acuity exhibit deterioration, and may be a useful tool for assessing and monitoring patients with ARM. Furthermore, worsening of these visual functions over time may reflect disease progression, and some of these, alone or in combination with other parameters, may act as a prognostic indicator for identifying eyes at risk for developing neovascular AMD. Lastly, psychophysical tests often correlate with subjective and relatively undefined symptoms in patients with early ARM, and may reflect limitation of daily activities for ARM patients. However, clinical studies investigating psychophysical function have largely been cross-sectional in nature, with small sample sizes, and lack consistency in terms of the grading and classification of ARM. This article aims to comprehensively review the literature germane to psychophysical tests in ARM, and to furnish the reader with an insight into this complex area of research.

Cognitive event-related potentials in comatose and post-comatose states.

Science.gov (United States)

Vanhaudenhuyse, Audrey; Laureys, Steven; Perrin, Fabien

2008-01-01

We review the interest of cognitive event-related potentials (ERPs) in comatose, vegetative, or minimally conscious patients. Auditory cognitive ERPs are useful to investigate residual cognitive functions, such as echoic memory (MMN), acoustical and semantic discrimination (P300), and incongruent language detection (N400). While early ERPs (such as the absence of cortical responses on somatosensory-evoked potentials) predict bad outcome, cognitive ERPs (MMN and P300) are indicative of recovery of consciousness. In coma-survivors, cognitive potentials are more frequently obtained when using stimuli that are more ecologic or have an emotional content (such as the patient's own name) than when using classical sine tones.

Changing relations between intelligence and brain activity in late childhood: A longitudinal event-related potential study.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Stauder, J.E.A.; van der Molen, M.W.; Molenaar, P.C.M.

1998-01-01

In studying the relationship between Raven intelligence and event-related brain potentials to a visual oddball task in the same children, at respectively 9, 10 and 11 years of age, dramatic changes were observed with age. The event-related amplitude data suggest a shift in relation between

Causal relations among events and states in dynamic geographical phenomena

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Zhaoqiang; Feng, Xuezhi; Xuan, Wenling; Chen, Xiuwan

2007-06-01

There is only a static state of the real world to be recorded in conventional geographical information systems. However, there is not only static information but also dynamic information in geographical phenomena. So that how to record the dynamic information and reveal the relations among dynamic information is an important issue in a spatio-temporal information system. From an ontological perspective, we can initially divide the spatio-temporal entities in the world into continuants and occurrents. Continuant entities endure through some extended (although possibly very short) interval of time (e.g., houses, roads, cities, and real-estate). Occurrent entities happen and are then gone (e.g., a house repair job, road construction project, urban expansion, real-estate transition). From an information system perspective, continuants and occurrents that have a unique identity in the system are referred to as objects and events, respectively. And the change is represented implicitly by static snapshots in current spatial temporal information systems. In the previous models, the objects can be considered as the fundamental components of the system, and the change is modeled by considering time-varying attributes of these objects. In the spatio-temporal database, the temporal information that is either interval or instant is involved and the underlying data structures and indexes for temporal are considerable investigated. However, there is the absence of explicit ways of considering events, which affect the attributes of objects or the state. So the research issue of this paper focuses on how to model events in conceptual models of dynamic geographical phenomena and how to represent the causal relations among events and the objects or states. Firstly, the paper reviews the conceptual modeling in a temporal GIS by researchers. Secondly, this paper discusses the spatio-temporal entities: objects and events. Thirdly, this paper investigates the causal relations amongst

Brain Events Underlying Episodic Memory Changes in Aging: A Longitudinal Investigation of Structural and Functional Connectivity.

Science.gov (United States)

Fjell, Anders M; Sneve, Markus H; Storsve, Andreas B; Grydeland, Håkon; Yendiki, Anastasia; Walhovd, Kristine B

2016-03-01

Episodic memories are established and maintained by close interplay between hippocampus and other cortical regions, but degradation of a fronto-striatal network has been suggested to be a driving force of memory decline in aging. We wanted to directly address how changes in hippocampal-cortical versus striatal-cortical networks over time impact episodic memory with age. We followed 119 healthy participants (20-83 years) for 3.5 years with repeated tests of episodic verbal memory and magnetic resonance imaging for quantification of functional and structural connectivity and regional brain atrophy. While hippocampal-cortical functional connectivity predicted memory change in young, changes in cortico-striatal functional connectivity were related to change in recall in older adults. Within each age group, effects of functional and structural connectivity were anatomically closely aligned. Interestingly, the relationship between functional connectivity and memory was strongest in the age ranges where the rate of reduction of the relevant brain structure was lowest, implying selective impacts of the different brain events on memory. Together, these findings suggest a partly sequential and partly simultaneous model of brain events underlying cognitive changes in aging, where different functional and structural events are more or less important in various time windows, dismissing a simple uni-factorial view on neurocognitive aging. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Prognostic value of myocardial perfusion and ventricular function in a Japanese multicenter cohort study (J-ACCESS). The first-year total events and hard events

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nakajima, Kenichi; Kusuoka, Hideo; Nishimura, Shigeyuki; Yamashina, Akira; Nishimura, Tsunehiko

2009-01-01

The objective of this study was to determine the prognostic value of myocardial ischemia, function and coronary risk factors on total and hard cardiac events using myocardial perfusion imaging in a Japanese population. A prospective cohort study was performed in 117 Japanese hospitals, each with a nuclear cardiology facility. A total of 4,031 patients with suspected or confirmed ischemic heart disease were registered. The patients were followed up for a year to investigate total and hard events, and those who had any events were followed up for 3 years to evaluate subsequent hard events. A stress-rest gated myocardial perfusion study was performed with 99m Tc-tetrofosmin using gated single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and analyzed by semi-quantitative scores. During the 1-year follow-up period, 263 (6.5%) patients had total events comprising all-cause death, non-fatal myocardial infarction (MI), heart failure, unstable angina, angina pectoris and coronary revascularization. Cardiac death occurred in 23 patients (0.6%) and non-fatal MI in 11 (0.3%). Among patients with ejection fraction (EF) of <45% and a summed difference score (SDS) of ≥2, 18.7% (2.4% for cardiac death and 0.6% for non-fatal MI) experienced total events compared with 3.9% (0.3% for cardiac death and 0.2% for non-fatal MI; P<0.0001) of those with EF≥45% and SDS<2. Multivariate analysis identified EF, SDS, age, history of revascularization and diabetes as significant predictors of all events, while the significant predictors were age and EF for hard events. When the patients who had heart failure in the first year were followed up, 9 of 41 (22.0%) experienced cardiac death in the subsequent 3-year follow-up period. Myocardial ischemia defined by SDS and ventricular function were the main predictors of total events despite the relatively low incidence of hard events in this Japanese population. In patients with cardiac events in a year, closer attention should be paid to subsequent

Admissions and Readmissions Related to Adverse Events, 2007-2014

Science.gov (United States)

2015-12-01

DRG is a classification system primarily used for billing purposes. It uses the principle and secondary diagnoses to assign clinical conditions to...This study assessed adverse events as they relate to readmissions in the Military Health System (MHS). Among 142,579 admissions with an adverse event...The following study retrospectively assessed admissions and readmissions for adverse events in the Military Health System (MHS) by quantifying

Task-related signal decrease on functional magnetic resonance imaging

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hara, Yoshie; Nakamura, Mitsugu; Tamaki, Norihiko; Tamura, Shogo; Kitamura, Junji

2001-01-01

An atypical pattern of signal change was identified on functional magnetic resonance (fMR) imaging in pathologic patients. Three normal volunteers and 34 patients with pathologic lesions near the primary motor cortex underwent fMR imaging with echo-planar imaging while performing a hand motor task. Signal intensities were evaluated with the z-score method, and the time course and changes of the signal intensity were calculated. Nine of the 34 patients with pathologic lesions displayed a significant task-related signal reduction in motor-related areas. They also presented a conventional task-related signal increase in other motor-related areas. The time courses of the increase and decrease were the inverse of each other. There was no significant difference between rates of signal increase and decrease. Our findings suggest that this atypical signal decrease is clinically significant, and that impaired vascular reactivity and altered oxygen metabolism could contribute to the task-related signal reduction. Brain areas showing such task-related signal decrease should be preserved at surgery. (author)

Identifying Adverse Drug Events by Relational Learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Page, David; Costa, Vítor Santos; Natarajan, Sriraam; Barnard, Aubrey; Peissig, Peggy; Caldwell, Michael

2012-07-01

The pharmaceutical industry, consumer protection groups, users of medications and government oversight agencies are all strongly interested in identifying adverse reactions to drugs. While a clinical trial of a drug may use only a thousand patients, once a drug is released on the market it may be taken by millions of patients. As a result, in many cases adverse drug events (ADEs) are observed in the broader population that were not identified during clinical trials. Therefore, there is a need for continued, post-marketing surveillance of drugs to identify previously-unanticipated ADEs. This paper casts this problem as a reverse machine learning task , related to relational subgroup discovery and provides an initial evaluation of this approach based on experiments with an actual EMR/EHR and known adverse drug events.

Temporal energy partitions of Florida extreme sea level events as a function of Atlantic multidecadal oscillation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J. Park

2010-06-01

Full Text Available An energy-conservative metric based on the discrete wavelet transform is applied to assess the relative energy distribution of extreme sea level events across different temporal scales. The metric is applied to coastal events at Key West and Pensacola Florida as a function of two Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO regimes. Under AMO warm conditions there is a small but significant redistribution of event energy from nearly static into more dynamic (shorter duration timescales at Key West, while at Pensacola the AMO-dependent changes in temporal event behaviour are less pronounced. Extreme events with increased temporal dynamics might be consistent with an increase in total energy of event forcings which may be a reflection of more energetic storm events during AMO warm phases. As dynamical models mature to the point of providing regional climate index predictability, coastal planners may be able to consider such temporal change metrics in planning scenarios.

Stressful life events as predictors of functioning: findings from the Collaborative Longitudinal Personality Disorders Study

Science.gov (United States)

Pagano, M. E.; Skodol, A. E.; Stout, R. L.; Shea, M. T.; Yen, S.; Grilo, C. M.; Sanislow, C. A.; Bender, D. S.; McGlashan, T. H.; Zanarini, M. C.; Gunderson, J. G.

2008-01-01

Objective Although much attention has been given to the effects of adverse childhood experiences on the development of personality disorders (PDs), we know far less about how recent life events influence the ongoing course of functioning. We examined the extent to which PD subjects differ in rates of life events and the extent to which life events impact psychosocial functioning. Method A total of 633 subjects were drawn from the Collaborative Longitudinal Personality Disorders Study (CLPS), a multi-site study of four personality disorders – schizotypal (STPD), borderline (BPD), avoidant (AVPD), obsessive-compulsive (OCPD) – and a comparison group of major depressive disorders (MDD) without PD. Results Borderline personality disorder subjects reported significantly more total negative life events than other PDs or subjects with MDD. Negative events, especially interpersonal events, predicted decreased psychosocial functioning over time. Conclusion Our findings indicate higher rates of negative events in subjects with more severe PDs and suggest that negative life events adversely impact multiple areas of psychosocial functioning. PMID:15521826

Event-related potentials dissociate perceptual from response-related age effects in visual search

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wiegand, Iris; Müller, Hermann J.; Finke, Kathrin

2013-01-01

measures with lateralized event-related potentials of younger and older adults performing a compound-search task, in which the target-defining dimension of a pop-out target (color/shape) and the response-critical target feature (vertical/horizontal stripes) varied independently across trials. Slower...... responses in older participants were associated with age differences in all analyzed event-related potentials from perception to response, indicating that behavioral slowing originates from multiple stages within the information-processing stream. Furthermore, analyses of carry-over effects from one trial...

A novel GLM-based method for the Automatic IDentification of functional Events (AIDE) in fNIRS data recorded in naturalistic environments.

Science.gov (United States)

Pinti, Paola; Merla, Arcangelo; Aichelburg, Clarisse; Lind, Frida; Power, Sarah; Swingler, Elizabeth; Hamilton, Antonia; Gilbert, Sam; Burgess, Paul W; Tachtsidis, Ilias

2017-07-15

Recent technological advances have allowed the development of portable functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) devices that can be used to perform neuroimaging in the real-world. However, as real-world experiments are designed to mimic everyday life situations, the identification of event onsets can be extremely challenging and time-consuming. Here, we present a novel analysis method based on the general linear model (GLM) least square fit analysis for the Automatic IDentification of functional Events (or AIDE) directly from real-world fNIRS neuroimaging data. In order to investigate the accuracy and feasibility of this method, as a proof-of-principle we applied the algorithm to (i) synthetic fNIRS data simulating both block-, event-related and mixed-design experiments and (ii) experimental fNIRS data recorded during a conventional lab-based task (involving maths). AIDE was able to recover functional events from simulated fNIRS data with an accuracy of 89%, 97% and 91% for the simulated block-, event-related and mixed-design experiments respectively. For the lab-based experiment, AIDE recovered more than the 66.7% of the functional events from the fNIRS experimental measured data. To illustrate the strength of this method, we then applied AIDE to fNIRS data recorded by a wearable system on one participant during a complex real-world prospective memory experiment conducted outside the lab. As part of the experiment, there were four and six events (actions where participants had to interact with a target) for the two different conditions respectively (condition 1: social-interact with a person; condition 2: non-social-interact with an object). AIDE managed to recover 3/4 events and 3/6 events for conditions 1 and 2 respectively. The identified functional events were then corresponded to behavioural data from the video recordings of the movements and actions of the participant. Our results suggest that "brain-first" rather than "behaviour-first" analysis is

Jet-hadron correlations relative to the event plane at the LHC with ALICE

Science.gov (United States)

Mazer, Joel; Alice Collaboration

2017-11-01

In ultra relativistic heavy-ion collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), conditions are met to produce a hot, dense and strongly interacting medium known as the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP). Quarks and gluons from incoming nuclei collide to produce partons at high momenta early in the collisions. By fragmenting into collimated sprays of hadrons, these partons form 'jets'. The outgoing partons scatter and interact with the medium, leading to a manifestation of medium modifications of jets in the final state, known as jet quenching. Within the framework of perturbative QCD, jet production is well understood in pp collisions. We use jets measured in pp interactions as a baseline reference for comparing to heavy-ion collision systems to detect and study jet quenching. The jet quenching mechanism can be studied through the angular correlations of jets with charged hadrons and is examined in transverse momentum (pT) bins of the jets, pT bins of the associated hadrons, and as a function of collision centrality. A robust and precise background subtraction method is used in this analysis to remove the complex, flow dominated, heavy-ion background. The analysis of angular correlations for different orientations of the jet relative to the event plane allows for the study of the path-length dependence of medium modifications to jets. The event plane dependence of azimuthal angular correlations of charged hadrons with respect to the axis of an R = 0.2 reconstructed full (charged + neutral) jet in Pb-Pb collisions at √{sNN} = 2.76 TeV in ALICE is presented. Results are compared for three angular bins of the jet relative to the event plane in mid-peripheral events. The yields relative to the event plane are presented and then quantified through yield ratio calculations. The results show no significant path-length dependence on the medium modifications.

Structure-function relations in physiology education: Where's the mechanism?

Science.gov (United States)

Lira, Matthew E; Gardner, Stephanie M

2017-06-01

Physiology demands systems thinking: reasoning within and between levels of biological organization and across different organ systems. Many physiological mechanisms explain how structures and their properties interact at one level of organization to produce emergent functions at a higher level of organization. Current physiology principles, such as structure-function relations, selectively neglect mechanisms by not mentioning this term explicitly. We explored how students characterized mechanisms and functions to shed light on how students make sense of these terms. Students characterized mechanisms as 1 ) processes that occur at levels of organization lower than that of functions; and 2 ) as detailed events with many steps involved. We also found that students produced more variability in how they characterized functions compared with mechanisms: students characterized functions in relation to multiple levels of organization and multiple definitions. We interpret these results as evidence that students see mechanisms as holding a more narrow definition than used in the biological sciences, and that students struggle to coordinate and distinguish mechanisms from functions due to cognitive processes germane to learning in many domains. We offer the instructional suggestion that we scaffold student learning by affording students opportunities to relate and also distinguish between these terms so central to understanding physiology. Copyright © 2017 the American Physiological Society.

[Impact of thymic function in age-related immune deterioration].

Science.gov (United States)

Ferrando-Martínez, Sara; de la Fuente, Mónica; Guerrero, Juan Miguel; Leal, Manuel; Muñoz-Fernández, M Ángeles

2013-01-01

Age-related biological deterioration also includes immune system deterioration and, in consequence, a rise in the incidence and prevalence of infections and cancers, as well as low responses to vaccination strategies. Out of all immune cell subsets, T-lymphocytes seem to be involved in most of the age-related defects. Since T-lymphocytes mature during their passage through the thymus, and the thymus shows an age-related process of atrophy, thymic regression has been proposed as the triggering event of this immune deterioration in elderly people. Historically, it has been accepted that the young thymus sets the T-lymphocyte repertoire during the childhood, whereupon atrophy begins until the elderly thymus is a non-functional evolutionary trace. However, a rising body of knowledge points toward the thymus functioning during adulthood. In the elderly, higher thymic function is associated with a younger immune system, while thymic function failure is associated with all-cause mortality. Therefore, any new strategy focused on the improvement of the elderly quality of life, especially those trying to influence the immune system, should take into account, together with peripheral homeostasis, thymus function as a key element in slowing down age-related decline. Copyright © 2012 SEGG. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.

Influence of Concussion History and Genetics on Event-Related Potentials in Athletes: Potential Use in Concussion Management

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Taylor Guth

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Sports-related concussions are an increasing public health issue with much concern about the possible long-term decrements in cognitive function and quality of life that may occur in athletes. The measurement of cognitive function is a common component of concussion management protocols due to cognitive impairments that occur after sustaining a concussion; however, the tools that are often used may not be sensitive enough to expose long term problems with cognitive function. The current paper is a brief review, which suggests that measuring cognitive processing through the use of event related potentials (ERPs may provide a more sensitive assessment of cognitive function, as shown through recent research showing concussion history to influence ERPs components. The potential influence of genetics on cognitive function and ERPs components will also be discussed in relation to future concussion management.

Event-related theta synchronization predicts deficit in facial affect recognition in schizophrenia.

Science.gov (United States)

Csukly, Gábor; Stefanics, Gábor; Komlósi, Sarolta; Czigler, István; Czobor, Pál

2014-02-01

Growing evidence suggests that abnormalities in the synchronized oscillatory activity of neurons in schizophrenia may lead to impaired neural activation and temporal coding and thus lead to neurocognitive dysfunctions, such as deficits in facial affect recognition. To gain an insight into the neurobiological processes linked to facial affect recognition, we investigated both induced and evoked oscillatory activity by calculating the Event Related Spectral Perturbation (ERSP) and the Inter Trial Coherence (ITC) during facial affect recognition. Fearful and neutral faces as well as nonface patches were presented to 24 patients with schizophrenia and 24 matched healthy controls while EEG was recorded. The participants' task was to recognize facial expressions. Because previous findings with healthy controls showed that facial feature decoding was associated primarily with oscillatory activity in the theta band, we analyzed ERSP and ITC in this frequency band in the time interval of 140-200 ms, which corresponds to the N170 component. Event-related theta activity and phase-locking to facial expressions, but not to nonface patches, predicted emotion recognition performance in both controls and patients. Event-related changes in theta amplitude and phase-locking were found to be significantly weaker in patients compared with healthy controls, which is in line with previous investigations showing decreased neural synchronization in the low frequency bands in patients with schizophrenia. Neural synchrony is thought to underlie distributed information processing. Our results indicate a less effective functioning in the recognition process of facial features, which may contribute to a less effective social cognition in schizophrenia. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Using Event-Related Potentials to Study Perinatal Nutrition and Brain Development in Infants of Diabetic Mothers

OpenAIRE

deRegnier, Raye-Ann; Long, Jeffrey D.; Georgieff, Michael K.; Nelson, Charles A.

2007-01-01

Proper prenatal and postnatal nutrition is essential for optimal brain development and function. The early use of event-related potentials enables neuroscientists to study the development of cognitive function from birth and to evaluate the role of specific nutrients in development. Perinatal iron deficiency occurs in severely affected infants of diabetic mothers. In animal models, severe perinatal iron deficiency targets the explicit memory system of the brain. Cross-sectional ERP studies ha...

Only low frequency event-related EEG activity is compromised in multiple sclerosis: insights from an independent component clustering analysis.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hanni Kiiski

Full Text Available Cognitive impairment (CI, often examined with neuropsychological tests such as the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT, affects approximately 65% of multiple sclerosis (MS patients. The P3b event-related potential (ERP, evoked when an infrequent target stimulus is presented, indexes cognitive function and is typically compared across subjects' scalp electroencephalography (EEG data. However, the clustering of independent components (ICs is superior to scalp-based EEG methods because it can accommodate the spatiotemporal overlap inherent in scalp EEG data. Event-related spectral perturbations (ERSPs; event-related mean power spectral changes and inter-trial coherence (ITCs; event-related consistency of spectral phase reveal a more comprehensive overview of EEG activity. Ninety-five subjects (56 MS patients, 39 controls completed visual and auditory two-stimulus P3b event-related potential tasks and the PASAT. MS patients were also divided into CI and non-CI groups (n = 18 in each based on PASAT scores. Data were recorded from 128-scalp EEG channels and 4 IC clusters in the visual, and 5 IC clusters in the auditory, modality were identified. In general, MS patients had significantly reduced ERSP theta power versus controls, and a similar pattern was observed for CI vs. non-CI MS patients. The ITC measures were also significantly different in the theta band for some clusters. The finding that MS patients had reduced P3b task-related theta power in both modalities is a reflection of compromised connectivity, likely due to demyelination, that may have disrupted early processes essential to P3b generation, such as orientating and signal detection. However, for posterior sources, MS patients had a greater decrease in alpha power, normally associated with enhanced cognitive function, which may reflect a compensatory mechanism in response to the compromised early cognitive processing.

Phytophthora megakarya and Phytophthora palmivora, Closely Related Causal Agents of Cacao Black Pod Rot, Underwent Increases in Genome Sizes and Gene Numbers by Different Mechanisms

Science.gov (United States)

Ali, Shahin S.; Shao, Jonathan; Lary, David J.; Kronmiller, Brent A.; Shen, Danyu; Strem, Mary D.; Amoako-Attah, Ishmael; Akrofi, Andrew Yaw; Begoude, B.A. Didier; ten Hoopen, G. Martijn; Coulibaly, Klotioloma; Kebe, Boubacar Ismaël; Melnick, Rachel L.; Guiltinan, Mark J.; Tyler, Brett M.; Meinhardt, Lyndel W.

2017-01-01

Phytophthora megakarya (Pmeg) and Phytophthora palmivora (Ppal) are closely related species causing cacao black pod rot. Although Ppal is a cosmopolitan pathogen, cacao is the only known host of economic importance for Pmeg. Pmeg is more virulent on cacao than Ppal. We sequenced and compared the Pmeg and Ppal genomes and identified virulence-related putative gene models (PGeneM) that may be responsible for their differences in host specificities and virulence. Pmeg and Ppal have estimated genome sizes of 126.88 and 151.23 Mb and PGeneM numbers of 42,036 and 44,327, respectively. The evolutionary histories of Pmeg and Ppal appear quite different. Postspeciation, Ppal underwent whole-genome duplication whereas Pmeg has undergone selective increases in PGeneM numbers, likely through accelerated transposable element-driven duplications. Many PGeneMs in both species failed to match transcripts and may represent pseudogenes or cryptic genetic reservoirs. Pmeg appears to have amplified specific gene families, some of which are virulence-related. Analysis of mycelium, zoospore, and in planta transcriptome expression profiles using neural network self-organizing map analysis generated 24 multivariate and nonlinear self-organizing map classes. Many members of the RxLR, necrosis-inducing phytophthora protein, and pectinase genes families were specifically induced in planta. Pmeg displays a diverse virulence-related gene complement similar in size to and potentially of greater diversity than Ppal but it remains likely that the specific functions of the genes determine each species’ unique characteristics as pathogens. PMID:28186564

Statistical analysis of events related to emergency diesel generators failures in the nuclear industry

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kančev, Duško, E-mail: dusko.kancev@ec.europa.eu [European Commission, DG-JRC, Institute for Energy and Transport, P.O. Box 2, NL-1755 ZG Petten (Netherlands); Duchac, Alexander; Zerger, Benoit [European Commission, DG-JRC, Institute for Energy and Transport, P.O. Box 2, NL-1755 ZG Petten (Netherlands); Maqua, Michael [Gesellschaft für Anlagen-und-Reaktorsicherheit (GRS) mbH, Schwetnergasse 1, 50667 Köln (Germany); Wattrelos, Didier [Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN), BP 17 - 92262 Fontenay-aux-Roses Cedex (France)

2014-07-01

Highlights: • Analysis of operating experience related to emergency diesel generators events at NPPs. • Four abundant operating experience databases screened. • Delineating important insights and conclusions based on the operating experience. - Abstract: This paper is aimed at studying the operating experience related to emergency diesel generators (EDGs) events at nuclear power plants collected from the past 20 years. Events related to EDGs failures and/or unavailability as well as all the supporting equipment are in the focus of the analysis. The selected operating experience was analyzed in detail in order to identify the type of failures, attributes that contributed to the failure, failure modes potential or real, discuss risk relevance, summarize important lessons learned, and provide recommendations. The study in this particular paper is tightly related to the performing of statistical analysis of the operating experience. For the purpose of this study EDG failure is defined as EDG failure to function on demand (i.e. fail to start, fail to run) or during testing, or an unavailability of an EDG, except of unavailability due to regular maintenance. The Gesellschaft für Anlagen und Reaktorsicherheit mbH (GRS) and Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN) databases as well as the operating experience contained in the IAEA/NEA International Reporting System for Operating Experience and the U.S. Licensee Event Reports were screened. The screening methodology applied for each of the four different databases is presented. Further on, analysis aimed at delineating the causes, root causes, contributing factors and consequences are performed. A statistical analysis was performed related to the chronology of events, types of failures, the operational circumstances of detection of the failure and the affected components/subsystems. The conclusions and results of the statistical analysis are discussed. The main findings concerning the testing

Statistical analysis of events related to emergency diesel generators failures in the nuclear industry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kančev, Duško; Duchac, Alexander; Zerger, Benoit; Maqua, Michael; Wattrelos, Didier

2014-01-01

Highlights: • Analysis of operating experience related to emergency diesel generators events at NPPs. • Four abundant operating experience databases screened. • Delineating important insights and conclusions based on the operating experience. - Abstract: This paper is aimed at studying the operating experience related to emergency diesel generators (EDGs) events at nuclear power plants collected from the past 20 years. Events related to EDGs failures and/or unavailability as well as all the supporting equipment are in the focus of the analysis. The selected operating experience was analyzed in detail in order to identify the type of failures, attributes that contributed to the failure, failure modes potential or real, discuss risk relevance, summarize important lessons learned, and provide recommendations. The study in this particular paper is tightly related to the performing of statistical analysis of the operating experience. For the purpose of this study EDG failure is defined as EDG failure to function on demand (i.e. fail to start, fail to run) or during testing, or an unavailability of an EDG, except of unavailability due to regular maintenance. The Gesellschaft für Anlagen und Reaktorsicherheit mbH (GRS) and Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN) databases as well as the operating experience contained in the IAEA/NEA International Reporting System for Operating Experience and the U.S. Licensee Event Reports were screened. The screening methodology applied for each of the four different databases is presented. Further on, analysis aimed at delineating the causes, root causes, contributing factors and consequences are performed. A statistical analysis was performed related to the chronology of events, types of failures, the operational circumstances of detection of the failure and the affected components/subsystems. The conclusions and results of the statistical analysis are discussed. The main findings concerning the testing

Recent results on event-by-event fluctuations in ALICE at the LHC

CERN Document Server

AUTHOR|(CDS)2083375

2015-01-01

Non-statistical event-by-event fluctuations in relativistic heavy-ion collisions have been proposed as a probe of the phase transition of hadronic matter to a deconfined phase of quarks and gluons, the so-called Quark-Gluon Plasma. In a thermodynamical picture of the strongly interacting system formed in heavy-ion collisions, the dynamical fluctuations of net-charge, fluctuations of the mean transverse momentum, mean multiplicity and balance functions are related to the fundamental properties of the system, hence they may reveal information about the QCD phase transition. In this article, recent results on event-by-event measurements of net-charge fluctuations, the measurement of the balance function and mean transverse momentum fluctuations are discussed.

ANALYSIS OF EVENT TOURISM IN RUSSIA, ITS FUNCTIONS, WAYS TO IMPROVE THE EFFICIENCY OF EVENT

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mikhail Yur'evich Grushin

2016-01-01

Full Text Available This article considers one of the important directions of development of the national economy in the area of tourist services – development of event tourism in the Russian Federation. Today the market of event management in Russia is in the process of formation, therefore its impact on the socio-economic development of regions and Russia as a whole is minimal, and the analysis of the influence is not performed. This problem comes to the fore in the regions of Russia, specializing in the creation of event-direction tourist-recreational cluster. The article provides an analysis of the existing market of event management and event tourism functions. Providing the ways to improve the efficiency of event management and recommendations for the organizer of events in the regions. The article shows the specific role of event tourism in the national tourism and provides direction for the development of organizational and methodical recommendations on its formation in the regions of Russia and the creation of an effective management system at the regional level. The purpose of this article is to analyze the emerging in Russia event tourism market and its specifics. On the basis of these studies are considered folding patterns of the new market and the assessment of its impact on the modern national tourism industry. Methodology. To complete this article are used comparative and economic and statistical analysis methods. Conclusions/significance. The practical importance of this article is in the elimination of existing in the national tourism industry contradictions: on the one hand, in the Russian Federation is annually held a large amount events activities, including world-class in all regions say about tourist trips to the event, but the event tourism does not exist yet. In all regions, there is an internal and inbound tourism, but it has nothing to do with the event tourism. The article has a practical conclusions demonstrate the need to adapt the

Individual Differences in Neural Regions Functionally Related to Real and Imagined Stuttering

Science.gov (United States)

Wymbs, Nicholas F.; Ingham, Roger J.; Ingham, Janis C.; Paolini, Katherine E.; Grafton, Scott T.

2013-01-01

Recent brain imaging investigations of developmental stuttering show considerable disagreement regarding which regions are related to stuttering. These divergent findings have been mainly derived from group studies. To investigate functional neurophysiology with improved precision, an individual-participant approach (N = 4) using event-related…

Application of the P300 Event-Related Potential in the Diagnosis of Epilepsy Disorder: A Review

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kandhasamy Sowndhararajan

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Epilepsy is one of the most serious chronical neurological disorders, affecting more than 50 million people worldwide. It can be defined as a spectrum disorder, and patients with epilepsy possess abnormalities in cognitive functions. A number of factors can cause cognitive dysfunctions in epileptic syndromes, including etiology, the age of onset, type of seizure and severity, duration, and antiepileptic drugs. Event-related potentials (ERPs are very useful clinical and research instruments to evaluate cognitive function in patients with neuropsychiatry disorders. Event-related potentials directly reflect cortical neuronal activity and provide a particular level of temporal resolution. Among various ERP components, the P300 is the most important component for assessing cognitive processes such as attention, working memory, and concentration. Numerous studies have reported the abnormalities in amplitude or latency of P300 component of ERP in epileptic patients, and these abnormalities are indicative of cognitive dysfunction. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to consolidate the existing literature in connection with the use of P300 in epileptic patients.

Visualization of Spatio-Temporal Relations in Movement Event Using Multi-View

Science.gov (United States)

Zheng, K.; Gu, D.; Fang, F.; Wang, Y.; Liu, H.; Zhao, W.; Zhang, M.; Li, Q.

2017-09-01

Spatio-temporal relations among movement events extracted from temporally varying trajectory data can provide useful information about the evolution of individual or collective movers, as well as their interactions with their spatial and temporal contexts. However, the pure statistical tools commonly used by analysts pose many difficulties, due to the large number of attributes embedded in multi-scale and multi-semantic trajectory data. The need for models that operate at multiple scales to search for relations at different locations within time and space, as well as intuitively interpret what these relations mean, also presents challenges. Since analysts do not know where or when these relevant spatio-temporal relations might emerge, these models must compute statistical summaries of multiple attributes at different granularities. In this paper, we propose a multi-view approach to visualize the spatio-temporal relations among movement events. We describe a method for visualizing movement events and spatio-temporal relations that uses multiple displays. A visual interface is presented, and the user can interactively select or filter spatial and temporal extents to guide the knowledge discovery process. We also demonstrate how this approach can help analysts to derive and explain the spatio-temporal relations of movement events from taxi trajectory data.

VISUALIZATION OF SPATIO-TEMPORAL RELATIONS IN MOVEMENT EVENT USING MULTI-VIEW

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

K. Zheng

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Spatio-temporal relations among movement events extracted from temporally varying trajectory data can provide useful information about the evolution of individual or collective movers, as well as their interactions with their spatial and temporal contexts. However, the pure statistical tools commonly used by analysts pose many difficulties, due to the large number of attributes embedded in multi-scale and multi-semantic trajectory data. The need for models that operate at multiple scales to search for relations at different locations within time and space, as well as intuitively interpret what these relations mean, also presents challenges. Since analysts do not know where or when these relevant spatio-temporal relations might emerge, these models must compute statistical summaries of multiple attributes at different granularities. In this paper, we propose a multi-view approach to visualize the spatio-temporal relations among movement events. We describe a method for visualizing movement events and spatio-temporal relations that uses multiple displays. A visual interface is presented, and the user can interactively select or filter spatial and temporal extents to guide the knowledge discovery process. We also demonstrate how this approach can help analysts to derive and explain the spatio-temporal relations of movement events from taxi trajectory data.

Ventilator-Related Adverse Events: A Taxonomy and Findings From 3 Incident Reporting Systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Pham, Julius Cuong; Williams, Tamara L; Sparnon, Erin M; Cillie, Tam K; Scharen, Hilda F; Marella, William M

2016-05-01

In 2009, researchers from Johns Hopkins University's Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality; public agencies, including the FDA; and private partners, including the Emergency Care Research Institute and the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC) Safety Intelligence Patient Safety Organization, sought to form a public-private partnership for the promotion of patient safety (P5S) to advance patient safety through voluntary partnerships. The study objective was to test the concept of the P5S to advance our understanding of safety issues related to ventilator events, to develop a common classification system for categorizing adverse events related to mechanical ventilators, and to perform a comparison of adverse events across different adverse event reporting systems. We performed a cross-sectional analysis of ventilator-related adverse events reported in 2012 from the following incident reporting systems: the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority's Patient Safety Reporting System, UHC's Safety Intelligence Patient Safety Organization database, and the FDA's Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience database. Once each organization had its dataset of ventilator-related adverse events, reviewers read the narrative descriptions of each event and classified it according to the developed common taxonomy. A Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, FDA, and UHC search provided 252, 274, and 700 relevant reports, respectively. The 3 event types most commonly reported to the UHC and the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority's Patient Safety Reporting System databases were airway/breathing circuit issue, human factor issues, and ventilator malfunction events. The top 3 event types reported to the FDA were ventilator malfunction, power source issue, and alarm failure. Overall, we found that (1) through the development of a common taxonomy, adverse events from 3 reporting systems can be evaluated, (2) the types of events reported in each database were related

Ventilator-Related Adverse Events: A Taxonomy and Findings From 3 Incident Reporting Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Pham, Julius Cuong; Williams, Tamara L; Sparnon, Erin M; Cillie, Tam K; Scharen, Hilda F; Marella, William M

2016-01-01

BACKGROUND: In 2009, researchers from Johns Hopkins University's Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality; public agencies, including the FDA; and private partners, including the Emergency Care Research Institute and the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC) Safety Intelligence Patient Safety Organization, sought to form a public-private partnership for the promotion of patient safety (P5S) to advance patient safety through voluntary partnerships. The study objective was to test the concept of the P5S to advance our understanding of safety issues related to ventilator events, to develop a common classification system for categorizing adverse events related to mechanical ventilators, and to perform a comparison of adverse events across different adverse event reporting systems. METHODS: We performed a cross-sectional analysis of ventilator-related adverse events reported in 2012 from the following incident reporting systems: the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority's Patient Safety Reporting System, UHC's Safety Intelligence Patient Safety Organization database, and the FDA's Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience database. Once each organization had its dataset of ventilator-related adverse events, reviewers read the narrative descriptions of each event and classified it according to the developed common taxonomy. RESULTS: A Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, FDA, and UHC search provided 252, 274, and 700 relevant reports, respectively. The 3 event types most commonly reported to the UHC and the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority's Patient Safety Reporting System databases were airway/breathing circuit issue, human factor issues, and ventilator malfunction events. The top 3 event types reported to the FDA were ventilator malfunction, power source issue, and alarm failure. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, we found that (1) through the development of a common taxonomy, adverse events from 3 reporting systems can be evaluated, (2) the types of

Stressful life events and leucocyte telomere length

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Osler, Merete; Bendix, Laila; Rask, Lene

2016-01-01

, and markers of low-grade inflammation. A cohort of Danish men born in 1953 has been followed since birth in the Metropolit Cohort. These men underwent a health examination including blood sampling in 2010 and a subset of 324 also had a quantitative PCR-based measurement of TL. The relation between stressful......=-0.02); P=0.05). This relation was particularly strong for being placed away from home (β=-0.16; P... (9%). This study suggests that stressful events in childhood are associated with shorter TL in middle-aged men and that part of this relation is explained by depressive mood and low grade inflammation....

Stressful Life Events in Children With Functional Defecation Disorders

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Philips, Elise M.; Peeters, Babette; Teeuw, Arianne H.; Leenders, Arnold G. E.; Boluyt, Nicole; Brilleslijper-Kater, Sonja N.; Benninga, Marc A.

2015-01-01

The aim of the study was to determine the prevalence of stressful life events including (sexual) abuse in children with functional defecation disorders by performing a systematic review. We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, and PsycINFO for cohort, case-control and cross-sectional studies investigating the

ERPLAB: An Open-Source Toolbox for the Analysis of Event-Related Potentials

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Javier eLopez-Calderon

2014-04-01

Full Text Available ERPLAB Toolbox is a freely available, open-source toolbox for processing and analyzing event-related potential (ERP data in the MATLAB environment. ERPLAB is closely integrated with EEGLAB, a popular open-source toolbox that provides many EEG preprocessing steps and an excellent user interface design. ERPLAB adds to EEGLAB’s EEG processing functions, providing additional tools for filtering, artifact detection, re-referencing, and sorting of events, among others. ERPLAB also provides robust tools for averaging EEG segments together to create averaged ERPs, for creating difference waves and other recombinations of ERP waveforms through algebraic expressions, for filtering and re-referencing the averaged ERPs, for plotting ERP waveforms and scalp maps, and for quantifying several types of amplitudes and latencies. ERPLAB’s tools can be accessed either from an easy-to-learn graphical user interface or from MATLAB scripts, and a command history function makes it easy for users with no programming experience to write scripts. Consequently, ERPLAB provides both ease of use and virtually unlimited power and flexibility, making it appropriate for the analysis of both simple and complex ERP experiments. Several forms of documentation are available, including a detailed user’s guide, a step-by-step tutorial, a scripting guide, and a set of video-based demonstrations.

Patient stratification and identification of adverse event correlations in the space of 1190 drug related adverse events

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Roitmann, Eva; Eriksson, Robert; Brunak, Søren

2014-01-01

New pharmacovigilance methods are needed as a consequence of the morbidity caused by drugs. We exploit fine-grained drug related adverse event information extracted by text mining from electronic medical records (EMRs) to stratify patients based on their adverse events and to determine adverse...

Relating Solar Energetic Particle Event Fluences to Peak Intensities

Science.gov (United States)

Kahler, Stephen W.; Ling, Alan G.

2018-02-01

Recently we (Kahler and Ling, Solar Phys. 292, 59, 2017: KL) have shown that time-intensity profiles [I(t)] of 14 large solar energetic particle (SEP) events can be fitted with a simple two-parameter fit, the modified Weibull function, which is characterized by shape and scaling parameters [α and β]. We now look for a simple correlation between an event peak energy intensity [Ip] and the time integral of I(t) over the event duration: the fluence [F]. We first ask how the ratio of F/Ip varies for the fits of the 14 KL events and then examine that ratio for three separate published statistical studies of SEP events in which both F and Ip were measured for comparisons of those parameters with various solar-flare and coronal mass ejection (CME) parameters. The three studies included SEP energies from a 4 - 13 MeV band to E > 100 MeV. Within each group of SEP events, we find a very robust correlation (CC > 0.90) in log-log plots of F versus Ip over four decades of Ip. The ratio increases from western to eastern longitudes. From the value of Ip for a given event, F can be estimated to within a standard deviation of a factor of {≤} 2. Log-log plots of two studies are consistent with slopes of unity, but the third study shows plot slopes of { 10 MeV to {>} 100 MeV. This difference is not explained.

WANO Activities Related to Identifying and Reducing the Likelihood for Recurring Events

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Llewellyn, Michael

2003-01-01

Since its inception, WANO has encouraged members to share operating experience and events information through the WANO Operating Experience Programme. Preventing recurring events is a prime reason for sharing events information. Over 2500 events have been shared through WANO since 1989. However, a review of WANO activities in 1997 identified that this information was not being used very well by WANO members, and that WANO was not adding much 'value' to the events sharing process. At the time, WANO only provided the 'postal exchange' function for events sharing, and was not reviewing events across WANO to help members focus on the really important issues. Often, these very important issues involve recurring events. As a result of the 1997 review of the WANO operating experience process, WANO re-sourced and developed new analysis capabilities and began producing new types of reports for its members. The resource commitment includes four seconded engineers (one from each WANO Regional Centre) brought to Paris to staff a WANO Operating Experience Central Team. This team analyses events across WANO, writes WANO event reports, provides operating experience-related training, and provides technical support to members to improve their use of operating experience information. One focus area for events analysis by WANO is the identification and subsequent industry notification of recurring events. As a result of the 1997 review of WANO activities, in 1998 WANO began production of several new types of event-based reports to communicate significant industry events to our members. A key focus of analysis of these significant events is whether they are recurring events (that is, very similar to previous events either at that NPP or another NPP in the industry). The reports are called Significant Operating Experience Reports (SOERs) and Significant Event Reports (SERs). Significant Operating Experience Reports (SOERs) are written by WANO when several event reports indicate that

Human event-related brain potentials to auditory periodic noise stimuli.

Science.gov (United States)

Kaernbach, C; Schröger, E; Gunter, T C

1998-02-06

Periodic noise is perceived as different from ordinary non-repeating noise due to the involvement of echoic memory. Since this stimulus does not contain simple physical cues (such as onsets or spectral shape) that might obscure sensory memory interpretations, it is a valuable tool to study sensory memory functions. We demonstrated for the first time that the processing of periodic noise can be tapped by event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Human subjects received repeating segments of noise embedded in non-repeating noise. They were instructed to detect the periodicity inherent to the stimulation. We observed a central negativity time-locked on the periodic segment that correlated to the subjects behavioral performance in periodicity detection. It is argued that the ERP result indicates an enhancement of sensory-specific processing.

Neural network approach in multichannel auditory event-related potential analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, F Y; Slater, J D; Ramsay, R E

1994-04-01

Even though there are presently no clearly defined criteria for the assessment of P300 event-related potential (ERP) abnormality, it is strongly indicated through statistical analysis that such criteria exist for classifying control subjects and patients with diseases resulting in neuropsychological impairment such as multiple sclerosis (MS). We have demonstrated the feasibility of artificial neural network (ANN) methods in classifying ERP waveforms measured at a single channel (Cz) from control subjects and MS patients. In this paper, we report the results of multichannel ERP analysis and a modified network analysis methodology to enhance automation of the classification rule extraction process. The proposed methodology significantly reduces the work of statistical analysis. It also helps to standardize the criteria of P300 ERP assessment and facilitate the computer-aided analysis on neuropsychological functions.

An event-related potential study on memory search for color

OpenAIRE

Miyatani, Makoto; Nakao, Takasi; Ohkawa, Kaori; Sanderson, Nicholas S. R.; Takumi, Ken

2002-01-01

The present study focused on memory search processes in nonverbal working memory. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while subjects engaged in two memory search tasks. Effects of memory set size on event-related potentials were compared between when memory sets consisted of one or four alphabets and when one to three unvocable color patches composed memory sets. In a letter search task, increase of memory set size caused the enlargement of negativities of ERPs between 250 and 450 m...

Emotion and attention: event-related brain potential studies.

Science.gov (United States)

Schupp, Harald T; Flaisch, Tobias; Stockburger, Jessica; Junghöfer, Markus

2006-01-01

Emotional pictures guide selective visual attention. A series of event-related brain potential (ERP) studies is reviewed demonstrating the consistent and robust modulation of specific ERP components by emotional images. Specifically, pictures depicting natural pleasant and unpleasant scenes are associated with an increased early posterior negativity, late positive potential, and sustained positive slow wave compared with neutral contents. These modulations are considered to index different stages of stimulus processing including perceptual encoding, stimulus representation in working memory, and elaborate stimulus evaluation. Furthermore, the review includes a discussion of studies exploring the interaction of motivated attention with passive and active forms of attentional control. Recent research is reviewed exploring the selective processing of emotional cues as a function of stimulus novelty, emotional prime pictures, learned stimulus significance, and in the context of explicit attention tasks. It is concluded that ERP measures are useful to assess the emotion-attention interface at the level of distinct processing stages. Results are discussed within the context of two-stage models of stimulus perception brought out by studies of attention, orienting, and learning.

Gender differences in the implementation of cardiovascular prevention measures after an acute coronary event

OpenAIRE

Dallongeville, Jean; De Bacquer, Dirk; Heidrich, Jan; De Backer, Gui; Prugger, Christoph; Kotseva, Kornelia; Montaye, Michèle; Amouyel, Philippe

2010-01-01

Objective To compare gender-related lifestyle changes and risk factor management after hospitalisation for a coronary event or revascularisation intervention in Europe. Method The EUROASPIRE III survey was carried out in 22 European countries in 2006-2007. Consecutive patients having had a coronary event or revascularisation before the age of 80 were identified. A total of 8966 patients (25.3% women) were interviewed and underwent clinical and biochemical tests at least 6 months after hosp...

Functional Changes of Dendritic Cells in C6 Glioma-Bearing Rats That Underwent Combined Argon-Helium Cryotherapy and IL-12 Treatment.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Ming; Cui, Yao; Li, Xiqing; Guo, Yanwu; Wang, Bin; Zhang, Jiadong; Xu, Jian; Han, Shuangyin; Shi, Xiwen

2016-08-01

The aim of this study was to explore changes in tumor tissues of glioma-bearing rats that underwent argon-helium cryoablation as well as changes in antitumor immunity before and after combined interleukin 12 treatment. Two hundred sixty Wistar rats were randomly divided into a blank control group, intravenous injection interleukin-12 group, cryotherapy group, and cryotherapy + intravenous injection group. C6 glioma cells proliferated in vitro were implanted subcutaneously on the backs of rats to establish C6 glioma-bearing animal models. Each group underwent the corresponding treatments, and morphological changes in tumor tissues were examined using hematoxylin-eosin staining. CD11c staining was examined using immunohistochemistry, and differences in dendritic cells and T-cell subsets before and after treatment were analyzed using flow cytometry. The control group showed no statistical changes in terms of tumor tissue morphology and cellular immunity, cryotherapy group, and cryotherapy + intravenous injection group, among which the count for the cryotherapy + intravenous injection group was significantly higher than those of all other groups. In the argon-helium cryotherapy group, tumor cells were damaged and dendritic cell markers were positive. The number of CD11c+ and CD86+ cells increased significantly after the operation as did the cytokine interferon-γ level (P < .01), suggesting a shift toward Th1-type immunity. Combined treatment of argon-helium cryoablation and interleukin 12 for gliomas not only effectively injured tumor tissues but also boosted immune function and increased antitumor ability. Therefore, this approach is a promising treatment measure for brain gliomas. © The Author(s) 2015.

Uncertainties Related to Extreme Event Statistics of Sewer System Surcharge and Overflow

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schaarup-Jensen, Kjeld; Johansen, C.; Thorndahl, Søren Liedtke

2005-01-01

Today it is common practice - in the major part of Europe - to base design of sewer systems in urban areas on recommended minimum values of flooding frequencies related to either pipe top level, basement level in buildings or level of road surfaces. Thus storm water runoff in sewer systems is only...... proceeding in an acceptable manner, if flooding of these levels is having an average return period bigger than a predefined value. This practice is also often used in functional analysis of existing sewer systems. If a sewer system can fulfil recommended flooding frequencies or not, can only be verified...... by performing long term simulations - using a sewer flow simulation model - and draw up extreme event statistics from the model simulations. In this context it is important to realize that uncertainties related to the input parameters of rainfall runoff models will give rise to uncertainties related...

Relations of Digital Vascular Function, Cardiovascular Risk Factors, and Arterial Stiffness: The Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Adult Health (ELSA‐Brasil) Cohort Study

Science.gov (United States)

Brant, Luisa C. C.; Hamburg, Naomi M.; Barreto, Sandhi M.; Benjamin, Emelia J.; Ribeiro, Antonio L. P.

2014-01-01

Background Vascular dysfunction is an early expression of atherosclerosis and predicts cardiovascular (CV) events. Peripheral arterial tonometry (PAT) evaluates basal pulse amplitude (BPA), endothelial function (PAT ratio), and wave reflection (PAT‐AIx) in the digital microvessels. In Brazilian adults, we investigated the correlations of PAT responses to CV risk factors and to carotid‐femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV), a measure of arterial stiffness. Methods and Results In a cross‐sectional study, 1535 participants of the ELSA‐Brasil cohort underwent PAT testing (52±9 years; 44% women). In multivariable analyses, more‐impaired BPA and PAT ratios were associated with male sex, higher body mass index (BMI), and total cholesterol/high‐density lipoprotein. Higher age and triglycerides were related to higher BPA, whereas lower systolic blood pressure, hypertension (HTN) treatment, and prevalent CV disease (CVD) were associated with lower PAT ratio. PAT‐AIx correlated positively with female sex, advancing age, systolic and diastolic blood pressures, and smoking and inversely to heart rate, height, BMI, and prevalent CVD. Black race was associated with lower BPA, higher PAT ratio, and PAT‐AIx. Microvessel vasodilator function was not associated with PWV. Higher PAT‐AIx was modestly correlated to higher PWV and PAT ratio and inversely correlated to BPA. Conclusion Metabolic risk factors are related to impaired microvessel vasodilator function in Brazil. However, in contrast to studies from the United States, black race was not associated with an impaired microvessel vasodilator response, implying that vascular function may vary by race across populations. PAT‐AIx relates to HTN, may be a valid measure of wave reflection, and provides distinct information from arterial stiffness. PMID:25510401

Neurodevelopment of Conflict Adaptation: Evidence From Event-Related Potentials

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Liu, Xiuying; Liu, Tongran; Shangguan, Fangfang

2018-01-01

Conflict adaptation is key in how children self-regulate and assert cognitive control in a given situation compared with a previous experience. In the current study, we analyzed event-related potentials (ERPs) to identify age-related differences in conflict adaptation. Participants of different a...... to better assimilate and accommodate potential environmental conflicts. The results may also indicate that the development of conflict adaption is affected by the specific characteristic of the different types of conflict.......Conflict adaptation is key in how children self-regulate and assert cognitive control in a given situation compared with a previous experience. In the current study, we analyzed event-related potentials (ERPs) to identify age-related differences in conflict adaptation. Participants of different...... ages (5-year-old children, 10-year-old children, and adults) were subjected to a stimulus-stimulus (S-S) conflict control task (the flanker task) and a stimulus-response (S-R) conflict control task (the Simon task). The behavioral results revealed that all age groups had reliable conflict adaptation...

Event-Related Potentials in a Cued Go-NoGo Task Associated with Executive Functions in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder; A Case-Control Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anne L. Høyland

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Executive functions are often affected in autism spectrum disorders (ASD. The underlying biology is however not well known. In the DSM-5, ASD is characterized by difficulties in two domains: Social Interaction and Repetitive and Restricted Behavior, RRB. Insistence of Sameness is part of RRB and has been reported related to executive functions. We aimed to identify differences between ASD and typically developing (TD adolescents in Event Related Potentials (ERPs associated with response preparation, conflict monitoring and response inhibition using a cued Go-NoGo paradigm. We also studied the effect of age and emotional content of paradigm related to these ERPs. We investigated 49 individuals with ASD and 49 TD aged 12–21 years, split into two groups below (young and above (old 16 years of age. ASD characteristics were quantified by the Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ and executive functions were assessed with the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF, both parent-rated. Behavioral performance and ERPs were recorded during a cued visual Go-NoGo task which included neutral pictures (VCPT and pictures of emotional faces (ECPT. The amplitudes of ERPs associated with response preparation, conflict monitoring, and response inhibition were analyzed. The ASD group showed markedly higher scores than TD in both SCQ and BRIEF. Behavioral data showed no case-control differences in either the VCPT or ECPT in the whole group. While there were no significant case-control differences in ERPs from the combined VCPT and ECPT in the whole sample, the Contingent Negative Variation (CNV was significantly enhanced in the old ASD group (p = 0.017. When excluding ASD with comorbid ADHD we found a significantly increased N2 NoGo (p = 0.016 and N2-effect (p = 0.023 for the whole group. We found no case-control differences in the P3-components. Our findings suggest increased response preparation in adolescents with ASD older than 16 years and

Establishing the functional connectivity of the frontotemporal network in pre-attentive change detection with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and event-related optical signal.

Science.gov (United States)

Tse, Chun-Yu; Long-Yin, Yip; Lui, Troby Ka-Yan; Xiao, Xue-Zhen; Wang, Yang; Chu, Winnie Chiu Wing; Parks, Nathan Allen; Chan, Sandra Sau-Man; Neggers, Sebastiaan Franciscus Wijnandus

2018-06-18

Current theories of pre-attentive deviant detection postulate that before the Superior Temporal Cortex (STC) detects a change, the Inferior Frontal Cortex (IFC) engages in stimulus analysis, which is particularly critical for ambiguous deviations (e.g., deviant preceded by a short train of standards). These theories rest on the assumption that IFC and STC are functionally connected, which has only been supported by correlational brain imaging studies. We examined this functional connectivity assumption by applying Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to disrupt IFC function, while measuring the later STC mismatch response with the event-related optical signal (EROS). EROS can localize brain activity in both spatial and temporal dimensions via measurement of optical property changes associated with neuronal activity, and is inert to the electromagnetic interference produced by TMS. Specifically, the STC mismatch response at 120-180 ms elicited by a deviant preceded by a short standard train when IFC TMS was applied at 80 ms was compared with the STC mismatch responses in temporal control (TMS with 200 ms delay), spatial control (sham TMS at vertex), auditory control (TMS pulse noise only), and cognitive control (deviant preceded by a long standard train) conditions. The STC mismatch response to deviants preceded by the short train was abolished by TMS of the IFC at 80 ms, while the STC responses remained intact in all other control conditions. These results confirm the involvement of the IFC in the STC mismatch response and support a functional connection between IFC and STC. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Functional Programming With Relations

OpenAIRE

Hutton, Graham

1991-01-01

While programming in a relational framework has much to offer over the functional style in terms of expressiveness, computing with relations is less efficient, and more semantically troublesome. In this paper we propose a novel blend of the functional and relational styles. We identify a class of "causal relations", which inherit some of the bi-directionality properties of relations, but retain the efficiency and semantic foundations of the functional style.

Differential activity in left inferior frontal gyrus for pseudo and real words: an event-related functional MRI study on auditory lexical decision

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Xiao Zhuangwei; Xu Weixiong; Zhang Xuexin; Wang Xiaoyi; Weng Xuchu; Wu Renhua; Wu Xiaoping

2006-01-01

Objective: To study lexical processing of pseudo words and real words by using a fast event-related functional MRI (ER-fMRI) design. Methods: Participants did an auditory lexical decision task on a list of pseudo-randomly intermixed real and pseudo Chinese two-character (or two-syllable) words. Pseudo words were constructed by recombining constituent characters of the real words to control for sublexical codes properties. Results: The behavioral performance of fourteen participants indicated that response to pseudowords was significantly slower and less accurate than to real words (mean error rate: 9.9% versus 3.9%, mean reaction time: 1618 ms versus 1143 ms). Processing of pseudo words and real words activated a highly comparable network of brain regions, including bilateral inferior frontal gyrus, superior, middle temporal gyrus, calcarine and lingual gyrus, and left supramarginal gyrus. Mirroring a behavioral lexical effect, left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) was significantly more activated for pseudo words than for real words. Conclusion: The results indicate that the processing of left inferior frontal gyrus in judging pseudo words and real words is not related to grapheme-to-phoneme conversion, but rather to making positive versus negative responses in decision making. (authors)

Prognostic Implication of Functional Incomplete Revascularization and Residual Functional SYNTAX Score in Patients With Coronary Artery Disease.

Science.gov (United States)

Choi, Ki Hong; Lee, Joo Myung; Koo, Bon-Kwon; Nam, Chang-Wook; Shin, Eun-Seok; Doh, Joon-Hyung; Rhee, Tae-Min; Hwang, Doyeon; Park, Jonghanne; Zhang, Jinlong; Kim, Kyung-Jin; Hu, Xinyang; Wang, Jianan; Ye, Fei; Chen, Shaoliang; Yang, Junqing; Chen, Jiyan; Tanaka, Nobuhiro; Yokoi, Hiroyoshi; Matsuo, Hitoshi; Takashima, Hiroaki; Shiono, Yasutsugu; Akasaka, Takashi

2018-02-12

The aim of this study was to investigate the prognostic implication of functional incomplete revascularization (IR) and residual functional SYNTAX (Synergy Between Percutaneous Coronary Intervention With Taxus and Cardiac Surgery) score (rFSS) in comparison with 3-vessel fractional flow reserve (FFR) and residual SYNTAX score. IR is associated with poor clinical outcomes in patients who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention. A total of 385 patients who underwent 3-vessel FFR measurement after stent implantation were included in this study. The rFSS was defined as residual SYNTAX score measured only in vessels with FFR ≤0.8. The study population was divided into the functional IR group (rFSS ≥1) and the functional complete revascularization (CR) group (rFSS = 0). The primary outcome was major adverse cardiac events (MACEs; a composite of cardiac death, myocardial infarction, and ischemia-driven revascularization) at 2 years. Functional CR was achieved in 283 patients (73.5%). At 2-year follow-up, the functional IR group showed a significantly higher risk for MACEs (functional IR vs. CR, 14.6% vs. 4.2%; hazard ratio: 4.09; 95% confidence interval: 1.82 to 9.21; p system (rFSS) after stent implantation better discriminated the risk for adverse events than anatomic or physiological assessment alone. (Clinical Implication of 3-Vessel Fractional Flow Reserve [FFR]; NCT01621438). Copyright © 2018 American College of Cardiology Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Purchase decision involvement: Event management segments and related event behavior

Science.gov (United States)

Rodney B. Warnick; David C. Bojanic

2012-01-01

The goal of this research was to examine the relationships between different levels of event purchase decision involvement (PDI) segments and their respective event behaviors (e.g., expenditures, travel behavior, event consumption and satisfaction). The specific purpose was to answer two major research questions: 1) Can PDI identify different levels or segments of...

Age, intelligence, and event-related brain potentials during late childhood: A longitudinal study.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Molenaar, P.C.M.; Molen, M.W.; Stauder, J.E.A.

2003-01-01

he relation between event-related brain activity, age, and intelligence was studied using a visual oddball task presented longitudinally to girls at 9, 10, and 11 years of age. The event-related brain potential (ERP) components showed typical gradual decrements in latency and amplitude with

A frontal cortex event-related potential driven by the basal forebrain

Science.gov (United States)

Nguyen, David P; Lin, Shih-Chieh

2014-01-01

Event-related potentials (ERPs) are widely used in both healthy and neuropsychiatric conditions as physiological indices of cognitive functions. Contrary to the common belief that cognitive ERPs are generated by local activity within the cerebral cortex, here we show that an attention-related ERP in the frontal cortex is correlated with, and likely generated by, subcortical inputs from the basal forebrain (BF). In rats performing an auditory oddball task, both the amplitude and timing of the frontal ERP were coupled with BF neuronal activity in single trials. The local field potentials (LFPs) associated with the frontal ERP, concentrated in deep cortical layers corresponding to the zone of BF input, were similarly coupled with BF activity and consistently triggered by BF electrical stimulation within 5–10 msec. These results highlight the important and previously unrecognized role of long-range subcortical inputs from the BF in the generation of cognitive ERPs. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.02148.001 PMID:24714497

Mastication accelerates Go/No-go decisional processing: An event-related potential study.

Science.gov (United States)

Sakamoto, Kiwako; Nakata, Hiroki; Yumoto, Masato; Sadato, Norihiro; Kakigi, Ryusuke

2015-11-01

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of mastication on Go/No-go decisional processing using event-related potentials (ERPs). Thirteen normal subjects underwent seven sessions of a somatosensory Go/No-go paradigm for approximately 4min; Pre, and Post 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. The Control condition included the same seven sessions. The RT and standard deviation were recorded, and the peak amplitude and latency of the N140 and P300 components were analyzed. The RT was significantly shorter in Mastication than in Control at Post 1-3 and 4-6. The peak latency of N140 was earlier in Mastication than in Control at Post 4-6. The latency of N140 was shortened by repeated sessions in Mastication, but not by those in Control. The peak latency of P300 was significantly shorter in Mastication than in Control at Post 4-6. The peak latency of P300 was significantly longer in Control with repeated sessions, but not in Mastication. These results suggest that mastication may influence response execution processing in Go trials, as well as response inhibition processing in No-go trials. Mastication accelerated Go/No-go decisional processing in the human brain. Copyright © 2015 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Measurements of flavour dependent fragmentation functions in $Z^{0} \\to q\\overline{q}$ events

CERN Document Server

Ackerstaff, K.; Allison, John; Altekamp, N.; Anderson, K.J.; Anderson, S.; Arcelli, S.; Asai, S.; Ashby, S.F.; Axen, D.; Azuelos, G.; Ball, A.H.; Barberio, E.; Barlow, Roger J.; Bartoldus, R.; Batley, J.R.; Baumann, S.; Bechtluft, J.; Behnke, T.; Bell, Kenneth Watson; Bella, G.; Bentvelsen, S.; Bethke, S.; Betts, S.; Biebel, O.; Biguzzi, A.; Bird, S.D.; Blobel, V.; Bloodworth, I.J.; Bobinski, M.; Bock, P.; Bohme, J.; Boutemeur, M.; Braibant, S.; Bright-Thomas, P.; Brown, Robert M.; Burckhart, H.J.; Burgard, C.; Burgin, R.; Capiluppi, P.; Carnegie, R.K.; Carter, A.A.; Carter, J.R.; Chang, C.Y.; Charlton, David G.; Chrisman, D.; Ciocca, C.; Clarke, P.E.L.; Clay, E.; Cohen, I.; Conboy, J.E.; Cooke, O.C.; Couyoumtzelis, C.; Coxe, R.L.; Cuffiani, M.; Dado, S.; Dallavalle, G.Marco; Davis, R.; De Jong, S.; del Pozo, L.A.; De Roeck, A.; Desch, K.; Dienes, B.; Dixit, M.S.; Doucet, M.; Dubbert, J.; Duchovni, E.; Duckeck, G.; Duerdoth, I.P.; Eatough, D.; Estabrooks, P.G.; Etzion, E.; Evans, H.G.; Fabbri, F.; Fanfani, A.; Fanti, M.; Faust, A.A.; Fiedler, F.; Fierro, M.; Fischer, H.M.; Fleck, I.; Folman, R.; Furtjes, A.; Futyan, D.I.; Gagnon, P.; Gary, J.W.; Gascon, J.; Gascon-Shotkin, S.M.; Geich-Gimbel, C.; Geralis, T.; Giacomelli, G.; Giacomelli, P.; Gibson, V.; Gibson, W.R.; Gingrich, D.M.; Glenzinski, D.; Goldberg, J.; Gorn, W.; Grandi, C.; Gross, E.; Grunhaus, J.; Gruwe, M.; Hanson, G.G.; Hansroul, M.; Hapke, M.; Hargrove, C.K.; Hartmann, C.; Hauschild, M.; Hawkes, C.M.; Hawkings, R.; Hemingway, R.J.; Herndon, M.; Herten, G.; Heuer, R.D.; Hildreth, M.D.; Hill, J.C.; Hillier, S.J.; Hobson, P.R.; Hocker, James Andrew; Homer, R.J.; Honma, A.K.; Horvath, D.; Hossain, K.R.; Howard, R.; Huntemeyer, P.; Igo-Kemenes, P.; Imrie, D.C.; Ishii, K.; Jacob, F.R.; Jawahery, A.; Jeremie, H.; Jimack, M.; Joly, A.; Jones, C.R.; Jovanovic, P.; Junk, T.R.; Karlen, D.; Kartvelishvili, V.; Kawagoe, K.; Kawamoto, T.; Kayal, P.I.; Keeler, R.K.; Kellogg, R.G.; Kennedy, B.W.; Klier, A.; Kluth, S.; Kobayashi, T.; Kobel, M.; Koetke, D.S.; Kokott, T.P.; Kolrep, M.; Komamiya, S.; Kowalewski, Robert V.; Kress, T.; Krieger, P.; von Krogh, J.; Kyberd, P.; Lafferty, G.D.; Lanske, D.; Lauber, J.; Lautenschlager, S.R.; Lawson, I.; Layter, J.G.; Lazic, D.; Lee, A.M.; Lefebvre, E.; Lellouch, D.; Letts, J.; Levinson, L.; Liebisch, R.; List, B.; Littlewood, C.; Lloyd, A.W.; Lloyd, S.L.; Loebinger, F.K.; Long, G.D.; Losty, M.J.; Ludwig, J.; Lui, D.; Macchiolo, A.; Macpherson, A.; Mannelli, M.; Marcellini, S.; Markopoulos, C.; Martin, A.J.; Martin, J.P.; Martinez, G.; Mashimo, T.; Mattig, Peter; McDonald, W.John; McKenna, J.; Mckigney, E.A.; McMahon, T.J.; McPherson, R.A.; Meijers, F.; Menke, S.; Merritt, F.S.; Mes, H.; Meyer, J.; Michelini, A.; Mihara, S.; Mikenberg, G.; Miller, D.J.; Mir, R.; Mohr, W.; Montanari, A.; Mori, T.; Nagai, K.; Nakamura, I.; Neal, H.A.; Nellen, B.; Nisius, R.; O'Neale, S.W.; Oakham, F.G.; Odorici, F.; Ogren, H.O.; Oreglia, M.J.; Orito, S.; Palinkas, J.; Pasztor, G.; Pater, J.R.; Patrick, G.N.; Patt, J.; Perez-Ochoa, R.; Petzold, S.; Pfeifenschneider, P.; Pilcher, J.E.; Pinfold, J.; Plane, David E.; Poffenberger, P.; Poli, B.; Polok, J.; Przybycien, M.; Rembser, C.; Rick, H.; Robertson, S.; Robins, S.A.; Rodning, N.; Roney, J.M.; Roscoe, K.; Rossi, A.M.; Rozen, Y.; Runge, K.; Runolfsson, O.; Rust, D.R.; Sachs, K.; Saeki, T.; Sahr, O.; Sang, W.M.; Sarkisian, E.K.G.; Sbarra, C.; Schaile, A.D.; Schaile, O.; Scharf, F.; Scharff-Hansen, P.; Schieck, J.; Schmitt, B.; Schmitt, S.; Schoning, A.; Schorner, T.; Schroder, Matthias; Schumacher, M.; Schwick, C.; Scott, W.G.; Seuster, R.; Shears, T.G.; Shen, B.C.; Shepherd-Themistocleous, C.H.; Sherwood, P.; Siroli, G.P.; Sittler, A.; Skuja, A.; Smith, A.M.; Snow, G.A.; Sobie, R.; Soldner-Rembold, S.; Sproston, M.; Stahl, A.; Stephens, K.; Steuerer, J.; Stoll, K.; Strom, David M.; Strohmer, R.; Tafirout, R.; Talbot, S.D.; Tanaka, S.; Taras, P.; Tarem, S.; Teuscher, R.; Thiergen, M.; Thomson, M.A.; von Torne, E.; Torrence, E.; Towers, S.; Trigger, I.; Trocsanyi, Z.; Tsur, E.; Turcot, A.S.; Turner-Watson, M.F.; Van Kooten, Rick J.; Vannerem, P.; Verzocchi, M.; Vikas, P.; Voss, H.; Wackerle, F.; Wagner, A.; Ward, C.P.; Ward, D.R.; Watkins, P.M.; Watson, A.T.; Watson, N.K.; Wells, P.S.; Wermes, N.; White, J.S.; Wilson, G.W.; Wilson, J.A.; Wyatt, T.R.; Yamashita, S.; Yekutieli, G.; Zacek, V.; Zer-Zion, D.

1999-01-01

Fragmentation functions for charged particles in Z -> qq(bar) events have been measured for bottom (b), charm (c) and light (uds) quarks as well as for all flavours together. The results are based on data recorded between 1990 and 1995 using the OPAL detector at LEP. Event samples with different flavour compositions were formed using reconstructed D* mesons and secondary vertices. The \\xi_p = ln(1/x_E) distributions and the position of their maxima \\xi_max are also presented separately for uds, c and b quark events. The fragmentation function for b quarks is significantly softer than for uds quarks.

Proprioceptive event related potentials: gating and task effects

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Arnfred, Sidse M

2005-01-01

The integration of proprioception with vision, touch or audition is considered basic to the developmental formation of perceptions, conceptual objects and the creation of cognitive schemes. Thus, mapping of proprioceptive information processing is important in cognitive research. A stimulus...... of a brisk change of weight on a hand held load elicit a proprioceptive evoked potential (PEP). Here this is used to examine early and late information processing related to weight discrimination by event related potentials (ERP)....

Sleep disturbance relates to neuropsychological functioning in late-life depression.

Science.gov (United States)

Naismith, Sharon L; Rogers, Naomi L; Lewis, Simon J G; Terpening, Zoë; Ip, Tony; Diamond, Keri; Norrie, Louisa; Hickie, Ian B

2011-07-01

Sleep-wake disturbance in older people is a risk factor for depression onset and recurrence. The aim of this study was to determine if objective sleep-wake disturbance in late-life depression relates to neuropsychological functioning. Forty-four older patients with a lifetime history of major depression and 22 control participants underwent psychiatric, medical and neuropsychological assessments. Participants completed self-report sleep measures, sleep diaries and wore wrist actigraphy for two weeks. Outcome measures included sleep latency, the number and duration of nocturnal awakenings and the overall sleep efficiency. Patients with depression had a greater duration of nocturnal awakenings and poorer sleep efficiency, in comparison to control participants. Sleep disturbance in patients was associated with greater depression severity and later ages of depression onset. It also related to poorer psychomotor speed, poorer verbal and visual learning, poorer semantic fluency as well as poorer performance on tests of executive functioning. These relationships largely remained significant after controlling for depression and estimated apnoea severity. This sample had only mild levels of depression severity and results require replication in patients with moderate to severe depression. The inclusion of polysomnography and circadian markers would be useful to delineate the specific features of sleep-wake disturbance that are critical to cognitive performance. Sleep-wake disturbance in older patients with depression is related to neuropsychological functioning and to later ages of illness onset. This study suggests that common neurobiological changes may underpin these disease features, which may, in turn, warrant early identification and management. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Hostile attribution biases for relationally provocative situations and event-related potentials.

Science.gov (United States)

Godleski, Stephanie A; Ostrov, Jamie M; Houston, Rebecca J; Schlienz, Nicolas J

2010-04-01

This exploratory study investigates how hostile attribution biases for relationally provocative situations may be related to neurocognitive processing using the P300 event-related potential. Participants were 112 (45 women) emerging adults enrolled in a large, public university in upstate New York. Participants completed self-report measures on relational aggression and hostile attribution biases and performed an auditory perseveration task to elicit the P300. It was found that hostile attribution biases for relational provocation situations was associated with a larger P300 amplitude above and beyond the role of hostile attribution biases for instrumental situations, relational aggression, and gender. Larger P300 amplitude is interpreted to reflect greater allocation of cognitive resources or enhanced "attending" to salient stimuli. Implications for methodological approaches to studying aggression and hostile attribution biases and for theory are discussed, as well as implications for the fields of developmental psychology and psychopathology. Copyright 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Joint effect of alcohol consumption and educational level on alcohol-related medical events

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nordahl Christensen, Helene; Diderichsen, Finn; Hvidtfeldt, Ulla Arthur

2017-01-01

alcohol consumption at baseline using self-administrated questionnaires. Information on highest attained education 1 year before study entry and hospital and mortality data on alcohol-related medical events were obtained through linkage to nationwide registries. We performed analyses using the Aalen...... may also play a role. We investigated the joint effect of alcohol consumption and educational level on the rate of alcohol-related medical events.Methods: We pooled seven prospective cohorts from Denmark that enrolled 74,278 men and women age 30–70 years (study period, 1981 to 2009). We measured...... additive hazards model.Results: During follow-up (1,085,049 person-years), a total of 1718 alcohol-related events occurred. The joint effect of very high alcohol consumption (>21 [>28] drinks per week in women [men]) and low education on alcohol-related events exceeded the sum of their separate effects...

Evaluation of common mode failure of safety functions for limiting fault events

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rezendes, J.P.; Hyde, A.W.

2004-01-01

The draft U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) policy on digital protection system software requires all Advanced Light Water Reactors (ALWRs) to be evaluated assuming a hypothetical common mode failure (CMF) which incapacitates the normal automatic initiation of safety functions. The System 80 + ALWR has been evaluated for such hypothetical conditions. The results show that the diverse automatic and manual protective systems in System 80 + provide ample safety performance margins relative to core coolability, offsite radiological releases. Reactor Coolant System (RCS) pressurization and containment integrity. This deterministic evaluation served to quantify the significant inherent safety margins in the System 80 + Standard Plant design even in the event of this extremely low probability scenario of a common mode failure. (author)

Economic burden related to chemotherapy-related adverse events in patients with metastatic breast cancer in an integrated health care system

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rashid N

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Nazia Rashid,1 Han A Koh,2 Hilda C Baca,3 Kathy J Lin,1 Susan E Malecha,4 Anthony Masaquel5 1Drug Information Services, Kaiser Permanente, Downey, 2Southern California Permanente Medical Group, Kaiser Permanente, Bellflower, 3Pharmacy Analytical Services, Kaiser Permanente, Downey, 4US Medical Affairs, Genetech Inc., San Francisco, 5Health Economics and Outcomes, Genentech Inc., San Francisco, CA, USA Background: Breast cancer is treated with many different modalities, including chemotherapy that can be given as a single agent or in combination. Patients often experience adverse events from chemotherapy during the cycles of treatment which can lead to economic burden.Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate costs related to chemotherapy-related adverse events in patients with metastatic breast cancer (mBC in an integrated health care delivery system.Methods: Patients with mBC newly initiated on chemotherapy were identified and the first infusion was defined as the index date. Patients were ≥18 years old at time of index date, had at least 6 months of health plan membership and drug eligibility prior to their index date. The chemotherapy adverse events were identified after the index date and during first line of chemotherapy. Episodes of care (EOC were created using healthcare visits. Chart review was conducted to establish whether the adverse events were related to chemotherapy. Costs were calculated for each visit, including medications related to the adverse events, and aggregated to calculate the total EOC cost.Results: A total of 1,682 patients with mBC were identified after applying study criteria; 54% of these patients had one or more adverse events related to chemotherapy. After applying the EOC method, there were a total of 5,475 episodes (4,185 single episodes [76.4%] and 1,290 multiple episodes [23.6%] related to chemotherapy-related adverse events. Within single episodes, hematological (1,387 EOC, 33

Relational and conjunctive binding functions dissociate in short-term memory.

Science.gov (United States)

Parra, Mario A; Fabi, Katia; Luzzi, Simona; Cubelli, Roberto; Hernandez Valdez, Maria; Della Sala, Sergio

2015-02-01

Remembering complex events requires binding features within unified objects (conjunctions) and holding associations between objects (relations). Recent studies suggest that the two functions dissociate in long-term memory (LTM). Less is known about their functional organization in short-term memory (STM). The present study investigated this issue in patient AE affected by a stroke which caused damage to brain regions known to be relevant for relational functions both in LTM and in STM (i.e., the hippocampus). The assessment involved a battery of standard neuropsychological tasks and STM binding tasks. One STM binding task (Experiment 1) presented common objects and common colors forming either pairs (relations) or integrated objects (conjunctions). Free recall of relations or conjunctions was assessed. A second STM binding task used random polygons and non-primary colors instead (Experiment 2). Memory was assessed by selecting the features that made up the relations or the conjunctions from a set of single polygons and a set of single colors. The neuropsychological assessment revealed impaired delayed memory in AE. AE's pronounced relational STM binding deficits contrasted with his completely preserved conjunctive binding functions in both Experiments 1 and 2. Only 2.35% and 1.14% of the population were expected to have a discrepancy more extreme than that presented by AE in Experiments 1 and 2, respectively. Processing relations and conjunctions of very elementary nonspatial features in STM led to dissociating performances in AE. These findings may inform current theories of memory decline such as those linked to cognitive aging.

Specific neural basis of Chinese idioms processing: an event-related functional MRI study

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen Shaoqi; Zhang Yanzhen; Xiao Zhuangwei; Zhang Xuexin

2007-01-01

Objective: To address the neural basis of Chinese idioms processing with different kinds of stimuli using an event-related fMRI design. Methods: Sixteen native Chinese speakers were asked to perform a semantic decision task during fMRI scanning. Three kinds of stimuli were used: Real idioms (Real-idiom condition); Literally plausible phrases (Pseudo-idiom condition, the last character of a real idiom was replaced by a character with similar meaning); Literally implausible strings (Non-idiom condition, the last character of a real idiom was replaced by a character with unrelated meaning). Reaction time and correct rate were recorded at the same time. Results: The error rate was 2.6%, 5.2% and 0.9% (F=3.51, P 0.05) for real idioms, pseudo-idioms and wrong idioms, respectively. Similar neural network was activated in all of the three conditions. However, the right hippocampus was only activated in the real idiom condition, and significant activations were found in anterior portion of left inferior frontal gyms (BA47) in real-and pseudo-idiom conditions, but not in non-idiom condition. Conclusion: The right hippocampus plays a specific role in the particular wording of the Chinese idioms. And the left anterior inferior frontal gyms (BA47) may be engaged in the semantic processing of Chinese idioms. The results support the notion that there were specific neural bases for Chinese idioms processing. (authors)

Adverse events related to gastrointestinal endoscopic procedures in pediatric patients under anesthesia care and a predictive risk model (AEGEP Study).

Science.gov (United States)

Ariza, F; Montilla-Coral, D; Franco, O; González, L F; Lozano, L C; Torres, A M; Jordán, J; Blanco, L F; Suárez, L; Cruz, G; Cepeda, M

2014-01-01

Multiple studies have analyzed perioperative factors related to adverse events (AEs) in children who require gastrointestinal endoscopic procedures (GEP) in settings where deep sedation is the preferred anesthetic technique over general anesthesia (GA) but not for the opposite case. We reviewed our anesthesia institutional database, seeking children less than 12 years who underwent GEP over a 5-year period. A logistic regression was used to determine significant associations between preoperative conditions, characteristics of the procedure, airway management, anesthetic approaches and the presence of serious and non-serious AEs. GA was preferred over deep sedation [77.8% vs. 22.2% in 2178 GEP under anesthesia care (n=1742)]. We found 96 AEs reported in 77 patients, including hypoxemia (1.82%), bronchospasm (1.14%) and laryngospasm (0.91%) as the most frequent. There were 2 cases of severe bradycardia related to laryngospasm/hypoxemia and a case of aspiration resulting in unplanned hospitalization, but there were no cases of intra- or postoperative deaths. Final predictive model for perioperative AEs included age risk factors and ventilation by facial mask as a protector against these events (prisk factors for AEs in these patients. Copyright © 2013 Sociedad Española de Anestesiología, Reanimación y Terapéutica del Dolor. Published by Elsevier España. All rights reserved.

Using Active Learning to Identify Health Information Technology Related Patient Safety Events.

Science.gov (United States)

Fong, Allan; Howe, Jessica L; Adams, Katharine T; Ratwani, Raj M

2017-01-18

The widespread adoption of health information technology (HIT) has led to new patient safety hazards that are often difficult to identify. Patient safety event reports, which are self-reported descriptions of safety hazards, provide one view of potential HIT-related safety events. However, identifying HIT-related reports can be challenging as they are often categorized under other more predominate clinical categories. This challenge of identifying HIT-related reports is exacerbated by the increasing number and complexity of reports which pose challenges to human annotators that must manually review reports. In this paper, we apply active learning techniques to support classification of patient safety event reports as HIT-related. We evaluated different strategies and demonstrated a 30% increase in average precision of a confirmatory sampling strategy over a baseline no active learning approach after 10 learning iterations.

Intracerebral Event-related Potentials to Subthreshold Target Stimuli

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Brázdil, M.; Rektor, I.; Daniel, P.; Dufek, M.; Jurák, Pavel

2001-01-01

Roč. 112, č. 4 (2001), s. 650-661 ISSN 1388-2457 R&D Projects: GA ČR GA309/98/0490 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z2065902 Keywords : event-related potentials * intracerebral recordings * oddball paradigm Subject RIV: FA - Cardiovascular Diseases incl. Cardiotharic Surgery Impact factor: 1.922, year: 2001

Usefulness of Beta2-Microglobulin as a Predictor of All-Cause and Nonculprit Lesion-Related Cardiovascular Events in Acute Coronary Syndromes (from the PROSPECT Study).

Science.gov (United States)

Möckel, Martin; Muller, Reinhold; Searle, Julia; Slagman, Anna; De Bruyne, Bernard; Serruys, Patrick; Weisz, Giora; Xu, Ke; Holert, Fabian; Müller, Christian; Maehara, Akiko; Stone, Gregg W

2015-10-01

In the Providing Regional Observations to Study Predictors of Events in the Coronary Tree (PROSPECT) study, plaque burden, plaque composition, and minimal luminal area were associated with an increased risk of adverse cardiovascular events arising from untreated atherosclerotic lesions (vulnerable plaques) in patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS). We sought to evaluate the utility of biomarker profiling and clinical risk factors to predict 3-year all-cause and nonculprit lesion-related major adverse cardiac events (MACEs). Of 697 patients who underwent successful percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for ACS, an array of 28 baseline biomarkers was analyzed. Median follow-up was 3.4 years. Beta2-microglobulin displayed the strongest predictive power of all variables assessed for all-cause and nonculprit lesion-related MACE. In a classification and regression tree analysis, patients with beta2-microglobulin >1.92 mg/L had an estimated 28.7% 3-year incidence of all-cause MACE; C-peptide 1.92 mg/L identified a cohort with a 3-year rate of 18.5%, and C-peptide PROSPECT study, beta2-microglobulin strongly predicted all-cause and nonculprit lesion-related MACE within 3 years after PCI in ACS. C-peptide and HDL provided further risk stratification to identify angiographically mild nonculprit lesions prone to future MACE. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

An evaluation model of protective function in forest management planning: slope stability in regard to shallow landslide events

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

2006-01-01

Full Text Available The evaluation of forest protective function has been divided into four main branches according to the different types of instability phenomena (landslide events, erosion, floods, avalanches. This paper presents the first module related to landslide events and will be followed by others. Two opposing factors have been considered: instability tendency of a selected land unit and protective function of the vegetation. While the first factor tends to promote landslide events, the second one opposes their occurrence. An expert evaluation of these aspects allows us to derive some qualitative indexes. For each territorial unit, these indexes express the protection value of vegetation, the degree of management restrictions and suitable improvements to the forest cover. Both propension and protective functional character are influenced by many and different parameters which require multidisciplinary competences to correctly evaluate them. Such skills are not easily found in technicians in charge of forest management. The present paper aims to provide a decision making support tool; based on neural network models, it should be able to interpret and simulate the expert knowledge, extending to the "standard" forest technician the opportunity to perform such a kind of evaluation. The neural network training required the identification and characterization of explanatory variables related to both aspects, and the subsequent expert definition of the respective datasets of real classification examples. The descriptive variables were chosen considering the information availability and its compatibility with GIS techniques as well. Model performances have been validated by testing the whole procedure in two sites situated in Antrona valley (Piemonte and Acqualagna (Marche. The results are discussed in detail and put in evidence a good accordance with both field survey and general conceptual assumptions. Future developments will involve similar analysis and

A 3 T event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study of primary and secondary gustatory cortex localization using natural tastants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Smits, Marion; Peeters, Ronald R.; Hecke, Paul van; Sunaert, Stefan

2007-01-01

It is known that taste is centrally represented in the insula, frontal and parietal operculum, as well as in the orbitofrontal cortex (secondary gustatory cortex). In functional MRI (fMRI) experiments activation in the insula has been confirmed, but activation in the orbitofrontal cortex is only infrequently found, especially at higher field strengths (3 T). Due to large susceptibility artefacts, the orbitofrontal cortex is a difficult region to examine with fMRI. Our aim was to localize taste in the human cortex at 3 T, specifically in the orbitofrontal cortex as well as in the primary gustatory cortex. Event-related fMRI was performed at 3 T in seven healthy volunteers. Taste stimuli consisted of lemon juice and chocolate. To visualize activation in the orbitofrontal cortex a dedicated 3D SENSE EPI fMRI sequence was used, in addition to a 2D SENSE EPI fMRI sequence for imaging the entire brain. Data were analyzed using a perception-based model. The dedicated 3D SENSE EPI sequence successfully reduced susceptibility artefacts in the orbitofrontal area. Significant taste-related activation was found in the orbitofrontal and insular cortices. fMRI of the orbitofrontal cortex is feasible at 3 T, using a dedicated sequence. Our results corroborate findings from previous studies. (orig.)

A 3 T event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study of primary and secondary gustatory cortex localization using natural tastants

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Smits, Marion [Erasmus MC, University Medical Center Rotterdam, Department of Radiology, P.O. Box 2040, CA Rotterdam (Netherlands); K.U.Leuven, Department of Radiology, University Hospitals, Leuven (Belgium); Peeters, Ronald R.; Hecke, Paul van; Sunaert, Stefan [K.U.Leuven, Department of Radiology, University Hospitals, Leuven (Belgium)

2007-01-15

It is known that taste is centrally represented in the insula, frontal and parietal operculum, as well as in the orbitofrontal cortex (secondary gustatory cortex). In functional MRI (fMRI) experiments activation in the insula has been confirmed, but activation in the orbitofrontal cortex is only infrequently found, especially at higher field strengths (3 T). Due to large susceptibility artefacts, the orbitofrontal cortex is a difficult region to examine with fMRI. Our aim was to localize taste in the human cortex at 3 T, specifically in the orbitofrontal cortex as well as in the primary gustatory cortex. Event-related fMRI was performed at 3 T in seven healthy volunteers. Taste stimuli consisted of lemon juice and chocolate. To visualize activation in the orbitofrontal cortex a dedicated 3D SENSE EPI fMRI sequence was used, in addition to a 2D SENSE EPI fMRI sequence for imaging the entire brain. Data were analyzed using a perception-based model. The dedicated 3D SENSE EPI sequence successfully reduced susceptibility artefacts in the orbitofrontal area. Significant taste-related activation was found in the orbitofrontal and insular cortices. fMRI of the orbitofrontal cortex is feasible at 3 T, using a dedicated sequence. Our results corroborate findings from previous studies. (orig.)

Brain Signals of Face Processing as Revealed by Event-Related Potentials

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ela I. Olivares

2015-01-01

Full Text Available We analyze the functional significance of different event-related potentials (ERPs as electrophysiological indices of face perception and face recognition, according to cognitive and neurofunctional models of face processing. Initially, the processing of faces seems to be supported by early extrastriate occipital cortices and revealed by modulations of the occipital P1. This early response is thought to reflect the detection of certain primary structural aspects indicating the presence grosso modo of a face within the visual field. The posterior-temporal N170 is more sensitive to the detection of faces as complex-structured stimuli and, therefore, to the presence of its distinctive organizational characteristics prior to within-category identification. In turn, the relatively late and probably more rostrally generated N250r and N400-like responses might respectively indicate processes of access and retrieval of face-related information, which is stored in long-term memory (LTM. New methods of analysis of electrophysiological and neuroanatomical data, namely, dynamic causal modeling, single-trial and time-frequency analyses, are highly recommended to advance in the knowledge of those brain mechanisms concerning face processing.

Political Imprisonment and Adult Functioning: A Life Event History Analysis of Palestinians.

Science.gov (United States)

McNeely, Clea; Barber, Brian K; Spellings, Carolyn; Belli, Robert; Giacaman, Rita; Arafat, Cairo; Daher, Mahmoud; El Sarraj, Eyad; Mallouh, Mohammed Abu

2015-06-01

Political imprisonment is a traumatic event, often accompanied by torture and deprivation. This study explores the association of political imprisonment between 1987 and 2011 with political, economic, community, psychological, physical, and family functioning in a population-based sample of Palestinian men ages 32-43 years (N = 884) derived from a dataset collected in 2011. Twenty-six percent (n = 233) had been politically imprisoned. Men imprisoned between 1987 and 2005 reported functioning as well as never-imprisoned men in most domains, suggesting that men imprisoned as youth have moved forward with their lives in ways similar to their nonimprisoned counterparts. In an exception to this pattern, men imprisoned during the Oslo Accords period (1994-1999) reported higher levels of trauma-related stress (B = 0.24, p = .027) compared to never-imprisoned men. Men imprisoned since 2006 reported lower functioning in multiple domains: human insecurity (B = 0.33, p = .023), freedom of public expression (B = -0.48, p = .017), perceived government stability (B = -0.38, p = .009), feeling broken or destroyed (B = 0.59, p = .001), physical limitations (B = 0.55, p = .002), and community belonging (B = -0.33, p = .048). Findings pointed to the value of examining the effects of imprisonment on functioning in multiple domains. © 2015 International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.

Association between respiratory events and nocturnal gastroesophageal reflux events in patients with coexisting obstructive sleep apnea and gastroesophageal reflux disease.

Science.gov (United States)

Jaimchariyatam, Nattapong; Tantipornsinchai, Warangkana; Desudchit, Tayard; Gonlachanvit, Sutep

2016-06-01

Literature has addressed the increased prevalence of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) in obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Significant improvement of GERD has been found after OSA treatment. However, precise mechanisms underlying this correlation remain unclear. We examined the association between nocturnal gastroesophageal reflux (GER) and sleep events in patients with coexisting OSA and GERD. A case-crossover study among 12 patients with coexisting moderate-severe OSA and GERD was conducted. Participants underwent simultaneous polysomnography and esophageal impedance and pH monitoring. GER subtypes (ie, acid reflux, non-acid reflux) were defined as outcomes. Respective control time points were selected in all eligible control periods. Each sleep event was assessed individually. Estimated odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were analyzed. A p-value of reflux and 28 non-acid reflux. Arousals and awakenings were significantly associated with subsequent GER events. The OR for GER following an arousal was 2.31 (95% CI 1.39-3.68; p  0.05). Both awakening and arousal appear to precipitate any subtype of GER events in patients with coexisting GERD and moderate to severe OSA. However, GER events were significantly less likely to occur after other respiratory events and did not appear to cause sleep-related events. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Introducing the event related fixed interval area (ERFIA) multilevel technique: a method to analyze the complete epoch of event-related potentials at single trial level

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vossen, C.J.; Vossen, H.G.M.; Marcus, M.A.E.; van Os, J.; Lousberg, R.

2013-01-01

In analyzing time-locked event-related potentials (ERPs), many studies have focused on specific peaks and their differences between experimental conditions. In theory, each latency point after a stimulus contains potentially meaningful information, regardless of whether it is peak-related. Based on

Life event stress in duodenal ulcer compared with functional dyspepsia: A case-control study

OpenAIRE

Abdel Hafeiz Hassan; Al Quorain Abdulaziz; Karim Ahmed; Al-Mangoor Shuaa

1997-01-01

This is a prospective study of life event stress in 80 duodenal ulcer patients compared with 80 patients with functional dyspepsia and 80 healthy controls; matched for age, sex and marital status. A semi structured psychiatric interview was used in the psychiatric assessment of the dyspeptic patients and controls. A modified version of Life Events Scale by Tennant and Andrews was used in the assessment of life event stress. More dyspeptic patients reported life events than the controls, but, ...

Relative timing of last glacial maximum and late-glacial events in the central tropical Andes

Science.gov (United States)

Bromley, Gordon R. M.; Schaefer, Joerg M.; Winckler, Gisela; Hall, Brenda L.; Todd, Claire E.; Rademaker, Kurt M.

2009-11-01

Whether or not tropical climate fluctuated in synchrony with global events during the Late Pleistocene is a key problem in climate research. However, the timing of past climate changes in the tropics remains controversial, with a number of recent studies reporting that tropical ice age climate is out of phase with global events. Here, we present geomorphic evidence and an in-situ cosmogenic 3He surface-exposure chronology from Nevado Coropuna, southern Peru, showing that glaciers underwent at least two significant advances during the Late Pleistocene prior to Holocene warming. Comparison of our glacial-geomorphic map at Nevado Coropuna to mid-latitude reconstructions yields a striking similarity between Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and Late-Glacial sequences in tropical and temperate regions. Exposure ages constraining the maximum and end of the older advance at Nevado Coropuna range between 24.5 and 25.3 ka, and between 16.7 and 21.1 ka, respectively, depending on the cosmogenic production rate scaling model used. Similarly, the mean age of the younger event ranges from 10 to 13 ka. This implies that (1) the LGM and the onset of deglaciation in southern Peru occurred no earlier than at higher latitudes and (2) that a significant Late-Glacial event occurred, most likely prior to the Holocene, coherent with the glacial record from mid and high latitudes. The time elapsed between the end of the LGM and the Late-Glacial event at Nevado Coropuna is independent of scaling model and matches the period between the LGM termination and Late-Glacial reversal in classic mid-latitude records, suggesting that these events in both tropical and temperate regions were in phase.

Event centrality in trauma and PTSD: relations between event relevance and posttraumatic symptoms

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Thiago Loreto Garcia da Silva

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Recent investigations propose that cognitive characteristics of autobiographical memory significantly interact with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD. A traumatic event becoming more or less central in a person’s identity and life story might influence development of the disorder. Studies show high correlations between event centrality (EC and PTSD. Participated in this study 68 treatment-seeking individuals referred to a specialized service for suspected trauma-related disorder: 39 matched criteria for PTSD and 29 were exposed to trauma without PTSD. Our aims were to explore how the groups differ regarding EC, depression, anxiety, posttraumatic cognitions, PTSD symptom severity, and peritraumatic dissociative experience; and how distinctively EC interacts with the measures in each group. The PTSD group had higher scores in all variables but dissociation. EC correlated with overall PTSD symptoms only in the PTSD group and with dissociation only in the no-PTSD group. Findings support a model emphasizing the role of memory processes in PTSD. People exposed to trauma who developed PTSD had the memory of the traumatic experience more intensively governing their sense of self and thus eliciting more negative cognitive reactions. As EC facilitates recollection of the traumatic event, it could also mediate a semantization process that reinforces and increases posttraumatic symptoms.

J/$\\psi$ production as a function of event multiplicity in pp collisions at $\\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV using EMCal-triggered events with ALICE at the LHC arXiv

CERN Document Server

Jahnke, Cristiane

The study of the J/$\\psi$ production in pp collisions provides important information on perturbative and non-perturbative quantum chromodynamics. Using high multiplicity pp events, we can study how charmonium production depends on the event activity. These measurements are used to investigate the possible influence of multiple partonic interactions to the J/$\\psi$ production and the interplay between soft and hard processes.In this work we report on studies of J/$\\psi$ production as a function of event multiplicity in pp collisions at $\\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV at mid-rapidity with ALICE. The J/$\\psi$ are reconstructed via their dielectron decay channel in events where at least one of the decay electrons was triggered on by the Electromagnetic Calorimeter (EMCal). The availability of a high-$p_{\\rm T}$ electron trigger enhances the sampled luminosity significantly relative to the available minimum-bias triggered data set and extends the $p_{\\rm T}$ reach for the J/$\\psi$ measurement. Using these data, the J/$\\psi$ m...

The "Mozart effect": an electroencephalographic analysis employing the methods of induced event-related desynchronization/synchronization and event-related coherence.

Science.gov (United States)

Jausovec, Norbert; Habe, Katarina

2003-01-01

The event-related responses of 18 individuals were recorded while they were listening to 3 music clips of 6 s duration which were repeated 30 times each. The music clips differed in the level of their complex structure, induced mood, musical tempo and prominent frequency. They were taken from Mozart's sonata (K. 448), and Brahms' Hungarian dance (no. 5). The third clip was a simplified version of the theme taken from Haydn's symphony (no. 94) played by a computer synthesizer. Significant differences in induced event-related desynchronization between the 3 music clips were only observed in the lower-1 alpha band which is related to attentional processes. A similar pattern was observed for the coherence measures. While respondents listened to the Mozart clip, coherence in the lower alpha bands increased more, whereas in the gamma band a less pronounced increase was observed as compared with the Brahms and Haydn clips. The clustering of the three clips based on EEG measures distinguished between the Mozart clip on the one hand, and the Haydn and Brahms clips on the other, even though the Haydn and Brahms clips were at the opposite extremes with regard to the mood they induced in listeners, musical tempo, and complexity of structure. This would suggest that Mozart's music--with no regard to the level of induced mood, musical tempo and complexity--influences the level of arousal. It seems that modulations in the frequency domain of Mozart's sonata have the greatest influence on the reported neurophysiological activity.

Reciprocal Benefits of Mass-Univariate and Multivariate Modeling in Brain Mapping: Applications to Event-Related Functional MRI, H215O-, and FDG-PET

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

James R. Moeller

2006-01-01

Full Text Available In brain mapping studies of sensory, cognitive, and motor operations, specific waveforms of dynamic neural activity are predicted based on theoretical models of human information processing. For example in event-related functional MRI (fMRI, the general linear model (GLM is employed in mass-univariate analyses to identify the regions whose dynamic activity closely matches the expected waveforms. By comparison multivariate analyses based on PCA or ICA provide greater flexibility in detecting spatiotemporal properties of experimental data that may strongly support alternative neuroscientific explanations. We investigated conjoint multivariate and mass-univariate analyses that combine the capabilities to (1 verify activation of neural machinery we already understand and (2 discover reliable signatures of new neural machinery. We examined combinations of GLM and PCA that recover latent neural signals (waveforms and footprints with greater accuracy than either method alone. Comparative results are illustrated with analyses of real fMRI data, adding to Monte Carlo simulation support.

Blind Separation of Event-Related Brain Responses into Independent Components

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Makeig, Scott

1996-01-01

.... We report here a method for the blind separation of event-related brain responses into spatially stationary and temporally independent subcomponents using an Independent Component Analysis algorithm...

Glucose enhancement of event-related potentials associated with episodic memory and attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Brown, Louise A; Riby, Leigh M

2013-04-30

Previous studies have reported that increasing glycaemia by a glucose-containing drink enhances memory functioning. The aim of the present study was to extend this literature by examining the effects of glucose on episodic memory as well as attention processes, and to investigate associated event-related potential (ERP) markers. Fifteen minutes after treatment (25 g glucose or placebo drink), 35 participants performed an old/new recognition memory task and a Stroop colour naming task. Consistent with previous research, when controlling for glucose regulation, cognitive facilitation was observed behaviourally for verbal memory, but there was also a trend towards attentional facilitation. Furthermore, across both domains, it was the most demanding task conditions that exhibited glucose sensitivity. In support of the behavioural results, the analysis of ERPs across treatment groups revealed an enhanced left-parietal old/new effect related to recollection, and also suggested modulation of attentional processes. The results suggest that glucose may facilitate attention as well as memory.

Depressive and anxiety disorders in epilepsy: do they differ in their potential to worsen common antiepileptic drug-related adverse events?

Science.gov (United States)

Kanner, Andres M; Barry, John J; Gilliam, Frank; Hermann, Bruce; Meador, Kimford J

2012-06-01

To compare the effect of anxiety disorders, major depressive episodes (MDEs), and subsyndromic depressive episodes (SSDEs) on antiepileptic drug (AED)-related adverse events (AEs) in persons with epilepsy (PWE). The study included 188 consecutive PWE from five U.S. outpatient epilepsy clinics, all of whom underwent structured interviews (SCID) to identify current and past mood disorders and other current Axis I psychiatric diagnoses according to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) criteria. A diagnosis of SSDE was made in patients with total Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) scores >12 or the Centers of Epidemiologic Studies-Depression (CES-D) > 16 (in the absence of any DSM diagnosis of mood disorder. The presence and severity of AEs was measured with the Adverse Event Profile (AEP). Compared to asymptomatic patients (n = 103), the AEP scores of patients with SSDE (n = 26), MDE only (n = 10), anxiety disorders only (n = 21), or mixed MDE/anxiety disorders (n = 28) were significantly higher, suggesting more severe AED-related AEs. Univariate analyses revealed that having persistent seizures in the last 6 months and taking antidepressants was associated with more severe AEs. Post hoc analyses, however, showed that these differences were accounted for by the presence of a depressive and/or anxiety disorders. Depressive and anxiety disorders worsen AED-related AEs even when presenting as a subsyndromic type. These data suggest that the presence of psychiatric comorbidities must be considered in their interpretation, both in clinical practice and AED drug trials. Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2012 International League Against Epilepsy.

Early disrupted neurovascular coupling and changed event level hemodynamic response function in type 2 diabetes: an fMRI study.

Science.gov (United States)

Duarte, João V; Pereira, João M S; Quendera, Bruno; Raimundo, Miguel; Moreno, Carolina; Gomes, Leonor; Carrilho, Francisco; Castelo-Branco, Miguel

2015-10-01

Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) patients develop vascular complications and have increased risk for neurophysiological impairment. Vascular pathophysiology may alter the blood flow regulation in cerebral microvasculature, affecting neurovascular coupling. Reduced fMRI signal can result from decreased neuronal activation or disrupted neurovascular coupling. The uncertainty about pathophysiological mechanisms (neurodegenerative, vascular, or both) underlying brain function impairments remains. In this cross-sectional study, we investigated if the hemodynamic response function (HRF) in lesion-free brains of patients is altered by measuring BOLD (Blood Oxygenation Level-Dependent) response to visual motion stimuli. We used a standard block design to examine the BOLD response and an event-related deconvolution approach. Importantly, the latter allowed for the first time to directly extract the true shape of HRF without any assumption and probe neurovascular coupling, using performance-matched stimuli. We discovered a change in HRF in early stages of diabetes. T2DM patients show significantly different fMRI response profiles. Our visual paradigm therefore demonstrated impaired neurovascular coupling in intact brain tissue. This implies that functional studies in T2DM require the definition of HRF, only achievable with deconvolution in event-related experiments. Further investigation of the mechanisms underlying impaired neurovascular coupling is needed to understand and potentially prevent the progression of brain function decrements in diabetes.

Tweeting Supertyphoon Haiyan: Evolving Functions of Twitter during and after a Disaster Event

Science.gov (United States)

David, Clarissa C.; Ong, Jonathan Corpus; Legara, Erika Fille T.

2016-01-01

When disaster events capture global attention users of Twitter form transient interest communities that disseminate information and other messages online. This paper examines content related to Typhoon Haiyan (locally known as Yolanda) as it hit the Philippines and triggered international humanitarian response and media attention. It reveals how Twitter conversations about disasters evolve over time, showing an issue attention cycle on a social media platform. The paper examines different functions of Twitter and the information hubs that drive and sustain conversation about the event. Content analysis shows that the majority of tweets contain information about the typhoon or its damage, and disaster relief activities. There are differences in types of content between the most retweeted messages and posts that are original tweets. Original tweets are more likely to come from ordinary users, who are more likely to tweet emotions, messages of support, and political content compared with official sources and key information hubs that include news organizations, aid organization, and celebrities. Original tweets reveal use of the site beyond information to relief coordination and response. PMID:27019425

Tweeting Supertyphoon Haiyan: Evolving Functions of Twitter during and after a Disaster Event.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Clarissa C David

Full Text Available When disaster events capture global attention users of Twitter form transient interest communities that disseminate information and other messages online. This paper examines content related to Typhoon Haiyan (locally known as Yolanda as it hit the Philippines and triggered international humanitarian response and media attention. It reveals how Twitter conversations about disasters evolve over time, showing an issue attention cycle on a social media platform. The paper examines different functions of Twitter and the information hubs that drive and sustain conversation about the event. Content analysis shows that the majority of tweets contain information about the typhoon or its damage, and disaster relief activities. There are differences in types of content between the most retweeted messages and posts that are original tweets. Original tweets are more likely to come from ordinary users, who are more likely to tweet emotions, messages of support, and political content compared with official sources and key information hubs that include news organizations, aid organization, and celebrities. Original tweets reveal use of the site beyond information to relief coordination and response.

Life stress versus traumatic stress: The impact of life events on psychological functioning in children with and without serious illness.

Science.gov (United States)

Willard, Victoria W; Long, Alanna; Phipps, Sean

2016-01-01

To determine the differential impact of potentially traumatic events (PTEs) and other stressful life events on psychological functioning in 2 groups of children: those with cancer and those without history of serious illness. Children with cancer age 8-17 (n = 254) and age-, sex-, and race/ethnicity-matched controls (n = 142) completed self-report measures of stressful life events and psychological functioning. Stressful life events included those that may meet Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 2000) A1 criteria (PTEs; 9 events) and others that would likely not (other events; 21 events). Children with cancer endorsed significantly more PTEs than control children. There were no differences between groups in number of other events experienced. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that number of other events accounted for significant variance in psychological functioning, above and beyond group status, demographic factors (age and socioeconomic status), and number of PTEs. The number of cumulative other events experienced is a significant predictor of psychological functioning in both youth with serious illness and controls. In contrast, cumulative PTEs appear to have a minor (albeit significant) impact on children's psychological functioning. Assessment of psychological functioning would benefit from a thorough history of stressful life events, regardless of their potential traumatic impact. (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Event-related frontal alpha asymmetries: electrophysiological correlates of approach motivation.

Science.gov (United States)

Schöne, Benjamin; Schomberg, Jessica; Gruber, Thomas; Quirin, Markus

2016-02-01

Over the last decades, frontal alpha asymmetries observed during resting state periods of several minutes have been used as a marker of affective-motivational states. To date, there is no evidence that alpha asymmetries can be observed in response to brief affective-motivational stimuli, as typically presented in event-related designs. As we argue, frontal alpha asymmetry might indeed be elicited by brief events if they are salient enough. In an event-related design, we used erotic pictures, i.e., highly salient incentives to elicit approach motivation, and contrasted them with pictures of dressed attractive women. As expected, we found significant alpha asymmetries for erotic pictures as compared to control pictures. Our findings suggest that the highly reactive reward system can lead to immediate, phasic changes in frontal alpha asymmetries. We discuss the findings with respect to the notion that high salience of erotic pictures derives from their potential of satisfying an individuals' need by mere visual inspection, which is not the case for pictures showing other types of motivational stimuli such as food.

Suicide in Relation to the Experience of Stressful Life Events

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Fjeldsted, Rita; Teasdale, Thomas William; Jensen, Martin

2017-01-01

Stressful life events have been associated with high risk of suicidal behavior. The aim of this study was to examine whether persons who died by suicide in Denmark had more frequently been exposed to stressful life events, specifically divorce, death of a close relative, exposure to violence......, and imprisonment, when compared to gender and age-matched controls. Data from Danish national registers were obtained for the period of 2000-2010 and a nested case-control design was applied. The association between exposure to stressful life events and suicide was examined using logistic regression analysis...... compared to controls. People who died by suicide had 1.5-fold (CI-95%: 1.3-1.6) higher risk of having experienced a divorce. Stressful life events, such as divorce and imprisonment, were more frequent in temporal proximity to the date of death among the suicide cases than for end of exposure for controls...

The development of prospective memory (PM across adolescence: An Event-related potential analysis.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Candice eBowman

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Prospective memory (PM is an important cognitive function vital for day-to-day functioning. Although there has been extensive research into the decline of PM in older adulthood, little is known about its developmental trajectory throughout adolescence, a time of important brain maturation. In the present study, the development of PM was examined in 85 participants across the following groups: 12 to 13-year-olds (n = 19, 14 to 15-year-olds (n = 21, 16 to 17-year-olds (n = 19, and 18 to 19-year-olds (n = 26. A 30-cue (30 minute event-based PM task (with font-colour stimuli as PM cues and a lexical-decision task as the ongoing task was used while recording Event-Related Potentials (ERPs. The well-established neural correlates of PM, the N300 and parietal positivity, were examined across the age groups. In addition, hierarchical multiple regressions were used to examine the unique contribution of executive functioning measures (viz., the Self-Ordered Pointing Task [SOPT], the Stroop task, and Trail Making Test [TMT] on the ERP components of PM (after controlling for age. First, the established components of ERPs associated with prospective remembering (i.e., N300 and parietal positivity were detected for each age group. Second, although there were no significant age- group differences on the amplitude of the N300, the amplitude of the parietal positivity was found to be different between the 12 to 13-year-olds and 18 to 19-year-olds (viz., the 12 to 13-year-olds had the highest amplitude. Third, for the contribution of executive functioning measures on the amplitude of the ERP components of PM, the regression on the N300 was not significant, however, the SOPT beta weights were significant predictors of the amplitude of the parietal positivity. This relationship was found to be specific for the central and right electrode region. These findings are discussed within the context of brain development and executive functioning along with particular task

Event and Apparent Horizon Finders for 3 + 1 Numerical Relativity.

Science.gov (United States)

Thornburg, Jonathan

2007-01-01

Event and apparent horizons are key diagnostics for the presence and properties of black holes. In this article I review numerical algorithms and codes for finding event and apparent horizons in numerically-computed spacetimes, focusing on calculations done using the 3 + 1 ADM formalism. The event horizon of an asymptotically-flat spacetime is the boundary between those events from which a future-pointing null geodesic can reach future null infinity and those events from which no such geodesic exists. The event horizon is a (continuous) null surface in spacetime. The event horizon is defined nonlocally in time : it is a global property of the entire spacetime and must be found in a separate post-processing phase after all (or at least the nonstationary part) of spacetime has been numerically computed. There are three basic algorithms for finding event horizons, based on integrating null geodesics forwards in time, integrating null geodesics backwards in time, and integrating null surfaces backwards in time. The last of these is generally the most efficient and accurate. In contrast to an event horizon, an apparent horizon is defined locally in time in a spacelike slice and depends only on data in that slice, so it can be (and usually is) found during the numerical computation of a spacetime. A marginally outer trapped surface (MOTS) in a slice is a smooth closed 2-surface whose future-pointing outgoing null geodesics have zero expansion Θ. An apparent horizon is then defined as a MOTS not contained in any other MOTS. The MOTS condition is a nonlinear elliptic partial differential equation (PDE) for the surface shape, containing the ADM 3-metric, its spatial derivatives, and the extrinsic curvature as coefficients. Most "apparent horizon" finders actually find MOTSs. There are a large number of apparent horizon finding algorithms, with differing trade-offs between speed, robustness, accuracy, and ease of programming. In axisymmetry, shooting algorithms work well

ATLAS TDAQ/DCS Event Filter Event Handler Requirements

CERN Document Server

Bee, C P; Meessen, C; Qian, Z; Touchard, F; Green, P; Pinfold, J L; Wheeler, S; Negri, A; Scannicchio, D A; Vercesi, V

2002-01-01

The second iteration of the Software Development Process of the ATLAS Event Filter has been launched. A summary of the design phase of the first iteration is given in the introduction. The document gives constraints, use cases, functional and non-functional requirements for the Event Handler sub-system of the Event Filter.

Functional definition of the N450 event-related brain potential marker of conflict processing: a numerical stroop study

Science.gov (United States)

2012-01-01

Background Several conflict processing studies aimed to dissociate neuroimaging phenomena related to stimulus and response conflict processing. However, previous studies typically did not include a paradigm-independent measure of either stimulus or response conflict. Here we have combined electro-myography (EMG) with event-related brain potentials (ERPs) in order to determine whether a particularly robust marker of conflict processing, the N450 ERP effect usually related to the activity of the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC), is related to stimulus- or to response-conflict processing. EMG provided paradigm-independent measure of response conflict. In a numerical Stroop paradigm participants compared pairs of digits and pressed a button on the side where they saw the larger digit. 50% of digit-pairs were preceded by an effective cue which provided accurate information about the required response. 50% of trials were preceded by a neutral cue which did not communicate the side of response. Results EMG showed that response conflict was significantly larger in neutrally than in effectively cued trials. The N450 was similar when response conflict was high and when it was low. Conclusions We conclude that the N450 is related to stimulus or abstract, rather than to response conflict detection/resolution. Findings may enable timing ACC conflict effects. PMID:22452924

Functional definition of the N450 event-related brain potential marker of conflict processing: a numerical stroop study.

Science.gov (United States)

Szűcs, Dénes; Soltész, Fruzsina

2012-03-27

Several conflict processing studies aimed to dissociate neuroimaging phenomena related to stimulus and response conflict processing. However, previous studies typically did not include a paradigm-independent measure of either stimulus or response conflict. Here we have combined electro-myography (EMG) with event-related brain potentials (ERPs) in order to determine whether a particularly robust marker of conflict processing, the N450 ERP effect usually related to the activity of the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC), is related to stimulus- or to response-conflict processing. EMG provided paradigm-independent measure of response conflict. In a numerical Stroop paradigm participants compared pairs of digits and pressed a button on the side where they saw the larger digit. 50% of digit-pairs were preceded by an effective cue which provided accurate information about the required response. 50% of trials were preceded by a neutral cue which did not communicate the side of response. EMG showed that response conflict was significantly larger in neutrally than in effectively cued trials. The N450 was similar when response conflict was high and when it was low. We conclude that the N450 is related to stimulus or abstract, rather than to response conflict detection/resolution. Findings may enable timing ACC conflict effects.

Assessment of relative individual renal function based on DMSA uptake corrected for renal size

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Estorch, M.; Camacho, V.; Tembl, A.; Mena, I.; Hernandez, A.; Flotats, A.; Carrio, I.; Torres, G.; Prat, L.

2002-01-01

Decreased relative renal DMSA uptake can be a consequence of abnormal kidney size, associated with normal or impaired renal function. The quantification of relative renal function based on DMSA uptake in both kidneys is an established method for the assessment of individual renal function. Aim: To assess relative renal function by means of quantification of renal DMSA uptake corrected for kidney size. Results were compared with relative renal DMSA uptake without size correction, and were validated against the absolute renal DMSA uptake. Material and Methods: Four-hundred-forty-four consecutive patients (147 adults, mean age 14 years) underwent a DMSA study for several renal diseases. The relative renal function, based on the relative DMSA uptake uncorrected and corrected for renal size, and the absolute renal DMSA uptake were calculated. In order to relate the relative DMSA uptake uncorrected and corrected for renal size with the absolute DMSA uptake, subtraction of uncorrected (SU) and corrected (SC) relative uptake percentages of each pair of kidneys was obtained, and these values were correlated to the matched subtraction percentages of absolute uptake (SA). If the individual relative renal function is normal (45%-55%), the subtraction value is less or equal to 10%. Results: In 227 patients (51%) the relative renal DMSA uptake value was normal either uncorrected or corrected for renal size (A), and in 149 patients (34%) it was abnormal by both quantification methods (B). Seventy-seven patients (15%) had the relative renal DMSA uptake abnormal only by the uncorrected method (C). Subtraction value of absolute DMSA uptake percentages was not significantly different of subtraction value of relative DMSA uptake percentages corrected for renal size when relative uncorrected uptake was abnormal and corrected normal. where * p<0.0001, and p=NS. Conclusion: When uncorrected and corrected relative DMSA uptake are abnormal, the absolute uptake is also impaired, while when

Emotion and attention : Event-related brain potential studies

OpenAIRE

Schupp, Harald Thomas; Flaisch, Tobias; Stockburger, Jessica; Junghöfer, Markus

2006-01-01

Emotional pictures guide selective visual attention. A series of event-related brain potential (ERP) studies is reviewed demonstrating the consistent and robust modulation of specific ERP components by emotional images. Specifically, pictures depicting natural pleasant and unpleasant scenes are associated with an increased early posterior negativity, late positive potential, and sustained positive slow wave compared with neutral contents. These modulations are considered to index different st...

Decision Trajectories in Dementia Care Networks: Decisions and Related Key Events.

Science.gov (United States)

Groen-van de Ven, Leontine; Smits, Carolien; Oldewarris, Karen; Span, Marijke; Jukema, Jan; Eefsting, Jan; Vernooij-Dassen, Myrra

2017-10-01

This prospective multiperspective study provides insight into the decision trajectories of people with dementia by studying the decisions made and related key events. This study includes three waves of interviews, conducted between July 2010 and July 2012, with 113 purposefully selected respondents (people with beginning to advanced stages of dementia and their informal and professional caregivers) completed in 12 months (285 interviews). Our multilayered qualitative analysis consists of content analysis, timeline methods, and constant comparison. Four decision themes emerged-managing daily life, arranging support, community living, and preparing for the future. Eight key events delineate the decision trajectories of people with dementia. Decisions and key events differ between people with dementia living alone and living with a caregiver. Our study clarifies that decisions relate not only to the disease but to living with the dementia. Individual differences in decision content and sequence may effect shared decision-making and advance care planning.

Analysis of Paks NPP Personnel Activity during Safety Related Event Sequences

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bareith, A.; Hollo, Elod; Karsa, Z.; Nagy, S.

1998-01-01

Within the AGNES Project (Advanced Generic and New Evaluation of Safety) the Level-1 PSA model of the Paks NPP Unit 3 was developed in form of a detailed event tree/fault tree structure (53 initiating events, 580 event sequences, 6300 basic events are involved). This model gives a good basis for quantitative evaluation of potential consequences of actually occurred safety-related events, i.e. for precursor event studies. To make these studies possible and efficient, the current qualitative event analysis practice should be reviewed and a new additional quantitative analysis procedure and system should be developed and applied. The present paper gives an overview of the method outlined for both qualitative and quantitative analyses of the operator crew activity during off-normal situations. First, the operator performance experienced during past operational events is discussed. Sources of raw information, the qualitative evaluation process, the follow-up actions, as well as the documentation requirements are described. Second, the general concept of the proposed precursor event analysis is described. Types of modeled interactions and the considered performance influences are presented. The quantification of the potential consequences of the identified precursor events is based on the task-oriented, Level-1 PSA model of the plant unit. A precursor analysis system covering the evaluation of operator activities is now under development. Preliminary results gained during a case study evaluation of a past historical event are presented. (authors)

Clinical usefulness and feasibility of time-frequency analysis of chemosensory event-related potentials.

Science.gov (United States)

Huart, C; Rombaux, Ph; Hummel, T; Mouraux, A

2013-09-01

The clinical usefulness of olfactory event-related brain potentials (OERPs) to assess olfactory function is limited by the relatively low signal-to-noise ratio of the responses identified using conventional time-domain averaging. Recently, it was shown that time-frequency analysis of the obtained EEG signals can markedly improve the signal-to-noise ratio of OERPs in healthy controls, because it enhances both phase-locked and non phase-locked EEG responses. The aim of the present study was to investigate the clinical usefulness of this approach and evaluate its feasibility in a clinical setting. We retrospectively analysed EEG recordings obtained from 45 patients (15 anosmic, 15 hyposmic and 15 normos- mic). The responses to olfactory stimulation were analysed using conventional time-domain analysis and joint time-frequency analysis. The ability of the two methods to discriminate between anosmic, hyposmic and normosmic patients was assessed using a Receiver Operating Characteristic analysis. The discrimination performance of OERPs identified using conventional time-domain averaging was poor. In contrast, the discrimination performance of the EEG response identified in the time-frequency domain was relatively high. Furthermore, we found a significant correlation between the magnitude of this response and the psychophysical olfactory score. Time-frequency analysis of the EEG responses to olfactory stimulation could be used as an effective and reliable diagnostic tool for the objective clinical evaluation of olfactory function in patients.

Approach to assess consequences of hypoxia disturbance events for benthic ecosystem functioning

Science.gov (United States)

Gogina, Mayya; Darr, Alexander; Zettler, Michael L.

2014-01-01

Our study challenges the functional approach for its usefulness in assessing the consequences of hypoxia disturbance events on macrofaunal communities in the south-western Baltic Sea. Time series for two decades of observations from two monitoring stations, one in the Fehmarnbelt (exposed to aperiodic hypoxia), and another in the Darss Rise (normoxic conditions) is used. Our results designate differences of functional structure of benthic fauna communities between sites based on biological traits that characterise species role in modifying the environment, behavioural strategies, morphology and life history, thus suggesting differences in functioning. Hypoxic years reveal sharp increase of the role of sedentary species, suspension filter feeders, epibenthic structures, globulose form, medium/large size of individuals, preponderance of species with long lifespan (caused for instance by remaining ocean quahog). The link of functional and species diversity to the stagnation periods is proposed for the Darss station that exhibit continuous changes and low temporal variability of traits distribution. Before the major inflow in 1993 the increased role of small size organisms, containing calcium carbonate, filter feeders and grazers, higher presence of semi-pelagic species is observed. The hypoxic events and water renewal processes impact the communities not only in respect to species composition but also functionally.

Discordance between olfactory psychophysical measurements and olfactory event related potentials in five patients with olfactory dysfunction following upper respiratory infection.

Science.gov (United States)

Guan, Jing; Ni, Dao-feng; Wang, Jian; Gao, Zhi-qiang

2009-07-05

Subjective olfactory tests are easy to perform and popularly applied in the clinic, but using only these, it is difficult to diagnose all disorders of the olfactory system. The olfactory event related potentials technique offers further insight into the olfactory system and is an ideal objective test. This analysis was of subjective and objective data on the olfactory function of twelve patients with loss of smell associated with an upper respiratory infection (URI). We tested the twelve patients with URI induced olfactory loss by medical history, physical examination of the head and neck, olfactory tests and medical imaging. Olfactory function was assessed by Toyota and Takagi olfactometry including olfactory detection and recognition thresholds and olfactory event-related potentials (OERPs) recorded with OEP-98C Olfactometer. An unusual phenomenon was observed in five patients in whom the subjective detection and recognition thresholds were normal, while the expected OERPs were not detectable. We suggest that the discordance between olfactory psychophysical measurements and OERPs might be the results of abnormal electrophysiology related with olfactory neuropathy caused by viral URI. In addition, the measurement of OERPs might play a significant role in evaluating olfactory dysfunction.

Discordance between olfactory psychophysical measurements and olfactory event related potentials in five patients with olfactory dysfunction following upper respiratory infection

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

GUAN Jing; NI Dao-feng; WANG Jian; GAO Zhi-qiang

2009-01-01

Background Subjective olfactory tests are easy to perform and popularly applied in the clinic, but using only these, it is difficult to diagnose all disorders of the olfactory system. The olfactory event related potentials technique offers further insight into the olfactory system and is an ideal objective test. This analysis was of subjective and objective data on the olfactory function of twelve patients with loss of smell associated with an upper respiratory infection (URI). Methods We tested the twelve patients with URI induced olfactory loss by medical history, physical examination of the head and neck, olfactory tests and medical imaging. Olfactory function was assessed by Toyota and Takagi olfactometry including olfactory detection and recognition thresholds and olfactory event-related potentials (OERPs) recorded with OEP-98C Olfactometer. Results An unusual phenomenon was observed in five patients in whom the subjective detection and recognition thresholds were normal, while the expected OERPs were not detectable. Conclusions We suggest that the discordance between olfactory psychophysical measurements and OERPs might be the results of abnormal electrephysiology related with olfactory neuropathy caused by viral URI. In addition, the measurement of OERPs might play a significant role in evaluating olfactory dysfunction.

Event Index - a LHCb Event Search System

CERN Document Server

INSPIRE-00392208; Kazeev, Nikita; Redkin, Artem

2015-12-23

LHC experiments generate up to $10^{12}$ events per year. This paper describes Event Index - an event search system. Event Index's primary function is quickly selecting subsets of events from a combination of conditions, such as the estimated decay channel or stripping lines output. Event Index is essentially Apache Lucene optimized for read-only indexes distributed over independent shards on independent nodes.

Intracerebral recording of cortical activity related to self-paced voluntary movements: a Bereitschaftspotential and event-related desynchronization/synchronization. SEEG study

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Sochůrková, D.; Rektor, I.; Jurák, Pavel; Stančák, A.

2006-01-01

Roč. 173, č. 4 (2006), s. 637-649 ISSN 0014-4819 R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA102/05/0402 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z20650511 Keywords : SEEG * Bereitschaftspotential * Event-related desynchronization * Event-related synchronization Subject RIV: FS - Medical Facilities ; Equipment Impact factor: 1.959, year: 2006

Event and Apparent Horizon Finders for 3+1 Numerical Relativity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Thornburg Jonathan

2007-06-01

Full Text Available Event and apparent horizons are key diagnostics for the presence and properties of black holes. In this article I review numerical algorithms and codes for finding event and apparent horizons in numerically-computed spacetimes, focusing on calculations done using the 3+1 ADM formalism. The event horizon of an asymptotically-flat spacetime is the boundary between those events from which a future-pointing null geodesic can reach future null infinity and those events from which no such geodesic exists. The event horizon is a (continuous null surface in spacetime. The event horizon is defined nonlocally in time: it is a global property of the entire spacetime and must be found in a separate post-processing phase after all (or at least the nonstationary part of spacetime has been numerically computed.There are three basic algorithms for finding event horizons, based on integrating null geodesics forwards in time, integrating null geodesics backwards in time, and integrating null surfaces backwards in time. The last of these is generally the most efficient and accurate.In contrast to an event horizon, an apparent horizon is defined locally in time in a spacelike slice and depends only on data in that slice, so it can be (and usually is found during the numerical computation of a spacetime. A marginally outer trapped surface (MOTS in a slice is a smooth closed 2-surface whose future-pointing outgoing null geodesics have zero expansion Theta. An apparent horizon is then defined as a MOTS not contained in any other MOTS. The MOTS condition is a nonlinear elliptic partial differential equation (PDE for the surface shape, containing the ADM 3-metric, its spatial derivatives, and the extrinsic curvature as coefficients. Most “apparent horizon” finders actually find MOTSs.There are a large number of apparent horizon finding algorithms, with differing trade-offs between speed, robustness, accuracy, and ease of programming. In axisymmetry, shooting

Citrus aurantium Naringenin Prevents Osteosarcoma Progression and Recurrence in the Patients Who Underwent Osteosarcoma Surgery by Improving Antioxidant Capability

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lirong Zhang

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Citrus aurantium is rich in flavonoids, which may prevent osteosarcoma progression, but its related molecular mechanism remains unclear. Flavonoids were extracted from C. aurantium and purified by reparative HPLC. Each fraction was identified by using electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry (ESI-MS. Three main components (naringin, naringenin, and hesperetin were isolated from C. aurantium. Naringenin inhibited the growth of MG-63 cells, whereas naringin and hesperetin had no inhibitory function on cell growth. ROS production was increased in naringin- and hesperetin-treated groups after one day of culture while the level was always lowest in the naringenin-treated group after three days of culture. 95 osteosarcoma patients who underwent surgery were assigned into two groups: naringenin group (NG, received 20 mg naringenin daily, n=47 and control group (CG, received 20 mg placebo daily, n=48. After an average of two-year follow-up, osteosarcoma volumes were smaller in the NG group than in the CG group (P>0.01. The rate of osteosarcoma recurrence was also lower in the NG group than in CG group. ROS levels were lower in the NG group than in the CG group. Thus, naringenin from Citrus aurantium inhibits osteosarcoma progression and local recurrence in the patients who underwent osteosarcoma surgery by improving antioxidant capability.

Citrus aurantium Naringenin Prevents Osteosarcoma Progression and Recurrence in the Patients Who Underwent Osteosarcoma Surgery by Improving Antioxidant Capability.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Lirong; Xu, Xiaohua; Jiang, Tiechao; Wu, Kunzhe; Ding, Chuanbo; Liu, Zhen; Zhang, Xuanhe; Yu, Tianhua; Song, Changlong

2018-01-01

Citrus aurantium is rich in flavonoids, which may prevent osteosarcoma progression, but its related molecular mechanism remains unclear. Flavonoids were extracted from C. aurantium and purified by reparative HPLC. Each fraction was identified by using electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry (ESI-MS). Three main components (naringin, naringenin, and hesperetin) were isolated from C. aurantium . Naringenin inhibited the growth of MG-63 cells, whereas naringin and hesperetin had no inhibitory function on cell growth. ROS production was increased in naringin- and hesperetin-treated groups after one day of culture while the level was always lowest in the naringenin-treated group after three days of culture. 95 osteosarcoma patients who underwent surgery were assigned into two groups: naringenin group (NG, received 20 mg naringenin daily, n = 47) and control group (CG, received 20 mg placebo daily, n = 48). After an average of two-year follow-up, osteosarcoma volumes were smaller in the NG group than in the CG group ( P > 0.01). The rate of osteosarcoma recurrence was also lower in the NG group than in CG group. ROS levels were lower in the NG group than in the CG group. Thus, naringenin from Citrus aurantium inhibits osteosarcoma progression and local recurrence in the patients who underwent osteosarcoma surgery by improving antioxidant capability.

Analysis of adverse events with Essure hysteroscopic sterilization reported to the Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience database.

Science.gov (United States)

Al-Safi, Zain A; Shavell, Valerie I; Hobson, Deslyn T G; Berman, Jay M; Diamond, Michael P

2013-01-01

The Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience database may be useful for clinicians using a Food and Drug Administration-approved medical device to identify the occurrence of adverse events and complications. We sought to analyze and investigate reports associated with the Essure hysteroscopic sterilization system (Conceptus Inc., Mountain View, CA) using this database. Retrospective review of the Manufacturer and User Facility Device Experience database for events related to Essure hysteroscopic sterilization from November 2002 to February 2012 (Canadian Task Force Classification III). Online retrospective review. Online reports of patients who underwent Essure tubal sterilization. Essure tubal sterilization. Four hundred fifty-seven adverse events were reported in the study period. Pain was the most frequently reported event (217 events [47.5%]) followed by delivery catheter malfunction (121 events [26.4%]). Poststerilization pregnancy was reported in 61 events (13.3%), of which 29 were ectopic pregnancies. Other reported events included perforation (90 events [19.7%]), abnormal bleeding (44 events [9.6%]), and microinsert malposition (33 events [7.2%]). The evaluation and management of these events resulted in an additional surgical procedure in 270 cases (59.1%), of which 44 were hysterectomies. Sixty-one unintended poststerilization pregnancies were reported in the study period, of which 29 (47.5%) were ectopic gestations. Thus, ectopic pregnancy must be considered if a woman becomes pregnant after Essure hysteroscopic sterilization. Additionally, 44 women underwent hysterectomy after an adverse event reported to be associated with the use of the device. Copyright © 2013 AAGL. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Stressful life events predict delayed functional recovery following treatment for mania in bipolar disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Yan-Meier, Leslie; Eberhart, Nicole K; Hammen, Constance L; Gitlin, Michael; Sokolski, Kenneth; Altshuler, Lori

2011-04-30

Identifying predictors of functional recovery in bipolar disorder is critical to treatment efforts to help patients re-establish premorbid levels of role adjustment following an acute manic episode. The current study examined the role of stressful life events as potential obstacles to recovery of functioning in various roles. 65 patients with bipolar I disorder participated in a longitudinal study of functional recovery following clinical recovery from a manic episode. Stressful life events were assessed as predictors of concurrent vs. delayed recovery of role functioning in 4 domains (friends, family, home duties, work/school). Despite clinical recovery, a subset of patients experienced delayed functional recovery in various role domains. Moreover, delayed functional recovery was significantly associated with presence of one or more stressors in the prior 3 months, even after controlling for mood symptoms. Presence of a stressor predicted longer time to functional recovery in life domains, up to 112 days in work/school. Interventions that provide monitoring, support, and problem-solving may be needed to help prevent or mitigate the effects of stress on functional recovery. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Characteristics of ion distribution functions in dipolarizing flux bundles: Event studies

Science.gov (United States)

Runov, A.; Angelopoulos, V.; Artemyev, A.; Birn, J.; Pritchett, P. L.; Zhou, X.-Z.

2017-06-01

Taking advantage of multipoint observations from a repeating configuration of the five Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) probes separated by 1 to 2 Earth radii (RE) along X, Y, and Z in the geocentric solar magnetospheric system (GSM), we study ion distribution functions collected by the probes during three dipolarizing flux bundle (DFB) events observed at geocentric distances 9 energy and twice the thermal energy, although the distribution in the ambient plasma sheet was isotropic. The anisotropic ion distribution in DFBs injected toward the inner magnetosphere may provide the free energy for waves and instabilities, which are important elements of particle energization.

Association between waking electroencephalography and cognitive event-related potentials in patients with obstructive sleep apnea.

Science.gov (United States)

Baril, Andrée-Ann; Gagnon, Katia; Gagnon, Jean-François; Montplaisir, Jacques; Gosselin, Nadia

2013-07-01

Sleepiness, cognitive deficits, abnormal event-related potentials (ERP), and slowing of the waking electroencephalography (EEG) activity have been reported in patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Our study aimed at evaluating if an association exists between the severity of ERP abnormalities and EEG slowing to better understand cerebral dysfunctions in OSA. Twelve OSA patients and 12 age-matched controls underwent an overnight polysomnographic recording, an EEG recording of 10 min of wakefulness, and an auditory ERP protocol known to specifically recruit attention. P300 and P3a ERP components were measured as well as the spectral power in each frequency band of the waking EEG. Pearson product moment correlations were used to measure associations between ERP characteristics and EEG spectral power in OSA patients and control subjects. A positive correlation between the late P300 amplitude and θ power in the occipital region was observed in OSA subjects (P<.01). A positive correlation was also found between P3a amplitude and β1 power in central region in OSA subjects (P<.01). No correlation was observed for control subjects. ERP abnormalities observed in an attention task are associated with a slowing of the waking EEG recorded at rest in OSA. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Expected reward modulates encoding-related theta activity before an event.

Science.gov (United States)

Gruber, Matthias J; Watrous, Andrew J; Ekstrom, Arne D; Ranganath, Charan; Otten, Leun J

2013-01-01

Oscillatory brain activity in the theta frequency range (4-8 Hz) before the onset of an event has been shown to affect the likelihood of successfully encoding the event into memory. Recent work has also indicated that frontal theta activity might be modulated by reward, but it is not clear how reward expectancy, anticipatory theta activity, and memory formation might be related. Here, we used scalp electroencephalography (EEG) to assess the relationship between these factors. EEG was recorded from healthy adults while they memorized a series of words. Each word was preceded by a cue that indicated whether a high or low monetary reward would be earned if the word was successfully remembered in a later recognition test. Frontal theta power between the presentation of the reward cue and the onset of a word was predictive of later memory for the word, but only in the high reward condition. No theta differences were observed before word onset following low reward cues. The magnitude of prestimulus encoding-related theta activity in the high reward condition was correlated with the number of high reward words that were later confidently recognized. These findings provide strong evidence for a link between reward expectancy, theta activity, and memory encoding. Theta activity before event onset seems to be especially important for the encoding of motivationally significant stimuli. One possibility is that dopaminergic activity during reward anticipation mediates frontal theta activity related to memory. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The correlation between motor impairments and event-related desynchronization during motor imagery in ALS patients

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kasahara Takashi

2012-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The event-related desynchronization (ERD in EEG is known to appear during motor imagery, and is thought to reflect cortical processing for motor preparation. The aim of this study is to examine the modulation of ERD with motor impairment in ALS patients. ERD during hand motor imagery was obtained from 8 ALS patients with a variety of motor impairments. ERD was also obtained from age-matched 11 healthy control subjects with the same motor task. The magnitude and frequency of ERD were compared between groups for characterization of ALS specific changes. Results The ERD of ALS patients were significantly smaller than those of control subjects. Bulbar function and ERD were negatively correlated in ALS patients. Motor function of the upper extremities did was uncorrelated with ERD. Conclusions ALS patients with worsened bulbar scales may show smaller ERD. Motor function of the upper extremities did was uncorrelated with ERD.

Gambling-related cognitive distortions predict level of function among US veterans seeking treatment for gambling disorders.

Science.gov (United States)

Shirk, Steven D; Kelly, Megan M; Kraus, Shane W; Potenza, Marc N; Pugh, Kendra; Waltrous, Christopher; Federman, Edward; Krebs, Christopher; Drebing, Charles E

2018-03-01

Gambling Disorder (GD) is characterized by recurrent gambling behavior that is associated with significant impairment and distress, high psychiatric comorbidities, and high functional disability. The military veteran population appears particularly susceptible to developing the disorder, but relatively little has been studied among this population. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the clinical psychopathologies and comorbidities of veterans seeking treatment for problem gambling and how problem gambling may impact functioning. Treatment-seeking veterans meeting criteria for GD (N = 61) underwent a structured clinical interview and completed the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS), the Gambling Symptom Assessment Scale (G-SAS), the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale for Gambling Disorder (PG-YBOCS), the Gambling Belief Questionnaire (GBQ), the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11), and the Sheehan Disability Scale (SDS). Veterans seeking treatment for GD had high rates of psychiatric and addiction disorder comorbidities. Few veterans had previously sought treatment and most reported substantive challenges in social and occupational functioning. When determining how gambling-related characteristics (ie, severity and cognitive distortions) impact function, severity of cognitive distortions was the strongest statistical predictor of overall functional disability. The findings from this study indicate that there is high comorbidity between GD and other psychiatric and addictive disorders, as well as social and occupational functioning. In addition, cognitive distortions related to gambling relate importantly to overall functioning and should be considered in the development of interventions for veterans with GD. (Am J Addict 2018;27:108-115). © 2018 American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry.

Different event-related patterns of gamma-band power in brain waves of fast- and slow-reacting subjects.

Science.gov (United States)

Jokeit, H; Makeig, S

1994-01-01

Fast- and slow-reacting subjects exhibit different patterns of gamma-band electroencephalogram (EEG) activity when responding as quickly as possible to auditory stimuli. This result appears to confirm long-standing speculations of Wundt that fast- and slow-reacting subjects produce speeded reactions in different ways and demonstrates that analysis of event-related changes in the amplitude of EEG activity recorded from the human scalp can reveal information about event-related brain processes unavailable using event-related potential measures. Time-varying spectral power in a selected (35- to 43-Hz) gamma frequency band was averaged across trials in two experimental conditions: passive listening and speeded reacting to binaural clicks, forming 40-Hz event-related spectral responses. Factor analysis of between-subject event-related spectral response differences split subjects into two near-equal groups composed of faster- and slower-reacting subjects. In faster-reacting subjects, 40-Hz power peaked near 200 ms and 400 ms poststimulus in the react condition, whereas in slower-reacting subjects, 40-Hz power just before stimulus delivery was larger in the react condition. These group differences were preserved in separate averages of relatively long and short reaction-time epochs for each group. gamma-band (20-60 Hz)-filtered event-related potential response averages did not differ between the two groups or conditions. Because of this and because gamma-band power in the auditory event-related potential is small compared with the EEG, the observed event-related spectral response features must represent gamma-band EEG activity reliably induced by, but not phase-locked to, experimental stimuli or events. PMID:8022783

Separating acoustic deviance from novelty during the first year of life: a review of event-related potential evidence

Science.gov (United States)

Kushnerenko, Elena V.; Van den Bergh, Bea R. H.; Winkler, István

2013-01-01

Orienting to salient events in the environment is a first step in the development of attention in young infants. Electrophysiological studies have indicated that in newborns and young infants, sounds with widely distributed spectral energy, such as noise and various environmental sounds, as well as sounds widely deviating from their context elicit an event-related potential (ERP) similar to the adult P3a response. We discuss how the maturation of event-related potentials parallels the process of the development of passive auditory attention during the first year of life. Behavioral studies have indicated that the neonatal orientation to high-energy stimuli gradually changes to attending to genuine novelty and other significant events by approximately 9 months of age. In accordance with these changes, in newborns, the ERP response to large acoustic deviance is dramatically larger than that to small and moderate deviations. This ERP difference, however, rapidly decreases within first months of life and the differentiation of the ERP response to genuine novelty from that to spectrally rich but repeatedly presented sounds commences during the same period. The relative decrease of the response amplitudes elicited by high-energy stimuli may reflect development of an inhibitory brain network suppressing the processing of uninformative stimuli. Based on data obtained from healthy full-term and pre-term infants as well as from infants at risk for various developmental problems, we suggest that the electrophysiological indices of the processing of acoustic and contextual deviance may be indicative of the functioning of auditory attention, a crucial prerequisite of learning and language development. PMID:24046757

A Basis Function Approach to Simulate Storm Surge Events for Coastal Flood Risk Assessment

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Wu, Wenyan; Westra, Seth; Leonard, Michael

2017-04-01

Storm surge is a significant contributor to flooding in coastal and estuarine regions, especially when it coincides with other flood producing mechanisms, such as extreme rainfall. Therefore, storm surge has always been a research focus in coastal flood risk assessment. Often numerical models have been developed to understand storm surge events for risk assessment (Kumagai et al. 2016; Li et al. 2016; Zhang et al. 2016) (Bastidas et al. 2016; Bilskie et al. 2016; Dalledonne and Mayerle 2016; Haigh et al. 2014; Kodaira et al. 2016; Lapetina and Sheng 2015), and assess how these events may change or evolve in the future (Izuru et al. 2015; Oey and Chou 2016). However, numeric models often require a lot of input information and difficulties arise when there are not sufficient data available (Madsen et al. 2015). Alternative, statistical methods have been used to forecast storm surge based on historical data (Hashemi et al. 2016; Kim et al. 2016) or to examine the long term trend in the change of storm surge events, especially under climate change (Balaguru et al. 2016; Oh et al. 2016; Rueda et al. 2016). In these studies, often the peak of surge events is used, which result in the loss of dynamic information within a tidal cycle or surge event (i.e. a time series of storm surge values). In this study, we propose an alternative basis function (BF) based approach to examine the different attributes (e.g. peak and durations) of storm surge events using historical data. Two simple two-parameter BFs were used: the exponential function and the triangular function. High quality hourly storm surge record from 15 tide gauges around Australia were examined. It was found that there are significantly location and seasonal variability in the peak and duration of storm surge events, which provides additional insights in coastal flood risk. In addition, the simple form of these BFs allows fast simulation of storm surge events and minimises the complexity of joint probability

Loss of CDKL5 disrupts kinome profile and event-related potentials leading to autistic-like phenotypes in mice.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, I-Ting Judy; Allen, Megan; Goffin, Darren; Zhu, Xinjian; Fairless, Andrew H; Brodkin, Edward S; Siegel, Steve J; Marsh, Eric D; Blendy, Julie A; Zhou, Zhaolan

2012-12-26

Mutations in the X-linked cyclin-dependent kinase-like 5 (CDKL5) gene have been identified in neurodevelopmental disorders including atypical Rett syndrome (RTT), autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), and early infantile epileptic encephalopathy. The biological function of CDKL5 and its role in the etiology of these disorders, however, remain unclear. Here we report the development of a unique knockout mouse model of CDKL5-related disorders and demonstrate that mice lacking CDKL5 show autistic-like deficits in social interaction, as well as impairments in motor control and fear memory. Neurophysiological recordings reveal alterations in event-related potentials (ERPs) similar to those observed in RTT and ASDs. Moreover, kinome profiling uncovers disruption of multiple signal transduction pathways, including the AKT-mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) cascade, upon Cdkl5 loss-of-function. These data demonstrate that CDKL5 regulates signal transduction pathways and mediates autistic-like phenotypes and together establish a causal role for Cdkl5 loss-of-function in neurodevelopmental disorders.

Outcome of Patients Underwent Emergency Department Thoracotomy and Its Predictive Factors

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shahram Paydar

2014-08-01

Full Text Available Introduction: Emergency department thoracotomy (EDT may serve as the last survival chance for patients who arrive at hospital in extremis. It is considered as an effective tool for improvement of traumatic patients’ outcome. The present study was done with the goal of assessing the outcome of patients who underwent EDT and its predictive factors. Methods: In the present study, medical charts of 50 retrospective and 8 prospective cases underwent emergency department thoracotomy (EDT were reviewed during November 2011 to June 2013. Comparisons between survived and died patients were performed by Mann-Whitney U test and the predictive factors of EDT outcome were measured using multivariate logistic regression analysis. P < 0.05 considered statistically significant. Results: Fifty eight cases of EDT were enrolled (86.2% male. The mean age of patients was 43.27±19.85 years with the range of 18-85. The mean time duration of CPR was recorded as 37.12±12.49 minutes. Eleven cases (19% were alive to be transported to OR (defined as ED survived. The mean time of survival in ED survived patients was 223.5±450.8 hours. More than 24 hours survival rate (late survived was 6.9% (4 cases. Only one case (1.7% survived to discharge from hospital (mortality rate=98.3%. There were only a significant relation between ED survival and SBP, GCS, CPR duration, and chest trauma (p=0.04. The results demonstrated that initial SBP lower than 80 mmHg (OR=1.03, 95% CI: 1.001-1.05, p=0.04 and presence of chest trauma (OR=2.6, 95% CI: 1.75-3.16, p=0.02 were independent predictive factors of EDT mortality. Conclusion: The findings of the present study showed that the survival rate of trauma patients underwent EDT was 1.7%. In addition, it was defined that falling systolic blood pressure below 80 mmHg and blunt trauma of chest are independent factors that along with poor outcome.

Incidental and Intentional Memory: Their Relation with Attention and Executive Functions.

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Kontaxopoulou, Dionysia; Beratis, Ion N; Fragkiadaki, Stella; Pavlou, Dimosthenis; Yannis, George; Economou, Alexandra; Papanicolaou, Andrew C; Papageorgiou, Sokratis G

2017-08-01

The aim of the current study was to investigate the impact of gender and age on incidental and intentional memory in healthy participants and to explore the strength of the association of incidental and intentional memory with attentional and executive functioning. A total number of 47 participants underwent a driving simulation experiment and went through detailed neuropsychological testing. Incidental memory was assessed with a questionnaire that evaluated the memorization of information related to the driving simulator task while intentional memory was assessed using the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test-Revised and the Brief Visuospatial Memory Test-Revised. The analysis revealed a greater impact of age on incidental as compared to intentional memory. Gender did not appear to have such an effect on either incidental or intentional memory. Finally, attentional and executive functioning were more strongly associated with incidental memory than the intentional memory measures that were utilized in the current study. Ageing appears to affect incidental rather than intentional memory to a greater extent. In addition, attentional and executive functioning seem to play a more important role in incidental than intentional encoding and consolidation processes. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Attentional Mechanisms in Sports via Brain-Electrical Event-Related Potentials

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Hack, Johannes; Memmert, Daniel; Rup, Andre

2009-01-01

In this study, we examined attention processes in complex, sport-specific decision-making tasks without interdependencies from anticipation. Psychophysiological and performance data recorded from advanced and intermediate level basketball referees were compared. Event-related potentials obtained while judging game situations in foul recognition…

Motivated encoding selectively promotes memory for future inconsequential semantically-related events.

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Oyarzún, Javiera P; Packard, Pau A; de Diego-Balaguer, Ruth; Fuentemilla, Lluis

2016-09-01

Neurobiological models of long-term memory explain how memory for inconsequential events fades, unless these happen before or after other relevant (i.e., rewarding or aversive) or novel events. Recently, it has been shown in humans that retrospective and prospective memories are selectively enhanced if semantically related events are paired with aversive stimuli. However, it remains unclear whether motivating stimuli, as opposed to aversive, have the same effect in humans. Here, participants performed a three phase incidental encoding task where one semantic category was rewarded during the second phase. A memory test 24h after, but not immediately after encoding, revealed that memory for inconsequential items was selectively enhanced only if items from the same category had been previously, but not subsequently, paired with rewards. This result suggests that prospective memory enhancement of reward-related information requires, like previously reported for aversive memories, of a period of memory consolidation. The current findings provide the first empirical evidence in humans that the effects of motivated encoding are selectively and prospectively prolonged over time. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

[Event-related EEG potentials associated with error detection in psychiatric disorder: literature review].

Science.gov (United States)

Balogh, Lívia; Czobor, Pál

2010-01-01

Error-related bioelectric signals constitute a special subgroup of event-related potentials. Researchers have identified two evoked potential components to be closely related to error processing, namely error-related negativity (ERN) and error-positivity (Pe), and they linked these to specific cognitive functions. In our article first we give a brief description of these components, then based on the available literature, we review differences in error-related evoked potentials observed in patients across psychiatric disorders. The PubMed and Medline search engines were used in order to identify all relevant articles, published between 2000 and 2009. For the purpose of the current paper we reviewed publications summarizing results of clinical trials. Patients suffering from schizophrenia, anorexia nervosa or borderline personality disorder exhibited a decrease in the amplitude of error-negativity when compared with healthy controls, while in cases of depression and anxiety an increase in the amplitude has been observed. Some of the articles suggest specific personality variables, such as impulsivity, perfectionism, negative emotions or sensitivity to punishment to underlie these electrophysiological differences. Research in the field of error-related electric activity has come to the focus of psychiatry research only recently, thus the amount of available data is significantly limited. However, since this is a relatively new field of research, the results available at present are noteworthy and promising for future electrophysiological investigations in psychiatric disorders.

Effects of white noise on event-related potentials in somatosensory Go/No-go paradigms.

Science.gov (United States)

Ohbayashi, Wakana; Kakigi, Ryusuke; Nakata, Hiroki

2017-09-06

Exposure to auditory white noise has been shown to facilitate human cognitive function. This phenomenon is termed stochastic resonance, and a moderate amount of auditory noise has been suggested to benefit individuals in hypodopaminergic states. The present study investigated the effects of white noise on the N140 and P300 components of event-related potentials in somatosensory Go/No-go paradigms. A Go or No-go stimulus was presented to the second or fifth digit of the left hand, respectively, at the same probability. Participants performed somatosensory Go/No-go paradigms while hearing three different white noise levels (45, 55, and 65 dB conditions). The peak amplitudes of Go-P300 and No-go-P300 in ERP waveforms were significantly larger under 55 dB than 45 and 65 dB conditions. White noise did not affect the peak latency of N140 or P300, or the peak amplitude of N140. Behavioral data for the reaction time, SD of reaction time, and error rates showed the absence of an effect by white noise. This is the first event-related potential study to show that exposure to auditory white noise at 55 dB enhanced the amplitude of P300 during Go/No-go paradigms, reflecting changes in the neural activation of response execution and inhibition processing.

Event-related potentials to event-related words: grammatical class and semantic attributes in the representation of knowledge.

Science.gov (United States)

Barber, Horacio A; Kousta, Stavroula-Thaleia; Otten, Leun J; Vigliocco, Gabriella

2010-05-21

A number of recent studies have provided contradictory evidence on the question of whether grammatical class plays a role in the neural representation of lexical knowledge. Most of the previous studies comparing the processing of nouns and verbs, however, confounded word meaning and grammatical class by comparing verbs referring to actions with nouns referring to objects. Here, we recorded electrical brain activity from native Italian speakers reading single words all referring to events (e.g., corsa [the run]; correre [to run]), thus avoiding confounding nouns and verbs with objects and actions. We manipulated grammatical class (noun versus verb) as well as semantic attributes (motor versus sensory events). Activity between 300 and 450ms was more negative for nouns than verbs, and for sensory than motor words, over posterior scalp sites. These grammatical class and semantic effects were not dissociable in terms of latency, duration, or scalp distribution. In a later time window (450-110ms) and at frontal regions, grammatical class and semantic effects interacted; motor verbs were more positive than the other three word categories. We suggest that the lack of a temporal and topographical dissociation between grammatical class and semantic effects in the time range of the N400 component is compatible with an account in which both effects reflect the same underlying process related to meaning retrieval, and we link the later effect with working memory operations associated to the experimental task. Copyright 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Epidural Hematoma and Abscess Related to Thoracic Epidural Analgesia: A Single-Center Study of 2,907 Patients Who Underwent Lung Surgery.

Science.gov (United States)

Kupersztych-Hagege, Elisa; Dubuisson, Etienne; Szekely, Barbara; Michel-Cherqui, Mireille; François Dreyfus, Jean; Fischler, Marc; Le Guen, Morgan

2017-04-01

To report the major complications (epidural hematoma and abscess) of postoperative thoracic epidural analgesia in patients who underwent lung surgery. Prospective, monocentric study. A university hospital. All lung surgical patients who received postoperative thoracic epidural analgesia between November 2007 and November 2015. Thoracic epidural analgesia for patients who underwent lung surgery. During the study period, data for 2,907 patients were recorded. The following 3 major complications were encountered: 1 case of epidural hematoma (0.34 case/1,000; 95% confidence interval 0.061-1.946), for which surgery was performed, and 2 cases of epidural abscesses (0.68 case/1,000; 95% confidence interval 0.189-2.505), which were treated medically. The risk range of serious complications was moderate; only the patient who experienced an epidural hematoma also experienced permanent sequelae. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Location of long-period events below Kilauea Volcano using seismic amplitudes and accurate relative relocation

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Battaglia, J.; Got, J.-L.; Okubo, P.

2003-01-01

We present methods for improving the location of long-period (LP) events, deep and shallow, recorded below Kilauea Volcano by the permanent seismic network. LP events might be of particular interest to understanding eruptive processes as their source mechanism is assumed to directly involve fluid transport. However, it is usually difficult or impossible to locate their source using traditional arrival time methods because of emergent wave arrivals. At Kilauea, similar LP waveform signatures suggest the existence of LP multiplets. The waveform similarity suggests spatially close sources, while catalog solutions using arrival time estimates are widely scattered beneath Kilauea's summit caldera. In order to improve estimates of absolute LP location, we use the distribution of seismic amplitudes corrected for station site effects. The decay of the amplitude as a function of hypocentral distance is used for inferring LP location. In a second stage, we use the similarity of the events to calculate their relative positions. The analysis of the entire LP seismicity recorded between January 1997 and December 1999 suggests that a very large part of the LP event population, both deep and shallow, is generated by a small number of compact sources. Deep events are systematically composed of a weak high-frequency onset followed by a low-frequency wave train. Aligning the low-frequency wave trains does not lead to aligning the onsets indicating the two parts of the signal are dissociated. This observation favors an interpretation in terms of triggering and resonance of a magmatic conduit. Instead of defining fault planes, the precise relocation of similar LP events, based on the alignment of the high-energy low-frequency wave trains, defines limited size volumes. Copyright 2003 by the American Geophysical Union.

Change in functional connectivity in tinnitus and its relation with tinnitus laterality

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Song, Eun Jee; Kim, Eui Jong; Choi, Woo Suk [Dept. of Radiology, College of Medicine, Kyung Hee University, Seoul (Korea, Republic of); Ryu, Chang Woo; Jahang, Geon Ho; Park, Moon Suh; Byun, Jae Yong; Park, Soon Chan [Kyung Hee University Hospital at Gangdong, School of Medicine, Kyung Hee University, Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

2016-12-15

To identify potential differences in resting-state networks according to laterality of tinnitus using resting-state functional MRI (fMRI). A total of 83 age-matched subjects consisting of 19 patients with right-sided tinnitus (Rt-T), 22 patients with left-sided tinnitus (Lt-T), 22 patients with bilateral tinnitus (Bil-T), and 20 healthy controls underwent resting-state blood oxygenation-level dependent fMRI scans. Independent component analysis was used to obtain the functional connectivities in the auditory network (AN) and the default mode network (DMN), which were compared between each group using the voxel-wise one-way ANOVA. In addition, lateralization of the auditory cortex was assessed within each group using a region of interest (ROI). Comparisons between tinnitus groups showed unusual clusters with different functional connectivities in the AN and the DMN. The Rt-T group had large clusters with higher functional connectivity in the right middle temporal gyrus and temporopolar area compared with the Lt-/Bil-T and control groups. ROI analysis showed that the Rt-/Lt-T groups had dominant functional connectivity in the right auditory cortex and the Bil-T and control groups had left-dominant auditory connectivity. These results suggest that chronic tinnitus is related to aberrant laterality of the auditory cortex. These findings help clarify the neural mechanism of tinnitus and specify the targets for localization of treatment.

Change in functional connectivity in tinnitus and its relation with tinnitus laterality

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Song, Eun Jee; Kim, Eui Jong; Choi, Woo Suk; Ryu, Chang Woo; Jahang, Geon Ho; Park, Moon Suh; Byun, Jae Yong; Park, Soon Chan

2016-01-01

To identify potential differences in resting-state networks according to laterality of tinnitus using resting-state functional MRI (fMRI). A total of 83 age-matched subjects consisting of 19 patients with right-sided tinnitus (Rt-T), 22 patients with left-sided tinnitus (Lt-T), 22 patients with bilateral tinnitus (Bil-T), and 20 healthy controls underwent resting-state blood oxygenation-level dependent fMRI scans. Independent component analysis was used to obtain the functional connectivities in the auditory network (AN) and the default mode network (DMN), which were compared between each group using the voxel-wise one-way ANOVA. In addition, lateralization of the auditory cortex was assessed within each group using a region of interest (ROI). Comparisons between tinnitus groups showed unusual clusters with different functional connectivities in the AN and the DMN. The Rt-T group had large clusters with higher functional connectivity in the right middle temporal gyrus and temporopolar area compared with the Lt-/Bil-T and control groups. ROI analysis showed that the Rt-/Lt-T groups had dominant functional connectivity in the right auditory cortex and the Bil-T and control groups had left-dominant auditory connectivity. These results suggest that chronic tinnitus is related to aberrant laterality of the auditory cortex. These findings help clarify the neural mechanism of tinnitus and specify the targets for localization of treatment

Event-related Potentials Reflecting the Processing of Phonological Constraint Violations

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Domahs, Ulrike; Kehrein, Wolfgang; Knaus, Johannes; Wiese, Richard; Schlesewsky, Matthias

2009-01-01

Flow are violations of phonological constraints processed in word comprehension? The present article reports the results of ail event-related potentials (ERP) Study oil a phonological constraint of German that disallows identical segments within it syllable or word (CC(i)VC(i)). We examined three

Early event related fields during visually evoked pain anticipation.

Science.gov (United States)

Gopalakrishnan, Raghavan; Burgess, Richard C; Plow, Ela B; Floden, Darlene P; Machado, Andre G

2016-03-01

Pain experience is not only a function of somatosensory inputs. Rather, it is strongly influenced by cognitive and affective pathways. Pain anticipatory phenomena, an important limitation to rehabilitative efforts in the chronic state, are processed by associative and limbic networks, along with primary sensory cortices. Characterization of neurophysiological correlates of pain anticipation, particularly during very early stages of neural processing is critical for development of therapeutic interventions. Here, we utilized magnetoencephalography to study early event-related fields (ERFs) in healthy subjects exposed to a 3 s visual countdown task that preceded a painful stimulus, a non-painful stimulus or no stimulus. We found that the first countdown cue, but not the last cue, evoked critical ERFs signaling anticipation, attention and alertness to the noxious stimuli. Further, we found that P2 and N2 components were significantly different in response to first-cues that signaled incoming painful stimuli when compared to non-painful or no stimuli. The findings indicate that early ERFs are relevant neural substrates of pain anticipatory phenomena and could be potentially serve as biomarkers. These measures could assist in the development of neurostimulation approaches aimed at curbing the negative effects of pain anticipation during rehabilitation. Copyright © 2015 International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

The spatial relation between the event horizon and trapping horizon

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nielsen, Alex B

2010-01-01

The relation between event horizons and trapping horizons is investigated in a number of different situations with emphasis on their role in thermodynamics. A notion of constant change is introduced that in certain situations allows the location of the event horizon to be found locally. When the black hole is accreting matter the difference in area between the two different horizons can be many orders of magnitude larger than the Planck area. When the black hole is evaporating, the difference is small on the Planck scale. A model is introduced that shows how trapping horizons can be expected to appear outside the event horizon before the black hole starts to evaporate. Finally, a modified definition is introduced to invariantly define the location of the trapping horizon under a conformal transformation. In this case the trapping horizon is not always a marginally outer trapped surface.

Blunt splenic injury: are early adverse events related to trauma, nonoperative management, or surgery?

Science.gov (United States)

Frandon, Julien; Rodiere, Mathieu; Arvieux, Catherine; Vendrell, Anne; Boussat, Bastien; Sengel, Christian; Broux, Christophe; Bricault, Ivan; Ferretti, Gilbert; Thony, Frédéric

2015-01-01

We aimed to compare clinical outcomes and early adverse events of operative management (OM), nonoperative management (NOM), and NOM with splenic artery embolization (SAE) in blunt splenic injury (BSI) and identify the prognostic factors. Medical records of 136 consecutive patients with BSI admitted to a trauma center from 2005 to 2010 were retrospectively reviewed. Patients were separated into three groups: OM, NOM, and SAE. We focused on associated injuries and early adverse events. Multivariate analysis was performed on 23 prognostic factors to find predictors. The total survival rate was 97.1%, with four deaths all occurred in the OM group. The spleen salvage rate was 91% in NOM and SAE. At least one adverse event was observed in 32.8%, 62%, and 96% of patients in NOM, SAE, and OM groups, respectively (P events: simplified acute physiology score 2 ≥25 for almost all adverse events, age ≥50 years for acute respiratory syndrome, limb fracture for secondary bleeding, thoracic injury for pleural drainage, and at least one associated injury for pseudocyst. Adverse events were not related to the type of BSI management. Patients with BSI present worse outcome and more adverse events in OM, but this is related to the severity of injury. The main predictor of adverse events remains the severity of injury.

Pathologic Cellular Events in Smoking-Related Pancreatitis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Thrower, Edwin [Department of Internal Medicine, Section of Digestive Diseases, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06520 (United States); Veterans Affairs Connecticut Healthcare, West Haven, CT 06516 (United States)

2015-04-29

Pancreatitis, a debilitating inflammatory disorder, results from pancreatic injury. Alcohol abuse is the foremost cause, although cigarette smoking has recently surfaced as a distinct risk factor. The mechanisms by which cigarette smoke and its toxins initiate pathological cellular events leading to pancreatitis, have not been clearly defined. Although cigarette smoke is composed of more than 4000 compounds, it is mainly nicotine and the tobacco-specific nitrosamine 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (NNK), which have been extensively studied with respect to pancreatic diseases. This review summarizes these research findings and highlights cellular pathways which may be of relevance in initiation and progression of smoking-related pancreatitis.

Active Construction of Profession-Related Events: The Priming Effect among Pre-service Teachers with Different Professional Identity.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Xin-Qiang; Zhu, Jun-Cheng; Liu, Lu; Chen, Xiang-Yu; Huo, Jun-Yu

2018-01-01

Pre-service teachers with different professional identity may actively construct different subjective profession-related events based on the same objective profession-related events. To explore the priming effect among pre-service teachers with different professional identity, this study examined the effect of positive, negative, or neutral priming sentences in an individualized narration of profession-related events through a priming paradigm. Forty-two female volunteers were asked to complete positive, negative, and neutral priming sentences describing profession-related events. The results showed that, relative to those with weak professional identity, participants with strong professional identity generated a higher number of positive items when primed with different stimuli and displayed greater positive priming bias for positive and neutral stimuli. In addition, relative to those with strong professional identity, participants with weak professional identity generated a higher number of neutral and negative items when primed with positive and negative stimuli, respectively, and displayed greater negative priming bias toward negative stimuli. These results indicate that pre-service teachers with strong professional identity were likely to have established positive self-schemas involving profession-related events, which facilitated active, positive construction of such events.

Active Construction of Profession-Related Events: The Priming Effect among Pre-service Teachers with Different Professional Identity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xin-qiang Wang

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Pre-service teachers with different professional identity may actively construct different subjective profession-related events based on the same objective profession-related events. To explore the priming effect among pre-service teachers with different professional identity, this study examined the effect of positive, negative, or neutral priming sentences in an individualized narration of profession-related events through a priming paradigm. Forty-two female volunteers were asked to complete positive, negative, and neutral priming sentences describing profession-related events. The results showed that, relative to those with weak professional identity, participants with strong professional identity generated a higher number of positive items when primed with different stimuli and displayed greater positive priming bias for positive and neutral stimuli. In addition, relative to those with strong professional identity, participants with weak professional identity generated a higher number of neutral and negative items when primed with positive and negative stimuli, respectively, and displayed greater negative priming bias toward negative stimuli. These results indicate that pre-service teachers with strong professional identity were likely to have established positive self-schemas involving profession-related events, which facilitated active, positive construction of such events.

Event-related potentials reflecting the processing of phonological constraint violations

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Domahs, U.; Kehrein, W.; Knaus, J.; Wiese, R.; Schlesewsky, M.

2009-01-01

How are violations of phonological constraints processed in word comprehension? The present article reports the results of an event-related potentials (ERP) study on a phonological constraint of German that disallows identical segments within a syllable or word (CC iVCi). We examined three types of

Event-governed and verbally-governed behavior.

Science.gov (United States)

Vargas, E A

1988-01-01

A NUMBER OF STATEMENTS PRESCRIBE BEHAVIOR: apothegms, maxims, proverbs, instructions, and so on. These differing guides to conduct present varieties of the dictionary definition of "rules." The term "rules" thus defines a category of language usage. Such a term, and its derivative, "rule-governed," does not address a controlling relation in the analysis of verbal behavior. The prevailing confounding of a category of language with a category of verbal behavior appears related to a lack of understanding as to what distinguishes verbal behavior from other behavior. Verbal behavior is a behavior-behavior relation in which events are contacted through the mediation of another organism's behavior specifically shaped for such mediation by a verbal community. It contrasts with behavior that contacts events directly, and shaped directly by the features of those events. Thus we may distinguish between two large classes of behavior by whether it is behavior controlled by events, or behavior controlled verbally. However, the functional controls operative with both classes of behavior do not differ.

External man-induced events in relation to nuclear power plant design

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1982-01-01

This Guide deals with the basic design requirements for nuclear power plants, and presents a general design approach for protection against the effects of man-induced events. Section 2 discusses the general design approach. Section 3 outlines the development of the basic information necessary for an evaluation of the adequacy of a design against the effects of aircraft crashes, fires, explosions, and the release of toxic gases or corrosive substances. Section 4 outlines the design logic for protection against external man-induced events. It indicates possible methods of ensuring overall plant safety, including protection against possible secondary effects. Included for each event are: a methodology for calculating the design input parameters from the data generated in the siting study, system protection considerations from the effects of this man-induced event, and criteria for judging the adequacy of the protection provided. Specific design guidance related to acts of sabotage is not provided in this Guide. It should be recognized, however, that for certain situations such acts can be important to safety and could constitute the controlling postulated initiating event for design. The list of events covered is not necessarily complete. However, important events on which enough work has already been done in various Member States to enable their effects to be converted into generally accepted design parameters are included. In addition, other man-induced events such as dam ruptures, ship collisions, construction accidents and the like are identified but no general guidelines for design can be specified for these at present. These events need to be considered on an ad hoc basis, in order to arrive at design input parameters for them

Why all the confusion? Experimental task explains discrepant semantic priming effects in schizophrenia under “automatic” conditions: evidence from Event-Related Potentials

OpenAIRE

Kreher, Donna A.; Goff, Donald; Kuperberg, Gina R.

2009-01-01

The schizophrenia research literature contains many differing accounts of semantic memory function in schizophrenia as assessed through the semantic priming paradigm. Most recently, Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) have been used to demonstrate both increased and decreased semantic priming at a neural level in schizophrenia patients, relative to healthy controls. The present study used ERPs to investigate the role of behavioral task in determining neural semantic priming effects in schizophren...

Stress and Quality of Life for Taiwanese Women Who Underwent Infertility Treatment.

Science.gov (United States)

Cheng, Ching-Yu; Stevenson, Eleanor Lowndes; Yang, Cheng-Ta; Liou, Shwu-Ru

2018-04-28

To describe the psychological stress and quality of life experienced by women who underwent fertility treatment in Taiwan. Cross-sectional, correlational study. Recruitment was conducted and questionnaires administered at a reproductive medicine center in Chiayi City, Taiwan. Informed consent to participate was obtained from 126 women who sought fertility treatment at the center. The Chinese Fertility Problem Inventory and Fertility Quality of Life scale were used to measure participants' levels of fertility-related stress and fertility-related quality of life. Descriptive statistics, correlation, and regression analysis were used. Overall, participants reported low levels of fertility-related stress and fertility-related quality of life; however, they had relatively high levels of stress related to need for parenthood. Women who were older, had greater body mass indexes, and consumed coffee regularly had lower fertility-related quality of life. Social and relationship concerns and stress related to need for parenthood were significant predictors of low fertility-related quality of life. In a culture in which childbearing is generally an expectation and an important part of family life, women who experience infertility are at risk to experience fertility-related stress. Social support and family consultation might be offered to improve women's fertility-related quality of life. Copyright © 2018 AWHONN, the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Solar forced Dansgaard-Oeschger events and their phase relation with solar proxies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ditlevsen, Peter; Braun, H.; Chialvo, D. R.

2008-01-01

of a highly nonlinear system to quasi-periodic solar forcing plus noise. This hypothesis was challenged as inconsistent with the observed variability in the phase relation between proxies of solar activity and Greenland climate. Here we reject the claim of inconsistency by showing that this phase variability...... is a robust, generic feature of the nonlinear dynamics of DO events, as described by a model. This variability is expected from the fact that the events are threshold crossing events, resulting from a cooperative process between the periodic forcing and the noise. This process produces a fluctuating phase...

A Quantitative Index to Support Recurrence Prevention Plans of Human-Related Events

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Yochan; Park, Jinkyun; Jung, Wondea [KAERI, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of); Kim, Do Sam; Lee, Durk Hun [Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2015-05-15

In Korea, HuRAM+ (Human related event Root cause Analysis Method plus) was developed to scrutinize the causes of the human-related events. The information of the human-related events investigated by the HuRAM+ method has been also managed by a database management system, R-tracer. It is obvious that accumulating data of human error causes aims to support plans that reduce recurrences of similar events. However, in spite of the efforts for the development of the human error database, it was indicated that the database does not provide useful empirical basis for establishment of the recurrence prevention plans, because the framework to interpret the collected data and apply the insights from the data into the prevention plants has not been developed yet. In this paper, in order to support establishment of the recurrence prevention plans, a quantitative index, Human Error Repeat Interval (HERI), was proposed and its applications to human error prevention were introduced. In this paper, a quantitative index, the HERI was proposed and the statistics of HERIs were introduced. These estimations can be employed to evaluate effects of recurrence prevention plans to human errors. If a mean HERI score is low and the linear trend is not positive, it can be suspected that the recurrence prevention plans applied every human-related event has not been effectively propagated. For reducing repetitive error causes, the system design or operational culture can be reviewed. If there is a strong and negative trend, systematic investigation of the root causes behind these trends is required. Likewise, we expect that the HERI index will provide significant basis for establishing or adjusting prevention plans of human errors. The accurate estimation and application of HERI scores is expected to be done after accumulating more data. When a scatter plot of HERIs is fitted by two or more models, a statistical model selection method can be employed. Some criteria have been introduced by

A Quantitative Index to Support Recurrence Prevention Plans of Human-Related Events

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Yochan; Park, Jinkyun; Jung, Wondea; Kim, Do Sam; Lee, Durk Hun

2015-01-01

In Korea, HuRAM+ (Human related event Root cause Analysis Method plus) was developed to scrutinize the causes of the human-related events. The information of the human-related events investigated by the HuRAM+ method has been also managed by a database management system, R-tracer. It is obvious that accumulating data of human error causes aims to support plans that reduce recurrences of similar events. However, in spite of the efforts for the development of the human error database, it was indicated that the database does not provide useful empirical basis for establishment of the recurrence prevention plans, because the framework to interpret the collected data and apply the insights from the data into the prevention plants has not been developed yet. In this paper, in order to support establishment of the recurrence prevention plans, a quantitative index, Human Error Repeat Interval (HERI), was proposed and its applications to human error prevention were introduced. In this paper, a quantitative index, the HERI was proposed and the statistics of HERIs were introduced. These estimations can be employed to evaluate effects of recurrence prevention plans to human errors. If a mean HERI score is low and the linear trend is not positive, it can be suspected that the recurrence prevention plans applied every human-related event has not been effectively propagated. For reducing repetitive error causes, the system design or operational culture can be reviewed. If there is a strong and negative trend, systematic investigation of the root causes behind these trends is required. Likewise, we expect that the HERI index will provide significant basis for establishing or adjusting prevention plans of human errors. The accurate estimation and application of HERI scores is expected to be done after accumulating more data. When a scatter plot of HERIs is fitted by two or more models, a statistical model selection method can be employed. Some criteria have been introduced by

Persistent Functional Languages: Toward Functional Relational Databases

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wevers, L.

2014-01-01

Functional languages provide new approaches to concurrency control, based on techniques such as lazy evaluation and memoization. We have designed and implemented a persistent functional language based on these ideas, which we plan to use for the implementation of a relational database system. With

Event-related potentials during word mapping to object shape predict toddlers’ vocabulary size

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kristina eBorgström

2015-02-01

Full Text Available What role does attention to different object properties play in early vocabulary development? This longitudinal study using event-related potentials in combination with behavioral measures investigated 20- and 24-month-olds’ (n = 38; n = 34; overlapping n = 24 ability to use object shape and object part information in word-object mapping. The N400 component was used to measure semantic priming by images containing shape or detail information. At 20 months, the N400 to words primed by object shape varied in topography and amplitude depending on vocabulary size, and these differences predicted productive vocabulary size at 24 months. At 24 months, when most of the children had vocabularies of several hundred words, the relation between vocabulary size and the N400 effect in a shape context was weaker. Detached object parts did not function as word primes regardless of age or vocabulary size, although the part-objects were identified behaviorally. The behavioral measure, however, also showed relatively poor recognition of the part-objects compared to the shape-objects. These three findings provide new support for the link between shape recognition and early vocabulary development.

Severity of cerebral palsy and likelihood of adverse events after botulinum toxin A injections.

Science.gov (United States)

Swinney, Caitlyn M; Bau, Karen; Burton, Karen L Oakley; O'Flaherty, Stephen J; Bear, Natasha L; Paget, Simon P

2018-05-01

To determine the incidence of common adverse events after botulinum toxin A (BoNT-A) injections in children with cerebral palsy (CP) and to identify whether the severity of CP influences the incidence of adverse events. This was an observational study of patients attending a BoNT-A clinic at a tertiary paediatric hospital (2010-2014). Data examined included procedural adverse events at the time of injection and at follow-up. Systemic adverse events were defined as lower respiratory tract illnesses, generalized weakness, dysphagia, and death. Severity of CP was categorized by the Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS). The relationships between GMFCS and adverse events were analysed using negative binomial regression models. In total, 591 children underwent 2219 injection episodes. Adverse events were reported during the procedure (130 [6%] injection episodes) and at follow-up (492 [22%] injection episodes). There were significantly increased rates of systemic adverse events in injection episodes involving children in GMFCS level IV (incidence rate ratio [IRR] 3.92 [95% confidence interval] 1.45-10.57]) and GMFCS level V (IRR 7.37 [95% confidence interval 2.90-18.73]; p<0.001). Adverse events after BoNT-A injections are common but mostly mild and self-limiting. Children in GMFCS levels IV and V are at increased risk of systemic adverse events. The relationship between CP severity and BoNT-A adverse events is complex and further research is required to better understand this relationship. Adverse events reported at the time of botulinum toxin A injection occurred in 6% of injection episodes. Adverse events were reported at follow-up in 22% of injection episodes. Children in Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) levels IV and V have increased rates of systemic adverse events. Children in GMFCS levels IV and V report less local weakness and pain. © 2018 Mac Keith Press.

Cultural Differences in the Reciprocal Relations between Emotion Suppression Coping, Depressive Symptoms and Interpersonal Functioning among Adolescents.

Science.gov (United States)

Tsai, William; Nguyen, D Julie; Weiss, Bahr; Ngo, Victoria; Lau, Anna S

2017-05-01

The current study examined the prospective relations between emotion suppression and maladjustment (i.e., depressive symptoms, family stress events, peer stress events, and family and peer support) among Vietnamese American (n = 372) and European American adolescents (n = 304). We found that at baseline Vietnamese Americans adolescents reported greater use of emotion suppression coping than European American adolescents. Multi-group structural equation modeling indicated that for European American teens emotion suppression was significantly related to increased depression symptoms and decreased quality of peer relationships. In contrast, for the Vietnamese Americans teens emotion suppression relations to later maladjustment was either nonsignificant or attenuated relative to the European American. These findings suggest ethnic group differences in both the utilization, and consequences and function of emotion suppression among Vietnamese American and European American adolescents.

Analysis of events related to cracks and leaks in the reactor coolant pressure boundary

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ballesteros, Antonio, E-mail: Antonio.Ballesteros-Avila@ec.europa.eu [JRC-IET: Institute for Energy and Transport of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, Postbus 2, NL-1755 ZG Petten (Netherlands); Sanda, Radian; Peinador, Miguel; Zerger, Benoit [JRC-IET: Institute for Energy and Transport of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, Postbus 2, NL-1755 ZG Petten (Netherlands); Negri, Patrice [IRSN: Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (France); Wenke, Rainer [GRS: Gesellschaft für Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit (GRS) mbH (Germany)

2014-08-15

Highlights: • The important role of Operating Experience Feedback is emphasised. • Events relating to cracks and leaks in the reactor coolant pressure boundary are analysed. • A methodology for event investigation is described. • Some illustrative results of the analysis of events for specific components are presented. - Abstract: The presence of cracks and leaks in the reactor coolant pressure boundary may jeopardise the safe operation of nuclear power plants. Analysis of cracks and leaks related events is an important task for the prevention of their recurrence, which should be performed in the context of activities on Operating Experience Feedback. In response to this concern, the EU Clearinghouse operated by the JRC-IET supports and develops technical and scientific work to disseminate the lessons learned from past operating experience. In particular, concerning cracks and leaks, the studies carried out in collaboration with IRSN and GRS have allowed to identify the most sensitive areas to degradation in the plant primary system and to elaborate recommendations for upgrading the maintenance, ageing management and inspection programmes. An overview of the methodology used in the analysis of cracks and leaks related events is presented in this paper, together with the relevant results obtained in the study.

Scalp topography of event-related brain potentials and cognitive transitions during childhood.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Molenaar, P.C.M.; van der Molen, M.W.; Stauder, J.E.A.

1993-01-01

Examined the relation between cognitive development (CGD) and the ontogenesis of event-related brain potentials (ERPs) during childhood among 48 girls (aged 5-7 yrs). The level of CGD was assessed with a standard Piagetian conservation kit. Ss performed a visual selective attention (oddball) task

Arousal and attention re-orienting in autism spectrum disorders: evidence from auditory event-related potentials

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Elena V Orekhova

2014-02-01

Full Text Available The extended phenotype of autism spectrum disorders (ASD includes a combination of arousal regulation problems, sensory modulation difficulties, and attention re-orienting deficit. A slow and inefficient re-orienting to stimuli that appear outside of the attended sensory stream is thought to be especially detrimental for social functioning. Event-related potentials (ERPs and magnetic fields (ERFs may help to reveal which processing stages underlying brain response to unattended but salient sensory event are affected in individuals with ASD. Previous research focusing on two sequential stages of the brain response - automatic detection of physical changes in auditory stream, indexed by mismatch negativity (MMN, and evaluation of stimulus novelty, indexed by P3a component, - found in individuals with ASD either increased, decreased or normal processing of deviance and novelty. The review examines these apparently conflicting results, notes gaps in previous findings, and suggests a potentially unifying hypothesis relating the dampened responses to unattended sensory events to the deficit in rapid arousal process. Specifically, ‘sensory gating’ studies focused on pre-attentive arousal consistently demonstrated that brain response to unattended and temporally novel sound in ASD is already affected at around 100 ms after stimulus onset. We hypothesize that abnormalities in nicotinic cholinergic arousal pathways, previously reported in individuals with ASD, may contribute to these ERP/ERF aberrations and result in attention re-orienting deficit. Such cholinergic dysfunction may be present in individuals with ASD early in life and can influence both sensory processing and attention re-orienting behavior. Identification of early neurophysiological biomarkers for cholinergic deficit would help to detect infants at risk who can potentially benefit from particular types of therapies or interventions.

Relational databases for conditions data and event selection in ATLAS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Viegas, F; Hawkings, R; Dimitrov, G

2008-01-01

The ATLAS experiment at LHC will make extensive use of relational databases in both online and offline contexts, running to O(TBytes) per year. Two of the most challenging applications in terms of data volume and access patterns are conditions data, making use of the LHC conditions database, COOL, and the TAG database, that stores summary event quantities allowing a rapid selection of interesting events. Both of these databases are being replicated to regional computing centres using Oracle Streams technology, in collaboration with the LCG 3D project. Database optimisation, performance tests and first user experience with these applications will be described, together with plans for first LHC data-taking and future prospects

Relational databases for conditions data and event selection in ATLAS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Viegas, F; Hawkings, R; Dimitrov, G [CERN, CH-1211 Geneve 23 (Switzerland)

2008-07-15

The ATLAS experiment at LHC will make extensive use of relational databases in both online and offline contexts, running to O(TBytes) per year. Two of the most challenging applications in terms of data volume and access patterns are conditions data, making use of the LHC conditions database, COOL, and the TAG database, that stores summary event quantities allowing a rapid selection of interesting events. Both of these databases are being replicated to regional computing centres using Oracle Streams technology, in collaboration with the LCG 3D project. Database optimisation, performance tests and first user experience with these applications will be described, together with plans for first LHC data-taking and future prospects.

Grain elevator workers show work-related pulmonary function changes and dose-effect relationships with dust exposure.

Science.gov (United States)

Corey, P; Hutcheon, M; Broder, I; Mintz, S

1982-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine whether grain handlers underwent work-related changes in their pulmonary function and, if so, to examine the dose-effect relationships with dust exposure. The pulmonary function of grain handlers was measured at the beginning and end of work shifts over a period of one week, during which their exposure to dust was measured daily. The results showed changes indicative of a within-day obstructive change, in addition to a small restrictive defect occurring over the course of a week. Civic outside labourers who were examined as a control group showed a similar within-week obstructive change without any associated restriction of lung volume. The data on the grain handlers were also used to examine the dose-effect relationships of dust exposure, both on baseline pulmonary function and on within-day changes in these measurements. The baseline flow rates of workers who did not wear a mask were found to vary inversely with their average exposure to respirable dust. In addition, the flow rates underwent a within-day decrease that varied directly with their corresponding exposure to respirable dust and was unrelated to mask wearing. The median of the slopes for this relationship indicated that 50% of the subjects had a decrease of at least 923 ml/s in the value of their Vmax50%VC for each 1 mg/m3 increase in the concentration of respirable dust. Non-respirable dust did not have a measurable effect either on the baseline or the within-day changes in pulmonary function. The acute changes were unaffected by age, duration of employment, or extent of smoking. PMID:7138793

HLA-G regulatory haplotypes and implantation outcome in couples who underwent assisted reproduction treatment.

Science.gov (United States)

Costa, Cynthia Hernandes; Gelmini, Georgia Fernanda; Wowk, Pryscilla Fanini; Mattar, Sibelle Botogosque; Vargas, Rafael Gustavo; Roxo, Valéria Maria Munhoz Sperandio; Schuffner, Alessandro; Bicalho, Maria da Graça

2012-09-01

The role of HLA-G in several clinical conditions related to reproduction has been investigated. Important polymorphisms have been found within the 5'URR and 3'UTR regions of the HLA-G promoter. The aim of the present study was to investigate 16 SNPs in the 5'URR and 14-bp insertion/deletion (ins/del) polymorphism located in the 3'UTR region of the HLA-G gene and its possible association with the implantation outcome in couples who underwent assisted reproduction treatments (ART). The case group was composed of 25 ART couples. Ninety-four couples with two or more term pregnancies composed the control group. Polymorphism haplotype frequencies of the HLA-G were determined for both groups. The Haplotype 5, Haplotype 8 and Haplotype 11 were absolute absence in ART couples. The HLA-G*01:01:02a, HLA-G*01:01:02b alleles and the 14-bp ins polymorphism, Haplotype 2, showed an increased frequency in case women and similar distribution between case and control men. However, this susceptibility haplotype is significantly presented in case women and in couple with failure implantation after treatment, which led us to suggest a maternal effect, associated with this haplotype, once their presence in women is related to a higher number of couples who underwent ART. Copyright © 2012. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Computerized surveillance of opioid-related adverse drug events in perioperative care: a cross-sectional study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gattis Katherine G

2009-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Given the complexity of surgical care, perioperative patients are at high risk of opioid-related adverse drug events. Existing methods of detection, such as trigger tools and manual chart review, are time-intensive which makes sustainability challenging. Using strategic rule design, computerized surveillance may be an efficient, pharmacist-driven model for event detection that leverages existing staff resources. Methods Computerized adverse drug event surveillance uses a logic-based rules engine to identify potential adverse drug events or evolving unsafe clinical conditions. We extended an inpatient rule (administration of naloxone to detect opioid-related oversedation and respiratory depression to perioperative care at a large academic medical center. Our primary endpoint was the adverse drug event rate. For all patients with a naloxone alert, manual chart review was performed by a perioperative clinical pharmacist to assess patient harm. In patients with confirmed oversedation, other patient safety event databases were queried to determine if they could detect duplicate, prior, or subsequent opioid-related events. Results We identified 419 cases of perioperative naloxone administration. Of these, 101 were given postoperatively and 69 were confirmed as adverse drug events after chart review yielding a rate of 1.89 adverse drug events/1000 surgical encounters across both the inpatient and ambulatory settings. Our ability to detect inpatient opioid adverse drug events increased 22.7% by expanding surveillance into perioperative care. Analysis of historical surveillance data as well as a voluntary reporting database revealed that 11 of our perioperative patients had prior or subsequent harmful oversedation. Nine of these cases received intraoperative naloxone, and 2 had received naloxone in the post-anesthesia care unit. Pharmacist effort was approximately 3 hours per week to evaluate naloxone alerts and confirm adverse drug

P300 component of event-related potentials in persons with asperger disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Iwanami, Akira; Okajima, Yuka; Ota, Haruhisa; Tani, Masayuki; Yamada, Takashi; Yamagata, Bun; Hashimoto, Ryuichiro; Kanai, Chieko; Takashio, Osamu; Inamoto, Atsuko; Ono, Taisei; Takayama, Yukiko; Kato, Nobumasa

2014-10-01

In the present study, we investigated auditory event-related potentials in adults with Asperger disorder and normal controls using an auditory oddball task and a novelty oddball task. Task performance and the latencies of P300 evoked by both target and novel stimuli in the two tasks did not differ between the two groups. Analysis of variance revealed that there was a significant interaction effect between group and electrode site on the mean amplitude of the P300 evoked by novel stimuli, which indicated that there was an altered distribution of the P300 in persons with Asperger disorder. In contrast, there was no significant interaction effect on the mean P300 amplitude elicited by target stimuli. Considering that P300 comprises two main subcomponents, frontal-central-dominant P3a and parietal-dominant P3b, our results suggested that persons with Asperger disorder have enhanced amplitude of P3a, which indicated activated prefrontal function in this task.

Using naturalistic driving data to explore the association between traffic safety-related events and crash risk at driver level.

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Kun-Feng; Aguero-Valverde, Jonathan; Jovanis, Paul P

2014-11-01

There has been considerable research conducted over the last 40 years using traffic safety-related events to support road safety analyses. Dating back to traffic conflict studies from the 1960s these observational studies of driver behavior have been criticized due to: poor quality data; lack of available and useful exposure measures linked to the observations; the incomparability of self-reported safety-related events; and, the difficulty in assessing culpability for safety-related events. This study seeks to explore the relationships between driver characteristics and traffic safety-related events, and between traffic safety-related events and crash involvement while mitigating some of those limitations. The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute 100-Car Naturalistic Driving Study dataset, in which the participants' vehicles were instrumented with various cameras and sensors during the study period, was used for this study. The study data set includes 90 drivers observed for 12-13 months driving. This study focuses on single vehicle run-off-road safety-related events only, including 14 crashes and 182 safety-related events (30 near crashes, and 152 crash-relevant incidents). Among the findings are: (1) drivers under age 25 are significantly more likely to be involved in safety-related events and crashes; and (2) significantly positive correlations exist between crashes, near crashes, and crash-relevant incidents. Although there is still much to learn about the factors affecting the positive correlation between safety-related events and crashes, a Bayesian multivariate Poisson log-normal model is shown to be useful to quantify the associations between safety-related events and crash risk while controlling for driver characteristics. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Effects of Acute Dopamine Precursor Depletion on the Cognitive Control Functions of Performance Monitoring and Conflict Processing: An Event-Related Potential (ERP) Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Larson, Michael J; Clayson, Peter E; Primosch, Mark; Leyton, Marco; Steffensen, Scott C

2015-01-01

Studies using medications and psychiatric populations implicate dopamine in cognitive control and performance monitoring processes. However, side effects associated with medication or studying psychiatric groups may confound the relationship between dopamine and cognitive control. To circumvent such possibilities, we utilized a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-subjects design wherein participants were administered a nutritionally-balanced amino acid mixture (BAL) and an amino acid mixture deficient in the dopamine precursors tyrosine (TYR) and phenylalanine (PHE) on two separate occasions. Order of sessions was randomly assigned. Cognitive control and performance monitoring were assessed using response times (RT), error rates, the N450, an event-related potential (ERP) index of conflict monitoring, the conflict slow potential (conflict SP), an ERP index of conflict resolution, and the error-related negativity (ERN) and error positivity (Pe), ERPs associated with performance monitoring. Participants were twelve males who completed a Stroop color-word task while ERPs were collected four hours following acute PHE and TYR depletion (APTD) or balanced (BAL) mixture ingestion in two separate sessions. N450 and conflict SP ERP amplitudes significantly differentiated congruent from incongruent trials, but did not differ as a function of APTD or BAL mixture ingestion. Similarly, ERN and Pe amplitudes showed significant differences between error and correct trials that were not different between APTD and BAL conditions. Findings indicate that acute dopamine precursor depletion does not significantly alter cognitive control and performance monitoring ERPs. Current results do not preclude the role of dopamine in these processes, but suggest that multiple methods for dopamine-related hypothesis testing are needed.

The Effects of Acute Dopamine Precursor Depletion on the Cognitive Control Functions of Performance Monitoring and Conflict Processing: An Event-Related Potential (ERP Study.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michael J Larson

Full Text Available Studies using medications and psychiatric populations implicate dopamine in cognitive control and performance monitoring processes. However, side effects associated with medication or studying psychiatric groups may confound the relationship between dopamine and cognitive control. To circumvent such possibilities, we utilized a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-subjects design wherein participants were administered a nutritionally-balanced amino acid mixture (BAL and an amino acid mixture deficient in the dopamine precursors tyrosine (TYR and phenylalanine (PHE on two separate occasions. Order of sessions was randomly assigned. Cognitive control and performance monitoring were assessed using response times (RT, error rates, the N450, an event-related potential (ERP index of conflict monitoring, the conflict slow potential (conflict SP, an ERP index of conflict resolution, and the error-related negativity (ERN and error positivity (Pe, ERPs associated with performance monitoring. Participants were twelve males who completed a Stroop color-word task while ERPs were collected four hours following acute PHE and TYR depletion (APTD or balanced (BAL mixture ingestion in two separate sessions. N450 and conflict SP ERP amplitudes significantly differentiated congruent from incongruent trials, but did not differ as a function of APTD or BAL mixture ingestion. Similarly, ERN and Pe amplitudes showed significant differences between error and correct trials that were not different between APTD and BAL conditions. Findings indicate that acute dopamine precursor depletion does not significantly alter cognitive control and performance monitoring ERPs. Current results do not preclude the role of dopamine in these processes, but suggest that multiple methods for dopamine-related hypothesis testing are needed.

Sensor-Generated Time Series Events: A Definition Language

Science.gov (United States)

Anguera, Aurea; Lara, Juan A.; Lizcano, David; Martínez, Maria Aurora; Pazos, Juan

2012-01-01

There are now a great many domains where information is recorded by sensors over a limited time period or on a permanent basis. This data flow leads to sequences of data known as time series. In many domains, like seismography or medicine, time series analysis focuses on particular regions of interest, known as events, whereas the remainder of the time series contains hardly any useful information. In these domains, there is a need for mechanisms to identify and locate such events. In this paper, we propose an events definition language that is general enough to be used to easily and naturally define events in time series recorded by sensors in any domain. The proposed language has been applied to the definition of time series events generated within the branch of medicine dealing with balance-related functions in human beings. A device, called posturograph, is used to study balance-related functions. The platform has four sensors that record the pressure intensity being exerted on the platform, generating four interrelated time series. As opposed to the existing ad hoc proposals, the results confirm that the proposed language is valid, that is generally applicable and accurate, for identifying the events contained in the time series.

Relations between Rainfall and Postfire Debris-Flow- and Flood-Event Magnitudes for Emergency-Response Planning, San Gabriel Mountains, Southern California, USA

Science.gov (United States)

Cannon, Susan; Collins, Larry; Boldt, Eric; Staley, Dennis

2010-05-01

.46defines the rainfall conditions above which Magnitude III events can be expected. Rainfall trigger-event magnitude relations are linked with potential emergency-response actions in the form of an emergency-response decision chart. The chart leads a user through steps to 1) determine potential event magnitudes, and 2) identify possible evacuation and resource-deployment levels as a function of either individual storm forecasts or measured precipitation during storms. The ability to use this information in the planning and response decision-making process may result in significant financial savings and increased safety for both the public and emergency responders.

Functional outcome in contemporary children with total cavopulmonary connection - Health-related physical fitness, exercise capacity and health-related quality of life.

Science.gov (United States)

Hock, Julia; Reiner, Barbara; Neidenbach, Rhoia C; Oberhoffer, Renate; Hager, Alfred; Ewert, Peter; Müller, Jan

2018-03-15

Children and adolescents with an univentricular heart after total cavopulmonary connection (TCPC) have functional impairments. This study assesses health-related physical fitness (HRPF) and exercise capacity, as well as their relation to health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in patients with an univentricular heart after total-pulmonary connection (TCPC). Between July 2014 and October 2016 a total of 78 children and adolescents with TCPC (12.0±3.2years, 21 female) performed a motor test including five tasks for strength and flexibility during their routine follow-up appointment. They also underwent a symptom limited cardio-pulmonary exercise test and filled in a HRQoL questionnaire (KINDL-R). Patients' data were compared to a recent sample of healthy children (n=1650, 12.6±2.4years, 49% female). Multivariable regressions corrected for sex, age and BMI showed that TCPC patients achieved 12.4 repetitions of curl-ups (pflexibility (-4.7cm; pmotor competence and exercise capacity, early screening for HRPF and early treatment, if indicated, is recommended. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Correlates of adverse childhood events among adults with schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

Science.gov (United States)

Rosenberg, Stanley D; Lu, Weili; Mueser, Kim T; Jankowski, Mary Kay; Cournos, Francine

2007-02-01

Multiple studies have found that childhood adversity is related to a range of poor mental health, substance abuse, poor physical health, and poor social functioning outcomes in the general population of adults. However, despite the high rates of childhood adversity in schizophrenia, the clinical correlates of these events have not been systematically evaluated. This study evaluated the relationship between adverse experiences in childhood and functional, clinical, and health outcomes among adults with schizophrenia. The authors surveyed 569 adults with schizophrenia regarding adverse childhood events (including physical abuse, sexual abuse, parental mental illnesses, loss of a parent, parental separation or divorce, witnessing domestic violence, and foster or kinship care). The relationships between cumulative exposure to these events and psychiatric, physical, and functional outcomes were evaluated. Increased exposure to adverse childhood events was strongly related to psychiatric problems (suicidal thinking, hospitalizations, distress, and posttraumatic stress disorder), substance abuse, physical health problems (HIV infection), medical service utilization (physician visits), and poor social functioning (homelessness or criminal justice involvement). The findings extend the results of research in the general population by suggesting that childhood adversity contributes to worse mental health, substance abuse, worse physical health, and poor functional outcomes in schizophrenia.

Effects of nicotine on visuo-spatial selective attention as indexed by event-related potentials.

Science.gov (United States)

Meinke, A; Thiel, C M; Fink, G R

2006-08-11

Nicotine has been shown to specifically reduce reaction times to invalidly cued targets in spatial cueing paradigms. In two experiments, we used event-related potentials to test whether the facilitative effect of nicotine upon the detection of invalidly cued targets is due to a modulation of perceptual processing, as indexed by early attention-related event-related potential components. Furthermore, we assessed whether the effect of nicotine on such unattended stimuli depends upon the use of exogenous or endogenous cues. In both experiments, the electroencephalogram was recorded while non-smokers completed discrimination tasks in Posner-type paradigms after chewing a nicotine polacrilex gum (Nicorette 2 mg) in one session and a placebo gum in another session. Nicotine reduced reaction times to invalidly cued targets when cueing was endogenous. In contrast, no differential effect of nicotine on reaction times was observed when exogenous cues were used. Electrophysiologically, we found a similar attentional modulation of the P1 and N1 components under placebo and nicotine but a differential modulation of later event-related potential components at a frontocentral site. The lack of a drug-dependent modulation of P1 and N1 in the presence of a behavioral effect suggests that the effect of nicotine in endogenous visuo-spatial cueing tasks is not due to an alteration of perceptual processes. Rather, the differential modulation of frontocentral event-related potentials suggests that nicotine acts at later stages of target processing.

Emotional Granularity Effects on Event-Related Brain Potentials during Affective Picture Processing.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Ja Y; Lindquist, Kristen A; Nam, Chang S

2017-01-01

There is debate about whether emotional granularity , the tendency to label emotions in a nuanced and specific manner, is merely a product of labeling abilities, or a systematic difference in the experience of emotion during emotionally evocative events. According to the Conceptual Act Theory of Emotion (CAT) (Barrett, 2006), emotional granularity is due to the latter and is a product of on-going temporal differences in how individuals categorize and thus make meaning of their affective states. To address this question, the present study investigated the effects of individual differences in emotional granularity on electroencephalography-based brain activity during the experience of emotion in response to affective images. Event-related potentials (ERP) and event-related desynchronization and synchronization (ERD/ERS) analysis techniques were used. We found that ERP responses during the very early (60-90 ms), middle (270-300 ms), and later (540-570 ms) moments of stimulus presentation were associated with individuals' level of granularity. We also observed that highly granular individuals, compared to lowly granular individuals, exhibited relatively stable desynchronization of alpha power (8-12 Hz) and synchronization of gamma power (30-50 Hz) during the 3 s of stimulus presentation. Overall, our results suggest that emotional granularity is related to differences in neural processing throughout emotional experiences and that high granularity could be associated with access to executive control resources and a more habitual processing of affective stimuli, or a kind of "emotional complexity." Implications for models of emotion are also discussed.

Functional statistics and related fields

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Bongiorno, Enea; Cao, Ricardo; Vieu, Philippe

2017-01-01

This volume collects latest methodological and applied contributions on functional, high-dimensional and other complex data, related statistical models and tools as well as on operator-based statistics. It contains selected and refereed contributions presented at the Fourth International Workshop on Functional and Operatorial Statistics (IWFOS 2017) held in A Coruña, Spain, from 15 to 17 June 2017. The series of IWFOS workshops was initiated by the Working Group on Functional and Operatorial Statistics at the University of Toulouse in 2008. Since then, many of the major advances in functional statistics and related fields have been periodically presented and discussed at the IWFOS workshops. .

Adverse events and the relation with quality of life in adults with intellectual disability and challenging behaviour using psychotropic drugs.

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Scheifes, Arlette; Walraven, Sanne; Stolker, Joost Jan; Nijman, Henk L I; Egberts, Toine C G; Heerdink, Eibert R

2016-01-01

Psychotropic drugs are prescribed to approximately 30-40% of adults with intellectual disability (ID) and challenging behaviour, despite the limited evidence of effectiveness and the potential of adverse events. To assess the prevalence of adverse events in association with psychotropic drug use in adults with ID and challenging behaviour and to examine the relation of these adverse events with the person's quality of life. The presence of adverse events was measured with a questionnaire that had to be filled in by the physicians of the participants. Movement disorders were measured separately with a standardised protocol. The strength of the association between adverse events and Intellectual Disability Quality of Life-16 (IDQOL-16), and daily functioning was investigated using linear regression analyses, taking into account the severity of disease (CGI-S) as potential confounder. Virtually all of 103 adults with ID and challenging behaviour had at least one adverse event (84.4%) and almost half had ≥3 adverse events (45.6%) across different subclasses. Using psychotropic drugs increased the prevalence of adverse events significantly. Respectively 13% of the patients without psychotropic drugs and 61% of the patients with ≥2 psychotropic drugs had ≥3 adverse events. Having adverse events had a significantly negative influence on the quality of life. A large majority of all patients had at least one adverse event associated with psychotropic drug use. More attention is needed for these adverse events and their negative influence on the quality of life of these patients, taking into account the lack of evidence of effectiveness of psychotropic drugs for challenging behaviour. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Interactions between mood and the structure of semantic memory: event-related potentials evidence.

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Pinheiro, Ana P; del Re, Elisabetta; Nestor, Paul G; McCarley, Robert W; Gonçalves, Óscar F; Niznikiewicz, Margaret

2013-06-01

Recent evidence suggests that affect acts as modulator of cognitive processes and in particular that induced mood has an effect on the way semantic memory is used on-line. We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine affective modulation of semantic information processing under three different moods: neutral, positive and negative. Fifteen subjects read 324 pairs of sentences, after mood induction procedure with 30 pictures of neutral, 30 pictures of positive and 30 pictures of neutral valence: 108 sentences were read in each mood induction condition. Sentences ended with three word types: expected words, within-category violations, and between-category violations. N400 amplitude was measured to the three word types under each mood induction condition. Under neutral mood, a congruency (more negative N400 amplitude for unexpected relative to expected endings) and a category effect (more negative N400 amplitude for between- than to within-category violations) were observed. Also, results showed differences in N400 amplitude for both within- and between-category violations as a function of mood: while positive mood tended to facilitate the integration of unexpected but related items, negative mood made their integration as difficult as unexpected and unrelated items. These findings suggest the differential impact of mood on access to long-term semantic memory during sentence comprehension.

Blunt splenic injury: are early adverse events related to trauma, nonoperative management, or surgery?

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Frandon, Julien; Rodiere, Mathieu; Arvieux, Catherine; Vendrell, Anne; Boussat, Bastien; Sengel, Christian; Broux, Christophe; Bricault, Ivan; Ferretti, Gilbert; Thony, Frédéric

2015-01-01

PURPOSE We aimed to compare clinical outcomes and early adverse events of operative management (OM), nonoperative management (NOM), and NOM with splenic artery embolization (SAE) in blunt splenic injury (BSI) and identify the prognostic factors. METHODS Medical records of 136 consecutive patients with BSI admitted to a trauma center from 2005 to 2010 were retrospectively reviewed. Patients were separated into three groups: OM, NOM, and SAE. We focused on associated injuries and early adverse events. Multivariate analysis was performed on 23 prognostic factors to find predictors. RESULTS The total survival rate was 97.1%, with four deaths all occurred in the OM group. The spleen salvage rate was 91% in NOM and SAE. At least one adverse event was observed in 32.8%, 62%, and 96% of patients in NOM, SAE, and OM groups, respectively (P < 0.001). We found significantly more deaths, infectious complications, pleural drainage, acute renal failures, and pancreatitis in OM and more pseudocysts in SAE. Six prognostic factors were statistically significant for one or more adverse events: simplified acute physiology score 2 ≥25 for almost all adverse events, age ≥50 years for acute respiratory syndrome, limb fracture for secondary bleeding, thoracic injury for pleural drainage, and at least one associated injury for pseudocyst. Adverse events were not related to the type of BSI management. CONCLUSION Patients with BSI present worse outcome and more adverse events in OM, but this is related to the severity of injury. The main predictor of adverse events remains the severity of injury. PMID:26081719

Functional neuroimaging of conversion disorder: the role of ancillary activation.

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Burke, Matthew J; Ghaffar, Omar; Staines, W Richard; Downar, Jonathan; Feinstein, Anthony

2014-01-01

Previous functional neuroimaging studies investigating the neuroanatomy of conversion disorder have yielded inconsistent results that may be attributed to small sample sizes and disparate methodologies. The objective of this study was to better define the functional neuroanatomical correlates of conversion disorder. Ten subjects meeting clinical criteria for unilateral sensory conversion disorder underwent fMRI during which a vibrotactile stimulus was applied to anesthetic and sensate areas. A block design was used with 4 s of stimulation followed by 26 s of rest, the pattern repeated 10 times. Event-related group averages of the BOLD response were compared between conditions. All subjects were right-handed females, with a mean age of 41. Group analyses revealed 10 areas that had significantly greater activation (p conversion symptoms are associated with a pattern of abnormal cerebral activation comprising neural networks implicated in emotional processing and sensory integration. Further study of the roles and potential interplay of these networks may provide a basis for an underlying psychobiological mechanism of conversion disorder.

Prognostic table for predicting major cardiac events based on J-ACCESS investigation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nakajima, Kenichi; Nishimura, Tsunehiko

2008-01-01

The event risk of patients with coronary heart disease may be estimated by a large-scale prognostic database in a Japanese population. The aim of this study was to create a heart risk table for predicting the major cardiac event rate. Using the Japanese-assessment of cardiac event and survival study (J-ACCESS) database created by a prognostic investigation involving 117 hospitals and >4000 patients in Japan, multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed. The major event rate over a 3-year period that included cardiac death, non-fatal myocardial infarction, and severe heart failure requiring hospitalization was predicted by the logistic regression equation. The algorithm for calculating the event rate was simplified for creating tables. Two tables were created to calculate cardiac risk by age, perfusion score category, and ejection fraction with and without the presence of diabetes. A relative risk table comparing age-matched control subjects was also made. When the simplified tables were compared with the results from the original logistic regression analysis, both risk values and relative risks agreed well (P<0.0001 for both). The Heart Risk Table was created for patients suspected of having ischemic heart disease and who underwent myocardial perfusion gated single-photon emission computed tomography. The validity of risk assessment using a J-ACCESS database should be validated in a future study. (author)

Simultaneous vs sequential bilateral cataract surgery for infants with congenital cataracts: Visual outcomes, adverse events, and economic costs.

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Dave, Hreem; Phoenix, Vidya; Becker, Edmund R; Lambert, Scott R

2010-08-01

To compare the incidence of adverse events and visual outcomes and to compare the economic costs of sequential vs simultaneous bilateral cataract surgery for infants with congenital cataracts. Retrospective review of simultaneous vs sequential bilateral cataract surgery for infants with congenital cataracts who underwent cataract surgery when 6 months or younger at our institution. Records were available for 10 children who underwent sequential surgery at a mean age of 49 days for the first eye and 17 children who underwent simultaneous surgery at a mean age of 68 days (P = .25). We found a similar incidence of adverse events between the 2 treatment groups. Intraoperative or postoperative complications occurred in 14 eyes. The most common postoperative complication was glaucoma. No eyes developed endophthalmitis. The mean (SD) absolute interocular difference in logMAR visual acuities between the 2 treatment groups was 0.47 (0.76) for the sequential group and 0.44 (0.40) for the simultaneous group (P = .92). Payments for the hospital, drugs, supplies, and professional services were on average 21.9% lower per patient in the simultaneous group. Simultaneous bilateral cataract surgery for infants with congenital cataracts is associated with a 21.9% reduction in medical payments and no discernible difference in the incidence of adverse events or visual outcomes. However, our small sample size limits our ability to make meaningful comparisons of the relative risks and visual benefits of the 2 procedures.

Proving relations between modular graph functions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Basu, Anirban

2016-01-01

We consider modular graph functions that arise in the low energy expansion of the four graviton amplitude in type II string theory. The vertices of these graphs are the positions of insertions of vertex operators on the toroidal worldsheet, while the links are the scalar Green functions connecting the vertices. Graphs with four and five links satisfy several non-trivial relations, which have been proved recently. We prove these relations by using elementary properties of Green functions and the details of the graphs. We also prove a relation between modular graph functions with six links. (paper)

Aesthetic appreciation: event-related field and time-frequency analyses.

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Munar, Enric; Nadal, Marcos; Castellanos, Nazareth P; Flexas, Albert; Maestú, Fernando; Mirasso, Claudio; Cela-Conde, Camilo J

2011-01-01

Improvements in neuroimaging methods have afforded significant advances in our knowledge of the cognitive and neural foundations of aesthetic appreciation. We used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to register brain activity while participants decided about the beauty of visual stimuli. The data were analyzed with event-related field (ERF) and Time-Frequency (TF) procedures. ERFs revealed no significant differences between brain activity related with stimuli rated as "beautiful" and "not beautiful." TF analysis showed clear differences between both conditions 400 ms after stimulus onset. Oscillatory power was greater for stimuli rated as "beautiful" than those regarded as "not beautiful" in the four frequency bands (theta, alpha, beta, and gamma). These results are interpreted in the frame of synchronization studies.

Relation between visual function index and falls-related factors in patients with age-related cataract

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Mei-Na Huang

2016-01-01

Full Text Available AIM:To investigate the relation between vision function index and falls-related factors in patients with age-related cataract.METHODS:Ninety-six patients with age-related cataract were interviewed using a seven-item visual function questionnaire(VF-7, then classified into poor, moderate, or good visual function group. The differences of the three groups on visual acuity, balance and mobility function, cognition, depressive symptoms, self-reported fear of falling were analyzed. RESULTS:The patients in poor visual function group had older age, tendency to depression, was more afraid of falling, compared with groups with higher score in VF-7, and they had worse visual acuity, performed worse on all balance and mobility tests. CONCLUSION:Poor visual function is related to worse visual acuity, weaker balance and mobility performance in patients with age-related cataract. The VF-7, as a simple and convenient self-reported method, can be used as a falling risk monitoring in patients with age-related cataract.

Evolution of elderly patients who underwent cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass

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Alain Moré Duarte

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Introduction: There is a steady increase in the number of elderly patients with severe cardiovascular diseases who require a surgical procedure to recover some quality of life that allows them a socially meaningful existence, despite the risks.Objectives: To analyze the behavior of elderly patients who underwent cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass.Method: A descriptive, retrospective, cross-sectional study was conducted with patients over 65 years of age who underwent surgery at the Cardiocentro Ernesto Che Guevara, in Santa Clara, from January 2013 to March 2014.Results: In the study, 73.1% of patients were men; and there was a predominance of subjects between 65 and 70 years of age, accounting for 67.3%. Coronary artery bypass graft was the most prevalent type of surgery and had the longest cardiopulmonary bypass times. Hypertension was present in 98.1% of patients. The most frequent postoperative complications were renal dysfunction and severe low cardiac output, with 44.2% and 34.6% respectively.Conclusions: There was a predominance of men, the age group of 65 to 70 years, hypertension, and patients who underwent coronary artery bypass graft with prolonged cardiopulmonary bypass. Renal dysfunction was the most frequent complication.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Myocardial Fibrosis Related to Ischemic Events

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Himcinschi Elisabeta

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Given the higher amount of detail it offers, the use of magnetic resonance (MR in the field of cardiology has increased, thus leading to a decrease in the use of invasive and irradiating methods for diagnosing various cardiovascular disorders. The only precautions for MR imaging are metallic implants and advanced-stage chronic kidney disease. For the acquisition of clear and dynamic myocardial images, methods such as spin echo imaging for anatomical description, steady-state free precession imaging for the assessment of ventricular cavity size and function, flow velocity encoding for blood flow measurements, radiofrequency tagging for dynamics, and even spectroscopy for metabolism evaluation are used. Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR is considered the gold standard imaging method for the anatomical characterization of the heart and obtaining information related to myocardial dynamics. In case of ischemic events, CMR is used for a detailed description of the necrotic area and the complications, and for tracking the ventricular remodeling. By administrating a contrast agent (gadolinium, the difference between sub-endothelial and transmural infarctions can be distinguished, highlighting even microvascular lesions responsible for the extension of the necrosis. The assessment of the dynamics of ventricular remodeling and viability through late gadolinium enhancement (LGE technology highlights the area of fibrosis and the occurrence of late complications.

Auditory event-related potentials associated with perceptual reversals of bistable pitch motion.

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Davidson, Gray D; Pitts, Michael A

2014-01-01

Previous event-related potential (ERP) experiments have consistently identified two components associated with perceptual transitions of bistable visual stimuli, the "reversal negativity" (RN) and the "late positive complex" (LPC). The RN (~200 ms post-stimulus, bilateral occipital-parietal distribution) is thought to reflect transitions between neural representations that form the moment-to-moment contents of conscious perception, while the LPC (~400 ms, central-parietal) is considered an index of post-perceptual processing related to accessing and reporting one's percept. To explore the generality of these components across sensory modalities, the present experiment utilized a novel bistable auditory stimulus. Pairs of complex tones with ambiguous pitch relationships were presented sequentially while subjects reported whether they perceived the tone pairs as ascending or descending in pitch. ERPs elicited by the tones were compared according to whether perceived pitch motion changed direction or remained the same across successive trials. An auditory reversal negativity (aRN) component was evident at ~170 ms post-stimulus over bilateral fronto-central scalp locations. An auditory LPC component (aLPC) was evident at subsequent latencies (~350 ms, fronto-central distribution). These two components may be auditory analogs of the visual RN and LPC, suggesting functionally equivalent but anatomically distinct processes in auditory vs. visual bistable perception.

Commutation relations for functions of operators

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Transtrum, Mark K.; Van Huele, Jean-Francois S.

2005-01-01

We derive an expression for the commutator of functions of operators with constant commutations relations in terms of the partial derivatives of these functions. This result extends the well-known commutation relation between one operator and a function of another operator. We discuss the range of applicability of the formula with examples in quantum mechanics

Preoperative Estimation of Future Remnant Liver Function Following Portal Vein Embolization Using Relative Enhancement on Gadoxetic Acid Disodium-Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging

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Sato, Yozo [Department of Radiology, Aichi Medical University, Aichi 480-1195 (Japan); Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Aichi Cancer Center Hospital, Nagoya 464-8681 (Japan); Matsushima, Shigeru; Inaba, Yoshitaka [Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Aichi Cancer Center Hospital, Nagoya 464-8681 (Japan); Sano, Tsuyoshi [Department of Gastroenterological Surgery, Aichi Cancer Center Hospital, Nagoya 464-8681 (Japan); Yamaura, Hidekazu; Kato, Mina [Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, Aichi Cancer Center Hospital, Nagoya 464-8681 (Japan); Shimizu, Yasuhiro; Senda, Yoshiki [Department of Gastroenterological Surgery, Aichi Cancer Center Hospital, Nagoya 464-8681 (Japan); Ishiguchi, Tsuneo [Department of Radiology, Aichi Medical University, Aichi 480-1195 (Japan)

2015-11-01

To retrospectively evaluate relative enhancement (RE) in the hepatobiliary phase of gadoxetic acid disodium-enhanced magnetic resonance (MR) imaging as a preoperative estimation of future remnant liver (FRL) function in a patients who underwent portal vein embolization (PVE). In 53 patients, the correlation between the indocyanine green clearance (ICG-K) and RE imaging was analyzed before hepatectomy (first analysis). Twenty-three of the 53 patients underwent PVE followed by a repeat RE imaging and ICG test before an extended hepatectomy and their results were further analyzed (second analysis). Whole liver function and FRL function were calculated on the MR imaging as follows: RE x total liver volume (RE Index) and FRL-RE x FRL volume (Rem RE Index), respectively. Regarding clinical outcome, posthepatectomy liver failure (PHLF) was evaluated in patients undergoing PVE. Indocyanine green clearance correlated with the RE Index (r = 0.365, p = 0.007), and ICG-K of FRL (ICG-Krem) strongly correlated with the Rem RE Index (r = 0.738, p < 0.001) in the first analysis. Both the ICG-Krem and the Rem RE Index were significantly correlated after PVE (r = 0.508, p = 0.013) at the second analysis. The rate of improvement of the Rem RE Index from before PVE to after PVE was significantly higher than that of ICG-Krem (p = 0.014). Patients with PHLF had a significantly lower Rem RE Index than patients without PHLF (p = 0.023). Relative enhancement imaging can be used to estimate FRL function after PVE.

An event-related brain potential correlate of visual short-term memory

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Klaver, Peter; Talsma, D.; Wijers, Albertus; Heinze, Hans-Jochen; Mulder, Gijsbertus

1999-01-01

EVENT-RELATED potentials (ERPs) were recorded as 12 subjects performed a delayed matching to sample task. We presented two bilateral abstract shapes and cued spatially which had to be memorized for a subsequent matching task: left, right or both. During memorization a posterior slow negative ERP

Adverse Events of Massage Therapy in Pain-Related Conditions: A Systematic Review

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Ping Yin

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Pain-related massage, important in traditional Eastern medicine, is increasingly used in the Western world. So the widening acceptance demands continual safety assessment. This review is an evaluation of the frequency and severity of adverse events (AEs reported mainly for pain-related massage between 2003 and 2013. Relevant all-languages reports in 6 databases were identified and assessed by two coauthors. During the 11-year period, 40 reports of 138 AEs were associated with massage. Author, year of publication, country of occurrence, participant related (age, sex or number of patients affected, the details of manual therapy, and clinician type were extracted. Disc herniation, soft tissue trauma, neurologic compromise, spinal cord injury, dissection of the vertebral arteries, and others were the main complications of massage. Spinal manipulation in massage has repeatedly been associated with serious AEs especially. Clearly, massage therapies are not totally devoid of risks. But the incidence of such events is low.

Humor Use Moderates the Relation of Stressful Life Events With Psychological Distress.

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Fritz, Heidi L; Russek, Leslie N; Dillon, Melissa M

2017-06-01

Three studies examined humor and adjustment to stressful events. In Study 1, patients with fibromyalgia syndrome ( N = 22) reported on mental and physical adjustment, social interaction, and reappraisal of their illness. Dispositional humor was associated with reduced distress and fewer physical symptoms. Study 2 ( N = 109) examined undergraduates' reports of stressful events. Dispositional, self-enhancing, affiliative, and self-defeating humor showed direct effects on distress, which were mediated by social interaction and reappraisal. Moreover, dispositional and aggressive humor showed stress-buffering effects. Study 3 ( N = 105) examined undergraduates' adjustment to the September 11, 2001, attacks at 1 and 3 months postattack. At T1, affiliative humor showed a stress-buffering effect on distress. Social interaction mediated the relation of self-enhancing humor with reduced T1 distress, and mediated relations of aggressive and self-defeating humor with greater distress. Relations of T1 dispositional and self-defeating humor to changes in T2 distress were mediated by reappraisal.

Statistical Analysis of Solar Events Associated with SSC over Year of Solar Maximum during Cycle 23: 1. Identification of Related Sun-Earth Events

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Grison, B.; Bocchialini, K.; Menvielle, M.; Chambodut, A.; Cornilleau-Wehrlin, N.; Fontaine, D.; Marchaudon, A.; Pick, M.; Pitout, F.; Schmieder, B.; Regnier, S.; Zouganelis, Y.

2017-12-01

Taking the 32 sudden storm commencements (SSC) listed by the observatory de l'Ebre / ISGI over the year 2002 (maximal solar activity) as a starting point, we performed a statistical analysis of the related solar sources, solar wind signatures, and terrestrial responses. For each event, we characterized and identified, as far as possible, (i) the sources on the Sun (Coronal Mass Ejections -CME-), with the help of a series of herafter detailed criteria (velocities, drag coefficient, radio waves, polarity), as well as (ii) the structure and properties in the interplanetary medium, at L1, of the event associated to the SSC: magnetic clouds -MC-, non-MC interplanetary coronal mass ejections -ICME-, co-rotating/stream interaction regions -SIR/CIR-, shocks only and unclear events that we call "miscellaneous" events. The categorization of the events at L1 is made on published catalogues. For each potential CME/L1 event association we compare the velocity observed at L1 with the one observed at the Sun and the estimated balistic velocity. Observations of radio emissions (Type II, Type IV detected from the ground and /or by WIND) associated to the CMEs make the solar source more probable. We also compare the polarity of the magnetic clouds with the hemisphere of the solar source. The drag coefficient (estimated with the drag-based model) is calculated for each potential association and it is compared to the expected range values. We identified a solar source for 26 SSC related events. 12 of these 26 associations match all criteria. We finally discuss the difficulty to perform such associations.

Lateralization of event-related potential effects during mental rotation of polygons.

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Pellkofer, Julia; Jansen, Petra; Heil, Martin

2012-07-11

Numerous studies have shown that there is an amplitude modulation of the late positivity depending on the angular disparity during mental rotation performance. However, almost all of these studies used characters as stimulus material, whereas studies with different stimuli are rare. In the present experiment, 35 participants were instructed to rotate polygons mentally. Most importantly, with this stimulus material, the well-known event-related potential effects were also present at posterior electrode leads. Interestingly, the amplitude modulation were found to be larger and more reliable over left than over right posterior electrode leads, a finding reported previously for characters as stimuli, although not consistently. Thus, the present data suggest that the left lateralization of event-related potential effects during mental rotation of characters might not be because of their 'verbal nature', but might suggest a stronger involvement of the left parietal cortex during mental rotation per se, a suggestion that needs to be addressed with methods providing a higher spatial resolution.

[Suicide exposure and its modulatory effects on relations between life events and suicide risk in Chinese college students].

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Zhao, Jiubo; Zhao, Jingbo; Xiao, Rong; Yang, Xueling; Zhang, Xiaoyuan

2013-08-01

To explore the incidence of suicide exposure and its association with suicide risk in Chinese college students, and study the modulatory effects of suicide exposure on the relations between life events and suicide risks. A total of 8202 college students from 12 Chinese colleges and universities in mainland China completed a cross-sectional survey that included suicidal behaviors questionnaire-revised (SBQ-R), Adolescent Self-Rating Life Events Check List (ASLEC), suicide exposure questionnaire, social and demographic characteristics questionnaire. The incidence of exposure to suicide events involving close relatives and acquaintances were 3.9% and 11.8% among sampled Chinese college students, respectively. Students exposed to suicide events involving close relatives had significantly higher total SBQ-R scores than those who did not (5.51∓2.44 vs 4.68∓2.11, P0.05), but exposure to acquaintance suicide events moderated the effects of life events on suicide risk (P<0.01), and the college students with a high level of life events and history of acquaintance suicide had the highest risk for suicide. In Chinese college students, the risk of suicide is closely associated with exposure to suicide events and life events, and exposure to suicide events involving acquaintances can modulate the effects of life events on suicide risk.

Prediction of liver-related events using fibroscan in chronic hepatitis B patients showing advanced liver fibrosis.

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Seung Up Kim

Full Text Available Liver stiffness measurement (LSM using transient elastography (FibroScan® can assess liver fibrosis noninvasively. This study investigated whether LSM can predict the development of liver-related events (LREs in chronic hepatitis B (CHB patients showing histologically advanced liver fibrosis.Between March 2006 and April 2010, 128 CHB patients with who underwent LSM and liver biopsy (LB before starting nucleot(side analogues and showed histologically advanced fibrosis (≥F3 with a high viral loads [HBV DNA ≥2,000 IU/mL] were enrolled. All patients were followed regularly to detect LRE development, including hepatic decompensation (variceal bleeding, ascites, hepatic encephalopathy, spontaneous bacterial peritonitis, hepatorenal syndrome and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC.The mean age of the patient (72 men, 56 women was 52.2 years. During the median follow-up period [median 27.8 (12.6-61.6 months], LREs developed in 19 (14.8% patients (five with hepatic decompensation, 13 with HCC, one with both. Together with age, multivariate analysis identified LSM as an independent predictor of LRE development [P19 kPa were at significantly greater risk than those with LSM≤19 kPa for LRE development (HR, 7.176; 95% CI, 2.257-22.812; P = 0.001.LSM can be a useful predictor of LRE development in CHB patients showing histologically advanced liver fibrosis.

Functional Imaging of Working Memory and Peripheral Endothelial Function in Middle-Aged Adults

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Gonzales, Mitzi M.; Tarumi, Takashi; Tanaka, Hirofumi; Sugawara, Jun; Swann-Sternberg, Tali; Goudarzi, Katayoon; Haley, Andreana P.

2010-01-01

The current study examined the relationship between a prognostic indicator of vascular health, flow-mediated dilation (FMD), and working memory-related brain activation in healthy middle-aged adults. Forty-two participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while completing a 2-Back working memory task. Brachial artery…

The Recording and Quantification of Event-Related Potentials: II. Signal Processing and Analysis

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Paniz Tavakoli

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Event-related potentials are an informative method for measuring the extent of information processing in the brain. The voltage deflections in an ERP waveform reflect the processing of sensory information as well as higher-level processing that involves selective attention, memory, semantic comprehension, and other types of cognitive activity. ERPs provide a non-invasive method of studying, with exceptional temporal resolution, cognitive processes in the human brain. ERPs are extracted from scalp-recorded electroencephalography by a series of signal processing steps. The present tutorial will highlight several of the analysis techniques required to obtain event-related potentials. Some methodological issues that may be encountered will also be discussed.

Comparison of Esophageal Function Tests in Chinese Patients with Functional Heartburn and Reflux Hypersensitivity

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Feng Gao

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Objective. To investigate the differences in the results of esophageal function tests for functional heartburn (FH and reflux hypersensitivity (RH. Methods. Patients with FH and RH and healthy volunteers (HVs from the Department of Gastroenterology, Beijing Anzhen Hospital and Beijing Chao-Yang hospital, who underwent high-resolution manometry and impedance (HRIM, and 24-hour multichannel intraluminal impedance and pH recording (MII/pH between 2014 and 2016, were enrolled in this study. Results. 36 HV, 147 FH patients, and 91 RH patients were enrolled. The postreflux swallow-induced peristaltic wave index (PSPW index and mean nocturnal baseline impedance (MNBI values were significantly lower in RH than in FH and HV. The ineffective esophageal motility (IEM, fragmented peristalsis rates, total bolus exposure, proximal total reflux events, and distal total reflux events were significantly greater in RH than in FH and HV. Conclusions. Compared to HV and FH patients, RH patients exhibited greater IEM and fragmented peristalsis rates, a greater total bolus exposure, more proximal total and distal total reflux events, and reduced chemical clearance and mucosal integrity. By using the above described parameters, HRIM and MII/pH assays could be used to correctly classify RH and FH and hence allow physicians to provide adequate relief from associated symptoms.

Neural correlates of self-appraisals in the near and distant future: an event-related potential study.

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Yangmei Luo

Full Text Available To investigate perceptual and neural correlates of future self-appraisals as a function of temporal distance, event-related potentials (ERPs were recorded while participants (11 women, eight men made judgments about the applicability of trait adjectives to their near future selves (i.e., one month from now and their distant future selves (i.e., three years from now. Behavioral results indicated people used fewer positive adjectives, more negative adjectives, recalled more specific events coming to mind and felt more psychologically connected to the near future self than the distant future self. Electrophysiological results demonstrated that negative trait adjectives elicited more positive ERP deflections than did positive trait adjectives in the interval between 550 and 800 ms (late positive component within the near future self condition. However, within the same interval, there were no significant differences between negative and positive traits adjectives in the distant future self condition. The results suggest that negative emotional processing in future self-appraisals is modulated by temporal distance, consistent with predictions of construal level theory.

Predicting Functional Recovery in Chronic Stroke Rehabilitation Using Event-Related Desynchronization-Synchronization during Robot-Assisted Movement

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Gramigna, Cristina; Franceschetti, Silvana

2016-01-01

Although rehabilitation robotics seems to be a promising therapy in the rehabilitation of the upper limb in stroke patients, consensus is still lacking on its additive effects. Therefore, there is a need for determining the possible success of robotic interventions on selected patients, which in turn determine the necessity for new investigating instruments supporting the treatment decision-making process and customization. The objective of the work presented in this preliminary study was to verify that fully robot assistance would not affect the physiological oscillatory cortical activity related to a functional movement in healthy subjects. Further, the clinical results following the robotic treatment of a chronic stroke patient, who positively reacted to the robotic intervention, were analyzed and discussed. First results show that there is no difference in EEG activation pattern between assisted and no-assisted movement in healthy subjects. Even more importantly, the patient's pretreatment EEG activation pattern in no-assisted movement was completely altered, while it recovered to a quasi-physiological one in robot-assisted movement. The functional improvement following treatment was large. Using pretreatment EEG recording during robot-assisted movement might be a valid approach to assess the potential ability of the patient for recovering. PMID:27057546

Abnormalities of resting state functional connectivity are related to sustained attention deficits in MS.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marisa Loitfelder

Full Text Available OBJECTIVES: Resting state (RS functional MRI recently identified default network abnormalities related to cognitive impairment in MS. fMRI can also be used to map functional connectivity (FC while the brain is at rest and not adhered to a specific task. Given the importance of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC for higher executive functioning in MS, we here used the ACC as seed-point to test for differences and similarities in RS-FC related to sustained attention between MS patients and controls. DESIGN: Block-design rest phases of 3 Tesla fMRI data were analyzed to assess RS-FC in 31 patients (10 clinically isolated syndromes, 16 relapsing-remitting, 5 secondary progressive MS and 31 age- and gender matched healthy controls (HC. Participants underwent extensive cognitive testing. OBSERVATIONS: In both groups, signal changes in several brain areas demonstrated significant correlation with RS-activity in the ACC. These comprised the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC, insular cortices, the right caudate, right middle temporal gyrus, angular gyri, the right hippocampus, and the cerebellum. Compared to HC, patients showed increased FC between the ACC and the left angular gyrus, left PCC, and right postcentral gyrus. Better cognitive performance in the patients was associated with increased FC to the cerebellum, middle temporal gyrus, occipital pole, and the angular gyrus. CONCLUSION: We provide evidence for adaptive changes in RS-FC in MS patients compared to HC in a sustained attention network. These results extend and partly mirror findings of task-related fMRI, suggesting FC may increase our understanding of cognitive dysfunction in MS.

Cortical excitability correlates with the event-related desynchronization during brain-computer interface control

Science.gov (United States)

Daly, Ian; Blanchard, Caroline; Holmes, Nicholas P.

2018-04-01

Objective. Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) based on motor control have been suggested as tools for stroke rehabilitation. Some initial successes have been achieved with this approach, however the mechanism by which they work is not yet fully understood. One possible part of this mechanism is a, previously suggested, relationship between the strength of the event-related desynchronization (ERD), a neural correlate of motor imagination and execution, and corticospinal excitability. Additionally, a key component of BCIs used in neurorehabilitation is the provision of visual feedback to positively reinforce attempts at motor control. However, the ability of visual feedback of the ERD to modulate the activity in the motor system has not been fully explored. Approach. We investigate these relationships via transcranial magnetic stimulation delivered at different moments in the ongoing ERD related to hand contraction and relaxation during BCI control of a visual feedback bar. Main results. We identify a significant relationship between ERD strength and corticospinal excitability, and find that our visual feedback does not affect corticospinal excitability. Significance. Our results imply that efforts to promote functional recovery in stroke by targeting increases in corticospinal excitability may be aided by accounting for the time course of the ERD.

A Study on the Organizational Components Affecting the Communication-Related Events in Nuclear Power Plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Seung Min; Jang, In Seok; Seong, Poong Hyun

2009-01-01

It is important to communicate clearly and effectively in order to achieve and improve team performance, also in the view point of safety, in nuclear power plant (NPP). Researchers have studied on lots of accidents and incidents related to communication and analyzed the elements affecting communication fail in the side of sender-receiver communication process so that they have found which process was failed to communicate each other. But we cannot disregard on human cognition, level of understanding, and individual or team characteristic on the communication process, so we need to analyze the elements of communication-related events in the side of human and team components that we will find why operators could not avoid failing their communication. In this paper we enumerate key organizational components, collect events related to communication in NPP and count the total number of components affecting communication fail. Finally we perform the pairwise-comparison using those values and understand major factors affecting communication-related events

Association of nutritional status-related indices and chemotherapy-induced adverse events in gastric cancer patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Seo, Seung Hee; Kim, Sung-Eun; Kang, Yoon-Koo; Ryoo, Baek-Yeol; Ryu, Min-Hee; Jeong, Jae Ho; Kang, Shin Sook; Yang, Mihi; Lee, Jung Eun; Sung, Mi-Kyung

2016-11-18

Malnutrition in gastrectomized patients receiving chemotherapy is associated with the susceptibility to chemotherapy-related adverse events. This study evaluated pre-operative nutritional status-related indices associated with adverse events in post-operation gastric cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. Medical records of 234 gastrectomized patients under adjuvant tegafur/gimeracil/oteracil chemotherapy with extended lymph node dissection were analyzed. Nutritional status assessment included Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA), body weight, body mass index, serum albumin concentration, and Nutrition Risk Index (NRI). Chemotherapy-originated adverse events were determined using Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events. PG-SGA indicated 59% of the patients were malnourished, and 27.8% of the patients revealed serious malnutrition with PG-SGA score of ≥9. Fifteen % of patients lost ≥10% of the initial body weight, 14.5% of the patients had hypoalbuminemia (cancer patients.

Evaluating sub-clinical cognitive dysfunction and event-related potentials (P300) in clinically isolated syndrome.

Science.gov (United States)

Kocer, Belgin; Unal, Tugba; Nazliel, Bijen; Biyikli, Zeynep; Yesilbudak, Zulal; Karakas, Sirel; Irkec, Ceyla

2008-12-01

This study investigated the presence of sub-clinical cognitive dysfunction in patients with clinically isolated syndrome (CIS) and the abnormalities of cognitive event-related potentials (ERPs). Subclinical cognitive dysfunction was assessed in 20 patients with CIS and in 20 healthy controls. Patients had impairments in verbal learning and long-term memory, evaluating attention, executive function and visuospatial skills, in decreasing order of frequency. SDLT and SIT were the most, and COWAT and BNT were the least affected tests. The N200 and P200 latencies were prolonged, and N100, N200 and P200 amplitudes were reduced in the patients relative to the controls, from the Fz, Cz and Pz electrode positions (p<0.05). Detailed cognitive testing is valuable in determining subclinical cognitive dysfunction in CIS patients. ERP abnormalities as well as abnormalities in detailed cognitivetesting in patients with CIS are helpful in the diagnosis of sub-clinical cognitive dysfunction.

A comparative study of event-related coupling patterns during an auditory oddball task in schizophrenia

Science.gov (United States)

Bachiller, Alejandro; Poza, Jesús; Gómez, Carlos; Molina, Vicente; Suazo, Vanessa; Hornero, Roberto

2015-02-01

Objective. The aim of this research is to explore the coupling patterns of brain dynamics during an auditory oddball task in schizophrenia (SCH). Approach. Event-related electroencephalographic (ERP) activity was recorded from 20 SCH patients and 20 healthy controls. The coupling changes between auditory response and pre-stimulus baseline were calculated in conventional EEG frequency bands (theta, alpha, beta-1, beta-2 and gamma), using three coupling measures: coherence, phase-locking value and Euclidean distance. Main results. Our results showed a statistically significant increase from baseline to response in theta coupling and a statistically significant decrease in beta-2 coupling in controls. No statistically significant changes were observed in SCH patients. Significance. Our findings support the aberrant salience hypothesis, since SCH patients failed to change their coupling dynamics between stimulus response and baseline when performing an auditory cognitive task. This result may reflect an impaired communication among neural areas, which may be related to abnormal cognitive functions.

Adapting to Changing Memory Retrieval Demands: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials

Science.gov (United States)

Benoit, Roland G.; Werkle-Bergner, Markus; Mecklinger, Axel; Kray, Jutta

2009-01-01

This study investigated preparatory processes involved in adapting to changing episodic memory retrieval demands. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants performed a general old/new recognition task and a specific task that also required retrieval of perceptual details. The relevant task remained either constant or changed…

Available processing resources influence encoding-related brain activity before an event

OpenAIRE

Galli, Giulia; Gebert, A. Dorothea; Otten, Leun J.

2013-01-01

Effective cognitive functioning not only relies on brain activity elicited by an event, but also on activity that precedes it. This has been demonstrated in a number of cognitive domains, including memory. Here, we show that brain activity that precedes the effective encoding of a word into long-term memory depends on the availability of sufficient processing resources. We recorded electrical brain activity from the scalps of healthy adult men and women while they memorized intermixed visual ...

Underlying Event studies and Monte Carlo tunes for inelastic pp events with the ATLAS detector

CERN Document Server

Nurse, E; The ATLAS collaboration

2010-01-01

Studies of the momentum flow in inelastic collisions at 900 GeV and 7 TeV recorded with a minimum bias trigger strategy are reported. A single high pT track is selected, and the distribution of other tracks in the event is evaluated relative to this reference track. The evolution of the charged momentum flow in the rest of the event, as a function of the pT of the reference track, gives important information about the transition from minimum bias event structure to the full underlying event observed in high-pT collision events. Results are presented after correction and unfolding of detector effects to allow simpler comparison to Monte Carlo models. In addition, the PYTHIA Monte Carlo generator has been tuned to ATLAS measurements at 900 GeV and 7 TeV. Standard distributions from Minimum Bias events, as well as the Underlying Event studies are included in the first tunes to ATLAS measurements at the LHC. The tunes aim for one consistent description of the new measurements as well as data from the Tevatron and...

Stereotype activation is unintentional: Behavioural and event-related potenials evidence.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Pei; Yang, Ya-Ping; Tan, Chen-Hao; Zhao, Xiang-Xia; Liu, Yong-He; Lin, Chong-De

2016-04-01

In this study, a priming Stroop paradigm was used to determine whether stereotype activation is unintentional. Priming conditions (priming/no-priming) and the relationship between priming and target (consistent/inconsistent/no-relation) were the independent variables; accuracy, reaction time and N400 amplitude were used as dependent variables. The reaction time revealed that stereotype activation is, to some extent, unintentional. Furthermore, the event-related potenial (ERP) results showed that N400 amplitude was larger for inconsistent conditions than for consistent conditions. This result supported the notion that stereotype activation is an unintentional and automatic process. © 2015 International Union of Psychological Science.

Pre-event trajectories of mental health and health-related disabilities, and post-event traumatic stress symptoms and health : A 7-wave population-based study

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van der Velden, Peter; Bosmans, Mark; van der Meulen, Erik; Vermunt, J.K.

2016-01-01

It is unknown to what extent classes of trajectories of pre-event mental health problems (MHP) and health-related disabilities (HRD), predict post-event traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), MHP and HRD. Aim of the present 7-wave study was to assess the predictive values using a representative sample of

Effect of initiation-inhibition and handedness on the patterns of the P50 event-related potential component: a low resolution electromagnetic tomography study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Capsalis Christos N

2009-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Recent research recognizes the association between handedness, linguistic processes and cerebral networks subserving executive functioning, but the nature of this association remains unclear. Since the P50 event related potential (ERP is considered to reflect thalamocortical processes in association with working memory (WM operation the present study focuses on P50 patterns elicited during the performance of a linguistic related executive functioning test in right- and left-handers. Methods In 64 young adults with a high educational level (33 left-handed the P50 event-related potential was recorded while performing the initiation and inhibition condition of a modified version of the Hayling Sentence Completion test adjusted to induce WM. The manual preference of the participants was evaluated with the use of the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (EHI. Results P50 showed greater amplitudes in left- than in right-handers, mainly in frontal leads, in the initiation condition. Reduced amplitudes in inhibition compared to initiation condition were observed in left-handers. Low Resolution Electromagnetic Tomography (LORETA analysis showed lower frontal lobe activation in the inhibition than in the initiation condition in both right- and left-handers. Also, LORETA yielded that right-handers exhibited greater activation in the inhibition condition than left-handers. Additionally, LORETA showed assymetrical hemispheric activation patterns in right-handers, in contrast to symmetrical patterns observed in left-handers. Higher P50 amplitudes were recorded in right-hemisphere of right-handers in the initiation condition. Conclusion Brain activation, especially the one closely related to thalamocortical function, elicited during WM operation involving initiation and inhibition processes appears to be related to handedness.

Event-by-event jet quenching

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Fries, R.J.; Rodriguez, R.; Ramirez, E.

2010-08-14

High momentum jets and hadrons can be used as probes for the quark gluon plasma (QGP) formed in nuclear collisions at high energies. We investigate the influence of fluctuations in the fireball on jet quenching observables by comparing propagation of light quarks and gluons through averaged, smooth QGP fireballs with event-by-event jet quenching using realistic inhomogeneous fireballs. We find that the transverse momentum and impact parameter dependence of the nuclear modification factor R{sub AA} can be fit well in an event-by-event quenching scenario within experimental errors. However the transport coefficient {cflx q} extracted from fits to the measured nuclear modification factor R{sub AA} in averaged fireballs underestimates the value from event-by-event calculations by up to 50%. On the other hand, after adjusting {cflx q} to fit R{sub AA} in the event-by-event analysis we find residual deviations in the azimuthal asymmetry v{sub 2} and in two-particle correlations, that provide a possible faint signature for a spatial tomography of the fireball. We discuss a correlation function that is a measure for spatial inhomogeneities in a collision and can be constrained from data.

Event-by-event jet quenching

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rodriguez, R. [Cyclotron Institute and Physics Department, Texas A and M University, College Station, TX 77843 (United States); Fries, R.J., E-mail: rjfries@comp.tamu.ed [Cyclotron Institute and Physics Department, Texas A and M University, College Station, TX 77843 (United States); RIKEN/BNL Research Center, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973 (United States); Ramirez, E. [Physics Department, University of Texas El Paso, El Paso, TX 79968 (United States)

2010-09-27

High momentum jets and hadrons can be used as probes for the quark gluon plasma (QGP) formed in nuclear collisions at high energies. We investigate the influence of fluctuations in the fireball on jet quenching observables by comparing propagation of light quarks and gluons through averaged, smooth QGP fireballs with event-by-event jet quenching using realistic inhomogeneous fireballs. We find that the transverse momentum and impact parameter dependence of the nuclear modification factor R{sub AA} can be fit well in an event-by-event quenching scenario within experimental errors. However the transport coefficient q extracted from fits to the measured nuclear modification factor R{sub AA} in averaged fireballs underestimates the value from event-by-event calculations by up to 50%. On the other hand, after adjusting q to fit R{sub AA} in the event-by-event analysis we find residual deviations in the azimuthal asymmetry v{sub 2} and in two-particle correlations, that provide a possible faint signature for a spatial tomography of the fireball. We discuss a correlation function that is a measure for spatial inhomogeneities in a collision and can be constrained from data.

Event-related potentials during visual selective attention in children of alcoholics.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van der Stelt, O.; Gunning, W.B.; Snel, J.; Kok, A.

1998-01-01

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 50 7-18 yr old children of alcoholics (COAs) and 50 age- and sex-matched control children while they performed a visual selective attention task. The task was to attend selectively to stimuli with a specified color (red or blue) in an attempt to

Redox homeostasis and age‐related deficits in neuromuscular integrity and function

Science.gov (United States)

Lightfoot, Adam P.; Earl, Kate E.; Stofanko, Martin; McDonagh, Brian

2017-01-01

Abstract Skeletal muscle is a major site of metabolic activity and is the most abundant tissue in the human body. Age‐related muscle atrophy (sarcopenia) and weakness, characterized by progressive loss of lean muscle mass and function, is a major contributor to morbidity and has a profound effect on the quality of life of older people. With a continuously growing older population (estimated 2 billion of people aged >60 by 2050), demand for medical and social care due to functional deficits, associated with neuromuscular ageing, will inevitably increase. Despite the importance of this ‘epidemic’ problem, the primary biochemical and molecular mechanisms underlying age‐related deficits in neuromuscular integrity and function have not been fully determined. Skeletal muscle generates reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS) from a variety of subcellular sources, and age‐associated oxidative damage has been suggested to be a major factor contributing to the initiation and progression of muscle atrophy inherent with ageing. RONS can modulate a variety of intracellular signal transduction processes, and disruption of these events over time due to altered redox control has been proposed as an underlying mechanism of ageing. The role of oxidants in ageing has been extensively examined in different model organisms that have undergone genetic manipulations with inconsistent findings. Transgenic and knockout rodent studies have provided insight into the function of RONS regulatory systems in neuromuscular ageing. This review summarizes almost 30 years of research in the field of redox homeostasis and muscle ageing, providing a detailed discussion of the experimental approaches that have been undertaken in murine models to examine the role of redox regulation in age‐related muscle atrophy and weakness. PMID:28744984

Emerging risk – Conceptual definition and a relation to black swan type of events

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Flage, R.; Aven, T.

2015-01-01

The concept of emerging risk has gained increasing attention in recent years. The term has an intuitive appeal and meaning but a consistent and agreed definition is missing. We perform an in-depth analysis of this concept, in particular its relation to black swan type of events, and show that these can be considered meaningful and complementary concepts by relating emerging risk to known unknowns and black swans to unknown knowns, unknown unknowns and a subset of known knowns. The former is consistent with saying that we face emerging risk related to an activity when the background knowledge is weak but contains indications/justified beliefs that a new type of event (new in the context of that activity) could occur in the future and potentially have severe consequences to something humans value. The weak background knowledge among other things results in difficulty specifying consequences and possibly also in fully specifying the event itself; i.e. in difficulty specifying scenarios. Here knowledge becomes the key concept for both emerging risk and black swan type of events, allowing for taking into consideration time dynamics since knowledge develops over time. Some implications of our findings in terms of risk assessment and risk management are pointed out. - Highlights: • We perform an in-depth analysis of the concept of emerging risk. • Emerging risk and black swan type of events are shown to be complementary concepts. • We propose a definition of emerging risk where knowledge becomes the key term. • Some implications for risk assessment and risk management are pointed out.

Serum Zn levels in dysphagic patients who underwent endoscopic gastrostomy for long term enteral nutrition

OpenAIRE

Adriana Santos, Carla; Fonseca, Jorge; Brito, José; Fernandes, Tânia; Gonçalves, Luísa; Sousa Guerreiro, António

2014-01-01

Background and aims: Dysphagic patients who underwent endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) usually present protein-energy malnutrition, but little is known about micronutrient malnutrition. The aim of the present study was the evaluation of serum zinc in patients who underwent endoscopic gastrostomy and its relationship with serum proteins, whole blood zinc, and the nature of underlying disorder. Methods: From patients that underwent gastrostomy a blood sample was obtained minutes before the procedur...

[Study on the correlation among adolescents' family function, negative life events stress amount and suicide ideation].

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Dongdong; Chen, Ling; Yin, Dan; Miao, Jinping; Sun, Yehuan

2014-07-01

To explore the correlation between suicide ideation and family function & negative life events, as well as other influential factors in adolescents, thus present a theoretical base for clinicians and school staff to develop intervention for those problems. By adopting current situation random sampling method, Self-Rating Idea of Suicide Scale, Adolescent Self-Rating Life Events Check List and Family APGAR Index were used to assess adolescents at random in a hygiene vocational school in Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province and a collage in Wuhu City, Anhui Province. 3700 questionnaires were granted, 3675 questionnaires were collected, among which 3620 were valid. Chi-square test, t-test, and univariate logistic regression were employed in univariate analysis, multivariate logistic regression was used in multivariate analysis. The detection rate of suicide ideation is 7.0%, and the top five suicide ideation characteristics were: poor academic performance (33.6%), serious family functional impairment (25.8%), lower-middle academic performance (11.7%), bad economic conditions (10.8%) and study in Grade Three (9.9%). Multiple logistic regression showed that the following three high-level stress amount in negative life events are most crucial for suicide ideation. They are "relationships" (OR = 1.135, 95% CI 1.071 - 1. 202), "academic pressure" (OR = 1.169, 95% CI 1.101 - 1.241), and "external events" (OR = 1.278, 95% CI 1.187 - 1.376). What' s more, the stress of attending higher grades (OR = 1.980, 95% CI 1.302 - 3.008), poor academic performance (OR = 7.206, 95% CI 1.745 - 9.789), moderate family functional impairment (OR = 2.562, 95% CI 1.527 - 2.892) and its serious level (OR = 8.287, 95% CI 3.154 - 6.917) are also influential factors for suicide ideation. Severe family functional impairment and high-level stress amount of negative life events produced the main factors of suicide ideation. Therefore, necessary and sufficient support should be given to adolescents by

Hippocampal P3-Like Auditory Event-Related Potentials are Disrupted in a Rat Model of Cholinergic Degeneration in Alzheimer's Disease: Reversal by Donepezil Treatment

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Laursen, Bettina; Mørk, Arne; Kristiansen, Uffe

2014-01-01

P300 (P3) event-related potentials (ERPs) have been suggested to be an endogenous marker of cognitive function and auditory oddball paradigms are frequently used to evaluate P3 ERPs in clinical settings. Deficits in P3 amplitude and latency reflect some of the neurological dysfunctions related...... cholinergic degeneration induced by SAP. SAP-lesioned rats may constitute a suitable model to test the efficacy of pro-cognitive substances in an applied experimental setup....

Bilateral theta-burst magnetic stimulation influence on event-related brain potentials.

Science.gov (United States)

Pinto, Nuno; Duarte, Marta; Gonçalves, Helena; Silva, Ricardo; Gama, Jorge; Pato, Maria Vaz

2018-01-01

Theta-burst stimulation (TBS) can be a non-invasive technique to modulate cognitive functions, with promising therapeutic potential, but with some contradictory results. Event related potentials are used as a marker of brain deterioration and can be used to evaluate TBS-related cognitive performance, but its use remains scant. This study aimed to study bilateral inhibitory and excitatory TBS effects upon neurocognitive performance of young healthy volunteers, using the auditory P300' results. Using a double-blind sham-controlled study, 51 healthy volunteers were randomly assigned to five different groups, two submitted to either excitatory (iTBS) or inhibitory (cTBS) stimulation over the left dorsolateral pre-frontal cortex (DLPFC), two other actively stimulated the right DLPFC and finally a sham stimulation group. An oddball based auditory P300 was performed just before a single session of iTBS, cTBS or sham stimulation and repeated immediately after. P300 mean latency comparison between the pre- and post-TBS stimulation stages revealed significantly faster post stimulation latencies only when iTBS was performed on the left hemisphere (p = 0.003). Right and left hemisphere cTBS significantly delayed P300 latency (right p = 0.026; left p = 0.000). Multiple comparisons for N200 showed slower latencies after iTBS over the right hemisphere. No significant difference was found in amplitude variation. TBS appears to effectively influence neural networking involved in P300 formation, but effects seem distinct for iTBS vs cTBS and for the right or the left hemisphere. P300 evoked potentials can be an effective and practical tool to evaluate transcranial magnetic stimulation related outcomes.

Effects of memory strategy training on performance and event-related brain potentials of children with ADHD in an episodic memory task.

Science.gov (United States)

Jonkman, Lisa M; Hurks, Petra P; Schleepen, Tamara M J

2016-10-01

Evidence for memory problems in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is accumulating. Attempting to counter such problems, in the present study children with ADHD aged 8-12 years underwent a six-week metacognitive memory strategy training (MST) or one of two other active trainings, either a metacognitive attention-perceptual-motor training (APM) or placebo training consisting of playing board games (PLA). Effects of the training on episodic memory and underlying brain processes were investigated by comparing performance and event-related brain potentials (ERPs) on pre- and post-training sessions in an old/new recognition task between the three training groups. Potential far transfer effects of the memory strategy training were investigated by measuring performance on neuropsychological attention and memory-span tasks and parent-rated ADHD symptoms. The metacognitive memory strategy training led to significantly improved memory performance and enhanced amplitude of left parietal P600 activity associated with the process of memory recollection when compared to PLA, but APM training evoked similar improvements. Memory performance gains were significantly correlated with the memory-related ERP effects. Preliminary far transfer effects of MST training were found on attention and working memory performance and on parent-rated ADHD symptoms, although these results need replication with larger and better IQ-matched groups.

Positive events protect children from causal false memories for scripted events.

Science.gov (United States)

Melinder, Annika; Toffalini, Enrico; Geccherle, Eleonora; Cornoldi, Cesare

2017-11-01

Adults produce fewer inferential false memories for scripted events when their conclusions are emotionally charged than when they are neutral, but it is not clear whether the same effect is also found in children. In the present study, we examined this issue in a sample of 132 children aged 6-12 years (mean 9 years, 3 months). Participants encoded photographs depicting six script-like events that had a positively, negatively, or a neutral valenced ending. Subsequently, true and false recognition memory of photographs related to the observed scripts was tested as a function of emotionality. Causal errors-a type of false memory thought to stem from inferential processes-were found to be affected by valence: children made fewer causal errors for positive than for neutral or negative events. Hypotheses are proposed on why adults were found protected against inferential false memories not only by positive (as for children) but also by negative endings when administered similar versions of the same paradigm.

Discovery of functional and approximate functional dependencies in relational databases

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ronald S. King

2003-01-01

Full Text Available This study develops the foundation for a simple, yet efficient method for uncovering functional and approximate functional dependencies in relational databases. The technique is based upon the mathematical theory of partitions defined over a relation's row identifiers. Using a levelwise algorithm the minimal non-trivial functional dependencies can be found using computations conducted on integers. Therefore, the required operations on partitions are both simple and fast. Additionally, the row identifiers provide the added advantage of nominally identifying the exceptions to approximate functional dependencies, which can be used effectively in practical data mining applications.

Predicting Functional Recovery in Chronic Stroke Rehabilitation Using Event-Related Desynchronization-Synchronization during Robot-Assisted Movement

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marco Caimmi

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Although rehabilitation robotics seems to be a promising therapy in the rehabilitation of the upper limb in stroke patients, consensus is still lacking on its additive effects. Therefore, there is a need for determining the possible success of robotic interventions on selected patients, which in turn determine the necessity for new investigating instruments supporting the treatment decision-making process and customization. The objective of the work presented in this preliminary study was to verify that fully robot assistance would not affect the physiological oscillatory cortical activity related to a functional movement in healthy subjects. Further, the clinical results following the robotic treatment of a chronic stroke patient, who positively reacted to the robotic intervention, were analyzed and discussed. First results show that there is no difference in EEG activation pattern between assisted and no-assisted movement in healthy subjects. Even more importantly, the patient’s pretreatment EEG activation pattern in no-assisted movement was completely altered, while it recovered to a quasi-physiological one in robot-assisted movement. The functional improvement following treatment was large. Using pretreatment EEG recording during robot-assisted movement might be a valid approach to assess the potential ability of the patient for recovering.

Temporal evolution of event-related desynchronization in acute stroke: A pilot study

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Tangwiriyasakul, Chayanin; Verhagen, Rens; Rutten, Wim; van Putten, Michel Johannes Antonius Maria

2014-01-01

Objective Assessment of event-related desynchronization (ERD) may assist in predicting recovery from stroke and rehabilitation, for instance in BCI applications. Here, we explore the temporal evolution of ERD during stroke recovery. Methods Ten stroke patients and eleven healthy controls were

Event-related potentials during visual selective attention in children of alcoholics.

Science.gov (United States)

van der Stelt, O; Gunning, W B; Snel, J; Kok, A

1998-12-01

Event-related potentials were recorded from 7- to 18-year-old children of alcoholics (COAs, n = 50) and age- and sex-matched control children (n = 50) while they performed a visual selective attention task. The task was to attend selectively to stimuli with a specified color (red or blue) in an attempt to detect the occurrence of target stimuli. COAs manifested a smaller P3b amplitude to attended-target stimuli over the parietal and occipital scalp than did the controls. A more specific analysis indicated that both the attentional relevance and the target properties of the eliciting stimulus determined the observed P3b amplitude differences between COAs and controls. In contrast, no significant group differences were observed in attention-related earlier occurring event-related potential components, referred to as frontal selection positivity, selection negativity, and N2b. These results represent neurophysiological evidence that COAs suffer from deficits at a late (semantic) level of visual selective information processing that are unlikely a consequence of deficits at earlier (sensory) levels of selective processing. The findings support the notion that a reduced visual P3b amplitude in COAs represents a high-level processing dysfunction indicating their increased vulnerability to alcoholism.

Cognitive Association Formation in Episodic Memory: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Alice S. N.; Vallesi, Antonino; Picton, Terence W.; Tulving, Endel

2009-01-01

The present study focused on the processes underlying cognitive association formation by investigating subsequent memory effects. Event-related potentials were recorded as participants studied pairs of words, presented one word at a time, for later recall. The findings showed that a frontal-positive late wave (LW), which occurred 1-1.6 s after the…

Gender differences in the implementation of cardiovascular prevention measures after an acute coronary event.

Science.gov (United States)

Dallongevillle, Jean; De Bacquer, Dirk; Heidrich, Jan; De Backer, Guy; Prugger, Christoph; Kotseva, Kornelia; Montaye, Michèle; Amouyel, Philippe

2010-11-01

To compare gender-related lifestyle changes and risk factor management after hospitalisation for a coronary event or revascularisation intervention in Europe. The EUROASPIRE III survey was carried out in 22 European countries in 2006-2007. Consecutive patients having had a coronary event or revascularisation before the age of 80 were identified. A total of 8966 patients (25.3% women) were interviewed and underwent clinical and biochemical tests at least 6 months after hospital admission. Trends in cardiovascular risk management were assessed on the basis of the 1994-1995, 1999-2000 and 2006-2007 EUROASPIRE surveys. Female survey participants were generally older and had a lower educational level than male participants (pevent. This gap did not appear to narrow between 1994 and 2007.

Event horizon and scalar potential

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Duruisseau, J.P.; Tonnelat, M.A.

1977-01-01

The introduction of a scalar potential with a more general scheme than General Relativity eliminates the event horizon. Among possible solutions, the Schwarzschild one represents a singular case. A study of the geodesic properties of the matching with an approximated interior solution are given. A new definition of the gravitational mass and chi function is deduced. (author)

Completely monotonic functions related to logarithmic derivatives of entire functions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pedersen, Henrik Laurberg

2011-01-01

The logarithmic derivative l(x) of an entire function of genus p and having only non-positive zeros is represented in terms of a Stieltjes function. As a consequence, (-1)p(xml(x))(m+p) is a completely monotonic function for all m ≥ 0. This generalizes earlier results on complete monotonicity...... of functions related to Euler's psi-function. Applications to Barnes' multiple gamma functions are given....

Risk and sensitivity analysis in relation to external events

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Alzbutas, R.; Urbonas, R.; Augutis, J.

2001-01-01

This paper presents risk and sensitivity analysis of external events impacts on the safe operation in general and in particular the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant safety systems. Analysis is based on the deterministic and probabilistic assumptions and assessment of the external hazards. The real statistic data are used as well as initial external event simulation. The preliminary screening criteria are applied. The analysis of external event impact on the NPP safe operation, assessment of the event occurrence, sensitivity analysis, and recommendations for safety improvements are performed for investigated external hazards. Such events as aircraft crash, extreme rains and winds, forest fire and flying parts of the turbine are analysed. The models are developed and probabilities are calculated. As an example for sensitivity analysis the model of aircraft impact is presented. The sensitivity analysis takes into account the uncertainty features raised by external event and its model. Even in case when the external events analysis show rather limited danger, the sensitivity analysis can determine the highest influence causes. These possible variations in future can be significant for safety level and risk based decisions. Calculations show that external events cannot significantly influence the safety level of the Ignalina NPP operation, however the events occurrence and propagation can be sufficiently uncertain.(author)

Cortical Auditory Disorders: A Case of Non-Verbal Disturbances Assessed with Event-Related Brain Potentials

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sönke Johannes

1998-01-01

Full Text Available In the auditory modality, there has been a considerable debate about some aspects of cortical disorders, especially about auditory forms of agnosia. Agnosia refers to an impaired comprehension of sensory information in the absence of deficits in primary sensory processes. In the non-verbal domain, sound agnosia and amusia have been reported but are frequently accompanied by language deficits whereas pure deficits are rare. Absolute pitch and musicians’ musical abilities have been associated with left hemispheric functions. We report the case of a right handed sound engineer with the absolute pitch who developed sound agnosia and amusia in the absence of verbal deficits after a right perisylvian stroke. His disabilities were assessed with the Seashore Test of Musical Functions, the tests of Wertheim and Botez (Wertheim and Botez, Brain 84, 1961, 19–30 and by event-related potentials (ERP recorded in a modified 'oddball paradigm’. Auditory ERP revealed a dissociation between the amplitudes of the P3a and P3b subcomponents with the P3b being reduced in amplitude while the P3a was undisturbed. This is interpreted as reflecting disturbances in target detection processes as indexed by the P3b. The findings that contradict some aspects of current knowledge about left/right hemispheric specialization in musical processing are discussed and related to the literature concerning cortical auditory disorders.

Cortical auditory disorders: a case of non-verbal disturbances assessed with event-related brain potentials.

Science.gov (United States)

Johannes, Sönke; Jöbges, Michael E.; Dengler, Reinhard; Münte, Thomas F.

1998-01-01

In the auditory modality, there has been a considerable debate about some aspects of cortical disorders, especially about auditory forms of agnosia. Agnosia refers to an impaired comprehension of sensory information in the absence of deficits in primary sensory processes. In the non-verbal domain, sound agnosia and amusia have been reported but are frequently accompanied by language deficits whereas pure deficits are rare. Absolute pitch and musicians' musical abilities have been associated with left hemispheric functions. We report the case of a right handed sound engineer with the absolute pitch who developed sound agnosia and amusia in the absence of verbal deficits after a right perisylvian stroke. His disabilities were assessed with the Seashore Test of Musical Functions, the tests of Wertheim and Botez (Wertheim and Botez, Brain 84, 1961, 19-30) and by event-related potentials (ERP) recorded in a modified 'oddball paradigm'. Auditory ERP revealed a dissociation between the amplitudes of the P3a and P3b subcomponents with the P3b being reduced in amplitude while the P3a was undisturbed. This is interpreted as reflecting disturbances in target detection processes as indexed by the P3b. The findings that contradict some aspects of current knowledge about left/right hemispheric specialization in musical processing are discussed and related to the literature concerning cortical auditory disorders.

Skeletal-related events significantly impact health-related quality of life in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer: data from PREVAIL and AFFIRM trials.

Science.gov (United States)

Saad, F; Ivanescu, C; Phung, D; Loriot, Y; Abhyankar, S; Beer, T M; Tombal, B; Holmstrom, S

2017-03-01

We investigated the impact of skeletal-related events (SREs) on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) in phase III trials of enzalutamide versus placebo. Patients with mCRPC experiencing at least one SRE during AFFIRM and PREVAIL were assessed for trajectory-adjusted mean change in HRQoL by first SRE using Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Prostate (FACT-P; AFFIRM, three domains, and PREVAIL, nine domains) and EQ-5D (PREVAIL) instruments. First SREs caused HRQoL deterioration in both trials. Spinal cord compression had the largest impact, with clinically meaningful reductions in seven of nine FACT-P domains in PREVAIL and all three in AFFIRM (mean (95% confidence interval (CI)) change in FACT-P total score -16.95 (-26.47, -7.44) and -9.69 (-16.10, -3.27), respectively). In PREVAIL, first SREs caused clinically meaningful declines in EQ-5D utility index, irrespective of category; spinal cord compression had the largest impact (mean (95% CI) change -0.24 (-0.39, -0.08)). In AFFIRM, FACT-P and FACT-General total scores showed clinically meaningful declines after radiation/surgery to bone. SREs were associated with clinically meaningful functional declines in the daily lives of patients with mCRPC. Spinal cord compression had the largest impact on HRQoL.

The Extended Fronto-Striatal Model of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: Convergence from Event-Related Potentials, Neuropsychology and Neuroimaging

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Margherita eMelloni

2012-09-01

Full Text Available In this work, we explored convergent evidence supporting the fronto-striatal model of obsessive-compulsive disorder (FSMOCD and the contribution of event-related potential (ERP studies to this model. First, we considered minor modifications to the FSMOCD model based on neuroimaging and neuropsychological data. We noted the brain areas most affected in this disorder -anterior cingulate cortex (ACC, basal ganglia (BG and orbito-frontal cortex (OFC- and their related cognitive functions, such as monitoring and inhibition. Then, we assessed the ERPs that are directly related to the FSMOCD, including the error-related negativity (ERN, N200 and P600. Several OCD studies present enhanced ERN and N2 responses during conflict tasks as well as an enhanced P600 during working memory tasks. Evidence from ERP studies (especially regarding ERN and N200 amplitude enhancement, neuroimaging and neuropsychological findings suggests abnormal activity in the OFC, ACC and BG in OCD patients. Moreover, additional findings from these analyses suggest dorsolateral prefrontal and parietal cortex involvement, which might be related to executive function deficits. Thus, these convergent results suggest the existence of a self-monitoring imbalance involving inhibitory deficits and executive dysfunctions. OCD patients present an impaired ability to monitor, control, and inhibit intrusive thoughts, urges, feelings and behaviors. In the current model, this imbalance is triggered by an excitatory role of the BG (associated with cognitive or motor actions without volitional control and inhibitory activity of the OFC as well as excessive monitoring of the ACC to block excitatory impulses. This imbalance would interact with the reduced activation of the parietal-DLPC network, leading to executive dysfunction. ERP research may provide further insight regarding the temporal dynamics of action monitoring and executive functioning in OCD.

Event-by-Event Fluctuations of Azimuthal Particle Anisotropy in Au+Au Collisions at sNN=200GeV

Science.gov (United States)

Alver, B.; Back, B. B.; Baker, M. D.; Ballintijn, M.; Barton, D. S.; Betts, R. R.; Bickley, A. A.; Bindel, R.; Busza, W.; Carroll, A.; Chai, Z.; Decowski, M. P.; García, E.; Gburek, T.; George, N.; Gulbrandsen, K.; Halliwell, C.; Hamblen, J.; Hauer, M.; Henderson, C.; Hofman, D. J.; Hollis, R. S.; Hołyński, R.; Holzman, B.; Iordanova, A.; Johnson, E.; Kane, J. L.; Khan, N.; Kulinich, P.; Kuo, C. M.; Li, W.; Lin, W. T.; Loizides, C.; Manly, S.; Mignerey, A. C.; Nouicer, R.; Olszewski, A.; Pak, R.; Reed, C.; Roland, C.; Roland, G.; Sagerer, J.; Seals, H.; Sedykh, I.; Smith, C. E.; Stankiewicz, M. A.; Steinberg, P.; Stephans, G. S. F.; Sukhanov, A.; Tonjes, M. B.; Trzupek, A.; Vale, C.; van Nieuwenhuizen, G. J.; Vaurynovich, S. S.; Verdier, R.; Veres, G. I.; Walters, P.; Wenger, E.; Wolfs, F. L. H.; Wosiek, B.; Woźniak, K.; Wysłouch, B.

2010-04-01

This Letter presents the first measurement of event-by-event fluctuations of the elliptic flow parameter v2 in Au+Au collisions at sNN=200GeV as a function of collision centrality. The relative nonstatistical fluctuations of the v2 parameter are found to be approximately 40%. The results, including contributions from event-by-event elliptic flow fluctuations and from azimuthal correlations that are unrelated to the reaction plane (nonflow correlations), establish an upper limit on the magnitude of underlying elliptic flow fluctuations. This limit is consistent with predictions based on spatial fluctuations of the participating nucleons in the initial nuclear overlap region. These results provide important constraints on models of the initial state and hydrodynamic evolution of relativistic heavy ion collisions.

Coherence explored between emotion components: evidence from event-related potentials and facial electromyography.

Science.gov (United States)

Gentsch, Kornelia; Grandjean, Didier; Scherer, Klaus R

2014-04-01

Componential theories assume that emotion episodes consist of emergent and dynamic response changes to relevant events in different components, such as appraisal, physiology, motivation, expression, and subjective feeling. In particular, Scherer's Component Process Model hypothesizes that subjective feeling emerges when the synchronization (or coherence) of appraisal-driven changes between emotion components has reached a critical threshold. We examined the prerequisite of this synchronization hypothesis for appraisal-driven response changes in facial expression. The appraisal process was manipulated by using feedback stimuli, presented in a gambling task. Participants' responses to the feedback were investigated in concurrently recorded brain activity related to appraisal (event-related potentials, ERP) and facial muscle activity (electromyography, EMG). Using principal component analysis, the prediction of appraisal-driven response changes in facial EMG was examined. Results support this prediction: early cognitive processes (related to the feedback-related negativity) seem to primarily affect the upper face, whereas processes that modulate P300 amplitudes tend to predominantly drive cheek region responses. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Sexual Abuse Exposure Alters Early Processing of Emotional Words: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials

Science.gov (United States)

Grégoire, Laurent; Caparos, Serge; Leblanc, Carole-Anne; Brisson, Benoit; Blanchette, Isabelle

2018-01-01

This study aimed to compare the time course of emotional information processing between trauma-exposed and control participants, using electrophysiological measures. We conceived an emotional Stroop task with two types of words: trauma-related emotional words and neutral words. We assessed the evoked cerebral responses of sexual abuse victims without post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and no abuse participants. We focused particularly on an early wave (C1/P1), the N2pc, and the P3b. Our main result indicated an early effect (55–165 ms) of emotionality, which varied between non-exposed participants and sexual abuse victims. This suggests that potentially traumatic experiences modulate early processing of emotional information. Our findings showing neurobiological alterations in sexual abuse victims (without PTSD) suggest that exposure to highly emotional events has an important impact on neurocognitive function even in the absence of psychopathology. PMID:29379428

Sexual Abuse Exposure Alters Early Processing of Emotional Words: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Laurent Grégoire

2018-01-01

Full Text Available This study aimed to compare the time course of emotional information processing between trauma-exposed and control participants, using electrophysiological measures. We conceived an emotional Stroop task with two types of words: trauma-related emotional words and neutral words. We assessed the evoked cerebral responses of sexual abuse victims without post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD and no abuse participants. We focused particularly on an early wave (C1/P1, the N2pc, and the P3b. Our main result indicated an early effect (55–165 ms of emotionality, which varied between non-exposed participants and sexual abuse victims. This suggests that potentially traumatic experiences modulate early processing of emotional information. Our findings showing neurobiological alterations in sexual abuse victims (without PTSD suggest that exposure to highly emotional events has an important impact on neurocognitive function even in the absence of psychopathology.

Automatic temporal expectancy: a high-density event-related potential study.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Giovanni Mento

Full Text Available How we compute time is not fully understood. Questions include whether an automatic brain mechanism is engaged in temporally regular environmental structure in order to anticipate events, and whether this can be dissociated from task-related processes, including response preparation, selection and execution. To investigate these issues, a passive temporal oddball task requiring neither time-based motor response nor explicit decision was specifically designed and delivered to participants during high-density, event-related potentials recording. Participants were presented with pairs of audiovisual stimuli (S1 and S2 interspersed with an Inter-Stimulus Interval (ISI that was manipulated according to an oddball probabilistic distribution. In the standard condition (70% of trials, the ISI lasted 1,500 ms, while in the two alternative, deviant conditions (15% each, it lasted 2,500 and 3,000 ms. The passive over-exposition to the standard ISI drove participants to automatically and progressively create an implicit temporal expectation of S2 onset, reflected by the time course of the Contingent Negative Variation response, which always peaked in correspondence to the point of S2 maximum expectation and afterwards inverted in polarity towards the baseline. Brain source analysis of S1- and ISI-related ERP activity revealed activation of sensorial cortical areas and the supplementary motor area (SMA, respectively. In particular, since the SMA time course synchronised with standard ISI, we suggest that this area is the major cortical generator of the temporal CNV reflecting an automatic, action-independent mechanism underlying temporal expectancy.

Preeclampsia and Long-term Renal Function in Women Who Underwent Kidney Transplantation.

Science.gov (United States)

Vannevel, Valerie; Claes, Kathleen; Baud, David; Vial, Yvan; Golshayan, Delaviz; Yoon, Eugene W; Hodges, Ryan; Le Nepveu, Anne; Kerr, Peter G; Kennedy, Claire; Higgins, Mary; Resch, Elisabeth; Klaritsch, Philipp; Van Mieghem, Tim

2018-01-01

Preeclampsia often complicates pregnancies after maternal kidney transplantation. We aimed to assess whether preeclampsia is associated with kidney function decline either during the pregnancy or in the long term. We performed an international multicenter retrospective cohort study. Renal function at conception, pregnancy outcomes, and short- and long-term graft outcomes were collected for women who were pregnant after renal transplantation and had transplant and obstetric care at the participating centers. In women who had multiple pregnancies during the study period, only the last pregnancy was included. Univariate and multivariable analyses were performed. We retrieved pregnancy outcomes and long-term renal outcomes for 52 women. Chronic hypertension was present at baseline in 27%. Mean estimated glomerular filtration rate (GFR) at start of pregnancy was 52.4±17.5 mL/min/1.73 m. Mean estimated GFR at delivery was 47.6±21.6 mL/min/1.73 m, which was significantly lower than at conception (P=.03). Twenty women (38%) developed preeclampsia. In multivariable analysis, women who developed preeclampsia had a 10.7-mL/min/1.73 m higher drop in estimated GFR between conception and delivery than women who did not develop preeclampsia (P=.02). Long-term estimated GFR follow-up was obtained at a median of 5.8 years (range 1.3-27.5 years). Mean estimated GFR at last follow-up was 38±23 mL/kg/1.73 m. Seventeen women (33%) experienced graft loss over the follow-up period. Incidence of graft loss was similar in women with and without preeclampsia in their last pregnancy (30% and 34%, respectively; P=.99). In multivariable analysis, the decrease in estimated GFR between conception and last follow-up was similar in women who experienced preeclampsia during pregnancy and those who did not (difference -2.69 mL/min/1.73 m, P=.65). Preeclampsia commonly complicates pregnancies after renal transplantation but is not associated with long-term renal dysfunction or graft loss.

Safeguards summary event list (SSEL)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Davidson, J.J.; MacMurdy, P.H.

1980-12-01

The List contains nine categories of events involving NRC licensed material or licensees. It is deliberately broad in scope for two main reasons. First, the list is designed to serve as a reference document. It is as complete and accurate as possible. Second, the list is intended to provide as broad a perspective of the nature of licensee-related events as possible. The nine categories of events are as follows: bomb-related events; intrusion events; missing and/or allegedly stolen events; transportation-related events; vandalism events; arson events; firearms-related events; sabotage events; and miscellaneous events

Brain activity and cognitive transition during childhood: A longitudinal event-related brain potential study.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Stauder, J.E.A.; Molenaar, P.C.M.; van der Molen, M.W.

1998-01-01

Examined the relation between brain activation and cognitive development using event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and a longitudinal design. 5 yr old females performed a visual recognition ('oddball') task and an experimental analogue of the Piagetian conservation of liquid quantity task At three

Event-related potential studies of outcome processing and feedback-guided learning

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René eSan Martín

2012-11-01

Full Text Available In order to control behavior in an adaptive manner the brain has to learn how some situations and actions predict positive or negative outcomes. During the last decade cognitive neuroscientists have shown that the brain is able to evaluate and learn from outcomes within a few hundred milliseconds of their occurrence. This research has been primarily focused on the feedback-related negativity (FRN and the P3, two event-related potential (ERP components that are elicited by outcomes. The FRN is a frontally distributed negative-polarity ERP component that typically reaches its maximal amplitude 250 ms after outcome presentation and tends to be larger for negative than for positive outcomes. The FRN has been associated with activity in the anterior cingulate cortex. The P3 (~300-600 ms is a parietally distributed positive-polarity ERP component that tends to be larger for large magnitude than for small magnitude outcomes. The neural sources of the P3 are probably distributed over different regions of the cortex. This paper examines the theories that have been proposed to explain the functional role of these two ERP components during outcome processing. Special attention is paid to extant literature addressing how these ERP components are modulated by outcome valence (negative vs. positive, outcome magnitude (large vs. small, outcome probability (unlikely vs. likely and behavioral adjustment. The literature offers few generalizable conclusions, but is beset with a number of inconsistencies across studies. This paper discusses the potential reasons for these inconsistencies and points out some challenges that will shape the field over the next decade.

Act to keep patients safe: device-related adverse event reporting.

Science.gov (United States)

Schoem, Scott R; Shah, Udayan K

2010-05-01

Primum non nocere- "Above all do no harm." Since the first year of medical school, we have all heard and spoken this dictum countless times. Translating this dictum into action may present challenges in our daily practice. Every day, clinicians must distinguish between scientific evidence, clinical experience, and marketing claims by industry vendors of improved efficacy and safety regarding medical devices. Adverse event reporting and device failure notification are generally laid out well in hospital practice settings. Reporting beyond the local level takes on a new dimension for most surgeons. Perceived stigma from peers and corporations, lack of confidentiality, and cynicism regarding protective actions for patients should not limit one from "raising the alarm" when concerns arise about device safety or performance. This commentary aims to explain the process for reporting device-related adverse events. Copyright 2010 American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

Dynamics of large-scale cortical interactions at high gamma frequencies during word production: event related causality (ERC) analysis of human electrocorticography (ECoG).

Science.gov (United States)

Korzeniewska, Anna; Franaszczuk, Piotr J; Crainiceanu, Ciprian M; Kuś, Rafał; Crone, Nathan E

2011-06-15

Intracranial EEG studies in humans have shown that functional brain activation in a variety of functional-anatomic domains of human cortex is associated with an increase in power at a broad range of high gamma (>60Hz) frequencies. Although these electrophysiological responses are highly specific for the location and timing of cortical processing and in animal recordings are highly correlated with increased population firing rates, there has been little direct empirical evidence for causal interactions between different recording sites at high gamma frequencies. Such causal interactions are hypothesized to occur during cognitive tasks that activate multiple brain regions. To determine whether such causal interactions occur at high gamma frequencies and to investigate their functional significance, we used event-related causality (ERC) analysis to estimate the dynamics, directionality, and magnitude of event-related causal interactions using subdural electrocorticography (ECoG) recorded during two word production tasks: picture naming and auditory word repetition. A clinical subject who had normal hearing but was skilled in American Signed Language (ASL) provided a unique opportunity to test our hypothesis with reference to a predictable pattern of causal interactions, i.e. that language cortex interacts with different areas of sensorimotor cortex during spoken vs. signed responses. Our ERC analyses confirmed this prediction. During word production with spoken responses, perisylvian language sites had prominent causal interactions with mouth/tongue areas of motor cortex, and when responses were gestured in sign language, the most prominent interactions involved hand and arm areas of motor cortex. Furthermore, we found that the sites from which the most numerous and prominent causal interactions originated, i.e. sites with a pattern of ERC "divergence", were also sites where high gamma power increases were most prominent and where electrocortical stimulation mapping

Extreme Events in China under Climate Change: Uncertainty and related impacts (CSSP-FOREX)

Science.gov (United States)

Leckebusch, Gregor C.; Befort, Daniel J.; Hodges, Kevin I.

2016-04-01

Suitable adaptation strategies or the timely initiation of related mitigation efforts in East Asia will strongly depend on robust and comprehensive information about future near-term as well as long-term potential changes in the climate system. Therefore, understanding the driving mechanisms associated with the East Asian climate is of major importance. The FOREX project (Fostering Regional Decision Making by the Assessment of Uncertainties of Future Regional Extremes and their Linkage to Global Climate System Variability for China and East Asia) focuses on the investigation of extreme wind and rainfall related events over Eastern Asia and their possible future changes. Here, analyses focus on the link between local extreme events and their driving weather systems. This includes the coupling between local rainfall extremes and tropical cyclones, the Meiyu frontal system, extra-tropical teleconnections and monsoonal activity. Furthermore, the relation between these driving weather systems and large-scale variability modes, e.g. NAO, PDO, ENSO is analysed. Thus, beside analysing future changes of local extreme events, the temporal variability of their driving weather systems and related large-scale variability modes will be assessed in current CMIP5 global model simulations to obtain more robust results. Beyond an overview of FOREX itself, first results regarding the link between local extremes and their steering weather systems based on observational and reanalysis data are shown. Special focus is laid on the contribution of monsoonal activity, tropical cyclones and the Meiyu frontal system on the inter-annual variability of the East Asian summer rainfall.

Tangential derivative mapping of axial MEG applied to event-related desynchronization research

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bastiaansen, M.C.M.; Knösche, T.R.

2000-01-01

Objectives: A problem with the topographic mapping of MEG data recorded with axial gradiometers is that field extrema are measured at sensors located at either side of a neuronal generator instead of at sensors directly above the source. This is problematic for the computation of event-related

Finding related functional neuroimaging volumes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Finn Årup; Hansen, Lars Kai

2004-01-01

We describe a content-based image retrieval technique for finding related functional neuroimaging experiments by voxelization of sets of stereotactic coordinates in Talairach space, comparing the volumes and reporting related volumes in a sorted list. Voxelization is accomplished by convolving ea...

Coordinated research programme on safety of RBMK type NPPs in relation to external events. V. 1. Working material

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1999-01-01

The present volume is a collection of progress reports which have been submitted within the scope of the CRP on safety of RBMK type NPPs in relation to external events including seismic related papers and man-induced events (explosions and airplane crash). It includes papers concerned with experience related to RBMK equipment testing and calculations of seismic resistance, soil-structure interactions analysis, safety assurance, aircraft impact qualification and other external events for RBMK type NPP, seismic stability of NPPs in Eastern Europe, probabilistic assessment of NPP safety under aircraft impact, dynamic analysis of NPPs, screening of external hazards for NPP

Statistical language learning in neonates revealed by event-related brain potentials

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Näätänen Risto

2009-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Statistical learning is a candidate for one of the basic prerequisites underlying the expeditious acquisition of spoken language. Infants from 8 months of age exhibit this form of learning to segment fluent speech into distinct words. To test the statistical learning skills at birth, we recorded event-related brain responses of sleeping neonates while they were listening to a stream of syllables containing statistical cues to word boundaries. Results We found evidence that sleeping neonates are able to automatically extract statistical properties of the speech input and thus detect the word boundaries in a continuous stream of syllables containing no morphological cues. Syllable-specific event-related brain responses found in two separate studies demonstrated that the neonatal brain treated the syllables differently according to their position within pseudowords. Conclusion These results demonstrate that neonates can efficiently learn transitional probabilities or frequencies of co-occurrence between different syllables, enabling them to detect word boundaries and in this way isolate single words out of fluent natural speech. The ability to adopt statistical structures from speech may play a fundamental role as one of the earliest prerequisites of language acquisition.

Origins of spatial working memory deficits in schizophrenia: an event-related FMRI and near-infrared spectroscopy study.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Junghee Lee

2008-03-01

Full Text Available Abnormal prefrontal functioning plays a central role in the working memory (WM deficits of schizophrenic patients, but the nature of the relationship between WM and prefrontal activation remains undetermined. Using two functional neuroimaging methods, we investigated the neural correlates of remembering and forgetting in schizophrenic and healthy participants. We focused on the brain activation during WM maintenance phase with event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI. We also examined oxygenated hemoglobin changes in relation to memory performance with the near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS using the same spatial WM task. Distinct types of correct and error trials were segregated for analysis. fMRI data indicated that prefrontal activation was increased during WM maintenance on correct trials in both schizophrenic and healthy subjects. However, a significant difference was observed in the functional asymmetry of frontal activation pattern. Healthy subjects showed increased activation in the right frontal, temporal and cingulate regions. Schizophrenic patients showed greater activation compared with control subjects in left frontal, temporal and parietal regions as well as in right frontal regions. We also observed increased 'false memory' errors in schizophrenic patients, associated with increased prefrontal activation and resembling the activation pattern observed on the correct trials. NIRS data replicated the fMRI results. Thus, increased frontal activity was correlated with the accuracy of WM in both healthy control and schizophrenic participants. The major difference between the two groups concerned functional asymmetry; healthy subjects recruited right frontal regions during spatial WM maintenance whereas schizophrenic subjects recruited a wider network in both hemispheres to achieve the same level of memory performance. Increased "false memory" errors and accompanying bilateral prefrontal activation in schizophrenia suggest

Intraoperative seizures and seizures outcome in patients underwent awake craniotomy.

Science.gov (United States)

Yuan, Yang; Peizhi, Zhou; Xiang, Wang; Yanhui, Liu; Ruofei, Liang; Shu, Jiang; Qing, Mao

2016-11-25

Awake craniotomies (AC) could reduce neurological deficits compared with patients under general anesthesia, however, intraoperative seizure is a major reason causing awake surgery failure. The purpose of the study was to give a comprehensive overview the published articles focused on seizure incidence in awake craniotomy. Bibliographic searches of the EMBASE, MEDLINE,were performed to identify articles and conference abstracts that investigated the intraoperative seizure frequency of patients underwent AC. Twenty-five studies were included in this meta-analysis. Among the 25 included studies, one was randomized controlled trials and 5 of them were comparable studies. The pooled data suggested the general intraoperative seizure(IOS) rate for patients with AC was 8%(fixed effect model), sub-group analysis identified IOS rate for glioma patients was 8% and low grade patients was 10%. The pooled data showed early seizure rates of AC patients was 11% and late seizure rates was 35%. This systematic review and meta-analysis shows that awake craniotomy is a safe technique with relatively low intraoperative seizure occurrence. However, few RCTs were available, and the acquisition of further evidence through high-quality RCTs is highly recommended.

arXiv Azimuthally-differential pion femtoscopy relative to the third harmonic event plane in Pb-Pb collisions at $\\mathbf{\\sqrt{\\textit{s}_{_{\\rm NN}}}}$ = 2.76 TeV

CERN Document Server

Acharya, Shreyasi; The ALICE collaboration; Adamova, Dagmar; Adolfsson, Jonatan; Aggarwal, Madan Mohan; Aglieri Rinella, Gianluca; Agnello, Michelangelo; Agrawal, Neelima; Ahammed, Zubayer; Ahn, Sang Un; Aiola, Salvatore; Akindinov, Alexander; Al-turany, Mohammad; Alam, Sk Noor; Silva De Albuquerque, Danilo; Aleksandrov, Dmitry; Alessandro, Bruno; Alfaro Molina, Jose Ruben; Ali, Yasir; Alici, Andrea; Alkin, Anton; Alme, Johan; Alt, Torsten; Altenkamper, Lucas; Altsybeev, Igor; Andrei, Cristian; Andreou, Dimitra; Andrews, Harry Arthur; Andronic, Anton; Angeletti, Massimo; Anguelov, Venelin; Anson, Christopher Daniel; Anticic, Tome; Antinori, Federico; Antonioli, Pietro; Apadula, Nicole; Aphecetche, Laurent Bernard; Appelshaeuser, Harald; Arcelli, Silvia; Arnaldi, Roberta; Arnold, Oliver Werner; Arsene, Ionut Cristian; Arslandok, Mesut; Audurier, Benjamin; Augustinus, Andre; Averbeck, Ralf Peter; Azmi, Mohd Danish; Badala, Angela; Baek, Yong Wook; Bagnasco, Stefano; Bailhache, Raphaelle Marie; Bala, Renu; Baldisseri, Alberto; Ball, Markus; Baral, Rama Chandra; Barbano, Anastasia Maria; Barbera, Roberto; Barile, Francesco; Barioglio, Luca; Barnafoldi, Gergely Gabor; Barnby, Lee Stuart; Ramillien Barret, Valerie; Bartalini, Paolo; Barth, Klaus; Bartsch, Esther; Bastid, Nicole; Basu, Sumit; Batigne, Guillaume; Batyunya, Boris; Batzing, Paul Christoph; Bazo Alba, Jose Luis; Bearden, Ian Gardner; Beck, Hans; Bedda, Cristina; Behera, Nirbhay Kumar; Belikov, Iouri; Bellini, Francesca; Bello Martinez, Hector; Bellwied, Rene; Espinoza Beltran, Lucina Gabriela; Belyaev, Vladimir; Bencedi, Gyula; Beole, Stefania; Bercuci, Alexandru; Berdnikov, Yaroslav; Berenyi, Daniel; Bertens, Redmer Alexander; Berzano, Dario; Betev, Latchezar; Bhaduri, Partha Pratim; Bhasin, Anju; Bhat, Inayat Rasool; Bhattacharjee, Buddhadeb; Bhom, Jihyun; Bianchi, Antonio; Bianchi, Livio; Bianchi, Nicola; Bielcik, Jaroslav; Bielcikova, Jana; Bilandzic, Ante; Biro, Gabor; Biswas, Rathijit; Biswas, Saikat; Blair, Justin Thomas; 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2018-01-01

Azimuthally-differential femtoscopic measurements, being sensitive to spatio-temporal characteristics of the source as well as to the collective velocity fields at freeze out, provide very important information on the nature and dynamics of the system evolution. While the HBT radii oscillations relative to the second harmonic event plane measured recently reflect mostly the spatial geometry of the source, model studies have shown that the HBT radii oscillations relative to the third harmonic event plane are predominantly defined by the velocity fields. In this Letter, we present the first results on azimuthally-differential pion femtoscopy relative to the third harmonic event plane as a function of the pion pair transverse momentum $k_{\\rm T}$ for different collision centralities in Pb-Pb collisions at $\\sqrt{s_{\\rm NN}} = 2.76$ TeV. We find that the $R_{\\rm side}$ and $R_{\\rm out}$ radii, which characterize the pion source size in the directions perpendicular and parallel to the pion transverse momentum, osc...

Linguistic Legitimation of Political Events in Newspaper Discourse

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marwah Kareem Ali

2016-08-01

Full Text Available This paper examines the discursive structures employed in legitimizing the event of U.S. forces withdrawal from Iraq and identifies them in relation to linguistic features. It attempts to describe the relation between language use and legitimation discursive structures in depicting political events. The paper focuses on the political event of U.S. forces’ withdrawal from Iraq in the English newspaper issued in Iraq. The study shows the way in which journalists express their values and attitudes concerning this critical event. Consequently, this requires a critical discourse analysis (henceforth, CDA to analyse news articles in the Iraqi English newspaper: The Kurdish Globe (henceforth, KG newspaper. Accordingly, the study presents a qualitative content analysis of newspaper articles to identify the legitimation discursive structures and their linguistic features. It is found that the main discursive structures of legitimation employed in the KG newspaper are: authorization, rationalization, and moral evaluation. Besides, there were five verb processes used to represent this legitimation, including material, verbal, relational, mental, and existential. Keywords: Critical discourse analysis, legitimation discursive structures, linguistic features, newspaper discourse, systemic functional linguistics

Reaching out for patients: public relations and events with real results.

Science.gov (United States)

Kuechel, Marie Czenko

2010-02-01

In today's market, the aesthetic physician needs to connect with patients using methods that are personal, educational, and that will glean the interest of prospective patients whose attention and dollars are sought by countless facial plastic surgery competitors near and far. Public relations, or reaching your prospective patient without a direct solicitation (advertising) for services, are traditional means that include media relations and charitable and social events. With the added component of social media, today the opportunities to reach out for new patients and garner real results are more varied and more affordable than ever before. Thieme Medical Publishers.

Abnormal occipital event-related potentials in Parkinson's disease with concomitant REM sleep behavior disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Gaudreault, Pierre-Olivier; Gagnon, Jean-François; Montplaisir, Jacques; Vendette, Mélanie; Postuma, Ronald B; Gagnon, Katia; Gosselin, Nadia

2013-02-01

Rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder is found in 33-46% of patients with Parkinson's disease and was shown to be associated with cognitive deficits. Our goal was to improve our understanding of the role of this sleep disorder in cerebral dysfunction occurring in Parkinson's disease using a visual cognitive task and event-related potentials. Sixteen patients with Parkinson's disease and rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder, 15 patients with Parkinson's disease without rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder and 16 healthy control subjects were included. The amplitude and latency of event-related potentials were compared between groups. No group differences were found for reaction times or accuracy. A Group effect was found for P2 wave amplitude; patients with rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder had increased P2 in comparison with the control group (p disorder were associated with abnormal visual P2 component of event-related potentials. Although patients with Parkinson's disease alone were not significantly different from patients with combined Parkinson's disease and rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder, their P2 amplitudes were not sufficiently abnormal to differ from that of control subjects. This study confirms that rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder accentuates cerebral dysfunctions in Parkinson's disease. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Acute myocardial infarctation in patients with critical ischemia underwent lower limb revascularization

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Esdras Marques Lins

2013-12-01

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Atherosclerosis is the main cause of peripheral artery occlusive disease (PAOD of the lower limbs. Patients with PAOD often also have obstructive atherosclerosis in other arterial sites, mainly the coronary arteries. This means that patients who undergo infrainguinal bypass to treat critical ischemia have a higher risk of AMI. There are, however, few reports in the literature that have assessed this risk properly. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to determine the incidence of acute myocardial infarction in patients who underwent infrainguinal bypass to treat critical ischemia of the lower limbs caused by PAOD. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A total of 64 patients who underwent 82 infrainguinal bypass operations, from February 2011 to July 2012 were studied. All patients had electrocardiograms and troponin I blood assays during the postoperative period (within 72 hours. RESULTS: There were abnormal ECG findings and elevated blood troponin I levels suggestive of AMI in five (6% of the 82 operations performed. All five had conventional surgery. The incidence of AMI as a proportion of the 52 conventional surgery cases was 9.6%. Two patients died. CONCLUSION: There was a 6% AMI incidence among patients who underwent infrainguinal bypass due to PAOD. Considering only cases operated using conventional surgery, the incidence of AMI was 9.6%.

Modeling the Effects of Drought Events on Forest Ecosystem Functioning Historically and Under Scenarios of Climate Change

Science.gov (United States)

Ren, J.; Hanan, E. J.; Kolden, C.; Abatzoglou, J. T.; Tague, C.; Liu, M.; Adam, J. C.

2017-12-01

Drought events have been increasing across the western United States in recent years. Many studies have shown that, in the context of climate change, droughts will continue to be stronger, more frequent, and prolonged in the future. However, the response of forest ecosystems to droughts, particularly multi-year droughts, is not well understood. The objectives of this study are to examine how drought events of varying characteristics (e.g. intensity, duration, frequency, etc.) have affected the functioning of forest ecosystems historically, and how changing drought characteristics (including multi-year droughts) may affect forest functioning in a future climate. We utilize the Regional Hydro-Ecological Simulation System (RHESSys) to simulate impacts of both historical droughts and scenarios of future droughts on forest ecosystems. RHESSys is a spatially-distributed and process-based model that captures the interactions between coupled biogeochemical and hydrologic cycles at catchment scales. Here our case study is the Trail Creek catchment of the Big Wood River basin in Idaho, the Northwestern USA. For historical simulations, we use the gridded meteorological data of 1979 to 2016; for future climate scenarios, we utilize downscaled data from GCMs that have been demonstrated to capture drought events in the Northwest of the USA. From these climate projections, we identify various types of drought in intensity and duration, including multi-year drought events. We evaluate the following responses of ecosystems to these events: 1) evapotranspiration and streamflow; 2) gross primary productivity; 3) the post-drought recovery of plant biomass; and 4) the forest functioning and recovery after multi-year droughts. This research is part of an integration project to examine the roles of drought, insect outbreak, and forest management activities on wildfire activity and its impacts. This project will provide improved information for forest managers and communities in the wild

Comparative analysis of early adverse events of pelvic organ prolapse repair with or without transvaginal mesh using Clavien-Dindo classification.

Science.gov (United States)

Besser, Limor; Schwarzman, Polina; Mastrolia, Salvatore A; Rotem, Reut; Leron, Elad; Yohay, David; Weintraub, Adi Y

2018-04-10

To assess adverse events following surgical repair of pelvic organ prolapse (POP) with or without the use of transvaginal mesh. The present retrospective study was conducted among women who underwent surgical POP repair at Soroka University Medical Center, Beer Sheva, Israel, between January 1, 2013, and December 31, 2015. Patients underwent anterior and posterior colporrhaphy either with transvaginal mesh (Elevate Prolapse Repair System; American Medical Systems, Minnetonka, MN, USA) or without transvaginal mesh (native tissue repair). Perioperative adverse events were assessed using the Clavien-Dindo classification; multivariate regression models were constructed to predict minor and major adverse events. There were 111 women included; 35 were treated with transvaginal mesh, and 76 underwent native tissue repair. Women undergoing native tissue repair had a lower mean grade of cystocele (P=0.023) and a higher rate of urinary stress incontinence (P=0.017) than patients treated with transvaginal mesh. The duration of surgery (P=0.002), duration of hospitalization (Ptransvaginal mesh was not associated with increased odds of major or minor adverse events (P>0.05 for all models examined). Perioperative and postoperative adverse events were comparable regardless of the operative approach. © 2018 International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics.

Treatment-dependent and treatment-independent risk factors associated with the risk of diabetes-related events

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wilke, Thomas; Mueller, Sabrina; Groth, Antje

2015-01-01

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to analyse which factors predict the real-world macro-/microvascular event, hospitalisation and death risk in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Furthermore, we aimed to investigate whether there exists both an under- and over-treatment risk...... of these patients. METHODS: We used a German claims/clinical data set covering the years 2010-12. Diabetes-related events were defined as (1) macro-, (2) microvascular events leading to inpatient hospitalisation, (3) other hospitalisations with type 2 diabetes mellitus as main diagnosis, (4) all-cause death and (5......) a composite outcome including all event categories 1-4. Factors associated with event risk were analysed by a Kaplan-Meier curve analysis and by multivariable Cox regression models. RESULTS: 229,042 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (mean age 70.2 years; mean CCI 6.03) were included. Among factors...

Undetected latent failures of safety-related systems. Preliminary survey of events in nuclear power plants 1980-1997

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lydell, B.

1998-03-01

This report summarizes results and insights from a preliminary survey of events involving undetected, latent failures of safety-related systems. The survey was limited to events where mispositioned equipment (e.g., valves, switches) remained undetected, thus rendering standby equipment or systems unavailable for short or long time periods. Typically, these events were symptoms of underlying latent errors (e.g., design errors, procedure errors, unanalyzed safety conditions) and programmatic errors. The preliminary survey identified well over 300 events. Of these, 95 events are documented in this report. Events involving mispositioned equipment are commonplace. Most events are discovered soon after occurrence, however. But as evidenced by the survey results, some events remained undetected beyond several shift changes. The recommendations developed by the survey emphasize the importance of applying modern root cause analysis techniques to the event analysis to ensure that the causes and implications of occurred events are fully understood

Impact of storm events on the structure of a stream microbiome

Science.gov (United States)

The microbial structural and/or functional state in a stream community is assumed to be in relative stasis until a perturbation (e.g., runoff event with entrained pollutants) affects the community structure and its functional state. Quantifying these changes and resolving the spe...

Relation between preoperative autonomic function and blood pressure change after tourniquet deflation during total knee replacement arthroplasty.

Science.gov (United States)

Huh, In Young; Kim, Dae-Young; Lee, Ji-Hyeon; Shin, Soo Jin; Cho, Young Woo; Park, Soon Eun

2012-02-01

Tourniquets are used to provide a bloodless surgical field for extremities. Hypotension due to vasodilation and bleeding after tourniquet deflation is a common event. Hemodynamic stability is modulated by the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Heart rate variability (HRV) is a sensitive method for detecting individuals who may be at risk of hemodynamic instability during general anesthesia. The purpose of this study was to investigate ANS function to predict hypotension after tourniquet deflation. Eighty-six patients who underwent total knee replacement arthroplasty (TKRA) were studied. HRV, systolic blood pressure variability (SBPV) and baroreflex sensitivity (BRS) were analyzed. We assigned two groups depending on the lowest systolic blood pressure (SBP) or mean BP (MBP) after tourniquet release (Group H; SBP 80 mmHg and MBP > 60 mmHg). Fifteen patients developed severe hypotension and ten patients were treated with ephedrine. Of the parameters of HRV, SBPV, and BRS, only BRS(SEQ) was significant being low in Group H. BRS and high-frequency SBPV were correlated with the degree of MBP change after tourniquet deflation. Preoperative low BRS is associated with hypotension after tourniquet deflation, suggesting the importance of baroreflex regulation for intraoperative hemodynamic stability.

Event-related potentials, cognition, and behavior: a biological approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Kotchoubey, Boris

2006-01-01

The prevailing cognitive-psychological accounts of event-related brain potentials (ERPs) assume that ERP components manifest information processing operations leading from stimulus to response. Since this view encounters numerous difficulties already analyzed in previous studies, an alternative view is presented here that regards cortical control of behavior as a repetitive sensorimotor cycle consisting of two phases: (i) feedforward anticipation and (ii) feedback cortical performance. This view allows us to interpret in an integrative manner numerous data obtained from very different domains of ERP studies: from biophysics of ERP waves to their relationship to the processing of language, in which verbal behavior is viewed as likewise controlled by the same two basic control processes: feedforward (hypothesis building) and feedback (hypothesis checking). The proposed approach is intentionally simplified, explaining numerous effects on the basis of few assumptions and relating several levels of analysis: neurophysiology, macroelectrical processes (i.e. ERPs), cognition and behavior. It can, therefore, be regarded as a first approximation to a general theory of ERPs.

Conceptual Integration of Arithmetic Operations with Real-World Knowledge: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials

Science.gov (United States)

Guthormsen, Amy M.; Fisher, Kristie J.; Bassok, Miriam; Osterhout, Lee; DeWolf, Melissa; Holyoak, Keith J.

2016-01-01

Research on language processing has shown that the disruption of conceptual integration gives rise to specific patterns of event-related brain potentials (ERPs)--N400 and P600 effects. Here, we report similar ERP effects when adults performed cross-domain conceptual integration of analogous semantic and mathematical relations. In a problem-solving…

Pitch Discrimination without Awareness in Congenital Amusia: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials

Science.gov (United States)

Moreau, Patricia; Jolicoeur, Pierre; Peretz, Isabelle

2013-01-01

Congenital amusia is a lifelong disorder characterized by a difficulty in perceiving and producing music despite normal intelligence and hearing. Behavioral data have indicated that it originates from a deficit in fine-grained pitch discrimination, and is expressed by the absence of a P3b event-related brain response for pitch differences smaller…

Comparison of Nutrition-Related Adverse Events and Clinical Outcomes Between ICE (Ifosfamide, Carboplatin, and Etoposide) and MCEC (Ranimustine, Carboplatin, Etoposide, and Cyclophosphamide) Therapies as Pretreatment for Autologous Peripheral Blood Stem Cell Transplantation in Patients with Malignant Lymphoma

Science.gov (United States)

Imataki, Osamu; Arai, Hidekazu; Kume, Tetsuo; Shiozaki, Hitomi; Katsumata, Naomi; Mori, Mariko; Ishide, Keiko; Ikeda, Takashi

2018-01-01

Background The aim of this study was to compare nutrition-related adverse events and clinical outcomes of ifosfamide, carboplatin, and etoposide regimen (ICE therapy) and ranimustine, carboplatin, etoposide, and cyclophosphamide regimen (MCEC therapy) instituted as pretreatment for autologous peripheral blood stem cell transplantation. Material/Methods We enrolled patients who underwent autologous peripheral blood stem cell transplantation between 2007 and 2012. Outcomes were compared between ICE therapy (n=14) and MCEC therapy (n=14) in relation to nutrient balance, engraftment day, and length of hospital stay. In both groups, we compared the timing of nutrition-related adverse events with oral caloric intake, analyzed the correlation between length of hospital stay and duration of parenteral nutrition, and investigated the association between oral caloric intake and the proportion of parenteral nutrition energy in total calorie supply. Five-year survival was compared between the groups. Results Compared with the MCEC group, the ICE group showed significant improvement in oral caloric intake, length of hospital stay, and timing of nutrition-related adverse events and oral calorie intake, but a delay in engraftment. Both groups showed a correlation between duration of parenteral nutrition and length of hospital stay (P=0.0001) and between oral caloric intake (P=0.0017) and parenteral nutrition energy sufficiency rate (r=−0.73, P=0.003; r=−0.76, P=0.002). Five-year survival was not significantly different between the groups (P=0.1355). Conclusions Our findings suggest that compared with MCEC therapy, ICE therapy improves nutrition-related adverse events and reduces hospital stay, conserving medical resources, with no significant improvement in long-term survival. The nutritional pathway may serve as a tool for objective evaluation of pretreatment for autologous peripheral blood stem cell transplantation. PMID:29398693

Tracking cognitive phases in analogical reasoning with event-related potentials.

Science.gov (United States)

Maguire, Mandy J; McClelland, M Michelle; Donovan, Colin M; Tillman, Gail D; Krawczyk, Daniel C

2012-03-01

Analogical reasoning consists of multiple phases. Four-term analogies (A:B::C:D) have an encoding period in which the A:B pair is evaluated prior to a mapping phase. The electrophysiological timing associated with analogical reasoning has remained unclear. We used event-related potentials to identify neural timing related to analogical reasoning relative to perceptual and semantic control conditions. Spatiotemporal principal-components analyses revealed differences primarily in left frontal electrodes during encoding and mapping phases of analogies relative to the other conditions. The timing of the activity differed depending upon the phase of the problem. During the encoding of A:B terms, analogies elicited a positive deflection compared to the control conditions between 400 and 1,200 ms, but for the mapping phase analogical processing elicited a negative deflection that occurred earlier and for a shorter time period, between 350 and 625 ms. These results provide neural and behavioral evidence that 4-term analogy problems involve a highly active evaluation phase of the A:B pair. 2012 APA, all rights reserved

Monitoring changes in seismic velocity related to an ongoing rapid inflation event at Okmok volcano, Alaska

Science.gov (United States)

Bennington, Ninfa; Haney, Matt; De Angelis, Silvio; Thurber, Clifford; Freymueller, Jeff

2015-01-01

Okmok is one of the most active volcanoes in the Aleutian Arc. In an effort to improve our ability to detect precursory activity leading to eruption at Okmok, we monitor a recent, and possibly ongoing, GPS-inferred rapid inflation event at the volcano using ambient noise interferometry (ANI). Applying this method, we identify changes in seismic velocity outside of Okmok’s caldera, which are related to the hydrologic cycle. Within the caldera, we observe decreases in seismic velocity that are associated with the GPS-inferred rapid inflation event. We also determine temporal changes in waveform decorrelation and show a continual increase in decorrelation rate over the time associated with the rapid inflation event. Themagnitude of relative velocity decreases and decorrelation rate increases are comparable to previous studies at Piton de la Fournaise that associate such changes with increased production of volatiles and/ormagmatic intrusion within the magma reservoir and associated opening of fractures and/or fissures. Notably, the largest decrease in relative velocity occurs along the intrastation path passing nearest to the center of the caldera. This observation, along with equal amplitude relative velocity decreases revealed via analysis of intracaldera autocorrelations, suggests that the inflation sourcemay be located approximately within the center of the caldera and represent recharge of shallow magma storage in this location. Importantly, there is a relative absence of seismicity associated with this and previous rapid inflation events at Okmok. Thus, these ANI results are the first seismic evidence of such rapid inflation at the volcano.

Cognition- and Dementia-Related Adverse Effects With Sacubitril-Valsartan: Analysis of the FDA Adverse Event Report System Database.

Science.gov (United States)

Perlman, Amichai; Hirsh Raccah, Bruria; Matok, Ilan; Muszkat, Mordechai

2018-05-07

Because neprilysin is involved in the degradation of amyloid-beta, there is concern that the angiotensin-neprilysin inhibitor sacubitril-valsartan could increase the risk for dementia. We analyzed adverse event cases submitted to the Food and Drug Administration Adverse Event Report System from July 2015 to March 2017. Cognition- and dementia-related adverse event cases were defined with the use of broad and narrow structured medical queries. During the period evaluated, 9,004 adverse event reports (out of a total of 2,249,479) involved the use of sacubitril-valsartan. Based on the broad definition, sacubitril-valsartan was associated with cognition- and dementia-related adverse events in 459 reports (5.1%), but this was lower than the proportion of these reports among other medications (6.6%, reporting odds ratio [ROR] 0.72, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.65-0.79). Restricting the comparison to cases with age >60 years and with the use of a comparator group with heart failure resulted in no association between sacubitril-valsartan and dementia-related adverse events, with the use of both the broad and the narrow definitions (ROR 0.87, 95% CI 0.76-1.02, and ROR 1.06, 95% CI 0.4-3.16, respectively). Sacubitril-valsartan is not associated with a disproportionately high rate of short-term dementia-related adverse effect reports. Long-term studies assessing cognitive outcomes are required to better establish the medication's cognition effects. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Representations in human visual short-term memory : an event-related brain potential study

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Klaver, P; Smid, HGOM; Heinze, HJ

1999-01-01

Behavioral measures and event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 12 subjects while performing three delayed matching-to-sample tasks. The task instructions indicated whether stimulus locations, shapes or conjunctions of locations and shapes had to be memorized and matched against a probe.

Working memory processes show different degrees of lateralization : Evidence from event-related potentials

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Talsma, D; Wijers, A.A.; Klaver, P; Mulder, G.

This study aimed to identify different processes in working memory, using event-related potentials (ERPs) and response times. Abstract polygons were presented for memorization and subsequent recall in a delayed matching-to-sample paradigm. Two polygons were presented bilaterally for memorization and

Undetected latent failures of safety-related systems. Preliminary survey of events in nuclear power plants 1980-1997

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lydell, B. [RSA Technologies, Vista, CA (United States)

1998-03-01

This report summarizes results and insights from a preliminary survey of events involving undetected, latent failures of safety-related systems. The survey was limited to events where mispositioned equipment (e.g., valves, switches) remained undetected, thus rendering standby equipment or systems unavailable for short or long time periods. Typically, these events were symptoms of underlying latent errors (e.g., design errors, procedure errors, unanalyzed safety conditions) and programmatic errors. The preliminary survey identified well over 300 events. Of these, 95 events are documented in this report. Events involving mispositioned equipment are commonplace. Most events are discovered soon after occurrence, however. But as evidenced by the survey results, some events remained undetected beyond several shift changes. The recommendations developed by the survey emphasize the importance of applying modern root cause analysis techniques to the event analysis to ensure that the causes and implications of occurred events are fully understood. 7 refs, 4 tabs, 3 figs. Also available at the SKI Home page: //www.ski.se.

Event-Related Potentials for Post-Error and Post-Conflict Slowing

Science.gov (United States)

Chang, Andrew; Chen, Chien-Chung; Li, Hsin-Hung; Li, Chiang-Shan R.

2014-01-01

In a reaction time task, people typically slow down following an error or conflict, each called post-error slowing (PES) and post-conflict slowing (PCS). Despite many studies of the cognitive mechanisms, the neural responses of PES and PCS continue to be debated. In this study, we combined high-density array EEG and a stop-signal task to examine event-related potentials of PES and PCS in sixteen young adult participants. The results showed that the amplitude of N2 is greater during PES but not PCS. In contrast, the peak latency of N2 is longer for PCS but not PES. Furthermore, error-positivity (Pe) but not error-related negativity (ERN) was greater in the stop error trials preceding PES than non-PES trials, suggesting that PES is related to participants' awareness of the error. Together, these findings extend earlier work of cognitive control by specifying the neural correlates of PES and PCS in the stop signal task. PMID:24932780

An event-related potential study of maternal love in mothers.

Science.gov (United States)

Lu, Jiamei; Li, Da; Xu, Jingwei

2012-10-01

Feeling is stable and implicit and can be explicated in concrete situations in the form of emotion. To map the time course of feeling processing, the present study explored electrophysiological responses relevant to inner feeling by creating situations to evoke the explicit response of feeling. Fourteen mothers were asked to listen to TS and NS. Although the early event-related potential components (P1, N1 and P2) elicited by story pictures were not affected by the emotional valence of stories, the pictures relevant to TS elicited larger P3 and late positive potential (LPP) components than did neutral story pictures, indicating that feeling processing occurred at the post-perceptual stage. Feeling-related positive potential was separated using the difference wave analysis technique, which consisted of two sub-components: FRBB1 and FRBB2 based on P3 and LPP modulations, respectively. These data provide new electrophysiological evidence for the time course of feeling processing related to maternal love.

MEG event-related desynchronization and synchronization deficits during basic somatosensory processing in individuals with ADHD

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wang Frank

2008-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD is a prevalent, complex disorder which is characterized by symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity. Convergent evidence from neurobiological studies of ADHD identifies dysfunction in fronto-striatal-cerebellar circuitry as the source of behavioural deficits. Recent studies have shown that regions governing basic sensory processing, such as the somatosensory cortex, show abnormalities in those with ADHD suggesting that these processes may also be compromised. Methods We used event-related magnetoencephalography (MEG to examine patterns of cortical rhythms in the primary (SI and secondary (SII somatosensory cortices in response to median nerve stimulation, in 9 adults with ADHD and 10 healthy controls. Stimuli were brief (0.2 ms non-painful electrical pulses presented to the median nerve in two counterbalanced conditions: unpredictable and predictable stimulus presentation. We measured changes in strength, synchronicity, and frequency of cortical rhythms. Results Healthy comparison group showed strong event-related desynchrony and synchrony in SI and SII. By contrast, those with ADHD showed significantly weaker event-related desynchrony and event-related synchrony in the alpha (8–12 Hz and beta (15–30 Hz bands, respectively. This was most striking during random presentation of median nerve stimulation. Adults with ADHD showed significantly shorter duration of beta rebound in both SI and SII except for when the onset of the stimulus event could be predicted. In this case, the rhythmicity of SI (but not SII in the ADHD group did not differ from that of controls. Conclusion Our findings suggest that somatosensory processing is altered in individuals with ADHD. MEG constitutes a promising approach to profiling patterns of neural activity during the processing of sensory input (e.g., detection of a tactile stimulus, stimulus predictability and facilitating our

Endocrine profiles and neuropsychologic correlates of functional hypothalamic amenorrhea in adolescents.

Science.gov (United States)

Bomba, Monica; Gambera, Alessandro; Bonini, Luisa; Peroni, Maria; Neri, Francesca; Scagliola, Pasquale; Nacinovich, Renata

2007-04-01

To determine trigger factors and neuropsychologic correlates of functional hypothalamic amenorrhea (FHA) in adolescence and to evaluate the correlations with the endocrine-metabolic profile. Cross-sectional comparison of adolescents with FHA and eumenorrheic controls Academic medical institution Twenty adolescent girls with FHA (aged <18 years) and 20 normal cycling girls All subjects underwent endocrine-gynecologic (hormone) and neuropsychiatric (tests and interview) investigations. A separate semistructured interview was also used to investigate parents. Gonadotropins, leptin, prolactin, androgens, estrogens, cortisol, carrier proteins (SHBG, insulin-like growth factor-binding protein 1), and metabolic parameters (insulin, insulin-like growth factor 1, thyroid hormones) were assayed in FHA and control subjects. All girls were evaluated using a test for depression, a test for disordered eating, and a psychodynamic semistructured interview. Adolescents with FHA showed a particular susceptibility to common life events, restrictive disordered eating, depressive traits, and psychosomatic disorders. The endocrine-metabolic profile was strictly correlated to the severity of the psychopathology. Functional hypothalamic amenorrhea in adolescence is due to a particular neuropsychologic vulnerability to stress, probably related to familial relationship styles, expressed by a proportional endocrine impairment.

65. Impact of focused echocardiography in clinical decision of patients presented with STMI, underwent primary percutenouse angioplasty

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. Qasem

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Echocardiography in coronary artery diseases is an essential, routine echocardiography prior to primary percutaneous angioplasty is not clear. In our clinical practice in primary angioplasty we faced lots of complications either before or during or after the procedure. Moreover, lots of incidental findings that discovered after the procedure which if known will affect the plan of management. One-hundred-nineteen consecutive underwent primary angioplasty. All patients underwent FE prior to the procedure in catheterization lab while the patient was preparing for the procedure. FE with 2DE of LV at base, mid and apex, and apical stander views. Diastology grading, E/E′ and color doppler of mitral and aortic valve were performed. (N = 119 case of STMI were enrolled, mean age 51 ± 12 year. Eleven cases (9.2% had normal coronary and normal LV function. Twenty cases (17% of MI complication detected before the procedures: RV infarction 8.4% (5.1% asymptomatic and 3.3% symptomatic, ischemic MR (8.4%, LV apical aneurysm (0.8%, significant pericardial effusion (0.80%. Acute pulmonary edema in 17 cases (14.3%: six cases (5.1% developed acute pulmonary edema on the cath lab with grade 3 diastolic dysfunction and E/E ′  >20, 9 cases (7.6% develop acute pulmonary edema in CCU with grade 2–3 diastolic dysfunction and E/E′ 15–20. 2 cases (2.7% develop acute pulmonary in CCU with grade 1–2 diastolic dysfunction and E/E′ 9–14. One case (0.8% presented cardiac tamponade 2 h post PCI. Incidental finding not related to STMI were as follow: 2 cases (1.7% with severe fibro degenerative MR, 2 cases (1.7% with mild to moderate AR and 2 cases (1.7% with mild to moderate AS. Isoled CABG 5/4.2% and CABG and MVR 2/1.7%. FE play an important role in guiding the management, early detection the incidental findings and complication post PCI.

The neuromechanism underlying verbal analogical reasoning of metaphorical relations: an event-related potentials study.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Ming; Meng, Huishan; Xu, Zhiyuan; Du, Fenglei; Liu, Tao; Li, Yongxin; Chen, Feiyan

2011-11-24

Using event-related potentials (ERPs), this study investigated the neuromechanism underlying verbal analogical reasoning of two different metaphorical relations: attributive metaphor and relational metaphor. The analogical reasoning of attributive metaphor (AM-AR) involves a superficial similarity between analogues, while the analogical reasoning of relational metaphor (RM-AR) requires a structural similarity. Subjects were asked to judge whether one word pair was semantically analogous to another word pair. Results showed that the schema induction stage elicited a greater N400 component at the right anterior scalp for the AM-AR and RM-AR tasks, possibly attributable to semantic processing of metaphorical word pairs. The N400 was then followed by a widely distributed P300 and a late negative component (LNC1) at the left anterior scalp. The P300 was possibly related to the formation of a relational category, while the LNC1 was possibly related to the maintenance of a reasoning cue in working memory. The analogy mapping stage elicited broadly distributed N400 and LNC2, which might indicate the presence of semantic retrieval and analogical transfer. In the answer production stage, all conditions elicited the P2 component due to early stimulus encoding. The largest P2 amplitude was in the RM-AR task. The RM-AR elicited a larger LPC than did the AM-AR, even though the baseline correction was taken as a control for the differential P2 effect. The LPC effect might suggest that relational metaphors involved more integration processing than attributive metaphors. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Complement Set Reference after Implicitly Small Quantities: An Event-Related Potentials Study

Science.gov (United States)

Ingram, Joanne; Ferguson, Heather J.

2018-01-01

An anaphoric reference to the complement-set is a reference to the set that does not fulfil the predicate of the preceding sentence. Preferred reference to the complement-set has been found in eye movements when a character's implicit desire for a high amount has been denied using a negative emotion. We recorded event-related potentials to examine…

Effects of hypnagogic imagery on the event-related potential to external tone stimuli.

Science.gov (United States)

Michida, Nanae; Hayashi, Mitsuo; Hori, Tadao

2005-07-01

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of hypnagogic imagery on the information processes of external tone stimuli during the sleep onset period with the use of event-related potentials. Event-related potentials to tone stimuli were compared between conditions with and without the experience of hypnagogic imagery. To control the arousal level when the tone was presented, a certain criterion named the electroencephalogram stage was used. Stimuli were presented at electroencephalogram stage 4, which was characterized by the appearance of a vertex sharp wave. Data were collected in the sleep laboratory at Hiroshima University. Eleven healthy university and graduate school students participated in the study. N/A. Experiments were performed at night. Reaction times to tone stimuli were measured, and only trials with shorter reaction times than 5000 milliseconds were analyzed. Electroencephalograms were recorded from Fz, Cz, Pz, Oz, T5 and T6. There were no differences in reaction times and electroencephalogram spectra between the conditions of with and without hypnagogic imagery. These results indicated that the arousal levels were not different between the 2 conditions. On the other hand, the N550 amplitude of the event-related potentials in the imagery condition was lower than in the no-imagery condition. The decrease in the N550 amplitude in the imagery condition showed that experiences of hypnagogic imagery exert some influence on the information processes of external tone stimuli. It is possible that the processing of hypnagogic imagery interferes with the processing of external stimuli, lowering the sensitivity to external stimuli.

Relation between functional connectivity and rhythm discrimination in children who do and do not stutter

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Soo-Eun Chang

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Our ability to perceive and produce rhythmic patterns in the environment supports fundamental human capacities ranging from music and language processing to the coordination of action. This article considers whether spontaneous correlated brain activity within a basal ganglia-thalamocortical (rhythm network is associated with individual differences in auditory rhythm discrimination. Moreover, do children who stutter with demonstrated deficits in rhythm perception have weaker links between rhythm network functional connectivity and rhythm discrimination? All children in the study underwent a resting-state fMRI session, from which functional connectivity measures within the rhythm network were extracted from spontaneous brain activity. In a separate session, the same children completed an auditory rhythm-discrimination task, where behavioral performance was assessed using signal detection analysis. We hypothesized that in typically developing children, rhythm network functional connectivity would be associated with behavioral performance on the rhythm discrimination task, but that this relationship would be attenuated in children who stutter. Results supported our hypotheses, lending strong support for the view that (1 children who stutter have weaker rhythm network connectivity and (2 the lack of a relation between rhythm network connectivity and rhythm discrimination in children who stutter may be an important contributing factor to the etiology of stuttering.

Stressful life events and maltreatment in conversion (functional neurological) disorder: systematic review and meta-analysis of case-control studies.

Science.gov (United States)

Ludwig, Lea; Pasman, Joëlle A; Nicholson, Timothy; Aybek, Selma; David, Anthony S; Tuck, Sharon; Kanaan, Richard A; Roelofs, Karin; Carson, Alan; Stone, Jon

2018-04-01

Stressful life events and maltreatment have traditionally been considered crucial in the development of conversion (functional neurological) disorder, but the evidence underpinning this association is not clear. We aimed to assess the association between stressors and functional neurological disorder. We systematically reviewed controlled studies reporting stressors occurring in childhood or adulthood, such as stressful life events and maltreatment (including sexual, physical abuse, and emotional neglect) and functional neurological disorder. We did a meta-analysis, with assessments of methodology, sources of bias, and sensitivity analyses. 34 case-control studies, with 1405 patients, were eligible. Studies were of moderate-to-low quality. The frequency of childhood and adulthood stressors was increased in cases compared with controls. Odds ratios (OR) were higher for emotional neglect in childhood (49% for cases vs 20% for controls; OR 5·6, 95% CI 2·4-13·1) compared with sexual abuse (24% vs 10%; 3·3, 2·2-4·8) or physical abuse (30% vs 12%; 3·9, 2·2-7·2). An association with stressful life events preceding onset (OR 2·8, 95% CI 1·4-6·0) was stronger in studies with better methods (interviews; 4·3, 1·4-13·2). Heterogeneity was significant between studies (I 2 21·1-90·7%). 13 studies that specifically ascertained that the participants had not had either severe life events or any subtype of maltreatment all found a proportion of patients with functional neurological disorder reporting no stressor. Stressful life events and maltreatment are substantially more common in people with functional neurological disorder than in healthy controls and patient controls. Emotional neglect had a higher risk than traditionally emphasised sexual and physical abuse, but many cases report no stressors. This outcome supports changes to diagnostic criteria in DSM-5; stressors, although relevant to the cause in many patients, are not a core diagnostic feature. This

Event-by-event multiplicity fluctuations in Pb-Pb collisions in ALICE

CERN Document Server

Mukherjee, Maitreyee

2016-01-01

Fluctuations of various observables in heavy-ion collisions at ultra-relativistic energies have been extensively studied as they provide important signals regarding the formation of a Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP). Because of the large number of produced particles in each event, a detailed study of event-by-event multiplicity fluctuations has been proposed as one of the signatures of the phase transition. In addition, the understanding of multiplicity fluctuations is essential for other event-by-event measurements. In the present work, we have calculated the scaled variance ($\\omega_{\\rm ch}=\\sigma^{\\rm 2} / \\mu$) of the charged-particle multiplicity distributions as a function of centrality in Pb-Pb collisions at LHC energies. Here, $\\mu$ and $\\sigma$ denote the mean and the width of the multiplicity distributions, respectively. The trend of scaled variances as a function of centrality is presented and discussed. Volume fluctuations play an important role while measuring the multiplicity fluctuations, which are a...

Severe structural and functional visual system damage leads to profound loss of vision-related quality of life in patients with neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders.

Science.gov (United States)

Schmidt, Felix; Zimmermann, Hanna; Mikolajczak, Janine; Oertel, Frederike C; Pache, Florence; Weinhold, Maria; Schinzel, Johann; Bellmann-Strobl, Judith; Ruprecht, Klemens; Paul, Friedemann; Brandt, Alexander U

2017-01-01

Neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders (NMOSD) are characterized by devastating optic neuritis attacks causing more structural damage and visual impairment than in multiple sclerosis (MS). The objective of this study was to compare vision-related quality of life in NMOSD and MS patients and correlate it to structural retinal damage and visual function. Thirty-one NMOSD and 31 matched MS patients were included. Vision-related quality of life was assessed with the 39-item National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire (NEI-VFQ). All patients underwent retinal optical coherence tomography and visual acuity and contrast sensitivity measurements. Vision-related quality of life was reduced in NMOSD compared to MS patients. This difference was driven by a higher incidence of bilateral and more severe optic neuritis in the NMOSD group. Retinal thinning and visual impairment were significantly greater in the NMOSD cohort. Lower vision-related quality of life was associated with more retinal damage and reduced visual function as assessed by visual acuity and contrast sensitivity. NMOSD-related bilateral ON-attacks cause severe structural damage and visual impairment that lead to severe loss of vision-related quality of life. The NEI-VFQ is a helpful tool to monitor vision-related quality of life in NMOSD patients. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A non-orthogonal decomposition of flows into discrete events

Science.gov (United States)

Boxx, Isaac; Lewalle, Jacques

1998-11-01

This work is based on the formula for the inverse Hermitian wavelet transform. A signal can be interpreted as a (non-unique) superposition of near-singular, partially overlapping events arising from Dirac functions and/or its derivatives combined with diffusion.( No dynamics implied: dimensionless diffusion is related to the definition of the analyzing wavelets.) These events correspond to local maxima of spectral energy density. We successfully fitted model events of various orders on a succession of fields, ranging from elementary signals to one-dimensional hot-wire traces. We document edge effects, event overlap and its implications on the algorithm. The interpretation of the discrete singularities as flow events (such as coherent structures) and the fundamental non-uniqueness of the decomposition are discussed. The dynamics of these events will be examined in the companion paper.

Event-Related EEG Oscillations to Semantically Unrelated Words in Normal and Learning Disabled Children

Science.gov (United States)

Fernandez, Thalia; Harmony, Thalia; Mendoza, Omar; Lopez-Alanis, Paula; Marroquin, Jose Luis; Otero, Gloria; Ricardo-Garcell, Josefina

2012-01-01

Learning disabilities (LD) are one of the most frequent problems for elementary school-aged children. In this paper, event-related EEG oscillations to semantically related and unrelated pairs of words were studied in a group of 18 children with LD not otherwise specified (LD-NOS) and in 16 children with normal academic achievement. We propose that…

The Relative Importance of Spatial Versus Temporal Structure in the Perception of Biological Motion: An Event-Related Potential Study

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Hirai, Masahiro; Hiraki, Kazuo

2006-01-01

We investigated how the spatiotemporal structure of animations of biological motion (BM) affects brain activity. We measured event-related potentials (ERPs) during the perception of BM under four conditions: normal spatial and temporal structure; scrambled spatial and normal temporal structure; normal spatial and scrambled temporal structure; and…

Insulin-resistance and metabolic syndrome are related to executive function in women in a large family-based study.

Science.gov (United States)

Schuur, M; Henneman, P; van Swieten, J C; Zillikens, M C; de Koning, I; Janssens, A C J W; Witteman, J C M; Aulchenko, Y S; Frants, R R; Oostra, B A; van Dijk, K Willems; van Duijn, C M

2010-08-01

While type 2 diabetes is well-known to be associated with poorer cognitive performance, few studies have reported on the association of metabolic syndrome (MetS) and contributing factors, such as insulin-resistance (HOMA-IR), low adiponectin-, and high C-reactive protein (CRP)-levels. We studied whether these factors are related to cognitive function and which of the MetS components are independently associated. The study was embedded in an ongoing family-based cohort study in a Dutch population. All participants underwent physical examinations, biomedical measurements, and neuropsychological testing. Linear regression models were used to determine the association between MetS, HOMA-IR, adiponectin levels, CRP, and cognitive test scores. Cross-sectional analyses were performed in 1,898 subjects (mean age 48 years, 43% men). People with MetS had significantly higher HOMA-IR scores, lower adiponectin levels, and higher CRP levels. MetS and high HOMA-IR were associated with poorer executive function in women (P = 0.03 and P = 0.009). MetS and HOMA-IR are associated with poorer executive function in women.

Assessing cue-induced brain response as a function of abstinence duration in heroin-dependent individuals: an event-related fMRI study.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Qiang Li

Full Text Available The brain activity induced by heroin-related cues may play a role in the maintenance of heroin dependence. Whether the reinforcement or processing biases construct an everlasting feature of heroin addiction remains to be resolved. We used an event-related fMRI paradigm to measure brain activation in response to heroin cue-related pictures versus neutral pictures as the control condition in heroin-dependent patients undergoing short-term and long-term abstinence. The self-reported craving scores were significantly increased after cue exposure in the short-term abstinent patients (t = 3.000, P = 0.008, but no increase was found in the long-term abstinent patients (t = 1.510, P = 0.149. However, no significant differences in cue-induced craving changes were found between the two groups (t = 1.193, P = 0.850. Comparing between the long-term abstinence and short-term abstinence groups, significant decreases in brain activation were detected in the bilateral anterior cingulated cortex, left medial prefrontal cortex, caudate, middle occipital gyrus, inferior parietal lobule and right precuneus. Among all of the heroin dependent patients, the abstinence duration was negatively correlated with brain activation in the left medial prefrontal cortex and left inferior parietal lobule. These findings suggest that long-term abstinence may be useful for heroin-dependent patients to diminish their saliency value of heroin-related cues and possibly lower the relapse vulnerability to some extent.

Hospital volume and adverse events following esophageal endoscopic submucosal dissection in Japan.

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Odagiri, Hiroyuki; Yasunaga, Hideo; Matsui, Hiroki; Matsui, Shigeru; Fushimi, Kiyohide; Kaise, Mitsuru

2017-04-01

Background and study aims  Esophageal endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) has gradually acquired popularity as a minimally invasive surgery for early cancers not only in Japan, but also in other countries. However, most reported outcomes have been based on relatively small samples of patients from specialized centers. Therefore, the association between hospital volume and the rate of adverse events following esophageal ESD has been poorly understood. Patients and methods  Using a nationwide administrative database in Japan, we identified patients who underwent esophageal ESD between 1 July 2007 and 31 March 2013. Hospital volume was defined as the number of esophageal ESD procedures performed per year at each hospital and was categorized into quartiles. Results  In total, 12 899 esophageal ESD procedures at 699 institutions were identified during the study period. Perforation and perforation-related disorders were observed in 422 patients (3.3 %), and one patient died after perforation. There was a significant association between a lower hospital volume and a higher proportion of adverse events following esophageal ESD. Although not statistically significant, a similar tendency was observed in the occurrence of blood transfusion within 1 week after ESD and all-cause in-hospital death. Multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that hospitals with very high case volumes were less likely to experience adverse events following esophageal ESD than hospitals with very low volumes. Conclusions  The proportion of perforation and perforation-related disorders following esophageal ESD was permissibly low, and there was a linear association between higher hospital volume and lower rates of adverse events following esophageal ESD. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

Analysis of system and of course of events

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hoertner, H.; Kersting, E.J.; Puetter, B.M.

1986-01-01

The analysis of the system and of the course of events is used to determine the frequency of core melt-out accidents and to describe the safety-related boundary conditions of appropriate accidents. The lecture is concerned with the effect of system changes in the reference plant and the effect of triggering events not assessed in detail or not sufficiently assessed in detail in phase A of the German Risk Study on the frequency of core melt-out accidents, the minimum requirements for system functions for controlling triggering events, i.e. to prevent core melt-out accidents, the reliability data important for reliability investigations and frequency assessments. (orig./DG) [de

Event-related EEG changes preceding saccadic eye movements before and after dry immersion.

Science.gov (United States)

Tomilovskaya, E S; Kirenskaya, A V; Novototski-Vlasov, V Yu; Kozlovskaya, I B

2004-07-01

Objectives of this work were to quantify antisaccade characteristics, presaccadic slow negative EEG-potentials, and event-related EEG frequency band power (theta, alpha1, alpha2, beta1, beta2 and beta3) changes (ERD) in healthy volunteers before and after 6-day simulated weightlessness (dry immersion).

Early referential context effects in sentence processing: Evidence from event-related brain potentials

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Berkum, J.J.A. van; Brown, C.M.; Hagoort, P.

1999-01-01

An event-related brain potentials experiment was carried out to examine the interplay of referential and structural factors during sentence processing in discourse. Subjects read (Dutch) sentences beginning like “David told the girl that … ” in short story contexts that had introduced either one or

Full-waveform detection of non-impulsive seismic events based on time-reversal methods

Science.gov (United States)

Solano, Ericka Alinne; Hjörleifsdóttir, Vala; Liu, Qinya

2017-12-01

We present a full-waveform detection method for non-impulsive seismic events, based on time-reversal principles. We use the strain Green's tensor as a matched filter, correlating it with continuous observed seismograms, to detect non-impulsive seismic events. We show that this is mathematically equivalent to an adjoint method for detecting earthquakes. We define the detection function, a scalar valued function, which depends on the stacked correlations for a group of stations. Event detections are given by the times at which the amplitude of the detection function exceeds a given value relative to the noise level. The method can make use of the whole seismic waveform or any combination of time-windows with different filters. It is expected to have an advantage compared to traditional detection methods for events that do not produce energetic and impulsive P waves, for example glacial events, landslides, volcanic events and transform-fault earthquakes for events which velocity structure along the path is relatively well known. Furthermore, the method has advantages over empirical Greens functions template matching methods, as it does not depend on records from previously detected events, and therefore is not limited to events occurring in similar regions and with similar focal mechanisms as these events. The method is not specific to any particular way of calculating the synthetic seismograms, and therefore complicated structural models can be used. This is particularly beneficial for intermediate size events that are registered on regional networks, for which the effect of lateral structure on the waveforms can be significant. To demonstrate the feasibility of the method, we apply it to two different areas located along the mid-oceanic ridge system west of Mexico where non-impulsive events have been reported. The first study area is between Clipperton and Siqueiros transform faults (9°N), during the time of two earthquake swarms, occurring in March 2012 and May

Event-related potential correlates of paranormal ideation and unusual experiences.

Science.gov (United States)

Sumich, Alex; Kumari, Veena; Gordon, Evian; Tunstall, Nigel; Brammer, Michael

2008-01-01

Separate dimensions of schizotypy have been differentially associated with electrophysiological measures of brain function, and further shown to be modified by sex/gender. We investigated event-related potential (ERP) correlates of two subdimensions of positive schizotypy, paranormal ideation (PI) and unusual experiences (UEs). Seventy-two individuals with no psychiatric diagnosis (men=36) completed self-report measures of UE and PI and performed an auditory oddball task. Average scores for N100, N200 and P300 amplitudes were calculated for left and right anterior, central and posterior electrode sites. Multiple linear regression was used to examine the relationships between the measures of schizotypy and ERPs across the entire sample, as well as separately according to sex. PI was inversely associated with P300 amplitude at left-central sites across the entire sample, and at right-anterior electrodes in women only. Right-anterior P300 and right-posterior N100 amplitudes were negatively associated with UE in women only. Across the entire sample, UE was negatively associated with left-central N100 amplitude, and positively associated with left-anterior N200 amplitude. These results provide support from electrophysiological measures for the fractionation of the positive dimension of schizotypy into subdimensions of PI and UE, and lend indirect support to dimensional or quasidimensional conceptions of psychosis. More specifically, they suggest that PI may be associated with alteration in contextual updating processes, and that UE may reflect altered sensory/early-attention (N100) mechanisms. The sex differences observed are consistent with those previously observed in individuals with schizophrenia.

Sad facial cues inhibit temporal attention: evidence from an event-related potential study.

Science.gov (United States)

Kong, Xianxian; Chen, Xiaoqiang; Tan, Bo; Zhao, Dandan; Jin, Zhenlan; Li, Ling

2013-06-19

We examined the influence of different emotional cues (happy or sad) on temporal attention (short or long interval) using behavioral as well as event-related potential recordings during a Stroop task. Emotional stimuli cued short and long time intervals, inducing 'sad-short', 'sad-long', 'happy-short', and 'happy-long' conditions. Following the intervals, participants performed a numeric Stroop task. Behavioral results showed the temporal attention effects in the sad-long, happy-long, and happy-short conditions, in which valid cues quickened the reaction times, but not in the sad-short condition. N2 event-related potential components showed sad cues to have decreased activity for short intervals compared with long intervals, whereas happy cues did not. Taken together, these findings provide evidence for different modulation of sad and happy facial cues on temporal attention. Furthermore, sad cues inhibit temporal attention, resulting in longer reaction time and decreased neural activity in the short interval by diverting more attentional resources.

Age-related differences in event-related potentials for early visual processing of emotional faces.

Science.gov (United States)

Hilimire, Matthew R; Mienaltowski, Andrew; Blanchard-Fields, Fredda; Corballis, Paul M

2014-07-01

With advancing age, processing resources are shifted away from negative emotional stimuli and toward positive ones. Here, we explored this 'positivity effect' using event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants identified the presence or absence of a visual probe that appeared over photographs of emotional faces. The ERPs elicited by the onsets of angry, sad, happy and neutral faces were recorded. We examined the frontocentral emotional positivity (FcEP), which is defined as a positive deflection in the waveforms elicited by emotional expressions relative to neutral faces early on in the time course of the ERP. The FcEP is thought to reflect enhanced early processing of emotional expressions. The results show that within the first 130 ms young adults show an FcEP to negative emotional expressions, whereas older adults show an FcEP to positive emotional expressions. These findings provide additional evidence that the age-related positivity effect in emotion processing can be traced to automatic processes that are evident very early in the processing of emotional facial expressions. © The Author (2013). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

An Improved Forwarding of Diverse Events with Mobile Sinks in Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Raza, Waseem; Arshad, Farzana; Ahmed, Imran; Abdul, Wadood; Ghouzali, Sanaa; Niaz, Iftikhar Azim; Javaid, Nadeem

2016-11-04

In this paper, a novel routing strategy to cater the energy consumption and delay sensitivity issues in deep underwater wireless sensor networks is proposed. This strategy is named as ESDR: Event Segregation based Delay sensitive Routing. In this strategy sensed events are segregated on the basis of their criticality and, are forwarded to their respective destinations based on forwarding functions. These functions depend on different routing metrics like: Signal Quality Index, Localization free Signal to Noise Ratio, Energy Cost Function and Depth Dependent Function. The problem of incomparable values of previously defined forwarding functions causes uneven delays in forwarding process. Hence forwarding functions are redefined to ensure their comparable values in different depth regions. Packet forwarding strategy is based on the event segregation approach which forwards one third of the generated events (delay sensitive) to surface sinks and two third events (normal events) are forwarded to mobile sinks. Motion of mobile sinks is influenced by the relative distribution of normal nodes. We have also incorporated two different mobility patterns named as; adaptive mobility and uniform mobility for mobile sinks. The later one is implemented for collecting the packets generated by the normal nodes. These improvements ensure optimum holding time, uniform delay and in-time reporting of delay sensitive events. This scheme is compared with the existing ones and outperforms the existing schemes in terms of network lifetime, delay and throughput.

Preventing drug-related adverse events following hospital discharge: the role of the pharmacist

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nicholls J

2017-02-01

Full Text Available Justine Nicholls,1 Craig MacKenzie,1 Rhiannon Braund2 1Dunedin Hospital Pharmacy, 2School of Pharmacy, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand Abstract: Transition of care (ToC points, and in particular hospital admission and discharge, can be associated with an increased risk of adverse drug events (ADEs and other drug-related problems (DRPs. The growing recognition of the pharmacist as an expert in medication management, patient education and communication makes them well placed to intervene. There is evidence to indicate that the inclusion of pharmacists in the health care team at ToC points reduces ADEs and DRPs and improves patient outcomes. The objectives of this paper are to outline the following using current literature: 1 the increased risk of medication-related problems at ToC points; 2 to highlight some strategies that have been successful in reducing these problems; and 3 to illustrate how the role of the pharmacist across all facets of care can contribute to the reduction of ADEs, particularly for patients at ToC points. Keywords: pharmacist, adverse drug events, drug-related problems, transitions of care, hospital discharge

Age-related functional changes in domain-specific medial temporal lobe pathways.

Science.gov (United States)

Berron, David; Neumann, Katja; Maass, Anne; Schütze, Hartmut; Fliessbach, Klaus; Kiven, Verena; Jessen, Frank; Sauvage, Magdalena; Kumaran, Dharshan; Düzel, Emrah

2018-05-01

There is now converging evidence from studies in animals and humans that the medial temporal lobes (MTLs) harbor anatomically distinct processing pathways for object and scene information. Recent functional magnetic resonance imaging studies in humans suggest that this domain-specific organization may be associated with a functional preference of the anterior-lateral part of the entorhinal cortex (alErC) for objects and the posterior-medial entorhinal cortex (pmErC) for scenes. As MTL subregions are differentially affected by aging and neurodegenerative diseases, the question was raised whether aging may affect the 2 pathways differentially. To address this possibility, we developed a paradigm that allows the investigation of object memory and scene memory in a mnemonic discrimination task. A group of young (n = 43) and healthy older subjects (n = 44) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging recordings during this novel task, while they were asked to discriminate exact repetitions of object and scene stimuli from novel stimuli that were similar but modified versions of the original stimuli ("lures"). We used structural magnetic resonance images to manually segment anatomical components of the MTL including alErC and pmErC and used these segmented regions to analyze domain specificity of functional activity. Across the entire sample, object processing was associated with activation of the perirhinal cortex (PrC) and alErC, whereas for scene processing, activation was more predominant in the parahippocampal cortex and pmErC. Functional activity related to mnemonic discrimination of object and scene lures from exact repetitions was found to overlap between processing pathways and suggests that while the PrC-alErC pathway was more involved in object discrimination, both pathways were involved in the discrimination of similar scenes. Older adults were behaviorally less accurate than young adults in discriminating similar lures from exact repetitions, but this

Lexical decision making in adults with dyslexia: an event-related potential study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Karen E. Waldie

2012-12-01

Full Text Available http://dx.doi.org/10.5007/2175-8026.2012n63p37   Performance on a lexical decision task was investigated in 12 English speaking adults with dyslexia.  two age-matched comparison groups of unimpaired readers were included: 14 monolingual adults and 15 late proficient bilinguals. The aim of the study was to determine the timing of neural events with event-related potentials (ErPs during lexical decision-making between individuals with dyslexia and unimpaired readers (both unilingual and bilingual. ErPs were calculated for posterior sites in the left and right hemispheres and the P1 and n170 components were compared between groups. Event-related EEG  coherence (measuring  the synchrony of neural events during lexical tasks both between and within cerebral hemispheres was also calculated for seven electrode pairs (three pairs at symmetrical locations between hemispheres, and two pairs within each hemisphere. We chose to recruit two comparison groups of unimpaired readers to better clarify the findings resulting from the right hemisphere (EEG coherence analysis. That is, both late-proficient bilinguals and adults with dyslexia are thought to rely on right hemisphere resources during reading. We hypothesized that those with dyslexia would show less within-hemisphere coherence and more between-hemisphere coherence than bilingual individuals. dyslexics had both lower amplitude and longer latency n170 activation than unimpaired readers, suggesting asynchronous neural activity. Dyslexics showed greater synchrony between hemispheres in gamma range frequencies whereas the bilingual group showed greater synchrony in the theta frequency band (both within and between hemispheres. This study demonstrates that individuals with developmental dyslexia have reduced amplitudes in the n170 and higher synchrony between hemispheres during a reading task. The differences may be due to an asynchrony of neuronal activity at the point where

Tic related local field potentials in the thalamus and the effect of deep brain stimulation in Tourette syndrome : Report of three cases

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bour, L. J.; Ackermans, L.; Foncke, E. M. J.; Cath, D.; van der Linden, C.; Vandewalle, V. Visser; Tijssen, M. A.

Objective: Three patients with intractable Tourette syndrome (TS) underwent thalamic deep brain stimulation (DBS). To investigate the role of thalamic electrical activity in tic generation, local field potentials (LFP), EEG and EMG simultaneously were recorded. Methods: Event related potentials and

Phenomenological relation between distribution and fragmentation functions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ma Boqiang; Schmidt, Ivan; Soffer, Jacques; Yang Jianjun

2002-01-01

We study the relation between the quark distribution function q(x) and the fragmentation function D q (z) based on a general form D q (x)=C(z)z α q(z) for valence and sea quarks. By adopting two known parametrizations of quark distributions for the proton, we find three simple options for the fragmentation functions that can provide a good description of the available experimental data on proton production in e + e - inelastic annihilation. These three options support the revised Gribov-Lipatov relation D q (z)=zq(z) at z→1, as an approximate relation for the connection between distribution and fragmentation functions. The three options differ in the sea contributions and lead to distinct predictions for antiproton production in the reaction p+p→p-bar+X, thus they are distinguishable in future experiments at RHIC-BNL

Effectiveness of pacemaker tele-monitoring on quality of life, functional capacity, event detection and workload: The PONIENTE trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Lopez-Villegas, Antonio; Catalan-Matamoros, Daniel; Robles-Musso, Emilio; Peiro, Salvador

2016-11-01

The purpose of the present study was to assess the effectiveness of the remote monitoring (RM) of older adults with pacemakers on health-related quality of life, functional capacity, feasibility, reliability and safety. The PONIENTE study is a controlled, non-randomized, non-blinded clinical trial, with data collection carried out during the pre-implant stage and after 12 months. Between October of 2012 and November of 2013, 82 patients were assigned to either a remote monitoring group (n = 30) or a conventional hospital monitoring (HM) group (n = 52). The EuroQol-5D (EQ-5D) and the Duke Activity Status Index were used to measure health-related quality of life and functional capacity, respectively. Baseline characteristics and number of hospital visits were also analyzed. The baseline characteristics of the two study groups were similar for both the EQ-5D (RM 0.74, HM 0.67; P = 0.404) and the Duke Activity Status Index (RM 21.42, HM 19.95; P = 0.272). At the 12-month follow up, the EQ-5D utility score was improved for both groups (RM 0.91, HM 0.81; P = 0.154), unlike the EQ-5D Visual Analog Scale (P = 0.043). The Duke Activity Status Index score was similar to the baseline score. The number of in-hospital visits was 27% lower (3 vs 4; P pacemakers in older adults is an equivalent option to hospital monitoring, in terms of health-related quality of life and functional capacity. Furthermore, it allows for the early detection of clinical and pacemaker-related adverse events, and significantly reduces the number of in-hospital visits. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2016; 16: 1188-1195. © 2015 Japan Geriatrics Society.

Functions of public relations

OpenAIRE

Baranov G. V.

2016-01-01

the article reveals the importance of communication with the public in the implementation of human rights and the ideals of mankind; characterized by the specificity of public relations in the information culture of belief; PR functions are explained on the criterion of optimization of activity of social interactions on the basis of cultural ideals.

Eradication of hepatitis C virus and non-liver-related non-acquired immune deficiency syndrome-related events in human immunodeficiency virus/hepatitis C virus coinfection.

Science.gov (United States)

Berenguer, Juan; Rodríguez-Castellano, Elena; Carrero, Ana; Von Wichmann, Miguel A; Montero, Marta; Galindo, María J; Mallolas, Josep; Crespo, Manuel; Téllez, María J; Quereda, Carmen; Sanz, José; Barros, Carlos; Tural, Cristina; Santos, Ignacio; Pulido, Federico; Guardiola, Josep M; Rubio, Rafael; Ortega, Enrique; Montes, María L; Jusdado, Juan J; Gaspar, Gabriel; Esteban, Herminia; Bellón, José M; González-García, Juan

2017-08-01

We assessed non-liver-related non-acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)-related (NLR-NAR) events and mortality in a cohort of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/hepatitis C virus (HCV)-coinfected patients treated with interferon (IFN) and ribavirin (RBV), between 2000 and 2008. The censoring date was May 31, 2014. Cox regression analysis was performed to assess the adjusted hazard rate (HR) of overall death in responders and nonresponders. Fine and Gray regression analysis was conducted to determine the adjusted subhazard rate (sHR) of NLR deaths and NLR-NAR events considering death as the competing risk. The NLR-NAR events analyzed included diabetes mellitus, chronic renal failure, cardiovascular events, NLR-NAR cancer, bone events, and non-AIDS-related infections. The variables for adjustment were age, sex, past AIDS, HIV transmission category, nadir CD4 + T-cell count, antiretroviral therapy, HIV RNA, liver fibrosis, HCV genotype, and exposure to specific anti-HIV drugs. Of the 1,625 patients included, 592 (36%) had a sustained viral response (SVR). After a median 5-year follow-up, SVR was found to be associated with a significant decrease in the hazard of diabetes mellitus (sHR, 0.57; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.35-0.93; P = 0.024) and decline in the hazard of chronic renal failure close to the threshold of significance (sHR, 0.43; 95% CI, 0.17-1.09; P = 0.075). Our data suggest that eradication of HCV in coinfected patients is associated not only with a reduction in the frequency of death, HIV progression, and liver-related events, but also with a reduced hazard of diabetes mellitus and possibly of chronic renal failure. These findings argue for the prescription of HCV therapy in coinfected patients regardless of fibrosis stage. (Hepatology 2017;66:344-356). © 2017 The Authors. Hepatology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases.

An expert system for prevention of abnormal event recurrence

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nishiyama, Takuya

1990-01-01

A huge amount of information related to abnormal events occurring in nuclear power plants in Japan and abroad is collected and accumulated in the Nuclear Information Center at CRIEPI. This information contains a variety of knowledge which may be useful for prevention of similar trouble. An expert system named, 'Consultation System for Prevention of Abnormal-Event Recurrence (CSPAR) is being developed with the objective of preventing recurrence of similar abnormal events by offering an effective means of utilizing such knowledge. This paper presents the key points in designing and constructing the system, the system functional outline, and some demonstration examples. (author)

Relationship between somatosensory event-related potential N140 aberrations and hemispatial agnosia in patients with stroke: a preliminary study.

Science.gov (United States)

Ueno, Tomoyuki; Hada, Yasushi; Shimizu, Yukiyo; Yamada, Thoru

2018-06-01

The somatosensory event-related potential N140 is thought to be related to selective attention. This study aimed to compare the somatosensory event-related potential N140 in healthy subjects to that in patients with stroke to determine whether N140 and attentiveness are associated in patients with stroke with or without hemispatial agnosia. Normal somatosensory event-related potential N140 values were determined using data from ten healthy subjects. Fifteen patients with stroke were divided into two groups based on the presence of hemispatial neglect. Somatosensory event-related potential N140 components were compared between the two groups. Stimulation of the affected limb in the hemispatial agnosia group resulted in significantly longer N140 latency at the contralateral vs. the ipsilateral electrode. This was the inverse of the relationship observed in normal subjects, with stimulation of the intact side in patients with hemispatial agnosia, and with stimulation of both the intact and affected sides in patients without agnosia. In the hemispatial agnosia group, the peak latency of N140 following stimulation of the affected side was significantly longer than it was following stimulation of the intact side and when compared to that in patients without agnosia. In addition, abnormal N140 peak latencies were observed at the Cz and ipsilateral electrodes in patients with hemispatial agnosia following stimulation of the intact side. These findings suggest that somatosensory event-related potential N140 is independently generated in each hemisphere and may reflect cognitive attention.

Charge-dependent correlations from event-by-event anomalous hydrodynamics

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hirono, Yuji [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-3800 (United States); Hirano, Tetsufumi [Department of Physics, Sophia University, Tokyo 102-8554 (Japan); Kharzeev, Dmitri E. [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-3800 (United States); Department of Physics and RIKEN-BNL Research Center, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973-5000 (United States)

2016-12-15

We report on our recent attempt of quantitative modeling of the Chiral Magnetic Effect (CME) in heavy-ion collisions. We perform 3+1 dimensional anomalous hydrodynamic simulations on an event-by-event basis, with constitutive equations that contain the anomaly-induced effects. We also develop a model of the initial condition for the axial charge density that captures the statistical nature of random chirality imbalances created by the color flux tubes. Basing on the event-by-event hydrodynamic simulations for hundreds of thousands of collisions, we calculate the correlation functions that are measured in experiments, and discuss how the anomalous transport affects these observables.

Do Event-Related Evoked Potentials Reflect Apathy Tendency and Motivation?

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Takayoshi, Hiroyuki; Onoda, Keiichi; Yamaguchi, Shuhei

2018-01-01

Apathy is a mental state of diminished motivation. Although the reward system as the foundation of the motivation in the human brain has been studied extensively with neuroimaging techniques, the electrophysiological correlates of motivation and apathy have not been fully explored. Thus, in 14 healthy volunteers, we examined whether event-related evoked potentials (ERP) obtained during a simple number discrimination task with/without rewards reflected apathy tendency and a reward-dependent tendency, which were assessed separately using the apathy scale and the temperament and character inventory (TCI). Participants were asked to judge the size of a number, and received feedback based on their performance in each trial. The P3 amplitudes related to the feedback stimuli increased only in the reward condition. Furthermore, the P2 amplitudes related to the negative feedback stimuli in the reward condition had a positive correlation with the reward-dependent tendency in TCI, whereas the P3 amplitudes related to the positive feedback stimuli had a negative correlation with the apathy score. Our result suggests that the P2 and P3 ERPs to reward-related feedback stimuli are modulated in a distinctive manner by the motivational reward dependence and apathy tendency, and thus the current paradigm may be useful for investigating the brain activity associated with motivation. PMID:29445331

Neuroprotection against vascular dementia after acupuncture combined with donepezil hydrochloride: P300 event related potential

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Qiang Liu

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Acupuncture can be used to treat various nervous system diseases. Here, 168 vascular dementia patients were orally administered donepezil hydrochloride alone (5 mg/day, once a day for 56 days, or combined with acupuncture at Shenting (DU24, Tianzhu (BL10, Sishencong (Extra, Yintang (Extra, Renzhong (DU26, Neiguan (PC6, Shenmen (HT7, Fengchi (GB20, Wangu (GB12 and Baihui (DU20 (once a day for 56 days. Compared with donepezil hydrochloride alone, P300 event related potential latency was shorter with an increased amplitude in patients treated with donepezil hydrochloride and acupuncture. Mini-Mental State Examination score was also higher. Moreover, these differences in P300 latency were identified within different infarcted regions in patients treated with donepezil hydrochloride and acupuncture. These findings indicate that acupuncture combined with donepezil hydrochloride noticeably improves cognitive function in patients with vascular dementia, and exerts neuroprotective effects against vascular dementia.

TopoToolbox: using sensor topography to calculate psychologically meaningful measures from event-related EEG/MEG.

Science.gov (United States)

Tian, Xing; Poeppel, David; Huber, David E

2011-01-01

The open-source toolbox "TopoToolbox" is a suite of functions that use sensor topography to calculate psychologically meaningful measures (similarity, magnitude, and timing) from multisensor event-related EEG and MEG data. Using a GUI and data visualization, TopoToolbox can be used to calculate and test the topographic similarity between different conditions (Tian and Huber, 2008). This topographic similarity indicates whether different conditions involve a different distribution of underlying neural sources. Furthermore, this similarity calculation can be applied at different time points to discover when a response pattern emerges (Tian and Poeppel, 2010). Because the topographic patterns are obtained separately for each individual, these patterns are used to produce reliable measures of response magnitude that can be compared across individuals using conventional statistics (Davelaar et al. Submitted and Huber et al., 2008). TopoToolbox can be freely downloaded. It runs under MATLAB (The MathWorks, Inc.) and supports user-defined data structure as well as standard EEG/MEG data import using EEGLAB (Delorme and Makeig, 2004).

Analysis of adverse events of renal impairment related to platinum-based compounds using the Japanese Adverse Drug Event Report database.

Science.gov (United States)

Naganuma, Misa; Motooka, Yumi; Sasaoka, Sayaka; Hatahira, Haruna; Hasegawa, Shiori; Fukuda, Akiho; Nakao, Satoshi; Shimada, Kazuyo; Hirade, Koseki; Mori, Takayuki; Yoshimura, Tomoaki; Kato, Takeshi; Nakamura, Mitsuhiro

2018-01-01

Platinum compounds cause several adverse events, such as nephrotoxicity, gastrointestinal toxicity, myelosuppression, ototoxicity, and neurotoxicity. We evaluated the incidence of renal impairment as adverse events are related to the administration of platinum compounds using the Japanese Adverse Drug Event Report database. We analyzed adverse events associated with the use of platinum compounds reported from April 2004 to November 2016. The reporting odds ratio at 95% confidence interval was used to detect the signal for each renal impairment incidence. We evaluated the time-to-onset profile of renal impairment and assessed the hazard type using Weibull shape parameter and used the applied association rule mining technique to discover undetected relationships such as possible risk factor. In total, 430,587 reports in the Japanese Adverse Drug Event Report database were analyzed. The reporting odds ratios (95% confidence interval) for renal impairment resulting from the use of cisplatin, oxaliplatin, carboplatin, and nedaplatin were 2.7 (2.5-3.0), 0.6 (0.5-0.7), 0.8 (0.7-1.0), and 1.3 (0.8-2.1), respectively. The lower limit of the reporting odds ratio (95% confidence interval) for cisplatin was >1. The median (lower-upper quartile) onset time of renal impairment following the use of platinum-based compounds was 6.0-8.0 days. The Weibull shape parameter β and 95% confidence interval upper limit of oxaliplatin were impairment during cisplatin use in real-world setting. The present findings demonstrate that the incidence of renal impairment following cisplatin use should be closely monitored when patients are hypertensive or diabetic, or when they are co-administered furosemide, loxoprofen, or pemetrexed. In addition, healthcare professionals should closely assess a patient's background prior to treatment.

Effect of using pump on postoperative pleural effusion in the patients that underwent CABG

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Mehmet Özülkü

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract Objective: The present study investigated effect of using pump on postoperative pleural effusion in patients who underwent coronary artery bypass grafting. Methods: A total of 256 patients who underwent isolated coronary artery bypass grafting surgery in the Cardiovascular Surgery clinic were enrolled in the study. Jostra-Cobe (Model 043213 105, VLC 865, Sweden heart-lung machine was used in on-pump coronary artery bypass grafting. Off-pump coronary artery bypass grafting was performed using Octopus and Starfish. Proximal anastomoses to the aorta in both on-pump and off-pump techniques were performed by side clamps. The patients were discharged from the hospital between postoperative day 6 and day 11. Results: The incidence of postoperative right pleural effusion and bilateral pleural effusion was found to be higher as a count in Group 1 (on-pump as compared to Group 2 (off-pump. But the difference was not statistically significant [P>0.05 for right pleural effusion (P=0.893, P>0.05 for bilateral pleural effusion (P=0.780]. Left pleural effusion was encountered to be lower in Group 2 (off-pump. The difference was found to be statistically significant (P<0.05, P=0.006. Conclusion: Under the light of these results, it can be said that left pleural effusion is less prevalent in the patients that underwent off-pump coronary artery bypass grafting when compared to the patients that underwent on-pump coronary artery bypass grafting.

In vivo evaluation of the effect of stimulus distribution on FIR statistical efficiency in event-related fMRI.

Science.gov (United States)

Jansma, J Martijn; de Zwart, Jacco A; van Gelderen, Peter; Duyn, Jeff H; Drevets, Wayne C; Furey, Maura L

2013-05-15

Technical developments in MRI have improved signal to noise, allowing use of analysis methods such as Finite impulse response (FIR) of rapid event related functional MRI (er-fMRI). FIR is one of the most informative analysis methods as it determines onset and full shape of the hemodynamic response function (HRF) without any a priori assumptions. FIR is however vulnerable to multicollinearity, which is directly related to the distribution of stimuli over time. Efficiency can be optimized by simplifying a design, and restricting stimuli distribution to specific sequences, while more design flexibility necessarily reduces efficiency. However, the actual effect of efficiency on fMRI results has never been tested in vivo. Thus, it is currently difficult to make an informed choice between protocol flexibility and statistical efficiency. The main goal of this study was to assign concrete fMRI signal to noise values to the abstract scale of FIR statistical efficiency. Ten subjects repeated a perception task with five random and m-sequence based protocol, with varying but, according to literature, acceptable levels of multicollinearity. Results indicated substantial differences in signal standard deviation, while the level was a function of multicollinearity. Experiment protocols varied up to 55.4% in standard deviation. Results confirm that quality of fMRI in an FIR analysis can significantly and substantially vary with statistical efficiency. Our in vivo measurements can be used to aid in making an informed decision between freedom in protocol design and statistical efficiency. Published by Elsevier B.V.

External main-induced events in relation to nuclear power plant siting

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1981-01-01

This safety Guide recomments procedures and provides information for use in implementing that part of the code of safety in Nuclear Power Plant Siting (IAEA Safety Series No. 50-C-S) which concerns man-induced events external to the plant, up to the evaluation of corresponding design basis parameters. Like the code, the Guide forms part of the IAEA's programme, referred to as the NUSS programme, for establishing codes of practice and safety Guides relating to land-based stationary thermal neutron power plants

State-related functional integration and functional segregation brain networks in schizophrenia.

Science.gov (United States)

Yu, Qingbao; Sui, Jing; Kiehl, Kent A; Pearlson, Godfrey; Calhoun, Vince D

2013-11-01

Altered topological properties of brain connectivity networks have emerged as important features of schizophrenia. The aim of this study was to investigate how the state-related modulations to graph measures of functional integration and functional segregation brain networks are disrupted in schizophrenia. Firstly, resting state and auditory oddball discrimination (AOD) fMRI data of healthy controls (HCs) and schizophrenia patients (SZs) were decomposed into spatially independent components (ICs) by group independent component analysis (ICA). Then, weighted positive and negative functional integration (inter-component networks) and functional segregation (intra-component networks) brain networks were built in each subject. Subsequently, connectivity strength, clustering coefficient, and global efficiency of all brain networks were statistically compared between groups (HCs and SZs) in each state and between states (rest and AOD) within group. We found that graph measures of negative functional integration brain network and several positive functional segregation brain networks were altered in schizophrenia during AOD task. The metrics of positive functional integration brain network and one positive functional segregation brain network were higher during the resting state than during the AOD task only in HCs. These findings imply that state-related characteristics of both functional integration and functional segregation brain networks are impaired in schizophrenia which provides new insight into the altered brain performance in this brain disorder. © 2013.

Relative contributions of synoptic and intraseasonal variations to strong cold events over eastern China

Science.gov (United States)

Song, Lei; Wu, Renguang; Jiao, Yang

2018-06-01

The present study investigates the relative roles of intraseasonal oscillations (ISOs) and synoptic variations in strong cold events over eastern China during the boreal winter. The ISOs and synoptic variations explain about 55% and 20% of the total area-mean temperature anomaly in eastern China, respectively. The advection of synoptic winds on synoptic temperature gradients has a leading contribution to the temperature decrease before the cold events and thus the synoptic variations are important in determining the time of peak cold anomalies. The ISOs have a larger role in sustaining the cold events. The height anomalies associated with ISOs and synoptic variations are manifested as Rossby wave trains propagating along the polar front jet over the Eurasian continent before the cold events. They both contribute to the deepening of the East Asian trough and the development of cold events. Compared to the ISO wave train, the synoptic wave train has a smaller spatial scale and moves faster. There are obvious intraseasonal signals in the stratosphere about 1 week before the cold events over eastern China. Large negative height anomalies associated with the weakening of the polar vortex are observed over the North Atlantic. These anomalies move eastwards and propagate downwards after reaching the west coast of Europe. The downward moving stratospheric signal triggers height anomalies in the troposphere over the entrance region of the polar front jet. Then the anomalies propagate towards East Asia along the wave train, contributing to the intensification of the Siberian high and the East Asian trough and the occurrence of cold events over eastern China.

Refined functional relations for the elliptic SOS model

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Galleas, W., E-mail: w.galleas@uu.nl [ARC Centre of Excellence for the Mathematics and Statistics of Complex Systems, University of Melbourne, VIC 3010 (Australia)

2013-02-21

In this work we refine the method presented in Galleas (2012) [1] and obtain a novel kind of functional equation determining the partition function of the elliptic SOS model with domain wall boundaries. This functional relation arises from the dynamical Yang-Baxter relation and its solution is given in terms of multiple contour integrals.

Relations between correlation functions in gauge field theory

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Simonov, Yu. A.; Shevchenko, V. I.

1997-01-01

Exact relations between vacuum correlations of non-Abelian field strengths are obtained. With the aid of exterior differentiation, the invariant parts of a given correlation function are expressed in terms of higher order correlation functions. The corollaries of these relations for the behavior of nonperturbative correlation functions at small and large distances are deduced

Refined functional relations for the elliptic SOS model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Galleas, W.

2013-01-01

In this work we refine the method presented in Galleas (2012) [1] and obtain a novel kind of functional equation determining the partition function of the elliptic SOS model with domain wall boundaries. This functional relation arises from the dynamical Yang–Baxter relation and its solution is given in terms of multiple contour integrals.

Manometric findings in relation to functional outcomes in different types of anorectal malformations.

Science.gov (United States)

Kyrklund, Kristiina; Pakarinen, Mikko P; Rintala, Risto J

2017-04-01

To compare anorectal manometry (AM) in patients with different types of anorectal malformations (ARMs) in relation to functional outcomes. A single-institution, cross-sectional study. After ethical approval, all patients ≥7years old treated for anterior anus (AA), perineal fistula (PF), vestibular fistula (VF), or rectourethral fistula (RUF) from 1983 onwards were invited to answer the Rintala bowel function score (BFS) questionnaire and to attend anorectal manometry (AM). Patients with mild ARMs (AA females and PF males) had been treated with minimally invasive perineal procedures. Females with VF/PF and males with RUF had undergone internal-sphincter saving sagittal repairs. 55 of 132 respondents (42%; median age 12 (7-29) years; 42% male) underwent AM. Patients with mild ARMs displayed good anorectal function after minimally invasive treatments. The median anal resting and squeeze pressures among patients with mild ARMs (60 cm H2O and 116 cm H2O respectively) were significantly higher than among patients with more severe ARMs (50 cm H2O, and 80cm H2O respectively; p≤0.002). The rectoanal inhibitory reflex was preserved in 100% of mild ARMs and 83% of patients with more severe malformations after IAS-saving sagittal repair. The functional outcome was poor in 4/5 patients with an absent RAIR (BFS≤11 or antegrade continence enema-dependence). Rectal sensation correlated significantly with the BFS. Our findings support the appropriateness of our minimally invasive approaches to the management of mild ARMs, and IAS-saving anatomical repairs for patients with more severe malformations. III. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From mind to mouth: event related potentials of sentence production in classic galactosemia.

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Inge Timmers

Full Text Available Patients with classic galactosemia, an inborn error of metabolism, have speech and language production impairments. Past research primarily focused on speech (motor problems, but these cannot solely explain the language impairments. Which specific deficits contribute to the impairments in language production is not yet known. Deficits in semantic and syntactic planning are plausible and require further investigation. In the present study, we examined syntactic encoding while patients and matched controls overtly described scenes of moving objects using either separate words (minimal syntactic planning or sentences (sentence-level syntactic planning. The design of the paradigm also allowed tapping into local noun phrase- and more global sentence-level syntactic planning. Simultaneously, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs. The patients needed more time to prepare and finish the utterances and made more errors. The patient ERPs had a very similar morphology to that of healthy controls, indicating overall comparable neural processing. Most importantly, the ERPs diverged from those of controls in several functionally informative time windows, ranging from very early (90-150 ms post scene onset to relatively late (1820-2020 ms post scene onset. These time windows can be associated with different linguistic encoding stages. The ERP results form the first neuroscientific evidence for language production impairments in patients with galactosemia in lexical and syntactic planning stages, i.e., prior to the linguistic output phase. These findings hence shed new light on the language impairments in this disease.

Sediment yield during typhoon events in relation to landslides, rainfall, and catchment areas in Taiwan

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Chi-Wen; Oguchi, Takashi; Hayakawa, Yuichi S.; Saito, Hitoshi; Chen, Hongey; Lin, Guan-Wei; Wei, Lun-Wei; Chao, Yi-Chiung

2018-02-01

Debris sourced from landslides will result in environmental problems such as increased sediment discharge in rivers. This study analyzed the sediment discharge of 17 main rivers in Taiwan during 14 typhoon events, selected from the catchment area and river length, that caused landslides according to government reports. The measured suspended sediment and water discharge, collected from hydrometric stations of the Water Resources Agency of Taiwan, were used to establish rating-curve relationships, a power-law relation between them. Then sediment discharge during typhoon events was estimated using the rating-curve method and the measured data of daily water discharge. Positive correlations between sediment discharge and rainfall conditions for each river indicate that sediment discharge increases when a greater amount of rainfall or a higher intensity of rainfall falls during a typhoon event. In addition, the amount of sediment discharge during a typhoon event is mainly controlled by the total amount of rainfall, not by peak rainfall. Differences in correlation equations among the rivers suggest that catchments with larger areas produce more sediment. Catchments with relatively low sediment discharge show more distinct increases in sediment discharge in response to increases in rainfall, owing to the little opportunity for deposition in small catchments with high connectivity to rivers and the transportation of the majority of landslide debris to rivers during typhoon events. Also, differences in geomorphic and geologic conditions among catchments around Taiwan lead to a variety of suspended sediment dynamics and the sediment budget. Positive correlation between average sediment discharge and average area of landslides during typhoon events indicates that when larger landslides are caused by heavier rainfall during a typhoon event, more loose materials from the most recent landslide debris are flushed into rivers, resulting in higher sediment discharge. The high

Safeguards Summary Event List (SSEL)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fadden, M.; Yardumian, J.

1993-07-01

The Safeguards Summary Event List provides brief summaries of hundreds of safeguards-related events involving nuclear material or facilities regulated by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Events are described under the categories: Bomb-related, Intrusion, Missing/Allegedly Stolen, Transportation-related, Tampering/Vandalism, Arson, Firearms-related, Radiological Sabotage, Non-radiological Sabotage, and Miscellaneous. Because of the public interest, the Miscellaneous category also includes events reported involving source material, byproduct material, and natural uranium, which are exempt from safeguards requirements. Information in the event descriptions was obtained from official NRC sources

An error-related negativity potential investigation of response monitoring function in individuals with Internet addiction disorder

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Zhenhe eZhou

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Internet addiction disorder (IAD is an impulse disorder or at least related to impulse control disorder. Deficits in executive functioning, including response monitoring, have been proposed as a hallmark feature of impulse control disorders. The error-related negativity (ERN reflects individual’s ability to monitor behavior. Since IAD belongs to a compulsive-impulsive spectrum disorder, theoretically, it should present response monitoring functional deficit characteristics of some disorders, such as substance dependence, ADHD or alcohol abuse, testing with an Erikson flanker task. Up to now, no studies on response monitoring functional deficit in IAD were reported. The purpose of the present study was to examine whether IAD displays response monitoring functional deficit characteristics in a modified Erikson flanker task.23 subjects were recruited as IAD group. 23 matched age, gender and education healthy persons were recruited as control group. All participants completed the modified Erikson flanker task while measured with event-related potentials (ERPs. IAD group made more total error rates than did controls (P < 0.01; Reactive times for total error responses in IAD group were shorter than did controls (P < 0.01. The mean ERN amplitudes of total error response conditions at frontal electrode sites and at central electrode sites of IAD group were reduced compared with control group (all P < 0.01. These results revealed that IAD displays response monitoring functional deficit characteristics and shares ERN characteristics of compulsive-impulsive spectrum disorder.

Functional coupling networks inferred from prefrontal cortex activity show experience-related effective plasticity

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Gaia Tavoni

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Functional coupling networks are widely used to characterize collective patterns of activity in neural populations. Here, we ask whether functional couplings reflect the subtle changes, such as in physiological interactions, believed to take place during learning. We infer functional network models reproducing the spiking activity of simultaneously recorded neurons in prefrontal cortex (PFC of rats, during the performance of a cross-modal rule shift task (task epoch, and during preceding and following sleep epochs. A large-scale study of the 96 recorded sessions allows us to detect, in about 20% of sessions, effective plasticity between the sleep epochs. These coupling modifications are correlated with the coupling values in the task epoch, and are supported by a small subset of the recorded neurons, which we identify by means of an automatized procedure. These potentiated groups increase their coativation frequency in the spiking data between the two sleep epochs, and, hence, participate to putative experience-related cell assemblies. Study of the reactivation dynamics of the potentiated groups suggests a possible connection with behavioral learning. Reactivation is largely driven by hippocampal ripple events when the rule is not yet learned, and may be much more autonomous, and presumably sustained by the potentiated PFC network, when learning is consolidated. Cell assemblies coding for memories are widely believed to emerge through synaptic modification resulting from learning, yet their identification from activity is very arduous. We propose a functional-connectivity-based approach to identify experience-related cell assemblies from multielectrode recordings in vivo, and apply it to the prefrontal cortex activity of rats recorded during a task epoch and the preceding and following sleep epochs. We infer functional couplings between the recorded cells in each epoch. Comparisons of the functional coupling networks across the epochs allow us

Hippocampal sleep features: relations to human memory function

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Michele eFerrara

2012-04-01

Full Text Available The recent spread of intracranial EEG recordings techniques for presurgical evaluation of drug-resistant epileptic patients is providing new information on the activity of different brain structures during both wakefulness and sleep. The interest has been mainly focused on the medial temporal lobe, and in particular the hippocampal formation, whose peculiar local sleep features have been recently described, providing support to the idea that sleep is not a spatially global phenomenon. The study of the hippocampal sleep electrophysiology is particularly interesting because of its central role in the declarative memory formation. Recent data indicate that sleep contributes to memory formation. Therefore, it is relevant to understand whether specific pattern of activity taking place during sleep are related to memory consolidation processes. Fascinating similarities between different states of consciousness (wakefulness, REM sleep, NREM sleep in some electrophysiological mechanisms underlying cognitive processes have been reported. For instance, large-scale synchrony in gamma activity is important for waking memory and perception processes, and its changes during sleep may be the neurophysiological substrate of sleep-related deficits of declarative memory. Hippocampal activity seems to specifically support memory consolidation during sleep, through specific coordinated neurophysiological events (slow waves, spindles, ripples that would facilitate the integration of new information into the pre-existing cortical networks. A few studies indeed provided direct evidence that rhinal ripples as well as slow hippocampal oscillations are correlated with memory consolidation in humans. More detailed electrophysiological investigations assessing the specific relations between different types of memory consolidation and hippocampal EEG features are in order. These studies will add an important piece of knowledge to the elucidation of the ultimate sleep

Hippocampal Sleep Features: Relations to Human Memory Function

Science.gov (United States)

Ferrara, Michele; Moroni, Fabio; De Gennaro, Luigi; Nobili, Lino

2012-01-01

The recent spread of intracranial electroencephalographic (EEG) recording techniques for presurgical evaluation of drug-resistant epileptic patients is providing new information on the activity of different brain structures during both wakefulness and sleep. The interest has been mainly focused on the medial temporal lobe, and in particular the hippocampal formation, whose peculiar local sleep features have been recently described, providing support to the idea that sleep is not a spatially global phenomenon. The study of the hippocampal sleep electrophysiology is particularly interesting because of its central role in the declarative memory formation. Recent data indicate that sleep contributes to memory formation. Therefore, it is relevant to understand whether specific patterns of activity taking place during sleep are related to memory consolidation processes. Fascinating similarities between different states of consciousness (wakefulness, REM sleep, non-REM sleep) in some electrophysiological mechanisms underlying cognitive processes have been reported. For instance, large-scale synchrony in gamma activity is important for waking memory and perception processes, and its changes during sleep may be the neurophysiological substrate of sleep-related deficits of declarative memory. Hippocampal activity seems to specifically support memory consolidation during sleep, through specific coordinated neurophysiological events (slow waves, spindles, ripples) that would facilitate the integration of new information into the pre-existing cortical networks. A few studies indeed provided direct evidence that rhinal ripples as well as slow hippocampal oscillations are correlated with memory consolidation in humans. More detailed electrophysiological investigations assessing the specific relations between different types of memory consolidation and hippocampal EEG features are in order. These studies will add an important piece of knowledge to the elucidation of the ultimate

Well-being and Anticipation for Future Positive Events: Evidences from an fMRI Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Luo, Yangmei; Chen, Xuhai; Qi, Senqing; You, Xuqun; Huang, Xiting

2017-01-01

Anticipation for future confers great benefits to human well-being and mental health. However, previous work focus on how people's well-being correlate with brain activities during perception of emotional stimuli, rather than anticipation for the future events. Here, the current study investigated how well-being relates to neural circuitry underlying the anticipating process of future desired events. Using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging, 40 participants were scanned while they were performing an emotion anticipation task, in which they were instructed to anticipate the positive or neutral events. The results showed that bilateral medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) were activated during anticipation for positive events relative to neutral events, and the enhanced brain activation in MPFC was associated with higher level of well-being. The findings suggest a neural mechanism by which the anticipation process to future desired events correlates to human well-being, which provide a future-oriented view on the neural sources of well-being.

Increased reaction time variability in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder as a response-related phenomenon: evidence from single-trial event-related potentials.

Science.gov (United States)

Saville, Christopher W N; Feige, Bernd; Kluckert, Christian; Bender, Stephan; Biscaldi, Monica; Berger, Andrea; Fleischhaker, Christian; Henighausen, Klaus; Klein, Christoph

2015-07-01

Increased intra-subject variability (ISV) in reaction times (RTs) is a promising endophenotype for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and among the most robust hallmarks of the disorder. ISV has been assumed to represent an attentional deficit, either reflecting lapses in attention or increased neural noise. Here, we use an innovative single-trial event-related potential approach to assess whether the increased ISV associated with ADHD is indeed attributable to attention, or whether it is related to response-related processing. We measured electroencephalographic responses to working memory oddball tasks in patients with ADHD (N = 20, aged 11.3 ± 1.1) and healthy controls (N = 25, aged 11.7 ± 1.1), and analysed these data with a recently developed method of single-trial event-related potential analysis. Estimates of component latency variability were computed for the stimulus-locked and response-locked forms of the P3b and the lateralised readiness potential (LRP). ADHD patients showed significantly increased ISV in behavioural ISV. This increased ISV was paralleled by an increase in variability in response-locked event-related potential latencies, while variability in stimulus-locked latencies was equivalent between groups. This result held across the P3b and LRP. Latency of all components predicted RTs on a single-trial basis, confirming that all were relevant for speed of processing. These data suggest that the increased ISV found in ADHD could be associated with response-end, rather than stimulus-end processes, in contrast to prevailing conceptions about the endophenotype. This mental chronometric approach may also be useful for exploring whether the existing lack of specificity of ISV to particular psychiatric conditions can be improved upon. © 2014 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

An event-related brain potential study of visual selective attention to conjunctions of color and shape

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Smid, HGOM; Jakob, A; Heinze, HJ

What cognitive processes underlie event-related brain potential (ERP) effects related to visual multidimensional selective attention and how are these processes organized? We recorded ERPs when participants attended to one conjunction of color, global shape and local shape and ignored other

Analysis of Circular Development and Investment Possibilities (Transport, Energy and Building Related to International Sports Event Planning

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Horváth Bálint

2017-09-01

Full Text Available This study investigates the possibilities of various development areas (transport, energy, building to make the cost-efficient realisation of high-profile investments, and organising and holding international sports events possible. Using a case study, the paper introduces development routes based on the evaluation of environmental and economic perspectives. The current research introduces the investment characteristics based on the development of the Hungarian building, energy and transport sectors for the 2017-2030 period. The main criterion is the integration of ‘circular economy’. For sectors which operate with high material and energy consumption, the consideration of circular economy principles may prove to be important for sustainable development. Through planning highvolume sports and worldwide events, the usual development strategy for traffic systems focuses on public transport and rentable vehicles (f. e. electric scooter, or bicycle which can decrease CO2 emissions via modern technological solutions. Regarding the buildings, sports arenas and related facilities, besides the existing low-carbon solutions, the functions of buildings must be expanded and their usage prolonged. The management of waste left after the life cycle is expended has to be pre-planned. These are the options for making the sector’s GHG emissions decrease apart from circular tenders, which can be further combined with SMART energetic solutions.

Automatic detection of lexical change: an auditory event-related potential study.

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Muller-Gass, Alexandra; Roye, Anja; Kirmse, Ursula; Saupe, Katja; Jacobsen, Thomas; Schröger, Erich

2007-10-29

We investigated the detection of rare task-irrelevant changes in the lexical status of speech stimuli. Participants performed a nonlinguistic task on word and pseudoword stimuli that occurred, in separate conditions, rarely or frequently. Task performance for pseudowords was deteriorated relative to words, suggesting unintentional lexical analysis. Furthermore, rare word and pseudoword changes had a similar effect on the event-related potentials, starting as early as 165 ms. This is the first demonstration of the automatic detection of change in lexical status that is not based on a co-occurring acoustic change. We propose that, following lexical analysis of the incoming stimuli, a mental representation of the lexical regularity is formed and used as a template against which lexical change can be detected.

Negative life events vary by neighborhood and mediate the relation between neighborhood context and psychological well-being.

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Katherine King

Full Text Available Researchers have speculated that negative life events are more common in troubled neighborhoods, amplifying adverse effects on health. Using a clustered representative sample of Chicago residents (2001-03; n = 3,105 from the Chicago Community Adult Health Survey, we provide the first documentation that negative life events are highly geographically clustered compared to health outcomes. Associations between neighborhood context and negative life events were also found to vary by event type. We then demonstrate the power of a contextualized approach by testing path models in which life events mediate the relation between neighborhood characteristics and health outcomes, including self-rated health, anxiety, and depression. The indirect paths between neighborhood conditions and health through negative life event exposure are highly significant and large compared to the direct paths from neighborhood conditions to health. Our results indicate that neighborhood conditions can have acute as well as chronic effects on health, and that negative life events are a powerful mechanism by which context may influence health.

Negative life events vary by neighborhood and mediate the relation between neighborhood context and psychological well-being.

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King, Katherine; Ogle, Christin

2014-01-01

Researchers have speculated that negative life events are more common in troubled neighborhoods, amplifying adverse effects on health. Using a clustered representative sample of Chicago residents (2001-03; n = 3,105) from the Chicago Community Adult Health Survey, we provide the first documentation that negative life events are highly geographically clustered compared to health outcomes. Associations between neighborhood context and negative life events were also found to vary by event type. We then demonstrate the power of a contextualized approach by testing path models in which life events mediate the relation between neighborhood characteristics and health outcomes, including self-rated health, anxiety, and depression. The indirect paths between neighborhood conditions and health through negative life event exposure are highly significant and large compared to the direct paths from neighborhood conditions to health. Our results indicate that neighborhood conditions can have acute as well as chronic effects on health, and that negative life events are a powerful mechanism by which context may influence health.

Physical and mental health-related correlates of physical function in community dwelling older adults: a cross sectional study

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Burbank Patricia A

2010-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Physical function is the ability to perform both basic and instrumental activities of daily living, and the ability of older adults to reside in the community depends to a large extent on their level of physical function. Multiple physical and health-related variables may differentially affect physical function, but they have not been well characterized. The purpose of this investigation was to identify and examine physical and mental health-related correlates of physical function in a sample of community-dwelling older adults. Methods Nine hundred and four community dwelling older men (n = 263 and women (n = 641 with a mean (95% Confidence Interval age of 76.6 (76.1, 77.1 years underwent tests of physical function (Timed Up and Go; TUG, Body Mass Index (BMI was calculated from measured height and weight, and data were collected on self-reported health quality of life (SF-36, falls during the past 6 months, number of medications per day, depression (Geriatric Depression Scale; GDS, social support, and sociodemographic variables. Results Subjects completed the TUG in 8.7 (8.2, 9.2 seconds and expended 6,976 (6,669, 7,284 Kcal.wk-1 in physical activity. The older persons had a mean BMI of 27. 6 (27.2, 28.0, 62% took 3 or more medications per day, and14.4% had fallen one or more times over the last 6 months. Mean scores on the Mental Component Summary (MCS was 50.6 (50.2, 51,0 and the Physical Component Summary (PCS was 41.3 (40.8, 41.8. Multiple sequential regression analysis showed that, after adjustment for TUG floor surface correlates of physical function included age, sex, education, physical activity (weekly energy expenditure, general health, bodily pain, number of medications taken per day, depression and Body Mass Index. Further, there is a dose response relationship such that greater degree of physical function impairment is associated with poorer scores on physical health-related variables. Conclusions Physical

["Re-evaluation upon suspected event" is an approach for post-marketing clinical study: lessons from adverse drug events related to Bupleuri Radix preparations].

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Wu, Shu-Xin; Sun, Hong-Feng; Yang, Xiao-Hui; Long, Hong-Zhu; Ye, Zu-Guang; Ji, Shao-Liang; Zhang, Li

2014-08-01

We revisited the "Xiao Chaihu Decoction event (XCHDE)" occurred in late 1980s in Japan and the Bupleuri Radix related adverse drug reaction (ADR) reports in China After careful review, comparison, analysis and evaluation, we think the interstitial pneumonitis, drug induced Liver injury (DILI) and other severe adverse drug envents (ADEs) including death happened in Japan is probably results from multiple factors, including combinatory use of XCHDE with interferon, Kampo usage under modern medicine theory guidance, and use of XCHD on the basis of disease diagnosis instead of traditional Chinese syndrome complex differentiation. There are less ADE case reports related to XCHD preparation in China compared to Japan, mostly manifest with hypersensitivity responses of skin and perfuse perspiration. The symptoms of Radix Bupleuri injection related ADEs mainly manifest hypersensitivity-like response, 2 cases of intravenous infusion instead of intramuscular injection developed hypokalemia and renal failure. One case died from severe hypersensitivity shock. In Chinese literatures, there is no report of the interstitial pneumonitis and DILI associated with XCHDG in Japan. So far, there is no voluntary monitoring data and large sample clinical research data available. The author elaborated the classification of "reevaluation" and clarified "re-evaluation upon events" included the reaction to the suspected safety and efficacy events. Based on the current status of the clinical research on the Radix Bupleuri preparations, the author points out that post-marketing "re-evaluation upon suspected event" is not only a necessity of continuous evaluation of the safety, efficacy of drugs, it is also a necessity for providing objective clinical research data to share with the international and domestic drug administrations in the risk-benefit evaluation. It is also the unavoidable pathway to culture and push the excellent species and famous brands of TCM to the international market, in

Universality of the underlying event in p p collisions

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Ortiz, Antonio; Palomo, Lizardo Valencia

2017-12-01

In this paper we study ATLAS results on underlying event in p p collisions at √{s }=0.9 , 7 and 13 TeV. We show that the center-of-mass energy dependences of the charged-particle production sensitive to the underlying event ("transverse" region) and to the hardest partonic interaction ("towards" and "away" regions) in p p collisions can be both understood in terms of the change of the inclusive average multiplicity. Within uncertainties, the corresponding particle production as a function of the leading charged particle shows no significant √{s }-dependence for the three regions once they are scaled according to the relative change in multiplicity. The scaling properties reported here are well reproduced by pythia 8.212 tune Monash 2013 and suggest an universality of the underlying event in hadronic interactions at high √{s }. Based on the simulations, we observed that the same scaling properties are also present in the average number of multipartonic interactions as a function of the leading charged particle. Moreover, the multiplicity distributions associated to the underlying event exhibit a Koba-Nielsen-Olesen scaling.

Subclinical alexithymia modulates early audio-visual perceptive and attentional event-related potentials

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Dyna eDelle-Vigne

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Introduction:Previous studies have highlighted the advantage of audio–visual oddball tasks (instead of unimodal ones in order to electrophysiologically index subclinical behavioral differences. Since alexithymia is highly prevalent in the general population, we investigated whether the use of various bimodal tasks could elicit emotional effects in low- versus high-alexithymic scorers. Methods:Fifty students (33 females were split into groups based on low and high scores on the Toronto Alexithymia Scale. During event-related potential recordings, they were exposed to three kinds of audio–visual oddball tasks: neutral (geometrical forms and bips, animal (dog and cock with their respective shouts, or emotional (faces and voices stimuli. In each condition, participants were asked to quickly detect deviant events occurring amongst a train of frequent matching stimuli (e.g., push a button when a sad face–voice pair appeared amongst a train of neutral face–voice pairs. P100, N100, and P300 components were analyzed: P100 refers to visual perceptive processing, N100 to auditory ones, and the P300 relates to response-related stages. Results:High-alexithymic scorers presented a particular pattern of results when processing the emotional stimulations, reflected in early ERP components by increased P100 and N100 amplitudes in the emotional oddball tasks (P100: pConclusions:Our findings suggest that high-alexithymic scorers require heightened early attentional resources when confronted with emotional stimuli.

The effects of cortisol administration on approach-avoidance behavior: An event-related potential study

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Peer, J.M. van; Roelofs, K.; Rotteveel, M.; Dijk, J.G. van; Spinhoven, P.; Ridderinkhof, K.R.

2007-01-01

We investigated the effects of cortisol administration (50 mg) on approach and avoidance tendencies in low and high trait avoidant healthy young men. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were measured during a reaction time task, in which participants evaluated the emotional expression of

The external leadership of self-managing teams: intervening in the context of novel and disruptive events.

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Morgeson, Frederick P

2005-05-01

Relatively little empirical research has been conducted on external leaders of self-managing teams. The integration of functional leadership theory with research on team routines suggests that leaders can intervene in teams in several different ways, and the effectiveness of this intervention depends on the nature of the events the team encounters. External team leaders from 3 organizations first described a series of events (N=117), and leaders and team members then completed surveys to quantitatively describe the events. Results indicated that leader preparation and supportive coaching were positively related to team perceptions of leader effectiveness, with preparation becoming more strongly related to effectiveness as event novelty increased. More active leader intervention activities (active coaching and sense making) were negatively related to satisfaction with leadership yet were positively related to effectiveness as events became more disruptive.

Ontology-driven extraction of event logs from relational databases

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Calvanese, Diego; Montali, Marco; Syamsiyah, Alifah; van der Aalst, Wil M P; Reichert, M.; Reijers, H.A.

2015-01-01

Process mining is an emerging discipline whose aim is to discover, monitor and improve real processes by extracting knowledge from event logs representing actual process executions in a given organizational setting. In this light, it can be applied only if faithful event logs, adhering to accepted

Analysis of Task Types and Error Types of the Human Actions Involved in the Human-related Unplanned Reactor Trip Events

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Jae Whan; Park, Jin Kyun; Jung, Won Dea

2008-02-01

This report provides the task types and error types involved in the unplanned reactor trip events that have occurred during 1986 - 2006. The events that were caused by the secondary system of the nuclear power plants amount to 67 %, and the remaining 33 % was by the primary system. The contribution of the activities of the plant personnel was identified as the following order: corrective maintenance (25.7 %), planned maintenance (22.8 %), planned operation (19.8 %), periodic preventive maintenance (14.9 %), response to a transient (9.9 %), and design/manufacturing/installation (9.9%). According to the analysis of error modes, the error modes such as control failure (22.2 %), wrong object (18.5 %), omission (14.8 %), wrong action (11.1 %), and inadequate (8.3 %) take up about 75 % of all the unplanned trip events. The analysis of the cognitive functions involved showed that the planning function makes the highest contribution to the human actions leading to unplanned reactor trips, and it is followed by the observation function (23.4%), the execution function (17.8 %), and the interpretation function (10.3 %). The results of this report are to be used as important bases for development of the error reduction measures or development of the error mode prediction system for the test and maintenance tasks in nuclear power plants

Analysis of Task Types and Error Types of the Human Actions Involved in the Human-related Unplanned Reactor Trip Events

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Jae Whan; Park, Jin Kyun; Jung, Won Dea

2008-02-15

This report provides the task types and error types involved in the unplanned reactor trip events that have occurred during 1986 - 2006. The events that were caused by the secondary system of the nuclear power plants amount to 67 %, and the remaining 33 % was by the primary system. The contribution of the activities of the plant personnel was identified as the following order: corrective maintenance (25.7 %), planned maintenance (22.8 %), planned operation (19.8 %), periodic preventive maintenance (14.9 %), response to a transient (9.9 %), and design/manufacturing/installation (9.9%). According to the analysis of error modes, the error modes such as control failure (22.2 %), wrong object (18.5 %), omission (14.8 %), wrong action (11.1 %), and inadequate (8.3 %) take up about 75 % of all the unplanned trip events. The analysis of the cognitive functions involved showed that the planning function makes the highest contribution to the human actions leading to unplanned reactor trips, and it is followed by the observation function (23.4%), the execution function (17.8 %), and the interpretation function (10.3 %). The results of this report are to be used as important bases for development of the error reduction measures or development of the error mode prediction system for the test and maintenance tasks in nuclear power plants.

Do Event-Related Evoked Potentials Reflect Apathy Tendency and Motivation?

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Hiroyuki Takayoshi

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Apathy is a mental state of diminished motivation. Although the reward system as the foundation of the motivation in the human brain has been studied extensively with neuroimaging techniques, the electrophysiological correlates of motivation and apathy have not been fully explored. Thus, in 14 healthy volunteers, we examined whether event-related evoked potentials (ERP obtained during a simple number discrimination task with/without rewards reflected apathy tendency and a reward-dependent tendency, which were assessed separately using the apathy scale and the temperament and character inventory (TCI. Participants were asked to judge the size of a number, and received feedback based on their performance in each trial. The P3 amplitudes related to the feedback stimuli increased only in the reward condition. Furthermore, the P2 amplitudes related to the negative feedback stimuli in the reward condition had a positive correlation with the reward-dependent tendency in TCI, whereas the P3 amplitudes related to the positive feedback stimuli had a negative correlation with the apathy score. Our result suggests that the P2 and P3 ERPs to reward-related feedback stimuli are modulated in a distinctive manner by the motivational reward dependence and apathy tendency, and thus the current paradigm may be useful for investigating the brain activity associated with motivation.

A cognitive stressor for event-related potential studies: the Portland arithmetic stress task.

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Atchley, Rachel; Ellingson, Roger; Klee, Daniel; Memmott, Tabatha; Oken, Barry

2017-05-01

In this experiment, we developed and evaluated the Portland Arithmetic Stress Task (PAST) as a cognitive stressor to evaluate acute and sustained stress reactivity for event-related potential (ERP) studies. The PAST is a titrated arithmetic task adapted from the Montreal Imaging Stress Task (MIST), with added experimental control over presentation parameters, improved and synchronized acoustic feedback and generation of timing markers needed for physiological analyzes of real-time brain activity. Thirty-one older adults (M = 60 years) completed the PAST. EEG was recorded to assess feedback-related negativity (FRN) and the magnitude of the stress response through autonomic nervous system activity and salivary cortisol. Physiological measures other than EEG included heart rate, respiration rate, heart rate variability, blood pressure and salivary cortisol. These measures were collected at several time points throughout the task. Feedback-related negativity evoked-potential responses were elicited and they significantly differed depending on whether positive or negative feedback was received. The PAST also increased systolic blood pressure, heart rate variability and respiration rates compared to a control condition attentional task. These preliminary results suggest that the PAST is an effective cognitive stressor. Successful measurement of the feedback-related negativity suggests that the PAST is conducive to EEG and time-sensitive ERP experiments. Moreover, the physiological findings support the PAST as a potent method for inducing stress in older adult participants. Further research is needed to confirm these results, but the PAST shows promise as a tool for cognitive stress induction for time-locked event-related potential experiments.

Acute low-level alcohol consumption reduces phase locking of event-related oscillations in rodents.

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Amodeo, Leslie R; Wills, Derek N; Ehlers, Cindy L

2017-07-14

Event-related oscillations (EROs) are rhythmic changes that are evoked by a sensory and/or cognitive stimulus that can influence the dynamics of the EEG. EROs are defined by the decomposition of the EEG signal into magnitude (energy) and phase information and can be elicited in both humans and animals. EROs have been linked to several relevant genes associated with ethanol dependence phenotypes in humans and are altered in selectively bred alcohol-preferring rats. However, pharmacological studies are only beginning to emerge investigating the impact low intoxicating doses of ethanol can have on event-related neural oscillations. The main goal of this study was to investigate the effects of low levels of voluntary consumption of ethanol, in rats, on phase locking of EROs in order to give further insight into the acute intoxicating effects of ethanol on the brain. To this end, we allow rats to self-administer unsweetened 20% ethanol over 15 intermittent sessions. This method results in a stable low-dose consumption of ethanol. Using an auditory event-related potential "oddball" paradigm, we investigated the effects of alcohol on the phase variability of EROs from electrodes implanted into the frontal cortex, dorsal hippocampus, and amygdala. We found that intermittent ethanol self-administration was sufficient to produce a significant reduction in overall intraregional synchrony across all targeted regions. These data suggest that phase locking of EROs within brain regions known to be impacted by alcohol may represent a sensitive biomarker of low levels of alcohol intoxication. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Dogs cannot bark: event-related brain responses to true and false negated statements as indicators of higher-order conscious processing.

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